Swimming to Cambodia (12 page)

 

 

It was time for dinner and a bunch of us went to an outdoor restaurant right on the edge of the Indian Ocean. There were about twenty of us and it all looked and felt like a big Thanksgiving dinner, the Last Supper right at the edge of the world. The islands beyond, over
which sweet, cooling trade winds blew, gave off no light or life. It was just us and the Thai waiters moving under multicolored Japanese lanterns that swayed in the winds.

David Puttnam sat at the head of the table and I sat to his left with my back to the sea. David was holding up a picture of John Malkovich and saying, “So, I hear John doesn't want to do any more films. He says he wants to return to the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago.” John was sitting at the far end of the table and I was a little drunk and saying, “Yes, I think the lady doth protheth too much.” John was winking back at me and taking it all good-naturedly.

Now, I was feeling a little competitive, I admit it. I had been doing solo performance for so long that I had forgotten all that competitive stuff that comes up when you begin to mix and mingle with a lot of Talent. I had been down at the Performing Garage for so long that I'd lost touch with that scene. I know that not only is John a good actor, he's also a good storyteller. He could be sitting behind a table just like I do somewhere far away, let's say in Chicago or Alaska, telling stories not unlike these.

My question is, could I play Biff on Broadway? Are we interchangeable? John just gets work. It seems to just come to him because he's not needy. Also, he has a good manager. It's not just that he has an agent, he also has a
very good
manager. In fact, I don't know if you noticed, but when
The Killing Fields
was reviewed in
The New York Times
, there was also a small article in another part of the paper about the blackout on the Q.E. II, and who did they contact to interview by telephone satellite? John Malkovich. How did he get on the Q.E. II? His manager. And how did
The Times
know
he was there? His manager. And how did the lights go out? His manager. (And how did Ronald Reagan become President?) They set it up like that to get the reverb. It's an echo—you see, the review isn't enough.

 

 

Now, I'm sitting at the table and it's not that John Malkovich reminds me of my brother, or that David Puttnam reminds me of my father, but there is some archetypal family scene going on there. I mean, like David Puttnam, my father sat at the head of the table, but he never talked as much as David Puttnam. The only two things my father ever said were, “All things are relative” and “Whatever you do, marry a wealthy woman.” Now I thought that was good advice. You had the physical and the metaphysical. And he was a good provider, like David Puttnam.

Every Sunday there was steak and every Monday there was a roast—roast beef, roast lamb. And I can remember on Monday, passing my plate up for more of that blood-rare roast beef. I wasn't hungry, you know, but I was going up for thirds. Now, I know to some extent I was trying to eat my father's body. I understand that. But I would pass it up anyway, and he would send it back and it would have to go by my brother Rocky—Rockwell Junior, who was kind of the autocrat of the table. He would take a big piece of beef off my plate and pop it into his mouth. And I would say, “What was that about?” and he'd say, “Toll.”

Also, Rocky had a game called “Dime.” He had a paper route and so he often had a pocket full of dimes, and he would run around yelling “Dime!” and if you touched him, you got a dime. But just before you touched
him he'd say, “Deal's off!” He also had a proclamation of “Forbidden Names.” The names that rubbed him the wrong way all just happened to be my friends' names, and if I said them, I got hit. No big deal. The names were nothing special—I mean, I look both ways before I say them now, actually.

“Lucille Bisbano ...” /Pow!)

“Steve Sea . . .” (Punch! Punch!)

“Heather Henry . . .” (Chop! Chop!)

Then my little brother Channing was born. When Chan was born I knew what jealousy was, because Rocky fell in love with Chan. And one warm summer day when he was four years old, I led Chan naked into the middle of Rumstick Road and stood him on the white line and told him to stay there. My mother rushed out just in time to save him from the speeding cars.

Now, I'm not saying that Chan is John Malkovich, or that David Puttnam is my father—but there we were, and something of that family order was going down, and I was hoping David Puttnam would pay for the meal. (He didn't.) It was my Last Supper and I really wanted him to know. I wanted him to love me so much that he could read my mind. After all, he had paid for Craig T. Nelson's last meal. They had a huge party when Craig T. left, but Craig was a Professional Actor, and he left as soon as his last scene was over. If Craig didn't have another job to go to, at least he acted like he did, and I was beginning to feel like this poor relative.

