Tell All

ACT I, SCENE FIVE

Clare Boothe Luceonce said the following about Katherine Kenton—“Whenshe’s in love, nothing can make her sad; however when she’s not inlove, nothing can make her happy.”

We’re playing this next scene in the bathroomadjacent to Miss Kathie’s boudoir. As it opens, we discover my MissKathie seated at her dressing table, facing three mirrors angled to showher right profile, her left profile, and her full face. The bouquet ofpink Nancy Reagan roses and yellow liliesdelivered by Webster Carlton Westward IIIoccupy a vase, those few flowers reflected and reflected until theycould be a florist shop. An entire garden. This single bouquet,multiplied. Made infinite. Not left at the crypt to rot.

Dangling from the bouquet, a parchment cardreads: Our love is only wasted when we fail toshare it with another. Please allow the world to share its limitlesslove with you. Some gibberish plagiarized from JohnMilton or Mohandas Gandhi.

Reflected in the mirrors, my Miss Kathiepinches the slack skin that hangs below her chin. Pinching and pullingthe skin, she says, “No more whiskey. And no more of those damnedchocolates.”

Chocolate poisoning, it fits all theearmarks. Shame on Miss Kathie for neglecting an entire box on her bed,where Loverboy would be bound to sniff themout. The caffeine contained in even a single bonbon more than sufficientto bring about a heart attack in a dog of that size.

The parchment card, signed, Webb. The Westward boy, what ChollyKnickerbocker would term an “opportunistic affection.” Next tothe roses on the polished top of her dressing table rests the rubberbump of Miss Kathie’s diaphragm, pink rubber flocked with dust.

Peeling off her false eyelashes, Miss Kathielooks at me standing behind her, both of us reflected in the mirror,multiplied into a mob, the whole world peopled by just us two, and shesays, “Are you certain that no one else sent their condolences?”

I shake my head, No. No one.

Miss Kathie peels off her auburn wig, handingit to me. She says, “Not even the senator?” The “was-band” before Paco. Senator Phelps Russell Warner. Again, I shake myhead, No.

Not Terrence Terry, the faggotdancer. Not Paco Esposito, who currently playsa hot-tempered, flamenco-dancing Latin brain surgeon on some new radioprogram called Guiding Light. None of thewas-bands have sent a word of condolence.

Pawing the makeup from her face with cottonballs and cold cream, Miss Kathie snaps the elastic wig cap off thecrown of her head. Her movie-star hands claw the long strands of grayhair loose. She twists her head side to side, fast, so the hair fansout, hanging to the pink, padded shoulders of her satin dressing gown.Fingering a few wispy gray strands, Miss Kathie says, “Do you think myhair will hold dye again?”

The first symptom of what Walter Winchellcalls “infant-uation” is when Miss Kathie colors her hair the brightorange of a tabby cat.

“Optimism,” says H. L. Mencken, “is the firstsymptom that any disease is fatal.”

Miss Kathie cups a hand beneath each of herbreasts, lifting them until the cleavage swells at her throat. Watchingherself in the angled mirrors, she says, “Why can’t that brilliant Dr.Josef Mengele in Munich do something about my old-lady hands?”

At best, this young Westward specimen is whatLolly Parsons calls a “boy-ographer.” One of those smiling, dancingyoung gadabouts who insinuate themselves in the private lives of lonely,fading motion-picture stars. Professional listeners, these meticulouslywell-groomed walking men, they listen to confidences, indulge strongegos and weakening minds, forever cherry-picking the best anecdotes andquotes, with a manuscript always ready for publication upon the instantof the movie star’s demise. So many cozy evenings beside the fire,sipping brandy, those nights will pay off with scandalous confessionsand declarations. Mr. Bright Brown Eyes, without a doubt, he’s one ofthose seducers ready to betray every secret, every wart and flatulenceof Miss Kathie’s private life.

This Webster specimen is obviously a would-beauthor, looking to write the type of intimate tell-all that Winchellcalls an unauthorized “bile-ography.” The literary equivalent of amagpie, stealing the brightest and darkest moments from every celebrityhe’ll meet.

My Miss Kathie scoops a finger through a jarof Vaseline, then rubs a fat lump of theslime, smearing it across her top and bottom teeth, pushing her fingerdeep to coat her molars. She smiles her greasy smile and says, “Do youhave a spoon?”

