where was Jane?
one of the first actors to play Tarzan was living at the
Motion Picture Home.
he’d been there for years waiting to die.
he spent much of his time
running in and out of the wards
into the cafeteria and out into the yard where he’d yell,
ME TARZAN!”
he never spoke to anyone or said anything else, it was always just
ME TARZAN!”
everybody liked him: the old actors, the retired directors,
the ancient script writers, the aged cameramen, the prop men, stunt men, the old
actresses, all of whom were also there
waiting to die; they enjoyed his verve,
his antics, he was harmless and he took them back to the time when they
were still in the business.
then the doctors in authority decided that Tarzan was possibly dangerous
and one day he was shipped off to a mental institution.
he vanished as suddenly as if he’d been eaten by a
lion.
and the other patients were outraged, they instituted legal proceedings
to have him returned at once but
took some months.
when Tarzan returned he was changed.
he would not leave his room.
he just sat by the window as if he had
forgotten
his old role
and the other patients missed
his antics, his verve, and
they too felt somehow defeated and
diminished.
they complained about the change in Tarzan
doped and drugged in his room
and they knew he would soon die like that
and then he did
and then he was back in that other jungle
to where we will all someday retire)
unleashing the joyful primal call they could no longer
hear.
there were some small notices in the
newspapers
and the paint continued to chip from the hospital
walls,
many plants died, there was an unfortunate
suicide,
growing lack of trust and
hope, and
pervasive sadness:
wasn’t so much Tarzan’s death the others mourned,
was the cold, willful attitude of the
young and powerful doctors
despite the wishes of the
helpless old.
and finally they knew the truth
while sitting in their rooms
that it wasn’t only the attitude of the doctors
they had to fear,
and that as silly as all those Tarzan films had been,
and as much as they would miss their own lost
Tarzan,
that all that was much kinder than the final vigil
they would now have to sit and patiently endure
alone.
Other works by Charles Bukowski...
