|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|||||
|
|||||||||
|
|
By now, I'd spent so much time roaming the parallel universe of Nevada that when I heard the Silver State's richest resident had died and left millions of dollars to a stranger whose name he couldn't even spell, I actually believed it. I mean, how was it any different from the multitude of get-rich-quick fantasies I'd seen depicted on billboards promoting legalized gambling? Melvin Dummar had grown up in the shadow of those same billboards, and, as a boy, had watched in wide-eyed wonder as the stretch limos roared past his father's humble mining claim in Fairfield. Land yachts they were, with tinted windows and airconditioned interiors upholstered in fine leather and furnished with silicone-implanted showgirls. A suitcase stuffed with nonsequential, high-denomination bills in the trunk. Elvis on the radio! It was a way of life young Melvin could only dream about. But now things were about to change. Eccentric billionaire Howard Robard Hughes had expired aboard his private jet in the sky above Mexico, and Melvin's life would never be the same. On the day Howard Hughes died, Melvin, his second wife Bonnie, and four of their children were living in a cramped apartment above a gas station they leased in Willard-a sleepy northern Utah settlement named after Willard Richards, an early day Mormon pioneer and counselor to Brigham Young. Recently bypassed by Interstate 15, Willard had experienced a sharp decline in traffic and a commensurate decline in commerce. The struggling business district consisted mostly of seasonal farm produce stands, a restaurant, Mel's gas station, and Utah's largest war surplus emporium. News of Hughes' death caused nary an uptick on the local business barometer. Three uneventful weeks passed after Howard Hughes' death. Then, a mysterious, blue Mercedes sedan pulled into the station. Shortly afterward, Melvin discovered a brown manila envelope lying on his desk. The envelope wasn't addressed to him, but no matter-Melvin opened it anyway. Inside, he found a three-page, 261-word, hand-written document: The Last Will and Testament of Howard Robard Hughes. To Melvin's astonishment, he saw that among the twelve beneficiaries was a "Melvin DuMar of Gabbs, Nevada." Melvin wasn't sure what to do next. He'd never been named in a will before, and his knowledge of how the legal system worked was limited. Perhaps he shouldn't have opened the envelope in the first place. After all, it had been addressed to David O. McKay, late president of the Mormon Church. Melvin slipped the will back into the envelope and carefully resealed it. He tried to think: Who is the current president of the Mormon Church? I picked up one guy; he actually wasn't hitchhiking. He was lost; in fact, he was in hysterics. It was up near Ione, here in Nevada. I guess he'd been out there for a couple of days. It was raining and I was just drivin'-I had a dune buggy, or a car that I'd cut down-and I was drivin' up this dirt road near Ione, and I seen this guy runnin' down the side of the hill through the sagebrush, screamin' and hollerin,' so I stopped to see what his problem was.Soon as Bonnie returned to the gas station that afternoon, Melvin jumped into the family car and drove straight to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. There he was informed that the current leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was Spencer W. Kimball, and that Kimball's office was on the 25th floor of the church office building. When Melvin stepped off the elevator, however, the receptionist informed him that President Kimball was in a meeting. Melvin made his way down a hallway to a restroom, where he stuffed the will inside a second envelope, along with a note that read: "This was found by Joseph Smith's house in 1972-thought you might be interested." He addressed the outer envelope to President Kimball, tossed it onto a nearby desk, and dashed out the door. In the movie they have me drivin' a pickup, but when I picked him up, I was actually driving a '66 Chevrolet Caprice. I think it was either on the 29th or the 30th of December 1967. He was lying about a hundred yards off the main highway on sort of a dirt road. Looked like, appeared to me like somebody'd dumped him out there, 'cause he was lying on the ground. When I first seen him with my headlights I thought he was dead. But then I seen him moving and trying to get up, so that's when I went over and helped him get up. Took him back over to the car and put him in the car. He was just trembling all over-shaking. He was trembling like he was either cold or he was afraid of me. Or something.When Spencer Kimball opened the envelope, he