©2012 Dusty Tuba Entertainment, Inc.

ISBN: 9781624880810

ONE

I was only posing for a picture with a thirty year old man wearing a Marty McFly down vest and holding up a model DeLorean because my wife had cancer. She's fine now, thank God, and I'm glad she is, although her gritty survival after five surgeries and a couple of years of chemo and radiation destroyed my opportunity to write and perform a good one man show about it - Those kinds of cable T.V. specials that end with a tiny spotlight and some cello music, not a peppy "But she's fine now!" with a colorful balloon drop, and dancing to the song "Tequila!"

I wasn't dancing to Tequila on the way to the "Chiller Theater" convention in New Jersey, though. Funny thing about unemployment and medical bills that look more like the hospital's phone number, it'll make you do things you swore you'd never do, like going to New Jersey to sign twenty year old photos of yourself for money, and give noogies to a long line of fake Marty McFly's.

"Hello? McFly! Anybody home?!"

No, not really.

After paying close attention to what happens in the life of a low level celebrity in America for a long time now, since, well, I am one, it seems that there are two clear paths that have been worn smooth by the feet of the "sort of" famous that have gone before me. Either path is easy to illustrate with millions of hours of videotape, and dented equipment at morning radio stations, damaged by an angry actor asked about his least favorite episode of his iconic T.V show one too many times.

"I SAID I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!" the former actor says to the sneering "Morning Zoo" radio host.

"Why not, dude? That's why you're here!" the morning D.J. says, adjusting the backwards baseball cap that covers his receding hairline so the new owners of the station keep thinking he's twenty seven.

The rock hard truth then hits the pop cultural icon-ette, the truth that he's known for years. He's not a real person to anyone he meets, he's a half-man, half pixellized cultural ghost to be marginalized, ridiculed, and set aside, for no other reason than having the audacity to be too memorable. Soon after that realization, he snaps hard at the tired radio hack, turning his life into a bitter carnival, looking at the ground to avoid eye contact and recognition. "Ahhhh! I'm more than that!" his hate filled tirades never dare to whisper, as he climbs Mount Self Hatred to plant another flag of defeat at the summit.

Don't approach that guy at the mall, because he's not going to sign your hat or anything.

The other celebrity path leads a different way - smiling a lot in restaurants, asking for the manager and hoping to get recognized for a celebrity discount, and going to Science Fiction Conventions to make a living. Since the first path leads to deep unhappiness, and plenty of instances of the suicides of people I know, that wasn't an option. I wasn't crazy about the second option either, but when circumstances turned from just plain broke to "surgeries at a hospital" kind of broke, which is, as many people know, a different kind of broke, and things were really bad, I began to listen to the voices of show-biz acquaintances who told me, "Dude, you should go to one of those conventions, man."

I rolled my eyes as hard as I could, to impress them with high artistry, and boredom with such lowbrow interests as celebrity and money.

"You'd make a fortune! I hear they make, like, twenty grand a week!"

I made a few more phone calls to other people who didn't know what they were talking about either, and they said "Yeah, bro, they pay your way, and you just sit there! It's like it's raining money, you know!"

"Who do you know that's done this?" I asked.

"Some guy from Deep Space Nine."

"What is that?"

"See? You don't even have to be that famous! Bring a suitcase for all that cash! Heh!"

They don't call them "Science Fiction Conventions" anymore, they call them "Cons," and I agreed to show up at one of the biggest cons in the country, in Northern New Jersey overlooking New York Giants Stadium. "Chiller Theater" is a Con so big and powerful that it has its own gravitational pull, drawing every actor from every television show and movie, from every decade imaginable. Their performances, now sparkling pop pixels shooting into American living rooms for decades have made personal appearance celebrities out of them - I mean - us - and each one marched into the New Jersey Meadowlands Entertainment complex with a smile, a pile of eight by ten glossy photos to sell, and an empty suitcase to carry those crumpled wads of money from adoring fans with good memories.

I woke up early with my toes pointed like a ballerina in the tightly made Holiday Inn bed, and looked out the window across the gravel plains of New Jersey toward the steel spires of Manhattan. I had planned a victorious return to the city, with a big role in a Shakespeare play and several parties for tuxedoed literary giants during the hiatus of my critically acclaimed and fabulously lucrative T.V. show, but ended up in a free hotel room in New Jersey to sign pictures of myself from twenty years ago. Catch the fever.

The elevator doors on my floor reflected a face becoming too familiar to me, an anguished mask, disguised by the upturned edges of my lips that looked something like a smile. Repeated mantras of inner peace and calm bounced in my head, and I shook my face back and forth in the bronze reflection. "Come on, big fella," I said to myself through gritted teeth, "Go down there and be great. Meet the people, sign the picture and get out of town. No problem."

Ding. Going down.

As the metallic doors glided open, the man slumped against the back wall of the elevator didn't move. He didn't look up at me in a wordless "Welcome to the elevator" half smile, didn't do a thing to acknowledge my existence. His eyes never rose from the polished marble floor as I breathed deeply, repeating the positive mantra of the winner celebrity. "I am doing well. This is good. Good stuff. Keep going. Don't stop the elevator and get off and make a phone call to go home. No. That's a mistake. Go to the lobby and start signing pictures of yourself. Yeah."

"Good morning!" I said to the man slumped against the wall.

Nothing. No response. His tousled morning hair glistened in the elevator spotlights, and the only evidence of life I could see was his ability to keep leaning on the wall without falling to the floor.

"I will not surrender this morning, or this day," I thought to myself, channeling something I thought Tony Robbins might say in this situation, and pushing the already lit "L" button a few more times. "I am a winner. Things will be good."

"How's it goin'?" I asked.

"Mmffggghh…" he mumbled, "I'm here, aren't I?"

He looked up at me, and I froze before responding, because I realized I was speaking to Jay North, the actor who played "Dennis The Menace" a very long time ago, when he was a little boy, and when I watched the reruns on a black and white television while my Mom made me a snack.

We were two actors, appearing at a Con and on the elevator, trust me, going down.

"Well," I stammered, "It's a beautiful day outside."

"Aahhh…" he said, shuffling his feet to stay at a forty five degree lean against the wall.

"Meet some people, …say hello," I said.

He moaned and rubbed his face.

"Have you ever done one of these things before?" he asked.

I didn't answer right away, afraid to admit to Dennis The Menace that I was fresh meat.

He stared at me for a few seconds, sad fatigue pulling at the thin flesh around his eyes.

"They ask the same questions over and over."

My Tony Robbins "I'm a winner" celebrity mantras now failing me, I stared at the numbers blinking in descending order for a while.

"Well, I mean, we're the guys who came here, you know? They're just people who want to meet us. We kind of invited them in a way, didn't we?"

He made real eye contact for the first time. "You don't understand, today is Saturday."

I shuffled my feet, and finally mumbled "What about Saturday?"

He pulled himself upright from the wall, reflected into a million bronze facets of despair in the elevator walls.

"On Saturdays, everybody shows up without taking their Thorazine!"

Hey, Dennis The Menace, you're bringing Biff from Back To The Future down, man.

Before I could tell him a dark and self deprecating joke to relax things, before I could share with him one of my winner celebrity mantras, before I could even lay my hands on his troubled forehead and begin praying in tongues, leading him to Christ on quaking knees on the geometric mauve hotel carpeting, I knew he was right. The elevator doors slid open into a vibrating Salvador Dali painting of spinning light sabers and Klingon masks that made the bar scene from Star Wars look like an editorial meeting at the Wall Street Journal.

The teeming mass of Darth Vader wanna-bes and Wonder Women swallowed Jay North whole and I was instantly blinded by flashes, photographs of myself, and waving Magic Markers.

"Biff! BIIFFFF!!"

"Uh, yeah, hi, it's not Biff, really, it's Tom. Biff is pretend," I said, spinning in place and unsure of where to go, which direction to walk, what table to report to, or what to do, signing the photos and worn VHS boxes thrust at me. I peeked over the heads of the costumed mob and saw other famous actors wading through the crowd. They didn't say anything or react to any stimuli, making as little eye contact as possible as they knifed through the teeming mass of nerd humanity. "See you at the table!" they barked to fans, hustling by and staring at their shoes. "Why are they being mean to people?" I thought, as the mob grew thicker. Boy, I think you should at least have the decency to say hello. Then it dawned on me - they were veterans, there for business, and the crowd surrounding me was blocking the hallway. "Okay. Don't give it away, Tom," I thought to myself, "Here in Conland we've come to sell it, and keep the crowd moving."

"See you at the table!" I said to the next few people who shoved a piece of paper into my face, but their disappointed faces made me feel guilty, so I signed anyway. "Don't make too much eye contact, Tom. Then their disappointed face can't sway you."

"See you at the table!" I said.

"Which table? Where?" they asked me through Planet Of The Apes masks.

"I don't know yet!" I said, "I'm trying to find out!"

Then I accidentally made eye contact and had to sign their Marty McFly action figure.

"Mister Wilson! Mister Wilson!" I heard. Someone was using my real name, without carrying a pen, so they couldn't be from the costumed mob. They must know where I was supposed to be.

"Yes! Follow me!" the woman said. Let's call her Dorothy Spangler, since so many pens were waving in my face at the time that I didn't hear her name well, and I never looked at her name tag.

Dorothy led me under the canopies of balloon and spaceship cutouts, through the ballrooms of the Holiday Inn and past a parade of stars selling merchandise, each of whom I was a little thrilled to see and craned my neck a bit as we flew by. Loretta Swit and Jamie Farr were at the MASH table selling Hot Lips Houlihan and Klinger the cross dresser memorabilia. There were former James Bond vixens, women in their fifties or sixties, wearing tight celebrations of cleavage, and one of the smaller ballrooms was filled with lots and lots of actors who'd been murdered in gruesome ways in lots and lots of horror movies, evidenced by the disemboweled photos of themselves they were signing for money.

"Your table is in the Cafe Eighties!" Dorothy said.

"What is the Cafe Eighties?"

"Just a number of tables featuring stars like yourself from that period!"

"Great!" I said, mustering a winner celebrity mantra thingy. "Don't run away. Everything is good."

I walked into a small ballroom near the horror victim superhighway and plopped a duffelbag of photos next to Bernie Koppel, an actor of wide experience and great comedic talent with a wide range of credits from "Get Smart" and "Love American Style" to his most famous role, now known by everybody as "Doc" from "The Love Boat."

Bernie didn't seem very happy to see me. He was very busy shielding his face to prevent being photographed by fans walking past his table. "Twenty dollars!" he said, through a web of outstretched fingers, "Twenty dollars to take my picture!"

"I'm not allowed to just take your picture?" the surprised Love Boat fan asked.

"Twenty," Bernie said, not smiling.

The rebuffed customer looked at me as I settled into the stackable hotel chair and unzipped my duffel.

"How about you, can I take a picture of you?"

"Sure," I said, ending my relationship with Doc from The Love Boat before it began, as the man dumped a "Man From U.N.C.L.E." poster onto Bernie's table to raise his camera, as Bernie sighed deeply and looked across the room toward Lou Ferrigno.

He snapped a photo of me staring blankly back at him, pulling the duffelbag shoulderstrap from around my neck.

"Who are you?" he asked.

Next to former Mister Universe Lou Ferrigno was Burt Young, "Pauly" from the Rocky movies, and on the other side of the room was a quiet man who placed old photographs into tidy, undisturbed piles in front of him. His claim to fame was his role in "The Planet Of The Apes." No, not the movie or any of its many sequels, he was a star of the "Planet Of The Apes" television series.

Yeah, I didn't know they made one either.

I made peace with my circumstances - a marginally recognizable low level celebrity at a sci-fi convention, and peace with my neighborhood - trapped somewhere between the Death Star and The Aloha Deck. I stacked photos and tried to create tempting impulse buys for the unsuspecting Love Boat fans swarming Bernie Koppel, piling Biff photos all the way to the end of the table and Bernie's turf, where he was selling photos of himself as a Doctor (with stethoscope), as a playboy (with Isaac and a Mai-Tai), and even some photos of him in the T.V. show "Get Smart." As I took out my new pens to place between the stacks, Lou Ferrigno was getting into it with Pauly from Rocky about scotch and cigarettes, since Burt Young had decided that the only way to survive the day was with a hotel tumbler full of icy booze, and a lit cigarette under the table, sneaking desperate drags on the butt between sullen nods at people yelling "Yo Pauly!"

Lou Ferrigno is a healthy bodybuilder who can snap your neck like a popsicle stick. The thing is, Lou has significant hearing problems which affect the clarity of his speech, and Burt was deep into one of those bottles of scotch bought in a warehouse store because it has a built in handle.

"Dis is no smoking. No smoking heah," Lou said.

Burt looked the other way, waving away the line of smoke rising from below the tablecloth.

"Please I ask you. I ask you put out da cigarette. No Smoking," Lou said.

"Uh, yeah, I'll…uh…" Burt replied, pretending to move his arms like he was putting it out while refilling his glass with amber amnesia.

Since there wasn't any crowd control problem at my table, I left my stack of pictures on the table near Bernie Koppel and ambled around the room making the rounds and introducing myself to every low to mid-level celebrity in my area. This little lap around Cafe Eighties was met with slight irritation from everyone, and my outstretched hand was limply grasped with a gurgled "heyhowsitgoin?" until I got the picture. We were business rivals at an industry convention! Even if I'm a nice guy, that doesn't matter if somebody decides to buy a Biff photo, harming the chances of a table full of aging hotties called "Girls Of The Evil Dead," each of whom were disemboweled in a different way in one of the Evil Dead movies.

I was a novice, unschooled in the low level celebrity rulebook. Friendly small talk has its place, but don't distract anybody from the chance to put a twenty dollar bill in their pocket. It was a sprawling galaxy of low magnitude stars, using what weak gravitational pull they had…I mean, using what weak gravitational pull WE had to attract twenty dollar bills, and if we were lucky, big stacks of them. Nobody talked to each other much, other than to whisper a bit of horrifying news from table to glossy, photo covered table.

"Did you hear the news?" the man from the Planet of the Apes (T.V.) said.

"No, what's going on?" I said.

"The "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" people are charging fifty dollars for a picture!"

"Fifty?" I said, "Fifty dollars for a picture?!"

"That takes the cash out of their pockets, and it makes it harder for us," he said, giving a worried glance to his empty cash box.

Early on, it looked like things would be tough, because the lesser constellations of stars were losing sales to Buffy and her vampires, sucking cash out of the pockets of the northern New Jersey sci-fi fan base.

Peter Mayhew was there, the very tall man who dressed in a hairy suit to play "Chewbacca" for George Lucas in the movie Star Wars. Peter walked by my table in giant steps, followed by an excited parade of children calling to him, which he completely ignored. He was wearing a threadbare, brown T-shirt reading "Chewbacca Rules!" decorated with the wooly mask of his alter ego, and he moved through the crowd, scowling and oblivious to the kids in tow trying to say hello, or shake his hand.

"Hey Pete, can you hear the kids down here?" I thought about saying, but didn't say it, because he's like seven feet tall and I was sick of getting the brush off from actors who didn't even have lines in the movies they were in, "You're seven feet tall, wearing a "Chewbacca Rules" t-shirt. Say hi to a couple of kids, huh?"

But like I said, I didn't say that exactly. I waited for fleeting eye contact, said "Hello, Peter," extending my hand anyway, and he shook it and said hello, ignoring the pleas of the tiny people far below his gaze.

Thousands of hands shaken, thousands of programs and pictures and foreheads autographed, and thousands of smiles for free pictures with fans, as Bernie Koppel glowered just out of frame.

"What's Michael J. Fox like?"

"Was that real manure?"

"Any plans for a fourth movie?"

"What's the deal with the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" people?"

It's true, "Buffy" had nothing to do with any of the "Back To The Future" movies, so I was surprised that so many people would ask me about them. After asking around, I found out that their tables were right around the corner from the Cafe Eighties, the line of goth vampirettes was miles long, and they really were charging fifty bucks, so I was experiencing Vampire blowback as fans turned the corner.

"It cost fifty bucks for their picture!" a guy in a down vest waving a light saber complained. "They won't look at you, but then they all sign "Peace" on the picture! What's that about?"

"I have no idea, sir. If you'd like me to sign a Back To The Future photo as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I'd be happy to do it."

He stared off into the distance."Uh, no, that's okay. Hey, was that real manure? Hey, Pauly! Where's Rocky? Ha!"

A man came up behind him and began speaking in a high pitched voice. A man in his thirties, not a boy, wearing a very large puppet of a bat that swallowed his entire right arm. A bat with a three foot wingspan, ugly and threatening, but speaking with a high, squeaky voice that he must have used in the strange videotaped audition he sent to try to replace Frank Oz as the voice of Miss Piggy.

"So nice to meet you, Mister Biff!" the bat said, not the guy.

I looked over at the puppeteer. "It's Tom," I told him.

"Over here!" the bat said, "I'm over here! Don't talk to him! Talk to me!"

"Okay, bat puppet," I said, "It's Tom! Got it, puppet?"

"Oh, I am a bat! I have the wingspan of a vampire bat, with the articulation of a fruit bat! Amazing, huh?! Call it creative license!"

I had no idea what to say to the bat as it flew away, and the two men standing behind it came to the table in the middle of a heated exchange about obscure plot points.

"Okay, here's what you're forgetting, Scott," the short one said, adjusting vintage Star Trek memorabilia in the pockets of his safari vest, "One little piece of vital information. Hi."

"Hello," I said.

"Wookies live in the tops of trees, and EWOKS LIVE ON THE GROUND, and the one thing you seem to be forgetting…DIFFERENT PLANETS!"

"So what?" Scott said, walking to the edge of my table.

"So what? DIFFERENT PLANETS, IDIOT!"

"I love you in StarGate SGI," Scott said to me.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not in that," I said.

"He's not in StarGate, Mister Ignorant," the short guy said, rolling his eyes and looking at Bernie Koppel for support.

Scott blocked the view of the people behind him who knew who I was, adjusting movie posters and vintage Hot Wheels cars in his shopping bags. "Okay," he said, "Well, who are you?"

"I'm Tom Wilson, you might know me from--"

"Hey, Lou Ferrigno!" Scott said, and the short guy looked at Bernie Koppel for another moment to give them enough cover to walk away from me quickly.

"Ho - kay," I said, "I get it now, it's Saturday," standing up to stretch and look hopefully toward the exit door, as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer line actually wound in front of several tables, blocking some tables completely.

"You ah blocking my table!" Lou Ferrigno said to the disinterested vampires, "Nobody can see me!!"

"Hey, guys! Vampires! Whoever you are! Could we have the line move around this way," I said, "so that people can see our tables?!"

The response was something you might see in one of the very zombie movies these kids love so much. I was given the blank stares of the undead.

The afternoon dragged on, with Lou trying to move into a better position, and people calling me a butthead and taking a photo with me, while apologizing for being broke thanks to the Buffy cast. When five o'clock came, the low level celebrities who didn't sell much of anything began to sadly stack unsigned, unsold photos of themselves, speaking in hushed tones to each other about airline weight restrictions and shipping options from the hotel. I'd done a bit better than the "Deep Space Nine" people, but sure didn't need the canvas bank deposit bag with the lock on it I'd brought to town, ready to stuff with cash over the weekend and have security guards escort me to a safe deposit box at the front desk. I didn't need the lock, the bag, or the guards, since it looked like I made about as much as Mrs. Kravitz from "Bewitched." And as I stood up to stack my remaining glossies and go, a sincere fan walked up to shake my hand.

"Let me tell you something, Mr. Wilson," he gushed, "You are one of my favorite actors. So underappreciated, yet so solid in everything you've done! I admire you so much."

"Thank you, that's very nice of you to say," I said, deciding not to chuck my pile of photos in the trash can behind me.

"And the fact is, you are soooo nice to every single person who approaches you, unlike some people!" he called over his shoulder toward "Seventies-Land."

"It's very nice to meet you, can I sign something for you?" I asked.

He hesitated, looking sheepish.

"Hey," I said, exhausted and magnanimous, pulling out a freebie, "This one's on me!"

"Here's the thing," he said, "I've spent sooo much money today and I am suuuuuch a big fan of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," and it's like, fifty bucks for their picture, and they're almost leaving, soooo…Can I borrow seventeen dollars?"

Then an actor I recognized from black and white television shows walked by me, carrying a heavy box.

"See you next weekend in Omaha?" he asked.

"No, I'm not going to Omaha," I said.

The kid still pleaded with outstretched hands. "You can't just help me out with seventeen dollars? Come on, man, how much did you make today?"

"What do you mean, how much did I make?"

"We fans have done a lot for you," he said, pushing his face closer to mine, shining with a day's worth of oil, "Least you could do is help somebody out. I said BORROW! I would pay you back!"

"I made seventeen-fifty today, and I need some train fare, so, sorry about that." I said, zipping stacks of glossy smiles back into my bag, hurling it over my shoulder and walking away.

"You're serious! You're not gonna give it to me?"

"Nope," I said, "I gotta go."

Before I go on with this story, I want to stress that I did not push the guy at all. What happened was, another man who hadn't been able to find me, finally came around the corner, wearing a Marty McFly down vest, and a baseball cap of swirling colors.

"BIFF! FINALLY!!" he said.

"Who is he?" the beggar asked the kid.

"I'm Dennis the Menace," I said, starting to walk away.

"No, seriously," he said.

"Seriously. I'm Dennis the Menace."

The fake McFly pulled out a DeLorean model and a camera.

"Can I take a picture with you?"

"Would you like to buy one, or--"

"Oh, I can't buy one," he said, "Does it cost money just to take a picture with you?"

I tried to sigh only lightly as I dropped my bag on the ground.

"Sure, come on," I said.

"Would you take our picture?" McFly asked the beggar-fan.

"You want me to take it? Sure."

I beckoned McFly over to me, and put my arm around him, smiling as he handed his camera to the Buffy fan, still looking at me.

"You're Biff," he said.

"Duh!" McFly said, "The one and only Biff Tanner!"

"Tannen," I said.

"I thought you were the guy from Police Academy," Buffy said.

"Go ahead and take it. Here we go!" I said.

He held the camera at his side and looked at the fake Marty. "Would it be possible to borrow seventeen dollars to get a Buffy autograph?"

"Hey, man, come on," I said, "Take the picture."

"You need to borrow money?" McFly said.

"Just seventeen bucks for an autograph. I have most of it."

"Sir, let's just take the picture, okay? You guys can talk about it later."

"Why? Because you have somewhere to go, jerk? You haven't been in a movie for, like, a century. It's just seventeen bucks."

"Can you take the picture?" McFly said, "Please?"

"Why do you want to take a picture with him? What's he done in the past century, unlike Buffy!"

Again, I did not push him. I reached out to grab the camera so we could ask somebody else to take the photo, and my arm got caught in the armhole of Marty McFly's down vest, which sent it in a flatter trajectory, hitting the Buffy fan in the forearm as I grasped for the camera. He turned away from me, yelling "I'll do it I said!" but when he turned away, I lost footing on the linoleum and pulled on his arm enough to send him to the ground, where he smacked his elbow a little, and immediately got as loud as any idiot would, looking for an easy out of court settlement.

"He pushed me! Biff pushed me!!"

I snatched up the duffel bag and headed for the exit, jogging lightly and smiling at everyone who watched me pass, in case I needed character witnesses.

"Biff!" McFly called out after me, waving his model DeLorean, "The picture!" "You saw it! That has-been pushed me!"

The hotel doors slammed behind me, and in the whoosh of air I could hear the voice of Jay North calling "Thoraziiiiiiine!" I walked outside and away from the hotel, still stuffing photos and pulling zippers closed while moving fast. The wind whipped from the river behind me through the rows of brick colonial houses toward the train station a mile away, where I was catching the train to Philadelphia, my hometown and the location of my next real gig, a standup comedy show the next night. I hitched my bag over my shoulder again, heavy and carving a groove into my chest, picking up speed and passing dim bars and darkened acoustic coffee houses, hopping over cobblestone puddles and fluttering pages of newspaper.

It took the entire train ride, and a three block walk from the station before I realized I was being followed.

TWO

Philadelphia's Thirtieth Street Station is a magnificent edifice of stone and steel, built back when cities thought that people might like to look at things, and I carried my bags across the worn marble and under the winged Angel of Resurrection statue toward my new hotel, still shaking off the memory of Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Gate, anything with the word "star" in it, and especially Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I slowed my stride when, a block and a half ahead of me, standing under the orange wash of a neon parking sign there was a person standing so still that he looked like a cardboard cutout outside a video store, staring ahead and swaying slightly in the breeze. It was very late, on a very deserted street, and I kept approaching him, still considering the possibility that he was a mannequin, since his silhouette showed that he was wearing a cowboy hat, as well as a gunbelt. I considered crossing the street toward him and walking to my hotel with the life-sized video poster of a cowboy under my arm. Though I had no idea what I'd do with it, still, I mean, free poster.

I crossed the street to the side the silhouette was on, and froze at the double yellow lines on Chestnut Street, as the outline turned, took his gloved hands from his sides and hitched his thumbs into the front of the very real black leather gunbelt, silver beams of full moon glinting off the steel of two pistols. It was a person, a real person late at night, with guns. I turned quickly and hopped back to the opposite sidewalk, moving forward and trying to get some distance between us. It was too far to walk the other way and go around the block, but after the day I'd had in New Jersey, there was no way I was going to pass a few feet in front of another deranged downtown trick or treater. I didn't have spare change to hand over, didn't want to catch his eye and nod a wordless, late night hello. I wanted to skip this block and get to the next one, past this guy and thirty seconds closer to a tightly made hotel room bed, with my feet sliced under the slippery comforter.

There's a powerful stride that a guy my size can take sometimes on a dark street, the walk of the big man in no mood to chat. I inhaled a breath, increasing my chest size by six or eight inches, slightly spread my arms to widen the mass of shoulders, and took on bigger chunks of earth, planting big slabs of leg one in front of the other with no plans on stopping for anything or anybody. Basically, this chesty posture, along with the macho gait says "Get out of my way. I am big, you can't stop me, and you really shouldn't try. Step in front of me and you might just get injured by accident, when I plow you into the pavement "by accident."

I stomped by the cowboy standing across the street, taking a cautious glance at him when we got close, only to see him turn and begin walking along with me, keeping pace from across the street. Here we go again. Yet another Buckaroo insomniac stalker to make my life interesting.

I meet my share of unusual people who come to see me perform. Most are dressed like Marty McFly in Back To The Future with a denim jacket, down vest, a Walkman with headphones around their neck and mirror sunglasses, just like the guy at the convention. It happens. But a sharp, cream colored cowboy hat, steel blue shirt, black holster and cowboy boots? I stepped over rolling pages of windswept newspaper, walking in even longer strides, as he began jogging to keep up with me on the other side.

Only twice before in my life have people dressed up like a cowboy to meet me, both on a press junket for Back To The Future III. I played the murderous gunslinger Mad Dog Tannen, and a gleeful reporter in Tokyo, Japan burst into my room at the Imperial hotel for an interview, dressed in a K-Mart cowboy outfit – brown velour vest, five point tin sheriff's badge, and truck stop cowboy hat, beaming a wide smile and repeating over and over "KRINT EAST-Ah-WOOD!!"

"Nice to meet you!" I said.

"KRINT! EAST-AH-WOOD!" he repeated, nodding like an electric toy.

"Oh! Clint Eastwood! Yes!" I said, clueless as to why the guy wanted me to see him dressed as Clint Eastwood. Later in the same trip I went to Paris, and another reporter moseyed into the Plaza Athenee hotel in natty French cowboy attire, the felt hat tipped over an eyebrow just-so, and didn't ask one question about cowboys, the west, or even the film I'd flown over there to promote. He only mumbled a barrage of questions about French films, none of which I had ever seen, or ever plan to. After a long list of fabulous French directors that I'd never heard of, cowboy Jaques heaved a patronizing sigh toward the big, ignorant American actor and asked my opinion of the director Colline Serreau, who made the original French version of the cinema classic "Three Men and a Baby," with Tom Selleck, and those guys from "Police Academy" and "Cheers." Tired of being sneered at as an ugly, uncultured American, I leaned back into the hotel sofa, crossing one leg over the other, and rumbled a thoughtful baritone "Oh, now he is good. I enjoy his work," which got me an ice pick stare from under the front brim of the Cowboy hat.

"Zat ees a woman," he hissed.

"Oh."

From the peeks I took across the street at this guy, the outfit looked brand new. Polished, pressed, the street lights cutting shadows across creases that were sharper than a Wayne Newton leisure suit. The light blue shirt with rawhide laces criss-crossing at the collar, and that hat. It wasn't ivory, or cream, or a light beige. It was white. Clean, perfect white. He was keeping pace with me, and if I hadn't been carrying a duffelbag full of unsold photos of myself and a bunch of bottles of water I'd pilfered from the celebrity lounge at the convention, I would have started running, checked to see if he was running after me, and if he was, a quick gear shift to arm pumping, wild legged, fleeing animal.

I couldn't run, but kept up the "I was a nightclub bouncer not too long ago" stride and kept pounding down Chestnut Street, until an intersection came up and I took a right, walking away past hoagie shops and revolutionary war musket ball souvenir places that pop up all over the streets of Philadelphia, cradle of liberty, city of brotherly love, and home of this cowboy psycho who made the same right turn after me and began closing the gap between us.

I was close to the "Roundhouse," the headquarters of the Philadelphia Police department, with its Freudian architecture – two large cylinders joined by a connecting corridor – an office building shaped like a pair of giant handcuffs. In the middle of thinking "Where are the police, and how fast can I get through the door?" he walked up behind me, and I turned to face him, ready to either sign a quick autograph, or swing the duffelbag right at his head and run.

Boots. Guns. Gloves. I scanned the perfect outfit from the ground up until I stared into blue eyes staring out of the holes of a mask. He was wearing a black mask. I am not kidding even a little bit. Mask.

That close to me, I saw him under the yellow street lights and dropped the bag to the ground, stunned. It wasn't a cowboy psycho, or a well meaning fan, or a Japanese reporter, or an angry friend of that Buffy guy I'd ticked off at the convention.

It was The Lone Ranger.

No, not a guy dressed up like the Lone Ranger. It was The Lone Ranger. THE Lone Ranger.

I was stunned silent, standing before him, as steam hissed out of a construction pipe a half block behind his shoulder. He could have taken my wallet right then, because I couldn't move or speak. He didn't say anything either, he just stood there, giving the slight smile of a weathered champion of the American way. A smile that told me that he meant me no harm, but he didn't intend for any harm to come to him either, in case I was thinking about swinging the bag.

"Hello, friend," he said, in the rough tenor that I immediately recognized from the T.V. show as the voice of the Lone Ranger. This was the Lone Ranger, the real Lone Ranger who was following me. I stared in shock for a few dizzy seconds, until it occurred to me that the Lone Ranger is a fictional character and not an historical figure from American history, especially a live one. Though actors portraying Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson often roam the streets of Philadelphia, answering questions for wandering tourists, I'd never heard of a colonial historical site that featured the Lone Ranger. I had to remind myself that T.V. is fake, in the same way I've had to remind thousands of people that I'm not really a stupid bully and I've never treated Michael J. Fox with anything but hearty friendship and professionalism. It's all pretend, I've pleaded so many times. Cars don't fly, time travel doesn't exist, and when a five foot, two inch guy punches me in the face, I don't get knocked unconscious. It would be impossible for the Lone Ranger to be standing in front of me in a deserted intersection at two in the morning in Philadelphia.

He was, though. It was him. It looked exactly like him. Exactly.

"What are…what?" I managed to mumble.

"Sorry if I gave you a fright," he said, smiling.

I leaned over to pick up my bag, but stood back up empty handed.

"What…uh," I stammered again.

"Just back into town?" he said.

"Yes, I guess."

"Terrific," he said, "Me, too."

"Who are you?" I asked, squinting, "I mean, can I help you with something?"

"Just wanted to say hello," he said, picking up my bag and holding it out to me.

I took it from him slowly, and my voice cracked as I squeaked like an eight year old.

"Are you the Lone Ranger?"

"No," he said.

"No?"

"No, I'm not."

"You're not?"

"No, sir."

"You're not the Lone Ranger?"

"No, I'm not. I'm an actor, like you."

"You're an actor?" I asked, then chuckled, "I mean, of course you're an actor, because, um…What?"

"My name is Clayton Moore. I'm not acting anymore, though."

"You need to get the clothes back, then," I said.

"Heh, maybe you're right."

"Well, what are you doing now?" I asked, expecting to hear something about his busy schedule of personal appearances at very late night conventions.

"Many things, friend. I do many things."

That answer was strange enough to snap me out of the weirdness and start walking. He walked along beside me, his polished boots clicking across a subway grate hissing warm steam.

"Things like what?" I asked.

"Things like talk with you," he said, smiling and getting creepy.

"I've got to say, you look exactly like that guy, though. The guy who played the Lone Ranger."

"I am the guy who played the Lone Ranger," he said.

"You said you weren't!" I said, turning on him.

"No, I said I'm not the Lone Ranger! I'm the actor who played him."

"Wait a minute! Were you on the train with me? Did you go to that thing?"

"What thing is that?"

"The convention thing in New Jersey," I said, trying to remember his table, "Was your table in Western Land or something?"

"No, I wasn't in Western Land in New Jersey."

"You didn't go to Chiller Theater?"

"I don't know what that is," he said, smiling.

"So, you weren't following me?"

His smile never wavered, as he stared at me silently.

We crossed the street together, and he held out his hand for a moment, protecting me from a cab turning a corner too tightly. After I'd given the cabbie a powerless tough guy stare, I hopped off the curb to look at him again.

"What are you doing here? Are you doing a show or something?" I asked.

"Nope," he said, starting to cross the street after me. That was it. "Nope." He kept up with me as I took bigger and bigger steps, ready to say good night and adios.

"Then why are you dressed like that?"

"For the fun of it. The company sued me so I couldn't wear the outfit anymore, couldn't even bill myself as the Lone Ranger, so here we are." "Where are we? What do you mean?"

"It's a little present I give myself. So sue me!" he said, his laughter bouncing off the glass windows of a Seven-Eleven, swirling above the lit cables of the Walt Whitman bridge arching above the curves of his hat. The Lone Ranger's laugh must have been heard across the Delaware River and into Camden, New Jersey, as I became sure that he was an insane look-a-like, following me and carrying a pair of guns.

I couldn't run. I'm not a runner. I'm hefty, with the addition of hip replacements, so I'm pretty much a stand my ground and hit you as hard as I can guy, because I'm big, slow, and want to save my life and property, but the thing was, the guy looked exactly like-

"Clayton Moore," he said again, extending his right hand, and grasping the brim of his cowboy hat with the other.

I gently set my bag back down on the pavement. "What is this? Is this a joke?"

"No, friend, not a joke," he said.

"Well, why are you following me?" I asked.

"I want to see your show!" he said.

"My show? You want to see my show?"

"Sure I do! You do a show, right?"

"I do…yes" I stammered out, "Yes, I do a comedy show, well, standup comedy,"

He rested the palm of his hand on the pearl handle of a gun.

"You have a show tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yes, I do," I said.

"When does the show start?"

"Wait a minute. How do you know I have a show tomorrow?" I asked, "Why do you want to see my show?"

He put both hands on his hips and leaned into me. "Now that's not the best attitude to take in the entertainment business, is it?" He almost put a hand on my shoulder, but pulled it back to his belt when I stepped backwards. "Why do I want to see your show?" he laughed, "Why doesn't everybody want to see your show?"

"Maybe because they're lazy and have televisions?"

"Gosh golly but you're no salesman," he said, smiling through the mask.

"Okay, you're right. Yes, I have a show tomorrow. It's going to be great!"

"Now that's the ticket right there!" he said, apparently incapable of understanding sarcasm.

"I have to go," I said forcefully, picking up my stuff and moving toward the hotel and away from this phantom nut.

"Alrighty," he said, "What time is tomorrow's show?"

"What's tomorrow?"

"It's a Sunday," he said.

"Sunday? 7:30. It's a 7:30 show."

"7:30 then. Okay, see you then," he said, nodding and tipping his hat. "Good night, friend."

He turned and walked away, crunching across windswept mounds of maple leaves.

"Bye" was all I could manage to get out as he stood at the corner, waiting for the pedestrian "walk" sign before he crossed the empty intersection and turned the corner. I stood there for at least four minutes, staring at his boot prints in the leaves, until the breeze swept them into dusty copper question marks.

THREE

Standing onstage at a comedy club is like being enveloped in a black-hole blackness that's blacker than Crispin Glover's apartment. We're talking black.

1984 was a strange year, because it was supposed to officially be the genuine "future," since corduroy jacketed English teachers had been reading us the George Orwell novel over and over throughout the seventies, and 1984 was the magical year where we were all supposed to have rocket packs to jet us from class to class, drinking Tang and eating dehydrated astronaut food. Apart from a few party conversations about how amazing it is that everyone really does work for Big Brother and doesn't even know it, nothing much seemed to happen in 1984, except that I worked every night as a stand up comedian, acted in the T.V. shows "Knight Rider" and "The Facts of Life," and was cast with the actor Crispin Glover in the movie "Back To The Future."

Crispin loved to rehearse. He loved to rehearse a lot outside the casting offices before we went in to audition for the movie, and he loved to rehearse after we were cast as Biff and McFly. Since it was my first movie, and I had just come from a role in "Knight Rider" where it seemed that the star of that show, David Hasselhoff, didn't want to rehearse all that much, I wanted to rehearse a lot, too, as much as possible, or enough that people around us would say to themselves "Wow. What an actor! He sure likes to rehearse a lot!" We did rehearse for a week or so with the rest of the cast, meeting in a conference room at Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment offices, with the director Robert Zemeckis, the writer and producer Bob Gale, and the other actors, Lea Thompson and Christopher Lloyd, as well as the kid playing Marty McFly, the actor Eric Stoltz.

Yeah, he got fired and they replaced him with Michael J. Fox. Long story.

The thing was, with all the distractions that the director had to deal with, stopping the rehearsals to talk to camera operators, and costume designers, and special effects people, Crispin and I were left at the far end of the polished walnut table, staring at each other, ready to rehearse and not doing it very much. At the end of every day's session, after everyone had said goodbyes and walked toward trays of bagels and artist's renderings of flying DeLoreans, we stared at each other, coiled with energy and ready to do something, anything to make it seem like we were actors, not marionettes hired to dance around a flying car. Late in the week, at the end of the session, Crispin stared at me with George McFly's cocked head, brushing aside a thick stripe of brown hair, and said in his halting character voice, "So…Biff. What do you want to do now?"

I didn't know what to say. Was he kidding? Was he calling me my character's name because this kid Eric Stoltz was being all weird and making everyone call him Marty? Yes, in some artsy method actor pretensiousness, Eric Stoltz stayed in character, hating my guts and demanding to be called Marty and live out every aspect of his character, except when he was with Lea Thompson, in which case he could suspend the rules of method acting to try to make out with her. Yeah, I didn't understand it either.

Did Crispin really want to keep improvising? I squared my shoulders and squinted. "I don't know, McFly. What do you wanna do?"

"I don't know, Biff," he whined, "Do you want to take a walk?"

The game was on. Improv Biff and McFly.

"Let's go," I grunted, and headed out the door, George McFly in tow.

We walked up and down the hills of the Universal Studios back lot, past giant sound stages with heaving trams rushing by us, carrying hundreds of tourists oblivious to the fact that they were passing by two characters from a high school in 1955, improvising like crazy. We didn't stop, either. The sun was setting on the green hills behind the set, and Crispin didn't show the slightest hint of slowing down.

"So, Biff," he said, "I don't know that much about you."

"McFly, you Irish bug, what makes you think I'll tell you anything about myself?"

"Well, Biff…I mean, do you have any hobbies?"

"Hobbies? What kind of freak are you? My hobby is kicking your butt."

He doubled over like a frail question mark, laughing in character; a sharp staccato "Ah, Ah, Ah, good one, Biff."

We'd been released from work, so I thought we'd do a little improv on the way to our cars, say goodnight and I'd see him tomorrow, but Crispin showed no signs of slowing down at all. No matter what I said or hinted at, he would not break character.

"Hey, McFly," I said, "I'm gonna get in my car and go home now. I'll see you later."

"Why Biff? Do you really have to go?"

"What are you talkin' about?" I said. I did want to go. I wanted to drive my rusted Datsun over the hill to Santa Monica, have dinner with my girlfriend and tell her about the cool artist's renderings of the flying DeLorean and brag about being in Steven Spielberg's office to some comics I knew. But really, if it was going to be a contest of wills, a sporting event deciding who would stay in character longer, I'm just the kind of improv warrior that would exhaust him. He would never outlast me. Oh, you think you're one of those artsy guys who thinks you can out-improv me? Huh? You want to improvise, kid? Bring it on.

See, I really didn't know Crispin all that well yet. We improvised a scene between Biff and George McFly for five hours, and Crispin gave me the clear impression that he was ready to say goodbye to his old life and be completely consumed by the character forever. He could not be stopped. I began a rehearsal with a fellow actor in order to discover hidden nuances in the character in bursts of surprise inspiration, but after a couple of hours, I was just hanging on for dear life, ad libbing in troubled amazement.

"This kid is nuts," I kept thinking to myself, "Or wait a minute! Is he the sane one, desperate to stop and convinced that I'm insane?" The improv chess game continued, bringing us through the office buildings and stages of the Universal lot, all the way out to Courthouse Square itself, the Back To The Future set, where greasy workmen, wearing embroidered souvenir crew jackets from every disaster movie ever made, were testing the giant wind machines for the night of the big storm when Eric Stoltz, excuse me, I mean when Marty would take the DeLorean to 88 miles per hour and go back to the future.

Biff and McFly stood in front of the ten foot tall fans, raising our arms and leaning into the wind, smiling and ready to blow away like ripped pages from the script we were writing moment by moment. And somehow, in one of the moments, we were blown over to the parking lot and ended up driving Crispin's ancient convertible with its shredded top over the Cahuenga Pass to his apartment in Hollywood. That's where the black comes in. It was black. I mean, it was completely black. The floor was black, and the walls, the window treatments, the kitchen was gleaming black, and the bathroom was tiled black, with black walls and a black bathtub lined in black towel racks hanging black towels. Get the picture? Black. I stepped gingerly through the doorway, expecting to see a blinking neon sign on the wall – a smiling Lucifer with scarlet horns and an extended hand "Satanville! Co-op homes from the mid 400's!"

As I looked around, squinting in the blackness though the lights were on, I noticed one signature piece that wasn't black, gleaming in the middle of the living room. A steel gynecological exam table, from a clinic forced to sell it in the early sixties, its stirrups raised and ready to hold a highball glass, no doubt black.

It was time to go. As Crispin - acting as George McFly, gave me a brief tour of his Alice-Cooperian lair, I tried desperately to pop the bubble of this careening improv, tripping him with crazy tangents and asking ridiculous questions, trying anything to get him to stop.

"Hey, McFly," I said, ready to go for the cheap and easy route with a guy.

"Yes…Biff?" he said.

"You ever been kissed by a very big man?" I asked, ready for both of us to double over in laughter and say our goodbyes.

"Well, no Biff, er…What do you mean?" he said, in perfectly stuttering believability.

He won. I broke character in a major way.

"Okay man, I gotta go," I said, moving powerfully to the door. "Bye."

But my point is, his apartment was really black, like when you're performing stand up comedy.

FOUR

Sunday night is usually a crowded one in nightclubs, because the room is "papered," which means it has a lot of people using free passes in it. On this particular Sunday night, the "Comedy Connection" was pure smash and clatter, with doormen shoehorning parties of four into tables for two, eights into a six, and twelve onto a long, sticky vinyl bench next to the stage. I ordered the main perk of the headliner, a free cheeseburger, and stood next to the bar, waiting my turn as the bartender mixed a long line of bulbous glassware into a parade of Long Island Iced Teas, squeezing in a request for a Coke before he turned away to blend Margaritas.

I settled into the folds of a darkened booth in back, pulling the candle closer to me and sipping soda as I twisted my guitar into tune, looking forward to the promise of a coming cheeseburger and the last show of the week. Wrestling a notebook out of my bag full of scribbled jokes, late night diary desperation, and flight information, I built my candlelit kingdom and rested in the calm before the spotlit storm.

"Hey, Tom," a kid wearing a black T-shirt with the club's logo called to me from the door, "There's a guy who wants to see you."

"Who is it?"

He took a step toward me and lowered his voice. "He's not on the comp list. Says he's your friend."

"My friend?"

Two more steps toward me and half the volume. "He's like, a cowboy or something. Says he's your friend."

"He's what?" I said.

Just as I've been confused in the middle of the night about what town I'm sleeping in, or which direction the hotel is in, or so many other bits of the confused dream of travel, I really thought it had been a long and realistic dream. Maybe just a strange guy who needed attention last night, or like so many things, more evidence that I needed to take a long rest and get off the road. I grunted my way out of the comfortable booth and walked out to the lobby, turned the corner around a glass case full of souvenir shot glasses and saw him. The Lone Ranger guy was standing next to the front door waiting for me, as the line to get in passed right by him. He accepted the snide "Howdy's" from loose lipped twenty somethings in stained pro wrestling T-shirts, and tipped his white hat to every lady passing by.

I struggled upstream against the incoming line, bumping and squirting my way back outside, and he beamed a smile, his blue eyes shining behind the mask. I stomped down the block away from the line and jerked my head to get him to follow me. He ambled along the sidewalk and joined me behind a van in the parking lot.

"What are you doing here?" I said.

"Here to see your show," he said, smiling.

"My show? You want to see my show?"

"I told you that last night!" he said.

"Well, I didn't think you were serious. You seriously want to see my show?"

"Yes, of course I do!" he said, hands on his hips, looking like a publicity photo of himself.

People in the line were yelling "Butthead!" at me, and "Hey, Cowboy Bob!" at him. And they were yelling worse things, too, things that people who come out to nightclubs for free on Sunday night yell.

"Can I get a ticket?" he asked, "Looks like you're a sellout!"

"You need a ticket?"

"I could use one, yes, that'd be terrific."

I stared at him for a moment in wonder, but it was overpowered by standup comic cynicism as I was certain that this guy was a crazed phony.

"So, buy a ticket and come on in, champ. There's a two drink minimum."

The embarrassed chuckle and hurt in his eyes made me feel badly somehow.

"The situation is this, friend," he said, leaning toward me, "I'd buy a ticket, but I don't have any money."

He stood there, looking exactly like the Lone Ranger, I mean EXACTLY like him, and he needed a comp to get in. I sighed, incredulous.

"Alright, I'll get you in," I said.

"I can come as your guest?" he beamed.

"Yeah… as my guest," I said.

"I'm much obliged, friend."

We walked back toward the solid, cubic doormen and the bigger one stepped in front of us.

"Hey, Jon," I said, "Can we seat my friend here?"

"Not with the guns," the doorman squinted.

"The guns?" I squeaked.

I surprised myself with my own surprise, and still couldn't believe that this guy came to the show, and that I still looked at him as an imaginary phantom of some kind, with his imaginary pair of matching Colt .45s. With a head-jerk, I motioned him over to the curb next to me.

"You can't go in with your guns," I said.

"Pardon me?" he said, confused.

"The guns. They're not allowed in there."

He stared at me for a few seconds. "Why not?"

"Because they're guns! You know…guns?" I whispered, trying not to attract too much attention from the audience filing in behind us.

His face was in complete shadow under the brim of his hat, but I could make out disappointed eyes through the holes in his satin mask. "They're Peacemakers," he said, "I would never use them for anything but good. When I –"

I wheeled around to the doorman. "They're props!"

"They're what?" Jon said.

"Props! It's a new bit."

The Ranger smiled behind me, nodding and tipping his hat.

"It's alright! He's a performer!"

"This guy is a performer?" the doorman grunted.

"We're working on some new material together," I said, shrugging.

"You betcha!" the Ranger said, striding toward the showroom.

I slipped back into the booth, sucking down Coke and watching the confused doorman escort him through the crowd and into the showroom. Even on crowded nights, the tables next to the stage stay empty for a while, since nobody wants to sit in the front for fear of being psychologically skinned alive by a bored, sadistic onstage savage. With one table for two left in the room, Jon made his way through the tables with a tall, smiling cowboy hero in tow, two silver guns holstered near his gloved hands. The Ranger sat right in front, three feet from the stage, his white Stetson splashed with red and blue spotlights and a flickering candle in a glass snifter sparkling in his eyes, waiting for the show to start.

Hundreds of votive candles shimmered in the darkness, their devotional glow diverted from their intended churches. In comedy clubs, a candle isn't a symbol of a rosary clutching matron's flickering prayer, but a handy cigarette lighter and very weak light source for squinting in the dark at astronomical checks at the end of the night. From backstage I peeled the black curtain aside and saw the Lone Ranger, palming the glowing, red candle holder at the center of the table and shaking his head. The smoky darkness in clubs helps the audience hide from each other and allows them to laugh at the vicious, guttural cries passing for standup comedy that would normally embarrass them, but the eyes behind the mask pierced the smoke and sorrow and stared at the stage far too honestly. The "feature act" was onstage, after the opener went on with ten minutes of derivative material and announcements about tipping the waitresses and where the bathrooms are, and wasn't doing well. "Feature acts" fall into two categories; a guy on his way up, working on material and stage presence, trying to get a shot on T.V., or a guy on his way down, who's decided quite a while ago that working for a half hour a night and getting free beer in nightclubs is not a bad way to spend a life.

The "free beer, on the way down" guy was onstage, seriously challenging the old equation "tragedy plus time equals comedy," since things were looking tragic. He paced the small stage in a wrinkled shirt, talking about his ex-wife and using the "F" word like Jackson Pollock used house paint. All over the place, no telling where, or what he was talking about other than a boozy sneer. The Lone Ranger was too mannerly to turn away from the stage, or get up and leave, but he squinted at the comic with a pained wince, occasionally glancing over his shoulder toward the ladies at the tables behind him. A cocktail waitress squeezed through the bobbing heads, gliding physics experiments carrying fifteen drinks on an eight drink tray, serving souvenir goblets of frothy, pink liquor to clean, smiling couples, laughing hysterically at what an evil, promiscuous, stupid, selfish, horrible woman this guy was stupid enough to marry.

