Glamorama

Lauren quickly disengages herself from me.

"Damien?" I ask.

The silhouette starts moving closer.

"Hey Damien?" I'm whispering, backing away.

As the silhouette moves closer it raises a hand, holding what looks like a rolled-up newspaper.

"Damien?" I'm whispering over and over.

The spotlight beam moves across the room, scanning it again, slowly catching everything in its glare, and as it passes over the silhouette's face, illuminating it, my mouth opens in confusion and then Hurley Thompson rushes at me, shouting, "You fucker!"

His fist slams against the side of my face before I can raise my arm up and in the background Lauren's crying out for me and after I manage to raise up my arms to block his blows Hurley changes position and starts lifting me up when each thrust of his fists reaches my stomach and chest and then I'm falling, gasping for help, and Hurley's leaning down, pausing before he slaps my head with the rolled-up newspaper, hissing into my ear, "I know what you did, you fuck, I know what you said, you dumb fuck," and then he steps on my face and when he's gone I finally lift my head and through totally blurry vision I can make out Lauren standing by the exit and she flicks a switch and the room explodes with light and I'm shielding my eyes, calling out for her, but she doesn't answer.

Pages of the newspaper are scattered around me—it's tomorrow's News and on the page I'm looking down at, the blood drooling from my mouth staining the paper, is Buddy Seagull's column, the headline reading HURLEY THOMPSON FLEES SC3 AMID RUMORS OF DRUGS AND ABUSE, and there's a photo of Hurley and Sherry Gibson in "happier times" and on the bottom of the page in the boxed section called "What's Going On Here?" is a photo whose graininess suggests it was taken with a telephoto lens and it's of someone who's supposed to be me kissing Lauren Hynde on the mouth, our eyes closed, a caption in bold letters reading IT BOY VICTOR WARD SMOOCHING ACTRESS HYNDE AT GALA PREMIERE —DOES CHLOE KNOW?, and blood dripping from my face keeps swirling all over the paper and I stagger up and when I look in the mirror above the bar I try to smooth things out but after touching my mouth and trying to slick my hair back I end up wiping blood all over my forehead and after trying to get it off with a napkin I'm running downstairs.

We'll slide down the surface of things . . .

Everyone who was at the dinner has vacated the second floor and the space is now filled with other people. While I'm craning my neck, looking for someone familiar, JD appears and takes me aside.

"Just let go," I say uselessly.

"Hold on. What happened to your head?" JD asks calmly, handing me a napkin. "Why is there blood on your tux?"

"Nothing. I slipped," I mutter, looking down. "That's not blood—it's an AIDS ribbon."

JD flinches. "Victor, we all know Hurley Thompson just pulverized you, so you don't need to—"

"Where's Chloe?" I keep craning my neck, looking out across the room. "Where's Chloe, JD?"

JD breathes in. "That is, however, a problem."

"JD—don't fuck with me!" I'm shouting.

"All I saw was Hurley Thompson dropping a newspaper into Chloe's lap. He leaned into her while he placed his hand in an ice bucket and whispered into her ear until her face—which was staring down at the paper Hurley Thompson dropped into her lap—fell, um, apart."

I'm just staring at JD wide-eyed, wondering at what point in the last ten seconds my hands started gripping his shoulders.

"And?" I'm panting, my entire body goes clammy.

"And she ran out and Hurley lit a cigar, very pleased with himself, and then Baxter Priestly ran after her."

I'm so alarmed by this that I must look really bashed-up, because JD looks into my face and whispers, "Jesus, Victor."

"Everything's still sketchy, JD," I'm saying while clutching the side of my stomach Hurley did the most damage to.

"No," he says. "It's all clear to us." He pauses. "It's only sketchy to you."

"JD, Cindy Crawford always says—"

"Who gives a shit what Cindy Crawford says right now?" JD yells. "What are you talking about?"

I stare at him for a long time, confused, before I push him away and then I turn and race down the staircase, people rotating around me everywhere, cameras flashing, causing me to keep tripping into people who keep propping me up, until I'm finally on the first level, where there's so much cigar and pot and cigarette smoke the air's not breathable and I'm shoving people out of the way, constantly adjusting my focus, music booming out way too loud, minor chords crashing down around me, the Steadicam operator unable to keep up.