was indeed interested, because, according to the enclosed will, Howard Hughes had bequeathed one-sixteenth of his immense fortune to the Mormon Church. Two days later, a delegation of Latter-day Saint lawyers boarded a plane for Las Vegas, where they presented the curious document to a Clark County district judge. The following morning, Bonnie Dummar looked out her front window and saw an advancing army of cameramen and reporters. I was with him maybe two hours, give or take a few minutes. And after he was with me for awhile, we were talkin' about different things I was doin'. Where I was workin'. And I think we were talking about the aircraft industry, because I'd been in the Air Force. And after I got out of the Air Force, just before I got married, I was trying to get a job in some of the aircraft plants. He said he was familiar with Hughes Aircraft because he owned it. And that's when he told me he was Howard Hughes. Up until then I thought he was just a wino. In fact, I still thought he was a wino after that. When he told me he was Howard Hughes. I thought, "Wow, this guy's really squirrelly. He's been out here a little too long."The squirrelly stranger asked to be dropped off behind the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, Melvin would later tell the court. In parting, Hughes had asked Melvin if he had any spare change, and Melvin had tossed him a quarter-never dreaming that in only nine short years his two-bit investment would appreciate to over 156 million dollars! The media swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker-and so did the reading public. For it was more than just news; it was the stuff of parable. Overnight, Melvin Dummar became America's blue-collar folk hero, the only working stiff in history ever to benefit from trickle-down economics. But as the Dummars soon found out, even the demise of a billionaire benefactor has a downside. As news of Melvin's windfall spread, distant relatives and newfound friends began to surface. Well-wishers from around the globe telephoned to offer congratulations and investment advice. Wackos applied for loans in order to finance wacky schemes. Reporters and photographers of every stripe beat a path to their door; TV vans lined the highway and blocked the entrance to the station. Instead of pumping gas, Bonnie and Melvin found themselves being continually pumped for information. In coffee shops all up and down U.S. 89, the overworked and underpaid were raising toasts to their heretofore obscure blue collar hero. Meantime, back in Las Vegas, the so-called "Mormon Will" had been undergoing intense forensic scrutiny, and already a number of irregularities had surfaced. Why, the investigators wondered, had Hughes bequeathed his Hercules flying boat to the city of Long Beach when, at the time the will was allegedly written, he no longer owned it? And why had he referred to the HK-1 as the Spruce Goose-a derogatory nickname he hated? How was it that the heretofore meticulous Hughes had managed to misspell better than one in every twenty words-including "Las Vagas," the city that had been his legal residence since 1966? In terms of comparative literary merit, the fictitious Hughes autobiography penned a few years earlier by Clifford Irving was a masterpiece. Still, seven months would pass and millions of dollars in court costs be consumed before finally the will was pronounced a fake. Yet unlike Irving, who went to jail, Melvin Dummar was never convicted of fraud. Moreover, if a valid Howard Hughes will does exist, it has never been found. Three years later, the "love story" of Melvin and Howard was turned into a Hollywood movie, for which screenwriter Bo Goldman and supporting actress Mary Steenburgen would each win Academy Awards. Directed by Jonathan Demme, Melvin and Howard features the real Melvin Dummar in his first ever dramatic role-a bit part as a soda jerk for which he receives a seven-dollar royalty whenever the film is shown on television. Six months after the film's premier at Sundance and four years after Howard Hughes stopped breathing, Melvin had given up both acting and pumping gas and was eking out a living as a frozen fish salesman in Utah and Nevada. He was also involved in the "multilevel marketing" of a powdered milk substitute-not to be confused, he hastened to add, with a pyramid scheme. His overriding ambition, however, was to make it big as a lounge singer. To that end he had retained a manager and assembled a band, "Melvin and Revival," and was looking forward to the release of his first album. Among the cuts would be several of his own compositions-topical ballads such as "American Dreamer" and "Thank You, Howard." And, of course, the