I closed the curtain and stared into the melting slush of my Coke. I hadn't been nervous before a set in years, except for the show in front of a thousand salesmen where I was only afraid that they would be too drunk to pay me, but I was oddly nervous this time. I still didn't really believe it was him, but I couldn't help hoping that the Lone Ranger would like my act. The feature act closed the show as most of them do, with a long crescendo of shouted lite material. Like the beer, it's weaker than the original stuff, but shouted into a microphone with a few references to something that everyone has seen on T.V., and they drink it up. "Whoo! Give it up for Justin Bonkers!" the emcee shouted, pointing to his back as he stepped offstage toward the bar.

To avoid embarrassment, or some deadly incident with the guns, I used the headliner's prerogative and asked the performers before me to ignore the large cowboy sitting in front because he was a part of my act. This didn't keep the opener from staring at the white hat bobbing a foot above the rest of the front row and doing endless eyeball rolls and double takes, trying to milk laughs out of the silence his jokes were getting.

"Alright, people, are you ready for your headliner?!" he shouted into the mike, inspiring a tepid smattering of applause. "Come on, folks, are you ready…for your HEADLINER?!" he croaked through the crusty sound system, receiving the exact same level of reaction, helped out by the club manager in back screaming an overdone "WHOO!!" "Let's bring up your headliner! You've seen him on talk shows, and on…uh …lots of T.V…

At this point in my introduction they usually freeze, unable to remember any other credit that I've suggested they might use, giving the audience a rounded view of my work before this show, and skip to the only thing they can remember;

"AND HE WAS BIFF IN BACK TO THE FUTURE! HO!! … tom wilson…"

I took the stage with a warm punch of applause and forced whoops from the back. Before going onstage I swore I wouldn't look at him, but as I took the last step above the crowd I flat out locked eyes with the Lone Ranger, who was smiling and clapping expectantly, the baritone thuds of his gloved hands popping under the treble clatter. The room fell to glass-clinking near silence as most of the room waited for me to talk, and a few sloping foreheads in the back shouted "Biiiiiiiifffff!!" followed by a drunken "AAAaahhhhhhhh!!" When I perform standup comedy I have a brief moment to let my pupils dilate in the stage lights and settle my feet into the foul carpet onstage before echoes of pop culture bounce around the room and hecklers begin shouting lines from the movie at me. I have no choice but to deal with the elephant in the room.

"Hey! Good evening!"

"Whoo! Butthead!" and a muffled belch from somewhere.

"Okay! Thanks, there in back!"

"Buttheaaaaahhhhhhhh!!"

"Oh, welcome to the show!"

"buaaahhh!!"

Ignore him. Move on. Talk faster.

"I dreamed of being an actor," I said, and from a table of four in front one girl shouted "whoo," trying to seem dramatic and artsy. "I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts… yes,on a football scholarship, thank you very much."

A chuckle. Precisely what it deserves, but I was hoping for a bit more.

"I studied Shakespeare, voice, ballet. I dreamed of saving the American Theatre…ended up moving to California and," I leaned threateningly toward the crowd, lowering my eyebrows to send my eyes into shadow and jutting my lower lip forward to change my face into the ape-like threat of Biff himself.

"What are you lookin' at…Butthead?!"

Ka…boom. Screams of recognition. That's the guy they know, the one they've seen, the dufus they think I am. In the sea of whoops and barks and arms upraised in two fisted victory, the Lone Ranger turned around at his seat taking in the big rush of approval, turning back to give me a big thumbs up.

"I know, I know," I said, "But let's get a few things straight…My real name is not Biff."

"Biiiiffff!!" a drunken rebuttal from my left.

"My name is Tom. Movies are pretend. Cars don't fly. Time travel doesn't exist, and when a five foot two inch guy punches me in the face …I DON'T GET KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS!!"

It got a good laugh and the Lone Ranger guffawed. "Ha! Good one!" he said, looking at the table next to him before folding his hands on the table and listening intently.

"But I've written a song to help save some time after shows, maybe it'll help us over the speed bump and get on with the rest of the show!" I slung the guitar on, and played the "Question Song," my musical answer to the entire tsunami.

"When I'm flying in a plane or I'm on the street

There are a lot of friendly people that I like to meet

They shake my hand, but never ask my name

And they start asking questions that are always the same:

What's Michael J, Fox like? He's nice.

What's Christopher Lloyd like? Kinda quiet.

What's Crispin Glover like? …unusual. Stop asking me the question.

I went to the Bar Mitzvah of my nephew, Josh

I'm not Jewish, but I like to nosh

Put on my yarmulke and started to pray

When the rabbi leaned over and I heard him say:

Was that real manure? No, it wasn't.

How was that DeLorean? A piece of garbage.

Do those hoverboards really fly? …It's a movie! Stop asking me the question.

Can we take your picture? Come on, look mean!

Will you call my friend a butthead on his answering machine?

Questions, questions fill my head

I went to my doctor and my doctor said:

Do you all hang out together? No, we don't.

How's Crispin Glover? I never talk to him.

Back To The Future "Four?" Not happening. Stop asking me the question."

Clayton Moore tapped a gloved finger on the tabletop, looking at the smiling faces around him. He gave me another thumbs up and clapped along with the beat.

"Who's the nicest famous guy you know? Adam Sandler

Who is the biggest jerk? Gary Busey

How much money do you make? More than you do, so stop asking me the question!"

A few big strums on the guitar signaled that they should clap because the song was over, and I glided over the Back To The Future speed bump, heading in the right direction, the direction that leads to the end of the show and back to my hotel room. I jumped, shouted, acted out and mugged the place with loud jokes and fake passion for close to an hour, and closed with more psychotic autobiography.

"I have four kids. Three daughters. That's right, three teenaged girls!" Ohhh's bubbled up from tables full of empty beer bottles celebrating Cousin Gina's twenty first birthday. "Three girls. Yes, I live in Malibu Barbie's Dream House! There's a pink, fluffy thing on every surface in the house. My son and I huddle in a corner, covered in steer blood and chanting!" I chanted in comedy caveman language, moving to the front of the stage, a bit faster and louder.

"Three girls first, and then I had a boy…but I'll tell you what, I'm raising him as a girl, 'cause I'm not buying all new stuff!"

An explosion of guffaws meant good news. This but will go well and get a big enough laugh that I can use it as an exit line to get offstage.

"I'm not buying anything else – You'll put on that pink jumper and you'll like it, buddy! Pink is a macho color, put it on!" A bit louder and faster for the next one.

"No, that's not a skirt, it's a kilt! PUT ON YOUR KILT!!"

The joke is rolling. Even louder, leaning over the front row. "Maxi pads?! Those aren't maxi pads! They're knee pads! STICK THEM BACK ON AND GET BACK ON THAT SOCCER FIELD!!"

"OOHHHH!!!!!!" they yelled, chortling and coughing on last sips of vodka.

"THANK YOU! GOOD NIGHT!"

I stepped offstage through a happy explosion of applause, whoops, and backslaps, and the Lone Ranger rose to his feet, giving me a standing ovation, glancing at the tables around him for eager followers. A few people did stand up, but he was forced to clap even louder when it was obvious they were standing up to pull jackets from the backs of their chairs.

On Sunday night, nightclubs empty so quickly that the vacuum left can make your ears pop. The customers and the staff all have to get to day jobs in less than seven hours, and the comics still haven't been paid and want to get out of there with a check that doesn't bounce. I elbowed my way upstream through the throng yelling "Butthead!" over their shoulders, hopped over a case of cheap vodka and stumbled into the manager's tiny office.

"Thanks, Tom. Great week," the manager said.

"Yeah, thanks," I said.

He tore a check out of a large binder and slipped it into an envelope, as the Lone Ranger walked up to the office door, hovering near the bar as waitresses clattered empty bottles into a trash can.

"I thought you said he was in your act," the manager said, pointing out the door.

"Oh, him? Yeah, I didn't get to that part. It's a new bit," I said.

By the look on his face, he wasn't buying it. "You doing rope tricks or something?"

"No," I said, standing up to leave, "nothing like that, but thanks for taking care of him."

"No problem," he said, from a nightclub owner's special place where fatigue and cynicism meet in perfect harmony.

I walked toward the Ranger as he dodged a cart full of dirty plates, extending his hand.

"Now that was something to see," he said, "something to see!"

"Well, something good, I hope," I said, picking up my guitar, headed for the door.

"You, sir, really put on a show!"

"Thanks," I said.

"Isn't he something?" he said to a couple wrestling with coats and a purse. "Yeah, thanks," I said again, moving toward the door.

The manager walked out of the office and looked the Ranger over one more time. "I was looking forward to seeing your act," he said.

"Oh, I couldn't hold a candle to this one" the Ranger said, pointing at me.

"Uh, okay. Well, I hope you had a good time. Thanks for coming, he said.

He turned back toward the office, full of cocktail waitresses waiting to settle their bills, as the Ranger stepped in his way.

"If I was being honest, friend, I didn't appreciate the language the young fellows were using that went on a bit earlier. The opening acts."

The manager wheeled around to look at me, then smirked back at the Ranger. "Well, it's a comedy club. That's comedy, partner." He spun a derisive about face, and he'd hit the word "partner" a little bit too hard.

"Well," the Ranger called out after him, "I've done some performing myself, and I don't think it's necessary."

"Is that so?" the guy huffed, "What clubs have you performed at?"

"I was a circus performer in the days of the western frontier."

There couldn't possibly have been a worse thing to say late on a Sunday night at a comedy club. The manager repeated it, stressing every syllable. "A cir-cus-per-for-mer in the days of the wes-tern-fron-tier?"

"I don't find it a bit funny, friend," the Ranger said, "You asked my opinion."

The manager waved a dismissive hand and walked away. "Okay, FRIEND!" he said. The Ranger said nothing for a moment, shaking his head slowly and watching the man's every step as he walked away.

"Well, alright then," I piped up, "I've got to go."

I walked away from the club quickly, mistakenly thinking that if I walked fast and said goodbye enough times in a row – for example, at the end of every response:

"Hey, that's some song you wrote about that movie!"

"Okay, thanks! Good night!"

I thought that he would slow down and give up. I took the same route back to the hotel, so he knew where I was heading, and he clicked his boots along the pavement just as quickly, or as slowly as I did. Bizarre is what it was, shooting myself incredulous looks in every storefront window I passed, and shadowed by the Lone Ranger for the second time in two nights. It was either the Lone Ranger or a very, very insane man who underwent miraculous cosmetic surgery.

Lots of actors have stalkers, but I'd never had a stalker of my very own. I know how nutty stalkers can be, these crazy people who think they're distant family, or an imagined intimate friend, or even the sad, deranged ladies who believe they're the beloved spouse of a confused superstar. An actor I know had an entire crazy stalker family who climbed a fence at his house. Yes, Dad, Mom, and the kids fired up the barbecue and jumped in the pool, waiting for him to come home. He heard splashing out back and ran to the yard, where the family he'd never met greeted him warmly and offered him a hot dog from his own barbecue. Another hunky actor heard footsteps outside his bedroom in the middle of the night and got his gun, tip-toeing through the ferns outside to surprise the creep. He turned the corner and pointed the .45 into the face of a teenaged girl, who greeted the barrel of the gun with a sunny "Oh, I knew it! You do live here!" I've never had a real stalker because, lucky for me, they're crazy and think I'm big and mean and will beat them up. And lucky for them, they're not wrong.

"That really was some show," the Ranger said, clicking along with me.

"Thanks. Okay, well…goodnight!" I said, still walking.

"I've got to say I disagree with the boss man there," he said, pointing back toward the club, "Those young fellows don't need to use language like that. They just don't need it."

"Believe me," I said, "they need it."

"That's where you're wrong, friend," he said.

"I mean without the cursing they wouldn't have an act at all. They'd be making hoagies here," I said, pointing at a neon hoagie in a storefront window, its blinking green lettuce turning the Ranger's shirt to silky aquamarine. "Okay, goodnight!" I said, turning a corner and jumping across a manhole cover like a sprinter out of the starting blocks. There were a few hurried thumps behind me before he pulled up beside me again. "There's no place for filth onstage," he said, "Lord knows I've been onstage before in all kinds of places, and—"

"Alright, look," I said, spinning to face him on top of a subway grate blowing clouds of steam into the cold air. He stood in front of me, the Lone Ranger, glowing in reflected neon and billowing smoke, waiting for me to finish the sentence, waiting for me to tell him to get lost, to drill home the icy point that there are ways to approach people to get their attention and this wasn't one of them. He took a step forward under a streetlight and looked human enough in the yellow glare to give it a try.

"Who are you" I asked quietly, "What's the deal?"

"I'm a friend, Tom, a fr—"

"Look, cut the crap. Are you trying to—"

"I wish you wouldn't use that language," he said.

"Will you knock it off?"

"I can see where some of the fellows over there aren't the best influence."

I groaned, sitting on the edge of my guitar case, looking at him.

"One question," I sighed, "Are you the Lone Ranger, or what?"

"No," he said.

"Then who are you?"

He smiled at me patiently. "I'm Clayton Moore."

"Clayton Moore is the Lone Ranger."

"No, I'm not," he said.

He walked slowly across the pavement to the steel grates covering a storefront and leaned against it, looking at the stars and tipping the white hat back on his head. "I know what you're trying to say, and I appreciate it," he said, "but I'm not. I'm an actor like you. I mean, I'm not an actor now, but I was one."

I stood up and walked toward him, certain that the guns were as fake as he was.

"You're not Clayton Moore."

He pulled himself up to full height, chattering the metal grate behind him, and stared me right in the eye. "Look at me, friend," he said, "Am I?"

He was. I watched the show. He really was.

"What is this? Okay, I mean…what is this?" I asked, nearly spinning in place. He stared like a sharpshooter through the cold air. "Tom, I just thought I would enjoy talking to you," he said, as a dented pick up truck pulled up next to us. "Hey, Tom!" the driver called out through the window he was cranking open, "You need a ride or something?"

It was Nicky, one of the doormen from the club, driving home and going my way.

"Great!" I said, swinging my guitar case over the curb and into the rusted truck bed, "That's be great, Nick. Thanks."

The Ranger tipped his hat to Nick and looked at me.

"Looks like I've got a ride," I said.

He looked down the long sidewalk and shrugged.

"Do you think you could drop me somewhere?" he said.

"Uh, I'd better get back to the hotel, and Nick is…" I looked into the truck cab, stalling for Nick to come up with an excuse, "Nick…are you…uhhhhhh." The Ranger leaned toward Nick and smiled.

"Nick, I would be much obliged if you could drop me off somewhere." The kid looked around his tiny crew cab and said "Sure. If it's close enough and you can fit."

"I'm much obliged," he said, taking off his hat and handing it to me before folding himself behind the passenger seat of the truck, ready to go.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Very close," he said, curled into a ball and sitting on several heavy metal CDs, "Unless it's a bother."

We drove west from center city and the Ranger directed Nick with a screwdriver he'd been sitting on, until we got to the brick duplexes and cement apartment complexes of Overbrook.

"You can drop me off here, Nick," the Ranger said, returning the screwdriver and gesturing me to hand him his hat.

"Here?" I said, "You want us to drop you off here?"

"Yes, if it's not too much tr—"

"This is my old neighborhood," I said.

"It is?" he said, "Right on this corner will be fine, Nick."

"You live here?"

"This will be fine," he grunted, as I opened the door to lean my seat forward.

"I think I need a bit more room than that," he said, so we took the slippery CDs he handed us, and finally yanked him out by the arm. "You live at 64th Street?" "Pardon?" he said, brushing off his pants. "64th and Jefferson?" He stared at me silently.

"I lived here," I said. "You did?"

"This is where I used to live. Where I grew up."

"It is?"

"Do you live here?"

He leaned into the truck to shake Nick's hand and thank him, as I looked down the block at the little stone house toward Lebanon Avenue.

"That's it right there," I said.

The Ranger pulled my guitar out of the truck bed and handed it to me.

"Want to get some coffee?" he said.

I didn't say anything for a while, until Nick was getting antsy and I waved at him to go ahead and leave me there.

"You're okay from here?" Nick called through the closed window.

I shrugged at him and waved, crossing the street at the very spot where I learned to cross the street.

When the Ranger asked for a simple "cup of coffee," the gaping mouthed kid at the counter couldn't muster the bean, blend, or cup size questions, and he definitely didn't ask him whether or not he wanted whipped cream. He looked hard at the cowboy hat, the red neckerchief and the gun belt, and the best response the tattooed, nose-ringed kid could come up with was "What?"

"I'd like a cup of hot coffee, please," the Ranger said, his voice filling the shop with simple authenticity. Without hesitating, the kid handed him an American, straight out of the pot, hot cup of coffee. We walked over to the sugar and creamers and I showed him the plastic top for the cup, demonstrating the tiny hole to sip through, as he demonstrated back to me that he knew where the trashcan was. He chucked the top into the can and took a sip of hot, black coffee, walking outside past the crowd of people in comfy chairs pretending to read Sartre, holding their lattes and gaping at him in confusion.

He walked a half block until there was a rock big enough to sit on, in the center of a landscaped sliver of grass in front of a Mobil station and settled on the rock, set between two young trees tied to growth stakes. I sat on a curb next to him, surrounded by a circle of advertising flags poked into the dirt, eight of them advertising cartons of cigarettes and credit cards, and one American flag. The fluorescent lights of the gas pump island caught the soft folds of his white hat as he tipped it back to swig the coffee. I sipped my own through the hole in its cover and waited silently. An actor has come to me for some reason, and I prepared myself for whatever he had to say. Some bit of show business wisdom that might allow me to careen through the roiling rapids of my life's work, or even better, a word of peace and restoration in a life pummeled by hospital bills and guys in down vests with model DeLoreans.

He looked up at the few stars we could see and sighed.

"That's good coffee," he said. That was it. Just "That's good coffee" and back to staring at the sky. He wasn't going crazy with insight, or advice, or anything. He just kept looking into the cup and smiling.

"Coffee is so good. Hot and so good," he said.

"Do you want to tell me something?" I asked, grabbing a few blades of grass with my fingers.

He looked up at the stars. "Amazing, isn't it? Hot coffee under the stars." I tossed the grass in the air, watching it spin toward him in the breeze. "Is there some message you've got or something?" I asked.

He warmed his hands with the steaming cup, looking into the dark liquid as if he were reading tea leaves. "Not really," he said.

"Not really? What do you mean?"

"Tell me something about yourself, friend."

"My name is Tom, not friend," I said, "It's Tom, okay?"

"Fair enough. Tom it is," he said.

I flattened a patch of dead grass with my hand and put my coffee down on it. It was him, the real actor, which left only one possible option. "There must be something you have to say to me, right?" I said.

"No, I don't think so," he said, sipping his coffee.

"There must be, though."

"I don't think there is. Boy, this is good coffee."

"You don't think there is. You're not even sure if there is?"

"I'm pretty sure there isn't," he said, smiling.

I stared up at the mute stars, and looked back for one more try. "No message?"

"Tell me something about yourself, Tom," he said, his blue eyes staring into mine.

I stood up, brushing dead leaves from my pants. "You know, if I could say something here," I said

"Shoot, Tom."

"There should be a message or something."

"Why is that?"

"Because you're an actor and you've been following me around, and you came to my show."

"So you think there should be a message for you?"

I stared at him, sitting under the stars holding his steaming coffee, and couldn't help it.

"Yes," I said, "There should be one."

"Come on, tell me something about yourself," he said.

And, for some reason, staring into his mask, I did. I sat back down and told him something about myself.

FIVE

I never met my grandfather, my father's father, a universally loathed louse who left his wife and five children in the middle of the great depression thirty years before I was born, and I never heard much about him, catching the "I don't have a grandfather from my Dad" vibe early, and never asking about it. My father's childhood was spent with hundreds of orphan boys at St. John's Home for Boys in Philadelphia, where he was left by his mother, and separated from his three brothers and one sister when he was five. His memories of that time included the screaming of anguished children torn from the only families they knew, and the cold heist of his only possession as soon as he got there, a favorite book snatched away by the first nun he met, a crime that he glowered about well into his sixties. Being raised - literally - in an orphanage during the depression actually gave him a bottomless well of gritty stories of hunger and hardship that most of my friends' parents improvised but couldn't quite back up. While we opened our Hot Wheels cars and electric football games on Christmas morning, my father could easily wander into a reverie about his best Christmas ever.

"I thought that the new washcloth was all I was getting that Christmas," he said, looking out our front window toward the wood paneled station wagon in the driveway, "And Sister Joseph Mary came to me and handed me …an apple!"

"That's great, Dad. Can you help me set up the Hot Wheels track?"

"And we had mush for breakfast," he would add.

"Cool! Hot Wheels track! Look! Where do the batteries go?"

"Four boys on one mattress on the floor."

"Let's tape G.I. Joe's feet to the Hot Wheel cars! Cool!"

His childhood burned only a few commandments into the stone tablet of his spirit, but he made sure that my brothers and sisters and I got the message. Don't waste food, don't ever take sides against a member of your family, and seriously, don't ask Dad about his father or anything, because that's a mystery enveloped in black clouds and should probably be left alone.

My early childhood happened between the storms of his life, when he was a young lawyer in the center of the bustling city, with a leather briefcase and membership at the Union League Club, where my brothers and I got to play billiards and meet football players at father-son dinners. His letters were addressed to "Mr. Wilson, Esq." and he sent his sons, while a glint of sunlight still caught the corners of his life, to Waldron Academy for Boys, where I was called "Master Wilson" and wore a grey woolen suit to my first day of Kindergarten,

Then his life went all Irish on him, and the weather got violent again.

My father's legs were crushed in a car accident in 1973, and those hospital stays and surgeries, financial ruin and despair began an endless tornado of illness and calamity that is known in my family's folklore as "The Fall Of Saigon," since it happened at the same time as the American withdrawal from Viet Nam, and reverberated in our lives so strongly that a bunch of helicopters might as well have dropped napalm on the house. The window in his life where I was raised, with dinners in my tiny businessman's suit and folded handkerchief was blown shut by the stiff hurricane of bitter luck, and a new window opened, a broken one, smeared with grime and desperation, jimmied open and shut only by crafty friends with new sets of useful skills to help the family.

After months of unpaid bills, the electric company shut off the power to our house, full of five kids and a reeling patriarch, so it quickly became much more important to put off a visit from a pitying old lawyer friend and his glittering wife talking about golf and the Ivy League, than an emergency visit from a crazy friend of my brother's who heroically climbed a power pole with a yellow extension cord to illegally return "jumper cable" electricity to a house with five kids in it. A group of phony lawyers drinking highballs and grimacing at your bad luck pales in comparison to a guy who can steal juice from a power pole when your electricity's been shut off for a long time. The thick, yellow cord snaked across the backyard and through the dining room all the way to Dad's chair, where he deputized himself power commissioner, deciding which appliances should be plugged into the two outlets. His lawyerly judgment was quick, and there were no rights of appeal. The appliances we could not survive without ended up to be a coffee maker and a television, until it got dark and we needed a lamp, but that was only if the coffee was hot enough. The fireplace was used for warmth, candles filled the house with golden light after sunset, and a cooler with ice kept the bologna fresh for the next day's lunches. We lived like colonial pioneers in the tangled woods of a Pennsylvania hillside, huddled next to a roaring fire, watching episodes of "Starsky and Hutch" on a color T.V. so broken that for years we thought that Starsky's Ford Gran Torino was green.

"Thomas, would you be kind enough to get us some firewood?" my Dad would say, "And bring that extension cord over, would you? I need to plug in the lamp." The amazing thing about him was the regal air he could keep, bathed in candlelight and surrounded by a wife and five children eating out of a cooler as he chain-smoked in an armchair, worrying and planning our survival, burning acid holes through his heart and stomach and sending him back to the hospital again and again. He was the undisputed gold medalist of the hospital visit, going there more often than some of its own employees, and I was the reluctant silver medalist, rushed to the emergency room with asthma attacks so often that we could call my father's room upstairs to tell him we were there.

"Dad," I panted, "I'm downstairs."

"Wonderful," he said, "Are you bringing me cigarettes?"

"No," I squeezed out between tortured breaths, "I'm in the emergency room downstairs."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," he said. My father had a form of Irish Tourette's Syndrome, at any time screaming "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" as thundering Catholic punctuation in honor of the Holy Family.

People called me "Dead Man" in high school because I was absent from class for about half of the four years and they thought I'd died. I returned from the hospital every time, hunched over, quivering from the pills, inhalers, injections, and derision, carrying pockets full of absence excuse notes from doctors, nurses, faith healers and parents, hoping to blend in and get back into class without a lot of attention.

"Hey! Dead man's back! We thought you were dead!"

"I'm not dead."

"Dead man! Whoo! The dead man lives!"

"Knock it off."

"Dead man!" they'd yell, knocking my books to the ground and dancing boot prints onto the maroon cover of "The Catcher In The Rye" that I hadn't returned to the English department yet, because I was absent when they collected them and the class was already reading "Animal Farm."

"How is school going, Thomas?" my Dad asked from his hospital bed.I wasn't all that verbal back then. I didn't answer. "Well, just remember, they can't take your mind, and they can't take your spirit," he said, staring at me intently while turning up the sound on a "Hawaii Five-O" episode on the tiny black and white T.V.

Soon after that I decided that the school, the teachers, the system, and the world could kiss my inhaler, and I was going to be an actor. This decision came to me while standing in a parking lot in a warm, hugging knot of Christian teenagers in various states of religious ecstasy while praying in tongues.

I grew up in the hillsides swept with long grasses and thick stands of trees that hid George Washington and his troops during the long winter at Valley Forge, and though I camped there with the Boy Scouts and climbed the very mounds of earth that the frozen soldiers of the Colonial Army built to protect themselves from a British sneak attack, by the early seventies, the rolling hills were dotted with a few commemorative plaques, one of the largest shopping malls in North America, and the Valley Forge Music Fair, a theater in the round that featured acts from the Tonight Show like Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and sometimes a touring Broadway show like the one we'd come to see that night, "Godspell."

The single question that my parents had when Godspell began attracting the attention of dramatic teenaged hippies was – does He rise from the dead? Yes, "He" does rise from the dead. Jesus Christ Superstar ended with a dead Jesus and we can't have a dead Jesus at the end of a show about Jesus. Like any good Catholic boy, not only do I capitalize Jesus, I bow my head when His name is said and I capitalize any reference to Him at all. Get over it.

I had to check and make sure in late night phone calls to the church's youth group members older and hipper than me, for fear of making the case to my parents for permission to see the show only to discover that He stays dead in Godspell, too.

"So you saw it yourself or what?" I said.

"No, my cousin seen it on a class trip. She said it was cool."

"Does he rise from the dead?"

"Well, he dresses up like a clown."

"That doesn't sound too good."

"But it's cool. They crucify Him on a chain link fence!"

"A fence?! That doesn't sound good-"

"He rises, though. He gets up off the fence and does a dance, I swear."

He did rise. He was dressed up in a Superman T-shirt and those rainbow suspenders that Robin Williams ripped off for "Mork and Mindy," but He rose from the dead so I was allowed to go. The Valley Forge Music Fair was presenting the rock opera Godspell, and I was on my way with my earnest, hippie friends from the youth group of the Body of Christ Prayer Community at the Daylesford Abbey, a monastery hidden in the maples and elms of eastern Pennsylvania, full of priests and brothers living their lives according to the rule of Saint Norbert. The youth group was not run according to the rule of Saint Norbert, but according to the rule of how many kids could fit into the back of a VW van and get out to the Valley Forge Music Fair to see "Godspell."

"The Abbey" was home to a sizzling Pentecostal, charismatic prayer group, based at a Catholic monastery dedicated to an 11th century Saint, so beneath a statue's marble gaze and in the glow of flickering candles, old ladies prayed rosaries in the traditional way, sighing "Hail Marys" in monotone as hooded monks prayed silently in a darkened side chapel, while a few feet away, knots of denim covered young people whirled, wept, and thrust open hands into the incensed air, begging for God's presence and power. Hot, vibrating masses of anointed humanity, singing, rocking, hugging, laying on hands, shouting in prophetic tongues, and, like their parents and grandparents before them, always followed by coffee cake. My mother owned the "Gifts Of The Spirit" bookshop, a tiny bible store down the tree lined road from the abbey, and was not only a seller of bibles and Christian gifts, she was a Catholic girl, steeped in the old Catechism and the Latin chanted sacraments, and even more, a tongues praying, Pentecostal, "700 Club" watching dynamo of the early seventies. I spent many nights in the back seat of our station wagon on the way to prayer meetings, revivals, gospel concerts and bible studies, praying and lifting my hands to the sky, shouting exuberant, unknown foreign fragments of speech up through the asbestos ceiling and directly into the ear of God.

My sister called it "chickala-chickala," because that's what it sounded like when Mom prayed in tongues. In the days after she was "baptized in the Holy Spirit," she prayed in tongues for us at home, at the dinner table, or occasionally in the car at a traffic light staying red for too long for a station wagon with five kids in it.

"Come on, Mom! Do chickala-chickala!" we'd cry.

"No,' she'd say, afraid of using a prayer in the wrong way, but equally afraid of hiding her light under a bushel.

"Pleeeeeeeease?" we'd beg.

She closed her eyes for a moment and begin to give her voice to God, praying in a language known only to the angels, as we echoed her in the back seat, five kids in holy chaos, "chickala chickala chickala…"

For teenagers in a prayer group, praying in tongues is easy, because regardless of the state of your spiritual ecstasy, you can go into the "Should have bought a Honda" variation, which fits into any kind of tongues praying situation. For kids that didn't feel like they had the gift of tongues but wanted to hop in and feel a part of the group, they could close their eyes tightly, raise their hands and keep repeating "shouldaboughtahonda, shouldaboughtahonda, shouldaboughtahonda, shouldaboughtahonda."

The youth group ran to their seats just in time to see John the Baptist in the back of the theatre in a tuxedo jacket and rainbow clown pants, standing next to a neon Pepsi sign at the snack bar. He blew a long note through a ram's horn and marched down the aisle past me, squeezing a thick gush of water out of a sponge he carried in his right hand. "Prepare ye the way of the Lord," he sang, and the place exploded. He threw an arc of water through the air, baptizing the front three rows, and electric guitars, cymbals, drums, and singing actors in psychedelic costumes announced the entrance of Jesus, a Jesus made up and dressed as a harlequin innocent, a clown Superman - easily as counter cultural as it's possible to imagine Jesus being portrayed during the Gerald Ford administration.

I was electrified, stunned in the musical explosions and hippie parables. "You are the light of the world!" John the Baptist screamed at Jesus, followed by hand claps and groovy dancing. "Teach us another easy to understand parable in the language of today's youth, Lord!" CLAP! YEAH! (groove to the right)

At the intermission, the cast handed out cups of Hi-C, and the youth group was buzzing.

"Isn't John the Baptist amazing?"

"Jesus is better, though."

"Is not. John the Baptist is a better singer."

"The snack bar is, like, packed, but do you want to get a Pepsi?"

"What do we do with the Hi-C Mary Magdalene gave us?"

"Put it under your chair. Come on, maybe we'll see another disciple!"

I couldn't speak. I stood in place, theatrically mugged and swooning. "This is the coolest thing I have ever seen," I mumbled to someone, sipping Hi-C out of a Dixie cup.

The house lights blinked on and off and intermission was over, so the kids around me shoved Jujyfruit boxes under their seats and tried to stop giggling as the second act started, leading the people of suburban Philadelphia on the Via Dolorosa, a way of the cross as if watching it through a Woodstock kaleidoscope, a bell bottomed trip to Golgotha that hypnotized the circled audience, stunned in concentric padded chairs, as the circus Christ was tied with colorful ribbons to a chain link fence, looking into the red and blue stage lights, his eyes filled with hurt, surprise and growing fear, singing "Oh God…I'm bleeding."

The silence was a form of theatrical silence that I'd never experienced before on the floor of my bedroom, reading liner notes from an album cover. The actor Jesus writhed in agony, the disciples danced in undulating sorrow, and in the middle of it all, a child several rows behind me began to wail inconsolably for his Jesus, and for Jerusalem, and for the sin of the world, as my heart pounded in my chest and I thought "Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, I am going to learn how to do it, I'm going to become an actor, and I'm going to play Jesus in Godspell."

Jesus rose from the dead at the end of course, just like we told our parents, and he danced down the aisles, singing "Long live God!" and "Prepare ye the way of the Lord" again, and I clapped my palms scarlet and throbbing. We wrestled our way through the crowds toward the stage door to get a peek at the company of actors, eventually laying our eyes on Jesus himself, the actor Victor Garber, who was greeting some friends, and accepting the tearful congratulations of people moved beyond words. A few of us rushed over and almost knocked him over with teen passion.

"WE'RE THE YOUTH GROUP FROM THE BODY OF CHRIST PRAYER GROUP FROM THE DAYLESFORD ABBEY AND YOU ARE AMAZING! AH-MAZING!!"

"Thank you," he said, waving to another visitor as we surrounded him.

"Ask him, Carol!"

"I'm not gonna ask him, you ask him!"

"I bought the candy! You ask him!"

"Uhm…we were just wondering…uh…are you a Christian?"

The seven thousandth time he was answering the question seemed easy to him, because he replied with a gracious, humble smile and said "I'm Jewish."

Shocked into a new kind of silence, we staggered away from him and headed back to the group, whispering to each other.

"What's the deal with that? Jesus isn't even a Christian?"

"Unbelievable."

"But you know what? Jesus was Jewish!" a girl said from the crowd.

We had to admit she was right. Jesus was great in the show, and in real life He was actually Jewish, so that's excellent casting.

We got to our cars and hugged, linked arms, and prayed. Old couples in Lincoln Continentals rolled past us on their way to an after show ice cream, rolling their eyes at the hippie Jesus freaks. We prayed for them all, and foreign tongues, including many "shouldaboughtahondas" lifted over the street lights as I, before enthralled teenagers in religious ecstasy, before blue haired old ladies who bought the Music Fair subscription series and were leaving in a snit because Jesus was portrayed as a vaudevillian clown, before George Washington and Mad Anthony Wayne riding ghost steeds of revolution across the moonlit hills of Valley Forge, and before the living Christ Himself, beating within my chest, I swore that I was going to be an actor, perform the role of Jesus in Godspell, and in a welcome side effect, become very famous and fabulously rich, in order to help the poor and probably buy a Corvette.

SIX

I had no idea why I began telling the guy my life's story, because if I was going to tell somebody something really personal it should take a lot longer and probably wouldn't involve sharing my dream of playing Jesus in Godspell. But let me tell you something that's true - When the Lone Ranger asks you a question, this is a guy who's listening. He doesn't mumble "how's it going?" and get uncomfortable if you say anything more than "Fine. You?" By the time I finished talking only because my mouth was dry, the lights were turned off at three of the four gas pump islands, including the ones that were shining enough light across our shoulders for me to make out his eyes under the brim of his hat.

"That's really something," he said, "Did you ever end up playing Jesus in Godspell?"

"No, I never have."

"Hmm," he said, the darkened gas pumps behind him standing like a posse.

"I still want to, to be honest," I said, rubbing my palms along the painted curb I was sitting on.

"You're a pretty big hombre. John the Baptist would have to be huge."

"I guess so."

"The Roman soldiers would have a hard time arresting you," he said.

"That's not the reason, though," I said.

"Why haven't you done it, then?" he asked.

"Because of Back To The Future," I said.

"Back to what?"

"Back To The Future," I said.

"What is that?" he said.

I tore some brown grass from a crack in the cement, and stared at him.

"Are you kidding me?" I said.

"No. What is that?"

He stared at me with a sliver of moonlight catching the lower edge of his eyeholes. Silent.

It was at least three in the morning and I had a plane to catch at nine, which meant my normal hour and a half of fitful sleep before flying home. "Well," I said, standing up and rubbing knots out of my behind, "I have to catch a plane, so I'd better go."

"Fair enough," he said. He didn't seem to be in a hurry to say anything in particular. He stood up slowly, looking into the glaring lights of the gas station mini market. "Are you hungry?" he asked.

"No."

"Oh," he said, smiling to hide his disappointment.

"Why? Are you hungry?" I asked, "I mean…you get hungry?"

"Sure I do …but, the thing is, Tom, I drank water at the nightclub there because those drinks cost an arm and a leg."

"I told them that you were my guest," I said, "They shouldn't have—"

"I know," he said, looking down at his boots and kicking some gravel into a tiny pile, "The thing is I don't have any money. Couldn't even tip the young lady, though I did leave her a silver bullet."

I needed to go back to the hotel, and every second robbed me of moments I could be staring at the hotel room ceiling trying to sleep, and he wasn't offering one bit of wisdom to have his arrival in my life make one bit of sense, and he needed to borrow money.

"So, you're hungry?" I asked.

"I could eat something, friend," he said.

"It's Tom."

"Yes, Tom. Sorry," he said, nodding and sturdy.

"Clayton. You're hungry?"

He kicked the carefully assembled quarry at his feet across the dark concrete. "Starved, but like I said, I don't—"

"You don't have any money," I said along with him.

I stared at him, not a miserly stare, just your basic confused squint.

"You don't travel with any money?"

He didn't answer, I don't know if there even was an answer. He didn't look down as if he were embarrassed by my ignorance and just couldn't tell me, he didn't smile with a sly look like he had some eternal truth that I might find out if only I kept hanging out with him and buy him food at gas stations. He just didn't answer.

"They've got some hot dogs in there," I said, "But don't even think about walking in there at three in the morning with a couple of guns."

He stared at me silently for a moment.

"Seriously. Give me the guns."

"I've never used them in the cause of anything but peace in my life."

"I don't care," I said, "I understand the whole Ranger thing, but it doesn't fly right now. There's probably a kid in there who'll shoot you with a Taser the second you go through the door with a mask and two guns."

"That's a sad state of affairs, friend," he said, adding "Tom" after I stared at him for a few seconds.

"Well, that's the way things are now, Lone Ranger" I said.

"I'm not the Lone Ranger," he said, hands on his belt.

"I know that!" I said, massaging my temples, "You're not the Lone Ranger because they sued you or something, I get it. It was a joke. You know, like when you keep calling me "friend?"

"Oh, alright then," he said.

We stared at each other silently for another second because I'd forgotten he was waiting for me to give him money and take him to the hot dog grill.

I rummaged in my pockets for cash. "You know, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble, kemo-sabe."

"How's that?" he asked.

"Drop the "L." One letter. Take it out."

"What do you mean, friend - er - Tom?"

"Take out the L and you're not the Lone Ranger anymore. You're the One Ranger. Try suing the One Ranger, Hollywood! He's the One Ranger!"

It was a profound revelation to him, because when I finally found some hot dog money and handed it to him, I had to press it into his gloved hand before he curled his fingers around it.

"Let's go," I said, leading the way across the greasy cement.

"Hot dog!" he said.

"That's right, kemo-sabe."

"Do you know what kemo-sabe means, Tom?"

"I don't care," I said, handing him a five dollar bill.

"You don't want anything?" he asked.

I took the five back and handed him a ten. "Here, these places are a joke. Get me a cupcake and some chocolate milk or something."

"Okay."

"And give me the guns."

"What?"

"You want a hot dog? GIMMETHEGUNS!"

I hid the pistols in my shoulder bag. "Take off the mask," I said.

He put up a hand defensively. "The mask stays on, friend."

"We're going into a store!"

"The mask stays on."

"You're not even the Lone Ranger!"

"The mask stays on. Case closed. Hot dog or not."

We headed into the store, a cowboy in a mask and a comedian with a bag full of guns.

The gas station attendant, born and raised many thousands of miles away from the American West, didn't look away from his small T.V. when we came in, until the Ranger walked toward the bulletproof glass next to the rolling silver rods cradling two remaining hot dogs, glistening dark orange.

"May I have one of these hot dogs, friend?" he asked the man in the booth.

The guy woke up long enough to give a confused nod, mumble something in the language of his youth and fall off his chair onto the floor.

When he wrestled himself away from the spinning legs of the rolling chair and peeked over the lip of the bulletproof counter, the Ranger was still standing in front of him, thumbs hitched into his empty gunbelt.

"May I have one of your hot dogs, please?"

The man didn't rise higher than chin level, and didn't say a thing, staring at him and rubbing the bright green mini-mart smock with trembling hands.

The Ranger gestured to his empty holsters. "If the question is whether or not I'm armed, as you can see, amigo, I'm unarmed. May I have a hot dog?"

"Yes," the man managed, pointing at the grill.

"It's self serve," I said, "Just make one yourself and pay him."

"Fair enough," the Ranger said, pulling a bun out of a cellophane bag and grabbing grease crusted tongs used to pull the antique tube steaks off the grill.

I paid for his food, gulping chocolate milk as he ripped open a few dozen packets of mustard and relish. He took a bite out of the thing, making half of it vanish in an instant, smiling as he chewed, a dollop of mustard left on his lips.

"You got some on your lip there," I said, pointing at his face as he licked it clean.

"How's that?" he said, licking, "Gone?"

"Yeah, that's good," I said, walking toward the door. My hands full of milk and candy, I turned my back to the front door and bumped it open, with the Ranger behind me.

"Mustard is really something, isn't it?" he said, "So much flavor."

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

"And so yellow! Look at that color!" he said, waving the remaining tube steak in front of me.

"You ever get mustard stains on that shirt?" I asked.

"Never."

It was only then that the attendant could form any real words, standing in his plexiglass booth.

"You are from a party? Yes? Party?"

"No, we're not, friend." the Ranger said.

"Well, excuse me, but what are you supposed to be?" he said.

The Ranger finished the last bite of hot dog and carefully wiped crumbs from his gloves, bringing his right hand to the brim of his hat, grasping it with his index finger and thumb.

"I'm happy to have made your acquaintance. Thank you for the hot dog," he said, turning and following me out the door.

He patted his belly as we walked beneath the glare toward the rear of the station. "Thank you for that. That hot dog was amazing."

"When was the last time you had a hot dog?" I asked.

"Oh, not too long ago."

I stopped walking behind him, casting a tall shadow on the oil spattered walls of the building.

"There are hot dogs there? Where you're from?" I stammered.

He turned to me, smiling big. "Hot dogs are everywhere!" He laughed.

"Ah, so they have hot dogs, you know, where you're from, but apparently they don't have any money."

He turned the corner of the building, chuckling. "Good one."

I followed him around the corner and turned my face into a stripe of warm muscles in the neck of a horse. "Look out!" he said, as I was buried in a blonde mane smelling like a combination of saddle soap and my seventh birthday. Good and Plenty spilled out of my bag and across the asphalt as I tripped backward. "What the -?" I blurted, leaning away from the animal into the greasy cinder block wall. Tied by a leather rein to a section of pipe behind the building was the most gorgeous animal I'd ever seen, a cream colored stallion, brushed to soft perfection, with the curves of a black leather saddle resting on its back on a blanket of wool and sheepskin. Silver studs lined every edge of the tooled leather, leading down to the stirrups, polished like the shoes of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"Silver?" I whispered.

The Ranger hoisted a foot into the stirrup and mounted, gliding into the saddle like a gymnast. "No, I suppose not, now."

"I thought your horse was named Silver."

"Silver is the Lone Ranger's horse."

"Come on, seriously. Silver, right?"

He smiled. "Well, not if I'm the One Ranger, huh?

I approached the horse slowly, and he nuzzled his head into my chest. My hand followed the sinews down his soft neck, scratching his ear, and patting down his head to his nose. "Well, you could drop the "S" and call him "Ilver."

"Doesn't really fit, does it?" the Ranger said, "How about Bullet?"

"I don't think so."

"Why not?" he said, "Fast as a bullet!"

"Nobody's calling anything "bullet" anymore," I said.

"Why is that?"

"Bullets aren't that popular," I said.

The Ranger rolled his eyes. "If you say so," he said, "Roy Rogers beat me to that one anyway."

"His horse was Trigger, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but his dog was Bullet."

He looked into a small stand of trees next to the parking lot, rubbing the back of his head, pulling the horse in a tight, dancing circle until it's front legs crossed a bit too far and it shuddered, slipping on the gravel glowing blue in the moonlight.

"How 'bout "Twister?" I said.

The Ranger tipped his hat back just enough for a speck of light to shine through the eyeholes of his mask, showing the excited, blue glint.

"Twister," he said, trying it out more than once, "…Twister."

"Yeah," I chuckled, "Right foot blue."

"Pardon me?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

My asthmatic lungs were already wheezing from my clumsy dance within the horse's mane, and I took out an inhaler, squeezing it into my hungry lungs.

"Are you alright, there?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, "Allergic to horses."

"Oh," he said, pulling the reins to back Twister away from me, "I didn't know that. Sorry."

"No problem. It's not the horse's fault."

"Nobody's fault, I guess," he said.

"Well, if God really runs things, maybe it's His fault," I said.

He didn't have much to say to that, and sat in the saddle staring at me.

And then I began talking again, staring up at him on horseback in the moonlight.

SEVEN

In the savage world of boys in Philadelphia in the nineteen sixties, there was a popular game that was handed down from generation to generation, usually in a too-small basement during a sweaty first communion party, known as "Smear The Queer." None of us had a clue what the title of the game meant, but when older boys called it Smear the Queer, it sounded a lot better than just "Kill The Guy With The Ball."

All you needed was any kind of ball, or if you couldn't find a ball, a rolled up pair of socks, a t-shirt tied into a knot, or in a desperate game at my aunt's house, somebody's shoe. There weren't any real rules or choosing up sides, somebody just threw the thing into the air, starting a frenzied riot as everybody jumped wildly to catch it. To do less than your best to wrestle that thing away from every other kid would doom you to a lifetime of humiliation, calling your manhood into serious question, since the object of the game was to mercilessly attack whichever kid caught it. And when the pummeled victim was crushed to the brink of death, he had to throw the ball in the air, beginning the entire savage process again. "Smear The Queer" was the original slug-fest that inspired the concept "You won't be happy until someone gets hurt."

Nobody ever won the game, but there was always a clear loser – the kid who got hurt. It was usually a smaller cousin who got into the game because we weren't allowed to play unless we let him play, and it was only a matter of time before he got bashed in the teeth by a big pair of P.F. Flyers. After five or six big group tackles, when every freckled Irish face was red, and everybody was in grave danger of being "over-heated," we played just one more time.

You watch the arc of the Spalding tennis ball, a dirty white in 1967, and, though hot and afraid, jump higher than anyone else and grab it out of the air. Before your one handed grasp tightens, somebody's forearm is at your throat, sweaty hair in your face, and the cool linoleum of a basement floor at your back, as a pile of sixty and seventy pound bodies fall on top of yours. Laughter, and piling on, and cheerful grunts as Moms yell to get your coat, the game is over, but nobody is getting up. Celebrating the end of a hard rough-house, the middle section of the pile is giggling and jumping up and down while grunting, and you are on the bottom, arms pinned at your sides, trying to squeeze breath into forcefully emptied lungs, gasping "get off…unhh." You're at the bottom of an inverted pyramid and nobody knows you can't breathe. They can't hear your grunted, breathless pleas as they laugh and you squeeze the tennis ball, giving a wheezing cry as the weight on your chest doubles by the second. "Get off, GET OFF, GETOOOOOFFF!!" you cry into the small of someone's back, and when he hears, replies "I can't! Hey guys, get off!!" into the layers of undulating bodies as you begin to turn blue and for a frightening flash realize the horror of what it must be like to drown.

That's what an asthma attack is like.

I grew up with severe asthma, and it's a challenge because when all is said and done, nobody knows what it's like, and nobody really thinks it's that big a deal. In fact, plenty of people don't believe you even have it, or you could certainly get rid of it if you would only eat less dairy, or think positive thoughts, or take some fashionable snake oil that morons like to suggest to people they don't know when they go to barbecues.

Asthma doesn't come with the convenience of crutches or a wheelchair, doesn't give you a sling, a pronounced limp, or even a dramatic series of bloody noses and runs to the nurse's office. Asthma forces you to sit in a chair and spend every bit of energy that could be used for homework, or math quizzes, building friendships, or even speaking, to the simple but nearly impossible task of inhaling and exhaling. Asthmatics understand the connection between breath and life far better than those easy breathers with lungs so incredibly powerful that their owners can take up hobbies like smoking. Nothing concentrates the mind quite like suffocation, but unfortunately asthmatics don't call a lot of attention to themselves with loud and dramatic symptoms, or even a sympathy producing prop. Even our prop is pathetic, inviting more derision than empathy. The only proof we have, the only symbol of our other-ness, our desperate fight for oxygen, is a tiny piece of plastic cradling an inch long, harmless looking aerosol can. The inhaler. Savior of the wheezing, and international symbol of all things weak and unathletic.

"You've just got the skinny-away disease is what you've got," my grandfather, "Pop Pop" would tell me. He was an Irishman with a black moustache and a hatchet under the front seat of his impeccable Cadillac, just waiting for someone to mouth off. I watched him wave a wad of bills under the nose of many an unlucky loudmouth, as he promised to pay their medical bills after breaking both their legs, and at one of my earliest little league baseball games, I was called out on strikes by the umpire and my mother sent Pop Pop home, afraid that he would split open the man's head in front of a bleacher full of people. I brought home stories of teasing, humiliation, and arm punching, and he took matters into his own hands.

"I'm telling you, you got the skinny away disease," he said.

"What's that?"

"Too skinny. You're gonna blow away!"

"I can't help it!"

He assigned my mother the job of making me muscle building milkshakes, thick with dark Karo syrup and chocolate, a hopeless project to add the slightest heft to my bony, wheezing frame.

"When these guys tease you at school, you tell them to go to hell," he said.

"I can't say that!" I cried.

"You have my special permission. Tell them to go to hell," he said.

"Then they'll just punch me!"

"They punch you?!" he said, almost going to his car for the hatchet.

"Yes!"

"Then you punch them right in the face." He said.

"Even girls?"

He held back a gasp. "Girls punch you?"

"Yes, all the time."

He leaned closer. "Next time you see any of them, before they say anything, punch them right in the face and say go to hell!"

"Okay," I said, certain I'd never do it.

He called after a couple of days "Are you drinking your milkshakes?"

"Yes," I said.

"Are you still skinny?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell them to go to hell?"

"No."

"Did you punch 'em in the face?"

"No."

"Oh…" he said, passing the phone to Nana.

I drank sweet milkshakes every day, not gaining an ounce, crushed by Neanderthal fifth graders every day, and never punched one of them, for fear of turning to run and having an asthma attack, forced to stop and going back to square one to start the whole process over.

My asthma was so bad that my parents searched the country for information on the root causes of my suffocating, and pored over medical reports and alternative mumbo-jumbo for a cure. Long into the night, my father read brochures from clinics across the country, full of testimonials and color photos, as he filled the house with smoke from an endless chain of Parliament 100s. They finally decided on a place where cures for asthma were being mumbled about across the country. It was announced to the School faculty, my classmates, and everyone else I'd ever known that I was flying with my mother to an advanced medical center on the gulf coast of Mississippi. I was being sent to a place called "The Gay Clinic."

