The Age of Dreaming (35 page)
“Well, call me in a day or two,” said Dreyfus, who was clearly nonplussed by my reaction. Perhaps he was accustomed to making awful proposals that people were first offended by and then ultimately accepted. I would have left the room without looking back, but then he added, “Don’t you want to know about your child?”
This froze me in my tracks, and I half-turned toward the desk. Of course Dreyfus would have tied up this final loose end; of course he would have followed that part of the story. On the one hand, if I stayed ignorant of the fate of my child—if I could hold on to the possibility that there hadn’t
been
a child—it was easier to deny the whole episode. But part of me desperately wanted to know, and now that he’d revealed that there’d indeed been a birth, I didn’t want Dreyfus to have more knowledge of my life than I did.
“It was a boy,” he said, almost gently. “You have a grown son. He lives in Seven Acres Residence in Pasadena.”
This little bit of knowledge made my entire body shake. I managed to ask, “What’s his name?”
Dreyfus smiled now, a nearly genuine smile. “Charles Riley. Charles Chaplin Riley.”
December 10, 1964
U
ntil this morning, I hadn’t been to Pasadena since 1947, when I attended an exhibit at the Huntingtonton. The city looks surprisingly unchanged—the Craftsman bungalows are still in pristine condition; the public buildings are all stately and well-kept. Pasadena, unlike Los Angeles, has a reverence for its history, and does not appear determined to reinvent itself or to eliminate all vestiges of its past.
The Seven Acres residence is at the north end of the city, in the foothills. I obtained the address from directory assistance, and rather than giving Charles Riley the chance to say no, I decided to appear with no warning. I was apprehensive, and even as I drove to Pasadena in the car I’ve been renting—my own car appears to have been stolen from in front of the theater—I wasn’t sure if I’d reveal my connection to him. I had no way of anticipating how I would react—whether I would maintain possession of myself, or be so undone by the presence of this man that I would be incapable of normal social discourse. As it turned out, I had little reason to worry.
The first thing I noticed about Seven Acres was its geographical isolation. As I said, it stood in the foothills, with the San Gabriel Mountains looming behind it. When I approached, I saw that the entire property was bound by a black iron fence. At the parking kiosk, a young security guard inquired as to the purpose of my visit, and I indicated that I was visiting Charles Riley. He nodded and handed me a parking pass. “You’re aware of all the rules here, I take it.”
I did not know what he meant, but I nodded yes. Entering the grounds—I was still several hundred yards from the main building—I saw a group of people walking on the grass. They were moving haphazardly toward the edge of the grounds, and sometimes one of them would try to wander off until a woman, who was clearly the leader, touched him lightly and redirected him to the group. Then the smallest one turned her face to the sky and released a blood-curdling shriek. At this point, I looked away and saw another group of adults seated around a table. Two of them were playing a board game, and the others appeared to be watching. Then one of the players took a handful of pieces and stuffed them into his mouth, which caused his opponent to hit the board and upset the rest of the game. I wondered what kind of place I had come to, and as I got closer to the building, I saw the sign:
Seven Acres Residential Facility: Assisted Living for the Mentally Retarded
.
After I parked, I sat in my car for a moment. I had no idea my child was in a place like this. In the weeks since I had learned of his existence, I had envisioned all sorts of things. He would be in his early forties now—what was his profession? Maybe he was a lawyer or businessman, a physician or a stockbroker. Or maybe he had followed in his parents’ footsteps and worked in entertainment, as an executive or writer or agent. Certainly at his age he would have a wife and children. Certainly, then, I would finally have grandchildren.
But as I sat in my car and stared at the sign, my visions of Charles Riley were altered. Or rather, the vision completely dissolved, for I could not conceive of what a grown man’s life would be like in a place like the one I had come to.
I got out of the car and entered the building through a large glass double door. At the front desk, an overweight woman greeted me heartily.
“I am here to see Charles Riley,” I said.
