Is He or Isn’t He?

It’s funny, I remember when I first started going to Los Angeles, I felt I was somewhat deficient in the celebrity-spotting game. I mean, I never recognized anyone. I wasn’t sure whether I just wasn’t going to the right places (which seemed probable), whether celebrities out and about had ways of disguising themselves, or whether I just really didn’t have an eye for it. I finally had a little success in that area when I thought I spotted Martin Short at LAX after one of the flight attendants said he was on our plane. Another time, I thought I saw Justin Timberlake in the first-class cabin of the flight I was on (if it was Mr. Timberlake, I actually spoke to him in the boarding line without knowing who he was). Then, at last, a positive ID on Steve Martin, who was having dinner in a Montecito restaurant one evening when I was there with some classmates (though I’m not sure how long it would have taken me to spot him if someone else hadn’t pointed him out first).

Since then, there have been a number of instances when I thought I saw someone famous, but in almost every case there was something a little odd about it. You no doubt remember Inception, the film about labyrinths within labyrinths inside the multiple layers of reality of a consciousness experiment. This was a little bit like that, only more amusing. For example: there is a coffeehouse I sometimes went to in Santa Monica, a funky place with very little (let’s say no) gloss to it. I was in there one day some years ago and saw someone who looked so much like Frances McDormand that I was almost positive it was she, the only problem being, she was dressed like a bag lady. I looked on in wonder, a bit bemused by what I was seeing, not sure what to make of it. Was she in character for a role? Was that what’s considered “method acting”? Did she ever make that picture?

I didn’t know, but that’s not the only time something like that has happened. On that same trip, in the spring of 2011, I thought I saw Viggo Mortensen (you know, “Strider”) one night while I was waiting to cross a street near downtown Santa Monica. I was minding my own business when a large group of cyclists came cruising down the street, and in the middle of them, with blond hair shining like a beacon and eyes bright as stars, was a fellow who looked remarkably like Mr. Mortensen—not that I have ever met him—if he had bleached his hair blond and cut it short. The strange thing in that instance was that he did look at me as if he knew me, and as I remember even called out a greeting. Maybe he’s just a friendly person, if he was the genuine article, but the point is, there was something cinematic and a little bizarre about the whole experience.

Finding yourself on a sidewalk late on a balmy spring evening in L.A. and seeing an entire peloton suddenly appear, bearing along a smiling, fair-haired, mischievous-looking elven king in their midst, is the type of thing that you can almost count on happening in L.A., and that was one of the things I once enjoyed about it, in small doses. Life at home seemed to lack this cinematic quality. It was like a little movie playing out before your eyes, so quickly that if you blinked you’d definitely miss it, and even if you didn’t blink, you still wouldn’t be quite sure of what you had seen. It was magical realism at its best.

Now, last summer, the very first thing that happened when I got off the final freeway on my trip to L.A. was that I saw a crowd of people waiting to cross a street. I believe I was officially in Atwater Village when this happened, not Hollywood, but I heard a voice I thought I recognized. Looking over, I thought I saw John Cusack in the midst of a group of young people. I’ll admit I was sort of staring because it just seemed like peculiar timing to exit the freeway after driving cross-country and immediately fetch up against a celebrity. They’re not that thick on the ground. Mr. Cusack didn’t look in my direction, but one of the young people with him did turn his head and smile at me with what I would almost have described as a complicit smile. It gave me the feeling that my summer was going to be cinematic in that wonderful way I remember experiencing occasionally on past trips. Wrong. This past summer was anything but that. I felt I was lucky to get back to Kentucky in one piece, which only happened because I sized up the situation and faced the facts: I didn’t want to be broke in L.A. (By the way, the film I most associate with Mr. Cusack is The Grifters, if that means anything to you.)

But that was not to be the only cinematic experience I had. There was the day I was riding the Metro Red Line and sat down across from a fellow that I could have sworn was Robin Williams. Yes, I know he died. But here’s my dilemma: I am forced to make a choice between believing in two different versions of reality, both of which cannot be true at the same time. Either Mr. Williams is really dead and has an Asian doppelgänger who rides the L.A. Metro smiling mysteriously at nothing, or Mr. Williams is not dead and rides the L.A. Metro disguised as a highly amused Asian commuter. You’ll have to decide for yourself which is more likely, but since I was there, I have to tell you honestly that at that moment I was sure I was looking at Robin Williams.