Christmas carol featured in Demme's movie: "Santa's Souped-Up Sleigh." I had met Melvin briefly at a party and was hoping to get to know him better. Happily, one day Bonnie called to announce she was driving out to Gabbs, Nevada, to join Melvin for the weekend. Would I care to tag along? The two of us left Salt Lake City on a Friday at about four in the afternoon. Traveling as I normally do, by Volkswagen bus, I'd have expected to reach Gabbs by Monday afternoon. Bonnie was thinking we might get there before dark. By the time we blew into Elko, night had long since fallen. Seventy-two miles farther down the road in Battle Mountain, we made a ninety-degree turn. This put us on State Route 305, which runs south toward Austin, roughly parallel to the imaginary Reese River. I was behind the wheel now, and for the next 80 miles, I didn't see a single headlight. We did, however, have close encounters with three range cows, two coyotes, a small herd of pronghorns, two dozen jackrabbits, a bobcat, and an owl. I don't recall pulling into Gabbs; I only remember waking up the following morning. I was tucked inside my sleeping bag, naked except for my undershorts, stretched out upon a Mediterranean-style, crushed velvet sofa. Saturday morning cartoons played on a nearby television set; a young girl sat cross-legged on the lime-green shag carpeting, oblivious to the stranger encamped on her sofa. I learned later I was in the home of Melvin's brother Ray, who at the time was police chief of Gabbs. Parked in the yard behind Ray's house was an authentic historical artifact: the rusting chassis of the milk truck in which newlyweds Melvin and Bonnie had fled the "weirdness" of Southern California. Following breakfast, Melvin, Bonnie, and I set out in Mel's company car, a compact Mercury Bobcat. Ostensibly, we were out to enlist new distributors for the artificial powdered milk product that was poised to revolutionize the nondairy industry. After just one unsuccessful sales call, however, Mel lost interest. We decided we'd pay a visit to the nearby Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park. Berlin is a silver boomtown that flourished briefly around the turn of the century; the ichthyosaur was a prehistoric aquatic creature that lived 180 million years ago, at a time when most of Nevada lay at the bottom of a vast inland sea. Over 30 fossilized skeletons of the giant "fish lizards" have been quarried from the area, three of which are on public display. "Help! Help!" cried Bonnie, who had jammed her hand inside the maw of a fossilized fish lizard and was pretending to be trapped. Ignoring her cries, Melvin and I went over the fine points of his disputed relationship to the deceased Howard Hughes. "Did anyone ever give you a lie detector test?" I asked. "It got so bad there for awhile," Melvin replied, "that everything I'd say, it'd seem like they'd wanna give me another polyagraph test. I got so sick of it that I hated to talk to anybody. I didn't want to say nothin' to nobody, because everything I'd say, I was being misquoted and misinterpreted. Finally one time I was in there at the University of Utah with Dr. David Raskin. He asked me two or three different questions, and then he turned the machine off and come runnin' in and said he thought I'd died, because he couldn't get a reaction of any kind. Because I was just completely wore out. It was like I almost lost my will to live, because of so many people badgering me and harassing me and askin' me and everything." Presently we were westbound on State Route 844. Bonnie had freed herself from the jaws of the prehistoric ichthyosaur and Melvin was behind the Bobcat's wheel. I noticed that he kept one eye trained on the shoulder at all times-a lifelong habit, he explained. A lot of useful stuff falls off trucks-such things as wrenches and screwdrivers, bungee cords and folding aluminum law chairs. Once he'd even come upon a cardboard box filled with brand-new, stuffed teddy bears. If Melvin Dummar is good at finding stuff, he's also good at winning stuff. Back when he lived in Southern California, he'd demonstrated a knack for getting himself onto television game shows. He has appeared on both The New Price Is Right and Hollywood Squares, and, on three separate occasions, was a contestant on Let's Make a Deal. Host Monte Hall hadn't recognized him because the first time around Mel had been disguised as a hobo; the second time, a bunch of oranges. The third time, not only had Melvin changed his costume, but his name as well. "I won on Let's Make a Deal twice as Melvin Dummar," he explained, "and then there was other people wanted me to go on and win prizes for them. And so I went on Let's Make a Deal