On the way out, I saw Alan and Robert sitting on the living-room couch. Alan was icing his lip. I waved to them and went outside and stood on the doorstep, wondering where to go. For the first time, I didn’t think the Farm Boy would be at the wake.
23 ~ Paragon
It was, in a sense, my party, but I felt like an outsider, the stranger at the christening, the bee at the picnic. For one thing, I was virtually the only one there who was alone. Spurrier and I, the stags at the wake.
The parking lot behind the Paragon Ballroom was half full even before the sun dropped below the low flat roofs to the west. The temperature had not dropped with it. At 6:50 it was almost ninety degrees, and the parking attendants were running themselves ragged as car after car disgorged its overheated cargo of perspiring nuns, super-macho cowboys, Latino vaqueros, conquistadors, geishas, languid vampires, underdressed Aztecs, Chinese Mandarins, African tribesmen, sailors, hanging victims, motorcycle cops, wizards, mermaids, mustachioed men wearing chiffon dresses, muscle boys in jock straps, and a man in a Marie Antoinette ball gown topped off with a headpiece modeled on the New York skyline. With twinkling lights.
From my vantage point near the curb I had the impression that someone had skimmed the multicultural stew of Los Angeles and come up with everything that floated, the airiest and most buoyant bits, the postcard images that glitter like bits of mirror embedded in the dreary grouting of everyday life. In addition to folks in national costumes representing every major civilization since Abyssinia, we had three Carol Channings, two Judy Garlands, two Diana Rosses, two Carmen Mirandas, one postaccident Jayne Mansfield carrying her head under her arm, one Hispanic possessed by the soul of Maria Montez, an indeterminate number of Terminator clones, and a variety of superheros in skintight spandex in every color.
Hanks’s flurry of calls, probably reinforced by the breathless story about Max in People — titled “A ‘Tarnished Star’ That Shone Bright”-had brought out the lights and the microphones of the press, and even a few rumpled paparazzi. The TV and radio crews worked the area around the door, blinding people with the bright lights called sun guns and sticking mikes into faces, while the paparazzi flocked to the arriving cars in the eternal hope that one of them contained Madonna or Richard Gere. So far they’d had to make do with a couple of second-tier television actors and one of Madonna’s rumored ex-girlfriends, and the television reporters were showing sportsmanlike signs of settling for a human-interest story.
Our identification system, such as it was, was working smoothly. As the McGuire Sisters, say, or Robin Hood and his Merry Men pulled to the curb they were greeted by the parking attendants. The McGuires or whoever had to mill around on the sidewalk until they received their parking stubs, which gave our outside watchers time either to identify them by sight or to make a note of their costumes and add them to the list of those who were to be kept in view as much as possible. Some of these question marks were eliminated as they passed through the door, pausing to get their lottery ticket, or when they bellied up to the bar. Another watcher was stationed at the holy font-now bathed in a submarine blue light that did strange things to the colors of the orchids and pouring an endless cycle of H2 Blessed O from Lourdes.
Hanks had been right. Virtually everyone made a stop at the font.
Spurrier’s three young deputies were in uniform, drawing admiring glances. I’d bought three pairs of cheap mirrored shades at a Sav-On drugstore and insisted the cops put them on, partly for that over-the-top touch that turned their uniforms into costumes and partly to hide their eyes. Cops’ eyes are unmistakable. Spurrier was dressed in his invariable sport coat, topped off by a rubber Big Bad Wolf mask. My pleasure at his embarrassment was tempered by the fact that I was costumed as Donald Duck. Eleanor had surprised me with the outfit, claiming she’d chosen it because it was nonthreatening. When I put it on, though, she’d literally fallen onto the bed laughing. By way of getting even, I kept it on and showed her what I thought Donald probably did to Daisy between shows.
I’d been discreet. I’d told only about ten people who the Big Bad Wolf was, and made each of them promise to tell no more than five others, and only people they knew well. I wanted Ike to have an evening he’d remember. He’d already been goosed twice. The gay community, I’d been assured, considered goosing outre, but an exception was being made in Ike Spurrier’s case.
I’d just finished a tour of the perimeter when a chauffeured Rolls-Royce purred its way to the curb and Hanks himself got out, blinking in the glare of the television lights. In the midst of the leather cowboy outfits, plus a covey of sequined Supremes, he looked like a rock in a bowl of M amp;M’s. He was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and dark tie. Something bright gathered itself in the gloom inside the car behind him, and Henry emerged into the light wearing a boxy, shiny, blue silk shantung suit, black-rimmed spectacles, and a gray fright wig that streamed straight up, as though he were standing under a giant vacuum. He warranted a few flash bulbs.
“You, I get,” I said to him. “Don King.”
“I told him it was too obvious,” Hanks said, checking the crowd. He waved to a tiny Chinese woman holding a microphone, whom I recognized from one of my rare brushes with local TV news.
“But what are you supposed to be? The undertaker?”
He gave me the half-smile. “ Much more subtle than that.” He looked down at the suit with satisfaction. “I’m Mike Ovitz.” He made his heek heek noise, and the Chinese woman, dressed head to foot in a lipstick red that would have been eye-catching anywhere else, pushed her way through the crowd toward us.
“He wish,” Henry said.
“Excuse me, Mr. Hanks,” the Chinese woman said to Hanks, licking her lip gloss with a pointed tongue.
One of the Supremes elbowed her way up to Henry. “You’re what?” she asked, “Buckwheat?”
“Ho,” Henry said, a man with a secret.
The Supreme bridled. “I am not. I’m one of-”
“As in ho, ho, ho,” Henry amended quickly. “Like a Santa laugh.”
“Mr. Hanks,” said the Chinese woman.
The Supreme stopped glaring. “That’s okay then. I’m the tragic Supreme, the one who killed herself?” She studied his wig. “Honey, you standin’ at attention all over. You must be glad to see me.”
“What a tragic Supreme needs,” Henry said, leaning over and brushing her face with the flying hair, “is a literary advisor.”
“Henry,” Hanks said sharply. “I’m not going to be abandoned at the dance, am I?”
“Oh, help.” The Supreme took a step back. “You’re with Mr. Hanks? Honey, you could be bad for a girl’s career. Mr. Hanks doesn’t forget.”
“Thirty years ago Mr. Hanks didn’t forget,” said Joel Farfman, coming through the door with Tonto in tow. Tonto was a beefy fifty, plain and graying, but the pride in Farfman’s eyes when he looked at him was almost heartbreaking. “These days, Mr. Hanks is lucky to remember to swallow after he chews.”
“Are you here?” Hanks asked haughtily. “I knew we should have sent invitations.”
“Mr. Hanks, can we have a few words?” asked the Chinese reporter. To her cameraman, she said, “Get over to the curb, Burt-I mean, Charlie-that way you’ll see the crowd behind me.” She waved him back and gave her hair a preparatory fluff.
“I have to hand it to you, Ferris,” Farfman said as Charlie backed over the edge of the curb and fell into oncoming traffic. “Bernadette’s pissoir is really packing them in. If only they knew what they’re dabbing on their foreheads.”
“Goddamn it,” the Chinese woman said bitterly as Charlie untangled his legs from the cables. “I knew I should have brought Burt.”
“How we doing with the whozzat list?” Henry asked me.
“Only about twenty so far. Almost enough to keep an eye on. The font helps. Most of them lift their masks when they splash themselves with miracle juice.”