Movie Premiere Trip - 2011

When I last wrote to you, I was just back from an insane dash to LA to go to the premiere of the short film Erwyn had a brief speaking part in, made here last summer by a couple of film students. I didn't want to go--money is tight and I'm closing in on finishing the novel--but Erwyn talked me into it, said there'd be talent scouts there, etc., and so we set off on Monday morning the 24th, aiming for being in LA that night at 7:30 for the show. Drove and drove. We were on I-5, me at the wheel, in the passing lane, going about 75, when THOOMP! A dreadful shuddering noise, something horribly wrong. Was able to pull over onto the shoulder--THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Luck was with me, no eighteen-wheelers in the way. We get out and look: the left rear tire has sheared, the tread coming off in a big hunk, the wire mesh totally exposed, but miraculously, no blowout. The shoulder is narrow, trucks roar by just a few feet from us, ruffling our hair. Let's get this thing to a better spot, we agree, but....when we turn the key, it will not start.  We are about 250 miles from home at this point. My mind's racing: Now what? Two losers by the side of the highway with their dead old car. What to do? Call AAA, rent a car, abandon this one, turn around and go home? Then Erwyn remembers: this car has a switch in the trunk, activated by anything that registers as a shock, that shuts off the fuel supply. He opens the trunk, hits the switch, the car starts, and we are able to limp forward about a hundred feet to where he won't be changing the tire quite so close to the monster trucks going by at 70. The spare is one of those miniature "toy" tires. It has a warning on it: DO NOT EXCEED 50 MPH. He puts it on. We decide to test the tire, see how it rides, stop and feel it after twenty miles or so, make sure it isn't getting hot and ready to explode. We do, and all is well, and after driving at a modest 55 for a long time, we soon abandon caution and are back up to 70, zooming toward the megalopolis. In the back seat are our party clothes. The plan will be to stop just outside the city, find a place to wash and change, then plunge back into the vast river of traffic and into the heart of the city....

Up and over the Grapevine, me at the wheel. It's full dark now, and we are one corpuscle among thousands zooming along. All the cars around us are new, fast, shiny, modern, Lexuses and BMWs, Mercedes and Cadillacs, everyone way over the speed limit, average speed 80. I have a powerful sense of Darwinism in action; we in our old, obsolete car, depending on a 23-year-old electrical system to not short-circuit and crap out and cull us from the herd. The shearing tire a couple of hundred miles back had all the qualities of a stern warning from the universe: YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS HERE. My sweaty hands grip the wheel. I concentrate ferociously, negotiating the five lanes of traffic, vacillating back and forth between believing in the incredible good luck that has carried me through life right up to this point, and dark visions of the sort of accidents you read about in the paper every day, people whose luck ran out abruptly, getting squashed by metal and glass, it happens all the time. All the time. Why not us? There we are, a couple of threadbare aging losers zooming along at 80 in an old car on a toy tire into one of the seethingest cities of the world. And why? Good question. Okay: Time to find a gas station. Erwyn pretty much changes clothes in the car while we're still zooming along. I find a sort of truck-stop plaza, stop and get out, back aching, coated with sweat, head buzzing with adrenaline, starving, legs stiff and sore, but alive. Grab my bag, go in and find a pleasant ladies' room that's actually clean and not crowded. I moisten a couple of paper towels to wash my oozing armpits, duck into a stall, clean up and change clothes. When I come out of the stall in my party clothes, there's a short, chunky little lavatory attendant woman with a mop and a spray bottle. I feel a weird sort of manic cheer come over me, and get into a pleasant jokey conversation with her, feeling like my grandmother, who was unfailingly kind to such folk when she encountered them. I try to imagine how I look and sound to her, can't. I try to imagine her life. Then it's back out to the car and we're on our way. Your turn to drive, I tell Erwyn. You can take us into the city. We have a sheet of directions we printed out at home. I clutch it like a treasure map. We'll be looking for freeway exits while we travel at top speed. No room for error; one wrong turn and you're shunted off into never-never land. We're reminded of the vast sprawl of L.A.--we travel a full ten miles along one of the city freeways, at 70, desperately watching for our first exit. We make that one, but miss the next one, but somehow find our way to a suddenly quiet downtown part of the city. We see the marquee of the theater, find a parking place immediately, on the same block. I look at my watch: The show starts at 7:30. It's 7:10. A bloody miracle.

