The Chrysanthemum Palace

~ ~ ~

HIS ENTHUSIASM WAS CONTAGIOUS.

If we threw enough at the ceiling, something was bound to stick — for somebody. Besides, I could always use a creative kick in the ass.

I forced myself to work on Holmby Hills. Clea finished a précis for her children of celebs sitcom. Thad immersed himself in the one-man show, which, seen through the lens of my own collegiate dabbling in avant-garde, already looked like some sort of outrageous classic-in-the-making.

There were lots of irons in the fire. In addition to Miriam’s misguided efforts on Thad’s behalf to novelize “Prodigal Son” (she was actually making headway), Mordecai Klotcher was drawing up an option on The Soft Sea Horse. As if that weren’t enough, Nick Sultan was in hot pursuit of making a deal for the actor-author to adapt his father’s novel to screenplay form. I kept forgetting to ask Dad — perennial holder of the Chrysanthemum rights — if Nick was really attached or if he’d ever broached the idea of Junior’s involvement, as claimed. (I guess part of me didn’t want to know.) It was all pretty incestuous — not that it hadn’t been from the beginning.

On a typical day, Mr. Michelet catnapped in a lawn chair in front of his trailer while Clea and I took over the bedroom, ostensibly to work on one of a thousand or so projects. The truth was, I had begun a leisurely read of the out-of-print Soft Sea Horse—ordered online just after the funeral, it had finally come — while Clea obsessed over Playboy. The current issue contained a witty photo essay by David LaChapelle featuring an old friend of hers, also the daughter of an icon of silverscreen, albeit one still living. Hefner’s people had a long-standing, lucrative offer on the table and with each new issue Clea contemplated blowing out the candles of her birthday suit afresh, before there were too many.

We were thus engrossed when inquiring voices disturbed our peace.

“Thad? Is that him?”

“Of course, it’s him. They said it’s his trailer.”

The first again, louder: “Thad!”

We rushed forward and there they were, figures in a scary dream: Morgana Michelet and Mordie K, at the foot of the trailer’s entry, cautiously ogling the cubistic Morloch as fussy merchants might observe a transient dozing in the vestibule of their shop. Her eyes lit upon us as we appeared at the door; smiling awkwardly in our futurama getup, we felt the full sting of Morgana’s phaser, set eternally on Humiliate. Just then the sleeping Vorbalid stirred from his psychopharmacologically induced haze and, blinking rapidly, sat up with veteran professionality to exclaim — strand of spittle brocading his mouth—“Mother!”

“Freak!” cried Klotcher’s great-nephew, in admiration of Morloch’s impressive deformities. “That is so cool.”

Clea stepped between Thad and the boy, as buffer.

Morgana gaped at the ambassador, not yet recognizing the girl underneath. Finally, the old woman eked out “Clea?”—like a dowager discovering that a new society friend was a sales assistant at Walgreen’s instead.

“Hi,” I offered, lamely bright, extending a mitt in the direction of Mordy/Morgana. With no takers, the hand retracted. In its place, I tendered a pathetic reminder—“I’m Bertie Krohn. My father created the show”—that we’d met on the Vineyard, blah. The M & Ms’ mouths widened but still said nothing; I suppose they were in shock though I wasn’t quite sure why. Standing in uniform, I felt a fresh wave of foolishness, as if me and my compatriots had been caught playing dress up. Or strip poker.

“Vorbalids!” shouted the horrid, gleeful boy.

I flashed on what it would be like to hit him so hard in the chest that he’d belch blood and expire at the moment of impact.

“It is you,” smiled the producer, eyes crinkling like the Tin Man’s. “I was beginning to think we had the wrong galaxy!”

“What are you doing here?” said Thad, now awake enough to be bemused. He addressed Morgana but Klotcher answered instead.

“Didn’t Miriam tell you I was dropping by?”

“That looks shitty,” said the unstarstruck child, scrutinizing hours-old peel at the neck of our latex-grafted prince.

