by Byron Lane
Her life. So much fun. So much destruction.
ME: Hey! Stopped in NYC. Almost home. Thinking of you.
DREW: Sorry been out of touch, Oak! When are you home?
ME: On my way soon. Excited to see you.;)
No response.
* * *
There’s pee everywhere.
I’m thinking, I hope we survive New York. We’re here, back at the Greenwich Hotel so Kathi can destress from her vacation and return to her hard life in Beverly Hills.
“Isn’t he cute,” Kathi says from her hotel-suite bed, holding up a brown-fur puppy with a white patch on his chest and two lower fangs awkwardly poking out of his mouth.
“Whose dog is this?”
“He came with the hotel room,” Kathi lies. The dog curls farther into Kathi’s breasts, glares at me, judging my face, my clothes, my inner worth.
Now the only one stressed is me, seeing this new puppy and calculating the number of tasks I should add to my usual duties: feeding, training, neutering.
The dog looks at me with spite, like he can read my mind.
“Look how his teeth extend out like weapons,” Kathi says, touching the dog’s two white projectiles.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask.
“Nothing. This is how he was made. He’s a chug.”
“A what?”
“A chihuahua-pug mix. His name is Roy. Roy, meet Cockring.”
Assistant Bible Verse 135: Pack pee pads, chew toys, dog food.
“Are we keeping him?” I ask.
“Yup,” she says.
“Ugh,” I say, turning to leave the room, worried that my job just got a lot busier. “I’ll go to the pet store and get supplies.”
“He doesn’t need much, Cockring.”
“I’ll start with food. He’s probably starving.”
“No, we just ate,” Kathi says, motioning into the room. I step farther into her suite and see a room-service table with nothing on it. I walk around her bed and find all the plates on the floor, a mess of food chewed and licked over and left discarded for housekeeping—or me—to handle.
Kathi lowers Roy to the floor and he rushes up to me. He looks up and stares—God, he’s so judgmental. Then he pokes me with his underbite. Dammit; I’m enraged, and in love.
“How are we going to get him home?” I ask.
Snap: Now I have a second soul to brag about.
Snap: Now I have a second soul to keep alive.
12
A Google Alert can change your life. Several Google Alerts can be catastrophic.
I jump from Kathi’s dining table—my phone is buzzing! A series of emails have come through.
My phone is dutifully set up to get alerts anytime Kathi Kannon is mentioned on the Internet. Most of the time, the alerts are absurd.
The headline says: KATHI KANNON SEX ORGY.
The headline says: KATHI KANNON NUDES FOR SALE.
The headline says: KATHI KANNON BANKRUPT.
We’ve had false alarms, false Google Alerts, like the headline that read KATHI KANNON ATTENDS LAKERS GAME LOOKING ROUGH. I knew the night before she was supposed to hang with a friend with Lakers connections, and I thought, Oh, no. Almost as the alert arrived, TMZ called the house and I answered, coy and cool. I said I couldn’t help; “I don’t know anything, Kathi isn’t here,” I said—with Kathi sleeping soundly a few feet away. I pull up the article on my phone. It wasn’t Kathi in the picture. It was just some unfortunate woman who now has to live the rest of her days knowing she looks like what people think is a trashed, tragic, worst version of Kathi Kannon.
But this newest Google Alert, this is not a mistake.
My job responsibilities include: organize her life, dispense her meds, break bad news. It’s time to get her up anyway.
“Good morning,” I say calmly but sternly to Kathi, still snug in last night’s nest, Roy asleep beside her, both with no knowledge of what the day holds.
Kathi doesn’t move. “I have to tell you something unpleasant,” I add.
“What?” she says, alive, awake.
“It’s a Google Alert.”
“Who’s that?” she asks.
“No, it’s not a person. It’s an email I get whenever you’re mentioned on the Internet. And you got several mentions this morning.”
“Oh, no,” she says, bracing, sitting up in bed.
“A tabloid posted a picture of you—”
“Oh, no—”
“And there’s an unflattering story attached to it—”
“OH, NO—”
“And it mentions me!” I yell. “What is everyone going to say about me? My father? My fellow assistants? Everyone’s going to think I’m not taking good care of you!”