Bursting out the door, I'm confronted by a crowd so enormous that everyone in it is hidden and when I appear everything grows calm and then, slowly at first, they start shouting my name and seconds later they're screaming to be allowed in and I dive into the throng, pushing through it, constantly turning around, saying "Hello" and "Excuse me" and "You look great" and "It's cool, baby," and once I'm through the maze of bodies I spot the two of them down the block: Baxter trailing after Chloe, trying to subdue her, and she keeps breaking away, rocking the cars parked along the curb, hysterical, setting off their alarms each time she falls against one, and I'm taking in air in great gulps, panic-stricken but laughing too.

I try to run past Baxter to get to Chloe but he whirls around when he hears me approaching and grabs my jacket, wrestling me against the wall of a building, shouting into my face while I'm helplessly staring at Chloe, "Get out of here, Victor, just leave her the fuck alone," and Baxter's smiling as he's shouting this, traffic pulsing behind him, and when Chloe turns to glare at me, Baxter—who's stronger than I ever could have imagined—seems secretly pleased. Over his shoulder Chloe's face is ravaged, tears keep pouring from her eyes.

"Baby," I'm shouting. "That wasn't me—"

"Victor," Baxter shouts, warning me. "Let it go."

"It's a hoax," I'm shouting.

Chloe just stares at me until I go limp and finally Baxter relaxes too and a cab behind Chloe slows down and Baxter quickly breaks into a jog and when he reaches Chloe he takes her arm and eases her into the waiting cab but she looks at me before she falls into it, softening, slipping away, deflated, unreachable, and then she's gone and a smirking Baxter nods at me, casually amused. Then total silence.

Girls hanging out the window of a passing limousine making catcalls knock my legs back into motion and I run toward the club where security guards stand behind the barricades barking orders into walkie-talkies and I'm panting as I climb through the crowd and then I'm pulled by the doormen back onto the stairs leading up to the entrance, cries of grief billowing up behind me, steam from the klieg lights rising up into the sky and filling the space above the crowd, and I'm moving through the metal detectors again and running up one flight of stairs and then another, heading up to Damien's office, when suddenly I slam into a column on the third floor.

Damien's escorting Lauren to a private staircase that will lead them down a back exit onto the street and Lauren looks like she's breathing too hard—she actually seems thinner—as Damien talks rapidly into her ear even though her face is so twisted up it doesn't seem like she can comprehend anything Damien's saying as he closes the door behind them.

I rush downstairs to the first floor again, alarmingly fast, struggling through the crowd, too many people passing by, indistinct faces, just profiles, people handing me flowers, people on cellular phones, everyone moving together in a drunken mass, and I'm pushing through the darkness totally awake and people just keep dimly rolling past, constantly moving on to someplace else.

Outside again I push through the crowd avoiding anyone who calls my name and Lauren and Damien seem miles away as they vanish into a limousine and I shout "Wait" and I'm staring too long at the car as it disappears into the mist surrounding Union Square and I keep staring until some tiny thing in me collapses and my head starts clearing.

Everything looks washed out and it's cold and the night suddenly stops accelerating: the sky is locked in place, fuzzy and unmoving, and I'm stumbling down the block, then stopping to search my jacket for a cigarette, when I hear someone call my name and I look across the street at a limousine and Alison standing beside it, her face expressionless, and at her feet, on leashes, are Mr. and Mrs. Chow. When they see me their heads snap up and they start leaping, straining at their leashes excitedly, teeth bared, yapping, and I'm just standing there dumbly, touching my swollen lip, a bruised cheek.

Smiling, Alison drops the leashes.

6

Florent: a narrow, bleak 24-hour diner in the meat-packing district and I'm feeling grimy, slumped at a table near the front, finishing the coke I picked up at a bar in the East Village sometime in the middle of the night where I lost my tie, and a copy of the News is spread out in front of me, open to the Buddy Seagull column I've been studying for hours, uselessly since it reveals nothing, and behind me something's being filmed, a camera crew's setting up lights. I had gone by my place at around 4 but someone suspiciously well coiffed—a handsome guy, twenty-five, maybe twenty-six—was hanging out in front of the building, smoking a cigarette like he'd been waiting there a very long time, and another guy—someone in the cast I hadn't met yet—sat in a black

Jeep talking into a cell phone, so I split. Bailey brings me another decaf frappuccino and it's freezing in Florent and I keep blowing confetti off my table but whenever I'm not paying attention it reappears and I glare over at the set designer and continuity girl who stare back and restaurant music's playing and each minute seems like an hour.

"How's it hanging, Victor?" Bailey's asking.

"Hey baby, what's the story?" I mutter tiredly.

"You doing okay?" he asks. "You look busted up."

