Chuck Palahniuk - Tell All

By a third whiskey, the orchids are worriedand bruised to a pulp between Miss Kathie’s fretting hands. When I offerto bring another drink, her face shines, sliced with the wet ribbons ofher tears.

Miss Kathie looks down the stairs at me,blinking to dry her eyelashes, saying, “Realistically, what would alovely young man like Webb want with an old woman?” Smiling at thecrushed orchids in her lap, she says, “How could I be such a fool?”

She is no one’s fool, I assure her. She’s Anne Boleynand Marie Curie.

Her eyes, in that scene, as dull and glassyas pearls or diamonds soiled with hair spray. In one hand, Miss Kathieballs the smashed flowers tight within her fist, to make a wad she dropsinto one empty old-fashioned glass. She hands the glass to me, thedregs of whiskey and orchids, and I hand her another filled with ice andgin. The sable coat slips from her shoulders to lie, heaped, on thestairway carpet. She’s the infant born this afternoon in her bed, theyoung girl who dressed, the woman who sat down to wait for her newlove.… Now she’s become a hag, aged a lifetime in one evening. MissKathie lifts a hand, looking at her wrinkled knuckles, her marquise-cutdiamond ring. Twisting the diamond to make it sparkle, she says, “Whatsay we make a record of this moment?” Drive to the crypt beneath thecathedral, she means, and cut these new wrinkles into the mirror whereher sins and mistakes collect. That etched diary of her secret face.

She draws her legs in close to her body, herknees pressed to her chest. All of her wadded as tight as the ruinedfistful of flowers.

Throwing back a swallow of gin, she says,“I’m such an old ninny.” She swirls the ice in the bottom of the glass,saying, “Why do I always feel so degraded?”

Her heart, devastated. My plan, working toperfection.

The rim of the glass, smeared red with herlipstick, the curved rim has printed her face with red, spreading thecorners of her mouth upward to make a lurid clown’s smile. Her eyelinerdribbles in a black line down from the center of each eye. Miss Kathielifts her hand, twisting the wrist to see her watch, the awful truthcircled in diamonds and pink sapphires. Here’s bad news presented in anexquisite package. From somewhere in the bowels of the town house, aclock begins to strike midnight. Past the twelfth stroke, the bellcontinues to thirteen, fourteen. More late than any night could possiblyget. At the stroke of fifteen, my Miss Kathie looks up, her cloudy eyesconfused with alcohol.

It’s impossible. The bell tolling sixteen,seventeen, eighteen, it’s the doorbell. And standing on the stoop, when Iopen the front door, there waits a pair of bright brown eyes behind anarmful of roses and lilies.

We open with a panning shot of Miss Kathie’sboudoir mantel, the lineup of wedding photos and awards. Next, wedissolve to a similar panning shot, moving across the surface of aconsole table in her drawing room, crowded with more trophies. Then, wedissolve to yet another similar shot, moving across the shelves of herdining room vitrines. Each of these shots reveals a cluttered abundanceof awards and trophies. Plaques and medals lie displayed in presentationboxes lined with white satin like tiny cradles, each medal hung on awide ribbon, the box lying open. Like tiny caskets. Burdening theshelves are loving cups of tarnished silver, engraved, To Katherine Kenton,In Honor of Her Lifetime Achievements, Presented bythe Baltimore Critics Circle .Statuettes plated with gold, from the ClevelandTheater Owners Association. Diminutive statues of gods andgoddesses, tiny, the size of infants. For HerOutstanding Contribution. For Her Years ofDedication . We move through this clutter ofengraved bric-a-brac, these honorary degrees from Midwestern colleges.Such nine-carat-gold praise from the Phoenix StagePlayers Club. The Seattle Press Guild.The Memphis United Society of Thespis. The Greater Missoula Dramatics Community. Frozen,gleaming, silent as past applause. The final panning shot ends as adirty rag falls around one golden statue; then the camera pulls back toreveal me wiping the award free of dust, polishing it, and placing itback on the shelf. I take another, polish it and put it back. I liftanother.

This demonstrates the endless nature of mywork. By the time I’ve done them all, the first awards will need dustingand polishing. Thus I move along with my soiled cotton diaper, reallythe most soft kind of dust cloth.

Every month another group entices Miss Kathieto grace them with her presence, rewarding her with yet anothersilver-plate urn or platter, engraved, Woman of theYear , to collect dust. Imagine every compliment you’ve everreceived, made manifest, etched into metal or stone and filling yourhome. That terrible accumulating burden of your Dedication and Talent,your Contributions and Achievements, forgotten by everyone exceptyourself. Katherine Kenton, the GreatHumanitarian.

Throughout this sequence, always fromoffscreen, we hear the laughter of a man and woman. Miss Kathie and somefamous actor. Gregory Peckor Dan Duryea. Her ringing laugh followed by his bassguffaw. As I’m dusting awards in the library of the town house, thelaughter filters downstairs from her boudoir. If I’m working in thedining room, the laughter echoes from the drawing room. Nevertheless,when I follow the sound, any new room is empty. The laughter alwayscomes from around another corner or from behind the next door. What Ifind are only the awards, turning dark with tarnish. Such honors—solid,worthless lead or pig iron merely coated with a thin skin of gold. Afterevery rubbing, more dull, worn and smutty.

In her boudoir, on the television, my MissKathie rides in an open horse-drawn carriage through Central Park,sitting beside Robert Stack. Behind themtrails a huge looming mass of white balloons. At a crescendo of violinmusic, Stack rolls on top of Miss Kathie, and her fist opens, releasingthe frenzied balloons to scatter and swim upward, whipping their longtails of white string.

On some shelves balance scissors big enoughfor the Jolly Green Giant, brass buffed untilit could pass as something precious, the pointed blades as long as MissKathie’s legs. She brandished one pair to cut the ribbon at the openingceremonies for the six-lane Ochoakee InlandExpressway. Another pair of scissors cut the ribbon to open the Spring Water Regional Shopping Mall.

Another pair,as large as a golden child performing jumping jacks, these cut theribbon at a supermarket. At the Lewis J. RedslopeMemorial Bridge. At the Tennesseeassembly plant for Skyline Microcellular, Inc.

On the television in the kitchen, Miss Kathielies on a blanket next to Cornel Wilde. AsWilde rolls on top of her, the camera pans to a nearby spitting,crackling campfire.

Filling the shelves are skeleton keys soheavy they require both hands to lift. Tin treated to shine bright asplatinum. Presented by the Omaha Business Fathersand the Topeka Chamber of Commerce. The keyto Spokane, Washington, presented to MissKathie by his honor, the right esteemed Mayor NelsonRedding. The engraved keys to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Jacksonville,Florida. The keys to Iowa Cityand Sioux Falls.

On the dining room television, my Miss Kathieshares a train compartment with Nigel Bruce.As he throws himself on top of her the train slips into a tunnel.