by Bruce Wagner
Ready to party.
Ground Luminosity
. . .
HOLLYWOOD, ONE YEAR LATER
The Eternal Return
COLD L.A. SPRING.
A luxe, hidden warehouse space just off Fountain.
An audience of twelve, each sitting apart.
Handsome pair onstage—young woman, young man.
The unkempt harridan in a mohair cape forbiddingly occupies an aisle seat. Pinches nostrils between thumb and forefinger as she focuses. Famous old habit. Reading glasses hang low on a long garish chain.
“Don’t you feel how good it smells?” asks the actress of her partner.
(Strindberg chamber play.)
Doesn’t “own” the scene—hasn’t cracked it. Running on fumes. Actor fumes . . .
“That’s from the palms that are burning,” she says. “And Father’s laurel wreath. Now the linen closet’s on fire—it smells of lavender—and now the roses. Little Brother, don’t be afraid! Hold me tighter!—” Lurches into him.
Without moving a muscle, Jorgia Wilding screams from her perch, in full-tilt boogie nostril pinch. “You’re making emotional choices without physical commitment. Gerda ain’t just fidgety—watch your body, Toya. Choreograph the inner landscape, distill the gestures! Otherwise, it’s Strindberg Lite. It’s Nick at Nite.”
An intern approaches, votive before an altar. Bends and whispers into Ms. Wilding’s ear—the old woman flinches at his announcement—before receding into darkness.
She stands, commanding the troops: “All right—from ‘Don’t say anything bad about Father.’ ”
She exits. The actors softly rappel to the foot of the scene.
In the lobby, she cannot suppress her emotions upon seeing him.
(A large Fijian stands in the doorway blocking the sunlight.)
“Kitchener, my God! What a wonderful surprise!”
They embrace. She presses him close—he feels right as rain.
“How are you?” he asks.
She pulls back to take him in.
Right as rain!
“I’m well, I’m well!” Jorgia says, discombobulated. “But more to the point—how are you?”
“Gettin there. It’s a . . . long and winding road!”
Notes the smallest slurred impediment, and emphatic tone that she shrewdly ascribes to nervousness. The Henry Higgins in her thinks: Easily modulated.
What an effort his journey must have been!
“I cannot imagine,” she says, with mother’s tender grace. “But I’m right in the middle—Would you like to come watch class?”
He knows the sacred teaching comes first.
“No—not now. Thank you. But I have a question.”
She cocks her head expectantly.
“Jorgia, I would like to know . . . if you—would have the time . . . to help—me.”
• • •
TULA DRIVES HIM back to the bungalow at the Bel-Air.
He steps from the car with a slight lope but overall gliding gait.
Media hunters and gatherers have tread heavily since Turkey Day, when Kit and Cela made their move—since the Götterdämmerung ugliness of the Riverside decampment. Kit makes an effort not to be mobile before dark (Jorgia was an exception), so as to cramp the stalkerazzi’s style. While still lucrative, bounty for stolen images has suffered devaluation, the trouble being that Mr. Lightfoot looks much like he always did: a rough prince. There has not been captured, nor could be now, that pesky drooling onto stubble; no shambling Rain Man heart tuggers; no scary Chris Reeve telephoto rehab cum-shot. Glam, dignified, and amazing looking, he is nothing short of the hunky poster boy for neurological recovery. There’s a gold mine in the girlfriend, though, God willing: fourteen weeks pregnant. Shoot both in one frame—though the couple make sure they’re never together, outdoors—and the gross is around $400 K, worldwide. Tabloid-fueled rumors of incestuous scandale (was she Dad’s galfriend too?) goosed the price even further.
Cela’s swollen belly floats toward him as he walks through the door. Everything smiles at them now. He rests a hand on the ripeness; then her hand on his, warming the womb. Her once and future kings.
On Her Own
ALREADY MARCH, and the tree isn’t down. The maid carefully dusts the ornaments. She told her mom she was just going to leave it, and her manager loved that because it was great, quirky shtick for interviews, which she’d been doing a lot of since the Spike Jonze movie came out.
