I Was Howard Hughes Read online

  AR: So what happened when you found them in Nevada?

  TL: Well, I actually got to talk to Hughes.

  AR: Really? There’s nothing about that in your notes.

  TL: Yes, I asked after him with the couple on the farm, then found him sitting with Dove under some trees. She got upset, called me all manner of names. Then she stood up and looked down at Hughes and said, “I knew this wouldn’t work,” and walked off and left us there.

  AR: Mr. Lourdes, I don’t mean any offense, but are you absolutely certain this happened? It just seems odd you didn’t write about it.

  TL: No, I understand, my holding back does seem strange. I didn’t— (He starts clearing his throat and then coughing. He removes a tissue from the pocket of his robe and coughs a gob of clear phlegm into it, then shakily closes the tissue in his fist and puts it back in his pocket.)

  AR: Are you okay? Could I get you some water?

  TL: No, I’m fine now, thank you. Now, as I was saying, I didn’t write about actually meeting Hughes because he asked me not to. He said he was trying to work things out with his girl and didn’t need any more publicity than necessary.

  AR: I see. What else did you talk about?

  TL: Well, we made small talk awhile … Oh, he wanted to know if I’d ever done a story on Greta Garbo. He kept going on about her.

  AR: (Smiling.) A little poolroom talk?

  TL: No, nothing like that. He just found her interesting.

  AR: He had just convinced you to keep quiet so he could work things out with Billie Dove, so did it bother you that he asked you about another woman?

  TL: (Shaking his head.) Not really. We were both young men.

  AR: What about Hughes’s wife at the time? Do you know anything about the shabby way he treated her or his frequenting of houses of ill-repute?

  TL: (Coolly.) Young man, if you want lurid details, you don’t need me.

  AR: (After an awkward pause.) You know, I agree with you, the lurid details aren’t the real story on Hughes. He’s really one of our century’s great figures.

  TL: (He gives a feeble, dismissive wave.) Mr. Reece, Howard Hughes was just a simple, kindhearted man who had a very keen mind for science, and who through the accident of birth had great wealth.

  (Before I can respond Susan enters the room carrying a tray with Tom Lourdes’s medication. He tips a pill out of a shallow paper cup and into his mouth, drinks Sprite through a fiexible straw, with difficulty swallows, and then sets the soda can back on the tray. Susan asks if on my way out I can autograph the copy of Melville and the Whale held by the nursing home’s small library, and I say I’d be happy to. She thanks me, heads for the door, and, with a final glance and smile over her shoulder, leaves.)

  AR: How old is she?

  TL: (Puzzled.) Why do you ask?

  AR: I just wondered. She doesn’t look old enough to have a job like this.

  TL: I believe she’s twenty.

  AR: You know, when she showed me in, she said you were writing a book about Hughes, too. How’s that coming along?

  TL: Fine, thank you.

  AR: (I smile.) I guess we’re in competition then, aren’t we?

  TL: (He shrugs his shoulders.) I don’t mind a little competition.

  AR: Good, me neither.

  TL: We’re both writing a book on Hughes. But you know, young man, there must be at least a hundred books on Hughes.

  AR: Yes, you’re right, there’s lots of books about Hughes, but in my opinion they’ve all been written by second-rate journalists. They were out of their league. In over their heads. I ran into the same thing when I researched my book on Melville, only with him it was mostly the academics who had butchered things up. (He’s no longer facing me, but instead is looking out the window next to the table and watching the rain.) Mr. Lourdes?

  TL: (Trembling, barely audible.) I’ve known some who could.

  AR: What’d you mean?

  TL: Reporters who could write.

  AR: Oh, yes, of course. (Realizing.) You know, I’ve read a number of your old stories, and, I … well, the one in Look about Leave It to Beaver, I really liked that.

  TL: My notes …

  AR: Yes? What about them?

  TL: You’re using them?

  AR: Yes, quite a bit.

  TL: How?

