When Christopher Crayford’s Mother died, he stole his Father’s credit card and flew to Los Angeles to find his real Father. Christopher Walken.
A therapist said that the shock of finding his Mother hanging in the garage had created, what she called, a “dissociative disorder.” This was therapist speak for people that found it hard to distinguish between fact and fiction.
Another therapist said that Christopher was roaming in, what she called, “A Ghost Kingdom.” It was psychologist and therapist talk used to explain the world of all people who were adopted - an imaginary world where they envisioned their unknown parents as either famous or rich, or preferably both. They imagined their Mothers or Fathers were leaders in business, technology, inventors of highly popular video games, film directors, actors, musicians or anything that the child admired.
Christopher Crayford’s Dad shrugged off this expert analysis and simply said “Christopher always was, and always will be, a weird kid.”
The Crayford’s lived in a cul-de-sac with a very royal title. But Balmoral Place was far from royal. It was a subdivision of kitset homes that had developed like a melanoma on the back of what used to be a vast apple orchard. People grew roses, kept their lawns tidy and vacuum cleaned the house every day. But inside the houses people were finding the pressure of pruning roses, mowing lawns and vacuuming difficult. People like Christopher Crayford’s Mother were hanging themselves in very tidy, and very well organised garages.
Christopher spent most of his time in his bedroom. There were two reasons why he did this.
1.His Mother always told him he was in the way, or making a mess she would later have to vacuum.
2. Christopher didn’t really have any friends.
Like the therapist who had told him he wandered through the adopted person’s Ghost Kingdom explained, “Christopher, being an adopted child, has an inbuilt fear of abandonment, so he doesn’t get close to anyone. And if he does get close to someone, he will abandon that relationship before the other person can. Even if the other person has no intention of doing so.”
Christopher Crayford’s Dad didn’t understand any of what the therapist had said, and just got annoyed that they had used words like “of doing so” which he said made them sound like they were the ‘Queen of fucking England.”
So, Christopher Crayford lost himself in music, listening to his favourite artist Louis Cole. None of the kids at school knew who Louis Cole was because Louis Cole hadn’t collaborated with Dua Lipa or any Hip Hop artists.
He also watched the Quentin Tarantino movie True Romance at least once a week. And every day after school he watched the scene with Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken, the one about history, and lies, and where Dennis Hopper tells Christopher Walken he’s part eggplant. Naturally, Christopher Walken doesn’t like being called part eggplant and shoots Dennis Hopper in the head.
Christopher Crayford would look at himself in the mirror and recite Christopher Walken’s lines. He started to sound like Christopher Walken. And over time, he thought he saw facial features that made him look like Christopher Walken. The day after he found his Mother hanging in the garage, he was convinced that he was indeed a Walken, and booked a ticket to Los Angeles on his adopted Dad’s credit card so that he could be reunited with Christopher Walken, as father and son.
The first thing Christopher did when he landed in Los Angeles was join a bus tour of the stars’ homes. He asked the driver if the tour went past Christopher Walken’s house? The driver said “Yes.”
This was a lie.
The driver would say anything to get people on his bus because a Hollywood tour of the stars’ homes is a cut-throat competitive business.
On the bus he met a girl his age selling marijuana to tourists. Her name was Gabrielle Alvarez. She had milky chocolate skin, spoke with a rhythmical Spanish accent, and told Christopher she wanted to become a boy but couldn’t afford the hormone treatment.
Christopher told Gabrielle that he was from New Zealand and that he found his Mother hanging in the garage and that Christopher Walken was his real Dad. Gabrielle had heard many stories, but nothing like this story. Even if Christopher was making it up, she liked it. So decided to help him out. Helpfully, she googled “Where does Christopher Walken live?”
The answer was Connecticut.
At the news that Christopher Walken didn’t live in Los Angeles they jumped off the bus on Sunset Blvd at the west gate of Bel Air. They sat on the grass and made plans on how Christopher could get to Connecticut. Gabrielle offered Christopher some DMT.
Christopher had never done drugs before. Well, he had smoked pot, but it made him paranoid and untalkative. But he did like how music sounded a million times better.
He trusted Gabrille. He actually kind of quite liked her, so he took some DMT.
He lay on the grass in the warm Californian sunshine and breathed in the air, air that smelt like dust, heat, gasoline and freshly mowed grass.
Tesla drivers who jerked off while driving and talked to their clairvoyants on their phones, whizzed past. They were in a hurry to get home after a day of cutting cookies in the Hollywood cookie cutter entertainment industry. Christopher closed his eyes and enjoyed the desert heat that he’d never felt before.
That was until he woken up by a man on a horse.
“Hello?” said the man on the horse.
Christopher was blinded as he looked into the bright sun, unable to see the face of the man.
Gabrielle was gone.
“Are you OK?” said the man on the horse.
“Yep. I’m fine.”
“This probably isn’t the best place for an afternoon nap.”
“I just took some DMT and it must have made me fall asleep.”
“I see. Well, I don’t know what DMT is, but I’m guessing it’s a drug you kids are doing now. Maybe you should jump up on my horse and I’ll take you somewhere safer, with less traffic, and less likelihood that you’ll get arrested.”
The man on the horse extended his hand and his head moved out of the direct sunlight. Christopher saw who the man was.
It was Dennis Hopper.
Christopher wanted to scream. Here was the man who was in his favourite movie, and who had acted in one his favourite scenes with one of his favourite actors. But Christopher played it cool. He didn’t want to come across as a screaming teenage Dua Lipa fan like the kids at school.
“Yeah. Cool. Thanks” said Christopher in his best non-fanboy way, and casually jumped on the horse with Dennis Hopper.
“What’s the name of your horse?” asked Christopher.