 

 

The reason I know that John Malkovich is a good storyteller is that we had to tell dirty jokes. The film was a
“buddy” movie, it was about
male bonding.
I'd never been with men in a situation like this in my life. I was never in a fraternity. I was never in any kind of male bonding situations. And we'd all get together for lunch, or cocktails at six, and we'd all just sit around and
bond,
talking about what happened that day.

And at one particular luncheon, a Cambodian refugee who wanted to bring back dirty jokes for his friends in Long Beach asked us to tell some for his collection. He asked people to go around in a circle and tell dirty jokes. I didn't know any dirty jokes—I couldn't think of any—but I wanted to be one of the guys so when my turn came I said, “All right, all right. There was this couple . . .” (I remembered one) “a generic couple, we'll call them Dick and Jane. It was back in the fifties. It was their first date and they were both very uptight. Dick was very nervous about his appearance there in Jane's living room, and there was a dog, too, Spot. Jane's dog, Spot, a collie asleep on the floor. So Dick had done everything to prepare himself: 5-Day Stay-Dry Deodorant Pads, Aqua-Velva, Listerine. Jane was the same, all scrubbed down with Lysol and properly dressed. They were just, you know, petting in the living room—except Dick was very nervous and he had gone off his diet. Just before coming over, he had eaten a big bowl of baked beans with red cabbage on top. And for dessert, he'd had two green pears and some figs and raisins. So he was letting out those Silent But Deadly, unbelievable steamy hot burners. You wouldn't hear them come but when they filled the room you
knew
it. He would just ease them out as he leaned over to kiss Jane on the cheek, and then as he leaned back, he'd say, ‘Oh, Spot! Good God! Jane, where'd you get this dog? Did
you say it was a thoroughbred collie?' And then Dick would ease out another one and say, ‘Oh, Spot! Oh! One more like that and we'll take you to the pound to have you gassed on your own gas.' Then, just as Dick let loose with the last hot burner, Jane leapt up and yelled, ‘C'mon Spot, let's get out of here before he shits on us both!' ”

That was all I could think of. Oh, no, wait. There was one other. “This traveling salesman who is desperate to find a room stops at this hotel in the South and the owner says there aren't any more rooms. ‘There's one upstairs but you can't have it.'

‘Why
^?
'

‘Well, the screens are ripped, there are flies. You wouldn't sleep. There's every kind of fly. There's bottle flies, green flies, deer flies, black flies and house flies, and you wouldn't sleep, I'm telling you. Horse flies, even.'

‘I'll take it.'

And the next morning, he comes down completely rested and the manager says, ‘You look like you slept. What'd you do?'

‘Just a little “bunching.” I had to bunch the flies.'

‘What do you mean, you “bunched” the flies?'

‘Well, I took a shit in the corner and I went to bed!' ”

So then it was John Malkovich's turn. And, by the way, the Cambodian was laughing at every line. I don't know if it had to do with the translation, the Buddhist Tolerance, the polymorphous perverse quality of the Cambodian culture or what. But the Cambodians, at least this one, didn't seem to have any concept of “punch line.” The whole joke seemed to be funny to him, and he'd laugh at every line.

Anyway, it was John's turn and he said, “There was this elephant . . .”

“Hhha-ha-ha,” the Cambodian is already laughing.

“... and a mouse. And the mouse was in love with the elephant. And there was a monkey up in a tree throwing down coconuts, screaming monkey invectives. The elephant was a gal and the mouse was a guy, and the mouse was trying to mount the elephant. It was erotic love. And the mouse would take these little running jumps and bounce off the back of the elephant. At last, the mouse took a long run and made it up and just as it mounted the elephant, the monkey hit the elephant on the head with a coconut and the elephant fell to its knees, totally stunned. And the mouse cried out, ‘Yeah! Suffer, bitch!' ”

So I turned to the Cambodian and asked, “Which joke did you like?”

“Malkovich! The Malkovich joke!”

“All right, tell it back, 'cause I want to hear if you got the punch line.”

