Kind of Fonda Henry: A Punk Epiphany (and the Law of the West) - Page 2

Kind of Fonda Henry: A Punk Epiphany (and the Law of the West) - Page 2

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Here are the doctors reporting the medical facts, "At 8pm, Mr. Fonda was sitting up in bed and soon after, stopped breathing."

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Here's the wife, Shirley, "Henry died comfortably. He was in no pain. He had slept well the night before."

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Here's Dan Rather's face, with a Newman's pathos, reporting the loss of an American icon.

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With the sound off, another ½ hour of tributes fills the TV screen. Film clips stream by from a career on screen and stage. Images from The Oxbow Incident, Mr. Roberts, Twelve Angry Men and On Golden Pond flash by in 60-cycle-per-second celluloid fashion.

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One final word from the announcer, "With his passing we have lost a piece of the American conscience."

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Lounging in reverie, with mind adrift, I am waiting for Marigold to get home. The evening's entertainment awaits us. By 8pm we are off on a leisurely drive to Denver, in search of the Mercury Café and Theater, a hole-in-the-wall club in a rough-and-tumble city quarter. As we circle the neighborhood, it seems we have found a hostel for hostile youth – vagrants, loiterers and leather-jacketed punks with mohawk haircuts gather in the streets. We park the car and head for the hall. In this day of distractions and interruptions, the next episode falls right into place. A block from the Mercury, four fire trucks, three squad cars, an ambulance and several rescue teams converge on a corner apartment. We watch as firemen, in full-ready gear, race through first-floor quarters in search of danger afoul. As quickly as these teams arrive and converge, they disperse into the night. False alarm.