The Soloist
The first time I’m introduced to Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, he ignores my
outstretched hand, looks over my head into the middle distance and muses,
‘There is a place called Moscow, isn’t there? It’s in Russia, I think.’
We’re at the red-carpeted Los Angeles premiere of ‘his’ movie, The Soloist,
in which he is played by Jamie Foxx. He sat at the back, blindfolded because, he
explains to me later, ‘the more I keep my vision out of my way the more I can
hear what I want to hear’. And what he wants to hear is the music; the LA
Philharmonic in full throttle.
It’s the only time I meet him without at least three instruments in tow.
He’s out of his element at the best of times but without them he might as well be
naked. A paranoid schizophrenic, Ayers was, until very recently, living on Skid
Row. His precipitous journey from the streets to Hollywood began four years ago
with a serendipitous meeting with Steve Lopez, a writer from the Los Angeles
Times who found him playing a two-string violin in downtown.
When Lopez discovered that the eccentric violinist was, in fact, an
alumnus from the prestigious Juilliard School of Music, he realized he had a
story. The story turned into a friendship; the friendship into a book and, the book
into a film directed by Joe Wright, British director of Atonement and Pride and
Prejudice, and starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Junior.
When I meet him some weeks later, Nathaniel is under-whelmed by the
film and his own nascent celebrity. He is more interested in the fact that I am
from London and might have connections to the London Symphony Orchestra.
We’re introduced by Casey Horan, executive director at the Lamp
Community, the primary safe haven for the mentally ill on the streets of LA. He
has come prepared with my name and appointment carefully written in his
notebook. He’s wearing a camouflage US Army surplus jacket and a grubby white
towel as a kind of apron around his waist with Steve Lopez written on it. His
baseball cap is on backwards. He offers to show me his rooms at the assisted
housing complex where he finally, after much cajoling and persuasion by Lopez,
agreed to take a room. He wants to play some Elgar on his cello and he doesn’t
have it with him.
It’s dusk but we set off on an impromptu tour of Skid Row. He is carrying a
violin and a viola in two hard black cases with white hand written slogans all over
them and a backpack containing his trumpet and a flute.
With the warmth of the Californian sun still rising from the asphalt along
with the ubiquitous scent of urine, the occupants begin to settle for the night
laying their blankets and cardboard boxes onto the pavement. It starts to feel
edgy and Ayers mutters under his breath about the ‘dangers of drugs’ and how
‘no-one can go anywhere without breathing them in’.
Someone recognizes him and shouts after us aggressively, ‘Hey, you’re the
musician from that film? What the hell are you still doing down here? They made
millions out of you and you’re still here.’
‘I’ve got a new mop,’ Ayers calls back. ‘And a new bucket. And they’ve
given me enough soap for a year. Can’t beat that.’
The man stares after him, shaking his head, ‘You’re f***ing crazy, man.’
1
****
Nathaniel Anthony Ayers officially went ‘crazy’ in 1972, the third year into
his scholarship at Juilliard, when he was just 22 years old.
In his book, Steve Lopez traces his fall from musical prodigy to
homelessness, talking to family, old teachers, classmates and mentors who recall
Ayers’ natural talent and the fracturing of his mind that stole his future.
Ayers had been suffering from classic symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia
– voices in his head, hallucinations, emotional disorientation - for months before
he was eventually diagnosed. No one knows exactly what causes schizophrenia
but it’s triggered in late teens or early adulthood by a combination of genetic
vulnerability and environmental influences and it seems likely the intense
competition and pressure to perform at Juilliard contributed to its onset.
Whatever the causes, it prevented Ayers from graduating. Years of ineffectual
treatment including medication and shock therapy followed as he slowly
unraveled and became less and less able to cope with normal life.
By the time he arrived in Skid Row, twelve years ago, he was untouchable,
a loner who couldn’t stand the smell of cigarettes let alone participate in the drug
and alcohol culture of the streets around him. He kept himself to himself using
music as his medication and the ghosts of the great composers as his
companions. It was no accident that Lopez first discovered him in Pershing
Square as he often came here to play in shadow of a statue of Beethoven erected
in honor of the founder of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
That Lopez was initially intrigued is perhaps not surprising but his
increasing commitment to this unstable, often fractious, homeless musician takes
him to places he never expected. He becomes an expert on mental illness and
homelessness as he spends a frustrating year trying to ‘fix’ Ayers and get him off
the streets. Finally, he accepts that Ayer’s illness is incurable and that, even when
his friend seems to be getting better, an episode of paranoia and rage could be
just around the corner. In the meantime, he discovers the joys of classical music,
tries to learn the violin and the cello, succeeds in taking up the guitar again and
regains a purpose to his life that he did not know he’d lost.
