Heaven and Mel (Kindle Single) (11 page)

Nick loves nothing more than wildlife and has a special fascination with jungles and with Latin and Central America.

"Let's take him with us to Costa Rica," I tell Naomi. "As a reward. He deserves it."

Naomi says, "Will Mel mind?"

I say, "I'm sure not. Some other friends of his are coming. Luci and Annie and her husband will be there too. I'll make sure we pay for Nick's expenses."

Naomi likes the idea and hasn't realized until now that Luci will be there with Annie. She's thrilled about that.

I can't reach Mel, who's out of the country, so I call Nick Guerra and explain that we'd like to bring our Nick and that we'll pay for his trip. Nick Guerra calls back quickly. He's reached Mel, and Mel thinks it's "a great idea," Nick Guerra says.

We tell our son, a sophomore in high school, that he's coming to Costa Rica with us for a week and he goes over-the-top apeshit. Not only will it mean being in Central America in a jungle setting for a week, but it will also mean that he'll be able to play hooky from school for a week.

There is one other factor, too. Nick is the biggest Mel Gibson fan: He's seen almost all of his movies; he's seen "Braveheart" five times.

"This is unbelievable," Nick says. "I mean it's really unbelievable! I'm going to be hanging out with Mel Gibson!"

There's more: The plan is that we will fly on Mel's private plane from Costa Rica to Malibu, spend two or three days there at his house, and then fly back home.

When he hears that, Nick runs out of the room and around the house, up and down the stairs. When he comes back down the stairs, he hugs us both. Naomi and I share his great joy as we hug him… not knowing that we've just made one of the biggest mistakes we've ever made as parents.

* * * *

I HAVE A DREAM.

My father, Istvan Eszterhas, the alleged war criminal, is sitting on the dock by the lake behind our house in Bainbridge. He wears his fur Hungarian sheep-herders hat, and is covered by a robe. He is very old and feeble. Standing next to him is a dazzling, handsome young man, his hair down to his shoulders, wearing leather and brass battle armor. It is Judah Maccabee.

Both my father and Judah Maccabee are looking at the lake.

Judah says: "What madness possesses someone to want to wipe an entire people off the face of the earth? Is it such a sin to be a Jew?"

I realize as I hear him saying it that it's is a line in my script that I have written that day.

And I hear my father say, in his halting, broken English, "No. No. I am sorry. I am so sorry."

Judah looks at him and puts his arm around the feeble old man who is my father. Both men look at the lake. There are tears in my father's eyes.

WE FLY INTO SAN JOSE,
Costa Rica, and are met at the airport by a friend of Mel's who drives us to the hotel he owns — The Alta. We are charmed by the hotel — a pretty place with an open air restaurant — and also by Mel's friend, a Malibu ex-pat who's gotten married and settled down in Costa Rica.

Our Nick is cranked. He can't believe he's in Costa Rica and he can't believe that tomorrow he'll be with Mel Gibson listening to howler monkeys making barking noises in the trees.

The next day we are helicoptered over jungle and verdant canyons to the sea. To Mal Pais, in Guanacaste, to Mel's estate. We see the sea sparkling below as the chopper circles Mel's house, which is deep in the hills, surrounded by jungle growth, and lands at Mel's helipad, carved into the hillside.

Mel greets us warmly. He's happy we're here, we'll have some fun. Nick, I see, is cool but can't quite hide the fact that he's starstruck. Mel handles our teenager easily, he's obviously had a lot of practice with his own sons. He treats Nick like they're old pals.

We tell Mel how much we enjoyed the hotel Alta and thank him for sending his friend the hotel owner to meet us at the airport.

Mel says, "That place used to be cool, but it's a dump now. That asshole really let it go."

Nick, Naomi, and I look at each other. We didn't think the place was a dump. We enjoyed our time there. But what do
I
know? I'm from Ohio. I'm not even
from
Malibu anymore. I'm
from
Cleveland… and
from
Csakanydoroszlo, Hungary.

* * * *

WE MEET MEL'S OTHER HOUSE GUESTS:
His old friend Randy, Randy's friend Elizabeth, and Mel's new friend, Brad, his werewolf partner.