She smiled. “Really? Well, that’s a surprise. Charlie doesn’t get any visitors, other than the student volunteers from Pasadena City College. How do you happen to know him?”
I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice steady. “I’m a friend of the family, you might say.”
The woman, whose name tag read
Norma
, pushed a pen and paper toward me. It was a visitors’ sign-in sheet, and after a moment’s hesitation, I wrote down my real name and address.
“Are you a friend of his birth parents?” Norma asked. “They abandoned him, you know.”
I looked down at my hands, uncertain of what to say, but Norma didn’t notice my awkwardness.
She leaned toward me and said in a theatrical whisper, “They say his parents were movie stars, and that he was a love child. Do you know if it’s true? We’ve always wondered who his parents might be. I’ll bet his daddy was Antonio Moreno; he has the same good looks.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was my wife who knew the details.”
Norma called for someone to take me back to see him. My escort, a young nurse named Miss Greer, was efficient and businesslike. As we made our way down the hallway, she explained the purpose of Seven Acres.
“What’s happened historically is that retarded adults have no real place to go. So we give them a place to live, and structured activities. Some of them are quite self-sufficient; a few even have jobs, doing things like being checkers at grocery stores.”
We walked by a middle-aged woman in a wheelchair whose eyes showed no comprehension of her surroundings. “Hello. Hello. Hello,” she said.
“Well, hello!” said Miss Greer. “How are you, Annie?”
The woman just grinned, and said even louder, “Hello! Hello! Hello!”
“Tell me,” I said, “how did Charles come to be in a place like this?”
Miss Greer sighed. “Well, often, when parents discover that their children are retarded, they don’t want them anymore. They grow up in orphanages—special orphanages for children who will never be adopted—and then when they’re eighteen, they’re sent here. Charlie’s a special case. His records indicate that his mother—a woman named Margaret Riley, although she went by something else—did all sorts of crazy things to induce a miscarriage. Someone beat her and kicked her in the stomach repeatedly. She drank heavily or maybe took opiates. This child wasn’t wanted, regardless of his mental state. In fact, her behavior during the pregnancy might have contributed to his condition.”
I didn’t reply. I thought of the long months that Nora spent in hiding, having no contact with anyone but her mother. As far as I knew, Nora had never been especially fond of drink, had not been one for drugs—what exactly had Harriet driven her to, or forced her to endure? What, in my cowardly absence, had I missed? We walked out through the back of the building and onto the grounds. Miss Greer surveyed the lawn, where several residents were sitting.
“What is he like?” I asked. “How aware is he of the world around him?”
Miss Greer smiled warmly. “Oh, he’s lovely. Very kind and good-spirited. He’ll hug you for no reason, pick you a fiower at the drop of a hat. He’s not incoherent like some of our other residents. It’s more like he’s permanently frozen at ten. The other residents love him, and the employees do too. He’s really quite a charmer. You’ll see.”
We set off down the lawn, toward a figure in a chair who was facing the mountains, watching something move in the grass. “Charlie?” she said, when we got within earshot. “Charlie, there’s someone here to see you.”
He turned around and smiled broadly, and my heart froze in my chest. This was my own fiesh and blood. And if I had harbored any doubt about his parentage before, it vanished in that moment. The curly dark hair, the full cheeks, the bright smile were Nora’s. But the square nose and high forehead, the olive skin and oval eyes, were clearly mine. His face was both shocking and completely familiar. It was as if I had contained the knowledge of that face for all of these years, and had spent my life waiting to find it. “Miss Greer!” he said happily. “There are kittens!”
“Oh, Charlie, how delightful!” We stopped at his side, and he pointed out toward the bushes, where several small kittens were scurrying about and climbing on top of each other.
“Charlie, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Mr. Nakayama.” Then, turning to me, “This is Charles Riley. He loves cats and big difficult puzzles.”
“And baseball,” he said, still watching the kittens.
