The Kevin Show

by Mary Pilon

  Kevin was dating a young woman named Meg, a student at the University of New Hampshire, about a two-hour drive north of Providence, and one day he suggested meeting up in Boston, a convenient halfway point. Meg thought that sounded like a good idea.22

  What she didn’t realize was that Kevin was not traveling to Boston only to see her—he was also bent on carrying out a mission. The Director was sending him there, and once he arrived, would tell him what to do, where to go, and how to carry out a plan that would help create world peace and harmony. The Director was less of a voice, Kevin would say later, than a vapor of energy, a sense of will that came from another place surrounding Planet Earth. It was a presence, a way of thinking23 that was more important than Kevin’s life on the water, more important than his finals, more important than his social world.

  Manic and thrilled, Kevin boarded a bus bound for Boston. In his mind, things couldn’t have been clearer. He was ready and an audience was eagerly tuning in. It was time to be in The Show.

  PART II

  THE HIGHS

  Genius and lunacy are well-known next-door neighbors.

  —VINCENT VAN GOGH’S DOCTOR

  And Something’s odd—within—

  That person that I was—

  And this One—do not feel the same—

  Could it be Madness—this?

  —EMILY DICKINSON, “Fascicle 15” (1862)

  But Reality makes me gag

  So I’m dreaming

  —KEVIN HALL

  KEVIN

  As he boarded the bus in Providence, Kevin felt electric. The microphones were hot, the cameras were rolling, his worldwide audience was tuning in. Kevin knew exactly where he was supposed to go. Forces he couldn’t see, but strongly felt, were propelling him. He had an important mission: he had to save the world. More specifically, he had to teach the world to sing by the age of twenty-one, much like the song lyric from R.E.M. that had belted from Michael Stipe’s mouth into Kevin’s ear and kept floating around his mind.

  Passengers on the Boston-bound bus that afternoon would have seen him as a fit, blond-haired college student clad in a T-shirt, jean jacket, and scarf—too scant a wardrobe for a New England winter day. Beyond that, nothing out of the ordinary. As the bus roared down the highway, Kevin surveyed his fellow passengers. He thought they looked like characters from the works of Marguerite Duras that he had studied in his French classes. This gave Kevin an exhilarating high, making him feel as though he was in the right place at the right time. He was able to see connections that most people couldn’t—a gift from a source beyond.1

  Saving the world was going to take a team, an “army for good,” made up of people from politics, media, music, Hollywood, art, business, the military, and, to some degree, sports. That’s where Kevin came in. Everyone was watching him, the prodigious tillerman on the water, to see if he was going to be able to contribute his part. He had been groomed since childhood for The Show and now the plan was rolling. Kevin couldn’t have been more excited.2 Finally, the chaos of his life was making sense.

  The Director, Kevin knew, was sending him to Boston to fulfill his duties as a social coordinator. He had to help stage a “love-in” kind of thing, a big, fundraising-style concert like Live Aid, which had raised money for the famine in Ethiopia. Similarly, his show could utilize satellites, cable television, and other new technology to make the world feel smaller by linking people together so that every single television set in the world could tune in, thus creating political awareness and helping raise money for the needy. The Berlin Wall had fallen just a month before, signaling the end of the Cold War and making the idea of throwing a world-scale party seem positive and plausible.

  If Kevin could apply the determination he showed on the water to this project, no arena would be too large for him to handle. Kevin was the hero of The Show, the one making it all happen, and any and all displays of valiance and risk taking would be welcome. On television, people did all sorts of crazy things and lived. So could he.

  About an hour later, in the early evening, the bus arrived in Boston’s South Station, a large, loud, dirty, gray terminal in the city’s downtown. Kevin stepped outside and quickly became fascinated by the numbers on the tops and sides of the taxicabs lined up out front and zooming by. It was now clear to him that his math skills were central to the role he was to play on The Show.3 Meg was not there, nor did Kevin make any attempt to call her in New Hampshire.