“There was an elephant. Ahh-hah-hah. And a mouse, and the mouse was in love with the elephant. Eh-heh. And there was a monkey up in the tree. And the monkey yells down, ‘HEY ELEPHANT! YOU MAKE GOOD LOVE!' ”

 

 

So I was feeling a little on edge. It was my last night there and Mary, the nurse from Saudi Arabia via Dublin, was next to me and she was driving me nuts. She kept calling me “Baldwin”—“Baldwin” this, “Baldwin” that. I kept correcting her and she'd say, “Baldwin, you would not
believe
—you think the Saudis are stupid?
Oh, my God man, the Pakistanis are even worse. I tell you, I was a nurse there and I had to get a urine sample from this Pakistani bloke. I gave him a little jar and he went behind a curtain and an emergency came up and I forgot about him. Two hours later he came out and handed me the bottle and it had a half-inch of sperm in it. And he said, ‘That's all I could get in two hours.' ”

Back at the hotel I fell asleep and I dreamt that I was taking care of some pet fish and I put them in the oven with some wild fish and forgot all about them, and then I thought, oh, my God, they're burning up. And I went and opened the oven and the fish were looking back at me with these intelligent, human eyes. And one of them turned into John Malkovich, who seemed completely indifferent to being saved.

 

 

The next day was my last, and I felt as if I were going to the gallows. I wanted to say goodbye like a man, and if I couldn't be one, I was going to imitate one. I had seen enough of them, been on the film, watched how everyone behaved. And I went around to each person and acted as though I'd made up my mind.

“Goodbye, mate.”

“Yep, take it easy. I'll work with you again. You look out for those whores, now.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Hey, big guy. It's been good workin' with you.”

“Goodbye.”

“Yeah.”

“It's a beautiful film.”

“Yeah, I really believe in it.”

“Right, bye.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, guys, it doesn't get much better than this.”

And when I got to Athol Fugard, he turned to me and said, “So, Spalding. You're leaving Paradise?”

“Athol (oh!) Athol (I!) uh, Athol (uh!), I—I was thinking that maybe I should (oh!) eh, uh, wait a minute, Athol, you really think I, uh . . .”

“Return to Renée. She's a lovely lady. Go back, Spalding! Take what you've learned here and go back. It's all the same, you know.”

I wanted to believe him.

 

 

And Tom and I got on the plane back to Bangkok. As soon as we arrived, Tom went right to the Vietnamese embassy and I went right to John Malkovich's tailor over on Silom Road and said, “You know that suit that John Malkovich had made here? The one that looked sort of sloppy and sort of neat all at once? The one that looked something like a cross between a suit and a parachute?”

“Oh, yes. He designed it himself.”

“Make me one just like it.”

“Surely Mr. Gray can afford two suits at such a price.”

“All right, two—one brown and one gray—and three of the shirts, the Malkovich shirts. The ones he had copied from that Paris design.”

I went back to the hotel, where Tom told me that we might have to wait three or four more days before we could get into Vietnam.

I said, “Well, what do you think?”

“No. I have to get back to Sis.”

Tom's girlfriend's name was Sis and they had rented a house with some other people in Bridgehampton, Long Island for the summer. I realized then that I was riding on his Love/Libido Carpet. It was no longer the Magic Will Carpet. And I said, “Tom, couldn't you go with me tonight to Pat Pong and at least work out the sexual part of it? You know, we'll pick up some Thai gals and let off some of the pressure from the old pressure cooker?”

“No. I've got to get back. I went to those whores during the war and got gonorrhea twice. I'm not interested.”

“Well, would you come down with me then so I can say goodbye to Joy?” Joy was my Pat Pong girlfriend.

Going down to the Captain's Table where Joy worked seemed like a kind of strange homecoming. Her whole face lit up when she saw me and she really seemed happy. We did what we'd always done the three or four times I'd visited her before. We sat in a corner of the bar and I put my arm around her and we watched the other girls dance until closing time. There was nothing to say. She didn't speak English and I didn't speak Thai. She sat there almost naked in her two-piece bathing suit. I had no idea how old she was. Maybe nineteen.