several times using other people's names and won prizes." "But didn't you sign an agreement to the effect that you hadn't appeared on the program before?" I asked. "Uh huh." "So wasn't what you did against the rules?" "Yes, it was. In fact, I kinda feel sorry, you know, for doing it. Because they used that in court against me-saying I was a con man and everything, which I really wasn't. I was just doing it for fun. And because some of these other people, such as my ex-fatherin-law, he wanted to win a prize and all that. But he was just too embarrassed. He said he didn't want to go down there and make a fool of himself. Said he wanted me to go down and do it for him. "So I said, 'Well, I'll go down there and win you something. But I'll use your name, your social security card, your address, and whatever I win goes to you.' "You know, I just did it for the heck of it, and I didn't tell him he had to give me anything at all. But when he won the new car, he gave me his old one. He had a '68 Ford LTD, and I took the LTD down and traded it in as the down payment on the El Dorado Convertible." "Which in the movie was repossessed after you fell behind in the payments." "Yeah. Well, they make it appear in the movie that I don't ever pay my bills and stuff. That I've had one car repossessed right after another and everything else. I've had (laughs) quite a few cars repossessed, but under different circumstances than what the movie depicts. "I had one car repossessed because I got so stupid I just gave it to a guy to take over the payments, and I didn't have it changed into his name. And actually, I've done that with two different cars, just turned it over to somebody and never seen to it that it was changed into their name. One guy, after I let him have it-a 1965 Pontiac-he paid on it for two or three months, and then he just stopped paying on it, and the bank repossessed it. "And then the '71 El Dorado convertible, I let a guy just take over the payments, but he never made a single payment. I'd talk to him, I phoned, but I never could run him down, and finally the bank caught up with him and repossessed it. Of course, it was in my name, so it kinda ruined my credit." That was how things usually went. Melvin would start out with the purest of intentions only to wind up in trouble-all because of other irresponsible people. We were now on U.S. 50, speeding toward Fallon, where Melvin had attended high school and where the story of his life was currently playing at the local movie house. Given that Melvin Dummar was Fallon's most famous native son, it occurred to me he should be arriving by chauffeured limousine-not in a Mercury Bobcat. Had it been a Greek play instead of a Hollywood production, surely the story of Melvin Dummar would have played out differently. In the Greek version, just when Melvin's situation appeared utterly hopeless, Howard Hughes would be lowered to the stage on a rope. Melvin would be snatched from the clutches of his creditors and carried off to a penthouse suite high atop the Desert Inn-far, far removed from the harsh realities of the workaday world. "I never really thought I'd ever get it," sighed Melvin. "Oh, a few times, I did think about it. If by some miracle we ever did see any of the money, I'd probably invest most of it in real estate. And I also like to travel. I really love to travel and go around. Of course, I like to hunt and fish an awful lot, too. If I had the money, I would undoubtedly do a lot of hunting and fishing. I would love to entertain. I'd love to be a singer and just entertain people. And sports, too; I really like sports. I think if I had the money, I would probably get involved in some of the things that I've always wanted to do, like skydiving and hang gliding. And maybe auto racing . . . " "And suicide," chirped Bonnie from the back seat. Did he ever wish, I wondered, that he had handled things differently? "Well, if I had it to do all over again, I'd probably do the same thing. You know, as far as helping him-if I found somebody that was in trouble, like Hughes was, I'd still help him. "I think it was kinda neat that he left me in his will and everything and remembered me. But I only wish that he'd have handled it different and had filed in court himself, or had his attorneys do it, or had it notarized, or whatever it is they do to 'em, instead of dropping it off like he did, so everything wouldn't be fallin' on me. And accusing me and my whole family, friends, neighbors, and everybody else of having a big plot or scheme going-that's what really hurt." |
 |
 |
| www.stephenspress.com |
|
All Rights Reserved © 2005
Stephens Press, LLC
Stephens Press LLC is doing business in the United States of America. |
