Death of a Movie Star

by Timothy Patrick

  “Entertainment is a trillion-dollar business!” exclaimed Micah. “It’s the opium of the people, and Hollywood is our drug dealer. And sometimes I think it’s time to give the dealer the boot and for us all to go to rehab. I make no apologies for feeling that way.”

  The audience clapped. They knew the routine: Micah bashes Hollywood, and they cheer. And, this being the last show of the season, Cass expected that Micah might want to have more fun than usual. She was right.

  Micah pointed to Cass and Brandi and said, “And here, my friends, we have the drug itself. These are the pretty faces that fuel our hallucinations. They are the afternoon tea with laudanum that makes us feel good about our prospects for love and happiness. They are the hypnotic voices that delude us into believing that good always triumphs over evil. They are Doc Hollywood’s miracle tonic, and we love it more than any junkie ever loved his drug.”

  And the Tinseltown terror is off and running, thought Cass. Time to buckle up—and to stay alert—because Micah had completely jumped the rails; the teleprompter had his lines cued up, but he had galloped off in a completely different direction. Oh well. Just another fun day on StarBash. She stood picturesquely and smiled like a good little reality-TV star.

  “But are they human?” yelled Micah.

  Some in the audience yelled back: “No!” Micah began pacing back and forth. One of the producers, who sat in the front row with his family, looked around nervously.

  “Are they human?” yelled Micah, louder, with wide, crazy eyes.

  This time no one said a word. Complete silence blanketed the soundstage. Cass heard the director’s screams from Micah’s earpiece. Micah removed the earpiece. Cass cleared her throat to get his attention. He threw her a quick, cold stare. Now Cass got seriously concerned. Micah looked like he had more than show business on his mind. He looked agitated, like a guy with blood on his shirt and a head full of rambling, angry words. The possibility that he might say those words to fifty million people with her standing next to him smiling like an idiot did nothing to ease the apprehension. She wondered if Lenora and StarBash and all the negativity had finally cracked open his sanity. She wondered if her cutting jab at the restaurant had had anything to do with it.

  Micah stopped pacing and faced the audience. “Are they human?” he screamed, with clinched jaw and bulging veins.

  “Yes” came a quiet, solitary voice from somewhere in the audience.

  “Yes!” exclaimed Micah. “Yes! They are human! And the only thing inhuman around here is the idea that someone is disqualified from the human race because they are weak or imperfect. Or because they have a different opinion. That’s exactly what we’re supposed to be fighting against!” He looked down for a few seconds and then said, “But somehow I got things turned upside down, and that needs to get fixed. Will you help me do it?”

  The audience responded tepidly.

  “I’m asking you to help me,” said Micah.

  This time they responded with a bit more energy, but, honestly, Cass didn’t think she had ever seen a more confused audience. It didn’t seem to bother Micah, though. He took a spot next to Cass and Brandi and picked up the teleprompter right where he had left off. Thankfully, that quickly led to a commercial break. Micah turned to Cass and Brandi and said, “Sorry about that little detour. I had some housekeeping to take care of.” Then he brushed past the frazzled director, who had charged up to the stage to confront his erratic star, and went down to visit with the audience. He shook hands, signed autographs, and posed for selfies. He worked the crowd like a pro. The Hollywood basher had more Hollywood in him than he cared to admit, a glaring fact that everyone seemed to know except Mr. Tinseltown himself.

  After the break ended, Micah retook the stage, the cameras rolled, and he had the audience right back in his pocket. He said, “Congratulations, ladies. You have been demoted. Caviar crepes at the Plaza Hotel are now a distant memory. Today you are slinging hash in Bart’s Diner, and the next step for one of you is the Greasy Dishrag.” He turned to Brandi, who stood on his left, and said, “Tell me, Brandi, who’s going to be doing the dishes at the end of the night?”

  “Me! Take a look at these,” she held up her hands. “These dishpan hands haven’t seen a nail salon in thirty years.”

  “Very impressive,” said Micah. “Now tell me one more thing. You’ve suffered some setbacks in your career. What do you say to the young woman who’s about to hop a bus to come chase her Hollywood dream?”