We like them all immediately. Randy is in his early 60s, a writer and director, a religious man who gave the keynote speech at last years Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

I like what Randy said there: "I'm not a philosopher. I'm not a preacher. I'm a storyteller. Like Jesus. As nearly as I can tell, that is my only similarity to Him. Actually, there is one other! I too have cried out, 'My God, why have you forsaken me?'"

His friend Elizabeth, in her early 40s, is smart and pretty with a New Age spirituality and warm manner. Brad, in his fifties, big and burly, was formerly a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and helped Mel recently when his dad, Hutton, needed medical care.

And Luci is there with Annie and her husband, Phillip. Luci will only be here a few more days because, by court order, she has to go back to L.A. and be with her mother, Oksana.

Luci sees Naomi and yells — "Nayo! Nayo! Nayo!" and comes running. Naomi hugs her warmly and Luci holds onto her. Annie smiles and says, "She's been waiting and waiting for you to get here — she's been talking about it!"

And what about Joe the Owl — the miserable bugger with the broken, gravelly voice? I ask for maybe the hundredth time if I can kiss her on the top of her head and Luci looks at Joe the Owl seriously and says, "No."

Elizabeth says to Naomi, "Oh my gosh, you're finally here! That's all we've been hearing about — Naomi's coming!"

When I finally get Mel off alone — it isn't easy with all these people here — I tell him that I'm doing well on the script and that he'll have the first draft on February 15th.

He says, "Fine. Cool Breeze." But he turns his face away from me.

* * * *

WE ALSO MEET KATA
. She is the house manager and was the construction boss when Mel built the three houses on this estate.

She is in her early 40s. Part German, part Persian, an immigrant to Costa Rica. She's attractive and smart as a whip. She makes us feel at home immediately.

There are three houses on the estate. The main house, where Mel, Luci, Annie and Phillip, Randy and Elizabeth, and Brad are staying, and two smaller houses. Naomi, Nick, and I will stay in one of them, next to the house where Kata, her infant daughter, Ava, and some staff are staying. Two of the houses — Mel's and ours — have infinity pools. They are separated from each other by a hundred yards of jungle-like greenery and a cage for peacocks.

Everything seems to hang loose. There is a Costa Rican house chef and we can show up for breakfast, lunch, or dinner… or not. And yes there are lots of monkeys in the trees and lots of parrots. The monkeys start doing their act at dawn. There are other houses on the hillside, tucked into thick foliage. One of them is the house Giselle Bundchen shared with Leonardo DiCaprio.

At the base of the hill is a tiny surfer village, Mal Pais. It has a few surf shops, a few restaurants, a Belgian pastry shop that Mel favors, and lots of bikers. There is no police presence in the village, Mel tells us.

The road leading from Mel's house to the village looks and feels bombed-out, or like the surface of the moon. That's one reason the only safe, practical away in or out is by helicopter.

"Everyone here thought that I'd build a fancy road to the tune of millions of dollars," Mel says. "Ha! I fooled them, didn't I?"

* * * *

MEL SEEMS GRIM.
I ask him if he's okay.

He says he's trying to quit smoking again.

I tell him how I stopped after forty-some years of smoking.

"I took two long walks every day. An hour and a half each time. I exhausted myself day after day. It made my nicotine and tobacco cravings less excruciating. I didn't eat much and I drank lots of water. I used the patch, which really helped me. And I prayed all the time while I walked. I asked God to help me because I knew I couldn't do it alone."

Mel nods, but doesn't say anything. I fear he's given up before he's begun.

Mel says, "I don't want to use the patch. I don't want to put all that shit into my system."

At least, I think, he's not reaching for another cigarette at this moment.

"If you want to do some work," I tell him, "let me know. I've got nothing else to do."

"There's a Bible out there on a chair by the pool," he says, "if you want something to read."

I see it later. It is the good old Catholic Douay-Rheims Bible, a beautiful, ornate edition. I don't read it. I think Mel's trying to brainwash me with the damn thing.

* * * *

NICK RUNS WITH MEL SOMETIMES
when Mel goes up and down the hill, taking my advice, trying to exhaust himself.

Nick is having fun. He loves the monkeys in the trees. He is discovering lots of different kinds of birds, and I know he'd love to spot one of the javelinas that Mel keeps talking about. One day Nick brings us a gorgeous red plant called a Jerusalem cross.

A
Jerusalem cross
!