He also tips headfirst into the murky netherworld that is Los Angeles’
notorious Skid Row.
Skid Row is an area of approximately one square mile on the eastern fringe
of downtown Los Angeles. A desolate patchwork of streets, warehouses and cheap
apartment blocks, it is only ten miles from Beverly Hills but it might as well be on
another planet. The gleaming skyscrapers of downtown are visible from here but
Skid Row and its inhabitants remain mostly invisible to the rest of the city. The
only time I’ve seen it on the evening news was a couple of years ago when a
camera caught an ambulance discharging a man with a wheelchair in the street in
the middle of the night before driving off.
Skid Row has always been a dumping ground. For the people who end up
here, it’s as rock bottom as it’s possible to get but every night approximately eight
thousand people bed down here – the largest homeless population in America. Of
these, an estimated two-thirds are suffering from severe mental illness, substance
abuse or both.
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‘Skid Row is the largest open air mental health institution we have in this
country,’ says Horan, who has worked with the community for years.
‘Mental illness has always been criminalized,’ she says but she blames the
current crisis on the early 1970s when Reagan became Governor of California and
promptly shut down all of the state mental health facilities both for ideological
and fiscal reasons.
‘They shut down the institutions and threw people out but created nothing
in the community to help care for them,’ says Horan, ‘their families cannot cope
so most of them end up on the streets or in jail. Now we are waiting for the fallout from the economy and the Iraq War.’
‘There are hundreds of Nathaniels out there; people with great stories and
unrealized potential. They are the most marginalized and criminalized people in
this country and yet they are some of the funniest, compassionate and caring
people that you will ever meet.
‘That we have cut them off from mainstream society is our great loss.’
****
When I first meet Joe Wright in his chaotic suite at the Chateau Marmont
(all overflowing ashtrays, stained tea cups and piles of papers), he is reeling from
the death of one of his extras who was gunned down on Easter Sunday in Skid
Row, just a week before the premier.
‘Kevin Cohen – or KK – was this giant hearted man,’ he tells me of the
former homeless crack addict who came good, ‘We couldn’t have done the film
without him; he taught us about life on the streets and organized the other extras
brilliantly. He had this enormous presence. I’m gutted by it, really. He loved
horses and dreamed about working on a ranch. I was going to help him with that.’
It’s immediately clear the film is a profoundly personal endeavor for
Wright. ‘I’d always been interested in doing a film about mental illness,’ he says.
‘It has always fascinated and terrified me at the same time. We have no idea
where our minds can go.’
He’s had several brushes with mental instability himself: first, after his
father died when he was just 19, then at 21 when he found himself spending a
night on the streets of London with a friend in the throes of a severe psychotic
breakdown and finally, during post-production for Atonement when he had a
meltdown himself.
‘I started having panic attacks and mild hallucinations. It was very
disturbing but I was fortunate in that I was able to reach out and get help.’ He
was relieved to find out he was too old to develop schizophrenia and went into
immediate, intensive therapy availing himself of whatever medication necessary
to bring his mind back under control.
In the middle of it all, he had a meeting with Stacey Snider, CEO of
Dreamworks. ‘I considered canceling the meeting but decided to go ahead and
when she asked me how I was, instead of lying, I told her what was going on.’ She
told him about The Soloist. ‘It was perfect timing,’ he says. ‘I could not imagine
signing on to do any other movie.’
Wright flew to Los Angeles before he committed to the film and spent time
on Skid Row, hanging out in the courtyard at Lamp getting to know the world
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into which he was about to immerse himself. “I found myself with some of the
most incredible people I’ve ever met – honest and funny and courageous - who
were so supportive and caring of each other. It was a community in the truest
sense of the word – one that I doubt I would have encountered in Beverley Hills.’
He agreed to do the movie under the condition that they could work with
the homeless instead of around them. The studio agreed.
The filmmakers approached the numerous agencies and missions of the
area and Wright continued to spend days at Lamp talking to the residents and
getting a feeling of how he would recreate Skid Row as authentically as possible.
They needed up to 600 background extras and cast 18 ‘significant’ extras from
Lamp who became known as The Chorus, starring in a spin-off documentary of
the same name shot by Thomas Napper, the second unit director.