  He walked straight out into traffic, unconcerned with the cacophony of honks and yells as cab drivers darted about to avoid hitting him. His mind was focused on the sequences, patterns, and puzzles in the digits glowing on the taxicabs. They were trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was. The Director must be testing him, seeing if he was the right choice to be the star.4

  Kevin mulled all this over as he walked away from the gray bus depot and through Boston’s winding colonial streets, eventually entering a cozy sports bar that he was convinced was the same as the setting of the hit television show Cheers.5 (It was not.) He sat down and ordered a Samuel Adams—the local favorite on tap—and a burger, French fries, and onion rings. The bartender asked if he was sure he wanted both French fries and onion rings, unaware that Kevin needed the X (fries) and O (rings) shapes for the patterns he was planning to make on the tabletop. All this, too, was a sign. It would all make sense once the concert had manifested.

  When his meal of fried goods arrived, Kevin noticed that even the food on The Show tasted better than ordinary cuisine. He had eaten plenty of French fries and onion rings before, but these were more delicious than any he had ever consumed. His taste buds were bursting.

  Next, Kevin noticed that the bar had phone booths, and at a signal from the Director, he walked into one so he could call Michael Jackson’s and Madonna’s agents. He left his wallet behind on the table, just in case the bartender needed it to settle his check while he was on the phone. No representatives for either Michael Jackson or Madonna were available, so Kevin returned to his seat and his spread of food. His wallet was still there, but it would have been fine with him if it hadn’t been, as Kevin figured that money didn’t matter on The Show anyway. All costs would be taken care of by the Director.

  A bartender noticed Kevin’s peculiar behavior and asked if he was okay.

  Kevin said he was fine.

  He paid his check and headed out into the night.

  In the wintry weather, still with only his jean jacket against the chill, Kevin walked around Boston’s winding downtown canyons, a blend of colonial buildings and the boxy constructions of the decade, feeling exhilarated about the upcoming concert and his role in it. Whenever he heard music coming from a car radio or a nearby bar or restaurant, he felt as though the playlist was being perfectly coordinated from above. He heard songs from bands like Journey and Boston, the latter an obvious reference to his new surroundings, and riffed along with some of them, sure of his purpose in life.

  Kevin turned a corner and found himself standing in front of the Pine Street Inn, a homeless shelter housed in a brick building on Harrison Ave. Three years earlier, a homeless man had frozen to death6 on the street just two blocks from the shelter, prompting its staff to do more street outreach programs at night, offering food, blankets, and warm clothing. One of these efforts was under way as Kevin strolled up, observing a collection of people bundled in unwashed clothing lingering out front, waiting.

  Kevin examined this all-too-common tragic urban scene and thought, of course. Those people were real, and precisely the kind of people his benefit concert was going to help. Yet at the same time, Kevin also wondered if the homeless people before him were actors playing parts. Whoever they were, those running The Show wanted him to be there precisely at that moment in the night “for the world to see how close to that reality each life can be for a person,” as Kevin later put it. He felt as though he was Dan Aykroyd’s character in the 1983 movie Trading Places, a modern-day take on the Mark Twain
tale The Prince and the Pauper in which a wealthy commodities broker (Aykroyd) and a homeless man (played by Eddie Murphy) switch roles when they’re unknowingly made the subjects of a wager. In Kevin’s version, he, the affluent child of two doctors who had sailed at an Ivy League school, had swapped places with an alternate version of himself. Kevin reasoned that spending time at the homeless shelter would be a fantastic opportunity for him to develop a greater sense of compassion for others and a deeper understanding of what his mission was with the concert. The cameras were still rolling and everyone was still watching to see what Kevin would do next.

