Dead Stars

by Bruce Wagner

  The other reality mavens on the panel (she hadn’t heard of any of their shows) possessed a cheerleading, bulletproof, nearly robotic self-confidence that Tom-Tom hoped would rub off. Most of the time she held it together pretty well but like a lot of artists, she had her bleak moments—something the thrilled-with-themselves panelists apparently knew nothing about. Tho maybe they were just hiding that shit cause it didn’t play in public; maybe they’d share their darkness with her after the event, one on one. All she knew was that if she were to succeed, there’d be zero room for fear/self-doubt. She probably did a little more speed than she should have; her heart was hammered. Her focus went south and she flashed on joining Omarosa’s seminary, licking the salty, Ubangi lip-sized clit of merciless Mother Africa while Ivanka & Donald did their father/tall drinka daughter Rump Tower thing. All those thighscrapers . . .

  When Omarosa was done, they went down the line, & every single panelist said how lucky they were to have triumphed in doing whatever the fuck they were doing, how they “were flown all over the world” to cook, to DJ, to fuck, to suck, to bla. Tom-Tom was getting pissy.

  A panelist said, “I’m an attentionwhore.” No shit. Another said, “The lower you feel the higher you heal.” Huh? Another said, “Life is short, eat the red velvet cupcake.” Gimme some. Another said, “There will always be h8trs. They love to drink the H8torade.”

  . . .

  Audrina’s body was so tight it was scary. Reeyonna got self-conscious; her stomach was getting giant, her back was killing her, & she couldn’t imagine looking or feeling glamorous ever again. She wasn’t even sure she ever did.

  The interviewer said, “What’s your favorite reality show?”

  Audrina said, “Cake Boss.”

  “O! Cake Boss was cancelled!”

  “It was?”

  “Yes! Audrina I’m so sorry!”

  When the Q&A ended, Rikki thought Reeyonna wanted to meet her so he started drifting with the mob toward the stage. But when he looked back, ReeRee just shook her head and trudged to the EXIT.

  . . .

  www.mischabartonhandbags.com

  . . .

  There was a lot of casting going on but it was hard to tell for what. People were even signing up to be videotaped by casting agents. There were booths with different websites for actors—ones that told them what was being cast, ones that sent them audition sites, ones for uploading videos.

  . . .

  Tom-Tom had butterflies at the American Idol panel.

  Blake Lewis was there, & Mikalah Gordon from Season 4. The rest were Season 9s except for Kimberley Locke. Kimberley was in Tom-Tom’s season, Season 3. They were talking about how they bonded with fans. One Idol said she even became friends with her webmaster.

  Tom-Tom wrote down random shit she heard in her trapper keeper: suddenly the show BLEW UP . . . take it to the next level . . . follow my dream, follow my passion . . . Don’t be underwhelming! . . . I’m a girlie-girl . . . Karina Smirnoff/DWTS: dance studio, beauty line— ‘girlactik’

  At the end, about twenty people went to the stage to have their picture taken with the Idols. Tom-Tom was going to say hello to Kimberley but decided to catch her after she performed, later in the day.

  . . .

  Reeyonna really wanted to see Kris & Bruce Jenner but they didn’t show. Eric Roberts didn’t show either, and neither did Mischa. Rikki said Tom-Tom said Bruce Jenner had a hundred-million dollars. ReeRee wanted to see what people looked like who had a hundred-million dollars, if they looked different.

  They passed an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition booth. ReeRee said they should get those people to do Betty White’s house. That really cracked Rikki up, which made ReeRee happy.

  . . .

  Tom-Tom was finally recognized by a handsome fortysomething actor who struck up a conversation. He said he almost made the cut of the Gigolos pilot, Showtime’s reality series about male escorts servicing female clients in Las Vegas. He tried again for the second season, but it was a no-go. She was very anxious to hear his story.

  . . .

  Reeyonna dug into her beef enchiladas while Rikki was in the head. She felt like a fat pig. Ew gross. A youngish, wholesome-looking man with barbershop quartet muttonchops came over. He said he was a casting agent, looking for pregnant girls.

  “You’re not from MTV, are you?” she said with a smile.

  “No but sometimes I wish I was.” He said it in an appealing, jokey way. Friendly, sweet, not pervy or pushy. “Say what you will, it’s pretty darn hard to argue with their success. And longevity.”