"The Gay Clinic?" I cried, "Why do I have to go there?!"

"It'll help your asthma," my father said, flicking ashes into the roaring fireplace.

"I'm not going to a gay clinic!"

"It's not that kind of thing! It's for your asthma!"

"Why do they have to call it that?"

"That's the name of the man who runs it," he said, "Doctor Gay."

"No way! That's not his name!"

"That's the man's name," he said, "it's not his fault they changed the meaning—"

"Don't tell anybody I'm going there!"

"Why not? It's the man's name!" he yelled, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"

The plane from Philadelphia to Biloxi, Mississippi was the first one I'd ever taken, and I couldn't help but get optimistic about being cured of asthma, since I was getting free Sweet Tarts at the airport, and "Eastern Airlines" playing cards from a pretty lady who felt so sorry for the kid on his way with his mother to the Gay Clinic. After a cab ride through the Magnolia scented streets of Biloxi, we were dropped off at a small doctor's office in the shadow of the estate of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. The Gay Clinic didn't look like much of a national hub of pulmonary medicine research. My mom pulled open a creaking screen door, and we took seats in the sparse waiting room under tired posters of lungs in various states of disease. The place seemed so old I expected to see a few Confederate soldiers with bayonet wounds sitting on the ancient, empty chairs, using their inhalers twice before croaking out "Dixie."

"How ya'll doin'?" a nurse said, greeting us.

"Hello," my mother said, explaining who I was and what we were there for, though she didn't really need to, since it looked like we were the only patients for the week.

The doctor's office had way less equipment than other hospitals I'd been visiting for relief. The University of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson University Medical school, and Temple University hospital all had spinning breathing machines and X-ray robot stuff and wires, meters, and oxygen tanks. This office had an exam table, some old glass cases full of gauze pad and cotton balls. I was afraid they might have giant medical contraptions that plunged spiked probes into the lungs of little kids, and it turned out they didn't have any of that stuff. Just a table, and the blood pressure cuff in the basket on the wall.

A thin reed of a man, moving slowly with age and wearing a wrinkled lab coat walked in. He shook my hand, looking me straight in the eye for so long that I was too afraid to hear if he was Doctor Gay or not. He examined my chest, thumping it and feeling it, tapping and massaging my entire torso with spidery fingers, asking me questions about myself.

"How're yuh doin' in school?" he drawled.

"I dunno," I mumbled, shrugging and waiting for Mom to answer for me.

"He's smart, but he misses a lot of sch-"

He waved her silent, looking me in the eye again.

"How are you doing in school?! Speak up!" he said, smiling big and leaving no doubt that he wanted a clear, audible answer, directly from me.

"Okay," I said, lying to the southern gentleman.

"Your ribcage is bent, son," he said, running his hands over the concave part of my chest that should be convex. Mom noticed that he was right and went pale. He was right, my chest is a weird shape.

He handed me a brown paper bag filled with plastic bottles of pink liquid.

"Take two tablespoons, morning, noon, and night." He said.

"Okay."

"Calcium," he said.

"This is calcium?"

"No, this is a special medicine formulated by the Gay Clinic. Get calcium on your own. Take calcium."

The treatment of the Gay Clinic was an unspecific dose of calcium, and a secret liquid the ingredients of which could not be shared with patients or their mothers. He rolled his chair very close to mine until our knees touched, leaned his pruny face to mine and said, "Take this medicine, but there's one more thing I want you to remember. The most important thing. I'm gonna ask you about this tomorrow, so remember."

"Okay."

He stared through his round glasses for a few seconds and said "The kingdom of God is within you."

After saying it, he looked at me for so long that I had to turn away and look at the ceiling fan, wafting the scent of camellias through the open window.

"The kingdom of God is within you," he repeated, "You say it."

"The kingdom of God is within you."

"No, you!"

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Within me," I said, rubbing a palm over my pants to feel the reassuring form of my inhaler in the pocket.

"Say it," he said.

"The kingdom of God is within me."

"One more time, Thomas."

"The kingdom of God is within me."

"That's right. Good!" he said, standing up and writing on a chart, "I'll see you tomorrow. Go see Jeff Davis' house, they've got the death mask of Napoleon over there. Go see that."

"Okay," I said, unable to say anything else.

"You've got a lot on Napoleon, you know," he said, "know why?"

"Why?"

"You already know!"

"What?"

"What did I just tell you, son?!"

"The kingdom of God is within me?"

"That's right, young man. See you tomorrow."

My asthma didn't get any better, and the entire school knew that I had gone to the Gay Clinic in Mississippi, so the spitballs rained toward me when I returned, but Dr. Gay dispensed far more than a secret tonic that tasted like what would come out of a car fender if you squeezed really, really hard. He called me to higher things than simple breathing, and into the abiding kingdom of God."

My lungs were still wheezing puffs of phantom air throughout high school, but I was one of those kids who sprouted a foot taller in height and sixty pounds of testosterone pumping beef over the long summer, and at the same time that the football coach began to invite me to come and try out with the team of slobbering morons who had tortured me consistently for the past decade, the theatre teacher saw the transformation and cast me in the next play.

"Frankenstein," by Mary Shelley is not really the grunting horror movie of the forties, but a grand tragedy about an innocent giant turned murderous monster by the evil manipulations of a control freak. I was cast as the Creature, the hulking victim of cruel fate, driven to rage and murder by the callow mob surrounding him.

I was very good.

"Tom, are you supposed to be in class or something?"

Yes I was supposed to be in class, but I thought it was more important to sit in an empty stairwell and read the play over and over, grasping it tightly to my soul, than to answer Mrs. Calhoun's pointed question. I ignored her for another few lines of dialogue until she tapped a foot on the linoleum and asked again.

"Fifth period has started. Are you supposed to be somewhere?"

"No," I said.

She shook her head, wondering how to punish a kid for quietly reading a play.

"I think you need to go to class," she said, "Let's go."

I got up and walked to another empty stairwell, memorizing the lines of Frankenstein's monster and sliding into the ranks of the misunderstood artistic kids like a doubles luge racer, ready to set the world afire with art, and maybe years in the future, find all those abusive jock types and kill them with farm implements.

Brian Morgan was the school's theatre teacher, a young man fresh out of an east coast liberal arts theatre program and several anti-war rallies, so being directed by him was an illuminating learning experience, because apparently, every play in every age from every culture in human history was actually about Richard Nixon somehow.

"Tom, I want you to think a lot about the Creature," he said.

"Yeah, I am."

"I mean his broken humanity, his damaged limbs and deep need for love, a longing that turns to revenge, despair, and murder."

I shuffled my blue nylon Pumas on the ground and looked out the window to allow the intensity to bubble between us. "Yeah, okay," I said

"Tom, this play is about frustrated rage," he said.

"Uh huh," I replied.

"I think that you might work on a speech impediment!" he said, pacing for inspiration, "Maybe he can't speak clearly, and the lines are garbled, creating even more pain to him. He can't fully communicate this passion!"

"Uh huh."

"Okay, let's try an improvisation based on these feelings. Don't pay attention to the script right now. Just concentrate on the longing and rage."

I stared at him, a kid new to the arts clique, unsure of what he meant. But it sounded like he meant to just go crazy and be angry at everything.

No problem.

I launched into an onstage version of Three Mile Island, the damaged nuclear plant whose molten core was beginning the 250,000 year cooling off period only a few miles from us. No big motivation discussions needed, no brooding looks into the empty auditorium filled with the curved maple shells of empty chairs, asking what the author meant by this or that. I communicated with quiet nodding, mumbled "uh huh's" and onstage flame.

"Frankenstein must suffer… AS… AHHKKHH! ! AS I … HAVE … SUHHH… SUFFERED! !!!" I screamed. And screamed. And screamed again, my guttural shrieking causing a commotion with the guys in the wrestling room next door.

"Uh - huh. That was good," Brian said. He adapted a prologue for the play, a scene of the Creature's creation onstage while the actor playing Victor Frankenstein read an apocalyptic passage from Dante's Inferno, while I changed from a fetal hump curled on the pitch black stage, into a hulking menace as arcs of electricity coursed into my body, just like in a real monster movie. This sent us down the hall to speak to the physics teacher to ask him how you might safely send bolts of lightning into somebody's body. He went to the closet and brought out a black appliance, one end spouting a thick power cord, and the business end a rounded metal point, gleaming my concerned reflection back at us from the steel.

"You can use this!" the physics teacher said, his eyes smiling through inch thick lenses.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Haven't seen you in class in a while, Tom."

True, I hadn't been there since a midterm when I wrote no answers, but stared at the questions with my head cocked like a confused terrier on a sitcom.

"Yeah, whatever," I said, "What is it?"

"It's used to create explosive effects in science experiments!"

"Explosive effects?"

"Sure. An electrical impulse. No biggie."

The director picked the thing up and headed for the door when I balked. "Uuuhhhhhh, hang on a sec."

"What's the matter?"

"Is this safe to use" I asked, "I mean, this is electricity, right?"

"Yes, but it can be done safely, I think," he said, peering at me over the glasses, "Just make sure you line the inside of your costume with aluminum foil. It'll spread the current out and you won't even feel it!"

On opening night, the crowd was as excited and mumbly as a bunch of kids waiting their turn to bob for apples, and I was even more excited, starring in my first play, covered in monster makeup and ready to explode with emotion and begin the process where I would be cast as Jesus in Godspell and save humanity. At five after eight the auditorium darkened to black, and the kid playing Doctor Frankenstein followed me across glow in the dark bits of tape on the floor to the edge of the stage, assuming our starting positions as the fetal hulk and pimply-faced giver of life, stumbling over a sofa in the blackness. An orange power cord ran through the legs of the front row and up to the edge of the stage, where the black cattle prod rested, heavy and lethal. Dr. Frankenstein raised it in the dark, clicked it on with a low pitched hum, and began the play. His freshly changed voice recited the prologue from "Inferno" as he placed the humming electro gun next to my arm, covered inside my black jacket with Reynold's Wrap. "The Creature!" Dr. Frankenstein cracked, 'Eminent in beauty once, before me stepped and made me pause," ZZZZZZAP. An electrical arc popped through the air, sending a blue lightning bolt toward me, zipping right through the aluminum foil and into my arm. "AAAhhhhh!!" I improvised. The foil didn't work and I was being electrocuted.

I surprised myself with professionalism, since I grunted in character as another lightning bolt coursed directly into my shoulder. "AAHHHhhhhrrrrr!!" I growled, realizing that there was a lot of introduction to go, and the kid didn't even realize that he was shocking me. This wasn't the wintertime shock of rubbing shoes on the floor and touching a doorknob, it was the body quivering accident with a wall socket type of shock. Onstage, in front of my entire family, as well as a large group of teachers who would have probably paid extra to watch my electrocution, I improvised plan B, bolting upright and waving my arms like Peter Boyle in "Young Frankenstein." I had no idea what to do when an actor is being electrocuted onstage. ZZZZAAAP.

"AAAhhhhhhrrr!" I waved, beating the cattle prod away from me.

Do I grab Dr. Frankenstein's hand to stop him? That would change the entire meaning of the play on opening night, as the Creature yells out in pain and refuses the gift of life during the introduction of the play. The kid shot a load of AC current into my neck. "AAHH!" I cried in shock and pain, keeping it together just enough to stay in character.

In the first night of my first play, I became a method actor, a helpless creature before a mob, crying in guttural baritone, growling and heaving my monster chest.

"How frozen and how faint I then became," he said. ZZZZAP.

"If he were beautiful as he is hideous now-"

I began waving harder, trying to knock the thing out of his hand. He used it as motivation, shouting the text. "AND YET DID DARE TO SCOWL UPON HIS MAKER!" ZZAP.

I yelled "AHGGG! STOP!" pretty loudly that time.

"WELL, FROM HIM MAY ALL OUR MISERY FLOW!!"

I turned and staggered to my opening mark, beginning my stage career with the realization that if all the world is a stage, then my role is the guy who gets electrocuted.

The Ranger's horse snorted and clopped his hooves a few times and I finally stopped talking.

"That's quite a story," the Ranger said.

"Well, not much of one," I said, "but that's how this whole thing started, seeing Godspell and getting electrocuted in Frankenstein."

"And you being sick and all," he said.

"That doesn't have to do with anything either, I think."

"More than you think, I'll bet," he said.

We heard footsteps from the side of the building and stared at each other. "Hello? The car wash is closed!" the attendant called out to us, "What are you guys doing?"

He turned the corner, saw the horse, and screamed something in his native language that didn't sounded like it uses any vowels. I opened my mouth to begin improvising, saying something dismissive and funny, but before I could say it the Ranger pulled the horse around in a tight flash of silver buckles and licks of mane and tail, and with a quiet click of his tongue, rode away under the fluorescent lights of the pump island and out onto the street.

"Ho! What?" the attendant said, pulling his uniform cap off his head to crush it between his hands in amazed confusion.

"Ranger! Wait!" I said, lifting my arms to stop him. I thought he was taking the horse to the edge of the parking lot, I thought he was going to turn around and wave, I thought many things, but as he got smaller and smaller, racing away from both of us faster and faster, I didn't really know what to think, except that I might be the person who re-named the horse of the One Ranger while telling him my life story. As he turned the corner, galloping under the low branches of a stand of maple trees in a city park, he yelled "Heaahh! Twister! Heaahhhhh!!!"

EIGHT

I carry souvenirs of my past with me always, space-age alloy mementos of my long life as a heavily medicated asthmatic. Deep under the long scars that line my hips are prosthetic joints that long ago replaced old defeated ones, fractured to dust by endless rounds of cortisone to fight the suffocating inflammation and let me breathe. I don't think about the artificial fulcrum of my body much at all, until I go to an airport, shuffling toward the gate, kicking my luggage along the linoleum and praying for home.

"Are you carrying any metal objects?" the alert Transportation Security Administration agent at Philadelphia airport asked.

"I have joint replacements that make the thing go off," I said, unfurling coils of power cord and removing my shoes to drop them in the plastic bin.

"Any keys? Pens? Metal objects?" he said.

"Yes. I have metal in my legs."

"A large belt buckle? Take off your belt, please, sir."

"Yes, I have metal on me. Well, in me. You'll have to check me."

"Come on through," he said, waving me toward him.

BEEP.

"Step back, please, sir."

"You'll have to use the wand thing on me," I said.

"Do you have any keys on you? Anything metal?"

"Yes, I do," I said.

"Put it in that bin right over there," he said.

If only I were making up this part of the book.

I was led to a chair and, shoeless and beltless, sat while the rest of the security detail stole glances at me, whispering to each other and giggling, before one of them picked up a black sensor wand and walked toward me.

"Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?" he said.

"I have artificial hips. That's why I set the machine off."

"Are you from Back in the future?"

"Yes. Yes, you're right," I said, checking my watch. The guard doubled over in a happy guffaw, supporting his body with the point of the wand on the ground. "I knew it! Yeah!" He looked over to the other agents, trading high fives behind the X-ray machine. "I'm a little late for my flight," I said, taking a shot at low-level celebrity afterglow, "can I go?"

"Would you stand up for me?" he replied, reminding me, as always, that I'm not that big a celebrity. He raised the wand like the conductor of the airport symphony and grunted, "Hold your arms out at your sides, please."

I assumed the cruciform position of the suspected terrorist; in his socks with drooping pants, watching my laptop slide under a child's Hello Kitty backpack ten feet away.

"Can I get go get my laptop? I think it's--"

"Just keep your arms up for me, sir," he said, examining my midsection, "So, is that the only acting you did?"

BEEP! My right hip.

"Uh, no, that beep is because of the-- "

"Biff, are you carrying any keys?"

"That's not my name, officer. As you can see by the boarding pass that you dropped on the ground after you took it from me, my name is Tom, and I have hip-- " BEEP!

"Are you still wearing a belt?"

The empty seat next to me on the stuffed plane was a stroke of air travel luck that doesn't even exist anymore, and I collapsed into my chair, dumping a clatter of pens, notebooks, and magazines onto the empty potential flotation device next to me. My legs squeezed into the back of the seat back in front of me, grinding my knees into the face of the pretty actress on the cover of the airline magazine and heaving a sigh of relief, ready to hurtle through the air in my favorite direction - toward home.

The Philadelphia cityscape that Rocky shadow boxed so many years ago has been swallowed by giant skyscrapers topped with neon accents and shiny windows, but the misty sunrise was slow to bring the distant skyline into focus. I squinted out the oval window covered in hairline scratches, misted with dew and vibrating in the whine of idling jet engines, a little Vaseline on the lens to help out the aging cityscape. I nestled my head into the curved wall and almost closed my eyes, when something hidden in the high brush near the runway flashed through the scrub and disappeared. It must have been a snowy egret nesting in the wildlife refuge at the wooded edges of the airport, I thought. The plane pulled away from the gate, turning gently and heading for the runway as I stared out at the long grasses dancing in the wash of intersecting jets, and caught another glimpse of a white flash in the waves of dusty gold, followed by a slash of black leather. As the rest of the passengers avoided the bilingual drone of the safety video, I gawked through the hazy plexiglass as a horse's head appeared, it's creamy mane dancing in jet blasts and wind. The One Ranger rode out from behind a hillock near the end of the runway, relaxed in his tooled saddle and walking the horse directly toward my plane.

"He's…no! He's…" I said, turning desperately to the nose-pierced girl sitting in the aisle seat.

"He's…he's…!" I added, though she kept fumbling with her headphones, her thick nose ring pointing at the book she was reading.

I smashed my nose against the plexiglass, watching him guide the horse around some metal barriers, headed toward the runway. "That's not. He's…" I sputtered into the window. I turned back to her.

"He's not real, this is not…He's not…um."

She pretended to read more intently and brought the book a few inches closer to her face. The 767 turned onto the runway, ready for takeoff, and I massaged my face into the glass, watching the heavy wing slide across the Ranger as he kicked the horse to a relaxed trot, completely exposed at the edge of the blacktop.

He cantered the horse next to the plane, squinting into the windows, finally raising his black gloved hand toward all of them, holding it there above his head.

"What are you doing?" I choked out, as a flight attendant asked my row for verbal confirmation of their readiness to help from the exit row seats.

"Are you willing to perform those tasks and listen to my instructions in the unlikely event of an emergency?" she asked.

"This is not an emergency," I said, "he's not real."

"Excuse me?"

"What in the world is that?" the lady behind me asked, looking out her window at a cowboy on horseback waving at her from the runway.

The Ranger made several arm motions, signaling with his hand and forearm, pointing down the runway and then at the sky as the jet engines thrummed with power and we lurched forward, ready for takeoff. His hand still in the air, the Ranger pulled the reins hard and Twister reared onto his back legs, swimming his front hooves in the air. I pushed my face harder into the fogged plastic, fogging it further with desperate panting, my eyes saucers of disbelief. Torn between the impulse to wave wildly trying to get his attention and signal him to get out of there, or the safer route, pulling the opaque shade down, slamming it into the bottom groove and ignoring him, I kept staring, waiting for the completely predictable to happen.

A tall cowboy on a white horse, carrying guns and riding on an airport runway next to a modern airliner is a severe breach of airport security, causing a wild panic by the airport police, speeding toward him on motorcycles under my tiny, plastic oval. As the engines roared a hot hurricane for takeoff, a blue police car sped toward our plane with its red lights spinning, with more motorcycles and waving guns hurtling behind it. The Ranger reared the horse one more time, waving some more signals, and kicked Twister into a gallop, still waving and smiling as his red neckerchief whipped in the air behind him. He was yelling something toward the plane that only he could hear, cupping a gloved hand by his mouth and pulling the horse in a tight pirouette as the careening cars circled around him and we roared forward, pushed back into our chairs for takeoff. Surrounded by police cars, motorcycles, and men screaming into walkie-talkies, he pulled his hat low on his head, gave a hard kick to the horse's side, and with a whip of the reins, he jumped across a black and white hood, landing on the tarmac and galloping into the weeds. He hung onto the raging tornado of horse, letting one hand off the reins to give one more quick wave toward the sky and pulled the reins toward the weed covered hills to the west, under the wings of my ascending plane.

NINE

Lucky for me, it's just about impossible for comedians to copyright material that they perform live onstage, making it pretty easy to rip off my friend Marc Price, the actor and stand up comedian cemented in the pop culture for his role as "Skippy" on the hit sitcom of the eighties, "Family Ties." Marc has a great stand up bit about a daydream where he finds himself on the old game show "Password." He looks past host Allen Ludden over to Betty White, his celebrity opponent and opens his secret wallet holding the password, as the studio announcer's calm baritone whispers to the audience, "The password is…"Has Been." Skippy reads the password, looks at his hopeful contestant and scans the ceiling, searching for just the right word to use as a clue. He brightens right before the buzzer with the perfect synonym for "Has Been." He chuckles confidently, looks at the lady and sing-songs "…mmmeeeeeeee?"

That bit was all I could think of while I scribbled my name onto the sign-in sheet to audition for another commercial, this one for car batteries, competing with the other actors for the role of the car battery itself. It was being videotaped, as all humiliating commercials are, recorded forever by a scowling woman in sweat pants, snatching promotional head shots out of actor's hands.

"Excuse me," I said, holding out my picture.

"Fill out a size form and give me your head shot," she sniffed.

"Yes, uh, I was just wondering--"

"Fill out a size form and--"

"You said that, yes, I'll do that. I just wonder how a car battery is supposed to act?"

She picked the shot out of my hand without eye contact.

"Just put it in your creative hopper and see what your artistry comes up with," she huffed walking into the office and closing the door.

The rooms for commercial auditions are always the same. An empty office in a short-term rental building, with a glaring spotlight, a video camera, and two people inside; the disinterested casting assistant behind the video camera, and the disinterested casting director in front of it. After sitting on a wooden bench at the end of a long line of actors, glossy headshots and resumes snatched from their hands, my name was called and I followed the shuffling woman into the room.

"Okay," she exhaled, "You saw what we're looking for here."

"Car battery," I said.

"Yes, a car battery," she said, "Doing a dance."

"It's doing a dance?" I asked, trying to stay positive and keep my tone peppy, "That wasn't in the script."

"Yes, a dance. Do a dance for a few seconds, then do the line." "Power up?" I asked.

"Up the power," she answered, pointing at the assistant to start the camera.

"Slate, please," the girl said, pointing the camera at me as I looked into the lens, thinking hard about how a battery might dance. I stood on the masking tape mark on the office carpet, looked happily and battery-like into the lens and said "Tom Wilson!" Then I began to move, piston-like, a six foot three inch dancing battery. I spun slowly, bobbing up and down, and even added blinking my eyes open and closed very energetically, to suggest electrical conductivity. In other words, I acted myself to the brink of utter psychological ruin, spinning toward the camera and opening my mouth to say the line as if I were a bolt of lightning, when there was a loud knock at the door.

I stopped bobbing and blinking and the assistant said "I told them we're in session!" as the casting director stomped to the door. I stood still, an inert battery, waiting to see if she wanted me to keep dancing or not, already certain that whatever the interruption was, I could kiss the dancing battery gig goodbye. Even more sure of it when she opened the door and screamed, dropping a stack of headshots onto the floor and breaking whatever was in the creative hopper completely.

The Ranger filled the door frame, guns filling the holsters and his head filling the mask under his hat. "Hello, young lady," he said, grabbing his hat brim, "Is there a Mister Wilson here?"

She staggered back a step to reveal me, standing in front of the camera.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello, Tom," he said, adding to the lady, 'He's a friend of mine."

"I'm busy right now, Ranger," I said.

"Fair enough, no trouble at all," he said, leaning in to whisper to the assistant, "I'll just wait for him right out there, if that's alright."

"Excuse us," she said, closing the door in his face.

She walked behind the camera, staring at me for the whole trip over there.

"I told them we were in session," the assistant sputtered, and the lady said nothing, leaving us in stony silence. I wasn't sure if I should roll my eyes about my crazy friend and go into the battery dance, or just keep standing there. I think that at least seven seconds passed before I mumbled "Do you want to see the dance again, or should I skip to the line?"

She tossed my headshot onto a tall pile of other smiling heads at the edge of the table.

"We have what we need," she said.

"I didn't say "Power Up!" I said.

"Up the power."

"I didn't say that."

"Thank you."

Between the regular earthquakes and aging infrastructure, Los Angeles doesn't own a piece of sidewalk that isn't cracked into more chunks than a stained glass window, and as I walked back to my car the Ranger followed me, stepping over tall strands of weeds poking through the fissures.

"I'll be honest with you," he said, "That woman wasn't very pleasant."

"She wasn't pleasant?" I said, "This whole place isn't pleasant. How long have you been out of show biz?"

"It just seems to me that they could be a little more welcoming to the actors, that's all."

"Wow, you've been out of it a long time then, huh?"

He kicked a dandelion puff, exploding the white ball of seeds into the smog. "Oh, I'm not as out of my element as you think I am."

"You're pretty out of it," I said.

"I might surprise you."

"You're very out of it if you knock on the door while I'm auditioning for a commercial. That's out of it."

"Now, now," he scolded. I got to my car and turned to him, fishing for keys.

"I'm in the middle of an audition, dancing like a car battery. Is that a good time to make one of your little visits?"

He stared into a crevasse between chunks of pavement and sucked some air through his teeth. "Okay," he said, "You've got me there. Yes, friend, that's true, but what I was trying to say is--"

I spun on him, keys in hand. "What is it you're trying to say? What is it? You are stalking me, and you don't…have a wallet, and you end up riding…a HORSE on the runway in Philadelphia doing weird hand signals at the plane. What was that, anyway?"

"What was what?"

"The hand signals you were making?"

"I was speaking with my hands in the ways of the Indian."

"What were you saying?" I asked.

"May the great spirit watch over your travels. That's all."

"And now you show up just in time during a humiliating audition to pile on some more, and…and…you just show up here. What…?"

He stood in front of me with the same tranquil gaze that he had in the middle of the night on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. L.A. hadn't changed a thing about him. A simple man, keeping some kind of watch, without a reason or message. I leaned against the rusted door of my Chevy, ready for one of two things: the meaning of his visit, or the end of our relationship.

"What do you want?" I said, pleading, "What is it? What's the message? Am I gonna die or something?"

He looked confused for a second, then blew out a cowboy's guffaw. "HA! No, you're not going to die! I mean, not that I know of!" he said, clearing his throat, "I don't know anything about those sorts of things."

"Alright then," I said, opening the car door, "Take it easy."

"Why are you auditioning for that type of thing?" he asked through a masked squint.

"What do you mean?"

"A dancing car battery?" he said.

I staggered away from the car, incredulous. "Is that it? That's why you're here?"

"No, it's just that the other actors were asking it outside the room in there."

"What other actors?" I asked.

"The actors at the audition in there," he said.

"What were they saying?" I asked, turning away from the sun, afraid of the answer.

"They were wondering why you would be trying out for a regional commercial for a car battery, since you were in some big pictures and all."

I swept an imaginary piece of dust from the side mirror of the car. "They were asking that?"

"Yes, they were. That's why I asked."

The car started with a metallic clank sure to cost me several hundred dollars very soon and, checking the rear view mirror for a gap in the Hollywood traffic, I rolled down the window and looked up at him. "First of all, trust me on this, I haven't been in any big pictures."

"You weren't?"

"No. I was in one big picture, so the answer to your question is, I'm here driving a cruddy car with a bad battery to a car battery commercial because I happen to need the money. Good enough for you?"

"Listen, Tom, I--"

"Looks like I'm the only one with any answers," I said, pulling into traffic fast enough to make him jump out of the way before I drove past him.

Highland Avenue is a long, flat stretch of road, so every time I checked the rear view mirror for him, there he was, getting smaller and smaller in the frame of the dusty back window, his hand in the air as if he had one more question. Mongolian barbecue stands and mini-malls crusted with soot whipped by my window, as I kept checking the mirror again and again, hoping he would lower his hand and hop back on the curb, or even disappear behind a truck. And every mirror check confirmed the waving hand, and friendly indictment. I stepped on the gas, making a few lane changes to hide behind bigger cars. The feeling that made me look back at him over and over wasn't morbid curiosity or the blush of childlike nostalgia, and it wasn't even for the entertainment possibilities of cynical self immolation, which is as much the foundation of a comic's public identity as an amplified human wound. I pulled into the left lane at Sunset Boulevard and whipped an aggressive, illegal U turn because he said he was my friend, and it felt like he was being honest.

He was standing there happily, still looking right at me as I pulled up. "I know how you feel," he said, as soon as the window was cracked, as if I'd never driven away.

"How I feel what?"

"I've done commercials. Plenty of them, too," he said, "They pay the bills, but it's not what you came out here for, is it?"

"You've done commercials?" I asked through the crack, afraid to roll down the window.

"Sure. Jeno's Pizza Rolls. Aqua Velva," he said, "The after shave."

"You did a commercial for Aqua Velva?"

"Dodge cars, and Amoco. They sell gas," he said.

I stared at his silhouette as the sun set behind him. "Pizza rolls?"

"Those pizza rolls were good, actually," he said, "I wouldn't say I ate a product if I didn't."

"And you did. You ate them?"

"Yes, I did. Foster Grant sunglasses, too," he said, "I mean, I didn't eat the sunglasses, I wore them."

"You did a sunglasses commercial? What about the mask?" I said, pointing at his face.

"That was after they sued me to take off the mask," he said, kicking a leaf into the gutter, "And they won."

The mask couldn't hide the hurt in his eyes, even in the silhouette, as the edges of his hat exploded in rays of orange from the setting sun. He sighed and looked down at his boots, shuffling them to keep balance as he leaned toward the window. "That's all I wanted to say," he said, "That I understand what you mean about the commercials." I leaned across the car and opened the passenger door as he jogged around the car and hopped in, ducking low to protect his hat.

We drove right down Sunset Boulevard, the sunbaked trail of asphalt heading west, and talked actor to actor, or more accurately, show biz burnout to armed crimefighter. "So don't tell me I don't understand anything about doing commercials when the money runs out," he chuckled, "there still must be a ton of pizza rolls in my freezer!"

"Well, they've probably cleaned out your freezer by now," I said. "That's probably true, " he said, resting a muscled arm on the open window frame. "As I said, they were very good pizza rolls, don't get me wrong."

"Yes, I'm sure they were," I said, "I introduced biscuits at Kentucky Fried Chicken."

"You don't say!" he smiled.

"Yeah, I was a construction worker at a job site somewhere, and he's sitting there opening his bucket of chicken, and BOINK, a biscuit pops into my hand."

"Magically pops there?"

"Yes," I said, "Well, as magically as a biscuit can pop into your hand. It just popped there, like when Doctor Bombay showed up on "Betwitched."

He laughed and slammed his palm on the outside of the door. "Ha! That's something! You brought biscuits to the general public!"

"But I must have eaten sixty pieces of chicken that day," I said, "They give you a bucket to spit it out, but I thought hey, I can eat a lot of chicken."

"Take small bites," he said, "that's the secret."

"Well, by take forty I thought I'd never eat chicken again."

The trees of Laurel Canyon filled the car with cedar smells, and we crested the hill at Mulholland, headed down to the valley.

"They do their best, I suppose," he said.

"Who's that?"

"Those commercial people."

"They do?"

"They have a job to do like anybody. Selling pizza rolls and whatnot. Just doing their job."

He stared out the windshield as we rolled past Hollywood's temporary architecture, a line of stores and stands destined to succeed for a season, until they fail, replaced by brand new storefronts and logos that sell the same fried glitter to a new generation of tan dreamers. He rode silently, sitting next to me, not asking me anything about acting, or commercials, or pizza rolls, so I began to talk.

TEN

You know, in acting school they really do make you pretend you're a tree. They make you pretend you're a color, or pretend that you've become cement and are actually part of the cinder block wall of the classroom itself. They make you perform in all sorts of idiotic, time killing ways. They make you think about sad things until you cry, and think about funny things until you laugh like a lunatic, forcing pained "HaHaHa's" out of your diaphragm, because if you don't laugh hard enough and convince everybody that you're really laughing about something real, you might get a "C." They make you do all sorts of things that don't apply to a career as a professional actor at all, probably because they can't figure out what else to do with you, since you paid them money, and after all, their teachers made them pretend to be trees, too. Heck, what's the harm of watching a room full of pale, hopeful misfits stand very still, their thin, curled arms outstretched as eager classmate yell at them "Oak! Oak! Yes, Manny! I see it! Oak!" Cha-ching. Class dismissed.

The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is one of the oldest professional acting schools in the world, with a list of prominent alumni from the past, and floor-to-ceiling publicity headshots of actors who've pretended to be a tree there, from Edward G. Robinson and Jason Robards, to Robert Redford and a constellation of lesser magnitude stars in black photo frames surrounding them. "The Academy" is the reason I moved to New York, to save the American theatre and Christendom with my portrayal as Jesus in Godspell, but first, to be the best and most clearly identifiable tree I could possibly be. Studying acting in New York City at a school like the Academy was a lot like the movie "Fame," the movie musical about performing arts kids squealing through the cracked old hallways and running up and down wooden stairs rubbed shiny and smooth by dance shoes, discussing universally accepted hip, obscure playwrights, and what they might write if they were writing about us, since it was pretty clear that we were the center of everything. The entire student body frequently broke into song in the middle of the street between classes, stopping rush hour traffic in Manhattan, but convincing the apoplectic cab drivers that the irresistible beat of the music was too powerful to fight and they'd join in. It was a magical time.

I did buy into it for a while, laying on the floor, acting like broccoli, and waiting for secret acting knowledge connecting the belief that I was a piece of broccoli with the ability to get a part on a T.V. show with Don Rickles, who also went to the Academy, since the photo of the young insult comic with hair near the Robert Redford picture meant he studied there, too. What the teachers there called "studying acting" was an obtuse collection of exercises including one that had everyone lay on their stomach on the ground and run index fingers across the hardwood floor, humming "OOOooooooooo… " We hummed the long O to connect with the reality of the wood, and the floor, and our finger, and our relationship to all of them within our action and vocalization, each of which comes before limiting ideas like thought. Yeah, I know. I'm not kidding. And it costs money to go there!

"What's this for?" I asked, sneezing puffs of dust from the floor into the face of the hypnotized student next to me.

"Just do it," the failed actress teaching the class said, "It's more important to do the action before thinking about it, that's the point of the exercise."

"Because if you start to think about it you'll start feeling like a moron?" I asked.

"You're not getting anything out of this because you've already decided you won't," she said, before inviting me to a Werner Erhard "EST" Seminar over the next weekend. That was right before I non-verbally invited her to not talk to me anymore.

The young actors in the class were mostly high school drama geeks, along with a few handsome guys taking a shot at lucking into a soap opera gig, putting on our gear for dance class and staring quizzically at one of the items on the supply list, the dance belt. Nobody knew what a dance belt was, until the first day of class when we went into the changing room together, took them out of their tiny packages in unison and found the most severe jock strap ever invented. The dance belt, once aboard, feels like its been fastened by a rivet gun, and is the reason that most male dancers have a private area that's squeezed into a smoothness that rivals a Ken doll.

"What the hell is this thing?" the soap opera hunk asked, unwrapping the miniscule black elastic.

"I don't know," I mumbled, "It's a dance belt, I guess."

"Looks like a pony tail band with a pocket!" he said, pulling it like a slingshot. "Where's my…you know…thing supposed to go?"

After we put them on, it was clear that your thing is supposed to go far into your body, resting right next to your spleen.

Since I had nowhere to live and couldn't find an apartment, I slept in Brooklyn, on the floor of Dave Kirk, a friend from high school studying tuba performance at Juilliard, "Tom, would you mind if I practice?" he asked, every morning and every afternoon that I was there.

"Sure thing, Dave, go for it."

Then he got down on the floor, laying on his back, extended his arms and began breathing deeply, taking in massive amounts of air to blow an endless stream of wind through his pursed lips toward the ceiling. He pushed hisses of air to the ceiling over and over, far longer than could be attributed to a sane person, and then fell to silence. A long, long period of silence with his eyes closed in the middle of the floor.

I was reading a play, sitting in an armchair and afraid to turn the page for fear of a flick of paper destroying his concentration.

"Hey, Dave," I whispered.

"Mm?" he said, as still as a large boulder, lying next to a tuba.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm practicing," he said.

"Practicing…the tuba?"

"This is preparation to practice. I'm visualizing the practice," he said, closing his eyes and taking in another lung full of air.

"Visualizing the practice?"

If you have to visualize the practice before you even practice, I'm toast, I thought. I read plays I don't really understand, and run my finger across the floor saying "OOOooooo," and eat jelly out of the jar in people's apartments that I visit because I'm starving, and this guy meditates and visualizes before he even practices? No wonder he plays the tuba at Juilliard, and I wheeze and pretend I'm a tree and make jokes about dance belts.

He picked up the elephantine horn and blew long, caramel bass notes to warm up. "You know, I have to go out of town for a few days," he said, and I couldn't even muster a question about where he was going, since I was prepared for an eviction notice. "Would you mind if I hang out here and watch the place?" I said casually, nosing back into the play I was reading. Would he mind if I hung out? If he wasn't going to let me stay there, I was ready to push the key he loaned me into a bar of soap, make a bootleg copy and join the ranks of illegal Brooklyn squatters.

"Sure, stay here," he said, more generously than I deserved, "the place is yours," leaving me with a roof over my head, a toilet, a sink, and the only edible thing in the cupboard, a large bag of pop corn kernels, which I popped and ate exclusively for the next three days.

I won't describe the effects of eating only exploded kernels of large grain on the intestines other than to say I found it profoundly cleansing, and it led me to the same floor that Dave used to lay on my back, breathe deeply and visualize pizza the way Dave visualized tuba concertos. At the end of the third day of corn and water, I called my friend Barbara and begged her to call her grandmother who lived on the east side, across the park. Ask her for help, I pleaded. And I take it as evidence that there is a God, because when I was as hungry and beaten down as I've ever been in my life, I prayed for food and God answered my prayer, sending me out to an expensive dinner in a fancy restaurant in glittering New York City with my friend Barb's grandmother, Ethel Merman.

The first lady of the American musical theatre lived in a swanky hotel, where Dior-sweatered micro dogs chipped along beside their blue haired owners, wrapped in chinchilla, and I walked all the way across the park and uptown, hungrily staring into the twinkling cafes and boulangeries filled with croissants and those Italian places with windows full of cookie tins. Even the peep shows in Times Square seemed to be displaying ham sandwiches that night.

The elevator in Ethel Merman's building didn't have mirrors, but the polished wood reflected Barb and I headed upstairs to grandma's floor as I reconsidered my outfit; blue jeans and an army surplus jacket with a broken zipper and "No Nukes" button holding it closed to go to dinner with Ethel Merman, who swept open the door to her apartment looking amazingly just like Ethel Merman. She was wearing a glittery dress with a working zipper, and lots of that old lady clackety-clack jewelry. It was like hugging a large, shiny maraca, but before she had the chance to invite me in and introduce me to a few friends and show-biz people, my hands were filled with giant shrimp that were waiting for me at the lip of a crystal bowl, sparkling with ice and cocktail sauce. Shoving jumbo shrimp into my famished mouth, I forgot that I don't even like shrimp, though it didn't really matter since I wasn't chewing them, so flavor was beside the point. I ate as if I were raised in a barn, spilling sauce on my ragged coat, taking everything Ethel Merman held out with a clackety bracelet and shoving it into my mouth, ready to eat until she might be forced to announce that she's going out to an all night supermarket for some Trisquits, because the kid with ketchup on his chin ate all the shrimp.

Most paintings I'd seen before then were either in a museum or had pushpins in their corners, since they were displayed on corkboards, but Ethel's silken walls held original paintings, the kind with real paint on them. Original Renoirs and Manets rested next to autographed photos of George Gershwin and John F. Kennedy, and the museum of her career hanging all over the place. I stumbled through "OO's" and "Ah's" but couldn't stop thinking "Do you know how much food we could buy if we sold this stuff?" The guys on the sofa, Ethel's show-biz friends, were holding small plates of shrimp tails and talking about the memorable thing that Moss Hart said on the closing night of "Kismet." I smoothed the stained creases of my army jacket and tried to say something that made sense in the middle of their conversation about Stephen Sondheim and Fire Island, until it became so quiet that we headed out for Chinese food.

"Oh! Harro! Harro Missah Melman!" the Chinese waiters swooned, buzzing around and flapping napkins, smiling huge smiles. I hadn't digested the partially chewed appetizers, and was still praying that Ethel would order for all of us, preferably the biggest food that came fastest to the table. Something with beef in it, beef so big it comes to the table hanging upside down from a hook. She ordered a big bottle of cheap wine with a bucket of ice - chablis on the rocks, her signature drink, and just as she opened her mouth, ready to belt through her historic pipes an order of food the size of Staten Island, a lady from a few tables away weaved her whiskey addled legs in our direction, waving drunken arms over her head. "Ethlllll Mermmmllll!" she said.

"Order," I thought, "Order Staten Island beef, Ethel. Come on, baby. Beef. Yell it out. Start cooking the beef, my Asian pals, 'cause Ethel brought a starving refugee with her.""

"Mizzz Mermallll…big fan," the lady blubbed, turning up the heat at the table at least ten degrees.

"Thank you," Ethel said briskly, scanning the menu without looking up. "ssmy brthday!"

Ethel kept reading, cool as a clackety, big haired cucumber.

"Sing happy birthday for me!!!" The lady shouted, the booze pushing it too close to a demand.

"I'm having dinner right now, dear," Ethel said, gesturing to her friends with ascots, her granddaughter, and the kid eating sugar packets and drinking soy sauce out of the bottle.

"Oh come on!" the lady pressed, taking another step toward the edge of our table. Then there was silence. Perfect silence as we sat there, unsure of what to do, a Chinese waiter poised and still, frozen in an uncomfortable smile.

Ethel Merman bowed her head, and clasped her hands and began to pray. Really. She prayed right there, for patience maybe, or fortitude, or maybe for the quick opening of the kitchen door and a flaming platter of Peking duck to crack the woman in the head and send her to the hospital.

No duck. She kept standing there with the drunken assumption that if she made everybody uncomfortable enough, she would get Happy Birthday sung to her, though she might not remember it. And it worked, because in the nervous lull, when I thought our party was about to stand up and go to another restaurant, delaying my food for another half hour, I myself threw my napkin on the table and stood up and belted:

"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday annoying drunk lady…

Happy Birthday to you,

…I'm up and coming!!!!!!"

Our table now ringed with the gaping mouths of Ethel Merman's sophisticated New York friends, I picked up my glossy, red menu with gilt, golden dragons on the cover and hid behind it, clasping my own hand and praying for food. And that prayer, like Ethel's was answered, because as the defeated lush weaved back to her table, beef and chicken and pork and shrimp and egg rolls flew out of the kitchen. Wine poured and ice clinked and I happily slurped, jabbing sticky chopsticks into anything covered in sweet and sour sauce.

It was the best half of a meal I've ever eaten, because at the halfway point, A fog of cold sweat surrounded me and I froze, chopstick poised over some exotic sauce encrusted vegetable. I had eaten only popcorn for the previous three days and my stomach was the size of a shrunken lentil. In a gastronomic holocaust I'd stuffed it with shrimp, Cheez-its, beef, chicken and glazed pork. The meal that I began afraid that I might not get enough to eat was ending as I became truly afraid I was going to throw up on Ethel Merman. Gently placing my chopsticks back on the table, I stopped talking and sat there listening to dusty old show biz stories from George M. Cohan's golf buddies while my stomach slowly turned into a lava lamp. Hot, red globs blurped and globbed around my distended middle, and I prayed for the third time "Lord, thank you for the food. Now please, please don't let me throw up on Ethel Merman in front of Irving Berlin's podiatrist. Okay, maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but don't even let me throw up around Ethel Merman. George Gershwin wrote songs for the lady, I doubt he ever threw up on her, although he probably could have made it into quite a song."

We hunched out into the cold winter air, closing mink jackets against the wind and ripped army coats with political buttons, our breath forming acrid sweet and sour clouds around our faces as we walked Ethel the two blocks back to her apartment. "Hey!" she trumpeted, "Let's go get some ice cream!" she said, not wanting the night to end.

"hhhnrr" I softly groaned, waving her off and pointing across the park, "gotta go…"

I hugged her, soft with mink and perfume and wine, and thanked her, my brassy guardian angel bearing shrimp and appetizers and credit cards, and she disappeared past her doorman and into the building.

The subway pole was cool against my face as I hugged it on the way home. I staggered off the train at my darkened, dangerous stop, walked briskly away from the station to a spot near a storm drain, and somewhere in Brooklyn I churgled and spit, returning to the gaseous bowels of New York City the entire meal I'd been given by its First Lady. Groaning and close to death, I moaned and hurled, until a lone Brooklyn Samaritan slowed while passing by to say "Hey man, you okay?" "Are you kidding?" I grimaced, "I'm in show business! I just had dinner with Ethel Merman!!"

Ethel Merman's son, Barb's uncle Bob lived in New York City also, only a few blocks from Ethel's place. He was a bearded, wild shaman who lived in the core of the big apple, sleeping under the giant, bronze mushroom at the Alice In Wonderland statue near the boat pond in Central Park. Bob was voluntarily homeless, showering in the basement of Ethel's posh building by day, and after sunset, when joggers pick up the pace to get out of the park before they get robbed, he unfurled a nylon sleeping bag under the giant monument to Lewis Carroll's story. He didn't seem to mind sleeping under a bronze mushroom in a dangerous city park, and used his free time to hang out with young actors, improvise long-form experimental theatre, and plan for the future, a homeless, nomadic prophet.

"Bob," I said, sitting at the Central Park Boathouse a few feet from his bed, "I think I'm leaving the Academy."

"Why is that?"

"The teachers hate me."

"They hate you?"

"They do. They hate me because I ask questions."

"They don't want you to ask questions?" he said, shoving hands into the pockets of his down vest, "A student unable to ask questions? Leave, man. I would leave."

"They make you lay on the floor and--"

"They don't let you ask questions…"

"And they don't. Seriously, they don't. They make you act like a color and you're supposed to just shut up and do it."

He leaned in closer. "Do you know who you are, Tom?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know who you are?"

"Who?"

He didn't blink for three seconds, and then said "You are the warrior artist."

"I'm the what?"

"You are …the warrior artist."

I didn't know what he meant at all, but it sounded sort of artsy and macho, so I went with it.

"Okay," I said, "Okay. Warrior artist. What is that?"

Bob leaned closer. "I got an idea under the mushroom of my friend and protector Alice. I have an idea for the warrior artist."

"What's that?"

"That's you."

"I'm what?"

"The warrior artist!"

"I mean what's the idea?"

"Teatro Mare. Theatre of the sea. We'll be based on a ship, writing and performing multilingual theatre, clowning, and mime to audiences in every port around the world!"

His head was covered in a sailor's bandana, his eyes blazing with the thrill of inspiration and a lack of sleep under the mushroom, and he filled my head with multicultural visions of peace through art. I was listening hard, tired of laying on the floor and doing useless exercises, nodding gravely after somebody did a terrible scene from a terrible play, the expensive tuition making it impossible to tell somebody "That was very bad. You are bad at acting. You should go home." Suddenly, over coffee in Central Park, it occurred to me that maybe mime to the people of Zimbabwe might be the way to go. Climb aboard a ship of happy fools, yell things like "Ahoy!" and sail to far off lands to perform for the poor and ignorant, because they'll probably love my "Guy trapped in a glass box" mime, since that's the only one I had really worked on. They can't get all that much mime on Zimbabwe, so it would probably go very well.

"That sounds cool, Bob," I said, in the darkened coffee house, "and you want me to be in it?

"We need the warrior artist."

"As an actor? Cool!"

"Yes, but more than that. We're going to be sailing around the world," he said.

"Absolutely," I answered.

"And in lots of places there are pirates."

"There are what?"

"Pirates. Pirates on the open sea," he said, his eyes blazing.

It was looking very much like Alice's mushroom was psychedelic.

"Bob, there aren't pirates--"

"Seriously, Tom," he said, "Get into an ocean you don't know, there are pirates who will sail up, take the ship, take the women and kill you. It still goes on."

The smoky air hung between us as I pictured eye patches and peg legs, plundering every dollar, actress, and juggling club before taking out a sword and making me walk the plank.

"We need a guy like you," he said, "A warrior artist to stand at the helm and carry a rifle. When a boat comes too close to us in open water, take a few shots at them to scare them off."

"I have a gun?" I said, "On the ship of peace through theatre?"

"High powered rifle."

"Do they have guns too?" I asked, gulping hot chocolate in as macho a way as possible, since, after all, I am the warrior artist.

"They're pirates," he said.

"So they have guns, and I'll be expected to shoot at them while they might be shooting at me?"

"Just to scare them off, not kill them," he said, 'We come in peace. We're actors."

"I'll be a gun-wielding, international clown of peace?"

"Are you ready for that?!" he asked, his flushed face quaking next to the table lamp, totally alive and filled with adrenaline, caffeine, and the knowledge that if this nutty idea ever came to be, I'd be the kid taking the first pirate slug in the head.

"Bob," I said, "I think I'm gonna move to California."

"Sounds good," he said.

ELEVEN

"That Ethel Merman had quite a set of pipes, didn't she?" the Ranger said. "I never heard her sing live, but I can't deny I'm a big fan."

"And you set your sights on Los Angeles," he said, pronouncing it in Spanish. "Los Ahn-hay-lays!"

"And here I am, way out on the other side of the country."

"And here you are, in El Valle de San Fernando!" the Ranger said, as we rolled down Laurel Canyon Boulevard.

"Yes, Spanish for 'place of the mini-mall, I guess." I said.

"I think it's named for San Fernando," he said.

"I was just--"

"Saint Ferdinand, in our tongue." "Thanks," I said, "Good to know."

We rolled down the hill and onto the flat valley floor, through the convenience store and stop light grid where most people in Los Angeles live, that is, people who don't have millions of dollars to buy a house, and that's just about everybody.

"Can I drop you off somewhere?"

"Nowhere in particular," he said.

"Do you have somewhere you're going?"

"I'm as free as a bird, Tom," he said, chuckling and staring up at the dusty palm trees that line Ventura Boulevard.

"Is Twister tied up somewhere?"

"Well taken care of. All is well," he said.