“I didn’t know you were in town,” said Thad to his mother.

“I’m taking portraits,” she finally answered. “For my book.”

“You’re kidding,” he said. (Curdled smile.)

“I’ve only been here a few days — at the Peninsula. Mordecai rang up and said he was coming to see you. I hope you don’t mind me crashing the party! I thought we could all have dinner tonight at L’Orangerie.”

“How long does the makeup take to put on?” asked the boy, running thin, dirty fingers over the polyester hem of Thad’s royal tunic.

Clea swatted his hand away; he silently mouthed Fuck You.

“You knew I was out here,” said Thad. “I thought you’d have called.”

“I didn’t know how to reach you!” said Morgana. She talked too loud.

“How long does the makeup take to put on,” the punk testily implored, giving the fabric a yank.

Thad obliviously shoved him, hard enough to put an end to the entreaties. Morgana looked as if she might reprimand her son but begged off when she saw no real harm had been done.

“What do you mean, you didn’t know how to reach me?”

His sneer reconfigured itself into a kind of fluorescent incredulity.

“You didn’t tell anyone where you were staying,” said Morgana.

“I always stay at the Chateau. You know that. And Miriam knows—”

“Well, I don’t know how to reach Miriam. How would I? And believe it or not, your lodgings are not as legendarily known as you might think. But here I am, so what difference can it possibly make?”

“I didn’t mean to intrude while you’re working,” said Klotcher conciliatorily, mindful of the tension between the two. “I thought Miriam gave a heads-up. She must have told someone, or there wouldn’t have been a drive-on.”

I eased my way back to the bedroom while Clea protectively remained. I had planned to leave but, after retrieving my things, hung back to listen.

“I’ve been taking your mother around with my realtor.”

“Oh?”

“We looked at a fabulous horse ranch in the Malibu Hills,” said Klotcher. “Twenty-two acres.”

“Lovely but not for me,” said Morgana.

“I think it was once owned by Bo Derek.”

“You’re moving here?” said Thad, further dismayed.

“Not on your life,” said Morgana. “It’s a nice way to see the city, though — it is such a luxury to look at property knowing you have absolutely no intention to buy!”

“I want to meet Cabott 7,” said the boy.

“I’m sure the feeling’s mutual,” said Thad. “But I’m afraid the court has ruled against the android having contact with minors. Stipulation of parole.”

“What’s parole?” asked the child, faintly flummoxed.

Klotcher guffawed while Clea nattered about how nice supper at L’Orangerie would be. The little shit harped on What’s parole until Morgana set him straight.

“My son has a warped sense of humor and should not, as a rule, be taken seriously.”

“Are you going to be a regular?” asked the boy.

“No,” said Clea, protectively. “He’s guest-starring.”

“You should be in another Jetsons,” he said, like a pint-sized agent.

“Aren’t you meant to do something in La Jolla?” asked Morgana. “A play?”

“Postponed,” said Thad — prevaricating, as they say. Suddenly he grimaced, as if discerning great hooves of headache kicking up dust in the distance.

“Can I see the ship?” asked the boy.

“He wants to see the ship,” said Klotcher.

“Go for it,” said Thad. “Anyone hassles you, say you’re my guest.”

“I want to meet Cabott 7.”

“I told you. He’s not allowed around minors.”

“Thad!” admonished Morgana.

“But why? Why isn’t he?” pleaded the boy.

“I said. Major Cabott’s not allowed around minors because he’s a pedophile. In fact, that’s what we call him on the bridge — Major Pedophile!”

“What’s a pedophile?”

“Those are androids with very special powers. Android priests — machine-men of the cloth! Now go bother someone else.”

Klotcher laughed and Morgana clucked in disapproval as the child dashed out.

