There would be plenty of time to call Dixie, down the line — and who knew? Maybe by then she’d have married a big wig or won a Golden Globe newcomer’s award or won a million dollars on a reality show (that, preferably, Sadge had nothing to do with). Maybe, God forbid, she’d get a weird settlement like the Dunsmores. Stranger things had happened… Maybe she and Rusty were on their way to being famous and she could go on the Leno show the way Brittany Murphy did, talking all sweet and humble, if that were possible, but Brittany pulled it off, about how before they broke up she and Ashton rented their first private jet so they could go back to Cedar Rapids, where Ashton is from, for Christmas, and then on to New Jersey to spend the rest of the holidays with Brittany’s family. (She wasn’t sure if the thing with Demi was trading up or trading down. But she knew it wouldn’t last.) Still, Becca made sure to say to herself that if she never did the Spike film, if it wasn’t in the cards, that would be OK too. She could always go back to Sharon. After the debacle, she sent the casting agent flowers and everything had been patched up (with promises of a “shiatsu date”). Sharon would get her auditions and meetings whether she scored the Spike gig or not. And if she didn’t, Becca theorized that, at the very worst, which really wasn’t that bad, it would be OK to be known as “the Drew girl” who almost worked with Spike Jonze. Sometimes that kind of reverse buzz was just what it took to launch a star heavenward. Elaine Jordache told her that for a long time Kevin Costner was known around town as the guy who got cut from a movie called The Big Chill. For a few years, the more he was edited out of projects, the more his stock kept rising. Those kinds of stories were legion.
Morning Tide
KIT WAS PROPPED in bed while Alf, who had already swallowed a Klonopin and a few extrastrength vikes, ate cold pasta and watched a Jackass DVD on the plasma. He kept an eye on his friend and gently shook him whenever he nodded off.
“They said you shouldn’t sleep.”
“That’s only for the first few hours.”
“How’s your head?”
“It’s better. Much better. So chill.”
• • •
8:00 A.M. AND ALF awakens to a Vicodin hangover.
He lays on the living room couch. Outside, preanarchy of bird chirps. For a half second, looks around in where-am-I? mode.
Hungry. Stink breath. Bladder three-quarters full.
Should have closed curtains — intolerably bright.
Mr. Raffles is on the patio, splayed indifferently upon flagstone, wide, soft belly slowly rising, falling under cold spotlight of sun.
Hears a frightful noise: garbled, prolonged scream. What what what—is it even a scream? Leaps to feet. Enters bath, shocked at what he sees:
Kit vomiting — a broken, blasted hydrant — onto walls and mirrors. Both eyes monster swollen. Stops. Retches. Convulses while still standing. Hunches. Straightens. Vomits again as if overtaken by spirits. Alf tackles him — what else to do? — slaughterhouse wrestling ring, infernal tag team. Tries holding him down — holds him — what else to do? — meaninglessly, irrelevantly, crazily — to stop time in throes of gale-force throw up while Mr. Raffles canters in, slip-sliding, paws in muck, yelp-yawn groaning. Kit bellows to sky, inciting Alf to yell himself — pure Dumb & Dumber shtick — cradles him, helplessly, hopeless, Kit blind, desperately clutching hem of Alf’s wifebeater in grand mal pietà, the Great Dane twitchy, and basso barking. Now Kit impossibly manages to look—really look—straight into Alf’s eyes, in the panic room: locked gazes, primordial silence, close fetid stink, drowned shouts in flooded engine rooms, paws and kneecaps slipping, ducking, and feinting, dog near to retching itself, forgotten grotto’s dank, drippy bacterial stench, Kit gone finally limp, Alf’s continuous scream solo now while he lurches with brotherly burden, crablike to phone, any phone, deadweight of fallen People’s Choice tucked hard to rib cage bosom as would sibling sailor’s washed-up warrior body be, figures in a majestic tempera, ruined ship loitering offshore, charred and luminous — sudden skeletal descent, descant, plainsong to ocean floor, grateful aquamarine entombment silent everlasting.
The Three Poisons
The Morning After
“I CANNOT BELIEVE they discharged him,” said the lawyer.
Counsel, agent, managers, and publicist converged on Cedars (Alf too — he hadn’t left since the early A.M. return) while friend and client underwent emergency surgery to relieve pressure in his skull.
The surrealistic events had left the whole team powerless, breathless, and aghast.
Marooned.
“He signed a release?” asked the agent.
“Yeah,” said Alf, boyishly vacant. The handsome, uncombed head hung low. Semidirty fingernails scratched reflexively at grizzled jaw. “He was pretty adamant about it. There was no way he was going to check himself in. He seemed OK — while they had him here. And he was OK at home. I mean, last night.”
“He was not OK!” shouted the lawyer.
“Whatever,” said Alf, shocky and depressed. Not up for chastisement. The agent shot the lawyer dead eyes, on the kid’s behalf. “All I’m saying is, he was totally lucid. He was worried about Viv finding out before he got a chance to call.” He huffed and snorted, congested by mucus and inchoate tears. “I tried to tell him that going home was a shitty idea — that he should just stay overnight and be observed.” He cleared his throat. “He said that his mom died here—”
“That’s true,” said the agent, grateful to be able to glom on to some other tragic factoid, one at least that had resolution. “That’s absolutely right.” She began a series of short, nervously rhythmical nods, telegraphing historical longevity and the pedigree of her special relationship with the concussed superstar, a tenured, privileged intimacy with his life that naturally included an acquaintance with R.J., and charnel knowledge of that awful, protracted womb cancer. “That is completely correct. It was horrible for him. Horrible for him. Horrible.”
“—that’s why he wanted to go home. Hey,” said Alf, resigned. “I can’t go up against Kit. Never could. He’s like a big brother.”
“I don’t give a shit what he signed,” said the attorney, mostly to himself. Alf should have called someone right when it happened, but he was a dumbo — an actor. Not the target. Counsel’s wrath became focused: rustle of lawsuits, hubbub of press conferences, briefs to be filed. “It is completely negligent, completely irresponsible. This is a major fucking personage here! Would they have let Spielberg discharge himself against medical judgment? Just stroll on out with a buddy? What on God’s earth were they thinking?”