Crane (39 page)

Around 8:00 in the morning, Linda took charge and called the local coroner, Dr. J. D. Fearon, and the mortuary, Roadhouse and Rose. I called John and Rose Candy. Soon John pulled up to the guesthouse in his truck as Chris Fryer arrived from New York. We had a meeting of the minds in the living room—Chris, Linda, John (wearing an Irish wake pin), and me. We talked for an hour about Kari. Dr. Fearon arrived. He did a double take when he saw John Candy sitting there, but quickly gathered himself and went about his examination of Kari’s body. He filled in the death certificate, the ultimate in unbiased existentialism. Cause of death: metastatic carcinoma of breast. By what means: natural.

I spent a final moment with Kari. I removed her diaper, straightened her
Seinfeld
T-shirt and cotton workout pants, kissed her one last time, and said good-bye to Kari’s physical self. Per her wish, she was to be cremated. Kari was placed in a body bag and loaded into the mortuary vehicle for the short trip to Highland Memory Gardens and Crematorium.

John faced me and said, “Go back to L.A.”

“I will briefly,” I said, “but I’m coming back.”

“No, no, no, no. Just go back. We’ve got it covered here,” John insisted.

“You think I’m gonna miss
Hostage for a Day
now after all this, and how much Kari put into it? Not a chance. I’m coming back. I can’t do anything else for Kari. Besides, I want to see if you’re any good as a director.”

That last remark made John smile.

The next day, Linda and I returned to Los Angeles with Kari’s ashes. Thank god, this was before 9/11, before the TSA. Nowadays, I can imagine the container being X-rayed and examined and Kari’s ashes flying all over the Air Canada terminal at Toronto’s Pearson International.

The following Sunday, October 10, I hosted a memorial for Kari at our house. Close to one hundred people attended—friends and family, neighbors, landscaping associates, artists, teachers, feminists. I laid out Kari’s office with her short stories, our
Hostage for a Day
script, her artwork, blueprints of landscaping jobs, and photographs covering her all too brief life. We had a bar and finger food, and everyone shared their favorite Kari stories. After most of the guests had left, Kari’s family and closest friends spread her ashes throughout the garden she had worked so hard to nurture into our own little Eden.

Kari’s youngest sister, Mindy, approached me. She was worried about
how dry it had been in Los Angeles. “Her ashes are gonna blow all over the place,” said Mindy. “She’s gonna be sitting out here on leaves and shrubs for weeks. She might end up in the street.”

The fact that Kari was eternally ensconced in her leafy creations was all I cared about. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be okay,” I said, trying to reassure Mindy.

Late that evening, Desly and Chris Fryer, my friend Janet Spiegel, and I were all who remained of the mourners. I told them about Kari’s sister’s comment. There were smiles and head shaking since Mindy’s concern ranked pretty low on our list of concerns, but just at that moment we heard the nearby rumbling. Then we saw the lightning. Suddenly the sky opened up and rain poured for twenty minutes. Then it slowed and stopped. Kari’s ashes were now completely at one with the backyard flora. As Angelenos will tell you, it almost never rains in October. I felt Kari had something to do with that oddity. It was her statement from beyond declaring that everything was okay and that no one, not Mindy, not any of us, should be worried. Kari had solved another problem. She had taken control, just as she had all her life.

39

The year slipped by, and during my first Christmas without Kari, I received a letter from prosecuting attorney Robert J. Shutts of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announcing that he was assigned the Crane case “due to the unforeseen illness of K. C. Scull.” The trial of John Henry Carpenter was scheduled for March 21, 1994. Happy New Year.