“And baseball!” she added. “Sorry, I forgot. He watches the games on television, and last year we even took a group of residents to a game at Dodger Stadium. I’m not much of a sports fan myself, but Charlie talked about it for months.”
“Can you take cats to baseball games?” he asked, looking up at her.
Miss Greer laughed. “Oh, Charlie. I don’t think so.”
“Miss Greer,” I said, “do you mind if I spend a few minutes with Charlie alone?”
She hesitated for a moment, and I could see that in fact she did mind. In the end, however, she shrugged and said, “Just call out if you need anything.” Then she left me alone with my son.
I pulled a chair up beside him. He appeared younger than his forty-two years, as if the worries of life that normally cause gray hair and wrinkles had passed him by completely. I did not know what to say to him, and he didn’t seem to notice my presence. He hummed softly, a happy tune that I recognized but could not quite name. Finally, I ventured, “Who’s your favorite player?”
“Gil Hodges,” he said. I knew too little about baseball to formulate another question, so I asked, “What else do you like, Charlie?”
“I like puzzles, and cats, and baseball,” he explained again patiently. “And Bugs Bunny, and tacos. And movies.”
I moved a little closer and studied his face. In it, I saw bits of myself, and my brother, and even, faintly, my father. As I looked, my whole life, its choices and errors, seemed to lay itself out plainly before me. “What kind of movies do you like?”
“Pirates. Musicals. Cowboys. ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!’” Then he sang, in a surprisingly beautiful voice, “Maria, I just met a girl named Maria!”
“You’re very talented, Charlie.”
“I know,” he said. “My parents were movie stars.”
I must have started to cry at this point, for now he looked at me with a worried expression. “Mister, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Charlie.”
“It’s okay to cry. Miss Greer always tells me it’s okay for boys to cry.”
“Yes, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, as if it were he who needed comfort.
We gazed off toward the kittens again; two of them were wrestling and yowling.
“Tell me, Charlie,” I asked when I’d regained my composure, “do you ever get lonely out here?”
He looked at me directly now, and I got my first real glimpse of his eyes. They were warm but not entirely occupied; he was like a rough sketch that had never been completed. All those years he had lived so close to me, just a car ride away. All this time I’d had a family and did not even know it. “Oh, no, sir,” he said, “I’m very happy. I have Miss Greer, and Dr. Stevens, and all of my friends. I’m always very busy, you know.”
I leaned closer to him, until we were almost knee to knee. “Do you ever wish you had a family?”
“I
have
a family. They all live here.”
“No, Charlie,” I said, and my intensity was scaring him, so I leaned away again. “Do you ever wish you had a mother and father?”
“I
have
a mother and father. They were movie stars.”
“Do you know who they were?”
He stared at me as if I were the one who was perhaps a little slow. “My mother and father,” he insisted, as if that clarified the issue. Then he turned toward the cats again and said to me sadly, “I never met them, you know. They were always so busy. They were always too busy for Charlie.”
May 5, 1966
O
n the occasion of Charlie’s forty-fourth birthday, the staff at Seven Acres threw him a party. They do this for all their residents—I have visited several times when someone else was having a birthday—but in Charlie’s case, the celebration was bigger. It was a measure of how well-liked he is that all the people who worked at the facility appeared to be present, even those who were supposed to be off that day. I had not assisted much with the planning—Miss Greer had taken care of that—but I did bring paper hats for everyone to wear, as well as a sheet cake baked by Mrs. Bradford.
She and I arrived early enough to help set up the tables and chairs. Gradually, starting at 2 o’clock, the residents began to gather. Some of them understood the purpose of the party, and smiled and clapped with glee. Others seemed unaware—they were unaware of everything—but still happy to be a part of something festive. Charlie came out at 2:15, and looked truly surprised by the people, the balloons, the pile of gifts on the table. “I’m forty-four! I’m forty-four!” he shouted, clapping his hands, and then he ran about hugging everyone.
