There were so many questions. Did the fact that doctors had drilled into the skull to relieve pressure, bored into and broken bone in the crown chakra, from where consciousness waited to launch — did the surgical holes make “ejection” easier or, instead, somehow traumatically seal his fate and his doom? Anyway, the classical texts declared that a person had to be dead in order for phowa to occur. What if Kit didn’t die but remained imprisoned in his body, conscious but unable to move or speak? He could stay like that for years. What then?
There were evidently three different ways of dying (there always seemed to be three ways of doing this and three ways of doing that) — like a child, like a beggar, or like a lion. To die like a child meant to have no concept of dying or not-dying. Dying like a beggar meant not to care about the circumstances of one’s death. Dying like a lion meant to die in solitude. It was lovely, but what did any of it mean? She imagined that Kit would prefer to die like a lion, but with all those doctors and nurses injecting, monitoring, and restraining, how could he possibly have the chance?
She lay prone on the couch and closed her eyes. Phil’s gift, the Amazing Technicolor Supreme Bliss-Wheel Integration Buddha, was close at hand. An ashtray overflowed. Lisanne shifted onto her side, drifting. Her nose pressed against the cushion, and she smelled the musty imprint of her heavy body. In conscious imitation of the Bliss-Wheel’s counterpart — the Sotheby’s gift — she let her left hand lay atop the gravid belly while the right dangled down to touch the carpeted floor. In her mind, the cautionary words from the guidebook regarding the afterlife struggle absurdly merged with sorcerers’ voices from The Lord of the Rings.
Like the confusion in the dreams of one’s sleep last night, later on it will be difficult to practice in the bardo.
If he could not die as a lion, she mused, it would be better to leave the world as a child than as a beggar.
Ladies Who Lunch
BECCA, ANNIE, LARRY, and Gingher had lunch at Swingers in Santa Monica.
Becca and Larry had met a few times for coffee since first sharing a table at Peet’s. Whenever they were together, she felt like the ingenue of a novel about the early days of a group of starving actors and artists, some destined for fame, others for tragic obscurity. When she finally made a date to introduce him to Annie, Larry brought along his chubby friend.
“Tell them how she shits in front of you,” said Larry.
Gingher laughed, jiggling all over.
“Oh no!” said Annie. “I really like her show— please don’t tell me she’s one of those people who get off on that.”
“Let us just say,” said Gingher affectedly, “that the lady tends to be rather unself-conscious in the washroom.”
“What do you mean?” asked Becca, wide-eyed.
Larry was smitten. “Girl, you are so Southern — très naïve et gentille. Or should I say gentile. You are so Virginia.”
“That when she goes to the bathroom, she…”
“We have meetings every morning,” said Gingher, “where she like gives me the list of stuff to do for the day?”
“You meet in the toilet?” said Becca.
“You betcha,” said Larry. “That’s when she’s apt to pinch off a large one.”
“Oh my God!” said Annie, laughing. “That is so gross.”
“The mirrors steam up like a jungle. Jungle fever. No: jungle feces!”
“Larry, you are crazy!” said Becca.
“Would I shit you, honeybear?” asked Larry. “Does a Viv shit in the woods? Who’s shittin who? Horton shits a Who. Tell it, girl.”
“I think it’s like some kind of power trip,” said Gingher. “But, you guys, you cannot tell anyone. She’d fucking sue me.”
“You’d never shit in this town again,” said Larry gleefully. “You’d be blacklisted — you’d be shitlisted!”
“I don’t even care. I’m walking. She is such a cunt.”
“You will never leave that job.”
“Watch me.”
“How did you even start working for her?” asked Annie.
“Doing craft service on her show. Actually my friend was doing craft service and I was helping him out. And Viv was really, really nice to me — this was before they were making like a million dollars an episode. Viv had this really horrible relationship with her mother, so she does this maternal thing where she likes to take in sick puppies. I was puppy-of-the-week. But she really did do all these nice things for me.”
“You ungrateful whore.”
“She paid for me to have my tattoos removed at UCLA. They were really gnarly. She has this whole side of her that’s really sweet and nonjudgmental. She just started asking me to do stuff for her. Errands and shit. She liked having me around, I guess. Like while she was getting ready for big auditions or premieres. She’d like ask my opinion on her clothes or her makeup. Even though most of the time she totally had stylists and makeup people come in and do her. I never even really said anything except that she looked really good but I guess I calmed her nerves.”
“She is really beautiful,” said Annie.
“And when this other person she had working for her quit? Honey-chile, I moved right in. That girl was so fucked up. Chartrain.”
“Chartrain?” said Larry.
“Chartrain, Soul Train, whatever. Viv helped get me a car, and she was cool. But then I, like, saw this whole other side to her.”
“How’s she dealing with what happened?” asked Becca, in hushed tones. “Weren’t they engaged?”
“That’s actually really sad,” said Gingher. “Because Kit is very cool. Very sweet and down-to-earth. We always got along. I’ve, like, almost gone to see him at the hospital a bunch of times. But I heard the security was so intense.”
“Does she visit him?” asked Annie.
Gingher nodded. “She did at first, but now it’s like a lot less. A lot less. She never asked me to go with. But he’s really doing better from what I understand. I mean, they don’t know what’s going to happen — with his mind — but he’s supposedly doing a lot better.”
“A mind is a terrible thing to baste,” intoned Larry.
The girls ignored him. “I don’t know why they hooked up,” said Gingher. “Well, I guess I know why she hooked up with him. She’s got that TV-inferiority thing. Kit gave her street cred.”
“A mind is a terrible thing to taste, said Hannibal Lecter.”
“He wouldn’t even say that! Would you shut up? God, you are so annoying!” She turned back to Becca and Annie. “I guess it’s just a stone sex trip. Or was. I know they’re kind of out there.”
“Our Lady of the Perpetual Potty certainly is.”
“But he’s like — intellectually and just as a person — Kit’s like, her total opposite.”
“Really?” said Larry. “When I met him he acted like a total prick.”
“You bring it out!” said Gingher.
“You met him through Gingher?” asked Annie.
“I told you,” said Becca, reminding her. “They met while Larry was working at the Coffee Bean.”
“I was going to do that movie,” he said, filling Annie in. He loved telling the story. “The Aronofsky thing—Special Needs. But I got fucked by Mr. Brain Dead.”