But to what end, you may ask? That’s a good question. I will say, apropos of this experience, that I remarked to someone a couple of years ago that there seemed to be an awful lot of major celebrities dying right and left. There were so many of these deaths that I almost wondered if some of these folks might be working for the government. Both the FBI and the CIA have a presence in Hollywood, which would naturally include undercover agents. A few years ago, I was disturbed by a presentation at a professional conference that detailed the ways in which Hollywood partners with the CIA to market the agency’s work. Now, I’m not saying the CIA doesn’t do some good things, but what bothers me is not only the propaganda angle but the fact of secrecy and disguises. It’s the whole Inception phenomenon: what’s real here, and what isn’t? For that matter, spies could be working for another government, which would make it even worse. Just because someone looks and sounds like an American doesn’t mean he or she is one. It’s a picture show, right?

What if you were married to an undercover agent? Would you even know it? Could you go your entire life being married to someone who wasn’t really who they said they were at all? Is that right? Is it ethical? I’m sure the government could present a list of reasons for having to work this way that would sound reasonable. I’m also aware that the majority of their employees do not work undercover but live rather ordinary existences and have desk jobs. I personally couldn’t stand to work undercover, not that I have much talent for it. Honesty in relationships is too important to me for anything like that to have the remotest possible appeal, and if you think about it, I think you’ll see what I mean. How would you feel if you’d been married to a spy (and possibly not even an American spy), duped so that everything you thought was solid in your life was nothing but an illusion? How disorienting and confusing would that be? How cheated would you feel? Would you ever be able to trust anyone again?

I gather I am not the only one who looks askance at the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies over this type of thing, because not long ago I saw a list of Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies ranked according to the level of trust the American public had in them, and the CIA was at or near the bottom. Espionage is just too spooky for most people, and I include myself among them. I associate espionage with getting thrown off the back of a train or having to escape hotel rooms through a back window just in time to avoid an explosion—the kind of stuff you see in movies, but not the kind of movies that generally appeal to me.

I can’t imagine giving up my identity to take on an entirely new life. Whether that is the explanation for the dead celebrity phenomenon or not, I have no idea. I do know that the magical moments I’m speaking of no longer seem restricted to L.A.: the separation between life in California and life in Kentucky no longer seems to hold, as I’ve found myself doing double-takes here more than once. Was that Benedict Cumberbatch I saw? Was it Rosie O’Donnell? Was it Prince? Here in Lexington? As actors, they would certainly be naturals for taking on undercover assignments, or perhaps it would be the other way around—they are undercover agents first, so that’s why they’ve become entertainers. I am only using these instances as examples; I don’t know why the celebrity phenomenon seems to have descended on Lexington, only that I have had some strange encounters.

See how confusing it is? By the way, I make no claim to knowing whether any of these people are living or dead, employed by the government or not. If someone is reported as dead, I assume that they are. Otherwise, life just becomes too confusing. My recommendation to you is that if you think you see someone who really shouldn’t be there, be careful. Makeup, plastic surgery, disguises, and imagination can create some powerful illusions. Maybe Robin Williams really is working undercover, but you know what? If he is, I don’t want to know about it. Save that kind of thing for the big screen . . . Ordinary life, I have always found, is challenging enough, the caveat being, if I turn out to have some kind of history unknown to me (if it turns out that I really am related to British royalty, not a development that I would welcome, but if it happened)—you would not see me moving to Britain and assuming the throne. I’m an American, after all, a Democrat, a Southerner, and a writer, and I have my own life. I probably shouldn’t tell you in advance what I would do, but since we’re speaking of play-acting and all that goes with it, it would not involve listening to other people whispering in my ear all day long and taking their suggestions. It would more likely run to selling off a few castles to pay for my retirement, sending people to gaol, that type of thing. It would, in fact, probably make pretty good cinema.

Isn’t play-acting wonderful?

That's What You Get for Being You

What with baking gingerbread cookies, making the local arts scene, and doing what writers do, I've barely had time to wash clothes and go to the grocery store. Somehow, though, I still have time to think about things I'd like to write but haven't yet. I have so much material, between one thing and another, that I'm not sure how my head even holds it all. (People keep saying to me, "I bet you have a lot to write about." That's true, but how do they know?)

Take this thing about researching my family history . . . have I mentioned that? My mother had some questions about her origins that I think deserve to be answered. In between an Irish family tree I couldn't make heads or tails of and some memories that troubled my mother throughout her life, I think I'm more than justified. I don't mind an Unsolved Mystery on TV, but when it comes to my own life, I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes.