“Who gives a fuck about you?” Kathi says. “Give me the phone. What about me?”
She reaches, but I turn away from her and read the headline: “It says: ‘Is Kathi Kannon Back on Drugs?’” I look up at her, glaring.
“WHAT?!” she screams. “Give it!” she yells, ripping the covers off her body and hurling herself out of bed. Roy perks up but doesn’t follow—he knows when to hang back.
Kathi tries to wrestle my phone away, but I block her as I read, “‘Kathi Kannon has been spotted suspiciously coming and going from a strange apartment in West Hollywood for at least a week, maybe longer. She always emerges a few minutes later, frazzled, jumpy, erratic. Sometimes she arrives driving herself,’” I continue, now getting louder, “‘AND SOMETIMES SHE’S DRIVEN THERE BY A YOUNG MAN!’” I face her and I gasp accusingly, “ME! And there’s a photo of me! Outside of that orange building I took you to in West Hollywood! Holy shit! Is that Vegas?! Is Vegas drugs?! I look like an enabler! Am I an enabler?”
Kathi rips the phone from my hand and looks at the article, the photos of her, ragged, dazed, unflattering, framed indeed by that orange West Hollywood apartment complex we visited before our recent trip. “Oh my GOD!” she screams, pacing the bedroom, kicking a pile of dirty clothes. “All these pictures must be photoshopped!”
“I don’t think so.”
My job responsibilities include: Tell her the truth.
“That’s what you wore,” I say. “That’s what I wore. That’s how you did—or didn’t do—your hair. And there are other photos, from other days, when I wasn’t with you.”
Kathi continues her nonstop movement through the room, a tour of shame in laps around her bed. “I mean, you could make anyone look like a drug addict if you take enough pictures of them at the wrong angle, with terrible light, with wind and whatnot, or, like this one, while I’m fucking blinking!”
“What about that picture of me in your car?”
“What do you care?” she asks. “Isn’t that your favorite part?”
“No!” I yell. “They’re basically saying I’m a fucking accomplice to you doing drugs!”
Snap: Look how cool I am now. Look at me, the fool, exposed.
“Am I?” I ask. “Am I an accomplice? Are you doing drugs? Were you doing drug deals?”
“Barely,” Kathi says.
“BARELY!”
“Please,” she says. “You feed me drugs every day in those pill cases.”
“I don’t feed you illegal ones! And I don’t put photos of it in magazines for everyone who knows us to see!”
“Has Miss Gracie seen this?” Kathi asks.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m innocent!” Kathi proclaims. “I was just visiting my friend from AA! So what if I didn’t brush my fucking hair for several days in a row!”
“What about me?” I yell. “I’m an enabler! What do I tell people? I’ve been bragging that I’m your stepson!”
“This is not about you!” Kathi yells, throwing my phone back at me, dashing from her bedroom, through the red room and the living room, out the front door, running down the hill screaming, “Mommy!”
Roy and I follow, sprinting behind Kathi to Miss Gracie’s house, passing her garage, noticing the Lincoln
parked, the driver’s door open, and Miss Gracie sitting inside.
We all stop in our tracks.
“That’s an angel, that’s a sweet girl…” Miss Gracie is saying, apparently to no one.
“What are you doing in there?” Kathi asks, both of us wondering if it’s a stroke.
Miss Gracie looks up, revealing the spoiled four-legged bundle of fur in her lap. “Having a talk with Uta Hagen.” She notices the frenzy in Kathi’s eyes. “Oh, no, now what?”
“Mommy,” Kathi whines.
“But I’m so much more than that!” Miss Gracie says. “An accomplished actress—”
“A tabloid says I’m ugly and on drugs again!”
“Are you?” Miss Gracie asks coldly.
“Am I ugly?”
“No, are you on drugs again?”
“Of course not,” Kathi says. “Please help me!”
Miss Gracie turns to me and says, “This is why she needs her mother, dear. Never forget that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
Miss Gracie, her gaze still locked with mine, her hands now tightly gripping the steering wheel, asks me, “Is she on drugs, dear?”