On the Frostbacks front, John relented to fulfill a long-standing commitment he had with Carolco Pictures. Once a fresh-faced darling of a company with hits like
Rambo
and
Terminator 2,
Carolco was now a bruised has-been bleeding too much money on mediocre projects. The company had tried to ignite a project with its
Rambo
star, Sylvester Stallone, and “Uncle Buck” John Candy, in a new John Hughes comedy called “Bartholomew vs. Neff,” but it never caught fire. As a result John still owed the company a film. A lame script called
Wagons East!
that had been making the rounds was sent to Michael Menchel at CAA. It was a different kind of role for John. He’d never done a western. The role would fulfill his Carolco obligation and, oh, by the way, put $3 million in his wallet, but it meant working with an unknown commodity, director Peter Markle, and a cast that included Richard Lewis and Ellen Greene. John wanted to keep working after the pleasant
Cool Runnings
and
Hostage for a Day
experiences, the unpleasant memory of a year sitting on the bench still fresh. Not to mention Frostbacks Production was hemorrhaging cash even as it was being downsized. John was also out $1 million on the money-losing but fun Toronto Argonauts adventure. He needed to work, and his favorite situation was being on the road earning money, away from the stresses of home life and the celebrity magnifying glass of Los Angeles. John and my dad shared the feeling that life on the road was simpler. You focused on the work, and when the work was finished you could play. So we were heading for Durango, Mexico, altitude seven
thousand feet, locale of numerous John Wayne westerns and a favorite film of mine,
Kid Blue
, with Dennis Hopper.

One of the more enjoyable aspects of working for John was taking Chuck (and sometimes my mom, too) on trips where they could explore a new city for a few days without my having to babysit them, and I could just get on with my job. We had had great times in Toronto, Chicago, and Calgary. It was a small repayment to Chuck for his fatherly wisdom and guidance through the years. Now we were off to Durango on a fact-finding mission that included securing a private home for John to use for twelve weeks, locking in suitable accommodations for the Chongos, and meeting and greeting the production personnel.

With no direct flights, Chuck and I flew through scenic Puerto Vallarta to get to dusty, reportedly scorpion-ridden Durango. We were picked up at the airport by a production vehicle and taken to an ancient motel where the Duke and company stayed decades ago. This Old West relic was production manager Ted Parvin’s number one recommendation in town. We went in to check out the digs proposed for John. Chuck was immediately taken back to his air force days by the distinct aroma of fresh lye in the bathroom. “Oh, my god, I don’t know what just happened here,” Chuck said, “but this place smells awful. John is definitely not going to stay in this dump.”

Parvin, who was always keeping an eye on the bottom line for his bosses at Carolco, feigned shock. This place might have been good enough for Mr. John Wayne a thousand years ago, but Señor Juan Dulce wouldn’t be spending even one night in this hellhole. Chuck and I hired a taxi. The decrepit beast listed to the driver’s side and had a blanket on the backseat to prevent the aggressive seat springs that had punctured the original upholstery from skewering the unlucky passenger’s backside. We arrived at the
Wagons East!
production office, which was guarded by two local “security agents” brandishing automatic weapons. I mentioned to Chuck that Carolco was taking this
Rambo
thing a bit too seriously, but then we spied a floor-to-ceiling safe containing, we later learned, millions of U.S. dollars in cash. Our scouting trip was fast becoming a Fellini Excursion.

We updated John periodically using the Frostbacks’ brick-shaped cell phone. Frankie Hernandez had taught John to be wary of all production managers. Their only concern was coming in under budget, saving the producers money, and thereby securing a position on their next movie.
We found the “best” hotel in town, the El Presidente, which featured clean rooms and beautiful local women lunching everyday in its restaurant. It was good enough for the Chongos, but John would want more privacy and more space, so Chuck and I looked at the house where Paul Newman stayed when he was filming
Fat Man and Little Boy
—about Robert Oppenheimer, Los Alamos, and the atomic bomb—but it was a two-story affair with narrow hallways, unsuitable for John because of his smoking habit and general physique. Climbing stairs at seven thousand feet probably wasn’t too good an idea, either. Chuck and I settled on a single-story circular home featuring a large living room and satellite bedrooms and baths. It was located in the “nice section” of Durango, next to a public park that featured only occasional gunfire at night. The house came with a swimming pool and a Volkswagen Bug that had two usable gears. The place fit John’s needs and was priced at the take-it-or-leave-it price of US$10,000 a month. We took it. It was obviously the best Durango had to offer. Assignment completed, Chuck and I flew home to Los Angeles.

