The Golden Globe

Would you hang around to tell the police a ridiculous story like that?

Elwood P. Dowd is my imaginary friend. I have known that, and known the difference between him, his gallery of characters, and real people almost from the moment I met him. Therefore, there were only two people on that fatal stage. Therefore, everything that happened from the moment Elwood called out to my father is a dream/drama made up by me. Therefore, I killed my father.

There is an irony here. To have done something as awful as that... to be a patricide. To have never sought to avoid responsibility for my actions. (Avoid the consequences? Hell, yes; I've been ru

My father did come at me with a blade that day. I think.

He did try to kill me. I'm fairly sure.

It was self-defense. I'd almost swear to it.

And I killed him. Of that, I am sure.

Recall the sequence, there at the end. My father is rushing across the stage, sword raised. Is he coming toward me? He must be, though I see him rushing toward Elwood. I see Elwood go for his gun, and I am ru

And it is a prop gun. One I could easily have taken from the prop department of my own studio. Concealed it somewhere in the wings. When I left the stage, shortly before returning to finally stand up to my father, in my fashion, that must have been when I picked up the gun.

(A word about props. Don't be fooled by the term. There are "pure" props, made entirely for show. They can be plaster, wood, whatever looks best. And there are "practical" props. A light switch that actually controls lights on the stage. A piano that can actually be played. Most often, it is easier to simply use the actual object and call it a prop. The sword my father carried came from the prop department, but would kill you just as dead as any other sword. And the gun I stole was all too practical. So was the bullet.)

Did I intend to kill him all along? Or did I simply hope to defend myself when I stole that gun, hid it, and then destroyed all memory of having done so?

I must assume that murder was my intention. I do recall, seeing him lying there, dead, that one thought kept circling through the chaos of my mind. It was something he himself was fond of telling me. He had said it a thousand times.

"Dodger," he would say. "Never bring a knife to a gunfight."

I listened, and remembered. He forgot.

It was such a pleasant little park. Which was a good thing, because I wasn't sure I could move. I had tried to get up several times, and my legs didn't seem to work.

It was a feeling that went far beyond exhaustion. I had come... well, to tell you the truth, I don't even know how many billion miles I came. I suppose a solar atlas would give me the answer, but to what point? I didn't want to go back. Otherwise, I'd have left a trail of bread crumbs. But Brementon to Pluto, Pluto to Oberon, Oberon to Jupiter to Sol to Luna, I had fetched up here, on this park bench. I had thought it was all intentional, all part of some plan I had, but it didn't feel like that now. I felt like a marble in a pachinko game, rattling randomly among the pins, coming to rest at the bottom, where no points are scored. And it had always been inevitable that the bottom was where I'd end up.

I don't mean "the bottom" in the sense of any suicidal feeling. Nor am I talking of the bottom an alcoholic hits, or the economic bottom of a failed businessman, contemplating his lost riches. I had money in my jeans. I was only a few steps away from what could be the crowning achievement of my acting career. I had prospects, as the world usually measures them.

I just couldn't seem to find a reason to stand up.

I am fortune's fool.

I knew he would be there somewhere. I looked around, examining the strollers, the bench sitters, those stretched out on the cool grass.

He was across the park, sitting with his back to me. It was the hat, of course. With Elwood it's usually the hat, which is always out of fashion. But it wasn't the "Elwood P. Dowd" hat today, though it was similar. When Elwood changes character, it's usually because he has something important to say.

I looked at his back until he seemed to feel it. He stood, turned, looked across the park at me for a while, then started toward me in the shambling gait all his characters share. His hands were thrust deep in the pockets of his baggy trousers.

He was Paul Biegler, the defense attorney from Anatomy of a Murder.

"I have often walked down this street before," he said.

"If that's my cue to burst into song, forget it," I said.

"I spend a lot of time here. Right here in this park."

He hitched at his pants, sat beside me on the bench. He took a crumpled bag of peanuts from his coat pocket, shelled one, and popped it into his mouth. Immediately two yellow-headed parrots and a cardinal swooped in from the surrounding trees, waiting for a handout. Elwood tossed them a peanut.

"Pigeons too prosaic for this park," he observed.

The problem of Elwood seems to me to boil down to a problem of pigeons. Or parrots, or any other animal. Toby doesn't see Elwood, but knows when he's around. Most likely he's just picking up my reactions, I've always told myself. But other animals seem to see him. Another cardinal flew in and sat on Elwood's shoulder.

So how do you explain that? Was I imagining the birds? Was I imagining the peanuts? I knew that if he offered me one, I'd be able to put it in my mouth and taste it, and swallow it. Did I bring a sack of peanuts with me? Were there real birds here, only not doing what I saw them doing?

Expressed in terms of nuts and birds, the problem seems trivial, even fu

But I've spent a lot of time with him. And while my worldview is not to be trusted and though I don't buy any nonsense about ghosts, spirit worlds, other dimensions, or leprechauns, there is one statement on existence I do accept, fully. There is more under Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Mr. Rationalist.

Let's leave it at that, and let the details be worked out at the psychiatric hearing.

"Didya have a nice trip?" Elwood asked.

"Except for the first few miles. After that, it was the lap of luxury. You should have visited."

He wrinkled his nose.

"Don't like flying much anymore."

"Don't like... Charles Lindbergh would be ashamed of you."

"I think ol' Charlie would have been bored. He was a big one for adventure, Charlie was. That's how I played him, anyway. Never played any astronauts, though. That was a bit after my time."