Orson's Onion

     The great burly man fixed his big brown larkish eyes on me and with an incredulous smile answered my opening question.

     "Why, I was born a Tarus," he said, his deeply toned voice idling as thick as pulp from a jug of fermented loganberry wine. "But that sort of thing is horsefeathers to me and should be for any rational human being. To be blunt, pseudoscience is for the birds."

     "Can you elaborate?" I asked, clearning my throat yet again. I was sitting with one of the most renowned actor-directors of all time, and my nerves were showing.

     The jolly look in his eyes turned stony; his crow's feet crinkled ominously and the monstrous brow of his hulking forehead furrowed viciously and unyieldingly, like a lion's before the kill. "Why on God's green earth would I want to elaborate on something so...so...moronic?" he sputtered. "Why, the ludicrousness of mankind's superstitions is a thorn in the side of every living creature on earth. Believe me when I say this: there is nothing worse than a false belief."

     He glared at me with an irreproachable look stamped fastidiously on his wise, winkled face. I thought of Peter Sellers playing the role of Chance in Being There, and gingerly mustered, "I understand."

     It worked. The old legend let out a blustering sigh and slumped languorly in the velvet dining room chair he had occupied since lunchtime. It was 3:15 in the afternoon and his favorite restaurant was now empty, save for a small staff finishing the cleanup and making the place ready for dinner service.

     "Hey, garcon, I want to order something!" Orson suddenly yelled.

     The waiter walking past us veered instantly toward his voice, and scurried quickly up to our table.

     "Yes sir, Mr. Wells, what would you like?" The tuxedo clad lad pleasantly asked.

     "Two bouillabaisse, a Salmon en papillote, and a Quiche Lorraine."

     "Right sir. Will that be all?"    

     "Yeah, and tell Puck to put a little extra effort into it for my special guest here. Oh, and another Negroni please, plus a bottle of Masson red, two glasses."

     "Excellent Mr. Wells, we'll be right back with that," promised the handsome server.

     When we were once more alone, Orson sighed again. This time the iconic sound carried within it feelings of irony, things opposite and in between; victory and defeat, happiness and sadness, hope and doom. Then a wide grin commandeered his strong chin, and he looked directly at me.

     "I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I like you, so I guess that's why. I eat too much. The doctors say I shouldn't but I do anyway. I'm not sure if it's because I'm too happy or too sad, I only know I enjoy it. Hitchcock's the same way, but Alfred's lazy, I'm not."

     The drinks arrived, and Orson grabbed the Negroni right off the serving tray and gulped it down.

     "I drink too much too," he proudly admitted, a little forlornly. "But who gives a damn. I'm rich and famous and can do whatever I want.  Garcon, open the wine!"

     The Great One ate lunch for the second time that day. A glutton for grub, he speedily relished every rapacious bite, swigging his signature wine with gusto between each rapid-fire series of pulverizing chomps.

     "I'll tell you one thing," he finally said, a look of satiated torpindess on his weary, wrinkled face. "If not for food and drink, man's existence would almost be a complete waste of time. Of course, it's a double-edged sword. My doctors say I suffer from both diabetes and phlebitis, not to mention heart disease. Truth be told, as Byron once wrote, I am not long for this world."

     "A drop of ink may make a million think," I winked.

     The actor took the bait, springing back to life in dramtic, coming-of-Christ fashion. He raised his beefy hands upwards and outwards towards the vaulted ceiling, and in a perfectly-pitched and masterfully modulated voice he majestically orated, "Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray."

     "The Lord has spoken," I praised. "Let there be light!" Orson lowered his burly arms and looked straight at me, almost through me, letting out a bemused but weary chortle. We sat silently in our seats for a few moments, taking it all in.

     "What are your thoughts on this one?" I finally asked. "Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves."

     "That's certainly food for thought," said Orson, yawning and patting his rotund spare tire with those meaty hooks of his. "To be sure, I've given that one a lot of thought. Byron understood the intellectual shortcomings of us mere mortals but knew that even a naked ape can choose its blind spots. In the end, though, I believe mortality makes us all bigots and fools and slaves at some point in our lives."