Becca went to Waynesboro for Thanksgiving, then Dixie brought two favorite cousins out for Christmas. She came back again for her daughter’s birthday—the Ides of March—when Becca threw herself a party at Boardner’s. The entire talent team was there plus Annie and Larry, Becca’s new acting coach, fellow dramatis personae from Metropolis, and last but not least Sharon Belzmerz, the angel in her corner from the very beginning, who not only introduced her to Spike Jonze (more or less) but got her a part on Without a Trace and hooked her up with a former associate who placed her in national Ford and Cingular spots. (Whenever they were in public and she’d had a few Flirtinis, the casting director liked to refer mischievously to Becca’s Six Feet Undergirl “moment” like it was some kind of softcore skeleton in her closet.) More important, Sharon had been instrumental in getting Becca the A & E pilot she’d just finished shooting, 1200 North, in which she played Rhiannon, wild-child Paris Hiltonesque daughter of a rich Bay Area matriarch (think Danielle Steel). After the overdose of a boyfriend, Rhiannon decides to take a nun’s vows. Testing her faith and resolve, Marlee Matlin (family friend and wise mother superior of an East L.A. Carmelite monastery) bids Rhiannon first do a year of volunteer work at the nearby USC-County trauma center. Dana Delany plays the chief surgeon. Seeing aspects of herself in the young girl, Dana takes Rhiannon under her wing.
Becca was shocked when Dana swept into the Boardner’s patio with her sometime beau David Gough, a TV star in his own right. (She hadn’t expected her to come.) Dana was so elegant, chummy, and unaffected, and a slightly tipsy Mrs. Mondrain kept saying to her face how she was “television royalty.” But when Marlee made her entrance, Becca’s mom really lost it—she’d been such a huge fan since Children of a Lesser God and even done volunteer work with deaf kids in Charlottesville. Larry Levine took some portraity digital shots of Dixie with Marlee, Dana, and David (which she downloaded to the family Web site as soon as she got back to Becca’s) before calling in the Cameron, the Jim Carrey, and the Barbra, for a campy group pose. Becca had invited them at the last minute because she’d panicked that none of her invitees would show; most look-alikes were so needy, they’d go anywhere they were asked. They were sweet and harmless, and now she felt sad for them—a million miles away.
• • •
THE DUNSMORES didn’t know about 1200 North, and Becca wanted to keep it that way for as long as she could. She had escaped the Mulholland guesthouse last year (on the anniversary of 9/11, which felt appropriate), the very day that Grady was arrested for assaulting a UTA agent during one of their out-of-control theme parties. Last summer Cassandra took a lover, a gaunt woman with hep C that she’d met through Dr. Janowicz’s sudden wealth syndrome support group. (She had recently won an eight-figure settlement on behalf of her obese husband, whose death had been attributed to a ride on the Magnum XL-200 roller coaster at Cedar Point.) It seemed that almost immediately after they’d been introduced, Cassandra had insisted her new friend become an equity holder in QuestraWorld, sharing CEO, CFO, and COO duties. This became a bone of contention with Grady, whose OxyContin intake rapidly escalated around the time the threesomes became Sapphic, behind-closed-doors twosomes, which egged him on to calamitous Hard Rock Casino sorties; Cassandra, conferring with their Encino lawyers, took a flurry of steps to limit his monthly draw, concerned that he was “blowing the legacy.” Though Mama Cass had given up on the family (such as it was) reality skein, as far as Becca knew, the “entity”—at least Grady anyway—was still actively hyping “To Kill a Unicorn,
” the buried, Saran-Wrapped pages of which he had finally uncovered at a site one hundred yards from a Lands’ End outlet in Primm, Nevada. (Once retrieved, he kept right on, to the Hard Rock.) But even with the low buzz in the press about Herke Lamar Goodson’s upcoming trial, “Unicorn” was going nowhere fast. The Dunsmores tried for months to get her to call Viv Wembley to see if she would be interested in starring or maybe just producing (as a full QuestraWorld partner), and Becca thought that was a measure of how crazy the couple was because they already knew that Viv had threatened Becca with a restraining order and was terrified of her at best. Months ago, the young actress made the mistake of telling Cassandra that Viv’s business managers had fucked up and she’d never signed a confidentiality clause like Gingher and the rest. Cassandra said that if Viv didn’t help with “Unicorn,” Becca should just tell her she was going to sell a memoir “to the highest bidder.” Becca said that was blackmail and she was going to pretend she didn’t even hear it. The Dunsmores continued to be psychotically oblivious to the fact that “To Kill a Unicorn” happened to be written and conceived by the homicidal friend of the man who’d assaulted Viv’s former fiancé—hel-lo! Apparently, they didn’t see that as an obstacle. Annie said they should definitely be committed.