He gently refused my offers to drop him off anywhere, so I pulled into the driveway of my house, a stucco and shingle relic from the fifties with a brown facade and cracked sidewalk so similar to every other house on the block that I had to check for the correct street number for the first three months I lived there.

"Hey, nice place," he said, as my car bottomed out on a corner of the sidewalk.

"Come on, it's a house."

"Still, it looks very nice."

"I use the back door," I said, leading him past the wrought iron fence and dusty oleander lining the pool, and into my four bedroom, two and a half bath, one story house. It really only has two baths, but in case any realtors are interested, I call it two and a half, since it has an outdoor hose, which in Southern California real estate terms is considered a half bath.

"You have a very nice home here," he said, walking through the tiny living room into the kitchen before he had to turn around, embarrassed that he'd seen the whole place already. The kid's drawings and certificates lined the hallway between rooms, and posters of paintings from museum shows, Ansel Adams prints, and a few of my own paintings filled the remaining wall space, surrounding the crown jewel of my art collection, a Martin Mull poster that he autographed for me on the set of a horrible movie we filmed together.

"Would you like something to drink? Milk or something?" I asked, headed for the kitchen.

"Do you have anything else?" he asked.

"I'm having iced tea," I said.

"If you have enough, an iced tea would be refreshing."

"Sure thing," I said, "I'm not sure if anybody's home."

"You're a family man?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, rummaging for ice, "I talk about it in my act. I do jokes about it, remember?"

He brought a fist to his forehead. "Yes! Of course."

I sat down opposite him on the sofa and handed him his iced tea. "You still haven't told me anything," I said.

"What am I supposed to tell you?" he asked, sipping his drink and reaching it toward the table, where it hovered in a holding pattern as he searched for a coaster.

"Just put it down anywhere," I said.

"Alrighty," he said.

"Listen, there must be a reason you're here, and it can't be because you're curious about the commercials I have to audition for and how similar they are to your experiences with Aqua-Velva."

"Well," he said, "I just thought we had a lot in common and it would be interesting to talk with you."

I swigged iced tea and stared at him.

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"Well, I don't know if we have that much in common," I said, "There is a big difference between you and me."

"Not that much difference, I expect," he said.

"See, the thing is, you show up riding a magically appearing horse, and have nowhere to be dropped off at. I'm an actor and a stand up comedian and not a cowboy with fake guns."

"We're actors, we've both done some commercials we weren't crazy about, though the products we represented were legitimate--"

"I live here, don't have a magical horse, and I don't wear a mask."

He ran a finger around the rim of his glass and sighed.

"Fair enough. That's true," he said.

I had him there, and he took another sip of tea as he stood up, filling the small living room with unmistakable cowboy.

"Listen Tom," he said, "I just thought we could be friends. If this is making you too uncomfortable, I'll just be on my way."

He stood in front of me, a tall man in a powder blue shirt laced with rawhide, a flowing, red neckerchief and a white cowboy hat above the heavy gunbelt and mask.

And he was dead. Yes, I checked on the computer. Dead. I looked up his biography and squinted at blown up photos of Clayton Moore, the guy standing in my living room, and it was this guy, and it said he was dead.

"Can I, …uh" I stammered.

"Hm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Shoot," he said.

"Are you …urn…"

He leaned forward a little. "Am I what? A good friend? I like to think I am."

"No, are you…"

Some melting ice clinked in his glass as I stared from his eyes down to the floor.

"C'mon. Cat got your tongue?"

Not that I'd thought about it very much before that, but it's very hard to ask a person if they're dead.

"Are you okay with your drink?" I asked.

I didn't want him to leave. As insane as it sounds even now, I wanted to be his friend. I wanted him to take off his hat and lean close to me and tell me something good and secret and sublime, something about things bigger than traffic and house payments and casting directors for car battery commercials, something to ease my worries about money and survival and what other actors at useless auditions thought of me. I wanted him to tell me that he had amazing, cosmic information, and that everything was going to be just fine, and that there really is mercy and love pouring out to me and to everyone. I wanted him to tell me that my hopes and dreams are all good, and coming to wonderful fruition in God's own time, and I wanted him to tell me that yes, the people who have been so cruel to me in the past will eventually, in God's precious time, drown in unexpected bathtub accidents.

He didn't even come close. After a few moments of silence, when he sensed I wasn't about to take back the iced tea and throw him out, he offered his hand, silently extending it toward me. Sitting in my soft chair, I looked up at this western icon and gentlemanly crimefighter, and I shook the black glove of the One Ranger in as manly a covenant of sworn brotherhood as I've ever felt in my life. We shook hands, hard and strong, and I knew in that cosmic and infinite way that I was longing only for a friend, someone to watch my back and talk if he felt like it and shut up if he didn't. The fact is, that was enough. He sat back down on the sofa and took a sip of tea.

"They say you were in "Back In The Future," he said, popping the balloon of our embryonic friendship with the first sentence out of his mouth.

"Who said that?" I asked.

"The fellows I met at your audition. You played Ben?"

I put my drink down as carefully as if there were a coaster under it and said, "If we're going to be friends, then we should be straight with each other, right?"

"Yes, sir," he said, "Straight as arrows."

"Well, then what should I call you?…Clayton?"

He looked back at me without a hint of irony. "I would like you to call me Ranger," he said.

"Why is that? It's not your name, right?"

"It isn't and it is," he said, "If I'm going to be the One Ranger, then that's what I'd like to be called."

"Even to friends like me?" I asked.

"Even to friends. If a man can decide who he is and where he's going, he can decide what he wants to be called," he said, tilting back to finish his iced tea in an easy swig.

"Well," I said, "Ranger, there's one or two things you need to know about me. The movie was called "Back TO The Future," I played a character named Biff, and I don't talk about it."

"You don't?"

"Nope."

"You don't talk about it ever?"

"Are you my friend?"

"Yes I am."

"Well, I don't ever talk about it with my friends."

"Not at all?"

"Nope."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Why do you want me to call you Ranger?"

My son walked through the room in his socks, surprising both of us.

"Hey, buddy, what's going on?"

"Hey, Dad. Howzigoin?" he mumbled, flopping toward the fridge and swinging open the door with his elbow. His baseball glove covered the left hand, forcing him to open the plastic milk jug with his teeth, before he noticed the Ranger, who'd stood up, waiting to be introduced. He spilled a few drops, then stood there staring at us, sucking liquid from the milk cap in his teeth.

"Hey, Danny, this is my friend," I said, staring back and forth between them, stammering, "uh… my friend…Ranger."

"Hello, Danny," the Ranger said, "Very pleased to make your acquaintance!"

"Ranger?"

"Yes, Danny," the Ranger said.

"That's your name?"

"Yes, that's his name, I guess." I turned to the Ranger and clapped my hands, "So I guess you've got to go, huh?"

"How's it going, Ranger?" Danny said, never letting his eyes off the new guest while he forgot he wasn't alone and swigged milk out of the jug.

"Hey! Glass, please? What's that about?" I said.

"What's that about?" he answered, pointing across the coffee table at the Ranger.

"Hey, lighten up, Francis, it's 'Who is that,' and that is the Ranger, an actor and a friend of mine."

"Are you working on a movie?" Danny asked him.

"No I'm not, Danny," he said, "this is my regular get-up."

"Okay," Danny said, glancing at me for an explanation.

"Do you have any brothers, Danny?"

"Sisters," he said.

"Two in college," I said, "One on deck."

"Two sisters, Danny?"

"Three."

"Yes, three girls, and then a boy," I said, "but I'm raising him as a girl, 'cause I'm not buying all new stuff! That's not a skirt, buddy, it's a kilt! Ha!"

Danny rolled his eyes and the Ranger stared at me.

"From the show?" I said, "It's a joke I do in the show. The show you came to?"

"Huh, well…How old are you, Danny?" the Ranger said.

"Fourteen," he answered wiping milk on a sleeve, staring at him.

"What an age!" he said, "Do you like camping out under a sky full of stars?"

"Huh?"

"Camping," I said, "He means camping, buddy. Yes, we camp sometimes."

"Not since Scouts," Danny said, "No, we don't camp."

Eight seconds of silence went by, until the Ranger walked toward the kitchen with his empty glass. "Okay. Can I put this somewhere?"

"Leave it in the sink," I said, "Hey, is anybody else at home, Dan?"

He shrugged and squinted at the Ranger's belt.

"Those guns real?"

"What do you think, Danny?" the Ranger said.

"They look pretty real."

"Hello? Anybody here?" I yelled down the hallway, getting something muffled back.

"Are you real?" Danny said.

I put my hands on my hips, as any Dad would. "Where did that come from? First the milk and now this?"

"Are you real?" Danny repeated to him.

"Daddy!" my daughter Ellie called out, a free-wheeling and lanky blonde with wisps of hair sprouting from under a tie-dyed headband. She turned the corner to hug me and almost fell backwards when she saw the Ranger in front of her and gasped.

"Hey, El! How are you honey?"

"Hi, Daddy. I missed …you…" she said, slowing her words as she took in the guest in front of her, finally saying "Hi."

"This is my daughter Ellie," I told him.

"Hello, Miss Ellie!" the Ranger said, removing his hat and bowing grandly.

Her blue eyes were saucers under splashes of headband color. "Hello, uh--"

"His name is Ranger," Danny said, "Real guns. I asked."

"Are you doing a movie?" she asked him.

"Nope, already asked that, too," Danny shouted over his back, flipping the milk jug back into the refrigerator door, "That's his clothes."

"Cool," Ellie said, "Can I borrow your shirt sometime?"

"I think it'd be a bit big for you, little lady!" the Ranger chuckled.

"It'd be a great skirt. Put a belt on it, you know, like a skirt."

The Ranger looked at me and smiled. "Beautiful family."

"Are you real?" Ellie said.

"That's what I said!" Danny spun in place in the kitchen.

"What do you think, Ellie?" the Ranger said, smiling.

"Hey, I got in trouble for saying that! Unfair!" Danny said.

Ellie stared at him for more than a few seconds, until the Ranger extended his hand and she shook it. "I like you," she said, as honest and true as anything this guy had said to me so far.

"I like you, too, honey," he said.

She shook his hand. "I get to borrow the shirt. Deal?"

"You wear some slacks underneath," he answered. "Deal?"

My wife walked in from our bedroom, wearing sweatpants and a UCLA T-shirt, with short nubs of newly grown blonde hair sprouting from her bald head.

"Ahkk!" she squealed.

"Sorry, honey," I said, "I should have called you. This is Clayton."

She reached for a bandana to cover her head, and then shrugged and waved it in the air, rubbing her fuzzy scalp.

"Well, hello there, Clayton!"

"I thought it was Ranger." Danny called out, eating something secretly behind a kitchen cabinet.

"Clayton is my real name, Danny. Clayton Moore."

Ellie started clicking away on her phone, as Caroline looked the Ranger over.

"Nice to meet you, Clayton."

"Have you been feeling poorly, Ma'am?"

Everybody froze for a while, until the air came back into the room.

"Yes, Clayton, I was feeling poorly for a while. I'm a cancer survivor," she said.

I clapped my hands and rubbed my palms together. "I'm a cancer survivor-survivor!" I said, joking at the wrong time and in the wrong manner, as is my custom.

"I could tell," the Ranger said to her, ignoring me.

"Well, I usually wear a hat," she said, twirling her bandana.

"Oh, not that, Ma'am," he said, "I mean there's a lot of love here," he said.

"Yes there is," she said, gleaming and direct, "But what does that have to do with—"

He lifted a finger for emphasis. "Tough to fit so much love into a place that hasn't been through a rough patch. The fire burns, but it sure does leave something behind." She stared at him through the eye holes in his mask and squinted, then relaxed and took a step toward him. "Yes, it does."

"Yes sir," I said, breathing air through my teeth, "It leaves love and doctor bills, 'cause I know it sure doesn't leave any money." The Ranger looked at the floor for a moment, and then up at my wife.

"Glad you're here, Caroline," he said.

"Me too," she said, placing a trusting hand on his arm. Ellie held out her cel phone, displaying the lit screen.

"Are you an angel or something?" she asked him, "Because on here it says you died."

She showed him his obituary from four different news sites, all with an archival photo of Clayton Moore.

"That's you, right?" she asked.

"Gimme a break," Danny said, "Look at him! The internet is so bogus. Hey, is anybody on the computer?"

"Sarah is," Ellie said.

"Sarah!" I called out, "Come here and meet somebody!"

"I can't!" a voice cried from the small bedroom we use for boxes, papers, glue sticks, and a computer.

"For a second! Come on!"

"If I leave here, Danny will get on the computer!"

"She lies like a rug," Danny said, lurking in a hallway shadow to storm the room and take over the computer if she changed her mind.

"Well, that's Sarah anyway," I said, picking up my car keys, "So…listen, I have to go out again… and…uh…you've got to be on your way, I guess…"

The Ranger looked at me. "I do?"

"I have another appointment."

His eyes lit up. "Is it for a big picture?"

"Six or seven lines on an episode of "She-Hulk."

He was motionless.

"It's a T.V. show. Syndicated," I said.

"Oh," he said, "Well, break a leg."

I chugged the rest of my tea. "So where do you go?" I asked, "I mean, in the times you're not here."

"If it doesn't make you too uncomfortable, I thought I might just stay here and wait for you," he said.

"Can't you just ride off on Trig--"

"Twister, right?" he corrected.

"Yeah, Twister. Can't Twister just show up and you ride off for a while?" I asked, "I can show you the way to another airport around here if you want."

Pride stiffened his spine and he stood straighter than I'd ever seen him. "Unless you don't trust me around your family when you're gone."

"No, I trust you!" I said, "I thought you might have to do something or report somewhere."

"Nothing right now, no." he said. I looked at Ellie and she smiled at him. "Can I show you my art?"

"I would love to see it!" he said.

I showed him where the iced tea mix and glasses and ice were, but Caroline had already seen his empty glass and was making a new batch.

"Are you staying for dinner?" she said, as I waved her off the subject from behind his head.

"My stomach is growling already!" he said, "I would love to, if it's not too much bother."

"One more piece of chicken," she said.

I yelled goodbye to Danny, which elicited no response at all because he was fighting over the computer with Sarah, and the Ranger took off his gunbelt and draped it gently over the back of the sofa.

"I'll be back in a couple hours, depending on traffic," I said.

"Fair enough, Tom," he called out, biting the fingers of his right hand to pull off a glove, as Ellie ran down the hall to get her bulging art portfolio.

"Some of the pastels aren't finished yet!" she said.

"I can't wait to see them!" he said, as Danny screamed something about his private email account through the wall.

As I approached the front door two hours later, I could hear the crazed raspy cheer of Christopher Lloyd screaming his head off. "YYAAAAHHHH! ! YAAAAAY!!" and I opened the door on him, caught watching Back To The Future on my T.V.

"No. Oh, come on, man," I said, slamming the door behind me. With his gloves laid neatly on his gunbelt, and boots laying on the floor, he had his socks up on the coffee table and his hat tilted on the back of his head.

"Excuse me," I said, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Jiminy Crickets, he just went back in the future!"

"Turn it off, would you? What is this, is it on cable again?"

"No, it's a tape," he said.

"A tape? Where did you get a tape?"

"Shh," he said, leaning closer and squinting to watch the final scene where Marty goes home and all is well and Biff is waxing Marty's truck.

"Turn this off," I said.

"Why? It's your tape. It was in the drawer with tapes and such. Danny set it up for me."

I picked up the ragged VHS box from the table, worn to almost nothing through loans to friends with new VCRs in the eighties.

"How do you know how to work a VCR?" I asked.

"I told you Danny showed me," he said.

"Where are the kids?"

"They helped me with the tape, but when they heard what it was, they all left. Seems they've seen it," he said, "By the way, Danny went to Rick's house and he might not be home for dinner."

He watched Doc show up driving the car from the future, pulling into the street and taking off through the clouds, wonder and excitement shining through the mask.

"Roads?" the tape churned, "Where we're going we don't need roads."

The Ranger looked at me in triumph.

"Yes!" he said.

"You're the heavy then?" he said, after the credits rolled and he gave me a standing ovation in his socks. "I played the heavy in all sorts of pictures. "Frank and Jesse James," and "Jesse James Rides Again." I played Jesse James! How about that!"

"You did?"

"Oh, sure," he said, "I was also a mean hombre in a bunch of pictures with Gene Autry and Roy Rogers."

"You were?" I said, "Roy Rogers?"

"Yep, we had a ball," he said, stretching and stifling a yawn, "But it was a lot of hard work, too. We shot fifteen episodes in six weeks. That's a lot of riding and punching stuntmen and falling through windows. How long did it take you to make Back To The Future?"

"A long time," I said, my back slowly tensing.

"How long is that?" he asked, adding "Hey, would you like an iced tea? I made some."

"No, thanks," I said, "But it took months and months because a guy got replaced."

"What happened? Somebody got hurt? I've seen that happen."

"Yeah, me too. No, he got fired. The guy playing Marty got fired."

"Who, the guy there now?"

"No, Eric Stoltz got fired and Michael J. Fox--"

"Who's which now?"

I stood up. "Listen, this is stuff that I don't really get into, so--"

"Why not?" he said "It's just stories. Things that happened."

"Remember our little talk, Ranger? I call you Ranger and you don't ask me anything about--"

"The future?"

"Right."

He pulled his feet onto the floor and pulled his boots on. "Well, you might not want to talk about it, but--"

"You're right," I said, staring at him, "I don't want to talk about it."

He pulled on one glove, and then another, squeezing in little grunts that sounded something like "it's a great picture," and "You're good in it, you know," and more like those when his right glove had a couple of fingers inside out and took longer to put on. I finally stared him down until he stopped.

"Okay, no talk about the future," he said.

"Good."

Caroline stepped into the room as the Ranger put his hat on.

"I thought you were staying for dinner," she said.

"Whoopee! I forgot!" he said, pulling his gloves back off.

"How did you get in the pictures if you're a comedian?" he asked. I looked at him for more than a few seconds as he pulled his hat off and unbuckled his gunbelt.

"What?" he said, "Is that alright to ask?"

TWELVE

Steve Martin was in the middle of his set, taking a break from insane happy feet dancing to do a card trick with the audience. He'd finished the banjo playing and the arrow through his head stuff, made balloon animals and given every person in the fourth row a brief massage, and each movement within the manic symphony was greeted with cheering bliss from the thousands who packed the theatre.

"Okay, I'll need a volunteer from the audience," he said, his white suit a blinding flash in the stage lights.

Hypnotized and surrounded by the crazed audience, I raised my hand so fast I almost dislocated my shoulder.

"You there! Yes right there!" he pointed at me, and I stood up as friends whooped and pounded me on the back.

"Tell us your name!"

"My name is Tom, Steve," I said, my voice cracking.

He moved his shoulders slightly, taking on the jazzy dialect and loose limbs of the Czechoslovakian swinger.

"And Tom, if I may call you Tom," he chuckled, "Where are you from?"

"Well, Steve," I answered, swinging my shoulders and doing my best impression of him from Saturday Night Live, "I live nearby."

"We are brothers, then!" Steve Martin himself said to me.

We did a card trick together where I was the brunt of a joke, and he swung around in my direction, pointing a finger in my face.

"Sorry about that, Tom," he said, "Just havin' a little fun…at your expense!"

Three thousand people laughed and cheered and I went home to congratulations and back slaps with my ears ringing. I then took out a notebook and started writing down some stuff that I thought was funny.

The Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard has offices on the second floor that are sound proof and lined in lead, and rumors still circulate that guys were murdered up there, so from the first moments inside, there is an undeniable feeling that the place is teeming with angry ectoplasm. In the nineteen thirties and forties the place was called "Ciro's," the hottest club in Hollywood, right on the Sunset Strip. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis performed on the main stage there, along with every big time nightclub act and every down and out movie star trying to cobble a few songs and jokes together to make some money on the road. Ciro's is the club where Joey Bishop famously opened the show for Frank Sinatra and watched Marilyn Monroe herself slink through the packed house in mink and diamonds, to sit at a front row table and make the audience forget who Joey Bishop was. As soon as she was comfortable, with every eye on the back of the bottle blonde's head, Joey leaned over and pointed a finger at her, growling "I thought I told you to wait in the truck!"

Clark Gable and Orson Welles and Cary Grant sipped chilled gin and nodded to each other in there, toasting over the brassy synchopation and fielding the hopeful glances of dolled-up brunettes in silky dresses, while, if the angry poltergeists are to be believed, lots of bad stuff was going on upstairs about people with delinquent loans who were talking while Frank Sinatra was trying to sing.

The Comedy Store took over the building in the seventies, a giant cube filled with tables, chairs, a microphone, and decades of cumulative cigarette smoke caking the ceiling. Three stories of black cement, with three separate performance rooms inside, it spends long days on Sunset Boulevard locked and quiet, absorbing the blazing California sun, until dusk pries open the doors and the collected heat pours off the stage in the performances of young comedians, exploding in brilliant longing.

I walked up to the black monolith, a twenty one year old actor/comedian, my face freshly washed in the bathroom of the "Copper Penny," a twenty four hour family restaurant down the street, ready to be seen, loved, cast, and made famous very quickly so that I could get back to New York City, play Jesus in Godspell, and prove to that New York City that kicked me in the teeth that they were wrong and I was so much more than a really big white kid with talent who belonged in a traveling company of "Oklahoma!" I paid my dues, playing the guitar at coffee houses, performing improvisational theatre in moldy basements and campus pizza joints, and I was ready to be a comedian on the Sunset Strip. I took my place in the audition line behind a hundred other jittery wannabe's, snaking through the Comedy Store parking lot waiting for a shot on stage.

Two major factions of comedians gather in comedy club parking lots, both recognizable by sight; new guys and regulars. I was one of the new guys, confused people who listened to the sadistic friends suggesting they try to be funny as a real job. The new guys stand in line waiting for a bit of stage time at the "open mic," leaning on cars, but only the cars of people they know. Words are their currency and weaponry, and words are all they've got. From every vice-principal's office from every school in the country, the class clowns throw down their shields of pride, intellect, money or ego, and walk naked into the maelstrom of savagery, cloaked thinly only by their wit. If you held all of them upside down and shook, nothing would fall to the asphalt but stubby pencils, scribbled matchbook covers, and maybe ninety cents.

Shaking the other group upside down would result in some arrests. The power corner of the parking lot is reserved for regular comics with prime stage time, preparing for their sets, or basking in the afterglow of big laughs. After one, five, or fifty appearances on T.V. talk shows, they're usually denied the right to walk across the talk show set and sit on a sofa with real celebrities, but at the club, the parking lot is theirs and they lean on any available car, ready to meet the angry owner with a wisecrack about his jacket. They gather in the dark, near the ladies' room entrance, fishing for slurred compliments from weaving redheads, slashing each other with insults sharpened on honed insolence while mumbling particles of joke ideas into micro recorders. Who knows? It might work on Letterman. Their creed is ridicule the successful, pray to enter their ranks, and drink Long Island iced teas until the sky is pink with dawn and people are jogging. Comics don't jog, they wake up in the afternoon coughing and watch cartoons while eating cereal.

Not that that's a bad thing. Working for a few minutes a night to a packed house, out with friends at three in the morning, and wake up when the sun is warm, it's a lazy harmonic convergence, and no surprise that the line to audition for the place was so long. The army of class clowns and mental patients off their meds waited for six o'clock, when the doors opened and the list of names were taken for four minute rations of stage time, beginning at seven thirty and going until two in the morning.

Not in a row, though. The regulars filled the parking lot on Monday night, and dropped in for "guest sets," the right to hop onstage unannounced, walk aimlessly around the stage looking for new material while sighing into the mic "So…what else is going on?" and completely ignore the red light in back that means wrap it up and get off. Lots of desperate new guys could wait in the pitch black back of the room, mumbling jokes to themselves from dinner time until two in the morning with no hope of getting onstage if a regular comic went off the grid and started wandering the stage for hours.

Things didn't look good for me. I played the tuba as a part of my act and dragged it to every club, fifty pounds of metal taking up the space of two paying customers in back. It always made things far more difficult than they needed to be, and this is show business, so it started out pretty tough already. I clanged the tuba toward the front of the line for my drink ticket and performance time, greeted by a bitter comic, angry about signing up amateurs on open mic night instead of smoking pot in the parking lot with other regulars, leaning on cars and preparing for "Tonight Show" appearances that will probably never happen.

"What is that thing?" he snorted.

"A tuba."

"You play that?"

"Don't be silly," I said, "I carry it around as a lucky charm."

He scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to me without the hint of a smile.

"I used to wear it as a pendant but the chain broke," I added with a chuckle.

He shoved the paper in my face with a blank stare of perfect apathy. "Eight forty five," he mumbled, looking beyond me to the next pathetic victim.

"Thanks!" I enthused, way over the top.

Eight forty five could mean nine o'clock if things went well, or eleven forty five if a long string of regulars showed up.

Cocktail waitresses barreled through the back of the room, an obstacle course of needy hopefuls and sloshing vodkas, and I squirted my way to a barstool in the deepest corner, darker than the inside of a closed refrigerator. And the show began, the Comedy Store open mic, the pathetic parade of amateur comedians, people convinced that their voices should be amplified and people should listen to what they have to say. And not even for free, they think that people should pay them for it.

A bearded Pakistani man trembled in the spotlight, saying "Tonight…we have a really big shoooooooo," doing an impression of Ed Sullivan so badly that it didn't even matter that nobody in the audience knew who Ed Sullivan was.

"Dating is tough, huh?" almost all of them said in one way or another, following it up with variations on the theme of airline travel and it's inconvenience. "Maybe they should make the plane out of black box material!! Ever think of that, Poindexter?!" The Coke I was nursing was watery with melted ice before it was getting close to my stage time, and I slid my tuba out of the darkness through the maze of chairs toward the stage. The emcee of the show was talking with some hip regular comics, and moaned audibly when I walked up to him carrying a tuba. "I'm up next," I said, "Would you like to know how to introduce me?"

"Listen" he said, "We're gonna bump you. One of the guys has a Carson set he's working on."

"Bump me?"

"Yeah, he's working on a Carson set."

"Not bump the guy after me?"

"No, he needs to go on now," he said, turning away from me.

I dragged the tuba back through the tables, knocking into a couple of them, and sat back down to watch a guy named Greg Travis blow the roof off the place with a loose set of comic riffs that sizzled the room, pushing wild ideas through crazed rhythms and creating the awareness by everyone in the room that this was the wildest, hippest, loudest, most creative place on earth. He was a punk rocker being interviewed, and played both parts, barking into the microphone in a cockney dialect "This isn't me first band. I used to be in a band called the dogs. But we had to break up…one of the dogs got hit by a car."

I performed right after him, the tough spot after a "Killer set" when the audience is using the next guy up as a comedy intermission. Spilled beer bottles clanked and big haired women walked through the spotlight on the way to the ladies room as I performed my own wild version of standup, praying that they might listen to me eventually, after a minute to adjust in their chairs and order another round. And they did. It was going well, and the next hope was that the owner of the place might see it.

Mitzi Shore, the owner of the Comedy Store, took over the club after a divorce from her comic ex-husband, and was as well suited to run a comedy club as a health club receptionist at a neurology clinic. Mitzi had the voice of a whining Turkish fire alarm, not that I've ever been to a fire in Turkey, but I'd put money on them being very close. She held her court of darkness in a black vinyl booth on the side of the showroom, surrounded by sycophants and cigarettes, taking phone calls on a tabletop receiver while smoking through a long cigarette holder she must have bought at an Addams Family estate sale.

Sometimes she watched comedians, but on audition night, a kid who worked for months to get there could get onstage in front of Mitzi only to be ignored through a phone call and told to come back in six months. It took a complete lucky line up of the comedy planets to have her watch you and be accepted as a regular. And the unlucky comic who was being too funny, getting too many loud laughs and disturbing an important conversation could be passed over for being a great comedian at precisely the wrong time.

I hopped offstage to a strong round of applause, and the emcee walked up to me with his jaw on the ground.

"Congratulations," he said, "You're a regular."

"Are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not," he shrugged, "You got lucky, she was watching your set."

"She was?"

"Listen, you're a regular. The thing is, she said you should perform here, and also be a doorman."

"A doorman?" I asked, "What do you mean?"

"Like a bouncer, sort of," he said, "watch the room, seat people, you know."

"A bouncer? I just want to perf--"

"I would do it, man. If guys don't show up for their sets, doormen get the spots. It's a good way to get onstage."

"What if I just want to perform?"

"You're a regular. Congratulations. Call in on Monday with your availability, and call in Tuesday for your spots."

I called in Monday and got no spots at all, so I became a bouncer on the Sunset Strip.

The back doorman, to be specific. The kid who sits on a barstool at the back door, pointing toward the bathrooms, watching for cocaine addled rockers trying to sneak in, and walking up to a table of twenty raucous patrons squeezing into a table for eight and asking them if they would be so kind as to think about the feelings of the performers onstage and the people around them, while they shouted "Richard!! Richard Pryor!!" for at least an hour before Mr. Pryor even pulled his Rolls Royce into the parking lot. I watched an endless waterfall of jokes cascade over a sea of darkened heads, sneaking up behind drunken hecklers to assume my "I'm a bouncer, don't mess with me" pretense, grumbling at them to shut up or else, and when they didn't listen, walking away to hop onstage and do a show for the same people an hour later.

The hallways teemed with comics, all aware of the unspoken caste system. Richard Pryor was king. He was filming his standup concert films at the time and performed every night at the Comedy Store, onstage sets as long as he wanted, on whichever of three stages he wanted to take. He wandered the hallways wafting cigarette smoke and Grey Flannel cologne behind him as the crowds of awestruck comics parted, a red sea of dreamers and potential hangers on, ready to carry him to the stage on a golden throne if asked by James and Rashan, his bodyguards, who were always available to gently clear a way to the stage for Mr. Pryor, or throw an unruly audience member several feet through a set of double doors and into the street if circumstances called for it.

Richard Pryor performed brilliantly but quietly at the Store, working on new ideas and fresh stories from his fractured psyche, taking his improvisations to an honest whisper into the dented microphone. One night, when the ideas weren't flowing, and his set became more searching silence than manic self revelation, he stood onstage saying nothing. Not pacing while timing out the beginning of his next tangent, but simply staring into the lights for long enough that everyone got giggly and uncomfortable, certain that he was about to shout something obscene and crazy and truthful. A sheen of perspiration rose in his face, and it became clear to everyone that he didn't know what to say next. Richard Pryor was glowing with flop sweat and unable to come up with any words to say. He shifted his weight back and forth for a few seconds, and finally whispered into the mic "You got to excuse me…Uh…this here is the first time I ever performed straight."

An electrical current of equal parts compassion and amazement coursed through the room, and applause rippled over shouts of "We love you!" "We love you, Richard!"

"Yeah," he whispered, "You love me, write me some muh-fuggn jokes."

A guy at a table near the front screamed out "Do Mudbone, Rich!" a character from a Richard Pryor album ten years before. "Love you, man. Do Mudbone!! Whoo!!" Richard stared into the lights, looking for new material in the foreign sharpness of sobriety, getting heckled by a drunken moron. "Come, on, Rich! Do Mudbone!" he yelled, standing up at his table and spilling a drink. I walked through the room to the right, toward the heckler sitting close to the stage, lit by the wash of stage lights far too brightly for me to sneak in and tell him to shut up in secret.

"Sir," I whispered from the darkness, "Sit down."

"Come on," the guy spun around to face the audience, clapping his hands and chanting "MUD-BONE! MUD-BONE! MUD-BONE!"

I walked into the light, wearing a brightly colored shirt striped with rainbows in tribute to energy, and flash, and Robin Williams, since I hadn't met him yet - and took the man's arm. "Sir, sit down, you're going to have to--"

"Get y'hands off me!" he spat, spinning on me, ready to square off in the middle of a packed house in the middle of the first show Richard Pryor ever did without drugs.

"Sit down," I growled, trying to expand my shoulders to bouncer size while praying the guy didn't hit me.

He took a step toward me, eyes blazing, and through the loudspeakers of the club,

Richard Pryor's voice boomed with new authority.

"Hey Muh-Fuggah. You gonna mess with Rainbow Man?"

The drunk looked around to see who was speaking, and it turned out to be the black man onstage with the microphone, five feet away from us.

"Bettah sit yo ass down, or Rainbow man'll rip yo muh-fuggn head right offah yo muh-fuggn shoulders."

He was stuck there, standing up and staring at the hero onstage, unwilling to shout out "Mud Bone" again, but unable to sit back down because a big kid with a multicolored Hawaiian shirt told him to.

"Fo' you dig yo'self deeper in the hole, you sit yo ass down, muh-fuggah. Rainbow man will just go--

He went into an improvisation, playing me as a character. My voice in the scene, provided by Richard Pryor, was the friendly sing-song of a slice of white bread. "Sir," he whined, "Please sit down so Mr. Pryor can continue, or I'll have to rip your head off and take a crap down your neck! Sir!" He folded his arms uncomfortably, and walked across the stage with the stiff gait of the angry white guy, and the crowd erupted, welcoming him back to hot inspiration.

"Rainbow man went to 'Nam, you dumb muh-fuggah. He was three years old. Escaped from 'Nam, swam to Hawaii…"

He pointed at me. "Where do yo think he got the shirt, muh-fuggah?!"

The place erupted at my expense, and the man sat down. "Don't you mess wit' Rainbow Man! Rainbow Man knows some white-ass karate and he'll kill 'yo ass. He won't do time, either! Look at the muh-fuggah!" Back to the mayo on white. "Well, your honor, he was being disrespectful during the show, so I ripped his head off and dragged him behind my car!" he said, taking on the deeper voice of the white judge, "Of course, Rainbow Man! Not guilty!"

From that day forward I was Rainbow Man, accepted as a regular and greeted warmly by the cynical horde of comics, brought into the fold by the king of comedy himself.

If Richard Pryor was king, Robin Williams played princely court jester, and as Richard Pryor worked on "in concert" movies, Robin buzzed around him in colorful outfits like a Godspell cast member on speed. Robin spent his time leaning on the back wall of the showroom, memorizing material performed by less successful comics for his crazed talk show appearances, where starlets sat on the sofa next to him, marveling at his genius and energy as he spouted lines from anywhere his plagiarist hunger would take him, usually the notebooks of new comics, thrilled at the prospect of performing in front of a T.V. star with his own album.

There was an odd thrill to see your material being performed later in the week by Robin Williams, as he twisted the joke into a sweaty dance, performed in suspenders and pantaloons with a trumpet voice. Painful to have material lost in the thrashing maw of his comedy avarice, but still, it was stolen by the "Mork from Ork" guy, so you must be on to something, and maybe even something good. As a new guy he'd never spoken to me, though he did stand around watching me perform quite a bit, until a few weeks later when we ended up backstage alone together and he waved his hand, beckoning me to him. Was it to offer some grudging friendship after stealing my "Guardian Comedian" bit with the red beret and funny karate moves? Was it to offer an apology and a fifty dollar bill in a backhanded thanks, which I'd heard happened occasionally. I walked over to him in slow motion, ready to memorize the encounter for phone calls home later that night, reporting on my brush with illustrious, yet counterfeit genius. He drew me toward him, leaned in and said "Get me a vodka."

"A what?" I asked.

"A vodka. Get me one."

"I'm a comic here."

"Go back to the bar and tell Louie it's for me."

"Uh…can a waitress--"

"Go get me a vodka."

From out of my body, I watched myself actually go get him a vodka. I was a new guy, and word was if you upset Mork, you might just be out of the Store and making balloon animals at a Mexican restaurant before you knew it. He took the vodka thanklessly, and I smiled, joining the ranks of regular comics who refused to go onstage if he was in the room, and fighting the urge to take those multi-colored Godspell suspenders of his and shoving them back to Ork the hard way, with my foot.

The stage was always spotlit and working, with hundreds of comedians sweating and writing in the cloud of smoke swirling under the low ceiling, performing desperately in front of agents, and tourists, druggies, rock stars, and actors. Occasionally even good actors.

Very late one Monday night, Christopher Walken ambled down Sunset and walked into the club, only days after the accidental drowning of Natalie Wood, a notorious Hollywood tragedy that happened while he was on the boat, fanning flames for the L.A. news talking heads, crazy with innuendo.

"Hey," he whispered, and I stepped aside, letting him in without ticket or hassle, trying not to blurt "HEY! You were in The Deer Hunter and I just got here from Pennsylvania and you won an ACADEMY AWARD - YES! - and you're really good and I saw you in that movie adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut short story "Who Am I This Time" and you were great in that, too. WHOO! Hi." I just said "Sit wherever you want, man," playing the hip nightclub comic who'd seen it all.

I did a set late that night, free-associating in a comic fugue of reference and twist, aware every second that I was performing for an Oscar winner who was on the boat with Natalie Wood, and pulled every last shard of energy left in the room into the white spotlight, finally taking an exhausted bow and heading back to the door to help waitresses clear the empty glasses from the empty tables in back.

Christopher Walken drained the last of his several drinks and weaved a bit as he walked up to me.

"Hey," he said, in the now famous halting cadence, "I…really like…what you do…yeah."

I controlled myself, took a sip of water and answered "Thanks, man, I really like what you do."

He squinted in the cosmic understanding of booze at 2 A.M. and answered "Yeah," walking out of the club onto the street.

Mick Jagger followed him a few nights later, and hopped onstage to preen and flap like a flamingo, finally holding up his hand to silence the cheers and say "I just want to say…I really respect what these guys do…" He was thundered with more cheers, in appreciation of the comic's art form, yes, but most importantly, a throaty celebration of their undeniable hipness in recognizing it. After the sky rocketing career of Pauly Shore it might be impossible to believe, but in 1981 on the Sunset Strip, comics were taking the place of obscure jazz musicians, blowing esoteric improvisations into black rooms full of blue smoke. It was a bizarre victory - the triumph of the class clowns. The comedy world was racing forward with killer sets, packed rooms, jet fuelled late nights, and creative lives racing fast, inches from the wall. The first downshift happened over the span of a single night, right before my eyes.

There was lots of talk about ghosts and karma and juju at the Comedy Store, since the stories of poltergeists and ectoplasm were the most fun to tell in the dark hallways, and this being comics, many were sure that they weren't as far along in their career as they should be, stymied by the jealousy of dead phantoms ruining their shows. Chairs did rattle in there, and ashtrays would fly, sheet white waitresses running to safety from a slammed door or creepy vibe, but I was never visited by a ghost except for one. I was working at my back door post watching the show and counting off comics before it was time for my set, after King Richard had finished, taking most of the crowd with him. The door next to me swept open, and John Belushi walked in.

He'd been to the Comedy Store lots of times, hanging out in the parking lot and stomping down the strip to the Rainbow Room, Whiskey-A-Go-Go, and other thumping Sunset rock clubs, vibrating punk through the foundations of the entire block, or if he was really wasted and ready for quiet, heading to the left down Sunset, toward his bungalow at the Chateau Marmont Hotel a few blocks away.

Belushi stumbled through the back door in slow motion, eyelids heavy and T-shirt stained as usual, looking a little fatter, and paler, and higher than the usual fat, pale, and high.

"Hey, John, how's it going?" I asked. Not that I really knew him that well, but I went for it, since he usually talked to me a little or nodded in my direction, the big kid who sat at the door and sometimes performed when it got late.

"Hey, man," he managed, weaving past me down the hall to slowly fold himself onto the steps leading upstairs to another tiny showroom. He leaned back against the dirty carpet, stretching his distended frame and exposing a blue-grey gut. "Howzi-goin'" he slurred back at me.

Clearly, he needed care this time. Way out there on whatever dreamy poison he could find, he bobbed his head, and made staying upright while sitting on a darkened staircase something of a project. "Can I get you something, John?" I asked. He didn't answer, didn't seem to hear me at all as he fumbled shredded balls of paper out of his pockets, trying to read scribbled notes with greetings and phone numbers on them.

"Need anything?" I asked again, turning up my internal volume and brightness knobs.

No answer but a gaze of misty incoherence.

I stood there for a while longer so it would seem like we were talking to each other for a long time if other comics walked by, but we weren't. John Belushi wasn't performing a sketch, he really was blinking his eyes, squinting and trying to focus enough to read the ragged notes, holding them with one hand and then the other, close and far away before dropping them between his legs onto the steps below.

The crowd near the back door began to mumble and hum, a sign that someone important was making an entrance, and Richard Pryor turned the corner, walking down the hallway and slowing down when he came close and saw John on the steps, with Rainbow Man gathering his crumpled napkins to hand back to him.

"John, what's happenin," Richard said in his jazz whisper.

John looked up and made a sound close to recognition.

I decided to just shut up and stand there, far out of my league, but on the solid ground of a standup comic on home turf. I was the doorman, and a "regular" comic at that, accepted at the Comedy Store, so I belonged on those beer soaked stairs as much as either of them. I was standing next to Richard Pryor and John Belushi on the back staircase of the Comedy Store, waiting for the opportunity to say something casual, sharp, and funny without sounding too over prepared. Something, anything to make Pryor chuckle in spite of himself, or Belushi wake up. Richard Pryor pulled a pristeen handkerchief out of his back pocket and fluttered it open, laying it onto the stained carpet, sitting down next to John, and looking at me with peaceful but unwavering eye contact for more than a few seconds. I quickly smiled and walked backwards, away from them, heading back to my stool a few yards down the hallway to point toward the ladies room, tell drunks to shut up, and get ready for my set.

They talked very quietly there, in whispers and conspiratorial chuckles, and Richard stood up, wiping his pants and heading back into the showroom for another set. John leaned forward on the step to get up, and gave up on that idea, sitting back down for a rest before trying again. He looked at me again, and I said "Need something?"

He gestured at me to come over there, and I hopped off the stool again. Bloated and ashen, harried and high, he looked flat out horrible, careening somewhere at the very edge of the abyss. I walked toward him while saying a prayer, for health and peace, and an end to the storm that raged far beyond anyone's power to understand or stop it. I don't know if it was simple pity or strange premonition, but I reached the bottom of the stairs ready to pull him to his feet.

"Okay, here we go, John."

He leaned forward and pulled me toward him.

"Where am I?" he mumbled.

"You're at the Comedy Store."

"Where?" he asked in disbelief.

"The Comedy Store on Sunset. In the back hallway," I said.

He took it in, and took his voice down another level.

"Have I been here before?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You know…Have I been here before?"

"You've been here before, but not tonight," I said, "This is the first time you've been here tonight."

He groaned and wrestled himself off the stairs, standing next to me. "Thanks," he said, putting a hand on my shoulder for balance.

He walked out the back door through the parking lot and made a left on Sunset, toward the Chateau Marmont hotel and his bungalow, where he would die that night, only a few hours later.

I had a few chances and should have returned it to him, but I still have Richard Pryor's handkerchief that he left on the stairs that night. While they walked away from me - Richard Pryor to the stage, and John Belushi to his deathbed, I picked up the white handkerchief from the stair, folded it carefully, and carried it for a long time, as a talisman of a time, a memory of a place, as a starched, linen flag of caution and too early surrender.

THIRTEEN

"He died that night?" the Ranger said, placing a rinsed bowl into the dishwasher. "Thanks ever so much for that meal, Caroline."

"If you keep helping with cleanup you can come over every night!"

"Yeah, he died that night, right after I talked to him," I said, "I woke up, turned on the T.V., and they were rolling him out of the hotel in a body bag."

"A tragedy," he said, shaking his head, "That is just a shame."

"You were around back then, you don't remember it?"

"Of course I remember it, but that doesn't make it any less a shame," he said.

We fell silent and avoided eye contact for a while as a plane roared above us in final approach to somewhere.

"Yes, a shame," he said again.

"Well, it's not like he died running a marathon or anything," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, the writing was on the wall with that one, you know? I've seen the end of that movie lots of times. You can't go around doing that stuff and be around for too long."

"They don't know what they're doing," the Ranger said.

"They know what they're doing, they're getting wasted and throwing up on people's feet and they don't care. The jury is in on that one. If you keep unbuckling your seat belt and standing up on the roller-coaster, you're gonna fall off."

"Wounded souls aren't lost souls," he said, "They're searching for what they think is love and can't find it. Searching in the wrong place is a mistake, not a crime."

Caroline wiped her hands with a towel and looked him up and down. "Ellie's right," she said.

"How do you mean?" he said.

"Well, if you're not an angel, you sure talk like one."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I scratched my nose and picked up a tablespoon, flipping it around in one hand.

He stared at some ice melting at the bottom of his glass.

"So, isn't it about time for Twister to show up?" I asked.

"Hmm?" he asked, tipping the glass back to clink ice into his teeth.

"Are you going to ride out of here in some ridiculous and probably embarrassing way? That seems to be what happens."

"Nope," he called out, "Unless you want me to."

"Well, I still don't even know what's going on with you," I said, "I mean, I don't even know why you're--"

I froze mid-sentence and walked into the living room, waving him in after me.

"Am I dying or something?" I whispered, "I didn't even do that Belushi stuff! Am I dead? Are you going to take me to some alley somewhere and show me that I've been dead for a day and a half?"

"You've got me here," he said, "What on earth are you talking about?"

"I'm definitely not dead," I said.

"Not by what I can see."

"Am I going to be dead?" I asked.

"You mean…eventually?" he asked.

"What are you guys up to in there?" Caroline called out. "Nothing, honey!" I said, "No, I mean, like, am I dying today, or soon, or something."

"No, I don't think it's today."

"Tomorrow?"

"No."

"Soon?"

He leaned on the back of a chair, looking at me through the mask. "Look," he said, "I don't know any of those things. I just came by to get to know you, it's as simple as that. Walk a mile in your moccasins, that sort of thing."

I collapsed onto the sofa and squinted. "Walk a mile in my moccasins?"

"You've never heard that prayer?"

"What prayer?"

He took off his hat, bowed his head, and really started to pray. "Great Spirit, grant that I may not judge another man until I've walked a mile in his moccasins," keeping his head bowed for a long enough moment that I said, "Amen. Yes. I've seen that on postcards on the way to Vegas."

I grabbed my car keys and headed for the door.

"What are you up to?" he asked.

"I'm going to get a coffee and see my daughter."

"I think Sarah got back on the computer," he said.

"No, not Sarah. Katie. She works there."

"Let me go with you!" he said, hopping across the room to pick up his gunbelt.

"Great idea, Ranger, bring the guns and watch my back," I said, "but if you expect me to pay for your coffee and not ask you why you're here, you're wearing the wrong set of moccasins, bro."

He walked out the front door behind me as I yelled "Cover me!" loudly over my shoulder, and "Behind that rock, masked man!" when we rounded the car, in front of a parade of elderly ladies fitness walking down the sidewalk in floral jogging suits. The Ranger ambled to the passenger door, reflected swirls of light sparkling on every rivet, bullet and buckle of his outfit. The ladies caught sight of him and froze, a sea of pink velvet as he tipped his hat, averting his eyes to allow them some privacy.

"Exercise is a good habit," he said, as I pulled out of the driveway.

"What do you mean… Belushi?" I asked.

"No, the ladies outside," he said, "It's a good habit."

"Yes it is," I said, pausing for a sarcastic beat, "A good habit."

"It is," he said.

"I just said it is! Maybe you should have ridden in and told Belushi about it!"

"You're very tense, Tom. Is this about not wanting to talk about the movie, because I hope you've noticed that I haven't."

"No, you haven't."

"Even though I do think you were very good in it."

"Thank you."

"So, why don't you talk about it?"

I ground the steering wheel in my palms and pulled my head toward the windshield, searching for words. "Ranger, there are boundaries… Boundaries, you know what I mean?"

"I understand that," he said, staring at the floor,

"I was just curious." "I've answered so many questions…said so many things about them…to so many people," I sighed, "I just don't like to--"

"To talk about such a--"

"No. Not with my friends, I don't. I just think…you're…we're, like, friends now, if that's what we're calling it, and…"

He didn't help me out, didn't let me off the hook, he sat next to me, waiting for a reason. A good one.

"Do you want coffee? Huh? I'll buy you a coffee."

"I drank a ten gallon hat's worth of iced tea at your place," he said, "But I'll keep you company, friend."

In my effort to rebel against the power, but still spend four dollars on what costs the store a nickel, I get my coffee at the Insomnia Cafe, a rustic and independent coffee place where my daughter works, the only worker there with no body art or piercings, but the same attitude about the tip jar , where the quarters from your change had better tinkle to the bottom, or your latte is going to take a long, long time to slide across the scarred oak table into your waiting hands. Katie was slapping a sandwich order together, her back to us.

"Katie!" I said, and she turned, blew a strand of hair off her face, and waved with an elbow.

We took our place at the end of the line, and I was becoming used to the stares we attracted whenever in public.

"Oh no! Look at the line," a tall blonde said, squeezing a backpack and laptop through the door, "Shoot. Dag nab it."

She didn't really say "Shoot" or "Dag nabbit," but what she did say was salty enough to make the Ranger turn to me with pained surprise. She turned to leave, caught the Ranger in the corner of her eye, and screamed "Yip!" dropping the laptop to the ground as her sunglasses flew off her head. A brunette swung open the door behind her, and saw the girl bending to rescue her Mac.

"Marcy! Oh flip! Did it break?"

She didn't say flip, and the Ranger looked at me as he bent down to help her, and the brunette noticed him for the first time.

"What the hell are you?"

"Ladies, I am the One Ranger, and Tom and I are at your service," he said.

He picked up Marcy's sunglasses, and helped gather her laptop back into the backpack, until accidentally coming across a DVD cover featuring Marcy wearing a lacy bra, standing up quickly and blushing under the mask.

"Friend, why don't we have our drinks a bit later, and these young ladies can go ahead of us?" he said, looking at me.

"Why?" I said.

"Tom, the ladies need to go first."

"There's kind of a line here."

"They just want some coffee, Tom."

"I realize that, Ranger. I just want to say hi to my daughter."

"They're ladies. A gentleman always--"

"Fine. Okay. Go ahead, ladies."

"No, that's okay, you were here first," Marcy said.

He looked at the ladies silently and gave the hint of a shrug, thumbs in his belt, looking at the colored chalk drawings on the blackboard menu. He suddenly brightened.

"Hey ladies, have you seen Back in the future?"

"Ranger," I said.

"Well, this man here played Biff in that!"

"You did?!" Marcy squealed, elbowing her roommate, "I thought it was you. It's that guy, Tanya!"

"You are not," Tanya said.

The Ranger stepped toward them. "He doesn't want to talk about it, though, so please keep it to yourselves," he said.

"What's that Michael J. Fox like?" Marcy said.

"Uh…he's…a nice guy," I sighed, walking toward the front window and into the sun.