I ponder this before asking, "Have you ever been chased by a chow, man?"

"What's a chow man?"

"A chow, a chow-chow. It's like a big fluffy dog," I try to explain. "They're mean as shit and they were used to guard palaces in like China and shit."

"Have I ever been chased by a chow?" Bailey asks, confused. "Like the last time I was . . . trying to . . . break into a palace?" His face is all scrunched up.

Pause. "I just want some muesli and juice right now, 'kay?"

"You look busted up, man."

"I'm thinking . . . Miami," I croak, squinting up at him.

"Great! Sunshine, deco, seashells, Bacardi, crashing waves"—Bailey makes surfing motions with his arms—"fashion shoots, and Victor making a new splash. Right on, man."

I'm watching the early-morning traffic cruise by on 14th Street and then I clear my throat. "Er . . . maybe Detroit."

"I'm telling you, baby," he says. "The world is a jungle. Wherever you go it's still the same."

"I just want some muesli and juice right now, okay, man?"

"You need to utilize your potential, man."

"There's a snag in your advice, man," I point out.

"Yeah?"

"You're—a—waiter."

I finish reading an article about new mascaras (Shattered and Roach are the season's most popular) and hip lipsticks (Frostbite, Asphyxia, Bruise) and glam nail polish (Plaque, Mildew) and I'm thinking, genuinely, Wow, progress, and some girl behind me with a floppy beach hat on and a bandeau bra top and saucer eyes is listening to a guy wearing a suit made of sixteenth-century armor saying "um um um" while snapping his fingers until he remembers—"Ewan McGregor!"—and then they both fall silent and the director leans in to me and warns, "You're not looking worried enough," which is my cue to leave Florent.

Outside, more light, some of it artificial, opens up the city, and the sidewalks on 14th Street are empty, devoid of extras, and above the sounds of faraway jackhammers I can hear someone singing "The Sunny Side of the Street" softly to himself and when I feel someone touch my shoulder I turn around but no one's there. A dog races by going haywire. I call out to it. It stops, looks at me, runs on. "Disarm" by the Smashing Pumpkins starts playing on the sound track and the music overlaps a shot of the club I was going to open in TriBeCa and I walk into that frame, not noticing the black limousine parked across the street, four buildings down, that the cameraman pans to.

5

A door slams shut behind me, two pairs of hands grab my shoulders and I'm shoved into a chair, and under the fuzzy haze of a black light, silhouettes and shadows come into focus: Damien's goons (Duke but not Digby, who was recast after we shot yesterday's breakfast) and Juan, the afternoon doorman at Alison's building on the Upper East Side, and as the lights get brighter Damien appears and he's smoking a Partagas Perfecto cigar and wearing skintight 'cans, a vest with bold optical patterns, a shirt with starburst designs, a long Armani overcoat, motorcycle boots, and his hands—grabbing my sore face, squeezing it—are like ice and kind of soothing until he pushes my head back trying to snap my neck, but one of the goons—maybe Duke—pulls him away and Damien's making noises that sound like chanting and one of the mirror balls that used to hang above the dance floor lies shattered in a corner, confetti scattered around it in tall piles.

"That was a particularly hellish greeting," I say, trying to maintain my composure once Damien lets go.

Damien's not listening. He keeps pacing the room, making the chanting noises, and the room is so freezing that the air coming out of his mouth steams and then he walks back to where I'm sitting, towering over me even though he's not that tall, and looks into my face again, cigar smoke making my eyes water. He studies my blank expression before shaking his head disgustedly and backing away to pace the room without knowing which direction to take.

The goons and Juan just stare vacantly at me, occasionally averting their eyes but mostly not, waiting for some kind of signal from Damien, and I tense up, bracing myself, thinking, just don't touch the face, just anywhere but the face.

"Did anybody read the Post this morning?" Damien's asking the room. "The headline? Something about Satan escaping from hell?"

A few nods, some appreciative murmuring. I close my eyes.

"I'm looking at this place, Victor," Damien says. "And do you want to know what I'm thinking?"

Involuntarily I shake my head, realize something, then nod.

"I'm thinking, Jesus, the zeitgelst's in limbo."

I don't say anything. Damien spits on me, then grabs my face, smearing his saliva all over my nose, my cheeks, reopening a wound on my mouth where Hurley hit me.

"How do you feel, Victor?" he's asking. "How do you feel this mornng?"

"I feel very . . . funny," I say, guessing, pulling back. "I feel very . . . unhip?"

