by Raziel Reid
Blaine gives him a look. “Don’t make me take out your batteries.”
It doesn’t matter who laughs first. Once they start, they can’t stop. Tommy leans back on the couch, laughing so hard tears are streaming down his cheeks and Stacie Skipper’s shoulder pads become a blur.
OVER YOUR DEAD BODY
On the Facebook event page for Ken Hilton’s funeral it says to wear pink.
Tommy wears a pink tie. Blaine sits next to him in a pew at Famous Family dressed all in black, but chewing Hubba Bubba and blowing bubbles, if that counts.
Ken Hilton’s mom is sitting in the front wearing a pink veil. Dr. Hilton has his head bowed as if in prayer—but he’s really just checking Tinder.
Father Dude approaches the podium.
“Today we commemorate the life of Ken Hilton,” he says, finding his light through the stained-glass windows. “Ken Hilton was a viral sensation, blond mafia don and the seed of his father’s scalpel. An immaculate son of sodomy. He was perfect. But what does that mean in an imperfect world? May Ken Hilton’s death serve as a reminder to the YouTube generation that the most important channel to subscribe to is God’s. Do you follow?”
One by one, those packing the church go up to Ken Hilton’s casket to say goodbye. Tommy can’t believe it’s open until he gets to the coffin and sees that Ken Hilton is wearing a Maison Margiela mask made out of a profusion of glistening diamonds.
Instead of a rosary, there is a mirror clasped in Ken Hilton’s hands. Tommy looks down at him and says a little prayer.
“Dear…um, dear God. I didn’t mean for Ken Hilton to die. I just want my high school to be a happy place where people aren’t afraid of coming to class because they spent less than a thousand dollars on their outfit. Is that such a sin?”
Back in the pew, Tommy watches his classmates line up to pay their respects.
When it’s his turn, Ken Roberts inverted-crosses himself. “Dear Baphomet. I know I always prayed for Ken Hilton to just die already, but I didn’t mean for him to get all of this attention for it. I guess I should’ve been praying for him to be forgotten. Is there a Block and Delete prayer I can recite?”
Ken Carson goes next. “Dear Baphomet, bruh. Please let Ken Hilton into hell even though he said your girl Beyoncé has the brain of a cognitively delayed fourth-grader and that’s why she never gives interviews.”
Todd stares down at Ken Hilton’s corpse and wonders what his mom is cooking for dinner.
Brad Curtis chews the body of Christ with his mouth open. Crumbs fall into the casket. “Aw, man. I was praying to get stiff for Ken Hilton. Not for Ken Hilton to go stiff!”
Francie Fairchild twirls a strand of hair around her finger. “Dear Lord. Please forgive me and Brad for making Ken Hilton kill himself. And, um, now that he’s dead—can I be prom Queen?”
It’s like Ken Hilton was a fantasy all along. He stopped existing when Tommy stopped believing in him.
As soon as the service is over, Blaine makes a quick getaway. Tommy catches a glimpse of him driving off on his motorcycle. He hadn’t even wanted to come to the funeral, but Tommy convinced him it would look weird if he didn’t. Most of Willows High was going to be there, and the whole church would be counting Kens. Ken Carson and Ken Roberts sure anticipated fanfare—they arrived together in a limo.
Tommy walks through the cemetery, stopping next to the mound of dirt where Ken Hilton is going to spend eternity. He gazes across the tombstones, remembering the night he cast his wish to be a Ken.
“Ken Hilton’s final box,” a voice says behind him.
A startled Tommy almost falls into the grave. Allan takes his arm to steady him.
“I’m surprised you came,” Tommy says.
“Thought I should.” Allan shrugs. “We got the day off school for it.”
“And you even wore pink.”
The pants hem on Allan’s suit is painfully too short, revealing a pair of pink socks.
“Didn’t that funeral feel like a segment on Entertainment Tonight?” Allan asks. “When Father Dude took a selfie with Ken Hilton’s corpse I thought we were all going to burst into flames.”
Tutti waves them over from the parking lot. She dyed her hair pink in remembrance.
“She’s my ride,” Allan says. “My car’s in the shop. Not sure if it’s going to pull through.”
“The real tragedy of the day,” Tommy jokes. They start walking back to the parking lot.
“You want a ride?” Tutti asks as they approach.
