Chuck Palahniuk - Tell All

Those hands, the soft tools he would use tocommit murder. Behind that smile, the cunning mind that had planned thisbetrayal. To add insult to injury, the lies he’d written about my MissKathie and her sexual adventures, they would eventually be cherry-pickedby Frazier Huntof Photoplay , Katherine Albertof ModernScreen magazine, Howard Barnesof the New York Herald Tribune , JackGrantof Screen Book , Sheilah Graham, all the various low-life bottomfeeders of Confidential and every succeedingbiographer of the future. These tawdry, soft, sordid fictions wouldpetrify and fossilize to become diamond-hard, carved-stone facts for allperpetuity. A salacious lie will always trump a noble truth.

Miss Kathie’s violet eyes waft to meet myeyes.

A bus roars past in the street, shaking theground with its weight and trailing the stink of diesel exhaust. Aroundus the air swirls, gritty with dust and heavy with the threat ofimminent death.

Then Miss Kathie steps up to the stoop wherethe Webster specimen waits. Standing on her tiptoes, she begins to knotthe white bow tie. Her movie-star face a mere breath from his own. Forthis moment and for the immediate future, placing herself as far aspossible from the constant, marauding stream of omnibuses.

And Webb, the evil, lying bastard, looks downand plants a kiss on her forehead.

We cut to the interior of a lavish Broadwaytheater. The opening mise-en-scène includes the proscenium arch, thestage curtain rising within the arch, below that the combed heads andbrass instruments of musicians within the orchestra pit. The conductor, Woody Herman, raises his baton, and the air fillswith a rousing overture by Oscar Levant,arrangements by André Previn. Additionalmusical numbers by Sigmund Rombergand Victor Herbert. On the piano, VladimirHorowitz. As the curtain rises, we see a chorus line whichincludes Ruth Donnelly, Barbara Merrill, Alma Rubens,Zachary Scottand Kent Smithdoing fankicks aboard the deck of the battleship USS Arizona , designedby Romain de Tirtoffand moored center stage.The Japanese admirals Isoroku Yamamotoand Hara Tadaichiare danced by KinuyoTanakaand Tora Teje, respectively. Andy Clydedoes a furious buck-and-wing as Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, the official first Japaneseprisoner of war. Anna May Wongtap-dances asolo in the part of Captain Mitsuo Fuchida,and Tex Ritterfills in for General Douglas MacArthur. With EmikoYakumoand Tia Xeoas LieutenantCommander Shigekazu Shimazakiand Captain Minoru Genda, the principal dancers among theJapanese junior officers.

Choreography by moo,cluck, bark … Léonide Massine. Staging by tweet, bray,meow … W. MacQueen Pope.

As the orchestra pounds away, the USS Oklahoma explodesnear the waterline and begins to sink stage right. Burning fuel oilraces stage left, moving upstage to ignite the USS West Virginia .Downstage, a Japanese Nakajimatorpedo lancesinto the hull of the USS California .

Japanese Zerosstrafe the production number, riddling the chorus line with bullets. Aichidive bombers plunge into PearlWhiteand Tony Curtis, prompting anexplosion of red corn syrup, while the cruising periscopes of Japanesemidget submarines cut back and forth behind the footlights.

As the Arizona begins to keel over, we see Katherine Kentonclamber to the position ofport-side gun, wrestling the body of a dead gunner’s mate away from theseat. Embroidered across one side of her chest, the olive-drab fabricreads: PFC H ELLMAN. My Miss Kathie dragsthe dead hero aside, laying both her palms open against his chest. Asgrenades explode shrapnel around her, Miss Kathie’s lips mutter a silentprayer. The eyelids of the dead sailor, played by JackieCoogan, the eyelashes flutter. The young man opens his eyes,blinking; cradled now in Miss Kathie’s arms, he looks up into her famousviolet eyes and says, “Am I in heaven?” He says, “Are you … God?”

The Zeros screaming past, the Arizona sinking beneaththem into the oily, fiery water of Pearl Harbor,Miss Kathie laughs. Kissing the boy on his lips, she says, “Close butno cigar … I’m Lillian Hellman.”

Before another note from the orchestra, MissKathie leaps to slam an artillery round into the massive deck gun.Wheeling the enormous barrel, she tracks a diving Aichi bomber, aligningthe crosshairs of her gun sight. Her sailor whites artfully stained andshredded by Adrian Adolph Greenberg, herbleeding wounds suggested by sparkling patches of crimson sequins andrhinestones sewn around each bullet hole. Singing the opening bars ofher big song, Miss Kathie fires the shell, blasting the enemy aircraftinto a blinding burst of papier-mâché.

From offscreen a voice shouts, “Stop!” Afemale voice shouts, cutting through the violins and French horns, therockets and machine-gun fire, shouting, “For fuck’s sake, stop!” A womancomes stomping down the center aisle of the theater, one arm lifted,wielding a script rolled as tight as a police officer’s billy club.

The orchestra grinds to silence. The singersstop, their voices trailing off. The dancers slow to a standstill, andthe fighter jets hang, stalled, limp in midair, from invisible wires.

From the stage apron, in the reverse angle,we see this shouting woman is Lillian Hellmanherself as she says, “You’re ruining history! For the love of Anna Q. Nilsson, I happen to be right-handed !”

In this same reverse angle, we see that thetheater is almost empty. King Vidorand Victor Flemingsit in the fifth row with their headshuddled together, whispering. Farther back, I sit in the emptyauditorium next to Terrence Terry, both of usbalancing infants on our respective laps.

Clustered on the floor aroundour chairs, other foundlings squirm and drool in wicker baskets. Chubbypink hands shake various rattles, these kinder occupying most of the surrounding seats.

“You’d better hope this show flops,” says Terrence Terry, bouncing a gurgling orphan on hisknee. “By the way, where is our lethal Lothario?”

I tell him that Webb would have to truly hateMiss Kathie after what happened yesterday. Onstage, Lilly Hellman shouts, “Everybody,listen! Let’s start over.” Hellman shouts, “Let’s take it from the partwhere the kamikazefighters of the Japanese Imperial Armyswoop low over Honoluluin order to rain their deadly fiery cargoof searing death on Constance Talmadge.”

The Webster specimen is currently undergoingtreatment at Doctors Hospital. Just to escapethe town house, Miss Kathie’s going into rehearsal, and Webster Carlton Westward IIIis recovering fromminor lacerations to his arms and torso.

Terry says, “Fingernail scratches?”

At the house, I say, the nurses keeparriving. The nuns and social workers. The fresh castoff infantscontinue to be delivered, and Miss Kathie declines to choose. In thepast few days, each baby seems less like a blessing and more like anadorable time bomb. No matter how much you love and cuddle one, it stillmight grow up to become Mercedes McCambridge.Regardless of all the affection you shower on a child, it still mightbreak your heart by becoming Sidney Skolsky.All of your nurturing and worry and careful attention might turn outanother Noel Coward. Or saddle humanity with anew Alain Resnais. You need only look at Webband see how no amount of Miss Kathie’s love will redeem him.