Orlando Ward, 49, director at the Midnight Mission, the largest residential
recovery program in the area, says the positive effects of filming continue to
reverberate through the community. “Usually Hollywood comes to Skid Row,
takes a story out of here and leaves us with nothing. This time it was different.’
A former crack addict who ended up on the streets himself, Ward has a
finely tuned bullshit detector but says he knew as soon as he met producer, Gary
Foster and Joe Wright, they were in good hands. ‘It was refreshing to encounter
their kind of vision and commitment. I knew we need not fear exploitation or
disrespect but we still had to meet the challenge of using a community whose
main characteristic is instability.’
The production treated the extras as professionals, taking headshots,
enrolling them in Central Casting, paying them normal daily rates and providing
a catered lunch. For some, it was the first paid work they’d had in years but Ward
did not underestimate what they were asking them to do.
‘We had to find people with a relatively sound foundation who would be
on time at the location and ready to work. We were asking them to put on their
old clothes (literally) and relive something they had fought very hard to leave. It
would be a total immersion back into that world so we had to be very careful they
were not going to slip back for real.’
Just three people ‘walked’ within the first few days of filming but for the
others it was a positive, possibly life-changing, experience.
‘It is difficult to overestimate the long-term effects of the experience,’
Ward says. ‘There’s a Cinderella Syndrome in this community and the benefits of
being on a movie set, of being special, of being recognized and fussed over and
feeling that you are of value, respected and listened too – even for a short time –
is inestimable in terms of creating self-esteem.’
For the members of the Lamp cast, there were several rehearsal days with
the actors, Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey Jnr and Catherine Keener with
improvisation exercises where everyone was encouraged to express themselves.
There was no condescension, either. The actors were learning as much as the
extras and, when one extra began expressing deep anger issues, Joe took her
aside and told her that she would not make it into the film if she continued to act
out; that she needed to channel that anger into her acting. ‘She went back and did
an improv that blew us all away,’ he recalls.
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For Joe Wright, making The Soloist was one of the most rewarding
experiences of his filmmaking career. ‘In terms of authenticity, the extras were
invaluable, showing us exactly how to smoke a crack pipe, for example, or how to
make a bed out in the cold but, for me, it was much more than that. They
confounded any preconceptions you might have in so many ways. In the
beginning, it’s their illness that’s fascinating – the thrilling mental leaps, the
crazy surreal stuff – but as you spend time with them you start to get glimpses of
what they’ve had to endure and you start to see another measure of humanity.
They taught me a great deal about humility and never, ever to
underestimate anyone.’
****
When Steve Lopez began his column on Nathanial Ayers in the Los
Angeles Times in 2005 he struck a chord with readers from around the country.
People were moved by this story of a thwarted talent who, despite everything,
remained true to his musical calling.
They filled his inbox with advice and support and started sending in
instruments. The Golden State had a dark side and Lopez had, quite accidentally,
found a subject who could illuminate it and show what we stand to lose when we
discard those who society deems disposable.
When Lopez first met Nathaniel he was sleeping and playing in a tunnel
where you can hardly hear yourself think; four years later, he has taught himself
to play the cello, the viola, the trumpet and the flute. He has rediscovered the
double bass, which he played at Juilliard and, most importantly for him, he has
gone to concerts at the Disney Concert Hall and met some of the virtuosos who
play there who recognize his talent and treat him with respect. At 58, he has
achieved at least some of the dreams that he left behind at Juilliard even playing
Yo-Yo Ma’s cello at Disney Hall one evening when the younger master puts an
arm around him and calls him ‘brother’.
He talks to me about the possibility of playing with a symphony orchestra
one day and doing his own composing although he knows it is probably not going
to happen. ‘I hate to say I am 58 years old. I hate to even think it because I make
such foolish mistakes as if I am eight years old. But I am not foolish, by the way, I
am serious. I am in the tonality of a major scale and switching over to the
complete dissonance of Stavinsky.’
As we walk the streets, he’s greeted politely by most of the people we pass.
Although he is still a loner, he has a community and people care about him. Most
importantly from Lopez’s perspective, he sleeps in a room at night safe from the,
often murderous, affray of the streets.
On our way to his digs, Nathaniel keeps up a running commentary about
the places we pass on route and anything else that passes through his mind.
It is not like any conversation I’ve had before as he goes from polite small
talk to huge poetic arcs as he makes one association leap after another with
startling moments of clear lucidity about his condition along the way.
‘I’d like to play you some Elgar when we get to my a.p.t..I want to see if I
can sound as good as I want to sound because I know articles can go really bad.