“I think I’ll stick around for a bit,” Tommy says. He wants to stay awhile because he can’t quite grasp that Ken Hilton is really dead. Plastic is supposed to be permanent. Tommy wants to make sure Ken Hilton doesn’t spring back to life and bring his revenge upon Willows.
Inside the church, Tommy finds Ken Roberts filling a douche with holy water.
“Hey, Ken,” Ken Roberts says, placing the douche in his bag.
“I’m not a Ken,” Tommy says.
Ken Roberts ignores him. “Hey, what do you think of Brad?”
“He’s all right, I guess. Do you think he and Francie are going to get back together now that Ken has kicked it?”
“Ken Hilton and I were supposed to go on a double date with Brad and Todd this weekend,” Ken Roberts says, “but the bih died on me.”
“You and Todd?”
“He’s had every girl at Willows High so he’s finally moving on to me. Why don’t you take Ken Hilton’s place? Brad said he’s into you.”
“He did?” Tommy tries not to be flattered, but he can’t help it. Brad’s the most popular guy at school, after the Kens. “I don’t know, I kind of have a thing going with Blaine…”
“Don’t tell me you’re monogamous? What did Ken Hilton ever see in you?”
“Why don’t you ask Ken Carson to double?”
“He won’t date Brad or any of the jocks. He’s worried it’ll come between their pre-game circle jerks. Oh, come on.” Ken Roberts bounces up and down. “Todd won’t go without Brad, and I’m dying for some varsity D!”
Before Tommy can say no again, they’re interrupted by the sound of sobs coming down the aisle. They turn their heads, expecting to see Father Dude chastising one of the choirboys for using his teeth, but it’s just Ken Hilton’s mom, kneeling beside her son’s casket. Her tears are brown from so much bronzer. They drip off her chin as she lifts her veil to kiss Ken Hilton’s forehead. “Bye Felicia,” she says.
Barbie comes down the aisle and air kisses both Ken Roberts and Tommy.
“Oh hai, gurs, hai. I’m heading to the after-party but I want to give you something first, Ken. Ken would’ve wanted you to have it.” Barbie pulls the pink-rhinestone iPhone from her purse.
Ken Roberts grabs it with trembling hands. “I seriously can’t. You’re giving me the phone?”
Barbie dabs her teary filler with a tissue.
“He always said you were the second-bestseller.”
SHELF LIFE
Ken Carson looks down at his phone while driving his pink Jeep. Ken Roberts just has to text and gloat that he’s the one who inherited Ken Hilton’s pink-rhinestone iPhone.
Another text comes in, this time from Barbara Hilton, begging Ken Carson to come over. Barbie is the only safe pussy in Willows for him to tap.
Just about any girl at Willows High would let Ken Carson go down on them. He’s Sport Superstar Ken. They line up.
But, like, no one can suspect he prefers pussy. A Ken hails dick alone. The most he can get away with is pretending he thinks eating out is fun, so the girls take it as a game.
There have been rare times he’s gotten lucky at a party and gotten a BJ from a girl, but only if Ken Hilton was already overdosed. Ken Carson would never risk getting caught and discontinued.
It isn’t always easy being a Ken. Being a lie. He has to keep a bigger lie box than Anaïs Nin! One of Ken Carson’s secrets is that he reads more than celebrity blogs and tabloids. He hides books in his room like most
kids hide drugs from their parents. Ken Hilton allowed but one kind of reading.
Whenever Ken Carson wants to read a book, he takes out his contacts because they’re so annoying. He can’t focus on the page. It’s the strangest thing…it’s like he can’t read with them in. Not only because they blur the page, but also because he just can’t seem to concentrate when he’s wearing them. And if he does somehow manage to focus enough to read a paragraph, he doesn’t really understand what he’s reading. As soon as the contacts are in, Ken Carson can’t read more than 280 characters.
Now that Ken Hilton’s six feet under, maybe Ken Carson can reinvent the wheel. He can produce a Ken of the future and test it on the market. A Ken with brown eyes who is into girls. Ken: Straight Edition. But in today’s market, will anyone buy it?
Heterosexuality is so last season.