“I’d like us to have lunch on Saturday,” said the producer. “Can we go to the Ivy on Saturday? I read your book… and so did Mikkel Skarsgaard. Do you know his work? He’s very intrigued. Miriam didn’t tell you about this?” The boy shrieked for his great-uncle, making a general ruckus. Klotcher left to find him, with a parting shot to Thad: “See you on the bridge!”

“Who the fuck is Mikkel Skarsgaard,” asked Thad of Clea.

“A famous Danish DP. It’s good.”

“What’s good?”

“It’s good that he read it.”

“Why is that good?” he said, annoyed.

“Because he’s really hot.”

“Oh goodie, he’s hot. He’s hot hot hot!”

“And he wants to direct.”

No one said anything. I was about to come out. I assumed his mother had wandered off with Klotcher. I hesitated. More silence, then Clea entered the bedroom without warning. We heard Morgana return to the trailer — and gave each other a look. The fact we’d have to pass by them in order to exit had a paralyzing (and alluringly voyeuristic) effect. We intuitively sensed a primordial mother-son spectacle looming.

“Awfully small, this trailer, isn’t it?”

“It’s television, Mom.”

“I would think they’d at least have found you something bigger. Don’t the agents tend to all that? Miriam — is she as effective as she could be?”

“Miriam’s not my agent, Mom.”

“She isn’t?” said Morgana, baffled.

“She’s my agent for books.”

“Then she is your agent.”

“Not for TV or movies. Just books.”

“Well, maybe you’d do better to go elsewhere.”

He let that one go.

“You haven’t done any films lately, have you, Thad.”

“I don’t know, Ma. Have you seen me in any?”

She let that one go.

“Are you really out here taking pictures?” he asked suspiciously.

“There were a few legal things I had to attend to connected to the estate. As it turned out, your father owned a condo in Century City. Another little secret,” she said ironically.

Since his mother had opened the probate door, he decided to step in.

“There’s some stuff I wanted to talk to you about. I was going to wait, but — I wanted to ask… if Dad made any provisions.”

“That’s what I’m telling you. The lawyers are going to be calling.”

“Calling?”

“That’s what I said. You’ll have to ask the lawyers.”

“Because I could use some help! The IRS thing, the ‘offer and compromise,’ or whatever — the thing my accountant was working on didn’t come through.”

“You told me that — at the funeral.”

“I thought I’d be paying pennies on the dollar. That’s how he represented it—”

“You told me, at the Vineyard.”

“—but it just didn’t happen. I might sue the idiot for malpractice.”

“You can’t sue the world, Thaddeus.”

“He never should have repre — you start having these expectations. Anyway, I made a deal, with the government. My accountant made a deal, but it’s usury. It’s like thirty eight thousand a month, for five years. I may as well have borrowed from the Mob.”

“You should have thought about that when you didn’t pay taxes.”

He let that one go too. “So what do the lawyers want? Why are they calling me?”

“About Jack’s will.”

Clea and I gave each other a look again.

“So, who you taking pictures of?” he asked, forcedly casual.

We were actually now spying on them through a crack in the door; a bit insane. Morgana gave her son a blank look. She knew exactly what he wanted from her, but sometimes did the vacant-look routine, just to make him “work.”

“For your book.”

“Oh, I’ve forgotten their names,” she said, bullshitting. “Someone… wait a moment. He wrote A Staggering Work of Genius.”

“Dave Eggers?”

“Yes. Oh — and another: David Wallace Foster? Or maybe it’s David Foster Wallace.”

“Foster Wallace,” said Thad, quizzically. “He was at the funeral. I didn’t talk to him. Why was he at the fucking funeral?”

“Pretty soon,” she said, ignoring his ire, “your mother’s going to have to walk around with Post-its glued to her forehead.”

“Where are you going to shoot them?” he asked, like an undercover Fed consorting with an assassin.

