~ ~ ~
WHEN THAD SUGGESTED we find a way to occupy ourselves in quaint San Rafael during Clea’s gig, she wouldn’t hear of it.
She insisted on our presence in the auditorium during the tried-and-true cabaret-style tragicomic monologue that she performed prior to autographing photos, posters, and miscellanea, both Roos-and Clea-related, offered up by rabid fans. There must have been over 2,000 folks converging from God knows where (three of Roos Chandler’s most famous films plus two obscure ones plus a rare home-movie clip were being screened) and I marveled at the organized industry of it. Clea’s share of the take was a flat $35,000. The promoters couldn’t have been happier with the bonus burger of her unexpected companion, Thad Michelet. In short time, the faithful flock miraculously handed over effluvia for signing — stills from The Jetsons and Quixote, that sort of thing. He was remarkably good-humored about it, I suppose still redeeming himself for his bad behavior of the night before.
We were back in L.A. around 10:00 P.M. The car dropped me off before ferrying them back to the Chateau.
~ ~ ~
AFTER HEARING ABOUT THAD’S BROTHER up close and personal, it seemed a morbid coincidence that Ensign Rattweil had been assigned a perversely devoted twin who’d remained behind with the Vorbalidian parents. The monstrous Prince Morloch was jockeying for the throne; for reasons of arcane galactic law which only the writers understood, Rattweil had been forcibly summoned from self-exile to bear witness to the royal succession. I should add that I made it a point to quiz the staff — had they been aware of the biographical detail of twinhood before crafting the teleplay? They swore they had not.
So it was with an air of bizarre anticipation that on Monday morning I found myself, along with Thad, Captain Laughton, X-Ray, and the android Cabott 7, loitering amid a barren landscape strewn with formidable-sized boulders — Soundstage 11’s all-purpose blue screen wilderness. Cabott was compelled, in typically droll fashion, to inform us that instead of landing within the coordinates guaranteeing our arrival at the official Vorbalidian seat, we had instead corporealized in a wasteland, an error he attributed to the “most peculiar” qualities of radiation emitted by the Great Dome. We’d overshot the government enclave which, owing to its configuration when scanned from the ship, had the shape of a large white flower. As the Demeter’s resident wag and Earth world history buff, I–Commander Karp, rather — dubbed the buildings the Chrysanthemum Palace.
“Cabott,” said the captain. “By your reckoning, how far are we from city center?”
The android glanced at a handheld device. “Around twenty thousand miles, sir.”
“Pity,” said Dr. Chaldorer. “I didn’t pack my hiking boots.”
Thad clocked the landscape with a dull shock of recognition. “I know this place — it’s the Fellcrum Outback.” When the captain asked him to explain, he informed it was ancient fighting ground. “Vorbalidian nobles often used blood sport to settle disputes.”
“Curious,” said Cabott, wrinkling his nose. “One of the most advanced of all known civilizations, engaged in gladiatorial combat.”
He requested permission to reconnoiter soil samples. Laughton told me to accompany the major but remain within shouting distance. We exited camera right. The good doctor lazily positioned himself against a papier-mâché rock, of which there was a great profusion. I watched from the wings.
“What exactly happened between you and your family?” probed the captain.
“I’d rather not discuss it, sir.”
“I’m ordering you, Ensign. By concealing your true identity, you’ve endangered a starship and her crew.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Thad, subtly flinching. “I never imagined they would—”
“I am not assigning blame. All the same, I expect some answers.”
“I suppose… I never belonged.” He plunged in without fanfare, delivering potential laugh lines as if abruptly from the analyst’s couch — an unvarnished, marvelous choice that made him as watchable as it did vulnerable. “As the king’s son, tremendous pressures are exerted. There are expectations. Responsibilities…”
“We all have responsibilities, yeoman,” said the captain, tough yet avuncular. “Mine is the Demeter and her crew. That’s what it means to be a grown-up.”
“You couldn’t understand,” said Thad, wandering toward a clump of lime green stalactites. A touch of Monty Clift savvily crept into the stutter of sturm und drang. “There was no privacy — to study the things I cared for. No time to be myself.” A smile graced the captain with the realization he had engaged an exotic, overgrown adolescent. “The days and nights were empty, filled with mindless pomp and circumstance.”
“I assume there are necessary evils to growing up as you did… though I have a hard time imagining ‘pomp and circumstance’ high on that list. May not a prince be able to choose how he spends his day?” asked the captain, slipping into the manneredly aggressive mode that had become a veritable staple of Mad TV parody. “He has merely to assert, to demand—”
“I am not my brother! He revels in the trappings of palace, the glory of his subjects. My father always said he was a throwback to olden times. Morloch is a warrior — his whole life has been a rehearsal for kingship.”
“But how,” said the captain, with the sensual, stammering breathiness that was his hallmark, “did you come to leave a world that was your home? To give up your birthright as prince… for the corridors and engine rooms of a Legion starship?”
“I–I ran away,” said the ensign, sadly. His father’s shame was such that the royal court was forced to tell the people he had perished “while on what we call a Kuzda: a spiritual rite of passage endured by Vorbalidian males similar to the ‘vision quest’ of your American Indians.”
Suddenly, the captain had newfound admiration, impressed by the “moral ferocity” it took for the ensign to give up family and monarchal inheritance in order to live as a free man.
“That,” he said, “is true warriorship.”
“I’ve had time to think about it, sir.” Thad grew pensive, readying himself to walk the plank of one of those lowbrow-highbrow Starwatch soliloquies. “I’ve concluded it was fear that exiled me — fear that banished me from the kingdom of my life. You see, Captain, I was in love with a woman, and ran away under the cloak of ‘integrity.’ I was afraid I would abdicate and bring her disgrace. You cannot imagine what it’s like to be born a prince yet know in your heart you are not that. Rather, you are a foot soldier of mediocre stamina, little ambition, and less vision: in a word, an ensign.” Pause. “And that I have become.”
“True,” said Laughton, in full-bore Emmy throttle. (A few writers had converged just out of eye line to behold the harvesting of the fruits of their labors.) “I cannot. Nor can you imagine what it is like to awaken each morning a foolish, frightened boy who must convince himself — and his crew — that he is captain of a starship.” At “Cut!” the crew applauded both men. We broke for lunch.
I ate barbecued chicken with a cute little gaffer. Upon finishing, I noticed a production assistant loading up a tray with assorted desserts. I assumed correctly they were destined for Mr. Michelet and told the P.A. I’d bring them to the trailer myself.