Barbie’s texts become increasingly hysterical. Ken Carson is sure she’s downing a drink before sending each one. She FaceTimes him, smudged mascara rings around her teary eyes. Dr. Hilton went right back into surgery after Ken Hilton’s funeral, and Barbie can’t bear to be alone.
Since Ken Carson can’t exactly nail any of the girls at school without being outed as straight and therefore a pseudo-Ken, he started seeing Barbie. She doesn’t want anyone to know about their hookups either; the life her husband has her accustomed to depends on it.
They started hooking up one night when Ken Carson was sleeping over at Ken Hilton’s house. Ken Carson woke up in the middle of the night to take a leak, and then snuck down to the kitchen to grab something to eat. That was yet another one of Ken Carson’s secrets. He’s a bad, bad Ken. He has an appetite.
Ken Carson made himself a baloney sandwich, and when he closed the fridge, Barbie was standing at the doorway in lace Frederick’s of Hollywood.
“You have no idea how wet I am right now,” she said. Ken Carson dropped his sandwich. It balanced on his hard dick sticking out of his plaid boxers. Barbie picked it up and took a bite.
That first time, he did her right there on the kitchen floor. He shoved the sandwich in her mouth to muffle her moans, but he wasn’t actually worried about Ken Hilton waking up. Ken Hilton slept like he was turned off at night.
Ken Carson pulls through the gate, looking up at Ken Hilton’s bedroom window as he parks. Ken Hilton is dead. Dude, what a great day!
Barbie is all over him as soon as he walks through the front door.
“I can’t believe my baby’s gone,” she cries, pouring a glass of vodka and passing it to Ken Carson. She swigs straight from the bottle of Grey Goose.
“Is it true, Barbie?” Ken Carson asks. “Did you really give Ken Roberts Ken Hilton’s phone?”
“Those two have been best friends since the second grade when they got caught stealing candy from Cartier. You just don’t understand what sharing a police report does for a friendship.”
“Ken Hilton hated Ken Roberts! He wished out loud for his bulimia to give him heart failure.”
“All friendships have their ups and downs.”
“After everything we’ve been through?” Ken Carson asks. “I feel all betrayed and shit.”
“Oh, baby, don’t say that.” Barbie pets Ken Carson’s face.
“I mean it, Barbie. It really, like, hurts.”
“Here.” Barbie digs through her Birkin and passes Ken Carson a bottle of pills. “Take something for the pain.”
Ken Carson swallows a pill with a swig of vodka. He needs to be drunk to look at Barbie when they’re going at it. Pull it don’t stuff it is her Instagram bio.
“You’re all I have left,” Barbie says, grabbing Ken Carson’s crotch through his pants. “You’re like a son to me.” She gives him a sloppy kiss, saliva stringing between their mouths. “Never leave me,” she whimpers.
Ken Carson gets worried because Barbie lets the vodka bottle drop to the floor and throws her arms around his neck like she might want to make love to him, which is what she calls it sometimes when she’s taken too many downers.
Thank Baphomet, dude, Barbie passes out on his chest. He pushes her off of him and onto the floor.
Ken Carson leaves with the bottle of vodka and gets back in his Jeep, touching up his hair in the rearview mirror. Dreamhouse is going to be lit!
On the drive, he starts to get sleepy. What was that pill Barbie gave him? He opens the glove compartment and digs around for some blow. After a couple sniffs straight from the bag, he’s awake.
He’s living.
DATE NIGHT AND ACCESSORIES PLAYSET
In the days following Ken Hilton’s funeral, the students of Willows High have to face the reality of his death. The queen has been slain. And they need someone to blame.
The teardown of Brad Curtis is so much fun!
Brad is the victim of merciless attacks in the comments section of SoFamous, and bumped from the center table at the caf. One of Ken Roberts’s first moves as queen regent is to excommunicate him. Ken Roberts isn’t exactly bummed that Ken Hilton is dead, but it would be bad for his image if that were popular knowledge. Brad has to be sacrificed. He’s blacklisted everywhere—turned away at the door of Dreamhouse, and even benched by Coach Summers during a Barks game.
The court of public opinion has ruled that Ken Hilton was driven to suicide because his quarterback boyfriend couldn’t get it up. Brad was never really into Ken Hilton; he was a social climber using Ken Hilton for fame while still harboring feelings for his ex.