You know, you will write that he’s schizophrenic and he is crazy and he said this
5
and he said that and see how stupid that is and, you know…… then I could lose
this 25 dollar gift certificate to Ralphs.’
He too is concerned about the murder of KK. ‘We had a double murder
here,’ he tells me. ‘KK was one of them, KK was in the film of Joseph Maximillian
Wright and he was killed in a double murder. This is a long way from Juilliard,’
he says. ‘I don’t know why I am going on like this but I am kind of wondering
what is the difference between a jilted pin ball machine and the disappearance of
some really great guys and the separation between fact and fantasy.’
I cannot give him answer.
We pass the makeshift Church of the Nazarene on the corner of 6th and
San Julian where an imposing black woman is rhapsodizing on a megaphone
about the potential of being saved by Jesus Christ to a couple of desolate people
sitting on chairs arranged in rows on the pavement. He sneers and mutters about
superstitions and dragon-breathing entities.
We pass the Central Community Police Station that almost takes up a
whole block on 6th. ‘This is the LAPD right here,’ Nathaniel waves his hand at the
row of police cars. ‘Self inflicted probation if you ask me, he says. ‘I ask if he’s on
good terms with them. ‘I don’t think so,’ he says, ‘they come to our place to do
their thing.’
He is referring to the Safer Cities Initiative that was implemented in late
2006 by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The premise was a good one: $6 million
dollars would be used to combat crime and help people get off the streets. In
practice, it ended up being a disaster for the homeless, further criminalizing their
existence. Most of the money seemed to be spent on dispatching police officers to
arrest them for minor infractions: jay walking, being in charge of a shopping cart
or a milk tray. People with tiny amounts of drugs were arrested for possession for
sale – which is a felony - instead of the lesser charge of simple possession. Few
could pay their fines further complicating any hope of entering mainstream
society and eligibility for housing programs, driving licenses and food stamps.
Casey Horan took to the streets in several demonstrations that tried to halt
the initiative. ‘All the money was spent in law enforcement, none of it in setting
up the programs that we need to support anyone coming in off the streets,’ she
says.
‘What do you think of Los Angeles?’ Nathaniel asks me and when I tell him
that I like the weather, he says, ‘I don’t know what it is like to be in London but I
do know that it is cold and melancholy, the green fields and Canterbury and all
that kind of thing. Of course, Germany is not too far from you guys. Beethoven,
Brahms, Bach, but then you have Benjamin Britain and Elgar. Who is the Queen
of England, right now? Margaret Thatcher?’
We’ve reached his apartment: Number B116, he says it repeatedly as
though he might forget. Even without the number, it would be easy to find. The
door is covered with pictures and graffiti dominated by a picture of Esa-Pekka
Salonen, conductor of the LA Philharmonic, baton poised mid-air. Nathanial lets
us in but doesn’t turn on the light. He bustles about in the darkness finding a
chair for me to sit on. As my eyes adjust I realize this is probably as close as I am
ever going to get to being inside Nathaniel’s unceasing mind.
6
There is no space to breathe. Every piece of wall is covered in words:
names, places, lists, calculations, American flags and tributes to the Cleveland
Browns and the LA Lakers. Steve Lopez’s name comes up as many times as
Beethoven: his heroes in black and white.
The shopping cart that was his home when he was on the streets is parked
up next to his baby grand - a donation from an LA Times reader. There is a half
dead palm tree in the corner, a double bass topped with a straw hat, buckets of
flowers, tinsel and fairy lights and God Bless America banners. A tap runs
constantly over some cans in the sink, perhaps to remind him of the fountain in
Pershing Square where he used to play and, perhaps, to calm his mind although
he does not say so. There is a bed but it’s buried. ‘Where do you sleep?” I ask.
‘Just there,’ he points to the tiny entrance way between the bathroom and the
sink. ‘That way I still feel like I’m on the streets.’
It took months for Steve Lopez to persuade Nathanial to move in off the
streets. His resistance is not unusual among the long-term homeless used to open
skies, constant noise and the freedom to do whatever they want. Four walls and
silence can be oppressive. Lopez also surmises that a disastrous stint in a mental
asylum in Cleveland back in the 1970’s contributed to Nathanial’s visceral
suspicion of anything that smacks of doctors, officials or meds.
He installs me on a chair near the entrance, drapes a cloth across the open
door and sets up a fan in front of me to blow away any cigarette smoke that might
drift in from the corridor. Then he squeezes himself behind his baby grand and
performs a duet with himself on both cello and the piano. I have no idea how
because at this point he has completely disappeared from view.
