Max peeks out the door and shows the barrel-end of his Remington twelve-gauge.
"I'll bet I can get rid of your company for you."
I see Granwell go a little pale. This is more than he bargained for. He was
probably looking for an easy piece of back-page fluff, not a tour of the inner
city in sub-zero weather, complete with gangsters and sawed-off shotguns.
"That's all right, Maxy, he's okay. You got any overstock tonight?" I peel off
another twenty and, as usual, Max won't take it. He hands me a bottle of
Canadian Club--not my favorite, but well worth the price--and Granwell and I
make our way down Chestnut, through the windy spray of sleet and snow, to the
trucking warehouse where I rent my living space.
I push through the heavy doors, click on the overhead light bulb, and invite him
in. What the hell. I'm always hoping that one of these guys, one of these days,
will print the truth. The Truth. Your king lives in a warehouse surrounded by
banana crates, and sleeps on two king-size mattresses thrown on top of a
concrete floor. Your king is a bus-driver who gambles and drinks away his
paycheck. Your king never wanted his goddamned crown, and if he regrets one
thing in his life, it's that he took the role that made him king, that he died
on-screen for the love of a flat-chested wig-wearing blonde, and that the world
can't forget about it.
And neither can he.
Suddenly, the Canadian Club doesn't appeal to me. I need a beer. I open my
fridge, crack open a Bud, and offer one to Granwell. Much to my surprise, he
accepts.
"You know," he says, "minor has it that your movie saved RKO. They were ready to
file for bankruptcy when -- "
"Yeah, it's true. But let's get one thing straight. It's not my movie."
"Without you, there is no movie." He sits on a banana crate and sips his Bud.
"In 1975, the American Film Institute honored it as one of the favorite American
films of all time. There was even a reception at the White House."
"You got guts, Parker Granwell," I say, guzzling my beer and crushing the can.
"You want honesty? I like being a bus driver. I like to gamble and I like to
drink. I like my friends and my life. Why not let it go at that?"
"I don't get it. Why did you leave the island if you didn't want to be king?" I
can't help but laugh at that one. How could I have known back in 1933 what I was
getting myself into? I was just a big kid. So I tell him the truth, just like I
tell all the others: "I hated that damned island. The heat, the gigantic
insects, the carnivorous spiders, snakes a mile long, vultures the size of
airplanes, the tyrannosaurus always hunting me. I had to fight the pterodactyls
and pteranodons for every scrap of food. I was allergic to more plant-life on
that goddamned island than you can find on this whole fucking continent. And the