"Are you in the movies, too?" Tanya asked the Ranger, "Is that why you wear that costume?"

"Well, not really."

"You're not in movies?"

"Not anymore, no," he said, slowly heading for the door.

"Then why are you wearing a mask?" she giggled.

I leaned toward them, sharing a secret, "Ladies, have you seen Jesse James Rides Again?"

They stared at him silently, until he kicked at the floor with his boot and mumbled "I played Jesse James in that picture" in the general direction of the blonde.

"Daddy!" Katie said when we got to the counter.

"Hello, P.J.!" I said, "Ranger, this is Katie, my oldest daughter."

"Very nice to meet you…P.J.?"

"Katie," she said.

"I call her P.J. sometimes."

"And what's that stand for?" he said.

"Stands for precious jewel," I said.

"Of course it does," he said, "and it fits!"

"Thank you…uh…"

"Honey, this is Ranger."

"She finally took in his entire outfit, and whistled. "Are you working on a movie?" she asked.

"No," he said, "Just a friend of your P.D."

"Huh?"

"Precious Dad?"

"Oh…okay," she chuckled, "But the Insomnia Café is a violence free zone."

"Excellent! May I have a coffee?" he said.

"You're not allowed to have tools of violence here."

"Nor would I! I think I'll have a medium."

"I mean you can't be here with those," she said, pointing at his pistols.

"Honey," I said, "He's okay, he's with me."

The tall white kid with blonde dreadlocks who manages the place walked up behind the counter next to her.

"Hey, guys, here's the thing, the Insomnia Café is a violence free zone."

"We heard that from Katie here," I said, "My friend is a visitor here—"

"Hey," the kid said, staring at me "Are you Biff?"

"Yes!" the Ranger said, clapping his hands, "He knows you! See?"

"Hey, P.D., love ya," Katie said, "But why don't you get these to go?"

"First of all, it's called Back To The Future, not Back In The Future, and I don't talk about it, and I don't understand why you don't get it," I said, taking a chair on the patio outside the place.

"What did I call it?" he asked, unbuckling his guns.

"Back In The Future."

"That's not the name of it?"

"No, it's Back To The Future, but don't say it anymore either way, okay?"

"I just don't understand why," he said.

"It has nothing to do with me! It was twenty-some years ago! Get off it!" I yelled at him, as one of the girls waved to us from inside.

"Fair enough. You asked me not to and I did mention it and that was against your wishes. But let me tell you, it has everything to do with you! It's a great movie, and you're a major part of it."

"No I'm not," I said.

"People love that picture, so why do you run away from it?"

"I don't run away from it," I said, wiping a few leftover crumbs off the table to a couple of chirping sparrows, "I keep it in perspective."

"I'll tell you something," he said, "If this coffee had legs, it would jump off the table and walk out of here. It's strong stuff."

"Clayton," I said.

"Your daughter is a precious jewel, you're right!"

"Clayton!"

"Call me Rang--"

"Yes, fine, I'll call you whatever, but you have to admit to me that you're an actor. I know you're an actor, and you know you're an actor. Or were an actor, or whatever. Clayton Moore."

"Yes, that's true," he said.

"And you were great as the Lone Ranger."

"The One Ranger."

"YOU WERE THE LONE RANGER!!! YOU'RE THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED THE LONE RANGER!!"

"Yes."

"You were great at it."

"Thank you."

"But you don't have to be him. You don't embody him. You just decided to be him."

There was a long silence, as he looked at the sky, examining every cloud.

"Why do you wear that mask?" I asked.

"It's the outfit of the One Ranger," he said quickly.

"You don't know that! You could change the outfit right now! It's just a role you're playing, a role that you want to play! Maybe I don't want to play it!"

He stood up and pointed at me. "Listen, I'm not sure what in Sam Hill you're talking about with this, but you're some kind of actor, and you've got to get out there and tell them about it. You're great in that picture, I saw it myself!"

I collapsed in my chair, placing my cup on top of abstract coffee stains.

"It's not who I am," I said.

He counted clouds for a while, and tried again. "But they just want to talk to you about it. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing is wrong with it except I don't want to do it."

"Why? Come on, it'll help your career!" he said.

"My career?" I shouted, smacking the table hard enough that my cup almost tipped over and the pile of newspaper somebody left fell on the ground. The people outside looked at me, so I lowered me voice and leaned toward him. "What career? They think that that's who I am! Now you come around here out of nowhere on a horse and you think that's who I am! They think I'm the guy who beat up Michael J. Fox! The thing is I didn't beat up Michael J. Fox, I only pretended to beat up Michael J. Fox, and he wasn't even on the set most of the time, he was working on his T.V. show every day! What really happened was I pretended to beat up Michael J. Fox's stand-in! That's Back To The Future right there! What's there to talk about? I pretended to beat up Michael J. Fox's stand-in! I just don't have anything to say about it!"

He sat down next to me and we silently watched beads of water condense on my cup and run into a tiny stream, meandering toward the edge of the table until I wiped it with my palm, exploding drops onto the cement.

"It's a crime," he said.

"What's a crime?"

"You should be in every picture going on out there," he said.

"My daughter should manage the Insomnia Cafe," I said, wiping my wet hand on a pant leg, "So what?"

"Who's your agent?" the Ranger asked.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm going to make it my business to see that you get in more pictures," he said, standing up. He picked his belt off the table, wrapping it around his taut waist.

"Who's your agent?" he repeated.

"Nobody. I don't have an agent," I said.

He squinted into my eyes. "I'm going to talk to your agent."

"You're not talking to anybody."

"I'll talk some sense into these people."

"Are you insane? Talk some sense into those people?"

"I'm going to give it my best."

I stepped in front of him as he headed away from me.

"Let's talk about Back To The Future! Do you have any questions about it? What Michael J. Fox is like?" I said, my hands outstretched.

He brought a black, leather index finger to his temple. "I know who it is."

"You're wrong," I said, "That's not who it is."

"Mark Ten Artists."

"How did you know that?"

He took a step toward me and I thought he might grab my shoulders and fill the blue sky with thunderbolts, proving that he had some cosmic knowledge.

"You wrote it down at the audition for the car battery. Mark Ten Artists, right?"

"No," I blurted.

"That was it, wasn't it?" he said, looking into the street.

"I fired them."

"Today? You fired them today?"

"Please don't talk to them," I said.

"Hmm?" he asked, looking at my cup, "that was strong coffee, wasn't it?"

"Do not contact my agents in any way."

"I would never make you look bad."

"I do not want you to talk to my agents," I said.

"Hey!" he said, spinning slowly in place, "Don't be a worry-wart! I'm an actor, remember?"

FOURTEEN

The first house I moved into in L.A. was no different than most houses in the Hollywood Hills on the outside. A Spanish style mailbox stood in front of a garage door, with the rest of the place hidden by a wall. Fancy architecture isn't a big priority in a hillside neighborhood that could rush down the hill in a pile of Jaguars and trendy art during one of the frequent earthquakes that throw the place around, but the house I moved into was a bit different than the others in the neighborhood, since mine housed a few beaten up chairs, old beds, and groggy comedians.

"Cresthill," as the house was known by the comics who lived there, was owned by the Comedy Store, and welcomed the visitor with an oak door three inches thick, a throwback to the days it was a party house run by "Ciro's," the Hollywood nightclub that preceded the Comedy Store in the forties and fifties and used for high stakes poker games and star-studded, gin soaked debauchery. Used by the Comedy Store to house an endless stream of desperate comedians needing shelter, it was still an infamous refuge full of low stakes poker games, and as much debauchery as a bunch of comedians could come up with, which was not an insignificant amount.

The front door opened easily with a wiggling pinky finger in a hole next to the lock, since nobody knew anyone who had a key to the place, and I passed the admissions test, since I worked at the Comedy Store and wasn't a heroin junkie. I moved my guitar, notebook and T-shirt collection into the place, settling in with my new roommates, Andrew "Dice" Clay, fresh from the streets of Brooklyn, and Yakov Smirnoff, fresh from a narrow escape from the Soviet Union.

Andrew hadn't come up with the "Dice" character yet, but was opening his act with a spectacled and bumbling Jerry Lewis impression from "The Nutty Professor," followed by an onstage transformation - accomplished simply by taking off the warm up pants he wore over his slacks - into a greaser named "Tony Schlongini," singing songs over cassette tapes and wooing girls with an impression of John Travolta in "Welcome Back Kotter." After a while, he got tired of the warm up pants, changed his nickname to "Dice," and ignited like a rocket launch, selling out Madison Square Garden to cheering throngs and quickly bursting into a confused flame out, unable to understand how people could possibly be insulted by a joke like "Yeah, I'm from Brooklyn. We got a sign there. It says "Welcome to Brooklyn." …Wid' a dead fag hangin' off de end of it!" How could people possibly be offended by that? After all, he didn't mean nothin' by it.

Yakov Smirnoff was a Russian immigrant raised in the rationing and fear of the Soviet communists, with the soul of a joyous, capitalist pig, working comedy gigs every night of the week, and working business schemes every moment in between. "You Americans are so lazy!" he told me, while making a deal to get himself a Mercedes Benz by buying a Benz and a Rolls Royce in Europe, shipping them both back to California and selling the Rolls to pay off the Benz. "This country is easy! All you have to do is work hard!" he said, as we motored through Hollywood in his new yellow sports car.

"Isn't all the import paperwork a hassle?" I asked, lazy, sports car-less American kid that I was.

"In Russia you do that much paperwork to get a chicken!" he answered, laughing as he shifted gears and raced into the Hollywood Hills.

I moved into the master bedroom of the house, since Andy and Yakov didn't want anything to do with it, giving me all sorts of excuses. They didn't need the hassle of moving, or they liked their room location, or maybe it was the real reason, which I discovered the first day I moved in - that the previous comic who lived there had filled the room with bad vibes and vomit, leaving the large room with a panoramic view of Los Angeles so disgusting that nobody wanted to enter through the closed door. I conquered the place with buckets of disinfectant, elbow grease, and prayers of excorcism and became a guy who worked at the hippest place in Hollywood with a room in the Hills and a balcony overlooking a blanket of glittering lights.

The glittering lights dimmed very early in my time there, when it became an issue in the house over who would be the guy to confront a simmering cauldron of trouble, and finally kick Sam Kinison out of the house.

The competition for being the "black sheep" was intense at the Comedy Store, since comics fight each other for spots on the black sheep Olympic team, amusing each other by shocking the audience with jokes far beyond the boundaries of taste and conscience. Though there was a wiseguy camraderie backstage, as soon as Cable T.V. specials and Las Vegas gigs separated wheat from chaff, there was a major chaff war, with Kinison venting hatred at his former friend Andrew Dice Clay, insisting that he, and not "The Dice Man" invented the clever innovation of screaming profanity into the microphone, not just saying it in a normal tone of voice like Red Foxx or Buddy Hackett.

A pink sphere of clammy skin, Sam Kinison always looked like a man about to pop. Wearing an ever present black overcoat and a beret, or baseball cap, or pirate bandana covered with skulls to hide his bald, pulsing dome, he paced backstage, cooed hypnotic suggestions to the druggie strippers and porn hopefuls that came to his shows, and spent lots of energy establishing his personal space. With the ego of three comics and the width of two, his personal space could be an expanse that included the entire Comedy Store building, which he seemed to see as a personal fiefdom. Once onstage, he performed his unique, screaming harangues, usually featuring his dramatization of the crucifixion of Christ, using the microphone as the hammer driving nails into his hands under maniacal laughter, screaming and pounding long after the insulted audience had stood up and left and the performers scheduled to go on after him stood against the back wall, staring at each other in disbelief.

"Tom," a grizzled, drunken comic said to me once at the back wall, "I'm not even close to being a good Christian or anything."

"Is that right, Ronny?"

"Yeah, but …I'll tell you…" he said, staring at the quaking sphere of Kinison screaming in the spotlight, "If Jesus does come back, I don't want to be in this building while that guy is onstage."

Sam swaggered through the hallways, and beat up the occasional comic in the parking lot, as long as he was small and weak enough to take, with the insurance of a few thug junkies who, when supplied with enough drugs, could keep other comics from jumping in and protecting the poor kid from getting clocked by the rotund zombie.

Then Sam created an improv group from the pool of his lost followers and began performing long, evil sketches on the main stage of the Comedy Store. A sweet, innocent child goes to bed in a dim light on the black stage, calling out love and kisses to mommy and daddy and falling fast asleep. The lights clicked to blackness and a match struck, lighting a cigarette hanging from the sneering lips of Kinison, as satan himself. He flicked the spent match onto the sleeping boy, woke him up, screamed threats and hatred into the little boy's quivering disbelief, and dragged his screaming, twisting body, offstage and into hell.

No kidding, that was the sketch. A comedy sketch, met with shocked silence by the audience who stared at the stage, wondering what the joke was. It was Monday night, the night that improv groups ran the place, and Sam was making a play to expand his kingdom.

His group was called "The Soapers," but was nicknamed the "Kinison Youth" by the other groups of performers who waited in the dark behind the curtains until Sam was finished, which began to stretch their twenty minute set to an hour or more, clearing the room of patrons before anyone else took their turn. The complaints from the other performers became a drumbeat until Sam was warned, and begged, cajoled and threatened, but he never got offstage before he was ready and had completed his final sketch, cackling as satan and dragging an innocent child to hell.

Brian Bradley, an improv performer of wide experience, and the emcee of the show, approached me in the dark backstage.

"Tom, they've told me that if they go on for too long again, we have to turn off the mikes and force them offstage."

"Great," I said, "It's about time."

"Well," Brian said nervously, "the last time we told him that we were going to do it, Sam said if we did it he would break my legs."

"He said what?"

"He's supposed to have broken some guy's legs in Texas," he said, chuckling for a moment before gulping air.

"He's not going to break your legs," I said.

"Will you just stand next to me when I tell him?"

"No problem," I said.

"Make sure he doesn't hit me?"

"He's not going to hit you, and he's not going to break your legs."

"You'll stand here?"

"No problem."

Behind the curtains, where performers lined the walls waiting for their turn, our conversation spread the gleeful news like wildfire, and the tiny space became crammed with wimpy improv actors ready to witness violent backstage drama. I walked back to my improv group members, smiling. "We'll be on soon," I said, "They're going to turn off the mikes and get him offstage."

Brian the emcee tip-toed to the opening between the curtains, listening through the velvet folds for a weak smattering of applause that marked the end of a sketch. At the first weak clap, he swept open the black velvet, revealing the curious army waiting backstage and yelling "The Soapers! Ladies and gentlemen…hey, give it up for…The Soapers! Thank you!!"

Sam went to the microphone to talk over him and send him back where he came from, and it was silent. He shouted into the inert metal cylinder "We're not done! Get off!"

"The Soapers! Thank you!" Brian said, sweeping his arm to direct them offstage. Kinison turned beet red in an instant and screamed in front of the customers "WHO DID THIS?! WHO DID IT?!!!"

"Give a big hand for The Soapers! What a group!" Brian repeated, smiling and fearful.

Sam waddled across the stage and flung the metal mike stand across the stage, spinning it end over end and clattering inches from a lady in the front row, silencing the crowd, now unsure if they were watching actual rage, or one of those Andy Kaufman performance art things that they were supposed to like even better than good comedy. Sam took center stage under the big spotlight, pointed a chubby finger at Brian, and fumed. "We got some talkin' to do backstage!!" He launched a barstool across the stage in the other direction and stormed through the curtains, where a fawning crowd of Kinison youth were waiting for him, as long as Charles Manson kept getting his parole denied.

He picked up another chair backstage and heaved it into a wall, cracking plaster and screaming venom. Brian introduced the next group for their set, but I stayed behind, since Sam did seem like a guy about to break somebody's legs.

"Sam, this came right from Mitzi, you're going way too long," Brian calmly said, walking through the curtain toward us. Sam clearly didn't believe him, since he kept screaming rage and threats. I stood next to Brian silently, listening to the bottomless pit of raging poison, until he was peaking in intensity and volume, ready to start snapping legs.

"Hey, Sam," I broke in, Mr. Calm, "Listen, it's just that there are other performers here, and it's their turn to get on."

"Shut up, Wilson," he spat.

"The sets are twenty minutes, and--"

"Shut up, you f--"

It was then that I gave up the futile peacemaker approach.

"No," I said, taking the baton from Brian, "I don't shut up. You're doing an hour in a twenty minute spot and that's not right."

"Shut up, Wilson."

"Come on, Sam."

"Don't get in my face," he said, "We do important work. Not the crap that you do."

I back-tracked to the original "Mr. Calm pacifies the insane guy" mode and tried again. "I don't care what you call it. You've got twenty minutes to do it in."

He turned from red to flushed magenta and his eyes sunk deeper into their sockets. He lowered his head toward me, growling "Don't get in my face."

"Come on, Sam, it's over now, why not just take the coven and go?" I said.

The growl turned as deadly as he could possibly muster. "Don't get in my face, Wilson."

"Take it outside, Sam. There are people onstage."

"Don't get in my face!" he spat, vibrating with hatred and very close to being a stroke victim.

"Too late, Sam. I'm in your face, okay?"

"DON'T GET IN MY FACE!!"

"We've covered that," I said, as the crowd backstage gathered around, ready for flying chairs and tearing curtains, and since Sam was involved, maybe a guest appearance by Beelzebub himself.

"DON'T GET IN MY FACE!!"

"We're past that, Sam. I'm in your face. Does something happen now?"

"DON'T--"

"Get in your face? Is that what you're trying to get across to me?"

The surrounding actors stood like statues, until somebody felt they had to mumble "Come on, you guys" while praying for a brawl they could re-enact at Canter's Deli down the street until at least five in the morning.

"Don't get in my face," he spat yet again, darkening visibly with a lowered brow and a bead of sweat jumping from his bald pate.

"We've covered this already, Sam. Does something happen now?"

And something did happen. He took a step toward me and became a red, quaking sphere, whispering a hoarse threat from the netherworld. He actually choked out the words "DON'T…UNLEASH ME."

"What?"

"Don't unleash me," he said, repeating it several times just like the getting in his face thing a few seconds before.

"Don't unleash you?!"

"That's what I said. Don't unleash me, Wilson. You don't know what your dealing with."

And that was it for me. The asthmatic kid pummeled by bullies was now six foot three, over two hundred pounds, and really very, very tired of this fat, evil asshole. God rest his soul. I'm a Catholic, and we can say things that are true as long as they're followed by "God rest his soul."

I took a step toward him for a nose full of acrid breath, spewing hellfire and petulance.

"You're unleashed. I unleash you. I'm in your face. Right in it, Sam."

"DON'T GET IN MY FACE," he thundered powerlessly for the last time.

"We've established everything we need to know," I said, ready to block a punch and throw him into his knot of gang members, all of them saucer-eyed and waiting for Sam to twitch an order.

"Sam," I said, "I'm unleashing you. I'm in your face. Now, either something happens, or you walk away."

He almost went back to the old getting in his face routine again, but he'd said it way too many times already, and it didn't work nearly as effectively as he thought it might. He stammered and reeled in the darkness, and I still thought that it might happen. I expected one of his tranquilized thugs to take a shot at me, throw a chair or swing a mike stand, or maybe some multi-generational curse involving animal sacrifice.

He swallowed hard and stomped by me down the hallway, screaming bile and throwing another chair past the head of a shocked bystander, his simmering sycophants in tow, staring daggers at me as they slunk away.

I prayed for him as he walked away. It's true. I don't know why, I don't know how it even started, but he was walking away from me, and I began praying for him - the guy who's fat bag of skin I wouldn't have minded kicking through a door fifteen seconds before. As I began to pray for him, silently intoning a surrendered "Shouldaboughtahonda" for his fevered soul, his back stiffened and he turned around again, eyes freshly enflamed. He stepped back toward me, and my hand lifted into the air. I was ready to make a fist and knock him out, but my hand raised openly, facing him and signaling stop. From somewhere deep and unknowable, ringing in my head was the sounds of hundreds, maybe thousands of people, maybe in my memory or maybe right there with me, praying "chickala-chickala" as tongues of fire seared their radiant souls.

"God bless you, Sam," I said, even meaning it a little. He stared at me for another acid moment, and threw another chair before walking out onto Sunset Boulevard.

Yes, I wanted God to bless him, and knock him blind on the road to his own Damascus, but just in case, after that night, like any good Christian, I started to carry brass knuckles in my pocket and told his henchmen that if he threatened me again I would rip his fat head right off his shoulders. And I would have. God rest his soul. After that showdown, Sam decided to leave L.A. for a while and go on the road as a preacher in evangelical tent revivals down south, where the real money is.

"He said what?" Andrew Clay, newly minted as "The Dice Man" chuckled during a breakfast at our hangout, "Schwab's Drug Store," on Sunset Boulevard, where old Hollywood ate breakfast and pancakes were flipped within earshot of Colonel Klink from "Hogan's Heroes" or Lenny Bruce's elderly mother, Sally, who changed her name to match her son's stage name and loved to hold court by the picture window facing the street.

"He said "Don't unleash me." Seriously," I said.

"Don't unleash me? Who says that?" Dice said.

"I don't know, but I unleashed him."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. He left."

"Oh my God, no tables," an old lady said, carrying a giant pocketbook and fiddling with clattering jewelry and sunglasses, walking by us dejectedly. "Nowhere to sit."

Colonel Klink didn't exactly bolt out of his booth to give up his table or anything, and Sally Bruce was telling a story that was related very closely to the story she'd been telling at the same table since the Eisenhower administration.

"Andy," I whispered, "That's Shelley Winters."

"Who?"

"Shelley Winters? The Poseidon Adventure? You know? The actress?"

He stared at her again, and his jaw dropped. "She played Elvis's mother!"

"She did?"

"Yeah! With Kurt Russell! Unbelievable!"

Andrew stood up amidst the supporting actors and toasted bagels to bellow, "Hey, Shel, you could sit 'wid us!"

She turned to face us, a two time Academy Award winner staring at two scrubby guys in their early twenties, our half eaten pancakes and spilled coffee on the ancient linoleum table. She played with her sunglasses for a moment, looked around for better offers, and finally squeezed in next to us, eating some eggs, telling us all about Elvis, and the Oscars, and how the Poseidon Adventure set turned upside down. She told Andy he reminded her of Al Pacino, and as he fought back sentimental tears of appreciation, I told her a crazy story about working in nightclubs at all hours and unleashing Sam Kinison.

"That sounds crazy," Shelley Winters whined.

"You don't know Kinison, Shel," Andrew said, "That's the tip o' the iceberg! Like the Poseidon Adventure! Ha!"

"The Poseidon was hit by a giant wave, Andy," I said.

"Whatevah."

FIFTEEN

I have been to my agent's office only one time, and that was to meet him and decide to let him hold my career in his carefully cupped hands, careful not to drop and break it, since it's always been somewhat fragile. That was it as far as face time goes, since signing the contracts is done by mail, messenger, and fax, without a popped champagne cork or slap on the back from anybody. Just a phone call from an agent's assistant telling you to drive across town tomorrow, park the car, go inside and pretend you're a cop, then drive to another place, park again and pretend you're a different cop on another show. I hadn't been to the agent's office in so long that I forgot where exactly he does business, or even what he looked like. We spend some time on the phone together now and then, but after a while my memory glommed his face onto a kid I went to high school with, combined with a fantasy composite I'd dreamed up of a character in a novel I'd just finished.

I swept open the glass doors to the Beverly Hills office tower on Wilshire Boulevard and jogged to the security desk, shouting "Sir, have you seen a masked man on a white horse come in here?"

The elderly man looked up at me, surrounded by sign-in sheets, chewed pens, unclaimed mail and one of the monitors in front of him playing an episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies."

"What? How can I help you?" he said.

"Has a man been in here on a white horse?" I asked, "A cowboy guy with a mask?"

He didn't look surprised, fumbling with the register looking for cowboy signatures. "No," he said, "I don't think…uh."

"You didn't see anything?"

Between the words "see" and "anything," I lost him, staring back at Jed Clampett on T.V., so I headed to the elevators.

The thing about offices in Hollywood is they're always full of new stuff. Everything is right out of the box, unblemished by fingerprints. Blinding sunshine is tamed by floor to ceiling tinted windows, and glass tabletops without a smudge hold souvenir crystal goblets with the Karate Kid movie logo filled with sourballs. They've got brand new electronics equipment in there with faster phone number dialing, or better email, or a wireless alarm for the black on black on black new car parked in a reserved space downstairs. The only old stuff in Hollywood is the freshly hip antique. The new old, accepted as hip for the moment until they go to another office and don't find one, when they either throw it out or wait for Christmas and give it to someone they hate. Hollywood is a monument to the new. Buffed, waxed, and dusted yes, but it's all more than clean, it's new. The last thing I felt on the elevator ride to my agent's office was new. After a bad audition for a car battery, I felt old. No, not hip, Jack Nicholson old, I felt bad old, game show host old.

The Ranger was sitting on a sofa next to the reception desk when I opened the door.

"The man himself!" he said, "I knew you'd come around!"

The receptionist, a sneering young man with a constellation of beads pierced through his ears faked a smile and said "May I help you?"

"I told you not to come here," I said.

"May I help you, sir?" the receptionist repeated.

"I'm Tom Wilson," I said, pointing at the Ranger, "Does he have an appointment?"

"But you, sir. How can I help you?"

"I'm a client here," I said, "Tom Wilson?"

"Oh, okay, yes," he said, adjusting his head set, "Do you have an appointment?"

"No, I don't, but does he?"

"I was just talking to Alan about his ears," the Ranger said, "Do you know he's had them pierced eight times? I've seen that from some tribal friends, but wow! Here in good old Beverly Hills!"

"Alan? Who's Alan?"

The receptionist jingled his ears and smiled.

"Hi, Alan," I said, collapsing onto the leather sofa next to the Ranger. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I told you. I've been in this business for a while, and I've had my share of agents, managers, and so forth."

"Now listen," I hissed, grabbing his arm, "We're leaving. Follow me."

A polished maple door swung open, and Justin Gold stepped into the lobby, checking his tie in the wall to wall mirrors before staring at me for a moment of confused recognition. The he looked at the Ranger standing up to meet him and went blank.

"What the hell is this?" he asked.

The Ranger expended his hand. "Mister Gold? I am the One Ranger and I wanted to have a little pow wow to discuss something of great importance."

"No, he doesn't" I said.

"Tom, what are you doing here? Did you go to the car battery thing?"

"I…I" I stammered, trying to think up a reason for being there. Dropping off new promo shots? Here to make a few phone calls? Got lost in Beverly Hills and needed a parking validation sticker and directions?

"He's with me," the Ranger said, "And, truth be told, it involves him. Can we talk?"

I brought my hands to my mouth as Justin opened the door and waved us in. "Let's go, fellas. I've got a couple minutes."

His office was just as I remember it, or maybe exactly like every other agent's office I've ever seen, filled with a phone, a desk, and a basketball hoop against the wall that says "I am creative. I brainstorm." As soon as he closed the door behind us, Justin hugged me, a Hollywood tradition that usually comes right before being strangled by piano wire by a guy in the back seat of the car. His clothes were perfect and sharp, with new eyeglasses that reflected my forced smile in convex clarity. "Come on in!" he said to us, pointing to a muffin shaped chair in the corner.

"Mister Gold," the Ranger blurted," I just wanted to take a minute of your time to ask what I might be able to do to help you understand the talent you've got right here under your nose."

"Ranger, please don't do this."

"What are you talking about? Is this a character piece you're working on? What's up?" Justin said, rounding the corner of his desk and putting his headset back on.

"He's not talking about anything, Justin," I said.

"What's under my nose?"

"Justin," I said, leaning into the front of his desk, "This is my…uncle Clayton."

"I'm not related to this fellow at all," the Ranger chuckled, clearing his throat seriously to add "though we are brothers in an eternal sense."

Justin looked at me, but turned away just as I brought my index finger close to my temple to spin it around my ear for the "This guy's nuts" signal. He stared at the Ranger's guns.

"How'd you get those in here?" he asked.

"They're Peacemakers," the Ranger said.

Justin looked at me, so I brought my finger toward my head again, until the Ranger looked at me and I had to drop it to my side.

"This man here is a talent," the Ranger said, grabbing my shoulder, "And talent, my friend, is a rare commodity, but I don't need to tell you that, the business you're in."

As Justin cleared his throat to answer, I spoke quickly over both of them. "Uncle Clayton here is trying to pitch a show about the west, and he loves to dress up this way to sell it! Isn't that great? You've got to hand it to him, though! It takes guts to go out there and do whatever it takes to make it happen!"

"I'm not pitching--"

"Whoo! Eye of the tiger!!" I said, offering a high five to the Ranger, which he didn't take me up on. "The thing is, he wants me to be in the show. Hey, it'd be great to be in a series right now, but here's a question; Who's doing a western? Huh? We'd better go…"

"I'm not talking about a western at all," the Ranger said evenly, "I've been in enough of those, I'm talking about your client and his future."

Silence.

Justin spun a knot of phone cord in circles, staring at both of us and biting his lower lip. "Where has this been pitched?" he asked.

"Nowhere," the Ranger said, "it's not a show."

"It's really rough right now," I said, "First draft needs a rewrite."

"Listen fellas," Justin sighed, standing up, "Thanks for stopping by. I'm not really sure you've got it down yet, so I wouldn't go out with it until you do a rewrite, or a treatment, or something I can look at."

The Ranger pointed at me as Justin rounded his desk and opened the door. "This man right here is something special, and I wonder if you have any idea what you've got in your stable of performers."

"Are you kidding? Of course I do!" Justin said, guiding us toward the door, "Tommy," he said, using the nickname that only my mother, my Aunt Adele, and Dennis Miller have used since the sixties, "Great to see you, you look great, and by the way, thank you for those autographed Back To The Future pictures, which I'm sure my nephews loved."

"I appreciate the time you've taken with me today, Mr. Gold," the Ranger said, "but if it doesn't inconvenience you too much, I wish you'd give me a moment to talk to my friend here."

"What are you talking about?" Justin said.

"I'd like to talk to Tom alone for a moment."

"This is my office," Justin said.

"It's rather urgent."

"Talk to him in the elevator!"

"Do you know what he thinks of you?" the Ranger said with blank honesty, not leaning close to tell me a secret, or a guilty wink before sharing a piece of gossip. He said it simply, as if he knew the answer perfectly. He knew precisely what Justin thought of me, and was willing to share it in front of him if I really wanted to know.

"Do you want to know?"

"I don't know," I said, "Do I?"

"Does he what?" Justin said again, looking at both of us and waving his arm out the door to lead us out.

I leaned into the doorframe for support, and whispered "Okay. What does he think of me?"

The Ranger stood still, unblinking, and true. "He thinks that your career is over, and that makes him feel sad and powerless."

"What the hell are you talking about?!" my agent fumed. "This is my office!" he said, "You didn't even have an appointment!"

The Ranger stepped toward me, speaking about Justin, now holding his breath and turning pink, as if he wasn't there.

"He isn't a bad man, he's actually interested in helping you, but has become frustrated because everyone he speaks with about you is overwhelmed by a picture in their head they can't erase no matter how hard they try. It's a good picture. A pleasant one. They think you're fantastically talented, memorable and professional, kind and friendly, but not for them. Not for this job, or that one, or the one after that. No, he thinks you're great, but he's trapped in his own fear for himself."

"That's! ….That's! …not…" Justin said.

"He is filled with fear for his reputation and income, and has lost faith in his ability to have you seen as more than what they think of you."

"Why are you telling me this, Clayton?"

"Because it's true."

"Get him out of this building!!" Justin screamed at me.

"I thought it would help to clear the air, Mr. Gold," he said, "You're a businessman about to cast off my friend and not return his phone calls, and I just thought you might give another thought to a great talent here in your stable of performers."

Justin staggered over to his desk and collapsed into his chair, hitting his intercom button, but unable to speak.

"I thought that everybody might appreciate some straight shooting here today, but I was just as wrong as wrong could be, so I bid you good day," The Ranger said, leaning across his desk and extending a hand.

"A pleasure to meet you, sir," he said.

Justin said nothing, and stared at me, his confusion turning to rage. "Right-o," the Ranger said, tipping his hat, and jerking it toward the door to signal me after him.

I followed him out the door. I didn't feel I had an option. I had to stop myself from running past him while tearing out my hair.

Justin grabbed the corners of his desk to pull himself to his feet and staggered to the doorway yelling after us.

"Who is the guy with the mask?"

I caught my breath in the elevator and sprained my finger punching the "P-1" button as hard as I could. The Ranger turned to me and almost spoke before I lifted my throbbing finger to shut him up.

"Don't," I said, "just don't."

He followed me into the cool echoes of the parking garage toward my car, and I turned to stop him. "Why did you say that to him? Why?"

"I was trying to talk turkey," he said.

I spun on him, and boomed echoes off the walls. "It's none of your business!" I said, stomping across the parking spaces. "I've been through a lot lately, but you don't seem to understand that I'm barely hanging on here. I don't need your help."

He stood in front of me, clicking his boots on the greasy cement and squinting in the fluorescent lights. "I was being honest," he said, "but it was ungentlemanly not to ask your permission."

A couple bantered happily as they walked to their car, quickly sensing the intense vibe and avoiding eye contact as they passed by.

He stared at me, waiting for a blue convertible to screech around the corner toward the exit. "What do you think, Tom? Do you care what they think of you?"

"Look, man, I've had it with the mystery quizzes and appearing horses. I'm done."

He put his hands on his hips and leaned toward me. "Do you care what they think of you? Because I know what to think," he said, "and the first thing to think is "I don't care what anybody else thinks. Who cares what he thinks? Maybe he doesn't know what he's talking about, ever think of that?"

"He represents me, Ranger, and--"

"Tom, I don't talk in riddles. I'm saying his opinion doesn't mean a hill of beans."

I walked to my car, the Ranger clicking echoes behind me.

"Tom, I'm going to ask you something."

He drew himself straight, casting a tall shadow across the line of cars surrounding us.

"What do you want?" he said.

I jingled car keys in my right hand, and shrugged powerlessly with my left.

"Take care of yourself," I said, "See ya."

"Tom," he said, "What do you want?"

"Why do you want to know? Huh? Because you're the magic cowboy actor who can make things happen? You can make horses appear and you can pop into agent's offices?" I said, walking past him to my car "Please. Gimme a break. I've got to go. Get lost."

"What do you want, Tom?" he called after me, "Is it money?"

"Who cares? I wouldn't know what money looked like."

"What do you want?" he said, walking toward me, "Fame?"

"You've got to be kidding,"

"What do you want?"

I threw my backpack of notebooks and wrinkled publicity photos of myself across three cars, and screamed at him in a voice I didn't recognize, but in a state of mind that I did. "I want you to make it so my wife didn't have cancer!! I want you to go back and make it so my kids didn't have to go through that!! I want you to do something that means something!"

"I can't do that," he said.

"Obviously! Of course you can't! That would actually be helpful!! I want you to make some house payments when the bank is calling and the kids don't know what's going on!! I want you to get on the phone to the hospital, the doctor's office, and the insurance company and tell them to back off and let me breathe! I want you to--"

"Wait!" the Ranger said, "Hold on, Tom…"

"No, I'm not gonna hold on, if you can't do any of that then what good are you?" I said, picking up my back pack and shoving in the paper and headphones that had fallen out.

"I'm trying to be your friend," he said

"Then tell me something, friend," I said, "Tell me something that means something. Right now."

"I'm a friend."

"You said that. Thanks. Tell me something else."

"Never quit," he answered.

"That's it? Never quit?"

"Never quit. That means something."

"Seriously, that's it? That's what you tell me?"

"That's enough."

"That's not enough, Ranger," I said, "It's not enough. Tell me she's going to be fine and she won't get cancer again. Tell me that."

"I can't tell you that."

"Then what good are you? Get lost."

"Tom, I can't tell you that."

I let a car roll by and drive across a few of my photos, leaving tire marks across the tranquil face staring up at us.

He walked up to me and his eyes glistened with tears through the holes in his mask. "That's not for me, or you, or anybody to know. That's the way it is. I don't know the answer to that," he said.

"Yeah, I figured that out a while ago."

" But I know what it is," he said.

"What what is?"

"I know what it is."

He took my shoulders in his hands and spoke as if he were carving the words in stone.

"I know what you want, I know what you need, and I'm going to get it for you."

"You're going to talk to the insurance company?"

"No, not that. It's better than that," he said, "It's what you want, and I'm going to get it for you. I promise."

"You promise?" I said.

"Do you trust me?"

"No."

He chuckled at that, and an emotion washed over him that felt like a cloud of truth. I was leaning against my car when he asked me a simple question.

"Am I your friend?"

He was. I couldn't lie about that. He asked me again.

"Am I your friend?"

"Yes, you're my friend."

"Do you trust me?"

"No."

"I'm going to get you what you want," he said, "I promise."

He placed his hand over his heart and traced a cross onto his perfectly pressed shirt.

"I promise," he said.

SIXTEEN

My brother Geoff was a crazy kid, and used to "go for it" long after everybody else had decided that maybe it wasn't the best idea to put an eight foot ladder next to a one foot blow-up pool and jump in from the teetering top step. Geoff jumped, in fact he flipped, doing a complete somersault and landing square on his back in the shallow pool, rising triumphantly to shocked applause, and my mother's screams from her vantage point through a window inside the house. Geoff's passionate approach to everything from wiffle ball to "who was the real owner of that packet of SweetTarts" would often lead to arguments and fighting, and, in extreme cases, what we called "snapping out," a hysterical breakdown that caused his eyes to roll back, fists to swing wildly at the end of windmill arms, and everyone near him yelling "Snap out!" then running away and hiding in the garage for a while until the storm passed.

Geoff reminds me a lot of the movie Back To The Future, because it too was a crazy, passionate behemoth that inspired thrills and applause, and finally completely snapped out and started wrecking everything, causing me to run and hide in the garage.

The main thing that people want out of me when we meet at a party, or a doctor's office, or - trust me, anywhere - a cop giving me a ticket, you get the picture - the pop cultural reason for my existence is to supply funny and revealing stories from behind the scenes on the set of the classic movie Back To The Future. And I always fail at that lofty mission, because I don't remember anything funny or revealing happening. The thing is, I spent most of my time in Back To The Future showing up prepared, working hard, and laying low, because if the people making it didn't like the way I was acting in it, they could fire me just like they did to the kid they'd hired to play Marty McFly, an actor named Eric Stoltz. They'd even fired the actress hired to play his girlfriend, dumped because she was too tall to play the girlfriend of the new actor coming on to replace Eric, T.V. star Michael J. Fox. The new guy wasn't nearly as tall as the average sized Eric, so she would either have to have surgery to remove her calves, walk in a ditch dug next to him, or they'd get rid of her and hire a shorter actress, which is what ended up happening.

In his deep and mysterious and method-actingy preparation for his performance as Marty, Eric had asked everyone in the cast to always call him by his character's name, Marty McFly, but I kept forgetting, thinking that he wanted to be called Marty when we were acting in a scene, but called his real name when we were just actors having lunch. I was wrong about that. Early in the rehearsal period when we met at Steven Spielberg's offices to go over the script, I sauntered over to him, trying to break the ice. "Hey, wanna go get some lunch, Eric?" I asked, giving a playful jab.

He stared at me blankly.

"Uh, oh, sorry. Want some lunch there, Marty?"

He looked away with a sneer and walked the other way.

"Okee Dokee, then. No lunch with Eric/Marty."

He was a consummate method actor, demanding that I call Him Marty, treating me with derision, and making a grand show of his theatrical gravitas in the way that all method actors do, acting like a jerk, making up ridiculous rules of engagement before they speak to anyone, and suspending every one of the rules to pick up women, in this case Lea Thompson, the actress playing Marty's own mother, whom he nuzzled every chance he got, I'm sure in some Oedipal method acting preparation that only he completely understood. But I was thrilled to be there, obeying Marty's rules of engagement, and actually acting in a movie, reporting home with news from the set of my first real movie. "And they had a lunch there that was free! And I have to call this guy Marty all the time even though that' s not really his name! I know! It sounds weird to me, too, but it must make him a better actor!"

"Wow!" friends said through the phone lines from back east, "You're in a movie!"

Though I've never seen the footage that was shot with Eric, I mean, that was shot with Marty as Marty, I would be shocked if any of the shots are in focus or lit well, since the crew spent so much of their time rolling their eyes behind his back it would be impossible to have photographed it correctly. The set was always tense with Marty on it. He was very quiet, since he'd made such a big deal about everyone calling him Marty, most people decided to stop calling him anything at all, allowing him room for his acting process. Whether the cameras were rolling or not, his acting process included staring at me across the set with a toxic hatred, which unnerved me for the first few days until I found it funny and started calling him Eric all the time.

"Hey, Eric!" I'd say, as he nuzzled his makeup covered nose into the back of Lea

Thompson's neck, "Isn't that your mom? Just asking."

A few days after we'd started, a complicated scene came up in the high school lunchroom where several things were taking place at the same time; Marty McFly talks to George about the school dance, Biff coarsely propositions Lorraine, she slaps his face, and Marty confronts Biff while Biff threatens Marty. With three separate sections of the scene, it was going to take a couple of days to complete the work.

I ambled into the lunchroom for the second day of shooting, eating complimentary Frosted Flakes out of a styrofoam bowl, stepping over miles of electrical cable, walking into what felt like a war zone. Inert cameras pointed at the ground, abandoned by the cameramen who sipped coffee and scratched their heads. People were pacing, producers were incredulous, and electricians whispered to one another in stunned shock. The set was on hold, and nothing was happening.

Since Frosted Flakes lose crunch pretty quickly, I shoveled plastic spoonfuls into my mouth, walking by the stunned crew people. "What's going on?"

"Mmmm…" they replied, shaking their heads with sorrow.

Walking to the lunch tables, I asked a few more people who shrugged dejectedly.

I gulped down sugary milk as a kid with a walkie-talkie came over to say hello. Production assistants, "P.A.'s", are an army of young people who have accepted Hollywood as their personal savior. Slaves of the director, sprinters, gofers, scapegoats, drones with inside information, they run the set. They know everything. Just ask them.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Crispin got a haircut." he said.

"He what?" I said, emptying the bowl into my mouth.

"The scene isn't even done. He went home last night and got a haircut. It won't match anything we shot yesterday," he said.

"Are you kidding?" I said.

The kid looked at me until I said "Oh yeah…We're talking about Crispin."

"He went home and got a haircut on his own," he said, "He wanted to do something different with the character."

"With different hair?" I said, "We shot half of it already!"

"I guess so. They're having a meeting in the kitchen over there."

"Who's having a meeting?"

"Crispin and the producers. Can I get you more cereal?"

"No thanks."

"Crispin's a little out there, huh?"

"A little?" I asked, "Have you seen his apartment?"

"AAAARRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!" a muffled shriek pierced through the wall, and the kitchen door flew open. Crispin Glover staggered out of the kitchen, red faced and choking out sobs under his new haircut, screaming after being taken into the room to be throttled by a producer. "IIIIIIeeeeeeee!!!" he shrieked, tripping through a crowd of crew members and extras who were trying to avert their gaze just enough to check out the whole "snap out" in their peripheral vision.

The producers, who are in charge of making the movie as quickly and inexpensively as possible, spoke in quieter tones to him then, avoiding a lengthy hospital stay for the fragile guy, calming him down, drying his tears and sending him to the hairstylist for repairs as we moved on to the next part of the scene without Crispin, when Lorraine slaps Biff and Marty saves the day.

Lea Thompson took a page out of Eric/Marty's method acting that day, and slapped me in the head so hard for so many takes that soon my face was as red and swollen as Crispin's. Then Marty method-acted his way over to confront me, pushing me with all his might by driving the heels of his hands into my collarbones as hard as he could, which was method-acty hard. He didn't hit me "we're filming a movie" hard, he hit me "I'm trying to break your collarbones" hard.

"Cut!" the director yelled, "Let's go again!"

"Uh…is that how hard he's gonna--"

"Action!"

BLAM!

"Ow! Do you think he could--"

"Action!"

BLAM!

After a few takes, when I was sure his goal in the scene was to pop one of my lungs, I tried to talk to him. He hadn't responded to me any other time, but this was sort of important.

"Um, excuse me…Marty, you're hitting me pretty hard."

He looked into the distance, blissfully unaware of my existence.

"Marty, you're hitting my collarbones. Do you think you could hit me lower in the chest? Here, maybe?" I begged, pointing to my chest.

No response. Take four. He slammed into me even harder.

"Cut! One more!"

"Look, ERIC, this is acting. Movies are pretend. Why don't we pretend?"

Nothing. No response. I am vapor.

He left huge, purple bruises on my chest, and a special desire in my heart. That night I re-read the script like never before. At the first opportunity, I was going to method act in a big way and, in a dramatic and violent improvisation within the scene, put his little blow-dried acting class head through a wall. Live by the method acting, die by the method acting there, Marty.

Unfortunately I never got the chance to badly injure him. Things were tense on the set by that point, and there was something wrong going on. With no experience to draw from, and plenty of insecurity since I was letting everybody call me Tom between shots, I was certain that I was the one stinking up the place and wrecking the movie. The scenes were slowing down, there were long discussions between takes where director Bob Zemeckis would take Marty/Eric aside to speak with him, and I thought he was probably asking him for patience with how I was acting, and chuckle with him about my thin resume and the prominence I gave to my tiny part in the Kung Fu movie "Ninja Turf." Then one day, production came to a troubled halt. Back To The Future was not shooting anything for a day. Nobody went to work, which didn't seem even remotely good to anybody. The entire production is stopping because of how bad I am? Is it possible that I've wrecked the entire movie? There was no explanation, no big meeting for the cast and crew, just a cancellation of the work for that day, and silence.

Sitting at home and seriously considering getting my job as a bouncer back, the phone rang with a call from Bob Gale; co-writer, co-producer, infrequent caller.

"Tom, this is Bob Gale," he said, sounding like a funeral director.

"Hi Bob!" I chirped, trying to pass off the squeak in my voice as pep instead of fear.

"Tom, can you come down to the offices? We need to speak to you."

"We?"

"Yes, me and Bob."

"Director and producer? Heh, hey, Bob, what is this about?" I asked, fear over pep.

"Listen, we really need to talk to you about something important," he said, "Can you come over here right now?"

As the earth fell away from my feet and I floated over the misty chasm of my future unemployment and humiliation, I managed to gasp "Bob, just go ahead and tell me, would you? You can tell me."

"We'd prefer it if you came to the office."

I'm fired. I was sure of it. I'm the problem. I should have acted like a sullen jerk and had everybody call me Biff all the time! I should have not answered anybody's questions and whenever I talked it should have been a story about my acting method! In the longest car ride I have ever taken, I drove to the Universal Studios lot, every red light signaling the end of my budding career, and every intersection an omen for the turn my life was about to take. I filled my mind with two thoughts; How to be graceful and thank them, standing and shaking hands like a gentleman who went to Catholic school and wore a tie to kindergarten, and secondly; where I might hide and live and work for the remaining downward spiral that would be the rest of my life.

I pulled into the ski chalet-like complex of Steven Spielberg's company, where a couple of months before I'd been welcomed to the family with back slaps and cookies, and a kind and grave receptionist gestured for me to sit down. I grabbed the water cooler for balance and staggered to her desk, choking out "IS…IT…ME?"

She shifted in her chair and looked at me with eyes caught between pity and fear. "I can't tell you anything."

"Please…just tell me…"

She fiddled with a stapler and said "Would you like a cookie?"

Bob Zemeckis barreled into the office, heading toward Bob Gale's office on the other side. "Hi, Tom," he said, "Come on in and sit down."

I walked to the gallows, but to say that I sat opposite them wouldn't be entirely accurate, since I'd tightened into a statue of bones and meat, perched on the edge of some unidentifiable support behind me, perhaps a chair.

"Tom," one of the Bobs said gravely, "We think you're doing a great job."

"Yes, absolutely fantastic," the other said.

"But…"

Stand up slowly, Tom. Shake hands. Be a gentleman. Don't cry here, wait until you're in the car.

"But the thing is, the movie is not working and we've had to fire Eric."

Still and unblinking, I waited for them to fire me in the same breath, and they didn't. They stared at me, waiting for a reaction, which I gave them after ten or fifteen seconds.

"HHooooo…" I said, exhaling lungs full of air and relaxing in such a rush that I almost fell asleep in front of them, sliding onto the expensive rug like hot candle wax.

"You had to fire Eric?" I asked, babbling it out in psychotic giggles.

"Yes, it just wasn't working, and the movie is just to good to let it go on like this," Bob Zemeckis said.

"Uh, well…That's…uh" my mind raced as I considered which compassionate emotions to fake, "Is he okay?"

"The fact is he was miscast," Bob said, "He's a talented actor, but not right for the role."

"Hey," I said, "Do you think I still have to call him Marty?"

They blinked at that one, and finally giggled. "You don't seem too broken up about this, Tom."

"Well," I said, "If I'm being totally honest I am disappointed."

"You are?"

"Yes I am," I said, "If you guys waited one more week we'd be shooting the scene at the dance, and I was going to slam his head into a car door and crack his skull!"

"Well we've hired an actor from T.V., Michael J. Fox."

"Who?"

"He's going to be filming his T.V. show at the same time, so don't crack his skull."

"Do you know if he wants me to call him Marty?"

Michael J. Fox was filming a T.V. show called "Family Ties" by day at the same time we were re-filming Back To The Future by night. He was working on a hit T.V. series as well as a movie for twenty hour days, so when people ask me about funny stories from the set, I can only tell them what magic it was to draw near Michael J. Fox's director's chair and watch him sleep between takes.

I'd been in show business for a few years by that time, but the show business that I was part of were the barely solvent shows in small theaters and grimy comedy clubs, where desperate men gather around the ice machine to scribble jokes with stubby pencils and wonder if that new bit might work on Letterman. This was my first movie where actors weren't expected to bring their own lunch and help hold the lights aloft if they weren't in the scene. Yes, I got killed in "Ninja Turf," and starred in the T.V. commercial that announced to America that Kentucky Fried Chicken was now carrying biscuits, but a big Hollywood movie set was new to me, and I spent most of the time trying to do a good job and not trip on wires. I was impressed with the fact that they had free snacks for everyone. Yes, a big jug of red licorice that you didn't have to pay for was impressive to me, the kid who felt he was "What's wrong with this picture," on a set where weekend plans were flights to London, and Lea Thomson joked to me "I am such a pack rat! I still have every house I ever bought!"