     "Well said, maestro," I countered.

     "No need to be condescending, my dear boy," he said, his voice ringing with a twinge of intolerance. "Genuflection is for idiots. Now, let us return to my humble abode, where after a short late-afternoon nap you may pick my brain to your heart's content."

     I followed Orson to the Ma Maison bar. The fresh-faced tender raced up to him, and Mr. Wells said, "give me the house phone."

     "Yes sir!" Saluted the mixologist. "God I love your work Mr. Wells, it's just so captivating, so riveting."

     "Yeah, sure kid, thanks a ton, but I really need that phone." Orson pointed to the old dial up sitting on a shelf next to the labeled bourbons.

     "Oh, right, sorry sir," offered the newbie, stepping away to retrieve it. "And here you are sir," he added, when almost immediately he'd returned.

     "Thanks, kid." Orson muttered, while dialing a local number."

Someone answered.

      "Hey Jack, it's Orson. Get Dennis and the boys together, shindig at my Hollywood home tonight."

     "Well hello to you too, Orson, ya goddamned genius." Mr. Nicholson replied. "Well sure, I'd love ta get shit faced in the hills with ya this evening, sounds really fuckin' interestin'. I'll be there a little bit later though, still on the castin' couch with this cute as hell intern from over at Fox. And let me just add she's got the body of a fuckin' playmate, is what I'm sayin', a Kodachrome pinup, I tell ya. Oh, and thank you so very, very much for the big fuckin' warnin', ya goddamned brilliant son-of-a-bitch."

     Orsen Welles had connections. And once again he was looming larger than life, leaning against the oak-and-brass bar at Ma Maison in a wide-brimmed black hat and dark cape, chatting amiably with the one and only Randle P. McMurphy.

     Then he stopped, mid-sentence, and looked over his shoulder at me, peering peculiarly into my green blue eyes. "I believe I'm being observed by some sort of eidolon." he confessed.

     He turned back to the phone, continuing his conversation in a hushed, someone-is-listening tone of voice, but his cover-up was all for naught. I could still hear every word he was saying.

     "He's like some sort of dopey fan," Orson continued. "He seems to know everything about me yet I know almost nothing about him. I wish he'd go away, but I have a sneaky feeling he's not going away until I give him what he wants."

     "What does the dodo want?" Jack asked, his voice now peaked with interest. He knew about the fans. The wachy, wondful folks who made his life possible.

     "He wants answers to some questions that I alone can give him," Orson lamented. His felt confused yet galvanized at the same time. "I'm not quite sure, but I believe it's something to do with posterity for irony's sake. He wants to know about the last hours of my life, what I was doing and thinking before the heart attack hit me."

     "Well, I ain't sure whatchya got there, Or, but I'm damn sure I want no part of it." Jack replied, in his usual over-the-top kind of way. "That there sounds like a situation I'd rather stay out of. I'm sure you can understand, old buddy. It sounds to me like you've got a date with your own destiny."

     Orson hung up the phone and turned back to me. "Lead on, phantom," he wailed. "I'm not sure if you are friend or foe, but I have a sneaky feeling I'm soon to find out. He shrugged his hulky shoulders. "What about the bill?"

     "Nevermind the tab, Mr. Welles." I assured him. "Such trifles mean nothing in the land of the living dead."

     With one wave of my own dead hand we were transported back to his 1920s-era Colonial Revival home in Hollywood, where we sat comfortably on a timeworn Chesterfield sofa in his livingroom.

     "Let's begin with your final hours," I started. "They found your portable typewriter still balanced on your stomach. What are your thoughts on that?"

     "Well, I always like typing laying down," Orson dutifully replied. "Christ, you're like a Hollywood reporter on tropane alkaloids!" he cried. "I have no idea why I'm being civil enough to tell you this, but I must admit it feels stupendous to be hobnobbing among the living again, even with a snoopy spector the likes of you."