  AR: I’ve pieced together all the details and fragments into stories about Hughes. Those are all pretty much finished.

  (For a moment he continues to stare out the window, but then he starts shaking his head. He turns to me, his brow furrowed.)

  TL: You … you can’t do that. There’d be no accuracy. You don’t know what happened.

  AR: Well, that’s what I’m here to do today, fill in gaps. But I want to be up front with you. This book isn’t even going to remotely resemble the usual narrative biography. Those things are usually just the writer’s fantasy. They say more about his neuroses than they do their subject.

  TL: I disagree.

  AR: (I smile.) Well, reasonable people can have differences of opinion.

  TL: I want my notes back.

  AR: I don’t have my copies with me. Also, if you recall, you signed a release for them. (Ipause.) Say, what about this? Why don’t I send you copies of the stories I built from your notes? I can’t give you editorial control, but I promise I’ll listen to your input. Heck, I’d like your input. It’ll help. You’re the expert. (I wait for him to respond, but he just stares at me, his eyes full of confusion.) I just want to get the story right and I could sure use your help. What’d you say? (Finally he nods, though the movement is almost imperceptible because of his trembling.)

  TL: You have to use all of my interview. You can’t edit.

  AR: I’m sorry, Mr. Lourdes, but I’m not sure that’s practical. I’d say you’ve interviewed a lot more people than I have, so you know you have to edit.

  TL: I insist.

  AR: Well … (I sigh, then turn off the tape recorder.)

  Howard and Greta Garbo

  Greta Garbo letter to Howard Hughes, dated September 8, 1930

  Dearest Howard,

  Will you please reconsider and at least, think about moving? Valence is a wonderful little city and we could have a beautiful life there. I know you would love France.

  I would do almost anything to be with you, except be in another movie. Please don’t ask me to do that. That is the one and only request I will ever make of you, my big Howard. I know you can make a wonderful movie without me, though I will be jealous of the lucky actresses who get to spend all that time with you. I will check you each day when you come home to make sure I don’t smell the least little bit of perfume!!!

  I will see you next week.

  Greta

  Hughes diary entry, September 21, 1930

  Greta’s great, but she’s a clinger. I’m not sure what to do.

  Howard and Kate

  Howard Hughes had a very public romance with Katharine Hepburn in the 1930s. He wanted desperately to marry her and she spurned him, but the following diary entries date from the time before the couple split.

  Hughes diary entry, August 11, 1937

  Arrived Kate’s parents’ house tonight. The Sikorsky [Hughes’s seaplane— ed.] did okay on the flight in, though during the last thirty minutes it sounded like there might be a valve problem developing again.

  No one met me when I arrived except Kate. Her parents were at a dinner party at Ludlow’s [Ludlow Stevens, Hepburn’s ex-husband— ed.]. I knew they were still close with this man but if he is around much I don’t know how I will handle it.

  Kate seemed preoccupied and distant. We sat in a room that has big windows and is on the ocean side of the house. The windows were all wide open the way she likes them. I could feel the grit on the breeze from the salt air. It bothered me. Kate was reading a magazine and I was just sitting there watching her. I asked her what was wrong. She said nothing was wrong. I said she didn’t seem like herself. She asked what herself was. I said forget it. Sh
e apologized but offered no explanation. Then I asked her if Ludlow was going to be around much during my visit.

  Probably she said. You know he is still quite close with Mother and Father.

  I do not take it as a good sign that her parents weren’t here when I arrived, but were at the ex-husband’s. I suppose that is actually a terrible sign.

  Hughes diary entry, August 12, 1937

  Ludlow was at breakfast this morning when I came down, Kate and her parents too. When I walked in they were all laughing but stopped.

  Howard this is Ludlow Kate said. And my parents, such as they are.

  I gave Ludlow my hand and said hello. He said Howard and smiled in a smart ass way. He was much shorter than I had expected. I sat down next to Kate. Her mother had a smile that looked like she had a fly in her mouth at a White House dinner and did not want anyone to know it. Her father did not even pretend. He just nodded, then picked up The New York Times [italics mine].