Meanwhile, Grady got “Unicorn” to Eric Roberts with $300,000 attached even though Cassandra and the gaunt woman, as co-CEOs, -CFOs, and -COOs, hadn’t approved the offer. Fortunately or unfortunately, Eric passed. (Grady suspected he was lied to when told that Mr. Roberts had been given the script for perusal—else why would the actor have Pasadena’d? Becca presumed the party-pummeled talent agent was somewhere in the mix.) The gaunt woman thought they should approach Adrien Brody, ASAP. Cassandra couldn’t believe it when Grady emerged from a narcotic haze just long enough to inform them that the property was now “out” to Mickey Rourke. The gaunt woman said Mickey Rourke had his face beat in a Florida prizefight, and looked like “a ghoul in a Lara Croft.” “Mickey just might say yes,” Grady said gallingly. “Mickey likes money. He’s doin his comeback thing. Mickey wants to be a star.”
Becca’s only wish was to get these people and their bad karma off her. She knew they’d turn into heat-seeking missiles the minute they got wind of success—if 1200 North was picked up for September, Grady and Cass would be all over her. By then, she hoped to be able to hire a bodyguard, or even have a big agency like ICM or CAA looking out for her: if she was going to be making potential millions, they’d be highly motivated. But until that day came, the Dunsmores had to be considered loose cannons. She’d keep a distance but play the coddling game too.
Becca used her Cingular checks to rent a place in Silverlake. She hung Chinese lanterns around the patio that overlooked the sloping house from the hill’s high end. That’s where she finally moved the yuletide tree, as a kind of performance piece installation. But the flocking was gray, and nothing smelled like Christmas anymore.
Under the Medication Tree
AFTER LISANNE’S hospitalization, Reggie Marck spoke with a certain party in upstate New York who was dismayed to learn that her niece had given birth. Lisanne had talked freely of the old flame (the boy’s alleged father), and while she had kept the details to herself, the lawyer didn’t feel he was in violation of a confidence when revealing as much to the aunt. She immediately put him in touch with Robbie Sarsgaard.
While Reggie knew that Lisanne was where she should be, at least in the short term, he didn’t feel the same about little Siddhama. He had a gut aversion toward Philip Muskingham and, for all his money, felt him to be of questionable parenting skills. Moreover, he didn’t think it practical or even appropriate to lean on the sister or the Loewensteins to fill that role. As an attorney and longtime friend of Lisanne, he was mandated to protect the welfare of Siddhama at all costs and, though it was unlikely, to block any potential efforts of the DCFS to gain custody of the child. (Philip had shown no inclination to petition for an even temporary guardianship.) That was why he decided to take a flier and, through the aunt, contact the blood father, for whom, during a rare conversation about the gentleman, Lisanne had evinced a historical, more than glancing affection. His initial idea was to suggest that he come to Los Angeles—if amenable—and stay awhile on Reggie’s dime. Mr. Sarsgaard listened and immediately acceded, but said he would pay his own way.
He was joined by his elderly spouse. Reggie and the Muskinghams took the couple for dinner at the Grill, the sanguine result being that Philip had them relocated from the Embassy Suites to a spacious Fairfax District duplex where they might live with the baby (an arrangement happily promoted by the Sarsgaards that would, perforce, be perfunctorily reassessed upon what turned out to be the first of Lisanne’s many releases and readmits). Robbie said neither he nor his wife had anything to tie them to Albany and were free to stay “for the duration.” The Rustic Canyon nannies were retained. Philip felt unburdened, and gratified in doing right by Siddhama and those concerned. Further, his good deed assuaged the of late morbid fear that, in her madness, Lisanne might confess their sexual secrets—more to the point, his own aberrations—to the hospital staff. (Though he sneakily comforted himself with the notion that her claims would most likely be dismissed.) At any rate, this particular chapter’s end had been considered a fortuitous one, not least because there was great relief that it was the pug and not the precious child who’d been harmed. That Lisanne had somehow stopped herself from committing such an unthinkably atrocious act allowed a measure of optimism about her future and the future in general to creep in.