Miss Greer had placed the candles in the cake, and it took Charlie three breaths to blow them out. Then he opened the presents—a T-shirt from Miss Greer from her recent trip to the Grand Canyon, a Dodgers cap from the receptionist, and a picture book of cats from one of the social workers. Mrs. Bradford had bought him a puzzle, a 500-piece picture of the California coastline that would keep him occupied for days. When he opened my gift—a camera—he laughed out loud, and then proceeded to take pictures of everyone present until the entire roll of film had been used. Anticipating his enthusiasm, I had brought an extra roll, and after I changed the film he pointed the camera at me.
“Put on the party hat! Put on the party hat!” he demanded. I declined at first, but after more goading from Charlie, who was joined by Miss Greer and the rest of the staff, I placed the cardboard cone hat on top of my head and slid the elastic band beneath my chin. Charlie jumped up and down, laughing—I gathered that I looked quite silly—and Mrs. Bradford reached up and straightened the hat. Then, smiling at me, she placed a hand on my shoulder and pulled a loose thread from my coat.
Almost a year and a half has passed since I first met Charlie, a period full of unexpected pleasures. After the first time I went to see him, I stayed away for several weeks, shaken by my knowledge of his condition as well as my shame that it had taken me so long to find him. But when I had time to grow accustomed to the idea of him— and time, as well, to recover from my experience with Josh Dreyfus—I wanted to see him again. I have had no real family for all of these years, and now I suddenly had a child, just a few miles away.
I went to see Charlie a second time, about a month after the first. And then I went again two weeks later, and a week after that, until I found myself visiting him regularly, two or three times a week, and arranging all my other activities around those visits. We settled into a comfortable routine—I would join him outside or in the common room, and we would work on a puzzle together or play a board game. He was uncertain of me during the first few visits—a discomfort only augmented, I suspect, by my own nervousness and sorrow—but gradually we grew more at ease with one another. I decided early on that it would be best not to reveal my connection to him, as this could only cause him pain and confusion. Better that he think of me as an interested friend. And he did. The first time his face lit up when I walked in to see him, I felt a joy deeper than I had ever thought possible.
I didn’t realize these visits were having an effect on my demeanor, but one morning, during our usual Saturday breakfast, Mrs. Bradford put her fork down and looked at me. “You’ve been so happy and preoccupied lately,” she said. “You’re always sneaking off to secret places, and you even walk like you’re twenty years younger. I catch you smiling when you don’t know anyone’s looking. What’s happening, Mr. Nakayama. Are you in love?”
I laughed. “No, Mrs. Bradford. But I cannot deny that my life has changed significantly.” I told her then, haltingly, that I had recently discovered the whereabouts of my long lost son. I did not explain the circumstances of his birth or the identity of his mother, nor did I outline how I had remained ignorant of his existence for so long. Mrs. Bradford listened to all of this with obvious interest, but she knew me well enough not to press for details. At the end of my story, I felt a rush of adrenaline, the result of having told someone of Charlie’s existence. “I go out to see him several times a week,” I said. Then: “Would you like to come with me sometime?”
In truth, I was as surprised by this invitation as Mrs. Bradford—yet once I issued it, I realized it was genuine. I wanted her to come to Seven Acres with me; I wanted to share my son. She agreed to accompany me, and I do not know whether this initial acquiescence was out of politeness or curiosity. I do know that when I took her to Seven Acres and introduced her to Charlie, I was as nervous and proud as any young father would be of a beautiful newborn child. I had not told her—I had not found a way to tell her—what kind of place he lived in. But perhaps she already knew what Seven Acres was, or perhaps she was simply exceedingly tactful, for when we parked on the grounds and she got her first glimpse of the residents, she did not seem particularly surprised. And when I introduced her to Charlie, who stood and hugged her as if he had known her for years, she smiled and said that she was very glad to meet him, and her words seemed completely sincere.