"You look the part," Damien sneers, livid, ready to pounce, the veins in his neck and forehead bulging, grasping my face so tightly that when I yell out the sounds coming from my mouth are muffled and my vision blurs over and he abruptly lets go, pacing again.

"Haven't you ever come to a point in your life where you've said to yourself. Hey, this isn't right?"

I don't say anything, just continue sucking in air.

"I guess it's beside the point to tell you you're fired."

I nod, don't say anything, have no idea what kind of expression is on my face.

"I mean, what do you think you are?" he asks, baffled. "A reliable sales tool? Let's just put it this way, Victor: I'm not too thrilled by your value system."

I nod mutely, not denying anything.

"There's good in this business, Victor, and there's bad," Damien says, breathing hard. "And it's my impression that you can't discern between the two."

Suddenly something in me cracks. "Hey," I shout, looking up at him. "Spare me."

Damien seems pleased by this outburst and starts circling the chair, raising the cigar to his mouth, taking rapid light puffs, its tip glowing off then on then off.

"Sometimes even the desert gets chilly, Victor," he intones pretentiously.

"Please continue, O Wise One," I groan, rolling my eyes. "Fucking spare me, man."

He smacks me across the head, then he does it again, and when he does it a third time I wonder if that third slap was in the script, and finally Duke pulls Damien back.

"I may park wherever I feel like it, Victor," he growls, "but I also pay the fucking tickets."

Damien breaks free from Duke and grabs my cheek at the place Hurley's fist struck and twists it upward between two fingers until I'm shouting out for him to stop, reaching up to pull his hand away, but when he lets go I just fall back, limp, rubbing my face.

"I'm just like . . ." I'm trying to catch my breath. "I'm just like . . . trying to fit this into . . . perspective," I choke, slipping helplessly into tears.

Damien slaps my face again. "Hey, look at me."

"Man, you're shooting from the hip." I'm panting, delirious. "I admire that, man." I take in air, gasping. "I go to jail, right? I go directly to jail?"

He sighs, studying me, rubs a hand over his face. "You act very hard to be cool, Victor, but really you're very normal." Pause. "You're a loser." He shrugs. "You're an easy target with a disadvantage."

I try to stand up but Damien pushes me back down into the chair.

"Did you fuck her?" he suddenly asks.

I can't say anything since I don't know who he's talking about.

"Did you fuck her?" he asks again, quietly.

"I'll, um, take the Fifth," I mumble.

"You'll take what, you sonofabitch?" he roars, the two goons rushing over, holding him back from beating the shit out of me.

"The photograph's a lie," I'm shouting back. "The photo was faked. It looks real but it's not. That's not me. It must have been altered—"

Damien reaches into the Armani overcoat and throws a handful of photographs at my head. I duck. They scatter around me, one hitting my lap, faceup, the rest falling to the floor, different photos of Lauren and me making out. In a few shots our tongues are visible, entwined and glistening.

"What are . . . these?" I'm asking.

"Keep them. Souvenirs."

"What are these?" I'm asking.

"The originals, fuckhead," Damien says. "I've had them checked out. They weren't altered, fuckhead."

Damien crosses the room, gradually calming himself down, closes and locks a briefcase, then checks his watch.

"I suppose you've figured out that you're not opening this dump?" Damien's asking. "The silent partners have already been consulted on this minor decision. We've taken care of Burl, and JD's been fired too. He'll actually never work anywhere in Manhattan again because of his unfortunate association with you."

"Damien, hey," I say softly. "Come on, man, JD didn't do anything."

"He has AIDS," Damien says, slipping on a pair of black leather gloves. "He's not going to be around much longer anyway."

I just stare at Damien, who notices.

"It's a blood disease," he says. "It's some kind of virus. I'm sure you've heard of it."

"Oh, yeah," I say uncertainly.

"Baxter Priestly's with me now," Damien says, getting ready to make an exit. "It somehow seems . . ." He searches for the right word, cocks his head, comes up with "appropriate."

Juan shrugs at me as he follows Damien and the goons out of the club and I pick up one of the photographs of Lauren and me and turn it over as if there might be some kind of explanation for its existence on the back but it's blank and I'm drained, my head spinning, swearing "fuck fuck fuck" as I move over to a dusty sink behind what would have been the bar and I'm waiting for the director to shout "Cut" but the only sounds I'm hearing are Damien's limo screeching out of TriBeCa, my feet crunching what's left of the mirror ball, sleigh bells not in the shooting script, a buzzing fly circling my head which I'm too tired to wave away.