The theater lobby is crowded and noisy with exuberant young film students, all dressed in black. It's a full-on Hollywood premiere party. The guy who made the film rushes over when he sees Erwyn, expresses great joy that we made the trip. He's a charming young fellow with exquisite manners. We buy two beers, $6 each, but we don't care, I just want to suck down that cold alcohol as fast as I can, never mind that my stomach is a growling empty pit. The beer is exactly what I needed. Fatigue evaporates, I catch a little of that exuberance, part of it the sheer weirdness of being in Mendocino that morning and in a theater lobby in LA in the evening. On the wall are a row of miniature movie screens showing clips from the film--we catch a glimpse of Erwyn's moment, with his name in big letters. The lights flash and we go into the theater. 

More exuberance--the young filmmaker is Canadian, his parents have flown in from Nova Scotia, the audience is high and happy, hooting and cheering as Ben, the filmmaker, takes the microphone and gives a triumphant little thank-you speech. I clap and cheer, too, because it's contagious and because I'm not dead on the highway, because I'm here in this theater. Then the movie: Set in WW2, in Nova Scotia, sweet and sentimental, but Erwyn's one minute actually stands way out: he plays a Canadian army officer who stops the troop train as it's taking soldiers to war, tells the main character of the movie that he's relieved of duty, that he's being assigned to work at home on Nova Scotia researching chicken husbandry, to get his bag off the train and go home. Erwyn's appearance on the screen is the opposite of comic relief--he's playing a guy who was old enough during WW2 to have seen WW1, therefore knows that most of the men on that train are going to their deaths, except for this guy he just took off the train, all of this the unspoken subtext to the spoken lines, conveyed completely by Erwyn's acting--a deep and substantive moment like a cloud passing in front of the sun in an otherwise jejune story. Tragic relief. 

It's a short flick, over in 24 minutes, more wild hoots and cheers. I sit there, my beer buzz pretty much worn off, feeling as far from home as the Apollo 7 guys must have felt when they were on the moon. But it's up to the roof of the theater for a party. Lights of the city, lots of fun, lots of picture-taking and shouted conversations, but no tap on the shoulder from a talent scout. And a long, long way to go. It's about 9:30 by now. The vague plan is to start driving, go as far as we can, find a motel. Erwyn says he can drive all night and get us home, I say that sounds like diminishing returns. We can't really afford a motel, but I'm prepared to dig deep to pay for one. We zoom back out of the city, back along those miles and miles of freeways. We need gas. We miss a couple of convenient turnoffs to stations. We make it to an Arco. I'm filling the car. I see Erwyn bending over, picking something up. He walks casually into the store, comes out smoking a cigar, gets into the car with me. "I just found $65 on the ground," he says. "Quick," I say. "Let's get the hell out of here."

After we've left the Arco station, I take a good look at the money Erwyn found: three twenties and a five, folded up together. I can picture how it happened: Somebody had the money in his pocket, pulled his wallet or glasses out of the pocket, pulled the money up along with it and dropped it. Somebody, somewhere, is furious. I think about the two gas station exits we missed, and the fates that brought us to the one we didn't miss. Of course, it was not $650 that we found, but merely $65, an amount consistent with the invisible laws of attraction that govern the lives of the likes of us. But it's a pleasant little serendipity, enough to cheer us up: just about the price of a motel room. There's something exact about it, a counterbalance to the sheared tire. The money seems to whisper soothingly: You'll be fine. Go. So we do. And indeed, all is serene. The old car glides along like a space ship. The sweaty danger vibes have receded. It's not even that late. The city disappears behind us. I remember, from other trips to L.A., the surprising suddenness of leaving the huge city behind, how quickly you're out in uninhabited nowhere. 