  “I say go for it! Get on that bus! But when you get here, you better keep track of who you are and what you believe, or you’re gonna end up being just another Hollywood clone…like some people we know.”

  “OK…” said Micah. He then turned to the other side and said, “Cassandra, your opponent is clearly holding a grudge, but you haven’t said much about it. This is the last show. Do you think now might be a good time to share your side of the story?”

  “No. All I can say is that I have apologized to Brandi, and I hope someday we can move forward, but right now she isn’t really interested.”

  Brandi stepped around Micah, glared at Cass, and said, “That’s bullshit, Cass. If the person who blacklisted your mother came up on this stage right now and apologized, would that be good enough for you?”

  These words caught Cass completely off guard. The plight of her mother had always been Cass’s own private battleground, and no one had the right to trample through it…except for someone who had been hurt just like her mother. And now Brandi seemed to think that that included her. Cass honestly didn’t see anything in common between what happened to Brandi and what happened to her mom. But, up until a few days ago, Cass hadn’t been able to see her own guilt, either. Did she still have her head partly buried in the sand because she didn’t want to admit that she’d been just as guilty as Lenora Danmore? And that her pursuit of Lenora had been an epic hypocrite’s crusade? And did she really want to talk about any of this shit on national TV? But the question had been asked in front of millions of witnesses, so she had to come up with something. She refocused, fumbled for some words, and then Brandi beat her to the punch, once again. She said, “No! It wouldn’t be good enough because that kind of apology is like an icepick in the ear! So you can just save it, Cass. I never want to hear it again.”

  “As you can see, ladies and gentlemen,” said Micah, uncomfortably, “this truly is a grudge match, and now we have no choice but to turn the enemies loose.” He pointed stage right of where he stood and said, “Ladies, please step to the side and prepare to face your challenge.” Cass and Brandi stepped aside, and six men entered from the opposite side of the stage. They wore identical yellow T-shirts that included a design that showed the initials BLE sandwiched between two hamburger buns. Beneath the hamburger graphic, the shirts said, “Big League Eaters of America.” The men formed two rows, facing Micah, stage left of where he stood. Micah pointed to the first man in line and said, “Please state your name and occupation.”

  “My name is Joey Pickman, and I am the number-one-ranked Big League Eater in the world.”

  “Welcome, Joey. Please tell our audience what you did to earn that title.”

  “I ate seventy-four hot dogs in ten minutes.”

  The StarBash crowd liked this kind of thing. They clapped for the guy like he had perfected nuclear fusion.

  The five remaining men introduced themselves and recounted their digestive conquests. They all then took seats in the diner.

  Micah turned to Cass and Brandi and said, “Ladies, these are some big eaters. Each of them can devour a hot dog on a bun in ten seconds, and they can do it fifty or sixty times without breaking a sweat. Today they are at Bart’s for a light snack—thirty hot dogs and a beverage—and your challenge is to serve it to them. You have each been assigned three customers, one per table. In order to win the challenge, you must be the first to complete the following tasks.” Micah pointed to the menu on the wall above the kitchen pass-through,
which had transformed into a big electronic scoreboard. It listed Cass’s name on one side, Brandi’s on the other, and all of the tasks in the middle. Micah read the tasks from the scoreboard. He said, “You must: ‘Take the orders’; ‘Serve the meals’; ‘Clear and clean the tables’; ‘Collect six dollars in tips’; and ‘Ring the bell’ by the cash register.” As he read off each task, bright red check marks appeared under each woman’s name next to the corresponding task. Micah continued: “If you fail to complete any of these tasks, you will lose the challenge. Pencils and order pads are in your apron pockets. Bar towels and bus trays are behind the counter. Brandi will carry only blue plates, and Cassandra will carry only red plates. Now we will clear the scoreboard, and you will step over here next to the counter and line up behind the red line.”

  Cass lined up first, facing the kitchen pass-through where she’d be collecting the plates of hot dogs. Brandi lined up next, but she faced the opposite direction, toward the booths where the customers sat, and held her order book in her hand like a baton. Cass quickly fumbled for her order book and switched directions. The audience laughed. She’d never waited a table in her life, a fact that was now rather obvious.