I know my good friend Judah Maccabee, whom I miss terribly, sent it to me… all the way from the house where Judah and his Bros and his Pops are staying in frigid Ohio.

* * * *

MEL IS DRIVING US DOWN
the hill to dinner.

A John Lennon song comes on the radio.

Elizabeth is sitting next to Naomi in the back seat. She says, "Ahh, John Lennon!" She's smiling. She really loves John Lennon.

Naomi sees Mel's eyes shoot up to the rearview mirror to look at her.

"John Lennon," he says. He almost spits the name. "I hate John Lennon. He deserved to be shot."

There's a sudden silence in the car as the John Lennon song plays. Naomi stares straight ahead.

Elizabeth says to Mel: "Dude! It's the
Beatles
, man!"

Mel says loudly, "It is
not
the Beatles! It's fucking John Lennon! He was fucking messianic! Listen to his songs, 'Imagine'! I hate that song. I'm glad he's dead."

Elizabeth, stung by his sudden anger, says nothing. No one does.

* * * *

WE'RE AT MEL'S DINING ROOM TABLE,
chatting. The table almost takes up the whole big open-air dining room. It is almost U-shaped in different directions. Somebody says Mel had it made in Italy and flew it over here in pieces.

Walter Cronkite has somehow come up.

Elizabeth, fearless and outspoken, says: "I always loved Walter Cronkite."

Mel, sitting directly across the table from her, gives her his Robert Mitchum/"Night of the Hunter" smile.

He says; "You loved Walter Cronkite?" Mel is loud, but he gets louder as this goes on: "I
knew
you'd love Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite and John Lennon! Walter Cronkite was a liar!"

He looks at everyone around the table and in a low, kind of conspiratorial voice says, "He was a Hebe, wasn't he?"

No one answers his question. Nick looks at me, his eyes wary. His look says, "
Did you hear that?
"

Elizabeth says, obviously taken aback by all this, "I just remember Walter Cronkite as this sweet presence each night, telling us the news…"

Mel says, "He was telling lies. All the people on television are liars. The only people who like Walter Cronkite are stupid people."

Randy says, "Come on, Mel,
we
were on television."

Mel says, "Yeah, well, we're liars too."

* * * *

NICK SAYS TO ME,
"I don't think Mel likes Elizabeth."

I grin and say, "Why do you say that, Nick?"

Nick says, "We're down at the bakery in the middle of town. Elizabeth says she just loves chocolate croissants. So they bring over these amazing-looking chocolate croissants.

"Elizabeth goes, 'Chocolate croissants — they're manna from heaven!'

"Then she holds a croissant up high with both hands and says, 'Body of Christ!'

"I look at Mel and he just gets up from the table and goes out the door.

"Randy looks at Elizabeth and says, 'I hope
you
get struck by lightning and not me.'"

Naomi and I like Elizabeth… very much.

* * * *

MEL SAYS THE REASON
he built this big estate in Costa Rica was so he could move here. He says he wants to live away from Hollywood and the public eye, and that he loves Costa Rica.

So he built this gorgeous estate with a beautiful room for Luci. Her room has a white bed and white mosquito netting draped over it like a princess canopy.

But then he and Oksana split up, and he can't bring Luci here without Oksana's permission. And even if Luci is allowed to come, it's only for a week at a time. And if he goes on location for a movie, he can't take Luci with him.

Mel is possessed by the idea that Oksana has ruined everything… and the only way it can be fixed is if she's gone.

* * * *

I FEEL MYSELF A LONG WAY AWAY
now from my tunnel at home, the one that takes me back to Jerusalem in 160 B.C.

I keep wondering how my wondrous Jewish friends, the Maccabees, living in my office on the third floor of my house, are doing.

I'm lolling in the pool here. We're not doing any work. The Douay-Rheims Bible lies untouched on the lounge chair in front of the pool. There are no churches to go to here. Sunday Mass is said by a vagabond priest (shades of Graham Greene) in someone's home.

I laze around in the infinity pool all day thinking about heroic Jews, infinities and centuries away from here. And I really worry that Judah is getting pissed off at me back there in the cold and that when I get back, he won't be as eager to talk to me as he was before.

* * * *

MEL IS UPSET BECAUSE THE INTERNET
and the Jacuzzis don't work. It's a brand new house and the Jacuzzis are either too hot or too cold.