The Chrysanthemum Palace

~ ~ ~

THE FIRST THING I SAW upon sitting down (Thad skittered to the bathroom after letting me in, just as Clea had the night before) was a “personalized” form letter on the coffee table:

HOW TO PREEMPT THE IRS “9/11”—AND WIN!

Hi Thad,

I’m Leonard Mednick. Even with their $3,856,978 tax lien, Thad, the IRS still remains equipped to vilify… shame… and crash planes into your income and hard-earned nest egg—but they won’t succeed when you learn how to PREEMPT THE IRS’ LEGAL “9/11”!

I’ll wager if you’re like thousands of other taxpayers I’ve helped “liberate” in my 28-year taxpayer advocacy career, you will be more than curious to know the impact that lien will have on you. I’d also bet your bottom dollar (the IRS will want that too!) you’d like to learn the location of whatever “sleeper cells” the IRS has in your city limits and how to respond effectively. Let’s start with a little analysis. Ready, Thad? Then get on the couch!

THE IRS LIEN OPERATIVE

Your tax lien is a key IRS “Sleeper Operative.” While I consider the lien the mildest of these terrorists, it’s still a major PAIN IN THE BUTT! It ruins your credit rating and the IRS winds up with a security interest in what you currently own, as well as in any future assets you may come by. It is as if you and your loved ones have been annexed by a country that does not share your beliefs.

Worst of all, this lien applies to your home, car, collectibles and any other asset where you’ve built up equity. Eventually, when you sell or transfer assets, the IRS “sleepers” grab the proceeds or the property! In most cases, even despite bankruptcy, the IRS can and will keep your lien on the books indefinitely! You may as well be told to wear a “burka,” Thad! Worse, your tax woe’s become public. It is as if “bearded” IRS “Qaeda operatives” spray-paint your home, telling the world they know who you are—and they don’t like your “beliefs” or your “freedom”! “Thad Hasn’t Paid the Tax — Let’s Give Him a Dose of Fiscal Anthrax!!”…

OTHER LEGAL TERRORIST TOOLS

If the lien isn’t enough to make you “pull out your troops,” the IRS then resorts to BEHEADING you through intimidation and confiscation. They achieve these goals with the Administrative Summons and either the Levy, the Seizure or both.

The Administrative Summons is a “fatwa” signed by an officer of the IRS “sleeper cell” forcing you to turn over embarrassing information exposing income and asset details. Defy the Administrative Summons and you can go to jail! Leonard Mednick is here to tell you, THAD, you will find yourself in your very own personal Abu Ghraib Prison, with close to all the “hoods,” “unmuzzled dogs,” and “genital humiliation” of the real thing….

He entered the hallway impeccably groomed, but as he came closer I noticed the familiar residue of makeup at his collar. He had only one major scene left: the showdown at the Fellcrum Outback in which the ensign mortally wounds his evil twin. The choreography was complex but Thad said he was looking forward to fighting — and defeating — his own princely self.

“Everyone’s fantasy, isn’t it?” he said jauntily.

I told him I wasn’t sure.

I had the feeling Thad knew why I’d come. There was a formality about him, not only in dress but in manner. He seemed completely sober and suggested we take a drive. I thought it a good idea, as long as I was behind the wheel. The airless suite felt messy and close — like an impoverished theater hosting a mediocre drama at the end of its run.

He asked after Clea as we pulled out of the garage. I told him I saw her the night before and she hadn’t been well. He said, with indifference, that he knew she’d “taken a tumble”—meaning figuratively and literally. We small-talked while he stared at traffic. I asked how the “pitch” was going, devilishly suppressing a laugh at the image of him masturbating in the sanctum sanctorum of HBO. Apathetically, he said there seemed to be “interest.” The man’s hauteur was beginning to grate. Then, for the first time, he spoke of Miriam. She was “quite fond” of me and he wondered if those feelings were “reciprocated.” I felt like we were in an old movie — his prim, folksy inquiry begged serious response. It was funny how he’d turned the tables; suddenly, he was Robert Young. Adopting his own aloofness, I said I wasn’t sure where the relationship was going. He sagely replied that sometimes it was best not to have a destination. He knew she wanted to have kids and asked if I too had those “aspirations.” I told him I might though not at this time. In life and career. And what have you. He said he understood — that he more than understood. I kept my mouth shut. Rightly or wrongly, I assumed Clea had refrained from telling him she was in the family way. But maybe she’d lied to me — or maybe it was true and Thad already knew, and was putting me on as well. He said that having children for the wrong reason was the worst thing people could do. He said he knew that from “experience.” Miriam and I had a wonderful time together. Wasn’t that all that really mattered? Now he was James Mason.