4

I'm standing at a pay phone on Houston Street, three blocks from Lauren's apartment. Extras walk by, looking stiff and poorly directed. A limousine cruises toward Broadway. I'm crunching on a Mentos.

"Hey pussycat, it's me," I say. "I need to see you."

"That's not possible," she says, and then less surely, "Who is this?"

"I'm coming over."

"I won't be here."

"Why not?"

"I'm going to Miami with Damien." She adds, "In about an hour. I'm packing."

"What happened to Alison?" I ask. "What happened to his fiancée?" I spit out. "Huh, Lauren?"

"Damien dumped Alison and she's put a contract out on his head," she says casually. "If you can believe that, which I actually can."

While I'm processing this information the cameraman keeps circling the pay phone, distracting me into forgetting my lines, so I decide to improvise and surprisingly the director allows it.

"What about . . . what about when you get back, baby?" I ask hesitantly.

"I'm going on location," she says, very matter-of-fact. "To Burbank."

"For what?" I'm asking, covering my eyes with my hand.

"I'm playing the squealing genie in Disney's new live-action feature Aladdin Meets Roger Rabbit, which is being directed by—oh, what's his name?—oh yeah, Cookie Pizarro." She pauses. "CAA thinks it's my big break."

I'm stuck. "Give Cookie my, um, best," and then I sigh. "I really want to come over."

"You can't, honey," she says sweetly.

"You're impossible," I say through clenched teeth. "Then why don't you come meet me?"

"Where are you?"

"In a big deluxe suite at the SoHo Grand."

"Well, that sounds like neutral ground, but no."

"Lauren -what about last night?"

"My opinion?"

A very long pause that I'm about to break when I remember my line, but she speaks first.

"My opinion is: I guess you shouldn't expect too much from people. My opinion is: You're busted and you did it to yourself."

"I've been . . . I've been under . . . a lot of pressure, baby," I'm saying, trying not to break down. "I . . . stumbled."

"No, Victor," she says curtly. "You fell."

"You sound pretty casual, huh, baby?"

"That's what people sound like when they don't care anymore, Victor," she says. "I'm surprised it doesn't sound more familiar to you."

Pause. "There's nothing, um, very encouraging about that answer, baby."

"You sound like your tongue's pierced," she says tiredly.

"And you exude glamour and, um, radiance . . . even over the phone," I mumble, feeding another quarter into the slot.

"See, Victor, the problem is you've got to know things," she says. "But you don't."

"That picture wasn't us," I say, suddenly alert. "I don't know how, Lauren, but that wasn't—"

"Are you sure?" she asks, cutting me off.

"Oh come on," I yell, my voice getting higher. "What's the story, Lauren? I mean, Jesus, this is like a nightmare and you're taking it so—"

"I don't know, Victor, but I'm sure you'll wake up and figure it all out," she says. "I wouldn't necessarily bet on it but I think you'll figure it all out. In the end."

"Jesus, you sound like you don't want to ruin the surprise for me."

"Victor," she's sighing, "I have to go."

"It's not me, Lauren," I stress again. "That might be you. But that's not me."

"Well, it looks like you, Victor. The paper says it's you—"

"Lauren," I shout, panicking. "What in the hell's happening? Where in the fuck did that photo come from?"

"Victor," she continues calmly. "We cannot see each other anymore. We cannot talk to each other anymore. This relationship is terminated."

"You're saying this like you've just completed some kind of fucking assignment," I cry out.

"You're projecting," she says sternly.

"I urge you, baby, one last time to reconsider," I say, breaking down. "I want to be with you," I finally say.

"Trust me, Victor," she says. "You don't."

"Baby, he gets his shirts tailored—"

"Frankly I couldn't care less," she says. "Those are things you care about. Those are the things that make you decide a person's worth."

After a long pause I say, "I guess you heard about Mica."

"What about Mica?" she asks, sounding totally uninterested.

"She was, um, murdered, baby," I point out, wiping my nose.

"I don't think that was a murder," Lauren says carefully.

After another long pause I ask, "What was it?"

Finally, solemnly, she says, "It was a statement," giving it more meaning than I'm capable of understanding.

"Spare me, Lauren," I whisper helplessly.

She hangs up.

The camera stops rolling and the makeup girl drops a couple glycerin tears onto my face and the camera starts rolling again and just like in rehearsals I hang the phone up in such a way that it drops out of my hand, swinging by its cord, and then carefully, gently, I lift it up, staring at it. We don't bother reshooting and it's on to the next setup.