John Belushi Is Dead (32 page)

Hank looked at his hands.

“I've lost count of how many kids disappeared.”

A helicopter flew overhead and for a brief, wonderful moment the room was bathed in its spotlight. I remembered a history class in which we watched a documentary about the Holocaust. All those stick-thin bodies piled to the sky, eyes wide and unblinking, flies on their faces. My reaction had been one of incomprehension: How could this have happened?

“Then the war ended,” Hank went on, “I got out, got to see my parents again. But it wasn't the same. Nothing was. I left for America. I tried to forget. But the longer I lived, the more it became clear to me the terrible, terrible crime I had committed. The
terrible thing I had done. When you become an adult, you look back on some of the shit you did as a kid and think, ‘Gee whiz, I was pretty messed up.' If you're lucky you get the chance to correct some of those wrongs. You see the fat kid you never invited to any of your birthday parties, the pimply girl whose pigtails you pulled. You get to say sorry. Sometimes they accept your apology. For me, it's too late for any of that. They're dead.”

I understood what he meant. When I became friends with Benji it was partly because of a misguided sense of compassion. I didn't want to be the kind of person who picked on, bullied, or ignored the strange kid. I wanted to be the one who became his friend, who tore away at the inadequate exterior and found a diamond beneath. Looking back, I saw it was patronizing to Benji, and wrong. Sometimes there isn't a diamond beneath. But that's not how I felt about Hank. I wanted to believe he was a victim of circumstance.

Hank said, “When I got to LA, those dead kids followed me around like an army. But they weren't my protectors. I worked on movie stars' swimming pools. I screwed beautiful women. I tried to forget any of it ever happened. But every time I saw a group of kids let out of school, there they were—Mary, Eli, all the nameless faces. I saw them everywhere. In the end it was easier to see them at the bottom of a bottle. Then I started to see
them
. The JWA. They were tracking me. I was as good as dead.”

All the elements were coming together, obscure pieces of a deadly jigsaw puzzle. “You think they're coming after you? For what you did?”

“Do you think they'd let a guy like me keep walking around? After what I did? It's only a matter of time before those cocksuckers show up on my doorstep.”

I didn't know if Hank was being paranoid or if there was some truth to what he was saying. Either way I knew where this was heading. Suddenly the suicide attempt made perfect sense. I knew Hank well enough to know that if he had to go down, he was going on his own terms.

“You don't have to do this,” I said. “This vigilante stuff sounds like bullshit.”

“Like a movie star stabbing himself with a pair of scissors?”

“That happened. Look it up. Vigilante groups running around offing people? I don't think so.”

Hank looked away. His voice was tired, his breathing labored. “It doesn't matter. I'm tired of living with it. With all this death. I've seen enough death to last me a lifetime.”

“What about me?”

Hank reached out and touched my hand, and I started to cry.

“It's okay, kiddo.”

“Don't make me say good-bye to you, Hank. I can't say good-bye to people anymore. It's killing me.”

“Death ain't so bad, Hilda. There are worse things.”

“I won't do it,” I said. “I won't do anything.”

“Exactly. That's exactly what I want you to do. Nothing. Just stay here until it's done. I don't want someone busting through the door and saving me like last time. Pain in the ass, that was.”

He reached over to the bedside dresser and grabbed something I hadn't noticed before: a bottle of painkillers. Reaching down again, Hank pulled a bottle of vodka out from underneath the bed. “Can I have a minute?” he asked. “I can't swallow pills that well, 'specially if someone's gawkin' at me. I'd rather not choke to death.”

“I won't let you do this,” I said, even as he screwed the lid off
the pills. “I won't let you.” But then the pills were in his mouth and he was waiting for me to leave the room and I did. I stood up and walked out. There was nothing else to do.

I went into the bathroom, the same bathroom Benji and I had taken photos in, tarnishing with our darkness what should have been a beautiful California day. We had called ourselves
enthusiasts
, but we were worse than that. We were tourists, rubbernecking at the accident on the side of the road, straining to see the blood and despair on the highway as mothers screamed for their children and lives were torn apart. We were tourists of human wreckage.