We went to Musso’s for a drink. At the end of the hour, he got the idea to go up to the Observatory. I told him the place was closed for renovations but Thad insisted. (He’d never been.) It was a while since I’d visited and it took a moment to retrace the familiar route in my head: Franklin to Los Feliz, Los Feliz to Griffith Park. There was just no way I was going to consult the car’s GPS.

On the way, I told him I’d finished reading The Soft Sea Horse.

“I was talking to Miriam — about how much I enjoyed it. And one of the things that interested me… do you mind talking about this?”

“Not at all.”

“I was intrigued when she said that you were actually there—in Capri — when your brother passed on. And I–I wondered why you wrote about it… ‘differently.’ Because the book seemed so fearlessly honest. Fearsome. I just wondered why you chose to distance yourself. Why you left the character of that boy behind, in the States.”

The question came from nowhere — instead of confronting him about having struck Clea, my subconscious played out its hand.

“They thought I killed my brother. Did Miriam tell you that? Strange! He loved to swim — to hold his breath. Years later I heard something that put me at ease, in a funny kind of way. A kid drowned in Hawaii, the son of a friend. He was sixteen years old, a surfer. Wanted to be a free diver — that’s what they call it. Guys who take a big breath then go deep as they can. In the ocean. Ride down on a cable, four or five hundred feet. There was a film someone made about it—Le grand bleu—‘The Big Blue.’ French. Never saw it. The way you train is by holding your breath in a swimming pool. They compete by using eighty-pound weights. They take a breath and these weights pull them down; a balloon brings ’em up. You’re never supposed to train alone cause apparently it’s very seductive to hold your breath for such a long time. You can black out, even in shallow water. They say you just want to let go. And this kid, the sixteen-year-old, he’d sent an e-mail or something to a friend only a week before saying how euphoric it was to be under, feeling himself drift away. That’s why you’re supposed to train in pairs. The ol’ Buddy System. And I think maybe that’s what happened to Jeremy. He was always so proud of how long he could hold his breath — shit, I could go maybe thirty seconds but Jeremy was an athlete! That day… I saw him go down… then disappear under the boat. They were in the middle of shooting: I remember hearing the director, the voices of the actors during the scene. They were very strict about noise during whatever shot they were getting. I didn’t want to call out. I didn’t want to interrupt because I thought they’d get mad — Jack would get mad. It was the big scene between Alain Delon and Sophia Loren. Le grand bleu-job! I wasn’t sure anything bad was happening down there, anyway. With Jeremy. So I swam to the other side of the boat. Didn’t see him, couldn’t find him. The engine was off (they were shooting) so I wasn’t worried about him getting caught in the rudder. I thought he’d gone back around but it turned out he got stuck beneath the hull. His suit got caught on something, whatever, he took in water. That’s what the geniuses later said. The CSI aquatic unit — hey, that’s not a bad idea! CSI: Marine. Le grand autopsy. I couldn’t see too well, I was looking under there, completely myopic. The water stung my eyes if I opened them. Jeremy used to tease me because I needed goggles even when we were in the hotel pool. Anyway, they found bruises and thought — good old Dad suggested, that’s why they thought! — that I hit him. Do you know what that was like? To be accused? The police talked to me, les gendarmes, it wasn’t exactly an interrogation. I can’t even remember what the fuck it was. You know, I still can’t watch The Bad Seed. When she drowns the kid who won the spelling bee? So she can have his medal?”

We drove in silence. A few minutes from our destination, he announced that Miriam had nearly closed the “Prodigal” novelization deal. The money wasn’t much but the psychological boost came just in time: he wound up at L’Orangerie with Morgana who, adding perennial insult to injury, had extended her stay to take photos of Paul Auster while he passed through on a paperback tour. Auster was one of her son’s pet peeves and she knew it. In retaliation, Thad said he was working on a “sweet little play” that would filet the Michelet dynasty in all its pornographic sound and fury. He acted out a barbaric monologue at the table, loud enough that surrounding patrons were captivated. Morgana, predictably appalled, stormed out. Thad received a letter the next day by messenger, warning that if he dared embark on such a venture, he would be excised from the estate — which he took as an idle threat, knowing in his heart of hearts this had already been done. As perverse parenthetical, he said he’d come to dinner with the sole purpose of soliciting her financial help in the matter of the lien. His hunch being, she might have agreed to help if he finally conceded to burial alongside Jeremy in the family plot, a desire which seemed to grow stronger in the old woman each year for reasons destined to remain cryptic, though the irony (happy family in death, if not in life) was not lost. As usual, things had conspired to undo him — so there he stood in the middle of that august salle à manger in crapulous soliloquy, shirt spattered in red wine — shallot reduction.