In the kitchen, I tell her. We haven’t kept aspoon in her bathroom since the year when every other song on the radiowas Christine, Dorothy and PhyllisMcGuire singing “Don’t Take Your Love fromMe.”

Miss Kathie’s goal: to reduce until shebecomes what Lolly Parsons calls nothing but“tan and bones.” What Hedda Hopper calls a“lipstick skeleton.” A “beautifully coiffed skull” as ElsaMaxwell calls Katharine Hepburn.

The moment of Miss Kathie’s exit in search ofsaid spoon, my fingers pry open a box of bath salts and pinch up thecoarse grains. These I sprinkle between the roses, swirling the vase todissolve the salts into the water. My fingers pluck the card from thebouquet of roses and lilies. Folding the parchment, I tear it once,twice. Folding and tearing until the sentences become only words. Thewords become only letters of the alphabet, which I sprinkle into thetoilet bowl. As I flush the lever, the water rises in the bowl, the tornparchment spinning as the water deepens. From deep within itself, thecommode regurgitates a hidden mess of paper trapped down within thetoilet’s throat. Bobbing to the surface, bits of waterlogged paper,greeting cards, the tissue paper of telegrams. It all backs up withinthe clogged bowl.

Within the rim of the toilet swirls a tide ofaffection and concern, signed by Edna Ferber, ArtieShaw, Bess Truman. The handwritten notes and cards, the telegramsreading, If there’s anything I can do …and, Please don’t hesitate to call. The tornscraps of these sentiments spin higher and higher toward the brim ofdisaster, preparing to overflow, to run over the lip of the white bowland flood the pink marble floor. These affectionate words … I’ve tornthem into bits, and then torn those into smaller bits, scraps. All of mycovert work is about to be exposed. These, all of the condolences I’vedestroyed during the past few days.

From the downstairs powder room, echoing upthrough the silence of the town house, the sounds of Miss Kathie’s gorgerises with beef Stroganoff and Queen Charlotte pears and veal PrinceOrloff, heaving up from the depths of Miss Kathie, triggered bythe tip of a silver spoon touching the back of her tongue, her gagreflex rejecting it all.

“Fuck ’em,” Miss Kathie says betweensplashes, her movie-star voice hoarse with bile and stomach acid. “Theydon’t care,” she says, purging herself in great thunderous blasts.

The infamous advice BusbyBerkeley gave to Judy Garland, “Ifyou’re still having bowel movements, you’re eating too much.”

Upstairs, the shredded affections rise, aboutto spill out onto the bathroom floor. Spiraling upward toward disaster.At the last possible moment I drop to my knees on the pink marble tile.I plunge my hand into the churning mess, the cold water lapping aroundmy elbow, then swirling about my shoulder as I burrow my hand deep intothe toilet’s throat, clearing aside wet paper. Clawing, scratching atunnel through the sodden, matted layer of endearments. The soft mass ofsentiments I can’t see.

Downstairs, Miss Kathie heaves out greatmouthfuls of gâteau Pierre Rothschild. Bombede Louise Grimaldi. AuntJemima syrup. LadyBaltimore cake. The wet, bubbling shouts of undigested Jimmy Dean sausage.

The plumbing of this old town house shudders,the pipes banging and thudding to contain and channel this new burdenof macerated secrets and gourmet vomit.

A “Hollywood lifetime” later, the water inthe toilet bowl begins to recede.

The shredded scraps of love and caring, thekind regards sink from sight. Freshwater chases the final words ofcomfort into the sewers. Those lacy, embossed, engraved and perfumedfragments, the toilet gulps them down. The water swallows every lastword of sympathy from Jeanne Crain, the floridhandwriting of Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret,from John Gilbert, Linus Pauling and Christiaan Barnard. In her bathroom, the purge ofnames and devotion signed, Brooks Atkinson, GeorgeArliss and Jill Esmond, the spinningflood disappearing, disappearing, the water level drops until all thenames and notes are sucked down. Drowned.

Echoing from the downstairs powder room comesthe hawk and spit sound of my Miss Kathie clearing the bile taste fromher mouth. Her cough and belch. A final flush of the downstairs commode,followed by the rushing spray noise of aerosol room deodorant.

A “New York second” goes by, and I stand. Onestep to the sink, and I calmly begin to scrub my dripping hands,careful to pick and scrape the words sorrowand tragedy from where they’re lodgedbeneath each fingernail. Already, the lovely bouquet of pink roses andyellow lilies poisoned with salt water, the petals begin to wither andbrown.