  “Oh. I forgot to tell you,” said Micah. “It’s one hot dog per plate, so that means you will be carrying ninety dinner plates…plus three beverages…moving as fast as is humanly possible.” He smiled. Brandi smiled. Cass cussed under her breath.

  Micah turned to the audience and said, “Are you ready to see someone do the dishes?” The audience rose to their feet again. “Are you ready to hand out a little pocket change?” They stomped and cheered. A giant check for $10 million, held by Tiffany Talador, appeared from the wings. Besides pointing at things, Tiffany also carried big checks. She passed once in front of the audience. Micah reached behind the counter and pulled out a big gun. If this was supposed to be a starter pistol, then they had gotten it from the Dirty Harry track-and-field catalog. Micah pointed it into the air and said, “On your mark! Get set!” He fired the gun.

  Cass thought that she had formulated a decent plan—shadow the more experienced Brandi, copy her every move, and then slip into the lead at the very end—but it pretty much fell apart before the gun smoke cleared. Brandi just moved too fast. She had all three orders pinned to the wheel before Cass had scribbled out her second order. Next came the drinks, and Brandi confidently held the tray above her shoulder and shot from table to table. Cass carried the tray like a third grader with an egg on a spoon. The worst part came when Micah, their cook for the evening, started throwing plates of hot dogs onto the pass-through counter. Brandi hauled ten plates at a time, lined up and down both arms like some kind of greasy-spoon contortionist. Cass carried four at a time and dropped the whole load once when she got distracted by the sight of one of the men stuffing an entire hot dog down his throat.

  These guys really did devour a hot dog and a bun in ten seconds, and the audience went completely nuts over it. And Brandi almost kept up with them. Every time she showed up with a big load of hotdogs, the crowd cheered, and the Big League Eaters treated everyone to an up-close demonstration of their gastronomic talents. And then Cass showed up with a measly four hot dogs, and the audience groaned. Brandi’s three customers hammed it up and put on a great show. Cass’s customers twiddled their thumbs.

  A loud horn blew, and a red checkmark flashed onto the scoreboard every time Cass or Brandi completed a task. Within just a few minutes, Brandi had three checkmarks, and Cass had one. And whenever Brandi got a checkmark, she stopped, faced the audience, and yelled, “Now we’re cooking with peanut oil!” Cass figured that it had to be some kind of redneck joke. Whatever it was, the audience loved it.

  The plan obviously had been a failure, but Cass didn’t panic. If she knew anything about StarBash, she knew that drama always waited just around the corner. And sure enough, when things looked their bleakest, a little bit of drama rolled up and hit her right in the foot.

  After Brandi’s customers had left, while she wiped down one of her tables, the bar towel accidently swiped a coin off the table. Brandi didn’t see it and, thanks to the noisy audience, didn’t hear it either. The coin hit a barstool on the other side of the aisle, rolled back across the aisle, and hit Cass in the foot just as she reached a customer with another round of hot dogs. Cass calmly deposited the dinner plates onto the table and reached down and plucked the quarter off the floor.

  A few seconds later, Brandi slammed her fist down onto the bell by the cash register. The audience cheered, and she launched into one of her honky-tonk victory dances—seasoned with extra peanut oil. Cass looked up at the scoreboard. Brandi had all five checkmarks, but one of them flashed on and off, presumably because it needed to be verified. Nobody knew it, but that wasn’t going to happen. By the time Cass had collected her tips—all quarters—and hit the bell, Brandi had expanded her celebration down to the front row of the audience. Cass looked again at the scoreboard. Just like Brandi, she had all the checkmarks, and one of them flashed on and off. There happened to be one important difference, though: Cass had six dollars in her pocket, and Brandi didn’t.

  Micah pushed through the swinging door, cruised through the restaurant, and took the same spot in front of the set where they had started. Cass joined him. Brandi gyrated her way up to the stage and wedged herself in between Cass and Micah. Cass obliged and moved over a step. Micah wore a huge smile, bigger than the usual game-show host, and Cass wondered why. Had he been secretly rooting for Brandi all along? It made sense. In Micah’s world, Brandi Bonacore qualified as the perfect star for a lavish anti-Hollywood production. She had bravely challenged the evil empire. She had been driven to the brink of annihilation. And now she had a happy ending that included a triumphant ride back into the chastised town for some good old-fashioned bootlicking and crow eating.

