by Bruce Wagner
When she finally asked about Herke, he said it was short for Hercules. That had never occurred to her, and she thought it touching because at that moment he really did seem to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. He told her he was happy that she was living with the Dunsmores. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said. Becca said, “You don’t have to worry.” She was going to ask if he’d been sleeping with Elaine Jordache all the time they’d been seeing each other and if it was true he really did kill a man and if it was true what she heard that he was related to that man by blood and why was it only three years ago that he’d first seen his mom and she wanted to tell him that she still loved him and that maybe they would make a QuestraWorld movie of his whole life and saga and write to each other every day until he got out as long as it was true that he still loved her—but in the end, none of it seemed to matter. She recounted the very last part to her mom, trying to sound hardened and nonchalant and mature, but when Dixie replied, “Honey, everything matters,” Becca burst into tears.
And that was the last time she saw him, in the flesh anyway.
Blackout
MATTIE WAS CONCERNED about Lisanne, as were Reggie Marck and the Loewensteins. Since the episode on the jet, she’d been going downhill.
When she stopped by his office to deliver that deranged soliloquy, Reggie got seriously spooked. She left before he could take any action—not that he knew what that action would have been, though he kicked himself for not having “detained” her. He was worried that Lisanne might potentially harm herself or the baby. He phoned Roslynn, and they tried to sort things out. Reggie asked about the boyfriend, but Roslynn said he was out of his league when it came to her troubles; Philip had grown too dependent on Lisanne to be objective. The sister, she said, was the one with the head on her shoulders.
Reggie and Roslynn initiated a conference call with Calliope Krohn-Markowitz to discuss some sort of intervention. (Lisanne saw the psychiatrist for a few sessions, but had since gone AWOL.) The Muskinghams were also on the line. Calliope asked if there were any new developments. Mattie said that Lisanne had been spending a lot of time in the “yoga cabin” and appeared withdrawn. Also, there was a “growing diminution in personal hygiene.” Roslynn spoke of what she felt to be a “continued inappropriate response” to the plight of the actor Kit Lightfoot. Impatient with the pussyfooting, Reggie circled back to the astonishing office visit. “That was a crazy person,” he said. “That was a deeply disturbed woman who either needs to be taking medication or should be locked up. Probably both. Period.” There was a pause. “Frankly, I’m very concerned for the welfare of that baby. I don’t think we can in all good conscience sit by while there’s a tragedy in the making.” Calliope asked Philip about his thoughts—he was, after all, the one closest to Lisanne in a number of ways—but he said she seemed fine. Reggie said, sotto, “He’s got to be kidding.” In her role as mediator, Calliope reiterated Reggie’s concern about the well-being of Siddhama, and Philip said the nannies hadn’t noticed anything strange. Not that they’d talk about it if they had, said Mattie sardonically. And why is that? asked the doctor. Because, said Mattie, one of Lisanne’s eccentricities was, she was always giving them cash on the side. Roslynn wanted to know how much cash. Philip said there was a daily limit on the ATM. Reggie said, “What is it? Three hundred? Four hundred? That’s a lot of money to be giving a nanny.” “Is that ‘hush money’?” wondered Roslynn. “I mean, what’s she doing? Money for what?” “It’s just misplaced largesse,” said Mattie. “She has a big heart,” said Philip. “That’s all very well and good,” said Reggie, in hard-nosed attorney mode. “But I think we really need to be in reality regarding this woman. This is a damaged lady. Look, I’ve known her a lot of years now, and I am telling you this is someone who needs to be hospitalized. And I think we should take that step. Because we don’t want a tragedy on our hands. Hey, maybe it’s something that only needs a few days—or a week—or whatever. Great. Maybe it’s strictly a medication thing. I don’t know, Doctor, could having a child have brought this on? I mean, the whole concealing of the pregnancy . . . is this a postpartum psychosis thing?” “It may be,” said Calliope, with caution. “Of course that needs to be ruled out. But I can’t rule out anything if I’m not able to meet with the patient.” “Maybe Phil can help with that,” said Roslynn, knowing that his sister would chime in. “Yes,” agreed Mattie. “Phil and I can definitely talk to her about coming in for another session. Don’t you think, Philip?” “Uh huh,” said her brother. “And if not,” said Mattie, “we can talk about something more definitive. We’re actually all going out tonight for an event.” “Great,” said Roslynn. “Maybe that would be a good time for discussion,” said Calliope. “But I think it’s important you use your own judgment. If that’s a conversation you think would be better suited to have at home, then wait until you get home.” It was agreed all around that Lisanne wouldn’t be left alone with Siddhama. Reggie said, “Won’t that be difficult?” Philip said Lisanne was rarely alone with the baby anyway. Mattie said she would have a talk with the nannies, and Roslynn said that Philip should take her ATM card away. He assented. Calliope told Mattie and Philip to check in with her as soon as they spoke to Lisanne, even if it were late tonight.