  He gave her his card and left.

  She felt like a fatter pig. Gross.

  She saw Rikki throw something into the trash on his way over. She asked him what it was, and he wouldn’t say. He had that look he gets when he huffs.

  “Did you whip it?” He just smiled. He was blazed. “Where’d you get the can? Did you bring it?”

  He just smiled.

  . . .

  That night Tom-Tom met him for a drink on Melrose at a restaurant owned supposedly by Lauren Conrad. He said he was “a working actor” & Mark Wahlberg’s 2nd cousin and sometime camera double. He said his real passion was making furniture. Mark had a lot of his pieces. So did Robbie Robertson, Alanis Morissette, Moby, Eddie Vedder, Dave Grohl, & Rufus Wainwright’s manager. She told him about her vision. He said he’d love to see the house so they went up.

  Bolt had the biggest dick she’d ever seen.

  EXPLICIT

  [Jerzy&Rikki]

  “Larry

  Fishburne didn’t do you any favors you know.”

  He’d been spending time with Jerzy since he lost the part. He was bored & Jerzy let him ride along during work. (Plus J had more time to hang because he was spending less of it with Tom-Tom since the Gigolos reject moved in; tho Tom-Tom already gave Bolt his own room, he was staying with her in the master 96% of the time.) Rikki said to Reeyonna, Your brother’s crazy for real but he’s cool. We’re down.

  They sped from one location to another as Jerzy got tweeted various whereabouts. Rikki asked who was tweeting him & Jerzy said “my tweethearts.” Rikki stayed in the car smoking Romulan Queen whenever Jerzy got out to do his pap thing.

  “I think Larry Fishburne’s a fuckin MANTIS. He saw you in that room sitting very still at the feeder & clocked you as a little black hummingbird.”

  Rikki was blazed; J’s rap wasn’t helping the zituation.

  “Hummingbird. Dude what do you mean.”

  “What do you mean, ‘what do you mean?’? What do I mean? What do YOU mean.”

  Jerzy never took his eyes off the road. His smile was cheap & voracious, like a 3rd cousin of the Joker.

  They rocketed toward an odd threesome supposedly lunching at Ago: Heather Morris, Michael Douglas, & Natalie Portman’s husband the dancer.

  . . .

  He thought Tom-Tom was kidding.

  She said she read online that the role had been cast. He said To who? She said, Nobody I know. Like, an unknown. Rikki said, But I was an unknown. She said, You still are, pumpkin. Rikki kept echo chambering What? all puzzled-looking & kooky. What? What? What? Then he stopped saying What? & started saying Fuck. He moped/paced from room to room then out he’d go, walking the circumference of the pool like a schmuckfaced, loserkook, crowing, canting, barking, bitching, sighing, shrieking, ululating/murmuring fukFUKfukFUKfuk like an actor trying on attitudes, searching for the inflection that best suited his role, now highvoiced, now low as Tyler duh Creator. He offered the guttural wordstring to the Void, dipped his stubbed toe in nothingness.

  The boy who cried fuk.

  . . .

  Jerzy felt bad for him. Anyone could see the kid had hi apple pie in the sky hopes. Probably thought it was a lock. Gunna be the new black whom-evuh, nubian screen god, BET supersizeme superstar. Bangin Rihanna for real, not Reeyonna, I mean Jerzy loved his little sissy but that Reeyonna shit was fuckin retarded whitegirl shit. & not even, ’cause sissy was
n’t even white trash, which would at least have given her ½ an excuse. My little sissy calls herself Reeyonna was not some shit he’d be hurrying to share with Suge.