I looked at myself in the mirror, my stupid panda eye makeup and lipstick that was too red, my attention-seeking pink hair. I was pathetic. The bathroom filled with ghosts. Bernie Bernall, his scissors poised over his heart, tears on his cheeks. Benji with his digital camera, photographing taps and fixtures, sucking the soul out of the room. Then, worst of all, there was me. The pretender. I'd stared death in the face, seen it careen through my family as surely as the truck that smashed my parents' heads from their shoulders. I wanted so desperately to show that I wasn't scared. But I was. I turned on the tap and splashed water on my face, and as I did Hank called to me from the bedroom.

“Hilda! Get back in here.”

I went back in and sat on the bed. Everything looked the same: Hank was sitting in the same position, the room was still dark, the sheets were still dirty. There was one major difference. The pill bottle was empty. Hank closed his eyes.

“Just another old dead guy,” he said quietly. “If I was Cary Grant, maybe somebody would give a damn.”

“I give a damn, Hank. I'm your biggest fan.”

At that he laughed. “You're a riot, kid. It's been nice having you around. You can have my videotapes.”

“People watch DVDs now, Hank.
DVDs
.”

“Fine. Don't have the videos. Christ.”

I laughed through my tears and wiped my nose on my wrist. Hank's eyes closed a little, then opened again as if he'd been startled awake.

“Get out of here, would you?” he said. “Can't a man get any sleep around here?”

I
DIDN'T GET TO SAY
good-bye to my parents. There was just a hospital room and a bed that I woke up in and Aunt Lynette sitting beside me, weeping. I reached up and felt my face; instead of skin I touched bandage. I kept thinking my parents were going to walk through that hospital room door, worried sick, sorry they had been away so long. They never came. Five days later I went home. Every day I waited for their car to pull into Lynette's driveway. It never did.

I
WENT INTO THE KITCHEN
and made myself a cup of tea. There wasn't anything good on TV so I put one of Hank's videos in the player, a Marilyn Monroe film I hadn't seen before. It was a musical, light on the laughs and heavy on the dance numbers. Marilyn looked tired. As she danced her feet kicked with a little less vigor and her eyes had lost some of their sparkle. I remembered a story about how when Norma Jean first became Marilyn Monroe she had to ask an autograph-seeking fan how to spell her own name. By the time she died she probably had no idea who she was at all.

It must have been some time during the movie that Hank slipped away. As the credits rolled and the screen went black I went into the bedroom to check on him. He was lying on his stomach, and even from the doorway I could see that he wasn't moving. I picked up my heels, turned off the television, and left the apartment.

Downstairs Jake's blinds were still drawn. I knocked on the door. I few moments later he appeared in tracksuit pants, eyes
puffy, hair sticking up. I walked inside, walked to his bedroom, and lay down on the bed. A second later he joined me, and together we slept, a sleep so sad and so deep I would have been happy never to wake up, because when I did I would have to tell Jake what I couldn't yet put into words. Hank was gone, and for one night, lying in Jake's arms, I wanted that loss, like Hank himself, to belong to me alone.

W
E BURIED
H
ANK ON
a beautiful California day, when the sun was shining and the sky was a vast blue expanse, as perfect as the ceiling of a sound stage. The only mourners were Jake, Lynette, and me. We found out that Hank had a son named Phillip, a stockbroker who lived in New York City. He wasn't interested in coming to the funeral but ended up paying for all the arrangements. Hank had never mentioned he had a son, and I'm sure there was plenty more he never divulged to either me or Jake, but it was still a surprise to hear. Just another sad story to add to an old man's miserable life. I told Lynette all about Hank after he died—well, not quite everything—and when I told her how often I had visited him she beamed proudly.

“You really are a sweet girl,” she said, getting teary. “And all this time I thought you were probably on drugs.”

I went to the hospital to visit Benji, not the hospital they took him to the night of the party, but another one, with large bedrooms
and beautiful gardens. When the doctors suggested Benji should spend a few weeks under observation, his parents made sure he went to the best facility money could buy. It was more like a resort than a hospital, with nurses who would bring you food whenever you wanted, just like room service. When I walked into his room he was sitting on the bed, legs crossed and reading a magazine, looking like a young boy. He was wearing a striped red shirt and chinos, and his hair was nicely combed. His sleeves were long, covering the places where he had cut himself.

“What happened to your hair?” he asked when he saw me.

