She was trying to gain a little control. I couldn’t blame her for that.
“So. How’s that going?”
“It’s not really a steady thing. But fine. Thanks for asking.” I waited a beat before reasserting my point. “I worry about you, Clea. I don’t want you to disappear from my life.” The cliché was on the treacly side but I meant it.
“Like, you mean, die?”
I stuck to my tough-love guns. At the risk of sounding like a Brentwood shrink, I said, “That’s one way of disappearing.”
“As if you would know.”
A cryptic cheap shot — she was playing the dead-mother card.
“There’s a lot I don’t know,” I said, Zen humble.
My equanimity infuriated her. She raced around the dressing room, throwing things into the duffel I’d bought her at Miu Miu. “As painful as it may be, Bertie, you are not my father — OK? You are not my father and you are definitely not my mother. You’re not Thad’s father, either.” I braced myself, knowing the worst was to come. “Do you want to know who else you’re not?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me, Clea.”
“That’s right, because nobody else will! No one has the balls—cause you’re the son of the great Perry Needham Krohn. I’ll tell you who you’re not, OK? You’re not your father — and that must really fucking hurt. That must fucking suck! And I know you’re really trying to be? With all your fab little HBO projects?” Her voice kept rising, Valley Girl style. “And of course no one — none of your pathetic, downtrodden friends—can even dream of having a project but you, huh, Bertie? I mean, God forbid that I, the loser queen, should come up with an idea and go pitch a network! Without your blessing!” She peppersprayed the room with saliva as she vented. “And I know you’re trying to climb out from under his shadow — and that’s so OK. That’s really OK! Cause you’re a sweet kid, Bertie, and I love you and you’ve done a lot for me, but you know what? I would never judge you. Never! Because maybe one day you’ll succeed. Wouldn’t that be amazing? I would so celebrate that! Maybe one day you’ll surpass the achievements of the great God and creator of Starwatch: The Fucking Navigators. Maybe you’ll have a bigger house than he does, right in Malibu! Maybe you’ll build it on stilts in the fucking water and block his view! Who am I to say? Who is the fucking loser queen to say? And who are you, Bertie? Who are you to say, and go judging my shit? Know what your problem is? You’re busy monitoring my life when you should be checking your own shit. OK? Do you think you could maybe do that, Bertie? Do you think you could maybe find the time to check your own shit? And leave my shit alone?”
~ ~ ~
I FELT BAD ABOUT WHAT happened.
Anyway, Clea was right — I had been judging her. I felt like a jerk. I was genuinely worried about her sobriety yet somehow managed to come across as petty, hostile, and competitive. I had immediately gotten off on the wrong foot by dissing her TV idea. We’d never had an argument like that, and it didn’t sit well.
Friday, around midnight, Clea called, crying. She said they got into a big fight at the Chateau and she was on her way back to Venice. I invited her over but she needed to pack for a Roosevelt Chandler event over the weekend, in San Rafael. At her request, the promoters had booked a room in a sleeper car on the Coast Starlight — Thad was supposed to have accompanied her but now she begged me to go. I was happy she’d phoned at all, and eager to repair the rift. The convention was on a Sunday; we could fly back that night. A car was coming at 7:00 A.M. to take her to Union Station. Clea said they’d swing by and pick me up.
As we entered the echoey terminal, redolent of another era, we saw him sitting at the end of a row of chocolate-brown leather Art Deco chairs.
Thad poked his head from the collar of his tweed coat with exaggerated contrition — no longer Chan, he was Chaplin now — and clutched a bouquet of roses. He wore a broad smile and his Movietone pantomime instantly melted her heart. I was glad of it because anything (especially at that time of morning) was preferable to having a scene.1 Before I had the chance to discreetly bow out and beg off, Thad, with the inherent skill and muted enthusiasms of a concierge, confirmed his suspicions that I was more than a simple escort — I was carrying a small overnight bag myself — and had indeed been enlisted as boon traveling companion and general shoulder to cry on. At that point, I did begin my retreat but he would have nothing of it. Ordering us to “sit tight,” he strode to the reservation desk, returning some twenty minutes later to inform he’d secured a second deluxe bedroom on my behalf, “just two doors down from Mom and Dad.”