She now comes with me to Pasadena on a regular basis, in the new car I purchased—a Jaguar Mark II—after the police gave up looking for the Packard. Because we suddenly had something more to talk about, and an activity in common, we found that our Saturday breakfasts were not sufficient. We started having breakfast, and then dinner, two or three times a week, and then, almost without even noticing the transition, we were dining together every day. Since it was expensive to eat out so often, Mrs. Bradford began to have me to her house. Our conversations about Charlie led us to a more personal vein of discussion—she told me more, in those months, of the challenge of being a professional woman in the years she worked for the library; of her marriage to Mr. Bradford; of her complicated feelings of both pride and disappointment in their three adult children. I told her of my family and how I came to the U.S., and finally shared with her some of the details of my career. I never spoke about Nora or the Tyler murder, nor about the circumstances surrounding Charlie’s birth. It may be that she had figured it out, or at least discerned that he was not conceived in marriage. She never pushed me for details, never asked about his mother. But our talk inevitably returned to him, his disposition and interests and needs. One evening I expressed my lingering regret that he had not gotten to live a normal life.
“He’s happy, Jun,” Mrs. Bradford said. “No, he’s not going to accomplish great things in the world—but he’s cared for, he has friends, and he has no real troubles. And now he’s got you, whether he knows what you are to him or not. He goes to sleep every night completely at peace. How many people can say that? I mean, honestly, Jun. Is it really such a terrible life?”
I have found that, as in this particular instance, Mrs. Bradford possesses genuine wisdom. This past year has been a happy one, and—why not admit it?—part of my gladness has to do with her steadying company. When we take dinner together, when we drive through the Arroyo Seco toward Pasadena and see the San Gabriel Mountains covered with snow, I am sometimes filled with a sense of contentment that I would previously have found unimaginable. And when we sit in the garden with Charlie, working on a puzzle or watching the cats with the fresh smell of eucalyptus around us, I can’t imagine how my life could be improved.
One afternoon about two months ago, as Mrs. Bradford and I were driving through Hollywood, we saw a large billboard on the side of the Boulevard. It was an ad for a film called
Stranger in Paradise
, and it wasn’t until I saw the glowering image of my old acquaintance Steve Hayashi that I realized it was Bellinger’s movie. I was so undone I almost drove off the road, and when we came to a stop at the next traffic light, Mrs. Bradford touched my arm. “What is it?” she asked, and I told her what I’d seen. The movie had been made after all.
In the following weeks, I heard more about
Stranger in
Paradise
. The reviews were mixed, but thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign, the film did fairly well at the box office. Dreyfus had the hit he wanted, and while I did see one article that commented on the stereotypically evil figure of Takano, no one else seemed bothered by the characterization. I did not see the film, although I couldn’t help but read the articles, and then one day while I was going through the channels on television, I happened upon an interview with Nick Bellinger.
He looked totally different now than he had when I met him. His unruly hair was short and slicked back; his shabby clothes had been replaced by tailored slacks and a fresh, new button-down shirt. There remained a hint of awkwardness about him, but for the most part his manner was remarkably polished. The interviewer asked how he had conceived of the character of Takano, and Bellinger took a studied pause before answering. “Well, I’ve always been interested in the legacies of war,” he said. “It’s often such an intangible thing, and I wanted to see what would happen if an actual, tangible part of the war—a war criminal—was placed in the midst of this small American town.”
I shook my head. Bellinger had called me after my meeting with Dreyfus, trying to convince me to take the part. “I know it’s different from what we talked about,” he pleaded. “But this is our big chance. This is
your
big chance. Once this film is done, then you’ll have
other
opportunities, and the real power to affect what kinds of roles you play.”
“That is what they told me fifty years ago,” I said. I didn’t tell him the rest of what I knew—that once you gave up even a little of yourself, it wasn’t long before you gave up everything. But he’d learn that for himself soon enough.
