A Graveyard for Lunatics

?Clarence!? I called. And waited. ?I know you?re in there!?

Again, I thought I heard his pulse racing.

?Call me, dammit!? I cried, at last, ?before it?s too late! You know who this is. The studio, dammit! Clarence, if I can find you, they can, too!?

They? Who did I mean by ?they??

I pounded the door with both fists. One of the glass panes cracked.

?Clarence! Your portfolio! It was at the Brown Derby!?

That did it. I stopped pounding for I heard a sound that might have been a bleat or a muffled cry. The lock rattled. Another lock rattled after that, and a third.

At last the door cracked open, held by an inside brass chain.

Clarence?s haunted face looked down a long tunnel of years at me, close by but so far away I almost thought his voice echoed. ?Where?? he pleaded. ?Where??

?The Brown Derby,? I said, ashamed. ?And someone stole it.?

?Stole?? Tears burst from his eyes. ?My portfolio!? Oh God,? he mourned. ?You?ve done this to me.?

?No, no, listen??

?If they try to break in, I?ll kill myself. They can?t have them!?

And he glanced tearfully over his shoulder at all the files I could see crowded beyond, and the bookcases, and the walls full of signed portraits.

My Beasts, Roy had said at his own funeral, my lovelies, my dears.

My beauties, Clarence was saying, my soul, my life!

?I don?t want to die,? mourned Clarence, and shut the door.

?Clarence!? I tried a last time. ?Who?s they? If I knew, I might save you! Clarence!?

A shade banged up across the court.

A door half opened in another bungalow.

All I could say then, exhausted, was, in a half whisper: ?Goodbye??

I went back to the roadster. Constance was sitting there looking at the Hollywood Hills, trying to enjoy the weather.

?What was that all about?? she said.

?One nut, Clarence. Another one, Roy.? I slumped into the seat beside her. ?Okay, take me to the nut factory.?

Constance gunned us to the studio gate.

?God,? gasped Constance, staring up, ?I hate hospitals.?

?Hospitals?!?

?Those rooms are full of undiagnosed cases. A thousand babies have been conceived, or born, in that joint. It?s a snug home where the bloodless get transfusions of greed. That coat of arms above the gate? A lion rampant with a broken back. Next: a blind goat with no balls. Then: Solomon chopping a live baby in half. Welcome to Green Glades mortuary!?

Which sent a stream of icewater down my neck.

My pass motored us through the front gate. No confetti. No brass bands.

?You should have told that cop who you were!?

?You see his face? Born the day I fled the studio for my nunnery. Say ?Rattigan? and the sound track dies. Look!?

She pointed at the film vaults as we swerved by. ?My tomb! Twenty cans in one crypt! Films that died in Pasadena, shipped back with tags on their toes. So!?

We braked in the middle of Green Town, Illinois.

I jumped up the front steps and put out my hand. ?My grandparents? place. Welcome!?

Constance let me pull her up the steps to sit in the porch swing, feeling the motion.

?My God,? she breathed, ?I haven?t ridden one of these in years! You son of a bitch,? she whispered, ?what are you doing to the old lady??

?Heck. I didn?t know crocodiles cried.?

She looked at me steadily. ?You?re a real case. You believe all this crap you write? Mars in 2001. Illinois in ?28??

?Yep.?

?Christ. How lucky to be inside your skin, so goddamned naive. Don?t ever change.? Constance gripped my hand. ?We stupid damn doomsayers, cynics, monsters laugh, but we need you. Otherwise, Merlin dies, or a carpenter fixing the Round Table saws it crooked, or the guy who oils the armor substitutes cat pee. Live forever. Promise??