“This is Boots. She’s a bossy grumpy old bitch. But I love her.” Boots snorted at a Tesla as it drove past. The driver had one hand on the wheel and one hand masturbating his slightly below average-sized penis.
As they rode their way through wide streets lined with palm trees, they passed large homes with green lawns that had automated sprinkler systems which were recklessly using up California’s scarce water supply.
Mexican gardeners waved at them and cheerily yelled out “Buenas Tardes!”
Dennis Hooper gave them a friendly, cowboy style salute in return.
Christopher asked Dennis “Do you live here?”
“I live in Kansas. Far away from all this desperate commercialism, cosmetic dental surgery and veganism. I’m just here shooting a commercial.”
“Cool” said Christopher, but not really meaning it. If anything he was disappointed Mr Hopper wasn’t doing something more interesting.
“It’s not very cool at all” sighed Dennis, “but the amount of money I’m getting makes up for the fact that I have to spend a week with creative male thirty-somethings who think a 60 second film for a deodorant is high art. And yes. They call their commercials films.” Boots shook his head. If Boots could have sighed and rolled his eyes, he would have.
“Do you still see Christopher Walken?” asked Christopher Crawford.
Dennis pulled the reins on Boots and they came to a stop, holding up a line of three masturbating Tesla drivers.
Dennis dismounted Boots and offered his hand to Christopher. “There’s something I need to tell you. Let’s sit on Jennifer Anniston’s lawn for a moment.”
The Tesla drivers honked their horns.
Dennis yelled at them to “Go around!!”
Christopher and Dennis sat on the Anniston lawn.
Dennis lit a cigarette.
“I know why you came to Los Angeles Christopher. I know you want to find Christopher Walken. But I don’t want you to be disappointed. I understand what it’s like to slip into a fantasy world. It’s what we actors do every day. We get paid to do it. And sometimes we lose ourselves, like you have.”
“But what if Christopher Walken really is my Dad?” said Christopher trying not to cry in front of Dennis Hopper.
Dennis put out his cigarette. “I don’t want to say he’s not, because the world is a strange weird place where strange weird shit happens every day. But you have to admit, the chances of that being the case, aren’t very high. And I’ve got to be honest,” Dennis gently put his hand under Christopher’s’ chin “You don’t look a lot like him.”
A small tear run down Christopher’s cheek.
Dennis smiled “It’s OK. You’re much better looking. And I can see you’re going to grow into a very handsome man.”
Dennis ruffled Christopher’s hair and kissed him on the top of the head.
Christopher couldn’t hold back from crying in front of Dennis anymore.
Dennis hugged him, stroking his hair, which made Christopher calm.
Dennis softly spoke to him “Look, I’ve been dead since 2010 so I’ve had a lot of time to think to think about life. I want to tell you that you have an amazing imagination. And I understand that you haven’t had anyone nurture that for you. Or tell you that it’s a good thing. What happened to you shouldn’t happen to anyone. But use your power to make up stories for good young Christopher.”
“Christopher!”
Someone called Christopher’s name in the distance. “Christopher!!”
A Tesla driver honked his horn.
“Christopher!!”
Honk!”
“Christopher!”
Honk!
Christopher opened his tear-stained eyes, and he was in Gabrielle’s arms on the grass at the west gate of Bel Air.
Gabrielle was stroking Christopher’s hair. “Christopher! Thank God. I thought you’d slipped into a coma or something.”
Although the irony that he had just had a moment of realisation during a drug induced trip, like people do in lazy Hollywood scripts, whilst he was in Hollywood, wasn’t lost on Christopher. He laughed to himself.
Christopher sat up and wiped his eyes. He looked at Gabrielle. “I just had a dream that me and the ghost of Dennis Hopper and his horse sat on Jennifer Anniston’s lawn and Dennis Hopper’s ghost told me that Christopher Walken wasn’t my father.”
“God I love drugs” said Gabrielle “and I kind of knew Christopher Walken wasn’t your Dad. You don’t look much like him.”
“Didn’t you think I was weird or strange or deluded that I might think that?”
“Yeah. But that’s why I thought you were cool’
Christopher had never been called “cool” before.
“And, you know, with your mum and everything, you need a friend. I’m a girl who wants to be a boy, so, like, good friends who are weird and strange and cool are hard to come by.”
Christopher had never had a friend before.
Gabrielle grabbed Christopher’s hand. “I’m hungry. Let’s go get Taco’s. I know the best place in Los Angeles.”
The best place to get a taco in Los Angeles was at Gabrielle’s Mother food truck which was parked on a side street next to a Gelsons supermarket in Echo Park. Christopher offered to pay for the Taco’s with his Father’s credit card, but Mrs Alvarez refused, telling him “Any friend of Gabrielle’s is family, and family don’t need to pay.”
Christopher looked at his Father’s credit card and thought about family. For the first time he thought about how his Mother’s death could have affected his Dad - The Dad that raised him, not in an outward loving emotional way, but in a way that made sure he was fed, clothed, and had a secure roof over his head.
Christopher announced that afternoon that he was booking a ticket back home.
When Christopher finally got home, his Dad cried, and hugged Christopher for the first time.
His Dad then said he would have to pay back every single cent he had spent on his credit card.
Christopher worked in a supermarket until all the money had been paid back. On his breaks he worked on his application to study acting. He was accepted and spent the next three years using his imagination to live alternative realities through the dark art of acting.
His first job was a commercial for an Automotive Insurance Company.
He was nervous, but he got his confidence back when he looked into the distance and saw he was being watched by Dennis Hopper sitting on Boots. Boots neighed loudly, and Dennis Hopper winked at him and lit a cigarette.
Behind them a Tesla driver told himself how amazing and future-forward he was while he stroked his dick until he ejaculated onto the steering wheel.