Back To The Future wasn't supposed to be the big movie in the summer of 1985, that gold medal was being polished for another Steven Spielberg movie called "The Goonies," a pirate movie about kids that, uh, did some stuff with pirate ships or something. "The Goonies" cast and crew got cool jackets with leather sleeves, because they were in the big movie of 1985, the cast and crew of Back To The Future got cheap windbreakers and the knowledge that they survived a long and difficult shoot that didn't even involve pirate ships, just a car that rarely worked. But what the windbreaker lacked, the movie made up for, and Back To The Future was released in a storm of thrill and success. The critics lauded a classic for all time, and the President of the United States quoted it in his State Of The Union address. From the eye of the hurricane I watched the storm grow more and more powerful, as the movie totally snapped out and there was nothing that Marty, or the Goonies, or I could do about it.

SEVENTEEN

The Ranger stared at me from the passenger seat of my car. "I'm sorry about your agent. I thought that maybe I could help things." he said.

"Do you think you helped things?"

"I think that honesty is the best policy," he said, "but maybe timing beats it sometimes."

"Timing is up there," I said, "Judgement, perhaps."

"I was right about never quitting, though. That's true."

"Hey, what the hell, right?" I said, turning left up the hill toward the valley.

He pursed his lips, tightening the muscles in his neck, and didn't speak for fifteen seconds.

"Is that necessary?" he asked, staring out the window.

"Is what--"

"The language."

"What did I say?"

"It's the last refuge of the unimaginative, and it works for some of your friends at the nightclub who don't know any better, maybe, but--"

"What did I say, Ranger?"

"No. Never mind, maybe it's none of my beeswax, like the agent."

"Hell? Was it hell? Is that it?"

He squinted into the dashboard, adjusting an air conditioning vent toward his face.

"Is it hell? Is that cussing or something?"

"Tom, if you ever looked at a picture postcard from there, believe me, you wouldn't want it anywhere near your lips."

He stared out the window as I drove over the crest of a hill, across Mulholland Highway and toward the wide vista of the San Fernando Valley, leaning out to smell the vines of jasmine lining the road. "People thought the same thing about me, you know," he said, "They thought I'd never get out from under that thing."

"Did you ever get out from under the thing?"

"No."

I spun on him, weaving into oncoming traffic.

"What kind of pep talk is this?"

"It's not a pep talk, it's two men with something in common."

"You mean I'm not getting out from under this?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, what do we have in common, then?"

"We're icons," he said.

"I'm an actor, not an icon."

"Then why do people yell "butthead" at you everywhere you go?"

"They don't like to read books?"

"You're history."

"Oh, that's great, thanks a lot."

"No," he said, "I mean that in the best sense. You are part of history. Good history."

We were in the hills above the Universal Studios back lot, and tram cars filled with tourists crawled across the sets like tiny blue caterpillars.

"There it is down there," I said.

"That's where you made it?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's Courthouse Square, but some of it burned up a while ago. Same place, though."

"Famous the world over!" he said, smelling more jasmine until his hat almost blew off.

"Do you know what role I'm famous for?" he asked, gently tossing his hat onto the dashboard.

"What, "Serpico?" I thought Al Pacino did that."

"No, you'll never believe this, but it was Jesse James," he said.

"Jesse James?"

"Tom, do you think Caroline has any of that iced tea back at the house?"

"Coming right up, Jesse James."

"It's true! I told you I played the heavy just like you in the Gene Autry and Roy Rogers serials," he said, "It was the adventures of Frank and Jesse James, and we even did a sequel called Jesse James rides again. See? I've done sequels myself, just like you in the Back…uh, the movies I'm not supposed to talk about."

"You can talk about them," I said.

"I thought I wasn't supposed to talk about Back To The Future," he said.

"Go ahead, talk away."

"You don't mind?"

"Does it matter? At least you got the title right, so let's get it out of your system," I said, "it's going to happen, it happens with about every friend I've ever made. One day there's this moment where there's a lull in the conversation and they finally turn to me and say "So really…what's Michael J. Fox really like? And you realize that they've wanted to ask this stuff since the moment they met me, they've just been biding their time."

The Ranger was a good listener. He didn't even blink. "Go on," he said.

"You realize that every conversation you've had with them, about kids, or football, or anything, have all been working up to this one moment where they feel they've become close enough to ask what they really wanted to ask to whole time, which is was that real manure in the truck, and hey, what's the deal with that Crispin Glover, and whether or not a fourth one is in the works, and how much money did you end up making on those things anyway, and hey, those residuals must be sweet, you must be totally set up with a mailbox full of checks for work you did twenty years ago, huh?"

"That's not what I'm interested in asking you," he said, wiping a small leaf from his hat.

"You're not?"

"No sir."

"Well, what do you want to talk about, then?"

"I want to talk about what it feels like to be stereotyped and pigeonholed in a character. That sort of thing."

I stared at him for ten seconds before chuckling in as relaxed a way as I could. "What would you know about it?" I said.

He didn't leave after that with a mysterious sentence and a horse that appeared out of thin air, so I dropped him off at the house while I went to the gym and an audition.

"So, if you don't disappear or anything, I'll be back in a few hours."

"Mind if I come along?" he asked.

I put my shoulder bag in the floor, so I could gesture with both arms. "You are not coming along. If you appear out of thin air, or are already there when I get there, our relationship, or whatever this thing is, is over."

"I'm good company" he said.

"I'm not kidding. Did you hear what I said?"

"Right. I gotcha. I won't bother you. Ellie still has some art to show me!" "Because you won't be anywhere near me, right?" "Right, kemosabe!" he said.

"What?"

"Right, kemo--"

"Oh, kemosabe, yeah," I said.

"Faithful friend," he said, "in Powatomie Indian."

"Native American."

"Excuse me?"

"Not Indian. Native American."

"Right."

I came back after the audition, and heard my own voice through the front door. "Marty! I didn't mean to scare you!" I heard through the mail slot, "I didn't recognize you in those clothes!"

The Ranger was stretched on the sofa, one foot on the coffee table and one under him, massaging his foot with excitement. It was the old, nerd Biff on T.V., wearing a green velour warm up suit and waxing Marty's truck at the end of the third movie. "Just putting on the second coat now!"

"Oh, come on, Ranger! Turn it off, would you?"

Caroline walked into the room to put his glass onto a coaster. "He wanted to watch it, so the kids went to pick up Katie at work." She kissed me and pulled me into the hallway.

"Is he staying again?" she said.

"No way," I said.

"I mean, I can order another pizza or something, but…" she peered back into the living room as he sat, hypnotized by the DeLorean, "Who is he, honey? Ellie is convinced he's an angel because she keeps going to websites that say Clayton Moo—"

"Honey," I said, not nearly ready to make up the story that it looked like I was going to have to make up, "He's a friend of mine who's a little down. I met him at a club and he seems harmless. He's just working on a character, you know? If you want him to leave, I'll ask him and I'm sure he will."

The replacement actor they made up to look like Crispin Glover, because Crispin wasn't in the sequels, entered the scene. "Where are my glasses," he asked, doing a Crispin impression, "Lorraine, have you seen my glasses?"

"Okay, it's about time we stop the tape, huh, Ranger?"

"It's not a tape! This was on cable, I swear!" he said, without turning from the screen, "That makeup was a challenge to work in, I'll bet!" "Alright, it's over. Can we turn it off now?"

Biff closed the truck door for Marty. "I really like that hat, Marty!" he/I said. I snatched the remote from the coffee table and popped the screen to black.

"By golly if those aren't good pictures!" the Ranger said.

"Thank you…again," I said.

"I must say the second one dragged a bit," he said, "lots of time travel mumbo-jumbo."

"I'm in that one the most," I said.

"Don't get me wrong, you were very good in it, it's just not my favorite."

"It's the most popular of the three in France" I said.

I don't know if rolling his eyes was meant for the sequel or the French.

He rolled over on the sofa, grabbing his boots. "Who made those pictures?" he asked.

"Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. They wrote it."

"Good scripts," he said, "and who's the head honcho?"

"Bob Zemeckis was the director."

"Who produced it?"

"I forget."

"You forget the producer?"

"It was a long time ago."

"Come on, who ran the show?"

"Who cares? I forget."

He grunted, pulling on a boot. "No, you don't."

"I forget his name!"

"You're not being honest, are you?"

"It was an Amblin movie," I said.

"A what?"

"The production company. Steven Spielberg's company," I said, "You've heard of him, right?"

"Of course I have," he said, "He's big medicine, as they say on the reservation."

"He's a whole bottle of aspirin, buddy."

"How would I go about talking with him?" he asked, standing up.

"You wouldn't," I said, "Knock it off."

"Somebody has got to talk to this man about you. I made a promise and I'll keep it."

"You made a promise to who?" I said.

"I made a promise to you!"

"That's the promise?"

"I'm a man of my word."

"Please stop talking, Ranger. Don't even think about it."

"You've got it, Mister. Enough talk. Somebody has to show the man what you can do."

"I'll talk to him myself then, " I said.

"You're not going to talk to him, Tom," the Ranger said, "After all, you can't even remember his name."

He insisted on taking us all out and paying for dinner, so as Caroline called the kids with the change of plans, I drove past the local deli, where we knew most of the staff too well to bring in a large cowboy, since I'd already eaten there with too many neurotic standup comics who shout when they should whisper and bolt out of their chairs to put the finishing touch on a good story. "How are you paying for dinner anyway?" I asked, parking outside "Rosie's Rack," a barbecue place that seemed western enough that the hat and guns might attract less attention than the sushi place on the opposite side of the mini-mall.

He smiled. "The One Ranger never tells his secrets."

"Did you get a paper route or something?"

"No, but I sure delivered some news today, didn't I?"

Caroline turned to him. "What news was that?"

"Never quit!" he said, glowing.

I swept open the oak door and a cloud of mesquite smoke enveloped us, red heat lamps and wood paneling casting a honey glow on the padded booths. "Perfect," the Ranger smiled, "It's perfect."

Two teenagers, a hostess and a waitress stood at the podium made out of an old barrel, both squinting a confused welcome as we walked in. The waitress shook her head for a moment, then looked at the hostess. There was a moment of stillness as they made eye contact, and then an explosion of laughter that popped a wad of gum out of one of their mouths and into the fishbowl of business cards that promised a drawing for free ribs.

"There will be seven of us, Ma'am," the Ranger said.

"Seven of you?" the hostess chortled, peering into the fishbowl for lost gum.

"Yes, seven," he said, "And if I may ask, please make sure that the check comes to me.

"You got it, Tex," she said.

"Ranger, please."

"Huh?"

"I am The One Ranger."

"Yeah, whatever. This way."

He sucked some air through his teeth. "Fine then."

She led us to a giant booth in the families section, with birthday celebrations full of tables with children pointing index fingers at the Ranger and yelling "Pow!" across the salad bar. And I've got to say, after every shot from every single four year old, the Ranger pretended to be shot, grabbing his gut and moaning loudly. He never got tired of it. "Ahhh! You got me!" he said over and over, collapsing into our leather booth with his last bit of strength.

The kids finally found our table, all four of them draped with sweatshirts and headphone cords, hungry and curious.

"What's the occasion?" Katie asked, sliding across the vinyl to make room in the semi-circle.

"The occasion is a combination of two things!" the Ranger said, "Our friendship and our hunger. Now I want you to order whatever you like."

He was interrupted at the end with another "Pow" from another table. He grabbed his shoulder as if the kid had grazed him, pointing a black leather finger over the back of his bench and firing back. "Pow yourself, outlaw!"

The child's mother wasn't remotely entertained by it. "Tyler, sit back down here!" she said, "No guns! No!"

The Ranger blushed and took his hat off, dropping it onto the bench to decrease target size, and stared at me.

"Sorry," Caroline said to him, "I guess some people don't like guns."

"I understand that," he said, "I don't like them either."

Sarah gestured to his waist. "What are those?"

"They're real, in case you didn't know," Danny said, emptying a sugar packet and pouring it into his mouth.

"I don't like guns. I respect them and I wear them."

"Can I have one?" Danny said.

"Oh, I don't think that would go over too well with Mom!" he said, "Isn't that right, Mom?"

Caroline was looking at the menu and trying to stop Ellie from taking cel phone pictures of the Ranger, which she was forwarding to a long list of friends. "Hmm?" she said, "Oh, no guns, Danny. No math homework? No guns."

Ellie stared at the tiny screen in front of her, and then at the Ranger. "They let you have guns in …um, I mean, wherever you're from do they have guns?" she said.

"No sense beating around the bush," he said, "It's heaven."

Nobody moved for a few seconds, and only Caroline looked up from her lap to look at me.

"It is?" Ellie said.

He blushed a little bit and winked at a fourth grader sitting across from us.

"Yes it 'tis," he said. "Seriously," Sarah said.

"Bingo."

"Okay…let's say you're kidding here," I said.

"I'm not."

"The internet was right! I knew it!" Ellie said."

"Knew what? What's going on?" Katie said.

Danny put a tablespoon in his mouth and used it as a tongue depressor. "El tinks he's dead. I tink she's dead, but only mental." He said.

"What?" Katie said.

"He thezz da guns are real, though."

"You really are Clayton Moore?" Caroline said.

He laughed and unfurled his napkin. "Of course I am!"

"But you…you're not alive now, it said on the thing."

"People say a lot of things," he said.

"So…okay, they have guns there?" Sarah asked, "Isn't that against the whole deal? I mean, isn't there a code or something?"

He leaned across the table and whispered. "Okay, you got me. Here's another thing that's true. You don't need guns in heaven."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

We ordered ribs and beans, and I ordered root beer instead of a beer, since I didn't want him to react like he did with "hell."

"Do you know why I use silver bullets?"

"Pow!" a kid said from the other side of the restaurant, which he pretended not to hear.

"To always remember the value of a life," he said, "Silver is a precious metal, and every life on God's green earth is far more precious than that. If you're ever going to pull the trigger of a gun, that's what you should be thinking about. The cost of what you're doing."

I was almost swept away, believing that I was eating barbecue with my wife, kids, and Buffalo Bill himself, almost asking about Billy the Kid and the O.K. Corral before remembering that he was as much a gunslinger as I was a Union soldier in the television movie "Andersonville." I wasn't. I dressed up like a Union soldier, pretended I was one, and ate at the Chick-Fil-A across the highway from our hotel every night. I leaned back into the bench and played with a pile of Moist-Wipe towelettes.

"You've never shot anybody, have you?"

"Of course not!" he said, "I don't have real bullets in these! Never have. It's pretend."

"Why aren't you allowed to wear them in heaven then?"

"I didn't say you weren't allowed, I said you don't need them."

He winked at us as a rack of beef ribs covered in sizzling sauce slid onto the table in front of us.

Gnawing on good barbecue, we were silent for several minutes, interrupted a couple of times for the Ranger to mumble "Uunnhh…good."

He took a break as I cut another rib from the slab.

"Do you know what the head honchos did when the Lone Ranger T.V. show became a hit?" he asked, wiping his fingers with a towelette.

"What was that?"

"Do you think they paid me more and bought me a car?"

"Did they?" Danny asked, "Cool!"

"Do you think that Hollywood is any different today than it was then?" he chuckled to me, "As soon as the show became a hit, they made the mask bigger."

"They what?" I asked, sipping root beer from a mug shaped like a barrel.

"They made the mask bigger. They wanted to cover more of my face in case I asked for a raise and they had to fire me."

"You're kidding," I said

"Nope. No joke," he said, "And the show did become a big hit and I did ask for that raise."

"And what happened?" Caroline asked.

"They fired me," he said, stretching his arms up and linking his fingers behind his head.

"They did not." I said, "Everybody knows you're the Lone Ranger."

"I'm the One Ranger, remember? John Hart replaced me as the Lone Ranger in 52 pictures in the fifties. How about them apples?"

"Seriously?"

He pulled out his wallet and showed me a photograph of the actor John Hart in an identical costume to the one he was wearing. "Notice anything peculiar?" he said.

I did. The mask that John Hart was wearing was huge, covering most of the top half of his face, with a black mesh material that veiled his nose and mouth all the way down to his chin.

"That's the Lone Ranger?"

"It is 52 times!" he said, "In all fairness, John's a good man and we got along well. It was a tough situation to be in, replacing me only to have the costume people put a black feedbag on your face.

"They fired Crispin Glover from Back To The Future Two and Three!" I said.

"Who's that?"

"The guy who played George McFly. The Dad?"

"Oh, he was very good."

"Yeah! They got rid of him! They hired another guy that looked kind of like him and put a mask on him!"

"A big feedbag looking thing like they did to John Hart?"

"No, they had makeup people make a face out of latex that made him look exactly like Crispin."

"Why did they do that?"

"Because they hated each other, and he cut his hair in the middle of a scene, and he asked for a million dollars or something, and trust me, if you weren't in the DeLorean when it went to the future, you didn't make close to a million dollars."

"Oh."

"And he called them bad names."

"He what?"

"I heard him. He went off on them."

"He probably shouldn't have done that."

"Yeah, that's probably why things didn't work out."

"They got rid of a guy and put a big mask on the new guy's face," the Ranger said, "What a coincidence."

By the time we'd chewed the ribs into a pile of clean bones, every employee had walked by our table, rounding the corner to our remote booth by the window, pretending to check on their cars in the parking lot and solidly locking eyes with all of us before jogging back to the group at the hostess stand, nodding their heads.

The hostess herself came over with the check. "Thanks for coming in, folks," she said, snapping one of her suspenders with a name tag pin, "My name is Gina and I'm the manager here. I was wondering if you could settle a little bet for us."

The Ranger and I looked at each other, both veterans of restaurant recognition.

"Do you know who this is?" the Ranger said, pointing at me.

"No, she said, "but are you the Lone Ranger?"

"No, I'm not," he said.

"You're not?"

"No."

"Why are you wearing that outfit then if you're not the Lone Ranger?"

"I'm the One Ranger."

"The Lone Ranger."

"One," he said.

"He's the One Ranger he said!" Danny said, "Can I have more soda?"

"You look exactly like the Lone Ranger," she said.

"Take out the L," he said, gesturing to me, "Do you know who this is?"

"Are you the guy from Police Academy? That's what Jen said."

"No," I said, "That's an actor named David Graf."

"You're not him?"

"No. Unfortunately, he passed away."

"Who's passed away?" the Ranger said.

"No! Not you, I think. Right? Or what?"

"Who died?" the girl said.

"Him, apparently," Katie said, pointing across the table.

"No, David," I said, "He was a great guy."

"God rest his soul," the Ranger said.

"But he's not dead or anything, so don't even look him up on the internet," I said, pointing at the Ranger.

Ellie held up her cel phone to show another obituary before Caroline took it from her.

"He was Biff on Back In The Future!" the Ranger beamed.

"No he wasn't," she said to him.

"Would you like his autograph?" the Ranger said.

"No, you're right, he wasn't," Sarah said, "Let's go!"

"Can I have your autograph?" she asked him.

"Sure, but what about Tom?" he said.

"Okay, whatever."

He signed autographs on the pad of dinner checks for the hostess, every waitress, the cook, and a bartender just starting his shift, finally slapping a twenty dollar bill onto the table for the meal. She scooped up the twenty and the check. "Do you want some change with this - oh, wait," she said, blushing and putting it down, "It's 57.95 That's a twenty."

His mouth dropped open and his cheeks blushed redder than hers.

"Tom," he said, "May I borrow some money?"

"No rush," she said, walking back to the cash register.

I turned to pull my wallet out of a back pocket and turned back to find an empty seat across from the table. The Ranger had disappeared. He was smiling at the kids in one instant, and vanished in the next.

"He disappears when the check gets here?" I mumbled to myself, "Too perfect."

I shook my head and chuckled until I saw his boots on the floor near the edge of the booth, with his legs still in them, stone still and lying on the floor. Did he fall? A seizure? Is it possible for a phantom from the netherworld to have a medical emergency?

"Did you drop something?" Katie said.

Danny took the spoon out of his mouth to look under the table, and Ellie tapped on her phone. "Did he die?" she asked.

We leaned over the table and he looked up at us, signaling quiet with a finger over his lips. He wasn't ill and he hadn't fallen down, he was hiding. Hiding? Telling us to "shush?" I was ready to pick up the check and go, and he was--

"Nobody move!" a voice boomed from somewhere near the kitchen. "Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt!"

The screams of shocked patrons overlapped with the threats as they got louder. "You move, you die!" Two men had burst through the kitchen, and both were carrying guns, one with a black hand gun and the other a sawed-off shot gun, rusted brown and duct taped at the butt. "Sawed-off" pushed a cook out of the way with the rifle barrel and stomped to the register, yelling "Shut up!" at a crying lady, as "pistol" screamed "On the ground!" Waitresses and patrons hit the greasy carpet, face down into the orange and avocado swirls.

"Daddy," Ellie said.

"Dad, is this fake?" Danny said.

I looked at the Ranger, then at Caroline. The Ranger was already down, his legs drawn up to his chest under two tables to stay completely out of sight.

"Okay, guys, let's do what they say. Take it easy," I said, "Everything will be fine."

The kids started pulling themselves out of the booth, but I stopped them and signaled under the big table. "Get under there. Now." They squeezed under the thick slab of wood as I slid off my chair to the floor, looking over at the Ranger. He held a hand up to his face, moved it around to signal in some way, and pointed at a side door. I tried to make my eyes say "What?" but he repeated the signaled command, spinning his hand and pointing at the side door.

I rolled across the carpet toward him as an older couple at the booth next to ours struggled to reach the ground with arthritic limbs and fear for their lives. "ON-THE-FLOOR!!" Shotgun said, pulling thin stacks of ones and fives out of the register.

"What is this? What - this is all you got?" he spat.

"What are you saying?" I whispered, wiggling closer to the Ranger.

"Side door," he said, "Go out the side door and trap them. I'll take the front. They haven't seen it yet. Go!"

"No!"

"Come on," he hissed, "They can't shoot those pop guns. Go!"

"I'm not leaving the kids!"

"HEY! SHUT UP OVER THERE!" the pistol guy said. He pushed our waitress the rest of the way to the ground as she shrieked in fear.

"Right. Don't go now," the Ranger whispered, "Wait. Stand up when I tell you to."

"What? He just said to—"

"Stand up when I tell you."

"He's got a g—"

"Dad!" Danny whispered across the carpet, "…Trust him!"

The pistol guy stomped over bodies laying in every direction, headed toward our table. He stepped across an elderly couple, catching his boot on the woman's purse and kicking it aside.

"Who's under that table? Get out here!" he bellowed. Katie and Sarah were hugging Ellie and Danny's heads close to them, and Caroline was looking at the creep with the gun, blocking his aim, and burning a stare through the back of his head.

"Get out from under there!" The Ranger signaled at me and I stood up, staring down the barrel of a gun, held in complete hatred and murderous greed.

"Those are my kids," I said, "They don't have any money, you can take whatever I have. My wife, too. Leave them alone."

He peered under the table and sneered. "I said get out from under there, kids."

"Stay right there," I said, "I told you they don't have any money, they're scared, and they'll stay right there."

"Mommy, you'd better move out of the way," he said, laughing and waving her away from me with his gun.

"Her name is Caroline, she's my wife, and if you talk to her like that again, I'm going to take that gun and shove it up your ass."

He walked toward me, giggling in a confused way and lifting the pistol from his side. "Shut up and put your face in the floor!"

"Ranger!" Caroline said.

The Ranger stood up behind him, and with a heavy click, pointed his silver .45 caliber Colt into the creep's head.

"What the--"

"Hello there, sir!" the Ranger said.

"I knew it!" Danny said.

"Listen here," pistol creep said, raising his gun higher.

"No, sir," the Ranger said, darkening his eyelids, "Don't do it."

The creep had to process the scene for more than a few seconds, before he coughed out a chuckle. "Whatcha gonna do, cowboy Jim?" he said, "Take me to the Sherriff?"

The Ranger stood in front of him, never taking his eyes off the creep, slowly moving the barrel of the Colt and aiming it directly at his head. "I'm not doing anything, friend, and neither are you."

Before the other guy with the shotgun knew what was happening, the Ranger flashed the other Colt out of his left holster and had two targets in sight.

"You're not going to hurt any of these people, and I'm not going to shoot you," he said.

The shotgun clack-clacked and the thug behind it was clearly nuts. "Shoot him, man! Shoot him!" he cackled in a voice equal parts gravel and death. He came out from behind the register, stuffing cash into his pocket and pointing the gun across the restaurant straight at the Ranger. "I'll shoot him, bro!" he growled.

"You can't shoot him!" Ellie's muffled yell rang out , "He's an angel."

"Shh," I said.

The Ranger cocked the gun he had pointed at the pistol creep's head. "Hold on, Mister," he said, "just hold the phone." His eyes were stone cold in his mask, drilling the man in front of him as he called across the trembling bodies on the floor to the rifleman. "Here's what we know. We know that you have a weapon no better than trash, taped up and old, and you just hope it works, let alone hitting me from across the room like that.

Oh, it'll probably shoot, but I'll just bet you it won't hit me. Your friend here has a good pistol, but it's not really aimed at anything right this second. The best he could do would be to hit me in the leg…right before I put a window through his head." Calm returned to his features, and he gently suggested, "Why don't you take your money and be gone?"

Pistol creep looked over at the shotgun guy, trying to formulate plan B.

"What are you talking about, man?" he said to the Ranger.

"It's fine, sir. No problem. Two of you, one of me, we won't shoot each other, no more fighting or angry words. Just take your loot and be on your way."

Shotgun took another stab, shouting "Put down the gun, cowboy. Final warning."

The Ranger took a step forward and touched the pistol creep's forehead with the steel barrel of his Colt. "Cover your ears, kids," he said, and they buried their faces in each others arms, "Go ahead, friends," he called out to the patrons, "Let's give these fellows what they need and get them on their way."

Wallets and purses floated into the air, and pistol grabbed them as he walked back to the cash register, high stepping over turning bodies.

"Well done, folks," the Ranger said, "We're almost done with them."

They filled a backpack with wallets and cash, dumped makeup and pens out of purses, pulled credit cards and checkbooks out of compliant hands, and emptied every cent from every pocket.

The Ranger took a step toward the thieves, and they freaked out for a moment, dropping a few purses to fumble with their guns, re-aiming them at people's heads.

"Okay, men," the Ranger said, "Does that satisfy you now? Stealing what little money they have from a room full of people who would be the first ones at your doorstep if your family ran into some trouble?"

"You just stay right there," Shotgun said. He looked at pistol for a second, they turned to run out the door, and the universe exploded.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Before their thoughts could send a signal to move, the two guns were flying in the air, shot so many times that they were pieces of bent, useless metal at the far corner of the kitchen within a few loud seconds. The Ranger didn't seem to move much at all, but one moment he was waving a friendly goodbye to them, and the next he was holding his two pistols in front of him, red hot and billowing smoke from both barrels.

"I was just kidding about keeping the money," he said, "Danny!" he called out.

"Yeah?" Danny yelled, his jaw on the floor.

"Watch this!"

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!!!

He flipped the useless guns into the air one more time to fill them full of lead.

"Help me return the money to these people!"

Danny and the I helped people to their feet as they got back every cent, making sure the correct purse was placed back in the hand of its waiting owner, and the thugs sat on the floor under the watchful gaze of the Ranger and his guns. When I felt able to speak again, I walked over to him, gesturing to his ready weapons. "You said there were blanks in there," I said.

"There were," he said, "but sometimes you need bullets."

"Why didn't you shoot them?" I asked.

"Why didn't you listen to me and go out the side door?"

"Come on! They were pointing guns at us!"

"I use silver bullets. You know that."

"You didn't shoot them because bullets are expensive?"

"No, silver bullets are a reminder that life is precious and never to be taken lightly. Money isn't worth a man's life."

"Well, next time, toss me the gun, will ya?"

"Oh?" he said, "And what will you do with it?"

"I'll shoot them in the head!" I yelled

"No, you won't shoot anybody." the Ranger said.

The guy who held the shotgun to Gina's head and screamed curses at elderly people as they fell to the floor then stared at me for more than a few seconds.

"Hey, man," he said in awe, "Are you Butthead?"

"Yes, I will shoot somebody!" I said.

"No." the Ranger said, "No, you won't."

"Why not?"

"Because he's a human being."

"He's Biff!" shotgun said to his partner.

"Which one?"

Danny tossed a wallet to a man who'd gone back to reading his paper, and walked toward the powerless thug. "Shut up or my Dad will kick your ass, buttwipe."

"Hey!" I said, "Language?! What is that?

"That's what you said!"

"I was trying to make a point!"

"So am I!"

"The guy had a gun!"

"So am I allowed to say it if the guy has a gun?"

Reeling with the mixture of adrenaline and testosterone, I said "Yes, that's the only time."

"Sweet," he said, preening toward his sisters, "I got permission."

"Alright, let's move on," the Ranger said.

"Come on, let me shoot one of them!" I said.

"Seriously, man, are you that dude?" he asked me.

"Seriously, man, if he hands me his gun right now I'm gonna shoot you in the head, so shut up," I replied.

"Ha! Yeah!" the other one said, "You're right, it is him! Hey, butthead!"

"I'm telling you, he'll kick your ass," Danny said.

"STOP! I told you to stop!!"

"You said I could!"

"Only if he has a gun! He's been disarmed! Stop!"

Gina got up slowly, leaning on the cash register and wiping away tears as she called the police.

"Hey," the shotgun guy said, "Are you still in contact with Michael J. Fox?"

"Shut up," I replied.

"No, I just wanted you to tell him that, you know, lots of people care about him and stuff," he said.

I stared ahead as the Ranger motioned us toward the door after him.

"How can we ever repay you, sir?" Gina called out.

The Ranger smiled at her.

"We've received payment enough in making new friends," he said, sweeping open the door as a police car pulled into the parking lot, and a few of the angrier patrons beat the creeps heads in with their dinner plates and canes.

EIGHTEEN

My friend Harry has a great standup act based on imitating popular movies, where he runs all over the stage and acts out various films while soundtrack music blares over the loudspeakers and people laugh hysterically, recognizing what is most familiar to them - images that have been on a screen on front of their faces so often, but twisted into a live performance of pop cultural insanity. His version of acting out big movies works very well, and Harry makes a good living at it, unlike most other people who act out their favorite scenes in movies over and over, who usually risk a loss of friends and possible eviction from the improvised apartment they set up in the basement of their mother's house.

One night in Las Vegas, Harry was on a roll. The audience was in hysterics, rocking forward and back in the burgundy chairs of the main showroom at the Dunes Hotel, one of the last dinosaurs of the Bugsy Siegel age of old Vegas. The cigarette-brown stained walls of the backstage area held Harry's props - a few duffel bags filled with plastic swords and toy guns for the Indiana Jones tribute, a few superhero masks, and lots of hats and glasses. The hallmark of Harry's act is Superman, complete with an "S" emblazoned uniform, a big American flag, and a long, red cape. Harry was running back and forth across the stage, acting out a frenetic history of Hollywood, when it became time to put on the cape and become Superman. He whipped the shirt and shorts on, swirled the cape onto his heaving back and jumped in the air, recreating super flight across the front of the showroom and into the crowd. "Lady!" he screamed, "I need somebody to be Lois Lane!" He dragged the unsuspecting woman onstage, as she handed her pricey Margarita to her husband, a Pall Mall dangling from his lips.

Harry pulled her across the stage toward a bar stool in front of the American Flag. "Lean over the stool!" he whispered to her, and she did, bending stomach first into the stool, with Harry leaning over her from behind, pretending that both of them were flying. Harry waved to the audience, and the woman waved crazily to her husband and family.

And then Harry, gasping for air, inhaled a few long strands of Lois Lane's black hair, gagged violently, and threw up onto her back in front of a packed house.

The human mind is one of the miracles of God's great universe, and the shifting of an audience from delight in watching a funny comedian perform a Superman routine with a pretty lady from the audience, to stupefied horror at watching a performer projectile vomit on the young woman's back is a testament to the miracle of how very fast a mind can change.

The woman was wearing a sweater for winter and didn't feel a thing, leaning out and smiling as part of the show. The horrified screams of the audience drowned out the background music as Harry staggered away from her. She stood up haltingly, not understanding what was going on, as Harry approached her to whisper words that should never have to be spoken to a guest while standing in front of an audience. "Uh…I just threw up on your back."

Harry also brought another guy onstage once and Krazy-glued the guy's fingers to his own bald head by accident, but I'll leave that for Harry's book.

When old Las Vegas began to limp and sputter, with old hotels blown up with dynamite and others growing moss in the deserted pool, young comics dove in and took over every dusty old showroom in the place, squinting up at the old tower of the Landmark hotel, hoping for a glimpse of Howard Hughes, who'd been living in the place, staying up at all hours to watch the movie "Ice Station Zebra" and pick poached eggs out of his long beard. The Dunes hotel was in bankruptcy, an historic behemoth waiting for the demolition crew that would blow it to rubble to make room for the new Bellagio Resort, but there were still large, polyester clad audiences who didn't smell the dynamite. When the hotel decided to give the Robert Goulet show a rest and let the Comedy Store in L.A. take over the main showroom, the comics performed there as if the wrecking ball was already swinging. Visions of sugarplums danced in the eyes of comics desperate to make their own mark on Las Vegas, after hearing about Shecky Greene driving his car into the fountain at Caesar's Palace, and the televisions that Elvis shot out with the hand gun he hid in his jeweled belt.

For comedians, life offers no thrill higher than a joke that goes terribly wrong, delivered by a close friend and ending in his utter humiliation and possible arrest, like Harry's night that ended in lots of club soda soaked cocktail napkins, and a huge dry cleaning bill.

One night in the same Vegas showroom, Steve Oedekerk used the old cream of mushroom soup gag to shock the room into screaming chaos. Long before Steve went on to write and produce and direct lots of Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy movies, he bought an elaborate Elvis Presley costume, complete with a glittery belt and a moppy black wig with sideburns. He kept the outfit in a closet for years, finally taking it out for the perfect opportunity, a huge stage in Las Vegas in front of hundreds of people fresh from major gambling losses and dressed eerily like the very Elvis costume he was wearing, including the wig. In the middle of a show of five comedians, Steve popped a cassette tape into the sound system, blasted the driving drum beat of "C.C. Ryder," the trademark opening of Elvis Presley's stage show. "Ladies and gentlemen!" the showroom announcer read the intro that Steve scrawled on a napkin, "Please welcome the king of rock and roll! Let's hear it for…Elvis!!"

The audience gave him a rousing round of applause, their smiling faces surprised at the treat of an impressionist in the show as Steve walked backward as Elvis did, across the wide stage. Wiping his forehead with a red satin scarf, he waved to the happy mob and smiled from behind thick, chrome sunglasses. Then he bent over uncomfortably and, with a mighty heave, emptied his mouthful of creamy brown soup onto the floor.

Then there was a riot. The screams of shock, gagging, and rage were beyond the human ear's capacity to distinguish emotion within sound. Vodka tonics splattered across narrow, crowded tables, and the gurgles of people choking on buffalo wings was deafening. The effect of his stunt was something like a communal Heimlich maneuver. Mouths emptied as jaws fell slack, and the postcards they'd scribbled by the pool would have to be rewritten. It was loud, prolonged, and the challenge of a lifetime to the next comedian on the show, though it gave that unlucky performer an indelible memory of old Las Vegas - I once followed an Elvis impersonator whose closing bit was to throw up onstage.

Las Vegas was an exciting combination of its pinky-ringed past with its theme park future, and being a performer there was a tightrope walk between "union boss wiseguy" entertainment, and geriatric medicine. Aged retirees filled the buffet tables through the afternoon, and the back tables of the showroom at night as long as the tickets were free coupons. But the other Las Vegas wasn't dead yet, and the Dunes hotel, wheezing and on its last legs, was the perfect fusion of the three factions in the city fighting over its future. The leaders of these warring factions seemed to be Don Corleone, Don King, and Don Ho, and they didn't mind comics in the main showroom, since comics were crazy troublemakers, but a lot cheaper than appearing tigers, or jumping motorcycles, or dancing girls with pasties and drug problems.

Telly Savalas was an easy celebrity sighting in Vegas, since he was always sitting at the poker tables at the Dunes, dangling an unlit cigarette under dark glasses that seemed to whisper, "Hey, babe, let Kojak play poker." Apart from watching the guy who played Kojak play poker, big celebrity sightings usually happened at the bigger hotels like Caesar's Palace across the street, since everybody who's been to Caesar's Palace knows, celebrities end up hanging out in there because once you're in there it's impossible to figure out how to get out of the place. Moving walkways are everywhere to carry you into the casino, but it takes a team of Sherpa villagers to carry you through the unmarked trail out of the casino and into the sunlight.

Caesar's Palace had it's ridiculous plaster statues and waitresses dressed like Roman slave girls, but on one big weekend at the peak of his infamy, heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson came to town, clanking pounds of jewelry around the casino at the Dunes, and attracted lots of attention, so Telly Savalas was left alone to concentrate on his sullen Texas Hold 'Em.

Mike Tyson was in the casino hanging out with an entourage of warm up suited buddies for so long that it lost its prize fighting menace after a while and just got boring. Fans could run down the strip to the Desert Inn, tell their Uncle that the Heavyweight champion of the world was over at the Dunes, and still be able to come back, look at him jingling bracelets for another half hour, and finally get bored and go play keno. Tyson didn't seem to gamble at all, but just waited around for more guys wearing velour warm up suits to show up. He'd be in a hallway somewhere, or near the elevators, or at the neon lit steps that led to the lounge, surrounded by bodyguard wanna-be's, mumbling to each other and clicking piles of chips in their gold encrusted hands.

Everybody who's spent any time at all in Las Vegas knows that it's a very dark place, even at noon in the desert with all the lights on. I walked past Tyson to prepare for the night's show, through the lobby curtains and past the dark rows of plush vinyl booths of violet and burgundy, behind the curtains to backstage, where it was cool, and silent, and utterly black. I turned on a worklight that washed over the back of the curtain in pale yellow, reflecting glare off the blonde wood stage, marked black with forty years of crushed last cigarettes as singers and showgirls walked out in front of the crowd. I stood for a moment, filled with the secret wonder that happens in a dark theatre, silent and still. "Nobody knows where I am. It's a secret." Every step I took on the boards creaked into the high ceiling and hanging sandbags, and I spun and jumped in the dark, dancing like Fred Astaire, joyous and alone. I set the microphone stand the way I like it, tuned the guitar for the show and headed out a backstage door reserved for waiters, performers, and crew, ambling through the dim hallway past stacks of crusty room service trays last touched in the sixties, and pushed my way through another set of doors.

There, in a darkened corner, deep in the womb of the Dunes Hotel, was a keno girl. A tall blonde in her early twenties with a sequined blue skirt and a small, matching hat, she stared nervously into the eyes of the large man holding her against the wall, tightly gripping her wrists. The air was silent and thick with fear. She nervously fidgeted, pulling her arms gently away, but the man held on tightly, pinning her against the wall and cornering her.

I've always felt like the kind of guy who would jump into a situation like this, saying something a T.V. cop might say, like "Let her go, punk," looking tough and baring my savage and expensive teeth. I say that I felt like that kind of guy, because my theory hadn't been tested all that much. As I squared my reasonably broad shoulders, inhaled a little to increase chest size, and prepared to bark a sharp "Hey, now. Is everything alright here, Miss?" the man turned around to face me and I stared into the eyes of the hungry hunter with his prey, who also happened to be the heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

Mike Tyson turned slowly toward the sound of the opening door, and leveled me with a stare that I'm guessing he uses only for men he is about to kill, and ex-wives, the stare of the first few moments of a fist fight, when his message is very clear. Soon you will see a blinding flash of light, and then sweet slumber will surround you. It took his hooded eyes only a fraction of a second to give me a feeling that was so elemental that I was entertained by the strange fear. My knees buckled slightly and in an instant I was a gazelle on the Serengeti Plain. Unfortunately for me that day, I hadn't been paying close enough attention, and walked into the hunting path of the lion. Like the surprised gazelle, all I had were my legs, and they could not freeze, they had to move quickly, ready to serpentine around the tiny room in evasive action. "Uh, pardon me," I said, brushing past the cinder block of Tyson's shoulder and slamming through another set of doors. There behind the second door was the Tyson track suit gang, standing around in the dark hallway, gold rings and cell phones at the ready, waiting for Iron Mike to finish his courtship with the keno girl. Shocked to see someone come through the doors from the opposite direction, they said "Who are you?" but the gazelle was well past them by that point. "The Show. Show I'm… I'm in the show," I whined over my shoulder, "Getting the show ready. Yup, the show. Backstage. Allowed to be there. Me. Yes. Allowed."

I ran from the casino and found my friend Harry in his hotel room.

"We've got to do something!" I said, "Mike Tyson is backstage with a keno girl!"

"What?"

"Mike Tyson! He's got a keno girl backstage!"

"Mike Tyson is playing keno?"

"No! He's backstage with a keno girl! We've got to help her!"

Nothing can make a guy forget about throwing up on an audience member like a frenzied story about what I'd just seen, the heavyweight champ of the world and the future Mrs. Tyson playing around backstage and kind of threatening to kill me.

"They're still back there, but his track suit guys are blocking the door!"

We ran to the opposite side of the casino and used a different entryway to get backstage, where we shushed each other, listening for fearful cries for help, or perhaps a pronounced lisp.

"He was right back here!" I said, as Harry began climbing a ladder to the wooden catwalk twenty feet above the stage, high enough to peek into the hallways and dressing rooms from above.

"He was going to kill me!" I said.

"What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything, he just looked at me!"

"What did the keno girl say?"

"She didn't say anything either!"

I climbed the ladder myself, following him onto the high scaffolding, looking for Mike Tyson and a young lady in a glittering blue skirt.

"What did you say to him?" Harry asked.

"I said "pardon me."

"And he didn't say anything!"

"No! But he looked at me!"

"He looked at you? He just looked at you?"

"Harry, I'm trying to help somebody here!"

The stage was dimly lit with a few work lights and hushed with the kind of silence that only happens behind thick velvet curtains. Then we started to rattle curtain chains and talk like workmen, yelling in tough guy voices about plugging in lights and setting up props, hoping to scare them off in case we came down the ladder into the waiting arms of Iron Mike himself.

"What are you guys doing up there?" a voice piped up from the darkness.

We stared at each other for three seconds, waiting for the other to respond.

"We're in the show!" we both said.

"You in the stagehands union?"

"…no," I said.

"Get down from there." The voice said, starting a long tirade about darkness, danger, and the benefits of union membership, and we scurried from the heights, hoping that we'd saved the keno girl from harm. I never saw him again, but a little while later, Mike Tyson went to prison, and I really became a boxing fan, going to Harry's house to watch the big bouts when Buster Douglas and Evander Holyfield began to face him down and punch his head in.

NINETEEN

We pulled into Las Vegas, crawling in bumper to bumper traffic so far down the Vegas Strip that you might be fooled into thinking that, despite the four and a half hour car ride, you're still in L.A.

"That's something," the Ranger said, looking out the car window.

"Mike Tyson doesn't fight anymore, though," I said.

"Is he in prison?" the Ranger asked.

"No," I said, "He acts in movies."

"He what?"

"Yes," I said, "he acts in movies."

The Ranger squinted through his mask and wiped the windshield as we approached the "New York, New York" casino hotel.

"Wait a minute, Tom," he said, "This is not Las Vegas."

"It sure is," I said.

"That's the Statue of Liberty!" he said.

"It's a casino. New York, New York casino," I said.

He stared at Lady Liberty, incredulous. "The Statue of Liberty decorates a casino?" he asked.

"It's part of the roller coaster they have there."

He rubbed his face with his hands, sighing. "Flat wrong, Tom," he said, "Flat out wrong."

"Oh, gimme your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to gamble and drink," I said, weaving the car to avoid hitting an elderly couple, jaywalking while drinking out of dumpster-sized soda cups in matching NASCAR tank tops. We jerked through the traffic on the Strip, and the Ranger gasped in the middle of every block as the next mega-casino came into view.

"Look yonder, Tom! It's the Eiffel Tower!"

"It's a casino," I said.

"You're kidding!" he said, then distracted in a flash, "A pirate ship!"

"Casino."

"Wow! Look at those dancing waters!"

I looked at him and we said in unison "Casino."

We pulled into the International Hotel, where thousands of pear shaped white guys stretched Hawaiian shirts over their corn fed frames to attend the annual convention of Three Vine Foods, a multinational corporation that revolutionized how to flash-freeze and sell vegetables, an idea so successful that they decided to have a party in a big showroom and hire a comedian to perform for them. While they drink.

In the giant hotel/casino resorts that have swallowed Las Vegas, the lobby for the actual hotel is as easy to find as a Franciscan monk. The check in desk must be in there somewhere, because, I mean, it's a hotel, right? But the clanging and jingling and puffs of blue smoke wafting over lines of flashing lights that sparkle in the reflective hair of cocktail waitresses fills the eyes and ears with so much casino camouflage that it's tough to figure out where to slap your palm on a Formica desk and ask for a room. If the military hasn't already spent tens of millions of dollars looking into it - and they probably have - they should think about using rows of slot machines as camouflage on the battlefield. Dress our heroic Green Berets as "Jackpot Slots!" and any foreign enemy, dazzled by the dream of clattering American money, will walk right up to the things with zombie eyes, fishing for quarters in their pockets.

We finally reached the front of the check in line, greeted by a young man with neatly trimmed hair, a large corsage, and perhaps a hint of eye shadow.

"Welcome to the International Hotel!" he chirped, "Your reservation would be under what name?"

"Wilson, Tom Wilson. I'm here to perform for the frozen vegetable people."

He squealed with girlish delight. "Sounds like a sick sci-fi movie to me! Ha!"

"Do you need a credit card from me?"

"Ha! The performer for the frozen vegetable people!" he said.

"Right!" I said, extending my palm for a key.

He looked at the Ranger, arched an eyebrow and looked back at me. "Double room?" he asked.

"Nope. King size bed. Non smoking, please."

A smile creased his polished face as he gleamed back and forth between us. "Yes, sir!" he said.

"No!" I blurted, "That's not what…uh, maybe give me a double room." I looked at the Ranger.

"What, me?" the Ranger said, "I'm not staying here. Or, no, I don't have to."

"I…You're not staying, right? I mean, what was the plan?" I said to him.

"Just get a king sized bed. That'll be fine."

I looked at the Ranger, peeked at the desk clerk and said way too loudly "But not for you, right?"

"For me? No, I don't need a king sized bed," he said.

"But…I mean," I continued, "You're not going to be staying here, right?"

"I'll go whenever you like," he said.

The clerk overdid a pouty face. "No squabbles, kids!"

I rested my forehead on the beige counter. "I just need a room key, please."

"Why don't we take a walk outside?" the Ranger said.

"Are you kidding?" I said, "It's a pottery kiln out there!"

"It was a long drive," he said, "It would be good to stretch the legs."

"Ranger, let's put the bags down. They're measuring temperature on the Kelvin scale or something. The only sunscreen I use is rated SPF - DON'T GO OUTSIDE."

"Look at those people!" he said, pointing through the window at deeply tanned retirees, their flabby arms weighed down with pounds of gold.

"Those aren't people!" I said, "They're reptilian bipeds! Nothing human could be that brown and wrinkled!"

"Well, let's go to the room then," he said.

"3124 North Tower," the clerk said, handing over the keys in a thick pamphlet of orientation maps and coupons, "King bed!" he added, with a wink.

"Thanks."

"We call it the Aloha Deck around here!" he said, smelling his corsage, "Front!"

We walked away, through cumulonimbus tobacco smoke exhaled by the shuffling gamblers.

"And they're smoking!" I said, "They're smoking while standing in an oven!"

"What did he mean about the king size bed thing?" the Ranger asked.

"How do they light the cigarettes?" I asked, "holding them under their arm? You could put corn kernels in your ear and pop popcorn out there!"

I dropped my bags in the room and we walked out of the air conditioning onto the Strip, through the fog of water misters around the entrance and outside onto the surface of the sun, crammed with sun burned pedestrians who gambled away their money for cab fare.

"Look at all the cars!" the Ranger said, as a greasy man on the sidewalk handed him an orange flyer.

"Thank you, sir!" the Ranger said, walking toward downtown.

"Ranger, you're probably not interested in that," I said, pointing at the slip of paper.

He looked at it, focused on the graphic ad for a porn queen at a strip club, and averted his eyes with a whip of his head, almost knocking an elderly man in an electric scooter into oncoming traffic.

"Oh!" he said, shuffling his feet and twisting through the throng of pedestrians to a trash can.

"They do a lot of that stuff here," I said, "Don't take the pieces of paper from anybody."

He shook his head. "Right under the nose of the Statue of Liberty. What kind of liberty is that?"

"So, where do you want to walk?" I asked, as another flyer was shoved into the Ranger's hand.

"No, thank you!" he said, offering it back to the man, who didn't accept it, sending the Ranger back to the trash can.

"There are quite a lot of these types," the Ranger said.

We made it all the way to the crosswalk, but as we waited for the signal to change, another man in a filthy baseball cap shoved a pink flyer at the Ranger.

"No, thank you," the Ranger said, hands on his belt.

"Half price table dance Tuesday!" the man croaked, shoving the paper into the Ranger's face.

"I said no thanks, friend."

The crusty man reached into the pocket of his apron, shoving a different flyer into his face, an even more graphic ad decorated with a muscular young man.

The Ranger turned to face the man, lowered his chin and stared at him with a gaze powerful enough to make him cough.

"What part of no don't you understand, Mister?" he said.

The guy choked on a part of his tongue for a moment, wiping his hands on a windbreaker rubbed black with grime. "How the hell should I know what way you swing? Nice mask." he said.

The Ranger turned to me and leaned in close as the light turned green. "Tom," he said, "Do you think it would be alright if we went back to the hotel?"

"Yeah," I said, "It's almost showtime."

Performing standup comedy at a banquet for a giant corporation is a lot like making balloon animals at a party for komodo dragons. The colorful movements might distract them for a while, but all they're really interested in is eating and attacking the weak.

"Are you Biff?" the hostess asked when I stepped up to the nametag table.

"I'm Tom. Tom Wilson. I'm performing tonight."

"Well, you're Biff to me!" she said, "Biff!"

"Well, … okay then," I said.

"Ha!" she guffawed, stirring a vodka tonic, "You'll never live that one down, huh? Ha!"

Corporate gigs always start off on a great foot, where somebody keeps calling you by a movie character's name, and then you have to meet the CEO and all his relatives, most of whom dabbled at one time in the "Semi-pro" theatre.