“Wallace Foster or Foster Wallace teaches nearby. Relatively. Someplace called Pomona. A lot of these colleges pay, Thad. Irvine too. Big, big budgets. They’re going to drive me. Evidently they give him millions to teach. You know, he was a great fan of Jack’s — they used to chat on the phone at indecent hours. Alice Sebold teaches there too. Her husband’s quite well known, as well. A novelist. They’re both bestsellers. I’m going to do both of them, then fly to San Francisco for Eggers and Michael Something.”

“Chabon?”

“Yes. He won the Pulitzer. And I believe he makes quite a living writing screenplays.”

“Jesus,” Thad muttered. “Mr. Spider-Man 2!”

Long, chafing pause.

“Why don’t you do me?” he asked.

“What?”

I could see her face contort, as if he’d said something in a rough, dead language.

“Can’t you take my picture?”

“Well, of course I could,” she said emptily.

He snickered before saying, “Then why don’t you?”

“I doubt the publisher would allow. These things aren’t my choice, you know.”

“Why not? You’re taking the pictures, aren’t you?”

“They give me a list—”

“It’s your fucking book, isn’t it?”

“Let’s not get overblown, Thaddeus. Yes, it’s my book but it’s their decision. We’ve been doing it like this for years, you know that. Anyway, it’s appearances — how could you be included in the series without cries of nepotism?”

“Of course!” he said, sarcastically. “There would be a public outcry! Not to mention I’m not remotely in the League of Superhero Writers! The great Alice Sebold,” he sputtered. “She’s right up there with Virginia Woolf! Maybe I should go get myself raped then write a slender memoir. Parlay it into a tender little porn novella—with me, the adorably sodomized angel, high in the sky! Throw in a decapitation — decaps are all the rage! Oh, boo hoo hoo! Readers and Book Clubs’ll love it! Yes! If I get myself fucked up the ass and beheaded, with my heart yanked from my chest and eaten by some teenage Liberian warrior — no, wait! Not a Liberian, a librarian. There’s just my head left, upchucking lyrical little monologues… The publishers will line up for the advances!”

She composed herself during his fit.

“The writers on the list are widely read, Thaddeus, in the popular sense—”

“Have you read them, Mother?”

“Of course I haven’t. You know I don’t read.”

“Then how do you know they’re widely read?”

“That’s a nonsensical question. The publishers have that information — BookScan, it’s called. It has nothing to do with my having read them or not.”

“Have you read my books, Mother?”

“Yes,” she said. “I have. Don’t be an ass.”

“You haven’t!” said Thad, smiling imbecilically. “You haven’t read word one.”

“I think I’ve had enough.” She made a move to leave.

“If you have read my work, Mother, I am deeply impressed. Even if it’s only two paragraphs. OK? OK. But tell me: having digested my oeuvres throughout the years, what do you think? What thinkest thou of my lit’ry gifts? What dost thou thinketh. I’m serious, Morgana! Because I never asked. We’ve never really had this conversation, have we? And it’s healthy! Am I up to Alice ‘Rape Me’ Sebold’s standards? Or Professor David Pomona Wall-ass? Do you feel I’m worthy of being included in your vanity project? Forgetting the publishers for a moment. Am I worthy of the pantheon, Mother?”

“What I think isn’t the point,” she said curtly. “I’ve already told you that.”

“You’re dodging the question!” he said, radiantly.

She grunted. He clapped his hands with infernal delight.

“Ha! I’m not worthy, am I — wasn’t that always the bottom line?”

“In your mind, perhaps.”

“In my mind.”

“That’s right.”

“By the way, who reads these books, anyway?”