  We are so happy you are here her mother said.

  Hughes diary entry, August 12, 1937

  I am back. Dinner was about the same as breakfast only it went on longer. I could not understand a thing anyone said because there was too much chatter and people were chewing so I could not read their lips. I am going to have to find a top-notch doctor to do something about this hearing ordeal.

  The only thing that really bothers me about the cold shoulder I am getting from these people is that it does not seem like Kate is taking up for me. If I had any family left for her to see, if my dear mother and father were still living, I would not let anyone give her ill treatment of any sort. I understand she is in an awkward position and that these people see things differently than I do. With them everything is droll.

  We played golf this afternoon. Ludlow had one of these new handheld home movie cameras and several times when I was standing over my drive or getting ready to putt I would look up to see that pumpkin ass pointing the camera at me. The first time it happened was on the tee at the second and I stood there staring into the camera astounded. I had never seen such a thing among golfers. I waited. Her father was smiling. Kate said Go on Howard. It is just Ludlow being Ludlow.

  Please stop I said. It is distracting.

  He did not stop.

  I said please stop I said.

  Then her father said the most words he had said to me to that point. He said Howard Ludlow is part of our family, has been for a long time and will be for a long time after you are gone. He takes pictures of us all the time. So go ahead and play. I think you are using the wrong club for this shot, by the way. Try a five.

  I was furious. I drove using the club I had, a seven, and the ball landed six feet from the pin. I finished in two.

  These are people who go on birthright and place of education, like Harvard or Princeton or some such place as that, instead of what a man can achieve with his own intelligence and determination. If you put Ludlow in a cockpit I do not think he would have enough nerve to piss his pants. He works in his father’s stock firm and will never do anything other than that except waddle around a golf course on his fat ass after me and Kate when we come to visit here, which I hope is not too often. Her father is a doctor and I will give him that. It takes some nerve to slice open a living gut.

  By the 18th I was tied with her father. We were both on the green in three, but I had a better lie. He putted first and ended up with a twenty footer for his second putt. Of course, Ludlow filmed none of this. He never filmed Mr. Hepburn but often filmed Kate and she played up to it. She skipped around like a damn elf. On his second putt her father got within four feet and then it was my turn. I stood over the ball, then looked up and saw Ludlow filming.

  I butchered the putt on purpose. I hit it long and there was a hill past the hole and I knew the ball would roll down it. I would three putt up this hill and he would win by one stroke. I hoped that would make him more friendly.

  When my ball rolled too fast by the hole and started down the hill Ludlow almost skipped to keep up with it, the camera pointed at the ball. I guess watching that film will be a comfort to him while I am watching his former wife change clothes the rest of my life.

  Good round I told Mr. Hepburn when we were finished.

  We both played well he said.

  Kate came up and stood by my side and put her arm around my waist and hugged me—from the look on her face I was pretty sure she knew I had let him win.

  I have decided not to eat with them anymore. I am just not putting myself through that.

  Hughes diary entry, August 14, 1937

  They played golf today but I did not go. Kate wanted me to play but I wanted her to stay with me. We argued and she left. I got the cook to pack a lunch, then went down to the dock to work on the Sikorsky. I got the valve problem straightened out and then took off.

  I spotted them on the 11th, a par three too short to land on. I came in low and tipped my wings, then circled until they were at the 14th, a par five with four hundred yards of fairway until a dogleg a hundred yards from the green. I started my approach as Ludlow teed up and then pancaked the airplane down, bouncing down the fairway until I stopped right at the dogleg. Another five yards and I would have crashed into the woods. Some bluebloods in a cart had to make a run for it to get out of the way. As soon as I stopped they headed back toward me. I cut the engines and opened the cockpit window. What in hell do you think you are doing? one of them said. I told him I had to make an emergency landing. There is nothing wrong with this airplane he said. Your engines were running just swell.

