Sacred Monster

Flashback 15A

The concept of the living room in the Malibu house was casual living with plenty of room to entertain friends. In an open central fireplace built on a platform of white brick, a cozy fire crackled. Comfortable furniture of canvas and wood, easily maintained and quite weatherproof, stood back out of the way so that the forty people at the party could flow around the fireplace and in and out of the broad doorways leading to the sunstruck deck. A good third of the partygoers wore famous names and famous faces, and most of the rest were their associates: wives, agents, boyfriends, attorneys. Uniformed staff passed discreetly through the crowd with canapés and drinks.

To one side of it all stood Jack, viewing the scene with sweaty pride. He watched his mom, in the same print dress and gray cardigan as before, move around the room, buttonholing people, clutching their elbows, showing them photograph after photograph, her victims all being distracted but polite. He watched his dad, in a far corner, seated with his back to the crowd, watching “Bowling for Dollars” on a large, elaborate console TV. He watched Buddy perched on the back of a sofa, drink in hand, easy and aggressive smile on face, chatting up a pretty girl in a summer dress.

Dad leaned forward and unceremoniously shoved at the hip of a male partygoer who had drifted backward partway between Dad and the TV set. The partygoer looked around in surprise, saw what he’d done, apologized, and moved away.

Mom, her hands full of snapshots, pursued a distinguished older gentleman — the only man there in a suit — out onto the deck under the sun.

Buddy rose from the sofa, took the pretty girl by the elbow, and walked her over to Dad and the TV set. “Dad Pine,” he said, “I’d like you to meet—”

With a warning cough, not really a groan or a snarl, Dad said, “Bud-dy.”

“Dad Pine,” Buddy said easily, unintimidated, “that’s the commercial. Come on, I want you to meet a very nice girl. Annie, this is Jack’s father.”

“Hi,” said the pretty girl to the back of Dad’s head.

Dad swiveled around, still irritable, and looked past Buddy at the pretty girl. He reacted with surprise, and then with pleasure, and popped to his feet. Smiling at the pretty girl, he reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a full set of false teeth. Still smiling at the pretty girl, he inserted these teeth into his mouth, wiped his right hand on his pants to dry it somewhat, and extended it toward her, now flashing a smile full of gleaming teeth. “Nice to know you,” he said.

Glazed, the pretty girl said, “You, too.” Reluctantly, she shook Dad’s hand.

The sun is in my eyes. The sun is in my eyes. How can I see with the sun in my eyes?

“I don’t know,” I say, to that gray vagueness where my interviewer was wont to reside. “I don’t know, I just don’t know. Maybe Mom and Dad and me, maybe the truth is we’d all grown apart just a little bit. Just a little too far apart, somehow.”