After everyone had hung up, Reggie called Roslynn back and said that he couldn’t understand why the call hadn’t ended with more of a concrete plan. Roslynn contradicted him. She definitely got the feeling things were “coming to a head” and that hospitalization was imminent. “I missed that,” said Reggie skeptically. “I guess I zoned.”
• • •
IT RAINED HARD that night.
Months ago, Philip had got tickets to see the Dalai Lama at UCLA. He engaged a driver, but when his sister arrived at Rustic Canyon, Mattie said, “I refuse to take a chauffeur-driven Mercedes to see the Dalai Lama.”
Their seats were up close. As they arrived, tantric monks gargled timeless liturgies from the foot of the stage. Ushers handed out pamphlets that told the story of a little boy who had been recognized by His Holiness as the eleventh Panchen Lama of Tibet. He had been kidnapped by the Chinese government, who then replaced him with a Panchen pretender.
It made Lisanne think of her own Siddhama. Since she’d given away the Supreme Bliss-Wheel Integration Buddha, whenever she looked in her baby’s eyes it seemed as if he wasn’t there. As a mother, she could no longer recognize his energy; the bond had been swiftly, elegantly severed. She cursed herself for being on her period when Kit came inside her. She’d been too hasty—she should have waited until she was ovulating. Now her fate was sealed. Craving estrus, the flies of all those souls awaiting human rebirth had been repelled by her blood’s brackish, viscous, tarry rejection of the “liquid gold” of H.H. the venerable Kit Clearlightfoot’s semen. In that very instant, she had slammed the door on the Buddha, his teachings, and the holy community, forever.
Philip discreetly pointed, alerting Lisanne and his sister that Viv Wembley was just a few rows away. How perfect! The succubus was with Alf Lanier. Both had dressed down in a ridiculous attempt at self-effacement, so shabbily casual as to almost backfire, evincing disrespect, shallow, wicked, radiant poseurs come to gawk at His Holiness as high society once did the Elephant Man. Anyone with two eyes could see that Alf had replaced Kit in her life the same way the Panchen pretender had supplanted the true lama, wherein Lisanne saw an even more sinister motive for their attendance at the arena. Because Viv was an actress, Lisanne knew that she needed to be loved above all else, begging exoneration for her abandonment of Kit (and subsequent flagrant transgressions). The miscarriage and all-around fickle public sympathies were not enough to salve an ego of her proportion. Lisanne was certain the Together star was of a mind that merely being seen in the Dalai Lama’s presence with copper petals humbly spread, ready to receive the nectar of atonement, would by necessity gather great merit, as sure as the wealthy sinner once obtained indulgences by the pressing of exculpatory lucre
into the hand of the Pope. Still, she admired Viv’s cunning, her élan, her pirate’s nature, and with a twinge in the womb, admonished herself: Viv Wembley would never have gone over there while menstruating. Viv Wembley would have waited until she was in heat. She was so angry because she had bested that rich and famous woman—Viv Wembley’s cervical loss had been Lisanne McCadden’s magical gain—but the executive assistant had choked at the moment of truth. And now her baby, her Siddhama, was abducted and unknown to her, as unknown as the child Viv had coldly flushed away.