• • •
SHE SPENT SO MUCH time in the hospital, first at Cedars, then in private facilities that Roslynn and Mattie found by research and word of mouth.
H.H. the Vulnerable Lisanne McCadden—that’s how she always signed in, on admission.
Between stints, she would be released to Rustic Canyon, then, after only a short while home, returned to lockdown. For months and months she vanished to the world and to herself. She felt like the ghost of a burnt-out barge floating on a wide, dark river.
On bright construction paper, a bardo-diorama of dementia, she pasted a mandala montage of the Materialized Realm of the Paradise of the Medicine Buddha. For who was the Buddha if not the Great Physician, Great Healer, the Lord and Scientist who held the vaseless vase of ambrosia in his hands? He would cleanse her of toxins and set her free. Look what he kept in his beggar’s bowl: the Three Nectars that cured disease, reversed aging, and propagated Ultimate Awareness. Honey that broke the chains shackling all sentient beings to the Wheel of Deluded Existence . . .
OM AH HAM
She knew she needed to say it over and over while spinning Kalachakra—the great Wheel of Time. Everything was Great. Great OM,
seed sound for the two-petaled sixth chakra, was fixed at the brow, the area of Kit’s injuries, its vibration heard whenever male and female energies merged. HAM
emanated from the throat chakra while preparing the gullet channel for devotional receipt of nectar.
Yet only
OM AH HAM
could rally the Three Ambrosias to vanquish the Three Poisons—aggression, greed, ignorance—the very same fires that stoked the conflagration called samsara.
Snake! Rooster! Pig!
Lisanne had long since memorized the Wheel of Becoming—the laminated poster she’d picked up that day at the Bodhi when she ran into Phil not yet Philip, pervert and—no, that wasn’t fair—sweet-souled benefactor and godfather to her son not of him, and she rotated its twelve radiating rungs in her mind each moment of every hour of the nuthouse day until they became swift second nature. For what was a mandala but a visual mantra, so said the guidebook of guidebooks, her mantra through its turning was “Kitlightfoot/Clearlightfoot/Kitlightfoot/Clearlightfoot,” and like the blur of spokes in a carriage wheel, they soon became one. As she hummed, she began (as was proper), with the miniature painting that depicted Ignorance—rendering of a blind man with a cane. “That’s me,” said Lisanne. �
��For I am but a cripple surrounded by fields of brilliant jewels, a cripple who has chosen not to see.” She wanted to help him, but he just went on, tap-tap-tapping, alone. Who was she to think she could help? She could smell his stubborn breath, stagnant and ketotic, like her own. Right beside the crooked man, moving clockwise, came Actions, bearded thrower of clay pots, busily making karma. (The Wheel said that even thoughts and intentions bore the burden of consequence. Every time one had a bad thought it was like putting another pot in the kiln, a pot that would need to be shattered if one was ever to be free.) The hairy, red-faced golem was born of mud, and now here she was in this wreck room bardo because she had worshiped gods with clay feet. How could the humble workshop of a wise old pot thrower be a place of such misery? So: there was no solace, not even in the touch of wet earth. Then came the restless monkey of Consciousness, swinging compulsively from tree to tree, harbinger of the talking ape—it had taken all this, Lisanne thought with a smile, doped up, locked in bedlam, to at last understand what the sangha meant by “monkey mind.” The fourth spoke, a scene of passengers in a boat, reminded Lisanne of the time her parents brought her to Disneyland and she sat in a theme-ride canoe (like the passenger section of an airplane with its wings detached), methodically ratcheted by track and chain through still then rushing waters . . . This part of the Wheel was called Name and Form, and she watched as the boat of her pale, heavy body drifted down the great polluted river of samsara. Kitclearlightfoot Clearlightfoot Kitclearlightfoot Clearlightfoot Kitclear—others in the dugout being simply Forms and Aspects, luminescent phantoms of her own personality and nonphysical self. Leaving the river behind, Lisanne shook herself dry and approached an empty house with six windows that always reminded her of the cover of a Nancy Drew mystery. The bodhisattvas said the windows were the Six Senses through which we perceived the world.