  He entered through a front door, observed the lines of huddled souls waiting for food inside, and sat down at one of the tables. He splayed the contents of his wallet before him: his credit cards, fake ID, yacht club card, U.S. Sailing Team card, Brown student ID, and pilot’s license, which he had earned as a teenager under his father’s tutelage. As he fanned them out on the table, he tried to mimic the coolness of a dealer in Las Vegas at a poker table, the small tokens a royal flush of his identity. Kevin also felt, inexplicably, that this display of cards demonstrated to the world how all lives were interconnected.

  Curious about the appearance of an enthusiastic, clean-cut college kid at the homeless shelter, a social worker sat down and began asking Kevin some questions, whereupon he became agitated. Everything had felt right to him until this moment, but the social worker was making him feel as though someone was trying to unplug him, as if he was in the wrong part of the scene at the wrong time. This was supposed to be about unity, after all, so why couldn’t the social worker see that Kevin, he, and everyone around them were all one?

  Mid-conversation, Kevin bolted out the door, once again leaving his wallet on the table. Later, he couldn’t quite remember his excuse for leaving, but thought that it had something to do with Madonna’s or Michael Jackson’s agent waiting for him outside.

  The night had become more frigid, yet Kevin continued wandering, still clad in his thin jean jacket. He felt no need for sleep. He had a concert to plan. Seeing a sturdy-looking drainpipe, he climbed it, jumped down, and then climbed another. He found puzzles and patterns in every path he took. Downtown Boston was his adult-sized jungle gym, ripe for his discovery and play. He thought about all the people watching him, the cameras broadcasting his every action to the world, and wondered if his audience was as pleased with being alive as he was. He hoped so. Passing electronics stores, he saw television sets and wondered if he could pull out their cables, change their channels, and move his feed somehow. But he couldn’t, so he continued to roam. The anxiety of the Olympics, his math classes at Brown, and his inchoate plans for life after college felt blissfully far away.

  As the sun began to rise, Kevin passed by people who resembled celebrities and more characters from Duras novels. He quietly followed one or two of them in hopes of getting another clue about what his next step should be in executing his mission.

  Antiques stores suddenly caught Kevin’s interest, as did the idea of trying to retrace Paul Revere’s famous night ride. When businesses opened their doors and flipped their CLOSED signs to OPEN, Kevin poked his head inside and asked friendly clerks questions about the historical periods of their wares. A Flemish telescope caught his eye. If he bought it, he thought, replicas could be made, and the store would become a landmark. He was, after all, helping to plan one of the greatest humanitarian events of all time, so it only made sense that people would bid for the rights to manufacture replicas of whatever items he bought. This boom would also carry over to the books Kevin was reading and the music he was listening to in The Show. It pleased him to know that he was not only sharing arts with the masses, but creating a mini-economy: the perfect private-public partnership.

  Soon Kevin found himself in Beacon Hill, a historic neighborhood7 lined with narrow cobblestone sidewalks, brick buildings, and replicas of old-fashioned gas lamps. “A hill that’s also a beacon? Perfect!” Kevin thought. The Director was clearly at work.

  Kevin made his way into a park. A squirrel bounded by and stopped right in front of him, another sign that he was on the right path to getting the concert off the ground. Everything was locking in perfectly.

  He saw a tree just right for climbing, easily scaled it with his fit limbs, and from its branches yelled muddled quotes from Shakespeare to those who walked by, words that might have been mistaken by some as heckling. One passerby was a pleasant-looking young woman, who looked as if she was off to college classes or maybe work.

  Thinking back to when he had read Hamlet in high school, Kevin reasoned that she must be Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius and love interest of Prince Hamlet.8 “Ophelia was instructed by her father to be wary of a false love from Hamlet,” Kevin had written in his high school paper about the play, “and when she realizes that their love is true, it is too late. Hamlet, his head full of thoughts of revenge opposed to ideas of justice, becomes irresponsible and is deemed crazy by his peers.”

