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What Are Kings...
February 16, 2004: Marlon is an old man. I both laugh and weep as I write the sentence. Marlon old? Marlon Brando old? It can’t be true. It is, though; he’s eighty. But it isn’t the number of years that’s significant, Marlon could still be youthful. It’s how the years have treated him and how he has treated them. And he isn’t old to me, we still fire the jokes and puns back and forth, still kid and prod each other, still rail at what’s loathsome on television, still read our favorite poems aloud. ‘The Ballad of William Sycamore’by Stephen Vincent Benét is a perennial.
But age is here. Today, when I walk down the hall to Marlon’s bedroom, on the polished teak that has supported my shoes through so many crossings, I hear it, faintly at first, then more certainly as I near the entrance—the hiss of the oxygen tank.
When I cross into the bedroom–sitting area, it’s quiet, there is an unaccustomed stillness, I am in the whereabouts of an old man. The appurtenances of illness—bottles of pills, boxes of medications, syringes, lotions and lubricants—fill the surface of the bedside table and tell a story of infirmity. And in his bed Marlon’s mien is that of a man who is not well.
It is midday, I have driven from Palm Springs. Marlon and I will have lunch, talk for a while, then I’ll put my things in the guesthouse down below the swimming pool while he rests. At some point I will discuss with him the project he began three years ago that he first calledMaster Classthen laterLying for a Living.Marlon meant it to be a top-secret,clandestine endeavor, but, of course, news of it soon landed in the press. He brought a group of actors together, some completely unknown, others established stars—Nick Nolte, R