Francie Fairchild is the other woman, but that only increases her popularity. When Ken Hilton stole her boyfriend, everyone thought she was totally over. She’d been the most popular girl at school one day, and unfollowed by everyone the next. But now that it’s been revealed that she and Brad never really broke things off, and that Francie was the only person Ken Hilton was jealous of, her stats are skyrocketing.
If Brad couldn’t get it up for Ken Hilton, something must be wrong with him. And he calls himself a jock? A post-op tranny could still manage to get it up for Ken Hilton—that’s how hot he was.
Ken Roberts posts about Brad and Ken Hilton’s fauxmance on SoFamous. Without Ken Hilton dominating him, he no longer feels the urge to purge—except all of Ken Hilton’s secrets.
Evidently, Ken Hilton wasn’t so perfect after all. He had one testicle that was bigger than the other, Harvey Weinstein never invited him up to a hotel room to talk about a movie role (despite Ken Hilton’s Twitter claims to the contrary), and he wasn’t a natural blond. When Ken Roberts posts a photo of Ken Hilton with roots, everyone knows Ken Hilton must be rolling in his grave. #ginger. Willows High isn’t prepared for the shock. Ken Hilton was a fire-crotch! If the truth had come out while he was alive, he would’ve been forgotten at the bottom of the toy box.
Tommy is grateful for the distractions. He keeps an eye on SoFamous, but there’s nothing that links him or Blaine to Ken Hilton’s death—just endless posts exposing the real Ken Hilton, and shading Brad.
Brad copes with the pressure of fame by hitting the bottle hard. Ken Roberts texts Tommy before their double date to tell him that Brad called him, slurring his words and saying he hopes Tommy will help put him back in the shopping cart.
“His sales are, like, way down,” Ken Roberts says. “But if he can bag another Ken…”
Tommy didn’t exactly consent to the double date, but Ken Roberts doesn’t take no for an answer. The weekend comes around and Brad pulls up to Tommy’s house in his red Mustang with Ken Roberts and Todd in the backseat. They’re all wasted.
Ken Roberts’s hand is already in Todd’s pants, and Todd is taking shots from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s to get to the level where he’s okay with it.
The Mustang swerves as they drive to The Hills. Brad is obviously seeing double. Tommy buckles in.
“Maybe I should drive,” he suggests. Brad brushes him off and the car swerves. Tommy looks down at his phone to distract himself from his impending death. Still no text from Blaine. Tommy casually mentioned that he was going on
the double date to see if it would make Blaine jealous. He may not be a Ken anymore, but he learned a thing or two during his brief tenure.
Brad lurches to a stop at the peak. The Mustang almost rolls right over.
“Kens’ Trail,” Tommy says. “How romantic.” The hiker’s path has been unofficially named after the Kens because it’s where they usually end up with their dates.
Todd anxiously finishes the bottle of JD before stepping out.
They’ve barely made it a few feet down the trail before Ken Roberts grabs Todd by his varsity jacket and pulls him behind a tree.
Brad and Tommy share an awkward glance. Tommy has his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Brad pulls out a flask and takes a generous sip.
When he suddenly steps closer to Tommy and kisses him, Tommy’s too surprised to react. He feels Brad’s tongue jamming into his mouth urgently, like he’s trying to prove that he really is a stud, the ultimate jock pig, conqueror of Ken. It doesn’t feel right, but Tommy gives in and kisses him back. He imagines he’s kissing Blaine. They pull apart and Tommy sees Brad’s eyes, lit up by stars, fall to the path with shame.
“Nothing?”
“I just drank too much,” Brad says defensively. “Just give me a minute.”
“It’s okay,” Tommy says. “I don’t mind.”
They hear Ken Roberts moaning behind the bushes and Brad gets even more anxious, like he’s worried Todd is going to get promoted on the Barks or something.
“Let’s try again.” He grabs Tommy and slobbers all over him.
“Ew, ’zif!” Tommy pushes him away. Brad falls onto the path and doesn’t get back up. He’s out cold.
There’s a rumbling above and Tommy blinks through a light shining from the peak. He follows the light back down the trail and, coming out in the clearing, finds Blaine idling on his motorcycle. Madly jealous, obviously. Tommy smiles and quickly jumps on the back of the bike.
“How’d you know where to find me?” he asks.
Blaine revs the engine.