  Poor kid . . . probably thought he’d soon qualify to get served up some of that perfumed, perfectly-preserved Halle Berry cherry parfait on a platter. Jerzy partially blamed Tom-Tom for not prepping him, not schooling the callow young buck in Hollywood’s scary sickly ways, hence encouraging—enabling—his painful naiveté to run riot on Sunset Strip. Tom-Tom was also upset but not for long cause she had lots of eggs in her basket. Like, this poor kid only has two, & one of em just broke on the sidewalk. The remaining egg (organic, fertilized) being dammed up and near drowning in ReeRee’s beaver, closer each hour to crowning itself king (or maybe queen), tiny, efficient predator camouflaged under bawling cloak of helpless infancy, its instinct being to suck the life out of its mother and father, then mature to hate them, hate them for reasons justified, unjustified & imagined, to vilify and overthrow them, all the while concocting contradictory campaigns & stratagems to get their love and attention, all children grow into fools who want unconditional love from the demonparents they’ve come to unconditionally hate, and so it goes, a dumb ceaseless schizoid dance of arrested adult-child development, always ending with the shrink-guided offspring smugly, compassionately forgiving errant momsters & dadbeats in the latters’ final deathbed days, decades-long drama of guilt & fingerpointing at last wrapped in a perfect, perfectly convenient psychotherapeutic giftbag the kids reward themselves with at croaktime, allowing them—the once wounded now healed adult child—to move on . . . . . . . . .

  Jerzy asked, Do you want to smoke?

  Rikki knew he meant crystal not kush.

  “Naw, the shit is wack. Pretty soon I’m be talkin like you.”

  “Well at least you’d be gramatically correct.”

  . . .

  He liked the old man Phil.

  Jerzy usually detox’d a couple times a year, something he did in the privacy of his home with a major assist from benzos. Whenever J got clean, he literally slept for 2 weeks. For the hell of it, he told Dr Phil to organize his (off-camera) intervention—when the time was right. Just now, it wasn’t.

  “It rarely is, my friend,” said Phil.

  “True.”

  “I’ll let you in on something. I know how smart you are. Yes, I do. But that wonderful gift, all that wonderful brainpower hasn’t served you so well. It’s even been a hindrance. In certain areas. You’re too smart not to know where this is going to end.”

  “Where’s that, Dr Phil?” he deadpanned.

  “Right where the big book says it does—‘jail, institutions or death.’”

  “Promise me you’ll never work a suicide hotline, Dr Phil.”

  . . .

  He couldn’t ask his fosterparents for any more money. They’d give it to him, but he couldn’t ask.

  School became impossible. He told his fosters he was going to stay with Reeyonna, & they said, “That’s where you should be.” Killing him softly with their unending kindness. He lived at the Mt Olympus house now.

  Tom-Tom was bugging them for rent. Rikki didn’t understand why she would, when she was staying for free. When he asked to barter with his body she just laughed, then looked at him funny like she was gunna steal his face. The memory of that hopeful time when they made the audition tape, when both of them were certain he was going to become a had completely faded. Without the motorcycle, they were trapped up there. Ree didn’t want to go anywhere anyway. After she lost her wallet she got depressed & stayed in her room. She didn’t even want to replace her stolen ID. If Rikki needed anything down the hill he had to rely on Jerzy or wait & get a ride with Dr Phil or whomever. The one person he refused to ask was Bolt.

  Reeyonna&Rikki watched The Town on DirecTV. The dude got away with all the $$$ just like in Shawshank but in The Town he got the bitch too. ReeRee liked it but mostly watched peekaboo-style, hand over eyes, because she said it was “too real.” It did make Rikki think about robbery & shit. One big score, then I’m out. That’s what the heist movie crews always said, like in that bitchen movie Heat. Rikki talked about it, talked some shit, putting out feelers. Ree said You better not. You better be there for your baby. Rikki said Our baby. ReeRee said Your baby like right, your baby, to further make a point. Rikki said he wasn’t serious about the heist shit, just fucking around.

  He might float it by Tom-Tom, tho. She probably knew somebody with a crew. Maybe she’d even done it before, not a bank or anything, just a small business or somebody’s house, not a home invasion, just a robbery when no one was there. He knew she used to rob dealers. He knew from Jerzy that she used googlearth to scope out celebrity mansions. Jerzy said she started doing that during Million Dollar Listing speedball marathons, then they started doing it together, virtual bling-ringing, they’d check out a celeb house or rental using an address one of his personal twats shittered to him & they could like totally case the back entrances & shit, places where the might sneak out in an attempt to dodge the frontyardarazzi, Jerzy would then be waiting in the back or wherever they’d scoped, Tom-Tom was so good at it she could like land them right in Courteney Cox’s swimming pool & they’d just hang there a while scoping the house from every conceivable angle just like they were hangin for the weekend on a little raft, the googlearth let you look toward this or that neighbor then you could fly over to the house Colin Farrell was renting & just hang & then fly back to Courteney’s or out to the beach to James Cameron’s or The Edge’s. Jerzy had T2 do the same shit with restaurants too but now everyone was doing it, all the celebrigoogleartherazzi. Jerzy said Tom-Tom could zillow what a house cost, she could zillow when it was sold & to what bullshit shell company belonging to J Aniston, Lindsay, Olivia Wilde or whomever.

