Charlie wished he didn’t feel so isolated, but he was now, undeniably, on his own. CES was a joke, a mere arm of Warner Brothers, with Caruthers feeding information to the Ear to the Ground marketing machine. The CES director had grown so fond of the camera that he’d become a regular commentator on Ricki Lake, reassuring anxious citizens that a temblor was nothing to fear. He had allowed hype to overtake any sense of scientific responsibility, seduced by Hollywood into believing that seismologists were fortune tellers and the study of earthquakes nothing but a parlor game.
The whole thing made Charlie wonder if the City of Angels was worth saving, or if it was more noble to let it be destroyed. Then he looked out his window and saw two kids playing across the street. One wore an oversized flannel shirt so large it came down below his knees. At that moment, Charlie realized that, no matter what else happened, he had no choice but to try.
Grace Gonglewski hated spending Saturday morning on the phone, but she’d allowed Bob Semel’s promises of money and power to overwhelm her better judgment. Having tripled Grace’s salary, the president of the studio seemed convinced he owned a piece of her soul. At least that’s what he’d told her at 7 a.m., when he called for his daily status report.
Grace had seen the ad in the Los Angeles Times. A full page in the Calendar section, featuring a photo of a crowded downtown L.A., split down the middle by the slogan: “Get Out Before It’s Too Late!” As she twirled a strand of hair around her finger and waited on hold with Ethan Carson, Grace thought how appropriate that tag line truly was. With Ear to the Ground opening in three days, five hundred prints were said to be faulty and in need of recall. Bob Semel wanted answers, and the theater owners were going wild. Last night, Grace dreamt of empty movie screens and crowds rioting on Hollywood Boulevard in front of Mann’s Chinese.
Fuck it, she thought, and lit a cigarette. Lately, she’d felt like writing again, felt scenes begin to articulate themselves slowly in her head. Partly, she guessed, it was due to Ian’s success; partly the fact that she lived each day like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point.
This time, however, she wasn’t thinking about writing a script — the fragments she jotted down were prose. She hadn’t told anyone about it, not even Charlie, and she wasn’t sure if it was delusion, or something that would one day take shape. But as she puffed on her cigarette, she could feel whatever it was starting to grow.
Charlie sat back in his chair and knitted his hands behind his head. Next to the computer, his recorder stood like a wooden sentry, fingerholes straight as coat buttons, mouthpiece a small, impassive head. How long had it been since he’d played? When he picked up the instrument and started to blow, its reedy tone was mournful as a Santa Ana wind.
The sound brought back the afternoon he had performed for Grace. The music was high and clear and full of hope: a sweet madrigal evoking the sustaining power of love. Five and a half months ago, he thought. It might as well be centuries. He felt ancient now, as if the weight of everything was laid across his back. Lately, he’d noticed tiny lines around his eyes and had become convinced he was growing old before his time.
On the computer screen, a simulated image of Lui sent waves of energy out into the Pacific. As Charlie watched, he pictured himself there with Grace. It was just a flash, gone as quickly as it appeared. But it left behind a sliver of anticipation, and, for the second time that morning, the certainty that he should seize the day.
So Charlie put down his recorder and headed for the stairs. On the second-floor landing, he knocked at Grace’s door. For an instant, there was no sound from within. Then the door swung open, revealing Grace, phone in the crook of her neck, looking as if she’d rather be anywhere else.
“Oh, hi,” she said, eyes coming alive at the sight of his face. She waved him inside, and mumbled a hurried goodbye into the phone.
“Hi,” Charlie said, and took a step toward her. “I think we need to talk.”
WAITING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD
ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 26, THE UNITED STATES ARMY sent double-rotored helicopters into the Los Angeles basin to monitor distress. Throughout the Southland, it was as if Christmas had never happened. In its place was an eastward stream of packed station wagons and moving vans that had now become a deluge. An ordinance had made it illegal for employers to penalize workers for leaving town and, as a result, most businesses were closed until after the first of the year.
Virtually everything had been affected by the coming disaster — and every corner of the nation’s second largest metropolitan area experienced this psychic foreshock. It was in such an atmosphere that Warner Brothers opened its $210 million extravaganza Ear to the Ground.
At the premiere, Bruce Springsteen’s “Shaken Up” played softly in the courtyard at Mann’s Chinese. Behind police barricades, throngs of rubberneckers and leaner-inners and know-they-can’ts reached for Henny Rarlin as he got out of his limousine with an unidentified woman — not his wife — and assumed a camera smile. A lot was on Henny’s mind. This fucking movie could kill him. It could send him to the minor leagues, or worse: Finland, to make documentaries on Laplanders. Henny had been drinking since noon, and as he strode cotton-mouthed down the red carpet, he thought only of reaching his seat without incident.
Another limousine yielded Ethan Carson with Sandra Bullet, who broke her heel as she got out, and recovered marvelously by enacting a Chaplinesque pantomime, in which she attempted to hide her imperfections from the fans. Sandy hoped her cameo as the seismologist’s wife would alter the lovable-but-slightly-naive-girl image she’d acquired. As flashes went off around them, Ethan spent his energy considering whether people would actually think he and Sandy were an item.
Grace came with — she had to laugh — Matt Dillinger, who was exactly like the character he portrayed in Lasso the Pharmacist. As a fireman in Ear to the Ground, he repeatedly risked his life, always emerging sweaty and covered with soot. Grace wanted to come alone, but that was vetoed by Ethan. “What about your seismologist?” he asked her, mentally tallying the publicity Charlie’s presence might generate. “Out of town,” she’d said, and suggested Dillinger.
Ian couldn’t have guessed they would boo him. He’d thought, given the circumstances, the applause might be strange, maybe meager, maybe even nonexistent. But, as the third-from-last title—“Written by Ian Marcus”—faded up, the catcalls began.
Ian sunk down in his seat and looked around for his date. Her name was Maria, and she was very pretty, but she was nowhere to be found. The Jon Kravitz lawsuit had made page one in Variety for a full week, and Ian was now notorious in the town that had once ignored him. Listening to the tumult, he wished silently for some kind of reprieve. Then, to hide his identity, he began to boo along with the crowd.
Grace had seen the film plenty of times, so she relaxed and let herself drift. Almost immediately, Charlie’s image came to mind. Grace could hardly remember his face, but she could see his chest clearly, with its strawberry tuft of hair. She liked that chest, and she remembered being surprised when Charlie had taken off his shirt and propped it on her bedpost. Quite surprised.
The movie was predictable but entertaining. Special effects — especially sound effects — were tremendous. At the climax, as the earthquake hit and walls tumbled in on an audience watching a movie about an earthquake, the effect was suitably disturbing. So much so that, when the lights came up, those Hollywood luminaries remembered it wasn’t just a movie.