Tell All

ACT II, SCENE FIVE

While my position is not that of a privatedetective or a bodyguard, for the present time my job tasks includeplundering Webb’s suitcase in search of the latest revisions to Love Slave. Later, Imust sneak the manuscript back to its hiding place between the launderedshirts and undershorts so the Webster specimen won’t realize we’resavvy to his ever-evolving plot.

The fantasy murder scene dissolves into thecurrent place and time. Once more we find ourselves in the hotelballroom crowded with elegant guests previously seen in the awardsceremony with the senator. Here is an entirely different event, whereinmy Miss Kathie is being awarded an honorary degree from Wasser College. On the same stage used earlier, inact one, scene nine, a distinguished man wears a tuxedo, standing at amicrophone. The shot begins with the same swish pan as before, graduallyslowing to a crane shot moving between the tables circled by seatedguests.

Used a second time, the effect will feel atouch clichéd, thus suggesting the tedium of even Miss Kathie’sseemingly glamorous life. How even lofty accolades become tiresome.Again, the upstage wall is filled with a shifting montage of vastblack-and-white film clips which show my Miss Kathie as Mrs. Caesar Augustus, as Mrs.Napoleon Bonaparte, as Mrs. Alexander theGreat. All the greatest roles of her illustrious career. Eventhis tribute montage is identical to the montage used in the previousscene, and as the same close-ups occur, her movie-star face begins toregister as something abstract, no longer a person or even a humanbeing, becoming a sort of trademark or logo. Symbolic and mythic as thefull moon.

Speaking at the microphone, the master ofceremonies says, “Although she left school in the sixth grade, Katherine Kenton has earned a master’s degree inlife.…” Turning his head to one side, the speaker looks off stage right,saying, “She is a full tenured professor who has taught audiencesworldwide about love and perseverance and faith.…”

In an eye-line match, we reveal Miss Kathieand myself standing, hidden among the shadows in the stage-right wing.She stands frozen as a statue, shimmering in a beaded gown while I applytouches of powder to her neck, her décolletage, the point of her chin.At my feet, around me sit the bags and totes and vacuum bottles that allcontribute to creating this moment. The hairpieces and makeup andprescription drugs.

When Photoplaypublished the six-page pictorial showing Miss Kathie’s town houseinterior it was my hands that folded the sharp hospital corners on everybed. True, the photographs depicted Miss Kathie with an apron tiedaround her waist, kneeling to scrub the kitchen floor, but only afterI’d cleaned and waxed that tile. My hands create her eyes andcheekbones. I pluck and pencil her famous eyebrows. What you see iscollaboration. Only when we’re combined, together, do Miss Kathie and Imake one extraordinary person. Her body and my vision.

“As a teacher,” says the master ofceremonies, “Katherine Kenton has reachedinnumerable pupils with her lessons of patience and hard work.…”

Within this tedious monologue, we dissolve toflashback: a recent sunny day in the park. As in the earlier,soft-focus murder fantasy, Miss Kathie and WebsterCarlton Westward III stroll hand in hand toward the zoo. In amedium shot, we see Miss Kathie and Webb step to the rail whichsurrounds a pit full of pacing grizzly bears. Miss Kathie’s hands gripthe metal rail so tightly the knuckles glow white, her face frozen sonear the bears, only a vein, surfacing beneath the skin of her neck,pulses and squirms to betray her terror. We hear the ambient noise ofchildren singing. We hear lions and tigers roar. Hyenas laugh. Somejungle bird or howler monkey declares its existence, screeching amaniac’s gibberish. Our entire world, always doing battle against thesilence and obscurity of death.

Chirp, squawk, bray… George Gobel. Moo, meow, oink …Harold Lloyd.

Instead of soft focus, this flashback occursin grainy, echoing cinema verité. The only light source, the afternoonsun, flares in the camera lens, washing out the scene in brief flashes.The grizzlies stagger and bellow among the sharp rocks below. Fromoff-camera, a peacock screams and screams with the hysterical voice of awoman being stabbed to death.

On top of all these ambient animal sounds, westill faintly hear the master of ceremonies saying, “We bestow thishonorary PhD in humanities not so much in recognition of what she’slearned, but in gratitude—in our most earnest gratitude—for what Katherine Kenton has taught us.…”

Surfacing in the zoo sound track, we hear afaint heartbeat. The steady thump-thump,thump- thump matches the jumping pulse of the vein in MissKathie’s neck, immediately below her jawline. Even as the animal soundsand human chatter grow more faint, the heartbeat grows louder. The heartbeats faster, more loud; the tendons surface in the skin of MissKathie’s neck, betraying her inner terror. Similar veins and tendonssurface, twitching and jumping in the backs of each hand clamped to thebear pit railing.

Standing beside Miss Kathie at the rail, theWebster specimen lifts one arm and drapes it around her shoulders. Herheartbeat racing. The peacock screaming. As the Webb’s arm settles overher shoulders Miss Kathie releases the rail. With both her hands, sheseizes the Webb’s hand dangling beside her face, pulling down on thewrist and throwing Webster, judo-style, over her back. Over the railing.Into the pit.

Dissolving back to the stage wings, thepresent moment, we hear a grizzly bear roar and a man’s faint scream.Miss Kathie stands in the dim light reflected off the speaker. The skinof her neck, smooth, not pulsing, moving only her lipstick, she says,“Have you found any new versions of the manuscript?”

On the upstage wall, she appears as Mrs. Leonardo da Vinci, as Mrs.Stephen Foster, as Mrs. Robert Fulton.

Any interview, actually any promotioncampaign, is equivalent to a so-called “blind date” with a stranger,where you flirt and flutter your eyelashes and try very hard not to getfucked.

In truth, the degree of anyone’s successdepends on how often they can say the word yesand hear the word no. Those many timesyou’re thwarted yet persevere.

By shooting this scene with the same audienceand setting as the earlier one, we can imply how all awards ceremoniesare merely lovely traps baited with some bright silver-plate piece ofpraise. Deadly traps baited with applause.

Stooping, I twist the cap off one thermos,not the one full of black coffee, or the thermos full of chilled vodka,nor the vacuum bottle rattling with Valiumlike a Carmen Miranda maraca. I open anotherthermos bottle and pinch out the thin sheaf of pages which are rolledtight and stuffed inside. Printed along the heading of each sheet, wordsread Love Slave. Athird draft. I give her the pages.

My Miss Kathie squints at the typed words.Shaking her head, she says, “I can’t make heads or tails out of this.Not without my glasses.” And she hands the sheets back to me, saying,“You read them. I want you to tell me how I’m going to die.…”

And from the audience, we hear a sudden rushof thunderous applause.