Then, another kind of I-5 suddenness happens: Fog. As if we've driven into a cloud. Our headlights barely penetrate the gloom. We slow down to 40, visions of one of those legendary pile-ups thrumming up the anxiety all over again. Luckily, everybody else is behaving sensibly, all going nice and slow, except for the occasional maniac who roars by at 70. We know the fog could vanish at any moment, but it doesn't, it gets thicker, and if not for the reflectors between lanes we would not be able to move at all. Erwyn is driving, but I'm back in the full-on clenched-teeth anxiety mode. Two losers in their old car, now crawling along in southern California killer fog, on I-5, notorious for its mercilessness. We do this for an hour. Then we see the sign for the spot where Highway 99 branches away from I-5. Erwyn says: "Oh, yeah, here's where it's really easy to accidentally leave I-5 and find yourself on 99." I say: "Oh, yeah, I'’ve done that once or twice. It's very  sneaky." We drive on. After a few miles we notice that the pavement is now dark asphalt, and we see no signs. "For Christ's fucking sake," says Erwyn. "Are we on 99?" "Impossible," I say. "We were watching." The fog is thicker than ever, we are navigating strictly by the road reflectors, we see only an occasional other car. Then we see a small, old-fashioned sign: Highway 99. "Jesus fucking Christ!" says Erwyn. We crawl along. Then Erwyn says: "Do you hear that noise?" "What noise?" I say. "That thumping or ticking." I strain my ears. Maybe I do hear something. I don't know if I do or if I'm imagining it in my overwrought state. Another tire getting ready to shear? We pull over. Erwyn gets out, with flashlight, goes around the car feeling the tires. Nothing. I stand by the road, teeth chattering. We get back in. We see a sign for a road that will take us back to I-5.

The road connecting 99 to I-5 is two-lane, so occasionally the headlights of eighteen-wheelers come at us out of the fog. We'd already passed a few motels on 99, around Fresno, couldn't muster any resolve to stop. The idea of spending the night on 99 just a little too bleak. By now it's around 11:30. We have about 15 miles to go until we're back on I-5. Erwyn is still in favor of pushing on; I tell him that there's a witching hour when motels actually close down, and if we drive until, say, 2, we could easily find ourselves stuck driving until dawn. I'm keelhauled with fatigue by now. Got a shitty night's sleep the night before, a long day of alternating terror and exhilaration, pumping cortisol to every cell. I want to sleep. I'd planned ahead: I have sleeping pills, night clothes, clean underwear and toothbrush in the car. We keep driving, then pass a sign: Welcome to Wasco. A town. And then: Wasco Motel. That's it. We're stopping. Instant unspoken agreement. We pull in between two tall ghostly palm trees. I can see, in the office, the motel proprietor, who hears us pull in, stepping out of his living quarters and into the fluorescently-lit office. It's a few minutes before midnight now: Hurry, I say. He's about to turn off the lights and shut down. 

The guy, a Pakistani, is watching us through the big window. I seriously think he's going to wait until we're almost at the door, then turn us away. He doesn't, though we have to do the transaction through the bulletproof after-hours window; the door is locked. The room is $59. I pull the found money out, slap down the three found twenties. Perfect. Perfect! Erwyn goes to get the bags while the Paki guy goes to get our key. I look at him: A very homely man, a joyless-looking man. What's his life, here in Wasco, running a motel? Better than Pakistan, I suppose, but it's got to be grim. I imagine his crowded, curry-smelling family life behind the door to the living quarters. Wife, children, probably a teenage daughter. My grandmother rises up again: When he gives me the key, I catch his eye, smile, and say Thank you. This takes him by surprise: he gives me a weak, wan, gray-toothed little smile. The room key is an actual key, not a card. 
One of my favorite moments in life is opening a motel room door for the first time, and beholding my little world for the night. Someone has attempted to actually decorate this one. A wall is painted orange. The beds are lumpy, burn-holes in the bedspread, a little graffiti on one of the walls, but it's ours, all ours, and I love it with all my heart. We lock the door behind us. The bathroom would have warmed Alfred Hitchcock's heart; after a hot shower, we flip on the TV, drink beer, pop sleeping pills, contemplate how many times we almost got killed today, revel in the luxury of being alive and in a fleabag motel in Wasco, could not possibly feel any gladder to be anywhere.