Clea’s eyes told me she was more than happy with the new arrangement. I had a feeling that my role as chaperone would calm the waters — besides, I was actually looking forward to the singular relaxation and magical musing time that only a train trip provides.
The deluxe cabins were on the small side but their solitariness made them feel more than ample.
After scoping out my new habitat, I serenely organized my things, like a fastidious man embarking on a long journey. Comfortably ensconced in my chair, feet propped on its opposing twin (a dinner tray sprang up handily between them), I faced northward, the bare bones of the Holmby Hills bible before me like a financial spreadsheet, ruminatively clutching the absurdly expensive fountain pen my mother gave me on my thirty-fifth. Leaving the station I felt surreal, like someone traveling alone without rhyme or reason. I didn’t plan or expect to see friend or her lover until we reached our destination, some fourteen hours later.
A conductor collected my ticket.
A Central Casting porter knocked.
I asked for Diet Coke, a bucket of ice, and a few extra pillows.
I phoned Miriam, childishly eager to play “Guess where I am?”
(She relished updates on the Michelet-Fremantle soap.)
I got voice mail but didn’t bother leaving a message.
I went to BlackBerry her, realizing with small irritation that I’d left the thing behind.
Rambling from the vast yard, I set chin on fist in classically informal meditative pose. Say what you will about Amtrak’s chronic insolvency but there’s something insistently, imperishably romantic about a train. The sounds and smells and gentle rocking, the funhouse ambling from car to car (and nostalgic memory of childhood it elicits), the pneumatic mobile mystery of it all more than make up for the occasional derailment, electrical failure, toilet overflow, or death by train vs. auto. A ride on the rails has never failed to awaken an unbearable sense of longing, the whole mournful package — this touching anthology of rhythm and blues — stirring a tenderness within, enlivening me to the great, prosaic poetry that is our lot.
Somewhere around the Ronald Reagan Library, Clea’s words began reverberating in my head—“You’re not your father and that must really fucking hurt!”—her face dissolving first into Liz Taylor’s then Dorothy Malone’s, a demented montage of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Written on the Wind. I was reminded of an AA meeting some weeks back where the speaker told a large crowd that if an “adult child” didn’t resolve his animosities toward a given parent, he was doomed to become that parent, a pop platitude that still rang true. I’d always been on careful lookout for overt signs or wonders of my inner Perry Krohn, often catching the man’s looking glass leer amid so-called enlightened dealings with the ladies — the way I tended to objectify or condescend toward, rage against, malodorously charm, or smugly indict. (For some reason, I never focused on traits I’d acquired from Gita — the empowering, honorable, nurturing ones, no doubt, of which Miriam pleasurably found herself on the receiving end and wasn’t shy about declaiming, with sweet sarcasm, “Without Gita, you would be a shit.”) I think ultimately I came to believe I had worked through the complex relationship with Father, completed the course with honors, so to speak, and that my behavior in the world was now perfectly au courant, dictated by an independent, if flawed, self that paid no homage, heed, or mortgage to the flawed being from whose seed it had sprung. See, I’d rejected Perry’s ethos and struck out on my own at a relatively young age, pretty much escaping unscathed (that was what I told myself and still believe it’s for the most part true), returning to the fold of my own volition — or should I say Vorbalition. By her harsh comments, it was obvious Ms. Clea thought otherwise. If viewed in a colder light, I suppose there will always be some residual sense of impotence or jealousy regarding Dad’s power and station. At least I consoled myself with the idea that I didn’t suffer as Father did from Failed Artist Syndrome. But maybe I protest too much.