When Miss Gracie looks at you—a gaze perfected by a lifetime in front of cameras of all shapes and sizes—it’s stunning. Not in a good way. I am actually stunned. Like someone is using a Taser on me. So I say nothing. This is a trap for sure. Miss Gracie continues staring. Kathi, not used to being out of the center of attention, is quiet, looking back and forth from me to Miss Gracie, wondering how this will play out.
I stand with my mouth open, blushing, still praying Miss Gracie will move on, as she says, “This is a question, dear. I’m asking you a question.”
Instead of sweating, I have simply “sweat,” with all my body’s moisture dumped out of me at once through my forehead, upper lip, neck. Armpits, too, but they’re not visible as I have my arms clenched tightly to my sides, as if I’m a Transformer action-figure version of a celebrity assistant, trying to convert back into an ink pen or notepad, trying to squeeze my arms into my body so the rest can fold up and disappear. The sweat causes my glasses to start sliding off my face.
“We’re innocent victims,” Kathi interjects, in my defense.
“I warned you,” Miss Gracie says to me, pointing her finger.
“It’s all lies!” Kathi says.
“Well,” Miss Gracie says, turning to Kathi. “You know what is true? I’m old and sick and have nearly died many times.”
“No, you have not,” Kathi says.
“I’m tired and fragile! And somehow you’re spending all of your inheritance on I-don’t know-what and being written up in these horrid tabloids and I don’t have enough time or enough heart medication to deal with this right now. I have broken ribs—”
“No, you don’t!” Kathi yells.
“I’ve had broken ribs since I was forced by the studio in the 1950s to wear a corset and dance for days on end with no rest!”
“That never happened!” Kathi shouts.
“I’m self-diagnosed!” Miss Gracie yells.
“You’re not a real doctor!” Kathi yells.
“I played one on M*A*S*H and was nominated for an Emmy!”
Kathi storms away and Roy rushes beside her, following her, until she stops abruptly, her back to us, just in the doorway of the garage.
I freeze again, like I’m watching a familiar song-and-dance to which only Kathi and Miss Gracie know the choreography, both of them used to performing it over and over through the years. After a few tense moments, Miss Gracie starts—
“Do you need rehab again?”
“Mommy, you’re missing the point!”
“You want me to call my publicist and attorney and have them exonerate you?” Miss Gracie asks.
“Yes, please,” Kathi says sweetly. She turns to Miss Gracie. “Thank you, Mommy.” She marches away, Roy beside her.
Then, to my horror, Miss Gracie turns back to me, looks me up and down. She says calmly, “You look guilty.”
Another trap. I should have run out of the garage with Kathi and Roy, and now I’m stuck. Miss Gracie stares at me, awaiting my response, my reaction. “I’ll never understand what it was in her life that forced her to turn to drugs. We talked about all this, dear, remember?”
I nod, defeated.
“Drugs,” Miss Gracie continues, like she’s doing a monologue. “That’s the real issue here. Tabloid aside, all her money, my money, goes to—where else?”
“I don’t know, uh…”
“You’ve seen her use drugs?”
“No. Never,” I say.
“Never?” Miss Gracie asks, with a face that looks genetically sweet, but she’s got a firm, knowing tone.
“I’ve never seen Kathi do drugs. Sometimes it seems she’s … like, her medication is off. Like, when she got manic before. That was unusual, right? She’s tired a lot. But aren’t we all? I wish I could nap all day every day.”
Miss Gracie is still staring at me. She’s not satisfied.
I gather courage. I raise my eyebrows, stiffen my spine. I say, “I know she doesn’t eat vegetables.”
“Oh, please!” Miss Gracie says. “Are you accusing me of financing her drug problem with vegetable money?”
I study Miss Gracie a moment, the many lifetimes she’s still living in her tired eyes, the things she’s seen, done, and tried to do—for herself, for her daughter. I think about my time with Kathi as an adult and can’t help but wonder about Miss Gracie’s time with Kathi in the decades before me. Before Priestess Talara, before addictions and boyfriends and overdoses. Before she was a film icon, when Kathi Kannon was just a baby, a toddler, a little girl, a teenager, a young talent.
