Celebrity Chekhov by Ben Greenman

menial position, and grown so used to filth and dirt, that he even spoke of his privileged origin with a certain skepticism, the way you’d speculate about a mythological beast.
    At the time I am describing, he was hanging about without a job, calling himself an independent contractor. His wife had disappeared months before with one of her coworkers from the restaurant.
    From the diner we went to the park and sat on a bench, waiting for the car to be ready. Gary Busey had followed us out of the diner; he stood a little way off and put his hand in front of his mouth in order to cough in it respectfully if need be. By now it was dark; there was a strong smell of evening dampness, and the moon was on the point of rising. There were only two clouds in the clear starry sky exactly over our heads: one big one and one smaller; alone in the sky they were racing after one another like mother and child.
    â€œWhat a glorious day!” said Michael Douglas.
    â€œIn the extreme,” Gary Busey said, and he coughed respectfully into his hand. “How was it, Michael Douglas, you thought to visit these parts?” he added in an ingratiating voice, evidently anxious to get up a conversation.
    Michael Douglas made no answer. Gary Busey heaved a deep sigh and said softly, not looking at us: “I suffer solely through a cause to which I must answer only to my Lord. No doubt about it, I am a hopeless and incompetent man; but believe me, I am hungry and worse off than a dog. Forgive me, Michael Douglas.”
    Michael Douglas was not listening, but sat musing with his head propped on his fists. The park bordered on a river, and in the distance we could see the river as it left land behind, the water meadows on the near side of it, and the crimson glare of a campfire about which black figures were moving. And beyond the fire, farther away, there were other lights, another park much like the one in which we sat. There was singing there. On the river, and here and there on the meadows, a mist was rising. High narrow coils of mist, thick and white as milk, were trailing over the river, hiding the reflection of the stars. Every minute they changed their form, and it seemed as though some were embracing, others were bowing, others lifting up their heads as though they were praying. Probably they reminded Michael Douglas of ghosts and of the dead, for he turned to face me and asked with a mournful smile:
    â€œTell me, my dear fellow, why is it that when we want to tell some terrible, mysterious, and fantastic story, we draw our material not from life but from the world of ghosts and of the shadows beyond the grave?”
    â€œWe are frightened of what we don’t understand.”
    â€œAnd do you understand life? Tell me: do you understand life better than the world beyond the grave?”
    Michael Douglas was sitting quite close to me, so that I felt his breath upon my cheek. In the evening twilight his face seemed paler than ever. His eyes were sad, truthful, and a little frightened, as though he were about to tell me something horrible. He looked into my eyes and went on:
    â€œOur life and the life beyond the grave are equally incomprehensible and horrible. If anyone is afraid of ghosts, he ought to be afraid, too, of me, and of those lights and of the sky. If you think about it, all of that is no less fantastic and beyond our grasp than apparitions from the other world. Hamlet did not kill himself because he was afraid of the visions that might haunt his dreams after death. I like that famous soliloquy of his but it never touched my soul. I will confess to you as a friend that in moments of depression I have sometimes pictured to myself the hour of my death. I’ve invented thousands of the gloomiest visions, and I have succeeded in working myself up to an agonizing exaltation, to a state of nightmare, and I assure you, it didn’t seem to me more terrible than reality.
    â€œWhat I mean is, apparitions are