There's Something I Want You to Do

The doctor thought for a moment. “ ‘Mother…’ ” he recited. “ ‘Mother…what is the phrase?…Mother isn’t quite herself today.’ ” The director nodded. After a moment, Dr. Jones thought of another line. “ ‘And you know what else, Doctor? I don’t think Mozart is going to help at all.’ ” This time the old man’s face took on a downcast expression. The line seemed to cause him pain. “ ‘That plane’s dustin’ crops where there ain’t no crops,’ ” the doctor recited more happily, getting into the spirit of things.

“Stop,” the old man commanded. “Cinema is not the writer’s medium but the director’s. All the same, none of those lines is my favorite.” He sat waiting for the doctor to ask him the inevitable question, and when the doctor did so, the director answered, “ ‘Do you know the world’s a foul sty?’ ” After a pause, he said, “That was my favorite line. I wrote it. It’s not Thornton Wilder’s line; it’s mine. Joe Cotten read it very well. Even the moronic masses got the point that time around.”

“That’s not a very nice line,” the doctor said.

The old man shrugged in response. “Fuck nice. Do you know,” he said, “that even now as we speak, your friend Benny Takemitsu is being mugged elsewhere, nearby, down by the Federal Reserve Building? The perpetrator of this crime is a young idealistic gay man who needs the money for painkilling drugs. He has assaulted this Takemitsu with a baseball bat. In the montage, the baseball bat hits the back of the knee, and we cut to Takemitsu’s face, astonished with pain. Then in a medium shot, Takemitsu falls. Then we see in an insert the assailant’s hand reaching for the victim’s wallet. Your friend will be all right, however.”

“How do you know?”

“The dead know everything,” the director said. “But such knowledge does us no good: we cannot move from our fixed positions. Approaching death and then following it, the camera cannot move. The camera must…never move. For example, you were about to ask me if I would like to walk with you back to your car, for your trip homeward. I cannot. I must stay here on this bench of desolation until my penitence and contrition are complete. I must apologize to the Girl, the one at whom I threw all those birds. I made her a star. There are others to whom I must apologize once they reach this realm. According to the rules written in blood and ink, the rules that reach to the ceiling, I must feel the apologies inwardly. That is the hard part, the inward contrition. With respect to inward contrition, the Jesuits are no help.”

“Why here? Why in Minneapolis?”

“The Girl was born here,” the old man said, “and one’s spirit always naturally returns to the place where one was born. For years I sat by the Thames in London. Now I’m here. I’m not always alone. Benny Herrmann sometimes comes down here to keep me company. We are reconciled, he and I. He wrote music for me. Did you know that he once lived in Minneapolis at the Nicollet Hotel, a few blocks away from here? He composed his opera, Wuthering Heights, a pastiche of Delius, in this city. I never liked it. Don’t tell him. However, most nights I have no company. So I make pictures in my head, as I used to do. And, now, you must leave me, Doctor. You cannot stay.”

“Mr. Hitchcock,” he asked, “will my patient die? The little one?”

“No, not this time,” the director informed him. “There will be a miraculous recovery. In fact, it has already occurred. Her heart has somehow repaired itself, no one knows how, though perhaps your initial diagnosis of damage to the valves was mistaken. Why should anyone question such a recovery, such a miracle? No one ever does. They will not. Music up. We dissolve to happy, smiling faces. Joy abounds. The end, and the final credits,” he said sourly. “Not like many of my pictures, but there you are. So for once, my dear doctor, you will have a happy ending. The scene in the hospital will be directed not by me but by Frank Capra. This case will bring you great renown. You will be cheered. A box-office smash hit, one might say if one were inclined to use such phrases. Henceforth you will be known as a healer with uncanny resources, like a shaman. Well, I must bid you a good night.”

At that moment, the director himself dissolved, leaving behind the odor of cigar smoke and burnt coal. What was brimstone, actually? Just another name for sulfur, with a smell to wake you up, to make your eyes open in astonishment.

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