"You're doing the big show tonight, huh Biff?" a large pink man said, walking toward me.

"It's Tom. Yes, I'm doing some standup comedy tonight!"

"Bob Tanksley, H.R."

"H.R."

"Human Resources, you know, what not," he said, "I saw the tape from your booking agent."

He swigged bourbon from a hotel water glass and winced as it went down, watching his ice swirl in the caramel liquid, preparing his critique.

"Pretty good video," he said. Men always say "pretty good" for fear of usurping their power to you. Women will allow themselves to gush and quote their favorite section of material, while men stare at you, wary of the wiseguy.

"Yeah, pretty good," he said.

"Thanks," I said insincerely, "means a lot"

"No filth tonight, right?"

"What filth would that be?" I asked.

"Well, I talked to Stephanie, the entertainment chairwoman about it. We had that Dennis Miller here last year. He used a lot of foul language and it really hit the fan." "Oh, well I don't--"

"He dropped the F-bomb in front of Bishop O'Neal."

"Gotcha," I said, "I don't think we'll have a problem."

The muscles tensed around his eyes and I knew he didn't believe me. "We just want a clean show."

"Right," I said.

"Right," he said, "Clean."

I smiled, trying to think of something else to say, a gentle lead in to the most important question of the night.

"So…you live in LaLa Land?" he said, chuckling.

"Yes, I do. L.A."

"You know what they say about that place?"

"Hey, Bob, who would be the person in charge of paying me?" I asked.

In a last minute decision, the banquet committee decided to wait until after dinner, dessert, and the distribution of all sales, marketing, and lifetime achievement awards before getting to my portion of the program. By the time I was introduced, middle aged men from Idaho were wearing their neckties as headbands, and a woman had been asked by hotel staff to get down from the table she was dancing on.

"Okay, can I get everybody's attention? We have a comedian tonight, so if you could all take your seats," the emcee said, through the utensil clatter. A few lifetime achievement award recipients hustled their plaques to the back of the room for photos and back-slapping, and the emcee plowed forward, talking over the clanking din.

"Well, uh, thanks to a lot of hard work from all you regional managers, we wanted to show you a good time…so here he is!"

I stood behind the corporate logo backdrop, watching for a signal from anyone close to me and waiting for my introduction.

"Go!" a man I'd never seen before waved me on.

"That's it?" I hissed.

The emcee wobbled down the stage steps past me "Get out there!"

"No intro?!"

"I did!"

"You didn't even say my name!"

"Biiiiifff!" shouted several drunk salesmen, toasting the stage with empty beer bottles. "Biiifff!!"

"Have fun out there!" the emcee said, shuffling back to his drink.

I stomped confidently into the spotlight, smiling big in totally phony control of the situation. "Good evening!" I boomed into the microphone, walking into the tornado and strapping on a psychological protective cup.

An early sign of trouble in a standup performance is the complete inability to get anybody to even sit in the chairs and quiet down enough to establish the fact that there's a performer onstage. Without a shred of attention from anyone in the room, when the banquet hall is a cacophony of glasses, plates, and chairs facing away from the stage, the show can't really begin without engaging somebody - anybody in the room.

"Good evening! How's everybody feeling tonight?" I said, hoping for a few "Whoo's!" which would signal the okay to keep going. The deafening clatter continued, as Bob Tanksley leaned against the back wall, shaking his head sadly and guzzling scotch.

"HOW'S EVERYBODY DOING TONIGHT?! FEELING GOOD?!" I shouted into the microphone. I got a smattering of "Whoo's" from the middle section, so began the set addressing them, cutting the rest of the mob out of my universe. If only two people are willing to listen, it's my job to find them, amuse them, and hope that they spread the happiness, or at least one of them is holding my check.

"Well, I've been watching you folks tonight, and let me tell you, you people must be great at selling frozen peas, because you sure can't dance!" A good natured dig like that will usually break the ice, especially since I mentioned their business. Unless it fell flat because they were too drunk, as was the case here.

"Ooo!" a man wearing a reversible vest over a polyester tie bellowed, "Let's see you do better!"

"No, thanks, sir!" I said, taking the mike out of its stand and walking away from him across the stage, "but save me a dance for later, okay?"

"Whatta you, queer?!" he burped after me.

I sliced through the spotlight, squinting into the glare and looking for a face to connect with. Husbands and wives offered me only the backs of their heads as they told loud stories about golf, and the CEO was turning in his chair, looking behind him to make eye contact with whoever had the idea to hire the comedian. A hundred yards away, at the far corner of the room, I saw a black mask and white hat through the round window of the kitchen door. I'd left the Ranger in the street an hour earlier, waiting for the erupting volcano show in front of the Mirage Hotel, but there he was, grinning behind the door sweeping open and closed by an army of busboys. He waved to me and gave me a strong thumbs up, until the door swept open and he accidentally smacked a Vietnamese waiter in the head.

I went back to the drunk guy in the vest, asking "You look like you were an athlete in high school. Were you, sir?"

Since the din of conversations hadn't calmed down yet, I had to work the crowd, asking people questions and hoping their co-workers might shut up long enough to hear the answers. The vested drunk stood up and spun in place, a shirt tail flapping across a hairy slab of white belly.

"Thought we were gonna dance!" He said, laughing with tablemates.

"Were you an athlete in school?" I said.

He stared at the ceiling to think of a funny answer, but stared for too long, forgetting the question completely.

"Okay, thanks for playing! Never mind!" I said, pounding across the stage to get my guitar. If no one will listen and the ship is going down, my plan of attack is to play sing-a-longs until I fill up the amount of time spelled out in the contract. Even the loudest, drunkest people in the world will put their arms around each other to sing "Michael Row The Boat Ashore" together, only to get choked up and begin hugging strangers during "Bye Bye, Miss American Pie."

The clatter and shouts continued as I plugged the guitar in, and the next time I looked over at the kitchen door, the Ranger had walked into the room and was standing against the wall behind a black curtain hiding supply tables of water pitchers and coffee urns. He wasn't looking at me anymore, or offering a thumbs up. He was scanning the crowd, sadly watching their total disinterest.

"I wasn't an athlete myself!" I shouted over the clamor, "I was a band geek! Was anybody in the band?"

The man with the vest awakened again to stand up and shriek "Skin flute!"

"No, thanks for the offer, but I played the tuba, sir!" I said.

"Skin flute!" he replied.

The Ranger began slowly walking into the room and all I could think of was a couple of thousand dollars down the tubes. Unlike many comics, I wasn't planning on losing that money at the craps table later that night. I wasn't planning on stripper gratuities or drinks for the lonely wives of wayward executives after the banquet. I planned on using the money to pay for food, clothing, and shelter, and the Ranger was walking toward me, ready to wreck the whole thing, since there was no clause on my contract providing for a large, crime fighting cowboy walking into the middle of my show.

He ambled through the obstacle course of tables, steering around chairs and dodging waiters. Women were the first to notice him, since men were loosening their belts and waiting for their next chance to talk. As the Ranger passed table after table, lit by hundreds of candles in orchid centerpieces, hairstyles turned to follow him and men choked on gulps of scotch, rubbing their eyes and looking at the glass of hooch like a double-take in a bad western.

"How many people have kids here? Huh? How many?" I said, waving my hand slightly next to my leg to get his attention. He stared right at me, moving forward as I gently shook my head "no."

"Do you have any children, sir?" I asked an elderly gentleman close to sleeping.

The Ranger drew closer, thumbs hooked into his gunbelt. Two tables away from the lip of the stage, he stopped and turned to the crowd, half of whom had shut up to stare at him, and the other half in full conversation, clueless to his entrance.

He scanned the ballroom from left to right and said "May I have your attention please?" It wasn't a shout, but a sincere question spoken loudly, and half the remaining conversations fell to silence. A half quiet room wasn't good enough for him, so he walked to the lip of the stage directly below me, where his hat was lit by the wash of the spotlight and said in a measured, but even louder voice, "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but may I have your attention, please?"

"Ranger, don't do this," I whispered, pulling the mike away from my mouth, "Get out of here."

"Attention please, folks!" he boomed across the wide expanse of heads, all slowly turning to face him.

Within seconds, a silence enveloped the room that could only be recreated in a hotel ballroom when it's empty. The thick carpet absorbed the last clinks of coffee cups back into saucers, and busboys with pitchers of ice water stood at attention, listening and immobile.

"Thank you," the Ranger said, the embodiment of earnest concern, "Now, if you would be so kind, I would appreciate it if you'd give my friend here your attention. He's a man like you, just out here trying to do his job. He's a hard worker, but none of you are going to be able to enjoy it because you're not listening."

"Please," I mumbled, "Please stop."

"All of you sitting at this shindig got a great chance to sell your frozen vegetables, and by the looks of some of the trophies you've given out tonight, you've done very well." "Ranger, enough."

"I congratulate you. Now, isn't it simple fairness to give this man the same chance to do what you've done? To do your job in the greatest country on earth to do it in?"

The room seemed to get even quieter as he spoke, as the distant sounds from the kitchen stopped, and an army of dishwashers and busboys filled the round windows with their faces.

"There's an Indian prayer that goes--"

"Native American," I whispered, "Not Indian."

"Great Spirit, grant that I may not judge another man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins."

I pulled the microphone out of the stand and leaned over the edge behind him, my soft breaths amplified through the ballroom. The over the top listening pose I took and the dubious look I gave him behind his back got a murmur of chuckles.

"Thank you for listening, friends," he said, "And I ask that you continue to do so."

He started walking through the tables out of the spotlight, but it was a paying gig that was going down the toilet. I had no choice.

"So, what exactly are you dressed up to be, buckaroo?" I asked into the mike.

He turned to me, confused. "Pardon me?"

"What did you do, flunk out of rodeo clown college or something?"

"Bring him up onstage!" someone yelled from the back.

"No," I said, faking cool detachment, "I don't know this guy, but I do love the Buffalo Bruce outfit!"

In the big laugh that followed, the Ranger looked at me with hurt eyes that shame me as I type these words.

"Tom, I was just--"

"Skin flute!" the idiot in the vest reprised.

The Ranger stepped toward him and took back everyone's attention. "Sir," he said to the man, "You need attention, don't you? You need attention that you've not been given, so all of your guts to stand up and speak come out of a bottle. That's sad, friend. Sad."

"Skin flute," the guy mumbled in a confused whine as he sat down.

In my flashing brain, I was reaching for a good line to link to the two men together, vested skin flute man and the Ranger. Vest? Flute? Skin? The words spun in the comic velodrome of my mind, searching for a miraculous thread of contact to hang a joke on. I smiled blankly, ambling across the stage like I already knew what I was going to say, though nothing had occurred to me yet. There wasn't a word, phrase, old stock comedy line, or piece of physical schtick that would bring the two men together into one joke. The two men had nothing in common, and the only comic insight that popped up, ready to be blurted out was that I was the one who had the most in common with the vested Neanderthal, since I watched a friend try to help me in the best way he could, and I turned into a common heckler, yelling stupid cynicism into a microphone to save a paycheck.

"He's right," I said, "the Ranger's right."

I don't know which crowd is better for a comedy show - a noisy throng who don't even care if there's a show going on, or a silent crowd, embarrassed and upset that they've been scolded by the One Ranger. He walked through the maze of chairs and passed a huddle of hotel security guards as they squeezed through the front door. I didn't say anything for a while, pacing onstage and leaving the only sound in the room the faint hum of the sound system. My ears were hot with the shame of doing badly in a meaningless show for an empty headed audience, and the deeper shame that I'd turned on my friend and chosen the safety of the group. A group I hated, but a group that paid money.

"Skin flute!" the man shouted in the silence one more time.

I've watched a stand up comedian wade into the crowd toward a heckler, his mind snapping in the cauldron of pressure to go clock the guy three different times, the most memorable being the comic Richard Belzer, who hit a loudmouth with a microphone stand, swinging it like a baseball bat and bending it around the guy's neck. I was teetering on the edge of being banned from Las Vegas convention halls for killing a corporate diner with a head butt, but I stopped my feet from bounding off the stage. I couldn't do the same for my mouth, though.

"Shut your mouth before I come out there and shut it for you, you fat, drunk creep," I said.

There goes the mortgage money.

"You fat moron! The last time I saw a reversible vest, I was doing the hustle at my junior prom."

"Oh yeah?" the guy bellowed.

"Oh yeah?!" I guffawed, "Is that the best you can do? Yell skin flute sixty times, and then go to the second string comebacks? Oh yeah?"

"What are you gonna do about it?"

"I'm gonna do nothing here, stupid, because they have video cameras all over this place, but on Monday I'm gonna come into your job, take away your mop, and kick your ass!"

Yes, a stock line that's been used ten thousand times by desperate comics, but at ten thousand and one the room still exploded in laughter. Lucky for me they hated the guy.

"Ahh! Jameson! Get your mop!" a man shouted from his table.

As the hail of abuse pelted the heckler back into his chair, silent and confused, the crowd's shock turned to happy attention. Somehow, through the intervention of a drunk heckler and a dead cowboy, I got the rapt attention of the room, and delivered a reasonably funny set of frozen vegetable jokes, taking long breaks to sip water and steal glances at the empty window at the kitchen door, waiting for the face of the Ranger to appear.

I signed autographs for a line of salespeople after the show, shoving cocktail napkins at me, saying "It's for my nephew…so tell me, who are you again?" I posed for photos with weaving brunettes and their sweaty husbands, smiling, but peering over their shoulders for the glimpse of a cowboy hat.

"Seen that cowboy that was here earlier?" I asked a bartender near the door.

"He was talking to security out in the hallway," he said.

"Did they take him somewhere?"

"Nah, they just asked for his autograph and let him go," he said.

Dodging rows of slot machines and slurred compliments from conventioneers, I made it to the security desk, manned by two sturdy women in tight uniforms.

"Pardon me, ladies, but have you seen a cowboy in a mask?"

"Is he with you?" the sturdier one said.

"You saw him?"

"Had my picture taken with him! But he had to go," she said.

"He left somewhere?"

"We had to ask him to leave. Even if the guns are fake, he wouldn't hand them over."

"Where did he go?" I asked.

They both pointed right out the front door.

I stood in the sad splash of muted yellow light, turning down the Las Vegas Strip and picking through the tourists and bus stop crazies, looking for a flicker of red scarf or white hat on the dark pavement. Las Vegas boils down to a titanic pair of neon candy breasts, and rolling the dice and popping the champagne is shallow rapture for lost boys growing donkey ears and smoking cigars as they chase the phantom fun they saw on the T.V. commercial. But walking out of the front doors of a casino toward the pavement, the lights and promise dim so quickly you feel robbed of money, time, and dignity before you reach the curb. The cars crawled by with windshields reflecting neon stripes of happy color, and I caught his silhouette, a tiny cowboy in swirls of blinking red. He was across the street, sitting on the edge of the fountain at Caesar's Palace, watching traffic and waving to pedestrians.

"Hello, Ranger," I said, dodging a cab as I crossed the street.

"How did the show go after I left?" he asked.

"It was a pretty tough gig, but it ended up okay."

"Good," he said, staring into fountain ripples, "I'm glad."

"They kicked you out of the hotel?" I said.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh well, it's their business. They make the rules."

"You took pictures with the guards?"

"I did. Nice people," he said, chuckling, "then they threw me out."

A stretch limo rolled by us, and in the tinted window's reflection I saw both of us, silent in the middle of splashing water, honking horns, and under an eighty foot tall jumbo screen advertising an animated breakfast buffet.

"I apologize, Ranger. I was wrong to treat you like that when you were trying to help me in your own way. You actually ended up helping me get through that show, and I appreciate it."

"Tom--"

"No, wait a sec. I had a real problem up there, and turned on you to get a rise out of the crowd and I'm sorry."

The Ranger laughed. "Oh, don't worry about that! That's show biz!"

"What?"

"Look, Tom, I've twirled these guns at supermarket grand openings, I've worked carnivals, heck, I even lived in New York City. You think I can't take a punch?"

"It didn't bother you?"

"Well, it didn't tickle in front of a whole lot of people, but like I said, that's show biz! If I poke my nose in and it gets smacked, well, that's my problem, isn't it?"

"But I was just upset, and I--"

"Sure you were upset. But so what? One bad show?"

"Come on," I said, "That was really bad."

"Not that bad," he said, "Have you ever done rope tricks in front of a supermarket?"

"Yeah, but that guy with the vest."

"The man with the vest was not himself," he said.

"You should have let me shoot him."

He laughed, and slapped his leg.

"Come on!" I said, "It was a terrible gig!"

"Did you get paid?" he said.

"Thanks to you I did."

"Well this is a marathon, buddy. You're running like it's the fifty yard dash."

"Still. I'm sorry."

"Fair enough. I forgive you, friend."

We shook hands under the dancing waters.

"Besides," he said, "It's about time we get down to business."

TWENTY

A few years ago, there was a news story on television that the networks played into an impossible to erase mental groove, because they had videotape of cops freaking out and shooting bullets into a raging beast, and that's good T.V. I think it happened in Florida, or maybe I'm just guessing because the craziest videos of horrible weather and violent dirtbags usually happen in Florida. A small traveling circus was in town, with an old elephant whose life was little more than riding in a truck, walking in a circle, and climbing back onto the truck. For years the elephant had been giving rides to hefty, cotton candy eating moms and dads and their kids, all perched on a steel bench high in the air and balanced on its back. Every long summer day they rode the elephant's back around a muddy field that served as a makeshift midway, lined with basketball hoops of impossible diameter and darts that couldn't pop a balloon if they were shot out of a bazooka. Who knows how long the elephant had been forced to carry human beings around at state fairs and car shows and circuses around the country, chained by its ankle and fed a constant stream of dirty hay and cotton candy fumes? Did the giant slave ever forget anyone? Did it remember every abusive, greasy-haired jerkweed that slapped him too hard? Every smoldering cigarette stepped on? Every chafe and scratch from the metal ladder on its back?

Completely predictably, after years of carrying tourists on its back only to head back to a stake in the ground with a chain on it, the elephant went berserk. The thing snapped out just like my brother Geoff used to. It ran around aimlessly under the big top, knocking things over with the bench on its back packed with kids, frozen in terror and clutching the thin safety bar atop two tons of trumpeting beast, completely out to lunch. Screaming Moms, running children - just like in King Kong movies, but real this time, and a bunch of fat cops trying to figure out what to do with the thing, still kicking holes in cars and showing no signs of willingness to talk to anybody in the "hostage task force trailer." Then, in a moment of elephantine confusion, when the crazed goliath just didn't know what to go destroy next, the bullets started to fly. BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM.

An endless barrage of small arms fire erupted from the semi-automatic pistols of the local cops. BANGBANGBANGBANG they unloaded their magazines into the head of this beast, until it was weakened but still wild, and the cops stared at each other, amazed at the thickness of a skull that deflects bullets, and a memory that won't allow it to calm down or talk things over.

My point?

The lumbering giant, good natured but tired of the grand and damaging circus? Me.

"Hey! You were in that Back In The Future, huh? Whoo!! Hey, let me ask you…Are they gonna make another one of those things! Whoo!"

"Excuse me," I say, backing away from the public urinal.

"You were that dude in Back In The Future! Butt!"

"Biff."

"Yeah, Biff! Are you him?"

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not."

"Hey, what's Michael J. Fox like?"

The elephant trumpets wildly in the hail of small arms fire, and trust me, this elephant won't go down.

I didn't know it would be like this. They didn't tell me they were filming an iconic tornado, impossible to control and blowing gravel and candy wrappers across the big top as I run around bashing into tent poles and trying to protect the kids on my back. They didn't even tell me they were making a third one right after the second, the first time that any Hollywood production made consecutive sequels, and I was contractually obligated to be in it no matter how big the tornado was getting. They did tell me that they hated Crispin Glover, though. They hated him, and wrote scenes where they planned to hang him upside down for days at a time just for kicks. In their idea of the future, scientists figure out ways to take pressure off an injured spine by hanging difficult actors upside down for days on end. Turns out, in the future, George McFly has a bad back. Imagine that. Soon after that, Crispin decided not to do it.

"What do they think they're doing?" Crispin shrieked to me over the phone during the savage negotiations between our agents and the studio. Since neither of us was in the car at the end of the first movie, the movie maker's position was that neither Crispin nor I helped the Back To The Future movies in any way, and when they open the car door in the future, neither of us even have to be there, and even Claudia Wells, the actress who played Marty's girlfriend didn't even have to be there, because she magically turned into the actress Elizabeth Shue, and what's more, the first movie didn't even make any money anyway.

I'm not kidding.

"What is their problem?!" Crispin moaned, loathing them with every breath, but unable to write a scene himself where he could hang them upside down on purpose.

"Hey, Crispin," I said, calmly pretending to be a voice of reason, "Why don't we just do this thing, have some fun, do something interesting, and move on?!"

"The movie made hundreds of millions of dollars!" Crispin cried, getting more agitated over the crackling phone line.

"We can do some interesting things together in this movie," I said, not knowing that we actually didn't have a scene together in it, since they didn't let us read the script, in case they had to dump us overboard, only to hire the "Elizabeth Shue" versions of both of us.

"They made millions!!" he screamed.

"I know that, but Crispin, listen--"

"(*! (&%#$$#^&@#$%&!!" He wailed into the receiver. I mean, there was some cussing in there, but it really sounded like he was saying the stuff I just typed.

Then there was a period of silence for several moments.

I assumed that our conversation meant that Crispin wasn't going to do the movies, but I decided to do them, without knowing that they were going to use a few shots of him from the first movie without his permission anyway, and that he would sue them and settle out of court for more money than I made, even though I had to act in the things for a year and a half.

Nobody had a clue that the first Back To The Future movie would be successful at all, but once the sequels got going, everybody on the shoot knew that they were working on a classic piece of Hollywood history that would be seen by generations of movie fans, so as soon as they turned on the lights and cameras, people on the set started stealing stuff like crazy. Futuristic doo-dads vanished from prop trucks, hats and space trinkets disappeared between shots of important scenes, and things only got worse as the shoot dragged longer.

"Please be ever so careful with this shirt, Tom," a costumer said to me.

"Of course I will," I replied, "but didn't you have dozens of these custom made? I remember going to the shirt guy with the tape measure and the pins in his mouth, right?"

"We have two left. Please be ever so careful. Unfortunately, the rest have been stolen."

I met a lot of people while working on the Back To The Future sequels, but I don't remember making eye contact with any of them, since they were always staring at Michael J. Fox and trying to use me as bait to get his attention.

"Tom! Tom!!" the person I'd never met would say excitedly, high stepping over electrical wires across the set toward me, while staring with unblinking eyes at Michael, seven feet in the opposite direction.

"Hi," I said. Yeah, I just went with hi. I don't know them at all.

"Man, Tom, I haven't seen you since the days of (insert an unknown location I've never visited here)!"

"Great!" I said. Again, I went with just the "great."

"So, come on, dude!" they said, coming closer to me and grabbing my shoulder, massaging and turning me so they can position themselves at an angle to keep pretending to know me while keeping enough distance in case Michael turns our way and I'm blocking their view, "How you doin'?"

"Fine," I say, "I'm doing fine." They still haven't looked me in the eye.

"Well, I'll tell you what, bro, we have to get together, because--"

He stops mid-sentence because Michael J. Fox has turned and said something to someone near him that meets the criteria:

a) easily overheard in the "next to Tom" position

b) within the realm of possibility for working up a fake laugh and grabbing the moment.

Michael J. Fox looks around for a Production Assistant and says "Jenna? This Diet Pepsi is kind of warm. Would you get me a cold one?"

The person is four feet away from me in an instant, actually using their hand on my shoulder as a lever to catapult themselves into his line of sight. "Oh yeah! Warm Diet Pepsi!" they explode, "I've had that happen before! You know, like…anybody ever heard of refrigeration?" They've walked the rest of the way to him, dumping me and taking a shot at hanging on for dear life in Michael's line of vision, because maybe he'll get into the inner circle if Michael thinks "Jeez, this dork is a friend of Tom's. I can't blow him off right away."

I've seen it work plenty of times, even spun into an extra bonus round of a few sentences with the director Bob Zemeckis. Then a huddle of personal assistants and security guys talking into their cufflinks make a ring around Bob and Michael so they can "talk about the scene," and the only thing that can get through the wall is a cold Diet Pepsi. The hanger-on then chuckles to nobody in particular and heads back to me, biding their time for a shot at round two.

"Hey, great talking to you, Tom!" they say, staring at the Diet Pepsi swigging super-star.

"Yeah."

"We've got to get back in touch!"

"Okay. Bye," I say, squinting away as the sun sets on the golden hills that border the studio lot.

Hard to believe, but not one of them has called to get together. They're usually too busy telling other people who also hate them about that time they were on the set, hanging out with "Michael J!"

Congratulations, Sparky, but guess what? "J" isn't even his real middle initial.

Eric Stoltz was ancient history, fired during the first movie, Crispin Glover was dumped out a secret trap door under the stage, Michael Fox had become a superstar with famous friends dropping onto the set and security guys mumbling into walkie-talkies, and every time I left anything on a chair, it got ripped off within moments, so much like my experiences on the first Back To The Future, during the second one I still felt it was me who was "what's wrong with this picture." Without a collection of houses, or knowledge of the menu at restaurants with lots of consonants and an umlaut in their names, I was left to go through six and seven hour makeup sessions to play old guys, and drive my Datsun home.

There were many scenes in the sequel that had me acting opposite myself in the same scene, an eighty year old man speaking to a younger version of me, each played by me, in the same shot. The technical people had complicated ways to describe the process, but I called them "Patty Duke" shots, since they reminded me of the old Patty Duke T.V. show, where Patty Duke played both Patty, and her own immigrant cousin, Kathy, the major difference between them being Kathy's hair barrette and vague British dialect. The theme song spelled it out for us kids: "Kathy adores the minuet, the Ballet Russe, and crepe Suzette, but Patty loves to rock and roll, a hot dog makes her lose control, what a wild duet!" Though it was the same person, and nobody knew what the minuet or crepe Suzette was, Kathy was prettier so we liked her.

The "Patty Duke" days on the set began in the middle of the previous night. I hopped into the makeup chair at Four A.M. for the glue and latex and wigs of eighty year old Biff, finally ready hours later when the other actors and crew showed up for breakfast. I memorized both parts of the scene, delivering only the old man's side of the scene in the morning, acting elderly bitterness while silently imagining myself saying the young guy's lines, leaving myself the proper amount of time to act opposite myself later in the day. Then everybody went to a catered lunch and I went into the makeup trailer for an hour long makeup removal session, pulling rubber from my reddened face, burned by caustic glue not even remotely designed to be used on human skin. Then they made me up as a young guy and I acted the other half of the scene, wearing a tiny wireless earpiece to listen to the lines that I'd delivered in the morning, as well as the voice of the director on a microphone, whispering at me "Move closer to the car, closer to the car! Now put your arm up. Right arm, now!" while I was acting as young Biff.

After many days of this, the skin on my neck was blistering with third degree chemical burns, and the makeup artists were covering blisters with gauze, then painting glue on top of the gauze, and rubber pieces onto this wounded foundation.

"Where is Tom?" the walkie-talkie endlessly crackled, putting the weight of the big budget Hollywood movie onto my neck blisters. Bob Zemeckis, the director whose director's chair on the set read "Robert Zemeckis, Guardian of the Imagination," rushed to the makeup trailer to roll some heads and get me out there.

"I want him on the set now!" Bob fumed to Kenny Myers, one of the premier makeup artists in the industry.

"Bob, we can only do it so fast!"

"Do it faster!"

"Bob, he's burned! There are third degree burns all over the place! We're just-- "

"I don't care! You're gonna have to burn him!" Bob said.

"What?"

"I don't care! Burn him and get him out here!"

Kenny climbed back into the trailer, grimacing. "We'd better get you out there," he said.

"Oh, Kenny," I said, cradling my throbbing face in warm towels, "I think I'll take my time today."

"You sure? He's pretty mad."

"What's he going to do? Hang me upside down?"

The last time I'd had a gunbelt around my waist it was made of plastic and the six shooter held a long strip of red caps with maroon bumps of gunpowder that popped weakly with a tiny puff of smoke every sixth click or so. I was six years old, watching Sally Starr on our black and white T.V., the cowgirl cartoon show host in Philadelphia who played Popeye cartoons in a spangly outfit to the kids of Philadelphia, New Jersey, and parts of Delaware if they had a good antenna.

The gun they handed to me on the Back To The Future, Part Three set was heavy steel and resting in a black leather gunbelt studded with silver bullets and a sculpted cobra on the leather cradle that I called the "Pocket thing" before the real men on the set reminded me that it's called a holster. Sure, holster, I knew that, I just hadn't seen Sally Starr for a while, so I forgot. It was a man's gun and a real cowboy holster and belt, so I had to call on every bit of acting skill to fool the audience, the movie crew, the director and other actors into believing that I am a man, and a cowboy at that. I got a lot of help with that from an old veteran of westerns named Arvo Ojala, the slowest, fastest man in the world.

Arvo Ojala had to be in his late seventies when I met him, shuffling his cowboy boots over the dusty roads cut through the western town the movie company carved into the Sierra foothills in Sonora, California, the location for Back To The Future, Part Three.

Blue jeans hung limply on his slight frame and a western shirt with mother of pearl snaps for buttons completed the outfit. Boots, hat, gun, pearly snaps - it all said "I am a cowboy, partner." Arvo had been shot dead by every actor who'd ever worn a cowboy hat, working in western movies for decades and even got killed in the opening credits of "Gunsmoke", shot down in the middle of the street by Marshall Matt Dillon every week for over twenty years.

"You remember the man who gets shot in the chest by Jim Arness in Gunsmoke?" he asked me, seconds after we met, with a voice reedy with age.

"Um, I think I do," I said, almost holding his arm to keep him from blowing away.

"That was me."

"Oh!"

Arvo was the slowest person I've ever been around, as far as walking and talking goes, and the fastest person that anyone has ever seen with a single action Colt Peacemaker. He was hired as a quick draw expert to teach me the ways of the heavy .45 caliber cannon, but when he got to the set he moved so slowly in every other way that it became my job to teach him the ways of "Hey, Arvo, you'd better get out of the way or that truck is going to run you over."

Arvo shuffled in front of me toward a clearing in the trees to demonstrate how to load, draw, cock, and shoot a gun like a deadly outlaw in a lightning flash of thundering death. He had his own holster rig slung low around his hips, and helped me clasp my belt low enough that the gun rested right next to my twitching hand. "Now," he said, "This is kinda what we're looking for." His thin hands gestured around his waist, the skin on them splotched and thin as rice paper. He took a few tentative steps away from me, so ginger that I extended my hand again to steady him.

"Fire in the hole!" he shouted, though I could barely hear him from three feet away.

I turned to bellow toward the crew. "FIRE IN THE--"

BLAMBLAMBLAM! ! ! An explosion rocked the entire set. The gun was out and spitting flames out the barrel before my brain could register any movement at all. The concussion echoed off the Sierra peaks behind us, and it got everybody's attention, as Arvo gently spun the gun, placing it carefully back in the holster as if nothing had happened.

"Now look here," he said, completely in character for a man his age, pulling the gun out and holding it out to me with a bit of a shake in his arm as if it were too heavy for him.

"I shot three times," he said, clicking open the spinning chambers and tilting it backwards as three smoking cartridges plinked onto the ground.

"What do you mean?" I said, "It sounded like one bang."

"Nope. Three," he said, showing me the gun again, "My right thumb cocks the hammer for the first shot, then I cock it with the back of my left thumb for the second shot, and use my pinky for the third."

"That's amazing, Arvo," I said, staring in shock at the slowest, fastest man in the west, "Are you going to teach me that?"

"Yup. Sure will," he said, "After all, you don't look so dumb."

"That's the coolest thing I've ever seen."

"You know, I was the guy who got killed by Marshall Matt Dillon in the opening credits of Gunsmoke."

"Yes, you mentioned that."

"Taught Kevin Costner to shoot for "Silverado," he mumbled, "It was a two gun rig. Much harder to work one of those."

"I think I'll just work on the one," I said.

"He's the fastest actor I've ever worked with."

"Well, I'll try to be just as fast."

"He worked a two gun rig. With that kind of gun rig, you're dealing with--"

"Hey Arvo, look out for that truck."

"Oh."

It was the third big budget Hollywood blockbuster that I had a big part in, but I was still showing up to work with my lines memorized, ready to work at pretending to be mean to Marty and then go home, but Universal Studios is a big company that uses movies to promote their theme parks - tourist destinations that scream in every flashing light and fuzzy costumed teenager "See?! We're almost as good as Disneyland!!" The studio opened in 1950 and quickly figured out how to pack tourists onto rolling trams and charge them money to be pulled around abandoned movie sets. It was forty years after that when they built "Universal Studios, Florida," a hopeful poke in the eye to the Disney empire, that mouse eared dynasty that so dominates central Florida that humming "Zipadee do dah" might get you some sort of pro wrestling head butt from a native Floridian.

Universal chartered their own jet for the trip from Los Angeles to Orlando, packing it with an amazing mob of celebrities, including those of low magnitude like me to promote Back To The Future. Jimmy Stewart and his wife Gloria topped the list, but Mr. and Mrs. Charlton Heston were onboard next to them, as well as Ernest and Tovah Borgnine, Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh representing the "Psycho" contingency, and a planeload of other actors spanning the history of Universal Studios.

"Hello!" I said to Ernest Borgnine.

"Hey, fella! How are you doin'?" he replied, looking to his wife and shrugging. If the plane went down - and I thought it might, since we already had the cast of an entire seventies disaster movie onboard - I had no hope of a decent obituary, and my family would have to read the front pages of national newspapers; "Stewart, Heston, Borgnine, Perkins, Leigh die in plane crash. 57 others.

Every available white limousine had been rented from South Carolina to Key West for the Universal Studios grand opening gala, and still there weren't enough cars to drive the horde of stars, mere celebrities, and the sort-of recognizable low level celebrities like myself and some of the kids from "Fame." The plan told to us by walkie-talkie carrying teenagers was a limo sharing plan, where two stars were dragged to the opposite sides of a limo and pushed inside. Janet Leigh and Tony Perkins made a "Psycho" themed limo, Charlton Heston and Jimmy Stewart were paired up, and I was ushered to my limo, with Michael J. Fox being pulled to the other side of the car. A Back To The Future themed limo, with Michael J. Fox, that superstar scamp on one side of the car, and me on the other, a celebrity of such low magnitude that as a teenager with a walkie-talkie walked quickly toward me, she was scanning a clipboard to see who I was, and make sure I wasn't a stalker who climbed the fence.

"This is your car, Mr…"

"Wilson," I said.

"Yes, hop in, it's parade time!"

"Can I go in Ernest Borgnine's car?"

Her sunburned cheeks went pale as she pushed a radio earpiece further into her head. "Oh, I don't think so, so you'd better--"

"Does Linda Blair get her own car? Is she riding with the Ghostbusters? Another theme car?"

"I…um…" more clipboard staring.

"Okay, I guess I'll go with Michael then."

"That's be great!"

I slid onto the leather upholstery next to Michael, and another perky P.R. lady clicked fingers full of jewelry against the closed window. Michael lowered his window an inch and her smile pulled a bit tighter.

"It'd be great if you could lower the windows during the parade," she said, "Let all your fans see you!"

"Sure!" I said, lowering my window and practicing a parade wave, though she wasn't really looking at me. Michael lowered his window a bit more and she clicked away on soggy high heels. The fact is, rampant egomania aside, actors will do whatever people with walkie-talkies tell them to do, because actors rarely have a clue. No matter how famous you are, or how rich, it's almost impossible to completely be free of the inner second grader, so when a person with authority, in this case a high school cheerleader with a two way radio, tells you to do something, you do it. When they tell you to walk in this direction, you do it, lower the window - done, wave to the people - bingo. And if you get very rich and very famous, you hire a publicist for several thousand dollars a month, but all the publicist does is boss around the walkie-talkie people, telling them what you will do and won't do. You're still a second grader and don't want to use your words to talk to people yourself, because if you do that they might not like you, they might not go to your next movie, you might not get another chance to make another movie, you won't have money to have a publicist, so you won't be able to communicate with anyone.

The radios crackled, the limos began to roll, and the stars opened their windows, waving and bartering smiles and waves for a free trip to Florida. The caravan rolled for six miles through the streets of Orlando, a snaking line headed to their final destination, a ride down every street inside the brand new Universal Studios theme park. Faces of every age, shape and color lined the entire route, and cheers rang out as the police escort hit their sirens, and our limo turned the corner, with me staring out one window, opposite the star of "Family Ties," "Teen Wolf," and many Pepsi commercials, finally ready to take my place as a movie star, in a limo, in a parade, waving to the crowd passing by my tinted window.

The chatter of uncertainty became thrilled screams as we rolled past the eager crowd.

"Yeah! Oh yeah! Michael! Michael J. Fox! WHOOOOOOO!!!" they screamed over and over on one side of the car. I smiled and waved out my window, as the crowd on my side of the car tried to place me for a moment, before screaming in my face "MOVE YOUR HEAD! ! HEY!! I CAN'T SEE MICHAEL J. FOX!…I CAN'T SEE HIM!! I CAN'T SEE HIM BECAUSE OF THE BIG GUY! THE BODYGUARD IS IN THE WAY! MOVE YOUR HEAD!!"

I spent the entire parade pressing hard into the seat, ducking below the window and pointing next to me. "There he is!" I yelled into the doorframe, "SEE?! He's right here, can you see him?"

"Oh my God! Rita! I can't see him because the body guard is in the way!!"

"Why do they block him with the bodyguard? MOVE!!!"

We chugged to the end of the parade route and the red carpet leading into the grand opening party, tuxedoed doormen sweeping open the limo doors and helping us out to wave triumphantly to the cheering mob. A baritone emcee boomed out introductions as one after another historic actor popped out of a limo. "Ladies and gentlemen!…Welcome Mr. Ernest Borgnine…and from the other side of the car, Mr. Robert Wagner!" Our limo eased to a stop, and Michael and I got out of our separate sides of the car as the crowd went wild, with arms waving and cameras flashing in celeb-insanity. We met at the front of the car for a handshake and stood next to each other as the emcee boomed "Folks! Please welcome…MICHAEL J. FOX!!" Whoops and hollers as I waited to hear my name so I could wave like they told me to. The emcee's face went blank as he stared at me, and his eyes flashed to the clipboard. Unable to find the correct spot in the script, he went even bigger, shouting "MICHAEL J. FOX, ladies and gentlemen!"

There was a muffled choking noise over the microphone, and then he said "MICHAEL J. FOX…AND…HIS FRIEND!!"

Steven Spielberg himself cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the park, and thousands of eager tourists pounded across the fresh blacktop to find broken rides, many rides not ready for the grand opening at all, and miles of construction fences decorated with colorful camouflage, squinted at by people in tank tops who bought an expensive ticket and couldn't ride on much of anything, while the stars had a gourmet glitz-fest, hob-nobbing with a "Who's Who" of Central Florida, although after looking around and trying to identify anybody who was whom, Orlando might just streamline it to a simple "Who?"

Only at a party full of movie stars and people from Florida can you describe a party full of big-wigs and mean it literally, but at this particular big wig party, I stared in dumbstruck wonder at a giant slab of carved chocolate on the buffet table, fashioned by dessert chefs into the unmistakeable likeness of Michael J. Fox. I was hungry, and I was forced to smile and thank the anonymous Michaelangelo of cocoa wherever he was, for making such a beautiful sculpture out of chocolate, as cameras flashed at me and I looked toward the kitchen doors behind Michael J. Fox's non-pareil shoulder, hoping they might deliver some beef shaped like Ernest Borgnine.

I wanted to snap off his hand sculpted Marty McFly head and get back into the air conditioned limo, lining my hungry lips with sweet, brown Michael J. Fox, but it was a star studded celebrity event, and they weren't finished with me, even though it had been established that I'm neither star, stud, nor celebrity. Since a bunch of stars went into a private room somewhere secret, I was pulled over to the desperate band of reporters and photographers with nothing better to do.

"Yes, this is Tom Wilson, who played Biff, and Griff, and Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen in Back To The Future One, Two and Three!" The nervous publicity person chirped, as the questions began. Or, should I say, the question.

"Biff! Biff! Biff!"

"Hi, everybody, my name is Tom! Hello," I told them the first seven or eight times before giving up.

"What's Michael J. Fox like?" they asked in unison.

"Whaa Mikaa J. Fok like beef?" an Asian reporter shouted in a thick accent, looking away from me at the door to see if anybody more famous was on his way. "Whaa he like?"

"Yes, what's Michael J. Fox like to work with?"

"Were you in the car with him?"

"Did you beat him up in the car, Biff? HAAA!"

I took a step back and looked longingly toward the buffet table.

"Come on, Biff! What's Michael J. Fox like?"

"The chocolate one or the real one?" I asked.

"Either one!" someone sighed through the knot of microphoned arms.

"Well," I said, "One is nice, and the other--"

The lights, cameras, and microphones turned from me in unison to greet Charlton Heston, and see what he might think of Michael J. Fox.

Jimmy Stewart was across the room, elderly but sharp, with his terrific wife, Gloria, and he was the one actor that I was trying to meet ever since the weekend began. My chance finally came when he got up to look at the desserts, passing by the chocolate Michael J. Fox without any visible reaction. I grabbed a tiny plate, sidled up next to him pretending to look at cheesecake, and dumped my entire load on him before he had a chance to blink.

"Mister Stewart my name is Tom Wilson and I'm an actor I actually performed at a birthday party for you several years ago but I never got to meet you and I played the bad guy in back to the future and that's why I'm here hey that's an amazing michael j fox sculpture huh I based my performance in back to the future three the western on lee marvin's work in the man who shot liberty valance because it was such a great movie and you were great in it because you're really…an…uh…inspiration."

He looked at me for four seconds in silence, then went into what seemed an impression of himself, waving a hand gently and saying "Welll…uh…great…"

It was my turn to say something, and I searched for words that I'd already spent, staring at him for three seconds in silence before he gently called over his shoulder for help. "that's great…uh, Gloria?" The lovely Gloria Stewart, a master at filling in conversational gaps with adoring, babbling dweebs like myself finished the conversation with me as we made our way outside to a candlelit veranda. Gloria was gently helping Jimmy, and I was standing next to them, hoping somebody might see us and maybe take our picture and think that I was a friend of the Stewarts.

There was a security barricade keeping the crowd at a safe distance from the stars, and a throng of hundreds piled against the railings, taking photos of the stars and booing them lustily. Boo? The fabulously famous are parading past and the people are booing? We made our way past Beau Bridges and Connie Stevens, looking around for what the people might be booing at.

"What are they doing?" I asked a publicity person nearby.

"They're taking pictures! They love you!"

"Boo! Boooo!!" swirled around each flickering Tiki torch.

I wasn't going to give up my place next to Jimmy Stewart, since if they were going to boo anybody, maybe it might be Beau Bridges, or the kids from "Fame: The T.V. Series," but I'm standing next to Jimmy Stewart, people! Does the name "George Bailey" mean anything to you? Huh? "Mister Smith Goes To Orlando," folks, so cut out the boos. We got closer to them, and could make out what they were saying. As Jimmy Stewart came through the crowd of lesser magnitude, the crowd turned to him for justice.

"HEY! JIMMY STEWART! JIMMY STEWART! GET US OUR MONEY BACK! THIS PLACE SUCKS! BOO!!"

"What are they saying?!" Jimmy Stewart asked, while Gloria helped him back inside, and I calculated the exact price of fame to the nickel. The price of fame is thirty dollars, because a thirty dollar admission price flushed down the toilet at a theme park not ready to be grandly opened is the difference between "We love you Mister Stewart!" and "This place sucks! Get us our money back!"

I walked back inside in a vandalous mood for sugar, and slunk to the buffet table as cameras recorded Linda Blair and Ernie Hudson and what they thought of Michael J. Fox.

"Beef! You see Mikka J. Fok?" the Asian reporter asked me. "No, I don't know where he is," I said.

"You get him to come over here, right? Ha!" he laughed, seriously.

"Oh! Here he is!" I said, reaching across fruit tarts and slices of melon. I chipped off a piece of Marty McFly's sculpted arm, the inert chocolate monument to my entire experience as the guy from Back To The Future.

"Not chocolate one, Beef! Ha! Real one!"

"No," I said, "Right now I like the chocolate one!"

I drew a chunk of Hollywood itself to my famished mouth, and ate it. Rich and inviting, bittersweet and hollow.

TWENTY-ONE

"Can I show you something?" he asked me as we hurtled our way from Las Vegas back to L.A. on the "Highway of the Stars," the stretch of broiler pan asphalt that used to be the trail that Jerry Lewis and Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. motored down to perform at casinos for the weekend.

"But it wasn't very good," I said, "The chocolate Michael J. Fox."

"Pardon me?"

"The chocolate Michael J. Fox that they had in Florida."

Okay, maybe it's not the best story, but I caught him not listening for once.

"Were you listening to me?" I said.

"Of course I was!" he said, "Chocolate guy, you ate it or some such thing."

"I was telling you about the party they had in Florida where--"

"Tom," he said, turning in his car seat to face me, "You got me on that one."

"Okay, it wasn't a big deal, but--"

"Can I be honest with you?" he said.

"Can I stop you from it?"

"I'm interested in your future more."

I looked ahead for a few seconds before pretending to play with the radio dial for a while, searching for distant music in the middle of the desert.

"Sorry to say that, but it's true," he said, "But can I show you something?"

"What do you want to show me?" I said, slurping the rest of a 64 ounce Dr. Pepper and reaching behind me for some trail mix.

"It's a very special place. May I show it to you?" the Ranger said, rubbing his palms on the slices of sunlight across his thighs.

"You want to show me now? Show me," I said.

"It's near here. A very special place," he said.

"It's off the freeway?"

"Very close to it. May I show you?"

He asked me so many times that I couldn't face him when we got near the exit, so I took the turnoff and drove to the entrance of the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville, California.

"So you're interested in Roy Rogers past?" I said.

"I'd like to see it."

"But my past? Not so much."

"I didn't mean it like that," he said.

"If only I had a museum."

"Okay, point taken."

"I've been dying to see what Roy put in this place!" he said, as we walked under the hooves of a cement statue of Roy Rogers' horse Trigger, rearing up on his hind legs twenty feet into the hot desert sky two hours outside of Los Angeles.

"I thought you knew what was in here," I said.

"I heard some things, but I always wanted to see for myself."

"You wanted to show me but you've never been here?"

"No. Always wanted to, never been," he said.

"They've got Trigger in here, I think," I said.

"That's what I've heard," he said, "That's what everybody's heard!" He clapped his hands together in a leather thump and rubbed his palms in excitement.

I bought two tickets at the small booth lit by a naked bulb, and we pushed the turnstile into Roy's museum, a displayed version of his actual life, since he obviously saved everything he ever bought, touched, killed, or looked at. I walked up to an old jeep Roy used in a long forgotten movie, and a round man in tight shorts and a baseball cap celebrating the Confederacy walked right up to the Ranger.

"Say partner, you work here, don'cha?"

The Ranger straightened up, looking at me and hooking his thumbs in the gunbelt that the girl at the ticket window was too bored to notice.

"Well, no friend, I can't say that I work here," the Ranger said, "But can I be of help in some way?"

As he drew closer, the man's eyes, magnified behind dirty tri-focals, grew to giant, glass covered orbs.

"Hey. Hang on," he said, breathing a shallow huff and putting out a chubby hand for balance, "You're the Lone Ranger."

"Nope. No, he's not," I said, sidling up next to the Ranger to lead him out the turnstile and back to the car.

"Yes he is!" he said, fumbling with the camera around his neck, "That there's the Lone Ranger!"

"No," I said, "He's the One Ranger."

"The Lone Ranger," the man said.

"Nope," I said.

"He's got the mask."

"So what?" I said, "He's the One--"

"Ginny, get over here and look at this here!" he barked to a pear shaped woman with her head the tiny, bent stem, as she took a picture of one of Roy Rogers' fancy shirts.

"What is it?" she drawled across the display.

"Ain't he the Lone Ranger?" he said.

"What's this now?" she said, still composing the frame of her photo. Her camera flashed across the red, white, and blue spangles and looked over at us. "That's stuffed," she said. The Ranger tipped his hat to her and she almost swallowed her dentures. "Holy muh…"

"Afternoon, Ma'am" the Ranger said.

She bit down hard to set her teeth back into place and walked toward us.

"You work here?" she asked.

"No Ma'am," the Ranger said, "We told your friend here that--"

"He ain't my friend. That's my husband," she said.

"Well, I was telling your husband that--"

"He ain't always my friend, but he's always my husband, I guess," she said, chuckling.

The Ranger nodded, grinning. "I was just telling him that--"

"He's my friend today, though, I'll tell you that much, cause I'm the one got the money. Hah!"

There was a longer pause before the Ranger tried to speak again. He opened his mouth and she blurted "You the Lone Ranger?"

"No, he's not," I said.

The man coughed a guffaw and stomped his velcro laced sneakers on the dusty wood floor. "Junior," he said, "You can tell me a lot of things, but you cannot go and tell me that's not the Lone Ranger, cause the eyeballs that God put in there are still workin'!"

"He does look like him," Ginny said, "Are you a look-a-like person, like those Elvis people?"

"Can we get our picture with you?" the man said.

"Hey!" the Ranger said, "Have you folks seen the movie Back--"

"Ranger," I interrupted, "Why don't you take a picture with the people?"

"Did you see those movies?" he tried again, "My friend here is--"

"Ginny, come on, get the camera out!" the man said, "Hey, Lone Ranger!"

The Ranger took a couple of steps away from the group and turned around to face us. "Folks, may I ask you a question?"

Ginny and her husband looked at me.

"Is this a T.V. show?" Ginny asked.

"All of us?" I asked, "You want to ask us a question?"

"Just a simple question," he said.

"Do we win a prize?" the man said, scratching the stubble on his chin.

"Was Roy Rogers Roy Rogers?" the Ranger asked.

"Trick question!" Ginny said, "Don't say nothing."

After a few seconds of silence, the guy said "Sure he was. Who else was he supposed to be, Tonto? heh…"

"No, he wasn't" the Ranger said.

The guy coughed and looked at me. "What do you mean he wasn't?"

"Do we not win? Shoot," Ginny said.

"He was, and he wasn't," the Ranger said, "He wasn't really Roy Rogers, he was Leonard Slye."

Ginny coughed a few times and mumbled "The hell you say."