A ripple of applause became a torrential ovation as the exiled head of state was led to the stage, surrounded by monks and bodyguards. His English was difficult to understand. Lisanne spaced out on Viv and Alf until half an hour later, when the Q & A began. Someone asked, “What is the best way to become spiritually pure?” His Holiness said he didn’t like the word best because it usually meant fastest, quickest, easiest. “That is wrong,” he said, sternly. “Wrong, wrong, wrong!” The cultivated mob laughed obsequiously. He went on to say that the answer to the man’s question was “everything I have been talking about tonight.” There was a testy, imperious edge to his words, and Lisanne thought: Good for him. It must be tough to talk to shits and dunces. Then some jerk-off wanted to know if he ever “just relaxed and enjoyed” himself. His Holiness smiled and said, “I am going to enjoy this cool glass of water.” With that, he dramatically hoisted the glass and took a long, steep drink while the mental midgets laughed, wept, and clapped. “And now,” he said, “I will enjoy going to sleep!”
He left the stage without fanfare. Barely an hour had passed.
As they filed out, Philip said, “What a pro.”
Mattie said, “Amazing.”
Philip said, “Short but sweet. He’s the Man.”
Mattie said, “We have to go to that Kalachakra thing.”
Philip said, “Where do they do that, in India?”
Mattie said, “Wherever. Sign me up, I’m goin.”
• • •
KIT AND CELA danced, drank, and smoked weed. Kissed and groped. He told her about Viv and Alf being a couple. She commiserated. (She’d already read about it in Entertainment Weekly.) He literally cried on her shoulder. She knew they were going to fuck tonight—that whole scene with the Super Size Hare Krishna girl had clinched it.
The motherfucker was in Vegas again. She didn’t even want to think about what he was doing. Why kid herself anymore? She’d done enough of that through the years. The dad had been a perverse aberration—Kit was her man. And now like some romance novel he’d come back to her. She would take him, any way she could. He wasn’t even that fucked up. Hell, everyone was damaged goods. And he was getting better every day. All Burke thought about was the money anyhow. Cela never thought about the money. If she could guarantee that Burke and the whole shitty world would just leave them alone by signing a piece of paper giving away Kit’s money, then she would. She sure-ass would.
He asked her to put on the “blockbuster,” World Without End. He wanted to fast-forward to the dance scene with Cameron Diaz. As they watched, Kit sensually mirrored his on-screen movements while Cela mimicked Cameron’s.
—Acceptable, Respectable, Presentable, A Vegetable!
At night . . .
when all the world’s asleep . . .
the questions run so deep . . .
for such a simple man . . .
He turns the volume up as loud as it will go, gyrating toward the sliding glass. Rain sheets crashing. Shirtless now, coiled and muscular, swaying to the beat, hands gliding over each other tracing wet forms, shadows of mutual tattoos, snaking into the downpour through mud-grass puddles, shoes off, wrestle-wriggling jeans over ankles, oblivious to torrents, no longer lip-synching but shouting lyrics full-bellow, eyes closed—
Won’t you please
please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
please tell me who I am . . .
Something happens.
Stops singing.
Eyes open wide now, as if finally in complete awareness—the enormity of what befell him.
Lifts his head to the star-dead Riverside skies and yowls.
Cela, who is not finished with him, who cannot, will not leave him, never has and never will, Cela, who is not yet done with her epic love, love of her life, not yet done in this life or childhood life or life any other, sobs and sinks to her knees, holding, ballasting, rooting this tree that tears loose from its mulch, pointing with rent goblin’s thicket of caterwauling branches toward freezing (star-dead) Riverside skies: Cela bears him down, afraid he’ll loosen and ascend, forever lost, gasping with the horror she may not have what it takes to hold him, that her love will not be enough to make it so.
• • •
SHE SLAUGHTERED the pug—Philip’s pug, the one Mattie gave him for his birthday, the one he loathed at first but in three short weeks had learned to love—by hurtling it against the wall, then doing some eviscerating with a pair of antiquey, gilt-edged scissors that she got at Restoration.