It would be dishonest to claim that I did not have mixed feelings; that I didn’t experience certain pangs of envy. When I saw Steve Hayashi’s face on the billboard, and later, in the paper, I couldn’t help but imagine being in his place. I would have conducted interviews and appeared on television. I would have been recognized again on the street. An appearance in that film could have led to more parts, and I might—at long last—have resumed my career. Certainly I was always a stronger actor than Steve, and no matter how limited the role of Takano was, I could have brought to it a level of depth and complexity that was simply beyond his capabilities. On the other hand, I cannot imagine, now, doing a role that I found so distasteful, and there is a particular satisfaction in declining it. One of the luxuries of being obscure is that one no longer has a status to maintain. And perhaps I was not, despite what I believed, so eager to return to the screen. I did not wish to recreate the characters of my past, and I can’t say that I regret my decision. I had finally made a choice that Hanako would be proud of.
Several months before Mrs. Bradford and I saw the billboard, Bellinger’s article on the Silent Movie Theater appeared in the
L.A. Observer
. I read through the entire piece right there at the newspaper dispenser, resting the open pages on the top. To my surprise, I found that while Bellinger described the careers of Cecil DeMille, Harold Lloyd, Clara Bow, Gloria Swanson, and Mary Pickford, he made not one mention of me. He even wrote of some of the less well-known players, like Mae Marsh, Constance Bennett, and Lawrence Gray. But Nakayama wasn’t mentioned at all. I did not know whether this omission had been his choice, or whether a cut had been made at the behest of the editor. It occurred to me that Dreyfus might have had a hand in the matter, since he was very angry when I declined the part in his film. I cannot deny that I was disappointed by my absence from Bellinger’s history. But, along with so many other slights, major and minor, I absorbed it and simply moved on.
The article did have the intended effect of creating publicity for the theater, and, by all accounts from newspapers and from Mrs. Bradford—who once attended with her friend Mr. Weisman—the theater does very good business. One evening, about a month ago, they happened to show my picture
The Patron.
I know this not because I pay attention to their listings, but because I received a letter from a young film student at USC.
“I have heard of you before in my studies of early film,” wrote Heather Noguchi, “but I’d never seen one of your movies until last night. Your performance was brilliant, and I plan to find as many of your movies as I can. It makes me so proud that there was such an accomplished Japanese actor way back in the beginning of Hollywood. I know it could not have been easy. I can’t thank you enough for your work, which has reignited my love of film—imagine my happiness when I discovered that your address was listed! I don’t want to bother you, Mr. Nakayama. I just wanted to tell you how much I admire your work, and I look forward to seeing more of it.”
This letter was, I must admit, a great pleasure. While I used to get mail from fans on a regular basis, I don’t think I have ever received a letter that gave me more satisfaction than this one. I told Mrs. Bradford about it, and she seemed delighted as well.
“The funny thing is,” I said, “the owners didn’t know anything about me. How did they decide to run that picture?”
“I don’t know, Jun,” she replied, and then she smiled slyly, and I knew exactly where the picture had come from.
Despite my absence from Bellinger’s article, despite my misadventure with Dreyfus, I do not regret my encounters with those two young men, which occurred almost two years ago now. For something good has come out of it, something besides the obvious result of my learning about Charlie—the popularity of the O’Briens’ theater, and the fact that, after decades when they were totally ignored, people seem interested again in silent films. I do wish, of course, that my own contributions were recognized. But as a true lover of the medium in which I worked, it gives me an almost paternal delight to hear that day after day, night after night, people are lining up to see Gloria Swanson, and Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin, and John Gilbert, and Clara Bow, and Harold Lloyd, and Mary Pickford. For silent films were more than just a prelude to talkies. They were also an accomplishment in their own right. What our films lacked in sound they made up for with other things— photography, direction, editing, lighting, storytelling, and, finally, acting. The best of the silents were works of subtlety and beauty; of fresh, sometimes exhilarating art. There was a purity to silent films that can never be recaptured in this clamorous age of sound effects and talking. We who made them knew that the most vital parts of stories—as of life— can never be reduced to mere words. We understood that moving images are the catalysts of dreams—more eloquent when undisturbed by voices.