“I told you, the publisher makes the decision—”

“I mean who reads your books, Mama? How many have you done, seven? Seven books! I suppose people don’t really read them — they just look at the pictures. Like Hustler or Maxim… and all remaindered, just like me! Don’t you see? We share a common bond! In fact, I think you’ve been out of print longer than I have! Why are they even allowing you to publish? How did you manage to get a deal? Did you tie it in with Dad? No shame in that. I want your agent. Are you paying them, Mother? Are you paying for publication and they’re slapping their name on it? That’s OK. I should do the same. I will do the same. Whitman self-published — Emerson too. We’re in a happy league: the League of Superhero Remainders! C’mon, Tammy, tell me true. I understood why they let you take your little snapshots while Father was still alive; it was always under a Harcourt imprint. A bone they were throwing ol’ Black Jack, no? But aren’t you worried, Morgana? Aren’t you worried the cottage industry is gonna fold up its tent? I mean, now that the money train’s a-molderin’ in the grave—”

“I don’t appreciate this! I don’t appreciate any of it,” said Morgana, finally gathering up her things. “You can go fuck yourself, Thaddeus!”

“Mother, wait! You’re misunderstanding. No disrespect! What I’m saying is, if no one’s buying this incredibly contemporary coffee-table anthology of literary portraiture anyway, then no one will even notice if we stuck in a photo of little ol’ winemaker me.”

“It’d be self-aggrandizing,” said Morgana. She was trembling, and nearly at the end of her tether. “That’s how it would appear.”

“Who cares how it appears?”

“All right, Thaddeus,” she said, at breakpoint. “I’ll take your picture! Grab a Polaroid from a makeup gal — let’s do it! Right now! We’ll just ‘slip’ it into the book like you said and no one will ever notice!”

“Great! Perfect!” She’d called his bluff and Thad was suddenly tamed. But he needed some serious de-Vorbalizing. “Just let me find one of the girls to take this shit off my face… we can do it in front of the blue screen — and digitally insert Yaddo later on! You’d be surprised at what Photoshop can do,” he said, excitedly rubbing his hands together. “I’m telling you, your editor’s asleep at the wheel! I think it’d be great to be on a page between Franzen and Cunningham — the prick and the fag.”

“Right! You don’t even have to get out of your makeup!” Suddenly, she crumpled, tired of the sport. “I’m going to leave now. Mordecai and I are having lunch.”

“Aren’t you going to take my picture?” he said pathetically.

“I said I would. But some other time.”

“Liar!”

He seized her wrist and she shouted, “Let go of me!” Clea and I rushed in. He’d pinned her to the Naugahyde couch, and Morgana broke free as I went to subdue him.

“Someone get me a Polaroid!” she shouted, a carbonous edge to her voice — as if drawing that special sword reserved for the occasions her husband became dangerous. She shoved Thad away, snatching her purse from the floor. “You — you—crazy man. Go! Stand on the bridge of your rocket and I’ll take a picture! I’ll take a thousand pictures of you in that… Halloween costume! Of you and all your little fools! Your girlfriend,” she snarled, “the slut who fucks for dope, like her mother did!” (Clea cried out, as if stabbed.) “Go, Mr. Vorbalid, get the Polaroid! I’ll show it to Deepak Ghupta and he’ll say, ‘Who is this?’ And I’ll say, What’s the matter, don’t you recognize him? That’s my son, Thaddeus Michelet, the genius! And Deepak will say, ‘Oh, forgive us! How wonderful. You know, we have to admit we weren’t going to publish you because you’re a widow and a hack and a dried-up cunt but now that you’ve given us the gift of your famous son, forgive us, Morgana! Because everyone knows Thaddeus Michelet — didn’t he win the Pulitzer? Didn’t he win the National Book Award? — every schoolkid knows Thaddeus Michelet! He’s a bestseller, he’s a household saint, they even recognize him when he’s all dressed up like a green man from outer space! Thad Michelet’s a genius, like his father — better than his father! We’ll put him on the cover, Morgana! Why don’t we put him on the cover of your piece of shit book because that way we’ll sell a million! What a coup. Oh thank you oh thank you, fata morgana, dried-up widow-cunt that you are, because now we can publish your amateur-hour book!’ And I’ll get down on my knees and suck Deepak’s cock — I’ll suck everybody’s! — just like Clea would — saved by my genius son, my genius son, my genius son!”

The old woman ran out.