The dog was an obstacle between student and teacher, novice and guru, between the Vulnerable Lisanne McCadden and H.H. the Venerable Kit Clearlightfoot. The dog came uninvited to the in-between, where only empty spaces may reside. That was a karmic violation—there was only so much room for official bardos. (The guidebook said there were supposed to be only six, but the dog made for a seventh.) That sort of thing had been studied and decreed for millennia and was certainly not beholden to the whims or policy makings of an errant pug. Lisanne was unconcerned about the implications of the killing. Hadn’t Milarepa, poet-warrior and student of the supreme phowa master Marpa, committed dozens of murders before his fated enlightenment? Anyway, it was a mu or moot point whether dogs possessed the Buddha nature. If this one did, she thought, it sure doesn’t now.
She used masking tape to cover her apertures, as the guidebook suggested. “During the practice of phowa,” she read aloud, “one must first block all the openings in a special way so that only the aperture at the crown of the head remains open. When the mind leaves the body through the crown of the head, one will be reborn in a pure land beyond samsaric existence where the conditions for practice are perfect.” She wanted to bypass the disintegration of the five winds and the dissolution of gross and subtle thoughts. When, through the Brahma-hole, her life-winds ceased at last breath and came the merging of red and white, of earth and sky, she wished to remain conscious and not panic. Otherwise she worried that she would have to endure the three and a half days of darkness and the gang of wrathful demons—the 100,000 suns and 100,000 thunderclaps. No: only the fourth rigpa would do. According to the guidebook, “The first sign of a result in phowa practice is that a strong itch is felt at the top of the head. Later a tiny hole appears into which a straw of grass can actually be inserted.” She needed one-pointed concentration in order to eject consciousness, “as a competent archer shoots the arrow from his bow.” She taped a sanitary napkin over her bottom holes before sealing navel, ears, and mouth. As she plugged her nostrils, Lisanne imagined blood and lymph leaking there, a classic sign to whatever monks were present (she wished some were here now) that recitations from The Tibetan Book of the Dead should begin. Finally, she covered up her eyes.
Some texts said it was best to die standing up. Some said it was best to die sitting, in full lotus. If one couldn’t manage either, the guidebook suggested one simply recline, in the posture of a sleeping lion. That was how the Buddha had died. Then it is good enough for me. As she lay on her right side, she punched at her skull with the gold-handled scissors in the complementary area of Kit’s surgical incisions. She stabbed to the cadence of measured oracular tones, and shouted out loud: “Listen, Lisanne! Now has come the time for you to seek a Path! As breathing stops, the clear light of the first phase of dying, as shown to you by H.H. the Venerable Kitchener Clearlightfoot, will dawn! This is primordial mind, empty and radiant, without horizon or center! See th
at for what it is! H.H. the Venerable Kitchener Clearlightfoot will describe it and help you!”
• • •
GUESTS SCREAMED, in revelry.
Becca locked herself in her room. Every now and then some drunk stumbled into her door or tried letting himself in.
She was checking out Us Weekly’s Celebrity Look-Alikes page, with its paired photos of famous people who supposedly resembled each other—like Kate Spade and Kate Beckinsale, or Tina Turner and Beyoncé Knowles. It was sort of a goof. There was also a famous/nonfamous section, and there she was: a picture of Becca beside one of Drew. Without her knowing, Larry and Annie had sent in one of Becca’s eight-by-tens—along with a link to the Six Feet Undergirls Web site.
If you’re like Drew double Becca Mondrain, a twenty-two-year-old actress, Internet goddess, and “Six Feet Undergirl” in Los Angeles, and people are always saying to you, “You know, you look just like . . . ,” send your photo along with your name and daytime phone number to Letters, Us, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10104-0298, or e-mail it to [email protected]. If we run your picture, you’ll win a prize!
A body slammed dumbly against one of her walls, and she startled. She flung herself to the bed and cried.
“I will not leave this town a loser look-alike!” she exclaimed, then thought: I sound like a bad actress. (Out of some fifties film.) She giggled, then picked up the phone to call Annie. They talked excitedly about the Us Weekly piece, and Becca said she wondered what the prize would be. She told Annie she should get her horny ass up to Mulholland right here, right now, then hung up and went to the bathroom and did a line of coke as she peed. She washed the tears from her face, put on a thong, and looked at herself in the mirror. Flat stomach, belly ring, high ass. Tried on a short black Barneys skirt. Thought of Rusty, then pushed the thought away.