I'll Let You Go (18 page)

A servant was duly dispatched to gather up Tull and his harlequin friend.

H
ome at last, he tumbled to bed.

The envelope his cousin had slipped him as they left the Black Lantern for Edward's apartments was tucked deep inside his overcoat.

Tull flicked on a nightstand lamp. Slung over a chair like a phantom, the cashmere garment suddenly gave him the creeps; he plucked the letter from its pocket, and ran back under the covers.

He pulled out a page dated June 30, 1988. Sentences had been whited out and he wondered if his cousin was to blame. The document attested to progress made in “the case,” difficulties encountered, et cetera.

He moistened his fingers to free the page stuck behind—a Xerox'd note written in cursive. On the letterhead was a personal monogram, M and W intertwined.

He read it aloud a half-dozen times, then put it beneath his pillow.
Sincerely, Marcus Weiner
 …

Just how much did Cousin Edward know?

Something in him was afraid to ask.

T
hat week, Trinnie invited him to go along on a job. She had never done that before; the gesture was a coming-of-age for both of them.

Mother and son were met in the lobby of the Motion Picture and Television Hospital by Tim de Kooning, the pastor there. The Trotters were well known, and Father de Kooning said it was a happy coincidence to have recently met Trinnie's sister-in-law in connection with a “quite amazing program for orphaned children which Joyce—I'm sure you know!—has spearheaded.”

Upon entering the grounds, Trinnie felt as if in a geriatric Shangri-la. Like most Angelenos, she had only a dim awareness of this place, and (until now) thought of it as “the old actors' home” rather than a modern medical facility. Her parents, along with their friends the Wassermans and the Douglases, had been generous to the institution throughout the years. Trinnie could remember being at a benefit listening to her mother and Debbie Reynolds chat about the Woodland Hills sanctuary, saying it was where both wanted to be when it was time to “wrap things up.” (Bluey had always loved show people.) Strolling through the cafeteria with its waiters and white linen, the pastor pointed out wizened cowboys and ex-vamps in dainty gloves carving up racks of lamb—here, a renowned cinematographer seated beside an early effects wizard; there, a mistress of Howard Hughes, now a hundred years old. The place had a hazy, anomalous Garden of Allah vibe that instantly drew her in. The Rockwellian town square, with its architectural nod to gazebos, bandstands and calliopes, finished off the effect.

They were on their way to Harry's Haven, the unit for those suffering from the disease of forgetting. Father de Kooning liked going over to speak after Sunday chapel services. A gift from Kirk and Anne Douglas, the “Alzheimer's cottage” had been built in memory of the actor's father.

They followed him in to a large room off the main corridor, where nurses had assembled about a dozen residents. Trinnie and Tull sat near the back while the pastor spoke. The boy watched the goings-on, wide-eyed. A hawk-like man with crossed, hairy arms corrosively deconstructed Father de Kooning's monologue, then abruptly fell silent, like an actor on a stool upon a stage. In the back row, a painted woman kissed the hand of a fey, embarrassed galfriend. “You're marvelous!” she hissed with maudlin zealotry. “You're just sensational, and you know it!” A Babe Paley type, displeased by the outburst, turned to stare the painted woman down—the former resembling a socialite who'd been forced to endure Bedlam itself as some kind of charity stunt.

Undaunted, the pastor homilized. “It was a dark and stormy night,” he said, putting on a bit of the evangelizing dog for Trinnie, “and a father and son headed home. They came to a bridge, but the bridge was washed out. As the wind howled and rain poured down, the man lifted his son and walked across a log that straddled the raging river.” He paused, for effect. “The boy awoke in his warm bed the next morning. He told his father that, back at the river, when he lifted him up he had fainted dead away, afraid they both would die.”

“And I was afraid you
wouldn't
!” interjected the hawkish scold, who then turned instantly to stone.

The pastor was undeterred. “ ‘Why be afraid?' asked the the boy's father. ‘That's what death is: you fall asleep in a storm—then suddenly, you're home.' ”

Given the milieu, Tull thought the story inappropriate—not that anyone in the room had anything to say about it. Anyhow, who gave a shit? It wasn't exactly the Crystal Cathedral. He looked at Trinnie, amazed to see tears in her eyes. Maybe her mind was on something else entirely.
Maybe she's just missing heroin
, he thought maliciously.

The pastor walked them to the garden and bid his adieu.

Trinnie took a draft of air as she scanned the site.

“They call this a wandering garden,” she said, in teaching mode,
“because people with Alzheimer's like to
wander
. Have you ever seen a walking labyrinth? They go way back to medieval Christian churches. That was my original thought for Saint-Cloud … there's one in San Francisco—Grace. It's based on the labyrinth at Chartres, thirteenth-century. Haven't we been there, Tull?” He wouldn't dignify it with an answer. “I can't believe I never took you to Grace!”

“I can,” he said, unable to resist.

“Of course, there isn't room for something like that
here;
the idea is to create the
feeling
of flow, without the formalism of concentric rings.” She stopped to touch the leaf of an overhanging tree. “The fun part is, all flowers must be edible. I am told that people with Alzheimer's like to forage.”

