Head shaved, face twice its normal size.
“Honey?” she says, choking up. She casts a look to her friend, who quickly looks away from Kit then to Viv’s eyes, but Viv has already turned her gaze back to her fiancé so that her friend and yoga teacher missed the exchange.
“Bumpkin?”
He does not see: eyes swollen shut.
Two incisions in skull.
Tubes in nose, throat, cock.
“Baby, I’m here. It’s Viv. It’s Cherry Girl. She’s here.”
Stifles tears, certain that if she breaks down he will know. Will hear. Her yoga friend said, “Remember, he is aware.” She doesn’t want to put out any kind of fucked-up energy. No fear energy. Her yoga friend said how important it was to be calm, still, centered, comforting.
• • •
CORRESPONDENTS, IN FRONT of hospital, talk to cameras. Local news and foreign too — England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan. A distraught fan is interviewed.
• • •
A FOX NEWS lightweight talks to camera in front of the Bar Marmont. Ambitious, cadenced, sexed up by celeb tragedy. A run in her stocking the audience will never see. Camera follows as she walks to liquor store, reenacting Kit Lightfoot’s ill-fated path. Interviews clerk who ID’d plate.
• • •
SPECIAL EDITION electronic newsmagazines on the topics of Celebrity Stalking, Celebrity Worship, Celebrity Murder.
Also, special subedition electronic minimagazines on Nightclub Security, Celebrity Bodyguards, Violence Prediction.
Also, on Head Injuries, Stroke Rehab.
Also, on film insurance and bonding, and what happens when a star dies in the middle of a shoot — Natalie Wood, Brainstorm, Oliver Reed, Gladiator—even though the movie Kit Lightfoot shot has already wrapped and he is not dead.
• • •
SHE CRIES AND cries and cries. She doesn’t leave her bedroom for three days. A clot of yoginis come and go. Friends and professionals and gentle folk she doesn’t know all that well (from Kit’s sangha) stop by to cook and be of service. Her agents come. Her publicists come. Her manager and even her accountant. Finally — finally — she laughs. Then she cries like a thunderstorm and everyone cries along. There is some hilarity too, that very special kind of hilarity in extremis, and she drinks her favorite margaritas and mixes them with Vicodin and some Co-Proxamol she got in London. She takes big messy bubble baths with girlfriends. Everyone gets massages. It’s Massage Central. Sheryl Crow, Darren Aronofsky, Joely Fisher, Renée Zellweger, Helen Fielding, Paula Abdul, and naturally, Alf Lanier drop by — at overlapping times — and of course all of the Together costars. Then a parade of industry demigods until she says, Enough. (She joked that Dr. Phil would walk in next.) She has Gingher shut it down except for the inner circle. Her crew. She dances alone in her room to the Stones and Freddy Mercury, Nirvana and White Stripes. She pulls her friends in one by one, then slams the door, and they dance with her, one by one, as a goof, a poignant goof. Everybody’s sweating and crying and singing Dusty Springfield songs. She sobers up. Everybody does yoga together. Sometimes she cries in the middle of a pose. Sometimes when that happens she laughs, and then everyone laughs and then everyone cries too. When the teacher inadvertently says “corpse pose,” Viv loses it. Everyone eats pizza and Häagen-Dazs and sushi and takeout from Trader Vic’s, and they watch nothing but AMC — Bette Davis and Maureen O’Hara and Montgomery Clift and Jeff Chandler and Jennifer Jones. Then they smoke weed and watch a Britney concert and a Bangles concert and a Cher concert on DVD and then some PPV porno. What a hoot. Periodic solo retreats to the darkened bedroom, where she tries and fails at masturbation. Dares to watch CNN, awaiting taboo redundant reports of her fiancé’s relentless nonprogress. Perversely cadges on-air quasi-eulogies and career summing-ups. Alf goes to Kit’s house and finds the ring that he bought at Fred Joaillier. He brings it over. Horror.
• • •
ALF, PUFFY-EYED and disconsolate, at Kit’s bedside.
An RN empties a catheter bag.
He smirks, then hangs his head low. Aggressively mutters, “Fuck this shit,” and bolts.
Darkness. He is met by a frenzy of paparazzi shouting his name. Across the street, behind barricades, fifty die-hard fans — bundled up in the cold dead of night — gather with signs, candles, flowers. Calling, “Alf! Alf! How is he? How’s Kit? Is he talking? Have you talked to him?”
Alf smiles tight-lipped. Gives a thumbs-up. Some applaud.
The lesser outcry, jokey, not really meant to be heard, of a prankster cuts through: “Hey, Alfie, did Cameron dump you?”
Paparazzo with an old grudge.
The others shout the insensitive shutterbug down, officially registering their distaste.
Alf ducks into the waiting Town Car.
• • •
A SPECIAL CREW obliterates all traces of biological debris from Kit’s bathroom. (A CSI producer had referred them to Kit’s agent, Kiki, who insisted on handling that sort of detail.) She told Alf that, supposedly, the company was profiled on the Discovery Channel. The LAPD hires them for crime scene scrubs — they restore rooms to their original pristine state. Kiki said they use chemicals that eat “smell” molecules.
• • •
HE EMERGES FROM coma, pulling the feed tube from his throat. Gagging. One eye won’t open — the muscle controlling the lid is damaged. A rakish pirate patch is provided, but he keeps tearing it off.
Viv and Alf rejoice in his feistiness.
Lightfoot Senior revels in his boy’s stubborn, genetic heroism. Headstrong.
There is some cause for celebration among Kit’s management posse, though Kiki still can’t see the light. She thinks people are grasping at straws.
Doctors are cautiously optimistic. In a press conference, they guardedly announce that the actor is no longer comatose. Condition upgraded to serious. They refuse to talk details of status or prognosis.
Kit makes sounds — gibberish. Sings in his sleep. Jerks awake, as if he was falling. Gains weight. Likes to spit. As long as he holds on to something, he can stand by himself and try to whistle or make barking noises. His face still looks like a Francis Bacon. He cries. He laughs. He is diapered.
• • •
HE STANDS AT bedside, dazed. Combative.
Flails at his caretakers and finally connects, punching an older female nurse, who reels and falls, abrading herself. Burke holds him tight to his chest, to restore calm — he scuffs at the floor and tries to break free. Finally submits to his father’s ministrations.
Burke is the only one who can soothe him.
• • •
VIV SITS IN a chair, facing him (Kit in a chair too, but seat-belted in).
She takes his hand and traces it over her cheek. Flashes on Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker. Sometimes he looks at her and seems to smile. She calls a nurse when she smells feces.