Just after New Year’s Day, 1994, John and a truncated posse—Frank Hernandez, Silvio Scarano, former Argonaut lineman turned John’s personal trainer Kelvin Pruenster, and I traveled via private jet to Durango. I delighted in watching everyone’s eyes grow large as we were driven into the city.

Here we were, six years short of a new century: John, my friend and employer, was getting physically larger by the day, while his career was becoming more uncertain. Frostbacks was getting smaller, my job more tenuous, and all the while my personal life was a disaster. I was missing, aching for, Kari and all that she and our life together had been.

Filming proceeded slowly. Director Markle seemed intimidated by and unsure of how to use his big star. My days were broken up by visits to the torta truck and cell phone calls to the Frostbacks office. The weeks crawled like desert tortoises. Most evenings were spent at John’s casa, watching movie videos, drinking, and listening for the intermittent rounds of gunfire in the park. Some nights, at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, I would drive the dilapidated Beetle home past the park, through the residential streets that narrowed as I approached downtown Durango and the El Presidente. My senses were on full alert, but I was not really scared. These were the days before drug cartel assassinations and kidnappings took over so much of Mexico.

The shoot was a disaster; uncleared hurdles included an unfunny script, a total lack of chemistry between John, Richard Lewis, and Ellen Greene, and John missing home. What was really missing was John Hughes. John didn’t want to be in Mexico and was especially unhappy appearing in yet another piece of dreck. As miserable as he was, John was always thinking of others, and so he hired a local priest to come on set during Ash Wednesday to perform rites for the many Catholic crew members. Perhaps John had him perform a novena for a hit film.

While John most influenced me by teaching me about follow-through, my biggest impact on him was organization. John was a guy who would write down ideas for
SCTV
sketches on drink napkins at the bar, coming in the next day to the writers’ meeting fumbling through rum-soaked pieces of paper as he presented possible sketches. He was a volcano of ideas but a lava flow of disorganization. The essence of my work for him was always to look forward. We had to get from point A to B, and no one else thought about that process. Then what would happen when we get to point B? Where would we be, who would be there, where would we have to go next? Working out all those logistics was my responsibility. Everyone else at Frostbacks and in the Chongos kept their noses to the road trying to keep pace with their leader. I looked at the horizon. I kept it level. I opened John’s eyes a bit in terms of managing each day: what we had to accomplish, who was involved, and how and where it would get done. He was the talent, the brain trust, the guy on camera. He didn’t need to be concerned with minutiae involving location, time, and personnel. That was my job. John’s mantra was, “Don’t second-guess, just anticipate.”

I did second-guess him once and failed miserably. While he was shooting
Wagons East!
in Durango, he wanted to film a commercial promoting the upcoming season’s ticket sales for his Toronto Argonauts. The sixty-second spot called for a TelePrompTer, a scrolling video cue card from which John could read the prepared message. It was very difficult getting anything other than tequila and tortas down in Durango. I didn’t consult John about the prompter as he was busy filming, so I did the best I could under the circumstances. A playback monitor looking like something out of 1950s Tajikistan was delivered. The screen was set up, and John tried to work with it. The miserable quality of the picture made it next to impossible to read. Frustrated with the reality of twelve weeks in Durango and dealing with a television set that would have been thrown out the window
in the
SCTV
opening credits, John shot me a look that said, “What the fuck were you thinking?” Words were not necessary. I felt like an idiot thirteen-year-old again. John turned and walked back to the set. Instead of settling for an electronic device from Manuel’s TV and Volkswagen Repair, I should have called Los Angeles and secured a state-of-the-art monitor with an operator and told John that we’d have to wait a day to get exactly what he wanted. I went for speed and ease, not satisfaction, and it backfired. Never again, I vowed. From that day forward, I kept John informed of the trajectory of an item or a person needed for his next plan. I could have gotten a job with UPS. I bored him with details to the point that he acknowledged there was life outside of his insolated bubble.

“John, I spoke with half a dozen prompting systems companies in L.A. and the best one is called QTV,” I explained during a break in filming. “QTV’s best operator is named Lynette, and she will fly to Durango with the equipment.”

“Fine,” John said. He was running dialogue in his head.

“She has to fly commercial,” I continued.

“Fine.”