  Sometimes, though, the real ending isn’t the happy one.

  The stage lights dimmed, and the orchestra played a somber, ceremonious tune. The audience quieted. Micah removed his hat. The marble pedestal that held the beloved icon descended from on high, escorted by spotlight and accompanied by the man-eating dish sink that had recently been the source of so much handwringing. A gold box, about half the size of a breadbox, now rested on the pedestal next to the towel rack. The box looked like any other square, gilded container except that it had a large funnel-shaped bowl attached to the top, presumably to collect whatever the box stored. When the ensemble landed on the stage, the spotlight that had accompanied the journey expanded to include everyone onstage.

  As the orchestra continued in the background, Micah said, “Brandi, before we turn you loose on this dirty old sink, there is some housekeeping to take care of. Are you willing to trade six dollars in tips for a Greasy Dishrag?”

  “You bet your ass,” said Brandi.

  Micah pointed to the gold box and said, “Please deposit your tips into the coin counter.”

  Brandi scooped the coins out of her apron pocket and plunked them into the funnel on top of the box. The sound of jostling coins and a whirring machine echoed through the soundstage. The growing tally flashed onto the scoreboard as the coins rolled down the funnel and into the coin counter. The tally stopped at five dollars and seventy-five cents. Micah hesitated. He cleared his throat. He said, “You…uh…seem to be a little short.”

  The audience laughed.

  Brandi smiled, felt around her pocket, and said, “No, that’s all of it.”

  Micah looked down the funnel end of the box. He pulled out a small drawer from back of the box and looked inside where the drawer had been. He then emptied the coins from the drawer into his hand, reinserted the drawer, and counted the coins by placing them in one-dollar stacks onto the pedestal. One of the stacks came up short. Micah said, “I’m sorry, Brandi. You are missing a quarter.”

  Brandi’s hand shot back into the pocket. The outline of her fingers could be seen digging from corner to corner. She pulled out the order book and shook
it. Nothing shook loose. “No. That’s it. I got it all. I swear that’s all there was.”

  “No, Brandi. There was a total of six dollars left on your tables, and that has been verified by the judges.”

  “No, I’m telling you, I got it all. That’s all there was,” said Brandi. Her wisecracking smile had turned stiff and plaintive.

  The orchestra stopped playing.

  “I’m sorry, Brandi, the rules are very clear,” said Micah. “If you can’t complete the task, Cassandra Moreaux will be given the opportunity.”

  The audience gasped.

  “It has to be back on one of the tables,” said Brandi. She turned toward the booths.

  “No,” said Micah. “There’s no going back. If you can’t find the missing coin, you must step aside.”

  Now the tears began streaming down Brandi’s cheeks. A few minutes ago, those plump, rosy cheeks had been wreaths of glory. Now despair had left them twisted and ugly. Her body shook as it fought back the convulsion that precedes an impending sob. Her arms twitched. Her left hand dug compulsively into the empty apron pocket.

  Cass looked at Micah. He also looked devastated, and Cass understood it perfectly. Most of his dogmatic bluster boiled down to two simple words: right and wrong. He believed in them like a Boy Scout. Others might argue about his particular interpretation of right and wrong, but no one argued about his conviction. The same held true with the way Micah handled conflict. He put an unusual amount of effort into treating people fairly. Cass had experienced it personally and had witnessed it countless other times. She had no doubt that in Micah’s eyes the prize belonged to Brandi because it was right, and it was fair. And now a meaningless technicality had upset his perfectly ordered apple cart.

  Cass believed in right and wrong, too. If you have a love affair with Hollywood, right and wrong will always be along for the ride because virtually every movie ever made there revolved around some interpretation of those two words. And even now, on a disgusting little reality show, those two enemies had locked horns once again. Cass believed in right and wrong, but how much did she believe? Did she believe enough to sacrifice herself? Did she believe like Micah believed? Yes, she did. She knew it without reservation. It had taken three long years, and an unpleasant detour, but the truth had finally broken all the way through.