  Now in Boston a few years later, here was Ophelia, Kevin thought, and true to her part, she was wary of false love. She must be a plotline within The Show. They were to act out a scene together—Shakespeare was all about the play within a play—and then, afterward, Kevin could get back to concert planning. Carefully perched in the tree, he waited for her to walk by, and as she approached, he saw the perfect moment to jump. With a thud, he landed right in front of her.

  Ophelia! Kevin said. I’m so glad it’s you! You’re here!

  She responded with a look. Not the kind of look that Kevin had in mind. Maybe she wasn’t the right woman to play Ophelia in the scene after all.

  He ascended the tree again, this time throwing off his watch, feeling fresh and clean in the chilly Boston morning. He loved how deliciously vivid everything felt now that he was in The Show: the music more harmonious, the food more savory, the breeze more refreshing, even the bark under his fingertips more crisp and satisfying. In so many ways, it felt as though things couldn’t possibly get any better.

  Then the cops showed up. But he couldn’t be in trouble, Kevin reasoned. They must just be actors playing cops, sent in, as Kevin had been, to take part in The Show. Maybe they could all go find Ophelia together.9

  KRISTINA

  Her mom had to be joking.

  Kevin, missing?

  Kristina couldn’t keep track of her brother’s whereabouts even in the most ordinary of circumstances. He was usually off at some sailing regatta, winning some sailing regatta.

  Of course, Kevin would take this weekend to once again be the focus of their parents’ attention. This was supposed to have been her time, a break from her first semester at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For weeks, the plan had been for Kristina to have a nice birthday celebration with her mother, who had flown in for the occasion. Now, in mere seconds, even though he was on the other side of the country (or at least had last been seen there), he had hijacked the narrative.

  Kristina couldn’t say that she was surprised by her mother’s reaction to the news about Kevin, as it seemed totally out of his normal behavior pattern. Her parents had always seemed consumed with his sailing career and either unaware of or indifferent to the fact that while she was living on her own in Ventura, she was engaging in more than her share of partying. It hadn’t gone over very well that she had racked up $20,000 or so in credit card debt before college, filling up not only her own gas tank but those of her friends, too. If anyone in the family was likely to go missing, it was she.

  Kristina always wore a bright smile along with her brown shoulder-length hair, but she often wondered if she was a hippie who had long been separated from her tribe, a free spirit wrongly born into and trapped in the cookie-cutter suburbs of Southern California. She felt more attuned to the counterculture of Northern California than to the bleached hair and tanned skin ideals of her home due south.

  In college, she explored the live music scene, including a concert at the UCSC cafeteria where some guy who identif
ied himself as “Eyeball” handed her LSD, which she had already experimented with some in high school. Of even more significance, she had attended her first Grateful Dead show, and as she watched the band play its rock-folk-psychedelic-blues, she felt its music seep into her being in all of the right, deepest ways. The Dead community embraced her10 regardless of where she had been or where she was thinking of going, a stand-in for the family she felt she had lacked in high school and was still missing in college. While everyone had been off at sailing regattas when she was a child and teenager, she had been back home with a babysitter or on her own. With the Dead crew, everyone was together all the time, in a space that felt blissfully without expectations of achievement or judgment.

  Nevertheless, Kristina felt scared. Kevin was usually in motion, but it seemed wildly out of character for him to go completely missing, and she wondered what possible reason he could have had. The details were fuzzy, but her mother said something about his being in Boston, not Providence, and the possibility that she might have to fly there to see what was going on. Unsure what to do, Kristina decided to go to a party that night, leaving her mother behind to try to sort things out. Nor was it likely a good time to mention that she had acquired a new, thirtysomething boyfriend11 whom she had met at a wilderness program.

  A few hours and a few bites of pot brownie later, Kristina came back to her dorm room. Her mother told her that they had found Kevin, but that he had done something that involved the cops and was in some sort of hospital. He was alive, but something was off. Her mother needed to leave for Boston as soon as possible.

  Kristina and Kevin Hall (courtesy Hall family)