Chuck Palahniuk - Tell All

Holding the wrapped package before her,offering the red-velvet-and-foil-wrapped box to me, Miss Kathie stepsinto the room.

On the scripted page, Lilly Hellman holdsOswald in a full nelson, both his arms bent and twisted behind his head.With one fast, sweeping kick, Lilly knocks Oswald’s legs out from underhim, and he crumbles to the floor, where the two grapple, scrabblingand clawing on the dusty concrete, both within reach of the loadedrifle.

Miss Kathie sets the package on the kitchentable, at my elbow, and says, “Happy birthday.” She pushes the box,sliding it to collide with my arm, and says, “Open it.”

In the Hellman script, Lilly brawls withsuperhuman effort. The silence of the warehouse broken only by gruntsand gasps, the grim sound of struggle in ironic contrast to the applauseand fanfare, the blare of marching bands and the blur of high-steppingmajorettes throwing their chrome batons to flash and spin in the hard Texassunshine.

Not looking up from the page, I say it isn’tmy birthday.

Looking from trophy to trophy, my Miss Kathiesays, “All of this ‘Lifetime Achievement …’ ” Her hand dips into aninvisible pocket of her dressing gown and emerges with a comb. Drawingthe comb through her dyed-auburn hair, a fraction, only a day or two ofgray showing at the roots, drawing the comb away from her scalp, MissKathie lets the long strands fall, saying, “All this ‘LifetimeContribution’ business makes me sound so—dead.”

Not waiting for me, Miss Kathie says, “Let mehelp.” And she yanks at the ribbon.

With a single pull, the lovely bow unravels,and my Miss Kathie wads up the silver paper, tearing the foil from thebox. Inside the box, she uncovers folds of black fabric. A black dresswith a knee-length skirt. Layered beneath that, a bib apron of starchedwhite linen, and a small lacy cap or hat stuck through with hairpins.

The smell of her hair, on her skin, a hint of bay rum, the cologne of WebsterCarlton Westward III. Pacowore Roman Brio.The senator wore Old Lyme. Before thesenator, “was- band” number five, Terrence Terry,wore English Leather. The steel tycoon wore Knizecologne.

Leaving the dress on the table, Miss Kathiecrosses stage right still combing her hair, to where she stands on herpink-mule toes to reach the television atop the icebox. The screenflares when she flips the switch and the face of PacoEspositotakes form, as gradual as a fish appearing beneath thesurface of a murky pond. The male equivalent of a diamond necklace, astethoscope, hangs around his neck. A surgical mask is bunched under hischin. Still gripping a bloody scalpel, Paco is snaking his tongue downthe throat of an ingénue, Jeanne Eagels,dressed in a red-and-white- striped uniform.

“I don’t want the placement agency gettingany idea that you’re more than a servant,” says my Miss Kathie. Shecranks the dial switch one click to another television station, where Terrence Terrydances lead for the Lunenburg battalionagainst Napoleonat the Battle of Mont St. Jean. Still drawingthe comb through her hair, Miss Kathie clicks to a third station, whereshe appears, Katherine Kentonherself, inblack and white, playing the mother of Greer Garsonin the role of Louisa May Alcottopposite Leslie Howardin a biopic about ClaraBarton. She says, bark, oink,cluck … Christinaand ChristopherCrawford.

“Nothing,” says Miss Kathie, “makes a womanlook younger than holding her own precious newborn.”

Cluck, buzz, bray … Margot Merrill.

Another click of the television reveals MissKathie made up to be an ancient mummy, covered in latex wrinkles andrising from a papier-mâché sarcophagus covered with hieroglyphics tomenace a screaming, dewy Olivia de Havilland.

I ask, Newborn what?

Hoot, tweet, moo … Josephine Bakerand her entire Rainbow Tribe.

In a tight insert shot we see the reveal: thedress, there on the kitchen table, this gift, it’s strewn with long,auburn hairs, that heavy mahogany color that hair has only when it’ssoaking wet. The discarded wrapping paper, the ribbon and comb, left forme to pick up. The black dress, it’s a housemaid’s uniform.

My position in this household is not that of amere maid or cook or lady-in-waiting. I am not employed in any capacityas domestic help.

This is not a birthday present.

“If the agency asks, I think maybe you’ll bean au pair,” Miss Kathie says, standing on tiptoe, her nose near her ownimage on the television screen. “I love that word … au pair,” she says. “It sounds almost like …French.”

In the screenplay, Lilly Hellman looks on inhorror as President John F. Kennedyand Governor John Connallyexplode in fountains of gore.Her arms straight at her sides, her hands balled into fists, Lillythrows back her head, emptying her mouth, her throat, emptying her lungswith one, long, howling, “Noooooooooooooo …!” The rigid silhouette ofher pain outlined against the wide, flat-blue Dallassky.

I sit staring at the wrinkled uniform, thetorn wrapping paper. The stray hairs. The screenplay laid open in mylap.

“You can bring up the coffee in a moment,”says Miss Kathie, as she shuts off the television with a slap of herpalm. Gripping the skirt of her gown and lifting it, she crosses stageright to the kitchen table. There, Miss Kathie plucks the lacy cap fromthe open box, saying, “In the future, Mr. Westward prefers cream in hiscoffee, not milk.”

Placing the white cap on the crown of myhead, she says, “ Voilà! ” She says, “It’s aperfect fit.” Pressing the lacy cap snug, Miss Kathie says, “That’sItalian for prego.”

On my scalp, a sting, the faint prick ofhairpins feel sharp and biting as a crown of thorns. Then a slow fade toblack as, from offscreen, we hear the front doorbell ring.

If you’ll permit me to break character andindulge in another aside, I’d like to comment on the nature ofequilibrium. Of balance, if you’d prefer. Modern medical sciencerecognizes that human beings appear to be subject to predetermined,balanced ratios of height and weight, masculinity and femininity, and totinker with those formulas brings disaster. For example, when RKO Radioand Monogramand Republic Picturesbegan prescribinginjections of male hormones in order to coarsen some of their moreeffete male contract players, the inadvertent result was to give thosehe- men breasts larger than those of Claudette Colbertand Nancy Kelly. It would seem the humanbody, when given additional testosterone, increases its own productionof estrogen, always seeking to return to its original balance of maleand female hormones.

Likewise, the actress who starves herself tofar, far below her natural body weight will soon balloon to far aboveit.

Based on decades of observation, I proposethat sudden high levels of external praise always trigger an equalamount of inner self-loathing. Most moviegoers are familiar with thetheatrically unbalanced mental health of a FrancesFarmer, the libidinal excesses of a CharlesChaplinor an Errol Flynn, and thechemical indulgences of a Judy Garland. Suchperformances are always so ridiculously broad, played to the topmostbalcony. My supposition is that, in each case, the celebrity in questionwas simply making adjustments—instinctually seeking a naturalequilibrium—to counterbalance enormous positive public attention.