I twirled a few brown strands between my fingers. “I got sick of the pink. Made me look like a freak.”

“I kinda liked it,” he said. “It made you stand out, well, more than before. But this is good, too. Natural.”

“Brown is my natural hair color.”

“I know. We've known each other for a long time, remember?”

“I guess so.”

Benji sat up and winced, placed one hand protectively on his stomach.

“How's it all looking down there?” I asked, motioning to his stomach and the places he had cut himself.

“A little tender, I guess. I've got so many bandages under here it's like I'm from
The Mummy
.”

Other than that we didn't talk about the night at the Chateau. Benji already appeared stronger and healthier despite the injuries. He was also softer, and calmer.

“What are they feeding you in here?” I asked.

“It's all healthy stuff. Organic. They think diet plays a big part in, you know, making your brain work better. What you feed yourself,
you feed your brain, and your brain's not going to function too well on hot dogs and candy bars.”

“In that case my brain's a coffee and Danish. I wonder what that says about me?”

“It's really interesting stuff, Hilda. I think you'd actually like it here.”

I flicked through the fishing magazine on Benji's bed.

“I'm sorry about Hank,” Benji said. My heart leaped a little at the mention of his name. I'd sent Benji a letter saying that Hank had passed away after accidentally taking too many pills. Since he hit his head he hadn't been the same, I explained, and he must have forgotten that he had already taken his pain pills earlier in the evening. I told the same story to the paramedics, and no one ever questioned it. I guess the hospital thought it wasn't worth digging too deep over a guy like Hank, much to my relief.

“Thanks, Benji,” I said.

He paused. “I really did like him, Hilda,” he said sadly.

“I know you did.”

“Mom thinks we shouldn't be friends anymore,” he said, looking down like he was ashamed. “She says you're a bad influence.”

I laughed, and luckily Benji laughed, too.

“They think this death stuff is bad for me, too,” he said, his smile fading. “They went into my bedroom, put all my things into boxes.”

I knew what things he meant. His beloved artifacts. It was so sad to think of them thrown into a box and shoved into a closet, away from where they could be appreciated, admired, contemplated. I doubted Mr. Connor had taken any care with them. Benji's treasured bits of wood and slivers of rock were probably destroyed now.

“That sucks,” I said.

“They're probably right. Maybe it's time to get a new hobby.”

“I can't really imagine you collecting stamps or building model airplanes.”

“Me neither.”

I put my hand on his leg, and he flinched, but I didn't pull away. “Don't worry. I'm sure all your stuff will still be there when you get back. You can take it out when you're ready.”

We spent the rest of the day strolling around the grounds, making fun of the other patients and pretending we were in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
. Benji picked up a trash can from the hallway and ran at the window with it, acting like he was going to bust out, and two burly guards raced over and almost tackled him before he could explain he was only joking around. Needless to say, they didn't think it was very funny, but Benji and I did, and we laughed harder than I had laughed in a long time, my sides aching. When I left Benji that afternoon, he had color in his face, and his eyes looked a little brighter. I decided that even if it was against Mrs. Connor's wishes, I would visit Benji again before the summer was through.

Slowly, over time, Jake and I came back to each other. I let him set the agenda: we went to art galleries, street festivals, and rock concerts. We went bowling and to the movies and talked about celebrities who were still alive. Jake abandoned
The Life Upstairs
and started writing an action film with an environmental message that already had a studio interested. I decided to get a part-time job to fill in all the summer hours I would normally spend on the Internet trawling for dead celebrities, and ended up working at one of those franchise coffee shops in the Valley. The whole scene
was pretty laid-back, and I could have even kept my pink hair if I wanted to. There was always a cool CD on rotation, and the bright fluorescent lights and cushy sofas hypnotized me into a feeling close to contentedness. Some days Jake would come in and work at the sofa in the corner, and I would sit with him during my lunch break and talk about his script and the characters, offer him ideas of my own. I grew to really love the coffee shop. I was more than happy with where I was, in my green apron and hat, mastering the art of the perfect espresso while Paul McCartney tunes played over and over in the background. It was fine for now. Jake was ambitious enough for both of us, and I was happy to coast along for the moment, just enjoying the experience of being alive, being around people, being free.