The Ranger winced slightly and went on. "Leonard Slye. A shoe salesman from Ohio. That's Roy Rogers. And it's not."

The couple stood staring at him, hypnotized.

"He was Roy Rogers," he said, "I knew him and I worked with him. But he was also Leonard Slye, the Ohio shoe salesman."

Ginny's fat husband sighed in equal parts confusion and boredom.

"Yes, folks, he was Roy Rogers, king of the cowboys as soon as he said that's who he was. It's America. Nobody disagreed with him."

"See?" I chimed in, "He's the One Ranger if he says he is! It's America! You're going to tell him he's not?"

"I am the One Ranger," he said, hands on his hips.

"But you have that mask," Ginny said.

"The One Ranger wears a mask, too."

"Fine. Can we take a picture with you?"

"Did you ever see the movie Back To The Future?"

"No."

"This man here starred in those movies!"

"You did?" the guy said, turning to me, "We saw that one, Ginny, the one with Michael J. Fox!"

"Who's that now?"

"You know, the one from that T.V. show with Alzhammers."

"Oh, that poor man," Ginny said, "My son in law has an anointing of the Lord for people with Alzhammers."

"He has Parkinson's disease." I said, "It's not Alz--"

"Anyway," the Ranger said, "We're on our way back to Hollywood to make this fellow a star!"

Ginny coughed an emphysema growl and grabbed my arm. "Would you take our picture with him?"

"Smile!" I said, reaching for the camera hanging around her neck.

We walked past endless dioramas of things pulled out of a cowboy's garage, with index cards leaning against them.

"SOME OF THE WATCHES THAT HAVE KEPT ME ON TIME FOR FIFTY YEARS," read one of them, on a pile of wristwatches pulled from the drawer next to Roy's bed.

"He's got a bunch of wristwatches over here," I called through the glass cases, yawning, "Museum quality wristwatches. Timex, Seiko, Rolex, whatever."

"What's wrong with that?" the Ranger said.

"Nothing, I guess. Maybe he ran out of dead pets to stuff."

"Roy was a stickler for time, though."

"You knew Roy Rogers for real?" I asked.

"I told you that. Of course I know him, I played the heavy in plenty of serials."

The Ranger leaned so close he almost touched the glass with his mask, his eyes gleaming as he read a letter from President Eisenhower resting behind a pair of bongo drums.

I turned around and almost knocked over Ginny's husband, who was trying to look at whatever the Ranger was looking at to make conversation.

"They have Trigger in here, right?" I asked.

He pointed toward a hallway in the back.

"Over thataway," he said, "You want me to take your picture with it?"

The Ranger walked in front of me, slowly taking in glittering cowboy shirts and tables and chairs actually used at Roy and Dale's house, and turned the corner, stopping still in the entryway to the next room.

"My goodness," he whispered, "That's a sight."

There was mighty Trigger himself, mounted upright and rearing on his hind legs in frozen triumph, wearing a black saddle with glittering rows of silver studs. "Buttermilk," Dale Evans' horse stands to Trigger's right, motionless, demure, and immobile for decades.

"A beautiful animal, Trigger," the Ranger said, walking toward the glass display.

"And don't forget Buttermilk!" I said, waving at Dale's smaller horse, it's creamy skin stretched over a horse shaped armature.

"He stuffed about everything, didn't he?" I asked, ducking under the heads of elk, buffalo, and moose he'd hunted.

"Mounted," the Ranger said, "Not stuffed."

To the side of the display, near a horse drawn wagon behind Trigger's body, there was a small door for employees that led behind the glass wall, and the Ranger walked toward it.

"What's the difference?" I asked, "Mounted or stuffed?"

He felt it for a moment to see how it opened, gave it a push and walked into the display.

"No!" I hissed, "Get back out here!!"

Stepping over a few wagon wheels and horseshoes scattered on the rough floor, he tiptoed his way past Buttermilk to Trigger.

"Look at him," he said, muffled behind the glass, his eyes ice blue in the fluorescent light, glimmering with emotion.

"Hey, you can't be in there!" I said, "Get out here!!"

He ignored me, running his hand across a black stirrup while whistling under his breath.

"What a beautiful animal," the Ranger said.

"Ranger, knock it off."

"Not many know what that's like," he said, looking at me through the glass, "Riding a fast horse under a blue sky."

"You can't be in there, people are coming!"

"I would have paid them to do it."

"Get out here!" I said, knocking on the glass quietly, "Is this what you wanted to show me? How to get arrested?"

He shook his head "no" and walked around a few antelope heads to a German Shepherd dog, mounted and sitting silently near the horses.

"Bullet?" I asked, reading the small name card leaning on its paws.

"Roy's dog," the Ranger said, smiling into the glass eyes.

"He stuffed his dog?"

"Yes, it looks like he stuffed his dog," The Ranger said, grinning from ear to ear, "I guess he loved him."

He reached his hand down and felt the dog's upright ear, running his fingers down his snout and across his head. Smiling, he took his other hand and ran it down the dog's back, rubbing the pelt and scratching behind his ears. And he began to laugh, and laugh harder, as the dog turned its head and looked at him, opening its mouth to let out a pink wet tongue and breathe. The sparkling glass eyes lost false glimmer as they gained real sight, and Bullet, Roy Rogers' dog, jumped onto the Ranger's legs, happy and alive.

The Ranger patted the dog, and the dog smelled him, and ran around the display, smelling animal heads and wagging his tail.

"Tom," the Ranger said, "Give him something to eat! Do you have anything?"

I shook my head no, unable to make words. But I heard sounds coming from around the corner, and waved my hands wildly.

"Noooo!! You …nooo!!!" I choked, unsure of what I even meant to tell him anymore. Kill the dog? Get out of there? There was no time, and the tourists were turning the corner.

"He was a good actor, but a great singer," a man in a western snap-front shirt said to what looked like his family - a woman in stretch pants and a flowery blouse, and two grandchildren straggling behind, "Oh, now look at this."

The Ranger stood between the two horses, frozen statue-still, his eyes unfocussed toward the horizon.

"Trigger, that's Trigger there," the man said, "And Dale's horse right there."

"Is that Buttercup?" the lady asked.

"Buttermilk," the man said, "That's what the sign says."

I searched the corners of the room for a fire alarm to pull and found nothing. The Ranger stood still as they finally found him in the clutter.

"What's that there?" the woman said.

"That's a man," one of the kids said.

"It's the One Ranger," I managed, "He's stuffed."

"They stuffed a man?!" the woman gasped.

"No, not stuffed, I mean he's fake! The One Ranger. He's a fake one. Hey, did you see that Jeep they've got out front?"

"There's a dog in there!" the kid said, "A real dog!"

Bullet was sniffing the bottom of the glass display from inside, snorting clouds of steam from his wet nose.

"Probably a watch dog," the man said, "to keep people out of there. Good idea nowadays."

Bullet went back to the Ranger, burying his nose in the light blue crotch of the Ranger's pressed pants and sniffing, and the Ranger had no choice, suddenly coming to life and heading for the door.

"What the heck is this now?" the man said.

The woman thought it was an 'animatronic' moving doll for a second, and then she realized he was alive and screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Pardon me, folks," the Ranger said, pulling open the door and walking by quickly, "We have to be moving on."

I could only nod and move toward the exit.

"Come on, Bullet!" he said, and the dog bounded out of the display, clicking his claws on the floor.

"We can't take the dog!" I said.

"We have to!"

"We don't have to! He can't come with us!"

"We can't just kill him and prop him against the wagon!' he shouted, "We have to take him! Let's go!"

We walked right out of the place, past Roy's spangly shirts and telephones, wristwatches and bongo drums, past the admission window, waving good-bye with a living, barking German Shepherd following us.

"Can I take a picture with the watch dog?" Ginny called out as we got to the sizzling parking lot.

"Get in the car!" I yelled at him, trying to wave my arms at the dog so he might wander back inside.

"That was really something, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, dead animals except for one, and shirts. Get in."

"You mean to tell me that those horses in there are just dead animals?" he said, "Trigger in there is American history, my friend."

"Okay, Trigger is worth seeing, but a stuffed German Shepherd? What is that?"

"Hey, to each his own," the Ranger said, "Ginny liked the shirts!"

"But the dog!! Why?!! What are you doing?"

He laughed, clapped his hands at the dog, who came to him in a flash, and said "Life!"

"Get in the car!"

"Life!" he said, as Bullet wrestled between his legs.

"I don't know what you mean. The dog is alive, so…"

"Yes!" he said, laughing, "The dog is alive."

"Uhh…I don't understand."

"You don't have to! Life is beautiful, isn't it?"

Then he laughed harder and got in the car with the dog.

We got Bullet a drive-through cheeseburger and hit the road, racing toward the lights of L.A. across the desert at sunset.

"It's so unrelenting" I said.

"What do you mean?" the Ranger said.

"The stuff you guys wear. The shirts. The saddles."

"It's just a celebration of life."

"Was that really true what you said? Was he really from New Jersey?"

"Ohio. Yes, that's true. Leonard Slye, a shoe salesman."

"Well, once you put on the red satin shirt and you have your horse stuffed and everything, there's no turning back," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that's it, bub. No more going back to Ohio. You've put on a cowboy hat, and you can never take it off. You're stuck with it."

The Ranger reached back to pet the dog and looked out the window at casino billboards flashing past.

"Nobody's ever stuck with anything," he said.

"Oh, believe me, you can be stuck with some stuff," I said, "I do know a little bit about that."

"What am I stuck with?" the Ranger said.

"You're stuck with being the One Ranger, right?" I asked.

He ran a glove across Bullet's shiny fur and looked at me. "It doesn't matter what you call me, friend, it matters who I am. I'm not stuck with anything."

We drove silently for a while, until the dog began whimpering and scratching at the windows in back.

"I think somebody needs privacy," the Ranger said.

"How can the dog have to pee already? He had a cheeseburger and licked some ice cubes!"

"We'd better stop up ahead."

"He's lucky to be alive! Hold it in!" I called behind me.

"Aren't we all lucky to be alive?!" he said.

And I swear to you, the dog barked right then.

I pulled into the next rest area and let the dog wander behind the cinder block buildings, lifting a leg and squirting an antique stream onto dead tumbleweeds.

"I started off as a trapeze artist, you know, not a cowboy," the Ranger said, clicking his teeth to call the dog away from a station wagon full of wandering hippies.

"You were a trapeze artist?"

"Yes, I was, flying through the air with the greatest of ease." "Was your name Leonard?" I asked, "You from Ohio?"

"No," he said, squinting through the mask, "My real name is Jack. Jack Carlton Moore."

"Clayton isn't even your real name?"

"Nope," he said quietly, "Jack is my real name."

"Where did you get Clayton?"

"Some producer changed it, back when nobody used their real names."

"You just let him do it?"

"At the time I needed a job, so if he wanted to change my name to Irene Dunne I might have done it," he said, drawing a hand over his flat stomach, "Do we have any snacks left?"

I spun in place, looking through the bug splattered windshield at a dashboard full of empty wrappers.

"I'm out of Snacks, Jack. We had to feed your new dog, remember?"

"Hang on, maybe I've got something," he said, walking around the cinder block building toward the dog.

"Don't eat the dog!" I said, so loudly that I attracted too much attention from the stoners in the station wagon.

A kid with hooded eyes under a hooded sweatshirt called across a few empty parking spaces. "Dude, is that your Dad?" he asked.

"No," I said, waving, "Nope. Just a friend."

"Is he a cowboy?"

"Uh, yes, he is, I guess."

"Is that your dog?"

"Nope. Not my dog. It's his dog."

"A cowboy dog?"

"Yeah," I chuckled, "I guess it's a cowboy and a cowboy dog."

"Whoa!" the kid said, rising out of the vinyl bench, "How'd you guys get that here?"

Bullet was barking and jumping next to the Ranger, walking his saddled horse out from behind the public bathroom.

"There was some beef jerky in the saddle bags!" he said, chomping on a long strip of beef.

"Why do you do this?" I asked.

"Isn't it beautiful?" the Ranger said, "Look at him! Look at both of them!" The last rays of sunset glinted orange and blue on the saddle and in the eager eyes of the jumping dog, as Twister clopped across the gravel, rested and ready to run.

"But why? I don't understand what you're doing!"

He laughed loudly into the empty desert, and scratched behind the horse's ear, as Bullet smelled a discarded ketchup packet and wagged his tail.

"Is it beautiful, Tom?"

It was. I don't know if it was the dry air or the bright sun, the blue sky or the soft wind, but for a moment it felt like I loved everything, even the ketchup packet, let alone the animals. He asked if it was beautiful, and before I snapped back that it would be beautiful to get back in the car, or for him to tell me a secret that would give me power over the wind, or it would be beautiful to get a string of jobs in a row and pay for car repairs and some dental work I need, before I gave him another useless verbal slap, I thought about his question. Was it beautiful?

"Yes, it's beautiful, Jack," I said.

"That's why I do it! It's beautiful!" he said, laughing

"I want to be me today, and that's beautiful," he said, extending a strip to me, "Jerky?"

"Do you ever want to go back and be Jack Moore on the flying trapeze?"

"That's what everybody thinks they want!" he said, "I don't mean they want to be me, I mean everybody seems to just want to be themselves a long time ago."

"I don't mean nostalgia, or regrets," I said, "I just mean, don't you get tired of the mask?"

"I volunteered for the mask, Tom. I needed the job, asked for it, and I got it. I can't go back and say I didn't know what it would lead to. The wind blows, and you can make fists and fight it all your life if you want to."

"What are you supposed to do?" I said.

"Well, whenever I hear the wind howl, I just sing harmony."

I chewed on a mouthful of jerky as a few grains of sand blew into my mouth.

"I'm not fighting it," I said, spitting sand.

"Fair enough."

He pulled the reins to one side of the horse and wrapped the canteen strap around the horn, ready to mount up.

"You took a risk in life, right?" he said, "You jumped out of an airplane, trusting the parachute and trusting the wind. The parachute opened and the wind took you in a different direction than you expected, that's all!" He pulled himself up and into the saddle as Bullet spun around in front of the horse.

"What if you don't want to get blown around?" I said.

"Who wants to get blown around? But that's the way it is!" he chuckled, "The wind blows."

He grabbed the reins and Bullet barked twice. "But, see, that's what I wrestle with!' I asked, grabbing at the horse's head, "Why does the wind blow?"

He leaned down at the dog and looked into his eyes.

"BULLET!" he said, and the dog lowered his haunches, ready to fly.

"GO GIT IT!" he shouted, and the dog launched into the desert in long strides, expanding his muscled ribcage again and again in joyous speed.

"Tom," he said, spinning Twister in front of me, "You might be a great wrestler, but you can't pin the wind."

He clicked his tongue and the horse clambered across the asphalt and took off after the racing dog, barking as the lost light turned the distant hills purple and dark. I think he was singing.

TWENTY-TWO

The phone rang at eight P.M. with the caller I.D. of my agent's cell.

"Hello, I assume you've had a brainstorm about how I might work a lot more and for more money, right?" I asked.

"What? Oh, hello …uh, no. Not really." he said, his voice breaking into Morse code dashes as he drove over the dead spot at the top of Coldwater Canyon.

"Have you talked to your friend?" he said.

"What friend?"

"Your friend called me."

"Which friend is that?"

"The cowboy?"

"Aw, jeez. Don't do it, whatever he said."

"I couldn't answer him anyway. I have no idea. Why does he need that?" "Need what?"

"He wanted to know Steven Spielberg's address," he said, "His home address. I told him to send it to his office, but Spielberg wouldn't look at anything without agency representation. Hello?"

He thought we lost our signal as I threw the phone and ran.

I don't know where Steven Spielberg lives either, but a star from the fifties, legally forbidden to wear the hat, mask, and guns that he was wearing, was on his way to Steven Spielberg's house to damage my reputation and destroy my career, so I made a point to find the place. I screamed at four different "Maps Of The Stars' Homes" salesmen on folding chairs by the side of the road before I found one who spoke English well enough to understand the words "Spielberg," "House," and "Show me for fifty bucks."

The neighborhoods of the super rich are always staggering in size, breathtaking in architecture, and verdant in landscape, but the biggest, grandest houses in Los Angeles are a mystery, since nobody I know has ever seen one. The houses of the L.A. super rich are invisible - not invisible like magical vapor - invisible like a twelve foot wall and impenetrable iron gate, decorated with warning signs and a video camera. Houses like that are designed to welcome immediate family, sycophants, nannies and gardeners, and easily keep everyone else out on the curb, staring at a mailbox and wall, especially masked western stars and supporting actors from the movies they made twenty years ago.

Racing past swaying palm trees and fancy iron street signs in either artsy Spanish (Avenida de Colores), or self congratulatory English (Jubilation Drive), in a neighborhood like this in L.A. they should name the streets more realistically, and put a pizza parlor at the intersection of "Restraining Order Blvd." and "Joint Custody Circle."

I saw him before I even got close to the house, riding Twister under the frosted globe of a vintage streetlight, then into shadow, and back into light, Twister clopping over the manicured blacktop as the Ranger's hat reflected in the windshields of the parked luxury cars he passed. There were no sidewalks, since pedestrians aren't welcome, and fertile humps of grass and flowers surrounded every mailbox and electronic keypad, standing next to the thick gate protecting the driveway.

Leave it to him to find Spielberg's house before I could. I thought I'd beat him there by an hour or more, but phantoms on horseback have advantages that I still don't understand. I gunned the four cylinders of my engine and whined closely by him. Twister didn't spook at the noise, shuffling over the gravel and macadam, headed for the gate. I parked a half block ahead of him, wrestled my way out of the car and shrieked as quietly as possible "What do you think you're doing?"

He looked down at me until the brim of his hat shaded his mask from the streetlight and his face disappeared in the dark. "Listen, Tom, I've never known one of these big chiefs who couldn't hear some straight talk that makes sense."

"You listen to me, Ranger," I said, pointing across the horse's nose at him, "This is ridiculous. You'll never get in there anyway."

"Sure I will," he said, looking at the imposing gate outside Spielberg's house, "Hey, why don't you go around to the back of this place and see if there's any other way in."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, go around back."

"Go around back? Go around back yourself. In fact, go around the back and keep going."

"I've come a long way to talk to this man."

I staggered backward, almost tripping over a fern at the curb. "Call his office! Make an appointment!"

"I tried that, Tom. He's a very busy man, that's what they told me. I called his office a few times. I'm a busy man myself, but I never found it an excuse for not returning phone calls."

"Wait a minute," I said, pleading with him, "I know you're here for a reason, and I've seen the things – A horse, an entire horse that is there and then not there, and the dog that you make come to life just touching it while you're trespassing at a museum, but I've gotta say, I disagree with this."

"You disagree with what?"

"With everything that's going on!"

"I promised you I'd get you what you want," he said, "Do you trust me?"

"I disagree with it, though! This is crazy!"

"Crazy like a fox."

"No, Clayton, crazy like arrested! They'll call the cops if you try to get in there!"

"Maybe you're right," he said, "Or just maybe he's a better businessman than you think."

"What are you talking about? Breaking into the guy's house? You have lost your mind, buddy? The wind has blown your parachute a little too hard."

"Again, maybe you're right," he said, calming the trembling horse with a pat on his neck, "Or maybe I know something that he doesn't know."

I thought he was hinting at a cosmic truth deeper than my human understanding, but that wasn't it at all. He just froze me in confusion long enough to walk the horse past me, positioning Twister to block my path so he could press the buzzer on Steven Spielberg's spotlit, metal intercom.

"Don't do that! What are you--DON'T!!"

"Tom, what Mr. Spielberg doesn't know is how- if he's the kind of businessman he seems to be - Then he'll start putting you in lots of pictures, and by golly its a win-win situation."

"Please go," I said, "Please don't do this now. Please. I'm asking you…"

"Hey," he said, settling the horse again as its neck muscles shook, "It may feel uncomfortable to have somebody sing your praises while you're standing there, but sometimes you should let a friend get in there and make a case for you if you won't do it for yourself."

I ducked under Twister's neck, catching my face on a dark, leather rein before untangling my head and heading for the intercom keypad, which he pressed hard one more time before I covered it with my body to block him from doing it again.

"Please leave the property," an amplified voice said from a small outdoor speaker under a rhododendron bush. The Ranger stood up in the saddle and yelled into my back toward the blocked intercom. "Yes, hello," he said, "I'd like to talk to Mr. Spielberg if at all possible."

"Please leave the property now," the tired voice said, a sleepy security guard from Boston.

"Leave the PRAWPUTTY."

"Ranger, I'm asking you to--"

"Tom, you won't do it for yourself, so--"

"Clayton, please."

"You don't know what he's going to say if I can just get a minute with the man," he said, leaning toward the speaker again as I pushed the horse's side, shoving it away from the elegant iron gates.

"Is Mr. Spielberg in the house this evening?" he said, getting louder and almost shouting it into the house.

"They're going to call the cops, you know," I said, jogging into the street and spinning in place.

"Leave the driveway or the police will be called," the intercom crackled.

"Told you!" I said.

The Ranger rubbed his heels into Twister's side and the horse turned, parallel to the iron gate toward an adobe brown pillar next to the security wall. He pulled his boots out of the stirrups and, with an athletic vault, he stood erect on top of his saddle, his head now ten feet in the air.

"Get down! Are you kidding me? Get off that!" I said.

"I can see a part of his house from here!" he said, grabbing the top of the wall with his gloves and peering over.

"Get down! I'm not kidding!"

"Hello!" he called out toward the house, "Hello there! May I speak to you for a moment, friend?"

"Get off the wall! They're probably videotaping you!"

"I've come to help, but I won't come any further if it would be upsetting to you!" he said.

"Get the hell off that thing!" I said.

"Shhh!" he said to me, "We want to be seen as the friends we are…WE ARE FRIENDS TO YOU!" he called at the house.

The voice of the security guard was angrier now, and even closer to Boston. "DA POLICE HAVE BIN KAWLED!"

I ran toward the speaker. "We're leaving!" I shouted into it, "Sorry! He's drunk! We're leaving!"

"Don't say that, Tom, that's not true, " the Ranger said.

"Well, what am I…What… " I couldn't find words and was losing the ability to speak, yelling a guttural "Bbuuueeeaaiii" toward the moon.

The Ranger leaned farther over the wall. "Is there a better time that I might come by to talk to him?"

I ran toward the horse, pushing sideways as hard as I could to move him away from the wall, and a hoof slipped on the slick Mexican tile on the driveway. The Ranger slipped off the saddle and grabbed an iron light sconce perched at the top of the wall, his boots scraping the adobe searching for a foothold. I dove for his legs, hugging the boots to my chest and twisting them to try and break his grasp. "Let go of my feet!" he gasped, "I can't keep my grip!"

"Let go of it!" I shrieked.

"My grip is loosening, Tom!"

"Good!" I grunted, "Let it go!"

I strained against his boot tips as they dug into my chin, hanging on as he kicked.

He held onto the iron light until our combined weights started to bend it, and I used a rock to hop up and grab the back of his gunbelt, a better grip to pull on. His head lowered to the lip of the wall.

"Sir!" he croaked toward the house, "Sorry to bother you-- " He fell hard, knocking his chin on the corner of the wall and landing in a heap on top of me, pounding me into the ground with his hat flying into the air toward the street.

He stopped wrestling with me long before I finally stopped wrestling with him, twisting on the ground and grunting with humiliation. As he tried to get up, I hung onto his arm for one more twist, finally shoving him away from me.

"Alright, Tom, take it easy," he said.

My lungs were searing and I gasped for air in the rage. "Get out of here--"

"Tom, listen--"

"Get out! Do you hear me! I'm not playing anymore."

"Fair enough," he said wiping his hands on his pants, "I'll go, then."

"No, you won't. You won't even go if I beg you. You don't listen to a thing I say."

"I said fair enough. I'll go.

"You haven't left yet!" I screamed, "Everything else you've done, all the other stuff you've been doing…you never stopped that, did you?"

He stared at me, silent.

"Get the hell out!"

The fall had knocked some of the wind out of him, so he crouched for a few seconds with his hands on his knees before walking out to the street toward his hat, picking it up slowly to brush a few fragments of rich man's gravel off the brim."

"Wherever you're from, and whatever you think you're doing, it's a joke," I said. He stared at the hat under the streetlight before easing it onto his head. "It's not a joke," he said.

"It's not?" I spat, "Let me tell you, Jack, I'm a comic and I know what a joke is, and this is a joke." I walked toward my car. "And you're a joke."

He grabbed Twister's reins and took a few steps after me until I turned and waved my arms in fuming silence that he should stay back.

"If I embarrassed you I'm sorry, but I thought that--"

"It's a joke. All of it," I said, "Who cares? Who cares what Steven Spielberg does? It's a joke. The whole thing."

"But I'm just trying to tell him that--"

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO TELL HIM!! I don't care! I don't care what he thinks and I don't care what you think!"

"But a talent like yours--"

"SO WHAT?!" I bellowed, "I don't need you to tell me that, I don't need ANYBODY to tell me that, least of all him!" pointing at the hedges and adobe.

The Ranger ran a gloved finger across his scraped chin. "This is a successful man, Tom."

"WHOOOOOOO CAAAARES???!!!"

I stomped back to him to look him in the mask. "I'm a successful man, too. I don't have to prove it with palm trees and an intercom."

"But they think of you--"

"They can think of me as a can of peas! They can think of me as another piece of pop cultural crap!" I thundered, waving my arms, insane, "Tell you what, they don't even have to think of me, how's that? I've got a wife and kids, food and the sunshine. It's beautiful!"

He stared at me quietly, the moon glinting crescents in the holes through his mask as I wheezed at him, remembering the inhaler I left in the car.

"You don't like it, Ranger?" I whispered, "I'm cool with that."

He stood still for at least three long breaths. "You're cool with that," he smiled.

"That's right, buddy. I'm cool with that," I said, as a beam of red swiped across the adobe wall and the horse's side, reflecting the spinning cherry lights of a police car.

"Run!" I gasped, breaking toward my car only to stop after four strides, realizing the hopelessness of running from the L.A.P.D. in a four cylinder hatchback. The run slowed to a relaxed walk as I turned to face the cops.

"Let me handle this," the Ranger said.

"Shut up," I whispered, "Just shut your mouth. Don't bring anything back to life. SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH."

The police car stopped in a diagonal, blocking most of the street, and two uniformed officers got out, sliding black nightsticks into their heavy belts.

"Good evening, officers," the Ranger said.

"Shut up I said," I ventriloquized through gritted teeth.

"What's going on here, fellas?" the passenger cop said.

"Nothing," I jumped in, "Nothing, sir. My friend and I were arguing, and we must have disturbed someone. I apologize."

The Ranger looked at them silently, surrendering to my lie.

"We have a report of a possible break in at this house," the driving cop said, pointing toward the mansion gates.

"No! Break in? No way! We were having an argument over something and must have disturbed someone. Sorry about that, won't happen again."

"What's that stuff?" the first cop said, pointing at the Ranger's knees and elbows, covered in beige plaster dust from the adobe wall, the toes of his boots scuffed to match the scratches on the beige pillar perfectly.

"We're not trying to break in," I said.

"We only come to help and to make new friends," the Ranger said.

Cop one ran his hand across his belt toward his gun. "Why don't you two get over here to the front of my car."

"Why do you want us to do that?" I asked.

"Because your friend here is wearing a mask and carrying a gun and it's not Halloween.

The Ranger remained silent, as it was his right to do, since we were clearly about to be arrested.

BLAMBLAMBLAM in an instant everything was black as glass shattered to the street and into the driveway. Three blasts from the Ranger's gun burst both streetlights above our heads and the spotlight at the Spielberg security gate, turning them all to shattered rain.

"Freeze! Don't move!" the police bellowed in the blackout, fumbling with their guns and flashlights while running toward the car. A shrill whistle called Twister out of the darkness and the Ranger vaulted into the saddle, grabbing the reins and spinning him toward me.

"FREEZE! DON'T MOVE!!" the cops screamed.

"Move! Don't freeze!" the Ranger said, as the metallic clop of hooves came closer in the dark.

"Lift your arm!" the Ranger barked, and I did.

I lifted my arm in a dream state, expecting to be swept into the saddle and raced away in a John-Wayne ballet, rescued in the nick of time by a hero of the west. This didn't happen though, because I weigh over two hundred pounds and couldn't see where he was. When he grabbed my arm, I almost pulled him out of the saddle, swinging around the horse, slamming my face into some silver studs on the saddle and falling into the street, severely bruising my coccyx.

"Oohhhh!" I yelled, rolling onto my side in the middle of the street.

"Stop right there!" the cops yelled, shining a flashlight into my face.

"Don't shoot me!" I screamed, "He's dead!! That guy is dead!! He's going to disappear!!"

"Just stay where you are," they said, turning a spotlight on me from the driver's side of the black and white car as the Ranger turned the horse around behind a palm tree across the street.

"Lift your arm! Come on!" he shouted to me.

"NO!!" I yelled.

"Come on, Tom! Lift your arm!"

"No! We tried that and I'm paralyzed!" I yelled back at him.

"You're fine. Lift your arm!"

"Freeze right there and get off the horse!" the cops yelled, pointing guns at Twister.

"Shoot out the spotlight!" I said.

"No! Those men are too close to it!" he said, "A life is a precious thing, and--"

"Shut up!"

"Stay right there and put your hands in the air!" the cops said, clicking into their radios for backup as one pointed a gun at me, while the other walked slowly toward me, clicking a pair of handcuffs in his right hand. "Drop to your knees," he said, "Now."

I ran. Seriously, I did. I've seen this stuff on T.V. all the time. When you run, they don't shoot you. They probably should, but let's face it, they don't, they just jump back in the car and keep chasing after you. So, I'm sorry if I risked the lives and limbs of fellow citizens on the streets of Beverly Hills, but I took off up the street with the Ranger a half block ahead of me. And I was right, they didn't shoot me, they just ran back to their car and gunned the engine.

"COME ON!" I shrieked, running to a fire hydrant at the corner. The Ranger slowed Twister to a trot, I took a running start, stomped on the top of the hydrant, jumping into the air to grab a chunk of saddle and handful of gunbelt as he spun the stallion and grunted "Hyeah!"

I almost fell off the instant Twister clicked into a gear I've never seen before, except on a black and white T.V. Mane whipping, nose snorting, haunches quivering flight. We galloped toward the police car and passed it on the right, forcing them to U-turn as the raging Thoroughbred clattered down the curved street, until the Ranger steered him onto well manicured front lawns, where he tore landscaping to smithereens, gaining traction and speed. We left hoof print gouges on millions of dollars of sod, flying over two foot tall picket fences and herb gardens, cutting across grassy corner lots and ducking under tree branches, every second racing farther from the sirens of the police cars in the streets, as we used every carport, backyard, alley, and small neighborhood park to either hide or run, depending on what the Ranger's honed senses told him.

"Why did you run?" I whispered.

"I didn't want to put you in a difficult situation," he said.

"What do you mean difficult?" I said, "How is this not a difficult situation?"

"They would have had lots of questions that I don't care to answer, and answers that would have both of us in trouble."

"Not you," I said, "You could hop on the horse and disappear."

"I wouldn't leave you like that," he said, "In trouble with the authorities. Trouble that neither of us deserve."

He led the horse across the street to ride in the shadows, beyond the spill of spotlights in a parking lot.

"We didn't want his money," he said, "just a moment of his time."

"No, just you wanted a moment of his time."

"Yes, that I did."

"But how are we not in trouble?"

"I think we lost them."

"What about my car?"

"They don't know that it's your car. It's parked up the street near some other cars, and we didn't even get onto the property. That's not breaking and entering, it's barely trespassing. They'll lose interest."

The faint chop of helicopter blades was getting louder, and a few blocks away an L.A.P.D. chopper shone a brilliant beam onto a stand of palms.

"Well, that's a fine howd'ya do. Looks like they've got the whole kit and caboodle after us," he chuckled, "As they say out on the reservation, that Spielberg is big medicine."

"What are we supposed to do about it?" I asked.

"Hold on," he said, "Never had to deal with whirly-birds in the old west!" "You didn't live in the old west."

"Uh, I meant there weren't helicopters in…" the sentence just died out at the end of his breath, and he squinted toward an intersection through the holes in his mask, "Let's move. Hyah!!"

I hung onto his belt as Twister gave a breathy grunt and we seemed fifty yards away in an instant, both of us crouched low in the saddle, the Ranger's head concentrated and still atop the muscled horse beneath him.

We rode east and further east, away from Beverly Hills and the police cars flashing red lights across McMansions and security gates, past coffee shops and pizza places, as he nudged Twister in a subtle dance of trot, spin, or flat out fly, depending on where we were, where we needed to go, and who might be chasing us.

The distant sirens dwindled to silence as we galloped past the Troubador Club on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, the progressive enclave where a cowboy on a horse with a male passenger hanging onto his belt invited finger snaps in the air and gleeful squealing rather than calling the cops.

"Whoo!" a man in very tight shorts said, waving, "Howdy, partner!"

"I think we lost them," I said.

"I believe you're right," he said, "I hope nobody was injured."

"Of course nobody was injured. My butt is killing me, though."

"Saddle sore, huh?" he said.

I put my hands on his shoulders and shifted my weight.

"Can we stop now?" I said,

"You want to stop here?"

"Hey, masked man!" the man in shorts said.

"Okay, go a few more blocks and we'll stop."

We rode through Hollywood and the streets of Los Angeles, quiet and dark with only splashes of red, yellow and green traffic lights reflecting on the silver bullets in the belt I was holding onto, unsure where we were headed.

"Are we going back to my place? Because this isn't the right way."

I stared at the back of his hat for a response, but we kept riding, hooves pounding through neighborhoods I'd only seen before in windshield glances and peeks between cement embankments bordering the freeways. City blocks of stucco apartment buildings with wounded Chevy Impalas propped on cinder blocks on front lawns worn to crusty brown. The mini-malls cut into every intersection, but coffee shops and pizza places were replaced by Mexican grocery stores with check cashing and payday loans.

"I think we lost them, maybe we should stop," I said again and again, every mile or so, always answered with a grunt of recognition, a shift in the saddle, and a continuing clip-clop of hooves, walking deep into East L.A.

"What a place," the Ranger said.

"I know," I said, "You think there's enough graffiti, or what?"

"It's beautiful. So beautiful."

"You're kidding. The graffiti here?"

"No. The people," he said, "These are beautiful people."

Far from the hillside under the Hollywood sign, far past the shadow of any soundstage on any studio lot, we rode through a Hispanic village untouched by any limousine, home to burrito stands and ramshackle markets decorated with bold paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the dirty cement walls. The sky was turning pink as street lights began to click off at dawn, leaving gas station signs to illuminate the pre-dawn indigo. The Ranger walked Twister onto a small, grassy hump between parking lot entrances, and the tempo of metallic hoof beats dwindled to muffled thuds as the horse stopped, shaking his head and blowing a long, tired snort out of his nostrils.

"Why don't we get off here?" the Ranger said.

I wiped my nose on my sleeve, looking around. "At a gas station?"

"Let's get down for a while."

"Are you taking me back to my place, because--"

"You'll get back to your place," he said.

"My car is still over there at his house. Are they going to tow my car?" I asked, still white-knuckling the back of the saddle, unable to unlock my vise grip. "Come on, let's take a rest," he said, motioning me off.

I drew my left leg backward before really considering how to dismount a horse from behind the saddle, catching my knee on the raised cantle to slide sideways for a few inches before losing my grip, turning the wrong way and falling to the ground, hitting my ribs on the curb. "OOfff" grunted out as I fell into the gas station driveway, rolling away from the thumping hooves dancing near my head as Twister avoided trampling me.

"Are you alright?" the Ranger asked.

"Hey man, are you okay?" another voice called. A Hispanic kid in his teens was walking back to a truck parked at the pumps. He put a freshly bought can of soda on top of a lawn mower in the truck bed and jogged over to us.

"I'm okay. No problem," I said, pulling myself to sit on the asphalt.

The jog over to me slowed to a walk as the kid eyed the Ranger and his horse with disbelief, then a smile and head shake as he put a plastic wrapped breakfast burrito in his teeth and pulled me to my feet, while the Ranger dismounted to help brush me off. "I fell just a little bit. No problem."

"You slammed, bro!"

"I was in control of it. Just…" I stopped talking to feel my ribs.

"Okay, bro, but I saw it, man. You fell hard," the kid said in the lilting dialect of East L.A., born in the U.S.A. but peppered with Spanglish.

"You sure you're okay, ese?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, thank you," I said, extending my hand to shake his for a few seconds until I realized that he didn't see it. He was staring at the Ranger and Twister.

"What are you, man?"

"I'm a friend, amigo," the Ranger said, grasping the front of his hat in a subtle bow.

"Amigo?" the kid chuckled, "That's good. Why you dressed up, man?"

"I'm the One Ranger."

The kid didn't flinch. He didn't show any sign of recognition at all.

"What does that mean?" he asked, "You famous or something?"

"I don't know," the Ranger said, "I guess I'm only famous if you know me."

"I don't."

"Alright, then. I guess I'm not famous. But I'm still the One Ranger."

"Whatever you say, homes."

An older man in coveralls finished gassing up the truck and screwed the cap on, calling out something in Spanish that sounded like the boy should go. Then he focused on the Ranger and Twister and stood still.

"El Llanero Solitario," he said.

"Senor," the Ranger said, "Yo estoy El Uno Llanero."

"Que?" the man said, and the Ranger shrugged and said something else in Spanish that made the man smile and nod.

The early risers sitting at the bus stop behind us peered around the plexiglass hut, pointing at us and mumbling to each other.

"He is the One Ranger!" the boy called out, proud to be the official announcer. He ran to the street. "Lucho!" he yelled across the street to a group of boys with backpacks headed to school, "Come here, Lucho, it's the One Ranger!"

People at the bus stop opened their cell phones to point at him and click.

"It's the what?" the younger boy called over.

"The One Ranger! I don't know, but come over and get your picture!"

Lucho crossed the street as the dusty blue street turned brighter grey in the dawn. The Ranger shook hands with the boy's father as he wandered over from the gas pumps, and tousled Lucho's hair when he dropped his backpack and ran over to us.

"Buenos dias!" the Ranger said.

"How's it going?" said Lucho, patting Twister on the nose and pointing at his brother. "I'm Luis. That's Paco."

"It's going very well, my friends."

"Hey," the older boy said, staring at me with tumblers spinning in his head, "You…"

I tried to avoid Paco by walking around Twister's head, hiding my face in his mane for a while.

"Hey, you look like that dude…what's his name?"

"Who is he?" Lucho asked.

"That dude! He looks like that dude, what is his name in the future one?"

"Yes!" the Ranger said, as I tried to wave him silent, "Yes!"

"Beef!" Paco screamed, pressing his baseball cap into his scalp and calling out to the crowd at the bus stop. "It's Beef! That dude from Back In The Future!"

"Who?" Lucho said.

"The butthead guy!"

The truth dawned on Lucho like the rising sun, and he pointed at me.

"Yeah! Are you butthead?!"

"No," I said, "My name is Tom."

"But you're that dude, right? You are!"

"I'm…" I looked at the Ranger and he was smiling.

"Hey!" Lucho said, "He's right! Butthead!"

"I saw him! I saw him first!" Paco said, spinning in place with his new found power - the finder of the famous, the discoverer of those bathed in magical waters. Human, yes, but projected people whose faces have met with powerful spotlights, projected to a world hungry for laughter and forgetting, televised people whose faces blast across the cosmos in rainbow pixels on glowing screens in houses around the world, recognizable people whose faces have been printed, watched, marveled at and memorized, made special and set apart only because they've been seen by more people than the ones who watch them.

"I seen him!" Paco shouted again, and he preened and danced in his orange T-shirt, as Lucho made a fuss of dusting off his shoulders to recognize the achievement. The bus stop crowd wandered across the driveway and surrounded us, along with a truck full of construction workers getting coffee, a kid on a skateboard, and two people on early morning bike rides, hand braking to see what the commotion was all about. As every new member of the party approached, Paco called out "Check out who this is!" and Lucho filled in the blanks, listing credits and pointing out Paco as the pop explorer who made the original discovery.

The Ranger laughed and shook hands and smiled, and I stood near the horse, nursing bruised ribs and trapped in another nightmare.

"Well, you certainly got us, didn't you?" the Ranger said.

"Don't we have to go?" I asked him.

"Why do we have to go?" he said.

"Because the police are chasing us," I said.

"We're far from Beverly Hills and nobody is chasing us."

"Well, I want to go, so come on."

"Why?"

"Because I'm sick of it! I'm sick of--"

"Wait a minute," he said, holding up a gloved hand to stop me from walking away, "Wait just a minute." He leaned toward me to make a hard point. "Tom, it's not about you."

The crowd began a loose chant of "Beef! Beef! Beef!"

"It's not about me? Are you insane? What do you mean it's not about me?"

"It's bigger than you," he said, "And it's bigger than me. It is what it is, and you're you, and no matter how you feel about it it's not going to change it. It's going to be what it is, and you're still you, and it's up to you."

"What's up to me?"

"You," he said, "You're up to you. I can't make you do or not do anything. It's up to you."

"What is up to me?"

"You."

"Is this a comedy sketch or something?"

"It sure is," he chuckled, "It sure as heaven is."

"It's up to me," I said.

"You are you," he said, "Not anybody else."

"Hey butthead!" started popping from various pockets of the crowd, and the scene was a festival of glee in the middle of East L.A. A woman grabbed and turned me, positioning herself next to me as she extended a cell phone at arm's length to take a picture of us. "Gracias, Beef!" she said, giggling and jogging back to the bus stop.

The crowd surrounding us clapped their hands and sang a song in Spanish that the Ranger knew.

"What am I supposed to do, Ranger?" I asked.

He smiled for a photo and turned to me, reaching for my shoulder.

"You're supposed to love people," he said, "Isn't that beautiful?"

Paco was ecstatic in the glow of attention, and when the crowd began to block the path of cars pulling into the station for early morning fill-ups, he took the stage for a one man performance of the movie.

"Hey, McFly!" he said, "Hello? Anybody home?" and laughter pealed in the lavender light.

"Hey, weren't you in Blood In, Blood Out? I love that movie, man!" someone interrupted.

"Hey! Hey!" Paco shouted, ready for the grand finale. He crunched his face into an angry grimace and growled, "What are you lookin' at, butthead?!" to a cheer, a happy cheer from the delighted crowd.

The biggest cheer came from Jack Moore, the One Ranger, taking off his glove to clap even louder and whistle with his fingers.

"Oh, that was something!" he said.

"I can do it good!" Paco said.

The Ranger put his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"Paco! You are a beautiful boy!" he said.

And the joy, oh the joy on Paco's sunlit face.

As the crowd grew into an even bigger curious mob, already searching through the photos they'd taken with their cell phones to show each other, the Ranger walked Twister toward the open work bays of the garage, pulling a hose away from the wall for the thirsty horse, pouring a stream of cool water into his mouth and over his head. I walked over to him and got showered with crystal droplets when Twister shook his head. "Thanks, Twister," I said.

"He needed a drink, didn't you?" the Ranger said, wiping water from his mane, "Good boy."

The crowd sharing videos didn't notice the Ranger step toward me, biting the tip of his gloved hand and pulling at the black leather. He raised the hand behind his head and untied his black mask until it fluttered to his side. Jack Moore stared at me without the mask, his blue eyes smiling above a face free of pain, fear, doubt, or worry. He smiled and extended the mask toward me, offering his mask as it danced in the breeze.

"Take it," he said.

"Take your mask?"

"Go ahead," he said.

"Why?"

"Enough questions. Take it."

I took the soft mask into my hand and held it a foot away from me, too powerful a talisman to grasp tightly, or even understand.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"You can have it."

"You want me to have your mask?"

"Give it a try," he said, "but take it from me, masks don't work."

I held the mask in front of me, trying to come up with something sharp and funny to say, something ironic and detached, something that a comedian expects himself to say, that he wants to say, that he feels he must say to stay hidden and beyond reach, but I couldn't. I stood there silently until he gently pushed my hand with the mask toward me again. "Go ahead, take it."

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't need it, Tom," he said, "It's more important to you. Trust me, where I'm from, a mask is the last thing you need. Nobody wears one."

He chuckled and turned off the hose. "I mean, come on, it's a mask."

"Am I supposed to wear it or something?" I said.

"It's your mask. Do whatever you want with it."

"Is this a message?"

"Looks to me like it's a mask."

He wrapped Twister's reins around a spigot and walked into the gas station's tiny market as a crowd of eager kids walked up to me, petting the horse's neck.

"Is this your horse?" a girl with long black hair asked.

"No, it isn't," I said.

"Why do you have a mask?" a boy called out. "I don't have a mask."

"Yes you do," he said, pointing at the black fabric at my side.

"Oh that. That's not my mask."

"Why do you have it?"

"It's, uh, …I have it, yes, it's mine."

"Are you a robber?"

"No, I'm not a robber."

"Why do you have a mask?"

"My friend gave it to me!" I said.

"Is it your birthday?" he said.

"No, it's not my birthday," I said.

"Why did he give it to you, Dude?"

I stared silently over the heads of the crowd toward the street, waiting for him to come out and explain himself better, when something flashed the dawn's light across the busy intersection. The morning sun caught a buckle on the bridle of another horse's head, loping out from behind the auto shop across the street. It was a gorgeous pinto of white, furry blotches and golden brown, with a white mane glowing with peach glimmers in the early sunlight, rounding the corner and riding toward me.

My wife was in the saddle.

I felt my own forehead, sure it was a fever dream of sleep loss, but she waved to me on horseback, a cowboy hat covering her fuzzy head and throwing a shadow across her smile. Another horse's head, this one all brown and moving slower, came out from behind the blue cement wall, and another. It was my daughter Katie, then Sarah, and Ellie catching up on a black pony, all on horseback, riding toward me.

Shock didn't allow me to make a sound yet, but I pointed to them as they came across the street and the crowd cheered them and patted the brushed fur of the horse's neck's as they passed. Then Danny rode into the intersection bringing up the rear, following slowly on a tired horse, kicking its sides and yelling. "Hyaa! Come on!! I said come on! What's up with this?"

"What…" I finally managed as Caroline rode up next to me, "What are you doing here?"

"Come on!" Danny kept yelling, "Why did I get the slowest one? JYP!!"

"He told us to come," she said.

"He told you?" I said, "How did he do that?"

"He brought us the horses. He said you would understand."

"I would understand?"

"He said he promised he'd get you what you want," she said, and then she shrugged her shoulders, laughing, as Danny crossed the street behind her.

"Get across the street, stupid! Come on!" he yelled, as a bubbling fountain of something clear was opened somewhere deep in my chest as I stared at my family, my heroes, my rescuers, all smiling on horseback.

"He promised, Daddy," Ellie said, "Whatever the promise was, I'm keeping this pony. Her name is Chica!"

The Ranger ran out of the market holding a big plastic globe full of root beer barrels. "Hey, looky what we've got here!" he said, jogging toward us. Small hands poked through the crowd to grab the candy as he began distributing the loot. He untied Twister's reins while spilling root beer barrels onto the cement, held the leather in his teeth, and bounded into the saddle, surrounded by squealing children. "I dinnint get one, cowboy!" a girl said.

"Well then, you should have three!" the Ranger said, tossing a handful of golden wrapped candies toward her.

"And looky what we have here!" he said, catching sight of Caroline and the kids on their horses, "That's perfect! Just perfect!"

"Why did you send me this one?" Danny called out to him.

"Did you try talking to him?" the Ranger said.

"This horse talks?"

"No, Danny, you have to talk to him. Be gentle," he said, "Let him know you're a friend."

Danny leaned out of the saddle to speak directly into the nag's ear. "I'm your friend. Can we go faster, please?" And not a bit faster, the horse clip-clopped him up to join the others.

The Ranger took Twister's reins and walked the horse through the crowd, raining root beer barrels onto the upraised palms of joyful children.

"Oye, Vaquero!" Paco's father yelled, laughing and tipping his hat.

"Adios, muchacho!" the Ranger said to him, then he turned Twister around to face me, "Hey, Tom!" he yelled over the children's heads.

"What?"

"Can I borrow twenty dollars?" "For what?" I said.

"To pay for this candy!" he said, leading a grand parade of the morning and throwing root beer barrels into the air.

"Jack," I called out over the squeals.

"A promise is a promise, friend!" he said, "I got you what you want. 'Course, you already had it. Ha!"

I sighed as his mask fluttered at my side. "You're right, Jack. You're right," I said.

"When have I been wrong, compadre?"

"When you interrupted my show in Las Vegas," I said.

"You got me there."

Jack," I said, taking a few steps toward him, "is everything going to be okay?"

He stood up in the saddle and looked into the cobalt blue sky, than back at me, smiling.

"There's more up there than blue," he said.

He spun the horse in a clattering pirouette and high fived some kids still reaching up for candy. "Hey!" he said, "This is what you want! This is life!! Life!!"

And as he shouted out that word, a dog barked several times. It was a German Shepherd, turning the corner and running across the grassy embankment surrounding the gas station. Bullet raced through the crowd, and with a long, galloping leap, jumped up onto Danny's horse into his arms.

"He gave us the dog, too," Katie said.

"He said it's my dog," Danny said.

"His dog?" I said.

"Our dog!" Sarah said, waving off Danny.

"Danny," Caroline said, "You promised you're going to take care of him!"

"A promise is a promise!" the Ranger said, winking at me.

"Can I ride him? He's faster than the horse," Danny said.

The growing mob of children unwrapped fresh root beer barrels and looked through the golden cellophane wrappers toward the clouds, and the Ranger tossed the rest of the candy into the air as a boy grabbed the empty plastic container to wear it as an astronaut helmet and Twister trotted to the street.

He was still laughing and waving to amazed commuters as he turned to face me across the parking lot. I took a step toward him, ready for him to lead us all home, but he lifted his right hand to stop me.

"I'll pay the guy inside and let's go!" I said.

He said nothing, but motioned to me with his hand like he did on the airport runway, letting his black glove rise and fall, telling me something in the ways of the Indian. Safe travels, I think it meant. He waved one more time toward me, then to my wife and children on their brand new pet horses and Roy Rogers' dog.

"Bye Twister!" Ellie said, and Twister shook his white head up and down, nodding yes to something more than life and bigger than joy, and the Ranger clicked his teeth and leaned forward in the saddle, galloping away and focused on something over the next hill. He grew smaller in the distance, and I called out after him, yelling "Jack! Jack!" as he disappeared into the blazing sunrise.

Laughing and beautiful.

Table of Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Table of Contents

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two