  Then Rikki got prudent & thought, If I’m gunna do a stickup it’s gunna need to wait til after the baby & my adoption hearing. Cause I don’t want to fuck either of those up.

  Ree was due right around the time his adoption court date was set.

  . . .

  Jerzy played the NatGeo doc for Rikki on his laptop. They were parked on Mulholland outside the gates of The Summit, waiting with 11 other britneyspearshooters for her to leave the house. Everyone’d been there at least 6 hours; the papp-posse was starting to thin out. Britney wasn’t Jerzy’s thing but it’d been a slow day, all he got was Paz de la Huerta, Toni Collette & Mamie Gummer, anyway, he thought he’d show the scene to the kid.

  He told Rikki that hummingbirds could only store enough energy to get them through the night so they were always just a few hours away from total starvation. Just like dope fiends yuckyuck. Jerzy asked how long he thought a hummingbird could live. Rikki said I don’t know a week maybe a month? A year? Jerzy said they could go 10-years-PLUS (the internet said) but that 1st yr was oooh it was TOUGH. Hey tell me about it. Jesus H a 10 yr-old hummingbird has got to be having his share of senior moments. Probably get alzheimer’s, water on the birdbrain, need to start leaving post-its on nests & feeders ahahahahaha. Hey Dr Phil told me a good one. Guy with alzheimer’s goes to a singles bar. He sees this chick & he’s gunna hit on her. So he goes up & says “Do I come here often?” teeheehee you don’t get it do you. Well I ain’t gunna splain. I ain’t gunna explainate. Ain gunna explainify. Ain gunna explainobrag the explainentials. Ain gunna explain the giraffe————holy SHIT 10 fucking YEARS of flutterin n fibrillatin n fuckin hustling to meet your insane daily food nut, plus whatever’s required to fuel your insaner metabolism like some adrenal torment devised by the GODS 10 FUCKING YEARS! the very thought of it had Jerzy continuously tweak-freaking, half-worried that the pondering of it alone might bring on another hopefully nonfatal tachycardiac episode of his own.

  Jerzy said (the internet said) that sometimes praying mantises were called devil’s horses. They were cannibals & meateaters holy shit YES fucking insect carnivores! It was like some shit out of Starship Troopers, which happened to be one of his alltime fave
s, some Starship Trooper shit come to life! But more than that, it was biblical, it was germane, it was more of the 4 Horseman shit that Suge told him at Cedars, the same shit he tried to run down to MoMA: White was Victory/Mantis, Black was famine/Hummingbird, Red was hummingblood . . . Mind you, the devil’s horsemen were not scavengers, nope, huh-uh, they weren’t like jackals either (hell-O! Can I tell you why they aren’t like jackals, Rikki? They aren’t like jackals cause they’re fucking INSECTS! Hel-lo) because they don’t eat dead things, that just aint kosher . . . though under certain laboratory conditions, when, say, a rat cadaver was manipulated by some bored entomologist to simulate movement, the mantis could be tricked into pigging out. The Reanimators! Yech. Mantises could hide in plain sight by undulating like leaves in the wind. Double yech. Whoa creepy. Jerzy told him he read on the internet that mantises could kill fucking field mice & tree frogs & soft-shelled turtles—triple ugh! They seemed to be OCD sticklers too: when random offal detachSPLAT’d to the ground during an hellacious arthropodal chow, the morsel stayed on the ground like when a society lady drops a fork, you know suddenly it’s untouchable.

  Hey Rikki do you feel me? Rikki? can you feel me?

  Jerzy said the internet said Arabs thought mantises always prayed toward Mecca. The internet said Americans used to think or maybe still do that a mantis could blind a sleeping man & murder a baby in its crib. (SID = Sudden Insect Death) The internet said the French believed a praying mantis can point the direction home for a child who was lost. Well some of the French maybe . . . . . . . . . . .