Of course, you know writers have a lot of imagination and a tendency to take even a tiny bit of material and run with it. Well, picture this: my mother was told (by her father) that her mother was not her mother, and she remembered being visited as a child by some wealthy people who singled her out for attention.

This suggests to me something like the following:

Child born out of wedlock in 1930s Ireland (or maybe England, and she was spirited to Ireland?). Wealthy, powerful father; poor, powerless mother (possibly a maid of some kind?). Maybe the father doesn't know about the pregnancy; maybe he insists on an abortion, but the mother refuses. She finds someone to take her baby in (a relative? a friend?). But somehow the father (or his people) find out about the baby.

Now, why would these people care? If the baby is raised in ignorance of her origins, no harm done -- right? But suppose there was a lot of money involved, and the father died without another heir. Or suppose the baby was his first-born, or the other heirs died, or joined nunneries, or were castaways on desert islands. (Note to self: investigate the laws of inheritance in Ireland and/or England.) Suppose -- suppose there was even a title involved. Now that's something people could really get worked up over.

So, the whole game becomes one of watching and making sure this baby never finds out the truth. But she's already wondering, because the people stupidly came and showed their hand. ("She doesn't look like the rest of them.") She'll never remember; she's a child! But she does; she does remember! Eventually, she marries an American serviceman and moves to America, where she has children and tries to forget the past. But it won't forget her, because, because -- (why not go for broke?) she's the daughter of a king! She's an actual princess (or a duchess, or something), starching shirts and changing diapers, in 1950s America.

Now, this won't do. She's already the heiress to a title, and now her line is flourishing. All those healthy babies. So attempts are made . . . that time with the gas jets, very, very strange. The car accident. The broken leg. All that interference with her marriage. Her life falls apart. A lot of trouble for this lady, but she keeps on ticking, and all of her children survive to adulthood.

It's years later, the lady is now elderly, and her children are scattered. She is feisty and difficult. While her daughter is away, she is hospitalized. The hospital uses the wrong telephone number to notify the daughter (Note: a similar plot device was used by Thomas Hardy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, in which an all-important note, slipped under a door, goes under the rug by mistake). The children find out in time to rush to the hospital, but the lady dies, having barely regained consciousness.

Life goes on. But unbeknownst to the daughter, the forces that tried to bring her mother down are now marshaled against her and are even closer than she thinks. An unfortunate coincidence has placed an enemy in the very office she works in! (Gasp!) The siblings, engrossed in their own lives, are unaware of the danger that stalks their sister, and the sinister beings (disguised as ordinary folks) who have infiltrated her life will do anything for a buck. (I'm sorry to have to break it to you.)

Gradually, the daughter has to wonder: how long has this been going on? (How long has it been going on: plot point yet to be decided!) When the daughter calls in some surprising allies, things really get twisted: things half said, half unsaid; mysterious messages; people who look like other people (some of them dead); pretense; deceit, attempted murder. So the daughter decides to fight back with a little help from her friends and a little acting of her own.

Literally, a cast of thousands (by conservative estimate). Feigned madness, cross-country chases, mind games, stolen keys, identity theft, money changing hands, double agents, skinny dipping at 2 a.m., musical interludes, midnight rambles, Hollywood, the FBI, the CIA, foreign agents, garrulous cab drivers, incompetent bankers, jealousy, poison, trains, planes, automobiles, stolen guitars, politics, biological warfare, "accidents," veiled threats, unshakable loyalty, shakable loyalty, Democrats, Republicans, kings and queens, a MacBook, a possible love story (or several), some really bad disguises, traps, strange tapping noises, and a whole lot of people muttering "WTF!?" Somewhere in the book, someone has to shout, "Why are these Brits always in our face? We fought a war 200 years ago, and we're still not shed of them! I mean, I like scones as much as the next person, but still!" (That dialogue is non-negotiable.)

Sounds like a best-seller, doesn't it? I never thought espionage was my line, but life throws up some surprising material, and some of it may even be true.

Evildoers: All I can say is, never, ever put material like this in the hands of a writer. (And one who happens to be a librarian? Are you mad? They can look stuff up!) You've been warned -- and if it's already too late for you, well, that's what you get for being you. Maybe Jack Nicholson will play you in the movie, or Glenn Close, but as for my money, you ain't gettin' none of it. I've got student loans to pay.