Afterwords
An excerpt of Michael Imperioli's coming-of-age novel, "The Perfume Burned His Eyes"
Michael Imperioli is best known for his starring role as Christopher Moltisanti in the acclaimed TV seriesĀ The Sopranosāwhich earned him a Best Supporting Actor Emmy Awardāand played a lead role on season two of HBOāsĀ The White Lotus. He wrote five episodes ofĀ The Sopranos; was coscreenwriter of the filmĀ Summer of Sam, directed by Spike Lee;Ā and was anthologized inĀ The Nicotine Chronicles, edited by Lee Child. Imperioli has appeared in six of Spike Leeās films and has also acted in films by Martin Scorsese, AbelĀ Ferrara, Walter Hill, Peter Jackson, and the Hughes Brothers. He cohosted the rewatch podcastĀ Talking SopranosĀ with hisĀ SopranosĀ costar Steve Schirripa, with whom he alsoĀ penned the best-selling bookĀ Woke Up This Morning: The Definitive Oral History of The Sopranos. Additionally, Imperioli is a singer and guitarist in the band ZOPA. Follow himĀ on Instagram: @realmichaelimperioli.
California, November 2013
Iām heading up the 101 with Los Angeles behind me. I think itās autumn. Itās night so itās hard to tell. Itās hard to tell in the daytime too. The sun has no seasons in Southern California. Or maybe it does and I just havenāt figured them out yet.
On the edge of Thousand Oaks I find myself at the top of the Conejo Grade. Itās a dizzying decline that twists down into the valley where Camarillo begins. If you didnāt know any better you could easily think you were about to fall off the edge of the world.
This stretch of Cali freeway is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a hitchhiking migrant farmworker who was run over by a drunken teenager who hung himself in his jail cell. Which I suppose makes two ghosts, though itās only the farmhand whoās been seen in these parts.
The sun has no seasons in Southern California. Or maybe it does and I just havenāt figured them out yet.
And though I have no idea where in the Los Angeles area my father crashed and burned, something in my gut tells me it was here. Iām sure there are ways to research it and find out the truth, but I have yet to do so and probably never will. Sometimes the truth of imagination is easier to live with than the truth of fact.
By day you can see hills rolling on for miles, some of them strange and mysterious, like flattop pyramids grown over wildātoo correct in angle and line to be a product of nature. At night itās like sitting in the cockpit of an airplane as you slowly descend to a narrow landing strip between the mountains, hills, farmland, and the lights of the Camarillians. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, you might get a heady waft of peaty fertilizer or sugary strawberry if luck is with you.
And though I have no idea where in the Los Angeles area my father crashed and burned, something in my gut tells me it was here.
But tonight the air is still. One of your songs comes on the radio. You are only a few days dead so a lot of your songs are being sent over the airwaves. Itās an old song, one of your earliest. A nugget that would spawn so many more of its kind as an unbroken chain of admirers fell under your influence.
I go from surprise to shock when I notice itās raining. It hasnāt rained here in years but the sky doesnāt know that so it sends the water down as if it were common. It pours like the tropics and itās very hard to see. Dangerous. West Coast drivers are unaccustomed to wet roads and impaired visibility. We all slow to a steady creep, some of us crying.
I cry as much for your passing as I do for the time unrecoverable that has passed me by. I cry for the boy I was, who became a man.
I cry as much for your passing as I do for the time unrecoverable that has passed me by. I cry for the boy I was, who became a man. For the city I loved, which has vanished like you have. For the beautiful, brilliant shooting starlet who left this earth while still a child. I cry for never having known you once I was old enough to understand who you really were and the magnitude of the art you made.
Ooof. Father ghost hauntings. And a musician at that! A little too close for comfort.
Life and art, life and art.
Christopher, a would-be writer, used to talk about writing a screenplay. Michael Imperioli is the real thing. Thank you for this glimpse of his novel.