An old crone gained on them, her purplish-spotted arm extended as if to hail a cab. “Hey! Hey!” she shouted at Trinnie. “You're sensational! You're just sensational and you
know
it! You
know
it!” She picked up speed and overtook them, a contender in a crazed derby.

“Maybe I should build a little grotto—and dovecotes. I need to find out if the sound of pigeons or water is a no-no for Alzheimoids. The birds'll probably shit everywhere, and that's no good … this really
does
remind me of the park Proust's uncle made—the Pré Catelan—at Illiers-Combray. You know: ‘lost time' and all. Kind of thematically perfect, huh. But is it pretentious?” Listening to his mother prattle sickened him. “Did I ever tell you,” she said conspiratorially, “that I
stole
something from the Proust Museum? Oh my God! A butter dish. I've never told
anyone
that; I wasn't ‘well' at the time—I think I was AWOL from somewhere. I need to send it back,
anonymously
, but I've never been able to
find
the damn thing. I only hope to God they had the sense not to leave the
real
dish out for John Q. Public … or should I say
Jean Q. Publique
—”

“Is Grandma going to live here?”

“No,” she said smugly, as if such a thing were out of the question.

Tull nodded at the squawking crone as she came around on another lap. “Is that what's happening to Grandma?”

“We don't know what's happening to Grandma.”

“Then why are we here?”

“Because I'm redoing the garden. Grandpa's paying for it.”

“Why?”

“Because the Douglases asked him to.”

“If Grandma's going to live here, you should just tell me.”

“She's not—OK?”

Trinnie shot him a look that said, I've already told you my secrets—get
over
it.

They kept walking.

“It'd be interesting to plant a little
Cosmos atrosanguineus
—that's Latin for ‘black blood.' They're from Mexico and they smell like hot chocolate. Though I'm not so sure they can be
eaten
,” she said, besotted with herself.

Tull's finger felt the soft outline of the folded cryptogram he'd committed to memory and carried in his pocket all week long.
If I was shocked at the reckless insinuation of your employee, I was absolutely dumbfounded—

“Why were you crying?” he asked.

“Crying?”

“Inside—when he told the story.”

“It made me sad.”

“A retarded Sunday School story made you sad,” he said acidly. “Are you born-again now, on top of being AA?”

“Look,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “I brought you here because I thought you might be curious about what I
do
—and have compassion for what's happened to these people. But all you're doing is giving me shit.”

“Fuck you!” he shouted. “You're not even
here
! You think that because you told me about Marcus—
your version
—you couldn't even do it
yourself
, you needed Grandpa there!—you think that because you tell me some
bullshit
, suddenly you're the
great mother
? You're just a drug addict!”

“No one's ‘just a drug addict,' Tull,” she said wearily.

“You think because you get chauffeured to AA meetings, that makes you a
great mother
? That because you pay someone to come to the house and show you how to
meditate
that makes you a
great mother
?”

“I wish you'd stop saying that.”

“That you've been
sober
six weeks? Who cares! At least he
left
. I never had to even
meet
him—but
you
—you keep—coming—back! Keep coming back! Keep coming back!” He shrieked, flapping his arms in furious mockery of the famous slogan. “You don't even
care
what it's like to—for me to try to
find
you and you're just
gone
! You don't give a
shit
about me! When were we supposed to have gone to San Francisco to see
some cathedral?
When
, Trinnie? That is
such a joke
! You don't even know who I
am
—all you care about are your clothes and your drugs—”

“I'm not taking drugs.”

“But you
will
! You
will
!”

“Thank you, Tull. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“And Grandpa gives you
money
, like,
every day
. And you
hate
him! You
hate
your father—”

“Don't project on me, Tull.”

“You hate everyone but
yourself
. Don't tell me about
compassion
when you don't even care about your own
parents
. You've done nothing but practically
kill
them! All they do is
worry
about you, you think Bluey doesn't have any feelings, but Bluey just doesn't
show
it like Grandpa does. If it wasn't for them, I'd be dead! You don't care about anyone! Not
me
or stupid
Rafe
or
Grandma
or
Grandpa
or
Pullman
—Pullman cares more about me than you
ever
did! You fucking make me
sick
!—”

She slapped him, and he stared at her in shock.

Sobbing with anger, he tried to leave the garden, but the gate, like all doors, locked from inside to corral the guests. He put his foot on a tree and boosted himself to scale the fence, dropping down on the other side.

Trinnie watched, heart in throat, as he ran up the hill of the former onion field. She couldn't help but notice the valley oak at its crest, fairly rare for Southern California.

Trinnie thought:
Everything he said is true
. And if then and there the gods had transmuted the very dirt to morphine, she'd have sunk to her knees and choked on the earth.

W
hile the drama played out in Woodland Hills (ending with the winded Tull's safe on-ramp apprehension), another scene unspooled at a Westwood cemetery with which the reader is already familiar.

The old man stood on his parcel. Instead of the Silver Seraph, the plush Mauck had been maneuvered past the gate; it did not present a serious encumbrance, for today park tourists were scant. Edward sat in his buggy a few paces away, ramrod straight thanks to the trusty titanium brace, which Lucy had adorned with decals of wasps and figs. Sling Blade, leaning on a rake to watch the summit from afar, completed the tableau.