When he proclaimed that the estrangement, now official and irrevocable, was probably for the best, I half believed him. He had the natural-born talent to make one embrace hard endings, and fresh starts as well. Thad was positively giddy about the prospect of entering the Times bestseller list, thus foiling a grim practical joke orchestrated from the underworld. Besides, he still felt he could deliver something keenly poetic tucked within a Trojan horse. He said that “quality lit” and sci-fi had tango’d before: Margaret Atwood had done it — or was it Margaret Drabble? Doris Lessing too… He did have one small fear: that, of legal necessity, he’d be forced to share story credit with Starwatch staffers, i.e., while the novelization itself would have sole “written by” credit (Thad Michelet), it would include a “based on a teleplay by” credit (the geeks who wrote “Prodigal Son [Episode 21-417A]”) as well. He wasn’t sure if this was something that might potentially interfere with the parameters of the codicil; Miriam’s lawyer was looking into it. Thad strategized he’d tell the writers what he was up to — in the worst case (in exchange for an agreement to remove “the teleplay possessory”), he’d cut deals paying out a small share of the $10 million, far more than the “schmucks with PowerBooks” were due for their standard share of novelization rights. Miriam said she wasn’t sure how the guild would feel about it; bit of a gray area. (I could see Thad’s paranoid Time Machine/Small Claims wheel whirring.) All, he added, would naturally be moot if the book didn’t sell.

We reached the top of the hill and parked beside the ragged cyclone fence that surrounded ongoing construction. We wandered awhile, navigating an obstacle course of building debris and rubbish left behind by tourists, until we came into a depopulated zone with a grand view of the sky. It was jet black and remarkably clear. I watched Thad crane his neck to look at the stars, feeling a rush of sympathy and affection for the man. He had shown me a tender, stunt-free side of his soul; I was surprised and grateful, apart from feeling insecure that I had nothing comparable to give in return. I actually felt bad for having planned to corner him about Clea. I was suddenly certain of his innocence, and grateful the two had found each other.

“You know, when I first heard that human bodies were made from stardust, I thought it was a shuck. A Hallmark greeting card thing. But it’s true—we’re all dead stars.” He had that wonderful, gnomish smile on his face. Black Jack was his Goliath; he’d slain him and lived to tell the tale. I felt proud. He took off his jacket, laid it on the ground, then sat. “They say that when our sun dies, it won’t be anything spectacular. It’s a middling star. That’s the word astronomists use, ‘middling’—tough crowd, those astronomists! And when an ordinary star dies — they call them ordinary! That’s the official designation! I’m telling you, they’re tough sons of bitches — well, they say ordinary stars end up as inconspicuous white dwarves. But the killers, the real shock-and-awe five-alarm cocksuckers, when they die, they leave black holes… take everything with ’em, even the light. Even the light.” He paused, marveling at the unfathomable implication of his own words. “Jesus. I’m in high Observatory mode, huh. I should work here — someone give me a job!”

As if softly unspooling more secrets, he began to quote his beloved Leopardi, but the words seemed such his own, so exclusive to the timeless moment on that slope beneath celestial seas, syllables engrained as stardust into his bones, that he became the prodigal son, exiled Vorbalidian prince come home to roost in phantom pain and stellar tomb, middling and majestic, murderous and mundane, in blinding darkness and vacuumed, vanished light — boyish, transgressive and humble, so that I felt the vibratory strands of existence cocoon around us, in the great transparent cathedral of our shabbily awesome, gloriously stillborn life.

“I have always loved this lonesome hill,” he said. “And this hedge that hides the entire horizon, almost, from sight. But sitting here in a daydream, I picture the boundless spaces away out there, silences deeper than human silence, an unfathomable hush in which my heart is hardly a beat from fear. And hearing the wind rush rustling through these bushes, I pit its speech against infinite silence — and a notion of eternity floats to mind, and the dead seasons—e le morte stagioni—and the season beating here and now, and the sound of it. So, in this immensity my thoughts all drown. And it’s soothing to be wrecked in seas like these.”