Hamlet and James Dean Died Young

Old Flame Rekindled

about 2200 words

Hamlet and James Dean Died Young

by James Foley

In Virginia, an hour's drive south of D.C., there's a huge white house—built in the 1890s out on a point on the Chesapeake. And this summer when I drove there for a Wednesday-evening literary-club meeting, a gale was churning the water in front and on both sides of the house. And somehow on that lightning-blasted and thunder-shaken night, this lit-up mansion seemed like some gleaming humanoid monster, summoned into existence by the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe.

Still, there were a half-dozen cars parked out front. And inside, in the living room with its immense stone fireplace, Ellen Wayne was discussing Hamlet, describing him as "the Elizabethan James Dean".

"Dean's career is how you define 'meteoric'" she was saying. "Listen to this. I copied this from an article online."

Now she was reading from some file she'd copied to her Android phone:

"Dean was living in New York City, performing on TV, when he was amazingly cast to play in East of Eden, directed by Elia Kazan. And Dean left for Los Angeles on April 8, 1954.

"East of Eden was followed by Rebel Without a Cause, then Giant. Within a year, Dean had become a superstar, dating beautiful women and racing cars. Then about 5:15 p.m on September 30th, 1955, he died in a highway crash."

Ellen looked up from the notes she'd been reading and whispered:

"Lived too fast. Died at twenty-four. Always will be beautiful."

#

Most of our group were seated—three or four of us standing. Then, as I stepped back nearer a window to glance out at the seething dark water—and you could see water from every window in this house—I collided with a girl who'd just entered the room.

What girl? Impossible! Julia Cortland?

Julia wild and unpredictable Cortland: latte skin, dark luxuriant hair, equatorial eyes as fine and fatal as ever. But at the moment she seemed paralyzed—exactly as I felt. Two years before, this girl had ruled the tangled emotions of my youth. I knew her all too well. But not well enough.

What now? Nothing. As the wind screamed outside and the booming thunder rumbled in our ears, neither of us spoke. We stared in dead silence, like dead motionless bodies—until finally I said, "Where? Where were you? Paris? Monaco?"

Her laugh was ironic. "Sure, Paris and Monaco. You know where I was, Josh: California."

"I was afraid to know."

"You can't remember two years back? I was at BWI. No, not the British West Indies: Baltimore-Washington International airport. Robert was already emotionally destroyed. He'd flown out to San Francisco to stay with his mother, and I was going to join him. But at the last moment I panicked, Josh. I called Algernon in Baltimore and had him call you. I had Algernon tell you that I was going to go and marry Robert to care for him, unless—unless you told me not to. Unless you told me to stay. And what did you do, Josh? You had Algernon tell me to go on."

"You'd left me.

"Josh, I'd been taking care of Robert."

#

While Julia was speaking, I could hear a voice in the group asking with some intensity. "How old was Hamlet anyway when he died? We simply don't know."

Then Julia's brother Arthur answered that we do know approximately. Arthur was a young Johns Hopkins professor. He and Julia were charter member of our group. And I said to Julia now, "When did you get back? Why didn't Arthur tell me you'd be here tonight?"