  Ludlow, Kate and her father were coming toward us in their cart. The landing had torn up the fairway. Chunks of turf made a trail all the way to the plane.

  Who in hell do you think you are? the man said. This is private property, a private club. I apologized and said I would pay to repair the fairway and would also pay his party’s green fees for the day.

  What’s your name? he said. He kept looking for his scoring pencil but could not find it. Do not think you are getting away with this he said. I told him his pencil was behind his ear and then told him I was Howard Hughes. All of them looked at me closely. You are not Howard Hughes the man said. Yes I am I said. Can you prove it? he said. I jerked my thumb back down the fairway. I just did I said.

  Kate pulled up. She was laughing. Her father and Ludlow looked angry. She came up below my window. Did you have a problem? she asked. Why did you land? My God, what a landing! My heart was in my throat!

  I have a picnic lunch for us I said. We can go over to that pond by the 8th tee.

  Howard! she said. For goodness sake.

  Mr. Hughes, get this goddamned plane off the golf course her father said.

  Do not think you have heard the end of this the man said. What you have done is serious. You endangered lives.

  I did not say anything. I smiled at Kate.

  There was not enough fairway for a takeoff so I taxied the plane as much out of the way as I could. Kate walked with me to the pond at the 8th and we ate. Later I arranged to have the Sikorsky partly disassembled and transported to a hangar for reassembly. This will cost only five thousand. I was expecting ten.

  Hughes diary entry, August 16, 1937

  Got caught alone in the dining room this afternoon with Kate’s father. I waited until I thought they had all cleared out from lunch and went down for a sandwich. Her father walked in carrying a glass of lemonade. He smiled and sat down.

  I see we have driven you to ham sandwiches and cold coffee he said. Next thing you will be eating in the kitchen with the cook.

  I have been feeling ill the last few days I said. Maybe a touch of food poisoning.

  You do not have food poisoning Howard. Remember, I am a doctor.

  Yes. Well, it has been something else I suppose.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He did not speak for a long time. I continued eating.

  I am dying he said.

  Excuse me?

  I am dying. He o
pened his eyes.

  You seem the picture of health I said but immediately wondered if it was something I could contract.

  I have inoperable liver cancer he said.

  I am very sorry I said.

  Yes I am too he said. Do you believe in an afterlife? I certainly hope for one I said.

  Yes I do too. If there is not one I am going to be one angry son of a bitch.

  Kate did not tell me about this I said.

  Kate does not know. No one knows. I am going to keep it from them as long as I can.

  I understand.

  Why I have told you I do not know. I think I sensed you are man enough to keep your mouth shut and I have been feeling the weight of this and wanted to tell someone. I wanted to talk to someone who would not panic.

  I will not speak about this to anyone. You have my word.

  Let me ask you something he said. If you don’t mind, I am just wondering. Are you a reader?

  Yes. I suppose I am.

  What do you read?

  Mostly aviation and technical manuals, things of that sort. Anything in the sciences.

  For the most part I have stuck with the sciences too he said. But my wife is a great reader of literature and over the years I have picked up a book of hers here and there. One especially became a favorite of mine, a book of Anglo Saxon poetry. Did you happen to read any of that in school?

  Not that I recall I said.

  One of the poems has always stayed with me he said. I can quote parts of it I have read it so many times. It was in the same manuscript as the Beowulf [italics mine] poem. Did you read Beowulf [italics mine] in school?

  No but I was supposed to I said.

  The poem I like is about Vikings landing in England in the tenth century at the village of Maldon. The Vikings demand gold but the leader of the village, an old man who can barely fight anymore, refuses and the two groups begin fighting. The old leader gets injured right away but does not die. Some of his men run away when they see the battle is hopeless, but some form a circle around the fallen old man, shoulder to shoulder, and even though they know they are dead men if they stay, they keep fighting. The old man says aim shall be the harder, heart the keener, manhood the more, as our might lessens.