“You should know,” Miss Gracie says, “that a parent will do anything for her child. I’ve done everything for Kathi. I sold my antiques. I moved onto her property. I’ve saved her life many times. But still, this monster persists.” Miss Gracie catches her breath, her lower lip trembling slightly, feelings forcing themselves to the surface as she continues, “I push too hard and it ends badly. I don’t push hard enough and it ends badly. I just try to do the best I can. And can’t a mother simply encourage her daughter to eat her vegetables, like I’ve done since she was a little girl? ‘Eat your vegetables!’ Right? Do you understand? That’s what mothers say, right?”
With Miss Gracie’s celebrated voice cracking, my heart softens, my spine sags. I think of my own mother, delicate and loving, trying her best to save us and herself from our version of a monster—my father.
“I’ve seen little things,” I say. “Sleepiness, frazzled—”
“Ahh. You’ve seen little things,” Miss Gracie repeats, amused. “Well, dear. What did you think the things would look like?” Miss Gracie looks away. “They’re all little things until one of them kills you.” She lets go of the steering wheel, her hands falling gently into her lap, perhaps the first time I’ve ever seen her really relax. “I’ve talked to so many psychologists and experts, and they all say the same thing. Normal people have a thing they call ‘bottoming out,’ the worst thing that happens to them to scare them sober. Kathi will never bottom out. She has too much support around her. She’ll never be homeless, she’ll never be alone, not really—people always want to be around her. I can fire them, and she hires them back. I can forbid her from seeing them, but she’s a grown woman. She’ll never get cut off completely. She can sell her house and have unlimited money and then what? Then how many little things can she buy? How many little things will you see? I’ve been down these roads, and it’s—there’s no peace down any of them. I just know we can’t afford all of this forever, not our wallets, not our bodies.”
I say, “Why don’t you threaten to cut off all the cash?”
She says, “Why don’t you threaten to quit?”
The garage is alive, electrified, Beverly Hills birds chirping—gossiping about us, as if they’re calling this moment like sports commentators. Miss Gracie turns to
me so forcefully, the keys in the Lincoln ignition start swinging slightly, jingling, suddenly so loud. I break from Miss Gracie’s gaze, staring at the junk piled around the car: more candelabras, a big vase on a pedestal, a gold-plated (never used) shovel for the fireplace—everything looks so unwieldy.
“Come here and help me out of this damn car,” Miss Gracie says.
Uta Hagen hops out first, and I extend my arm for Miss Gracie to grab. She holds my hand and pulls herself out of the car.
“You can go now,” Miss Gracie says solemnly.
Assistant Bible Verse 136: Accept defeat with grace.
I smile at my much more skilled sparring partner, turn, and start to walk away.
“Tell Kathi,” Miss Gracie shouts to me, as if an afterthought, the carefully scripted button on a classic film scene, her hand extending delicately into the air as if to pull focus, “that I still love her very much, despite her many flaws.”
As I leave Miss Gracie and walk up to Kathi’s home, the messages begin. Friends who’ve seen the tabloid start sending their worried texts, Facebook messages. I have emails from Jasmine, West, Crooner, Bruce—and all these personalities, all these perspectives, and all the same general message: “WTF?!”
JASMINE: No, no, no! Bad assistant!
WEST: OMG call if you need anything.
CROONER: Get out, bud.
BRUCE: We need to talk.
I’m sure Bruce wants to share the horror from Kathi’s agent, but I have my own fallout to process, my part in Kathi’s decline locked in pixels online, archived forever as my failing, failing to see, to act, to protect.
I get a voicemail from my father: “YOU NEED A NEW JOB!”
“It’s all going to be okay,” I tell everyone.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Kathi is fine,” I say.
“These are lies,” I say.
It seems the only person I don’t hear from is Drew.
I feel the encumbrance of gravity of this world—not the Kathi Kannon world but my world, the real world, with its judgments and consequences and disapproving looks. I feel a backslide into my depression, of a dark void welling within me, of untenable and unsavory solutions to this mess—I don’t want distance, I don’t want to quit, I don’t want to leave her.