For the next hour, he entertains me in the darkness. He plays Hard Days
Night on the piano, Elgar on his cello, some drumsticks come out and he uses
some leather cushions as percussion pads as he raps about Stevie Wonder, Barry
Manilow, the Rolling Stones, Savings and Loan and the Statue of Liberty. I think
he’s having a good time. I know I am.
‘The more I play, the harder I fall,’ he says, ‘how’s the air over there? I
know that all people are created equal but those cigarette smokers are awful.’
And then without preamble he launches into a rendition of To Be or Not
To Be in a perfect English accent while accompanying himself on the piano.
It’s one of the most entertaining hours I’ve spent in anyone’s company.
***
Nathaniel is usually unfailingly polite, a gentlemen. He helps me on with
my coat, opens doors and insists on walking on the outside along the pavement. I
only get one glimpse of his darker side although others have told me about his
rages.
We are at an early screening of The Chorus and a number of the players
had come to see it from Lamp. As they piled out of the mini-van, Nathaniel took
himself to a tree in the parking lot and began to play. He makes it clear he does
not want to come into the film so we keep our distance. Every thing about his
demeanor is different. The energy crackles around him, his amber eyes are wilder
and he does not appear to remember who I am. I hear him shout to himself, ‘You
7
are a wasted talent’ with venomous anger. It is an absolute transformation from
the graceful man with whom I have been spending time. Even Casey is keeping
her distance. When the film is over, he is still there under the tree playing his
violin. I go over to say goodbye. ‘Good. Bye!” he spits, sounding as though it is
more like good riddance. ‘Violin, violin, violence,’ he mutters after me wielding
his bow.
The next time we meet, he’s back to his old self. He is in the canteen of
Lamp Community trying to persuade someone to puncture a hole in the linoleum
for his cello as he heroically plays a Beethoven symphony to the post-lunch
crowd. His shopping trolley is nearby with the full compliment of transportable
instruments on board: his viola, a violin, a coronet, a flute, a trumpet and a
French horn.
When he is finished – a couple of symphonies later - we set off for his
A.P.T. He doesn’t trust me to carry any of it so he is pushing his double bass in
front of him and pulling his cart behind him.
He has decided that Casey bears a certain resemblance to Abraham
Lincoln and he wants to show me the statue in person. ‘You cannot really feel it,’
he tells me and Casey, ‘ until you are standing there and you feel the wind and
then he comes alive and you can see his hair and the life in his eyes.’
We drop his instruments and head for the Walt Disney Concert Hall in my
car. Nathaniel is a nervous passenger seeing an accident at every corner. ‘I have
never driven a car,’ he tells me, ‘ so this seems very dangerous to me.’
He takes me to Lincoln’s statue that sits under an enormous fig tree on
South Grand Street across the way from the hall. This appears to be another place
in the city – like the Beethoven statue in Pershing Square - where he finds solace.
He steps closer to the statue and reads the excerpt of the Gettysburg
address written on the side and looking at me in a way that ensures I get the
significance of what he is saying. Today, he is wearing a pink bra undone at the
front around his neck, ‘this is my rabbit’s foot’ he tells me – and almost winks - as
we wait to cross the street.
Then we enter the concert hall itself, approach the security desk and ask
for Lisa White, the public relations officer. Ayers is nervous and jumpy, he tells
me that he is not too happy about being here because the last time they sent him
away and when she arrives and asks how he is, he complains about stomach
cramps brought on by cigarette smoke. She expresses concern and her assistant,
who he calls Ms Leah, offers to take us into the hall.
They are obviously accustomed to his peculiarities and cajole and comfort
him to emotional safety. By the time we reach the concert hall through a maze of
back-stage corridors he is confident enough to admit that he ‘really hates where
they usually seat him (in the centre of the hall towards the back) and would
rather be seated on the left hand side where he can see the conductor’s face
instead of his back. ‘We will see how we can accommodate you, Mr Ayers,’ says
Ms Leah with gentle understanding.
He asks if he can play ‘just for one minute’ and Ms. Leah demurs with real
enthusiasm. ‘Of course, Mr Ayers, we would be delighted.’
He takes to the empty stage with his violin and launches into a
combination of his own improvisation and a Beethoven symphony. His sound
8
fills the hall; it is a breathtaking moment as his talent matches the enormous,
acoustic brilliance of the space. It does not matter that there is no audience. He is
transported. All his anxiety falls away as his fluid strokes of his bow coaxes a
sublime sound out of the instrument.
He is totally concentrated and lost in the music.
9