Chuck Palahniuk - Tell All

Wrapped around one wrist, the foundling Ihold wears a beaded bracelet reading, UNCLAIMEDBOY INFANT NUMBER THIRTY-FOUR.

It’s ludicrous, the idea of me raising achild, not while I still have my Miss Kathie to parent. A baby is such ablank slate, like training the understudy for a role you’re planning toleave. You truly hope your replacement will do the play justice, but insecret you want future critics to say you played the character better.

“Don’t look at me,” Terry says, juggling anorphan. “I’m busy trying to raise myself.” Despite repeatedly sidestepping possibledeath by bus accident and dinner at the Cub Room with Lilly Hellman,Miss Katie has invited Webb to share her town house—so that we mightbetter monitor future drafts of his book-in-progress. She confessed,knowing now how Webster was actually a psychotic killer, a ruthlessscheming slayer, now their sex life was more passionate than ever.

It was Webb who brought this stage project toMiss Kathie, gave her the script to read and told her she’d be ideal asthe brash, ballsy Hellman seduced by Sammy Davis Jr.and parachuted onto Waikiki Beachwithnothing but a bottle of sunblock and orders to stem the Imperial Army’sadvance. Along the way she falls in love with JoiLansing. According to Webb, this starring role had Tony Awardwritten all over it.

According to TerrenceTerry, the Webster specimen was merely grooming my Miss Kathie.These past few years, she’d fallen into obscurity. First, refusing stageand film projects. Second, neglecting her gray hair and weight. Ageneration of young people were growing up never hearing the name Katherine Kenton, oblivious to Miss Kathie’s body ofwork. No, it wouldn’t do for her to die at this point in time, notbefore she’d made a successful comeback. Therefore, WebsterCarlton Westward IIIcoaxed her to slim down; in all likelihoodhe’d bully her into a surgeon’s office, where she’d submit to having anynew wrinkles or sags erased from her face.

If this new show was a hit, if it put my MissKathie back on top, introducing her to a new legion of fans, that wouldbe the ideal time to complete his final chapter. His “lie-ography”would hit stores the same day her newspaper obituary hit the street. Thesame week her new Broadway show opened to rave reviews.

But not this week, I tell Terry.

Daubing with the hem of my starched maid’sapron, I wipe at the face of the infant I hold. I lean near the floorand pick out a thin sheaf of papers tucked beneath the diaper of anearby baby. Offering the printed pages to Terry, I ask if he wants toread the second draft of LoveSlave . Just the closing chapter; here’s the blueprint forMiss Kathie’s most recent brush with death.

“How is it our homicidal hunk has landedhimself in the hospital?” Terry says. And I toss the newest, revised final chapterat his feet.

Onstage, Lilly demonstrates to Miss Kathiethe correct way to tour en l’air whileslitting the throat of an enemy sentry.

Terry collects the pages. Still holding theorphan on his knee, he says, “Once upon a time …” He props the baby inthe crook of one arm, leaning into its tiny face as if it were a radiomicrophone or a camera lens, any recording device in which to store hislife. Speaking into this particular foundling, filling its hollow mind,filling its eyes and ears with the sound of his voice, Terry reads, “‘Perhaps it’s ironic, but no film critic, not JackGrantnor Pauline Kaelnor David Ogden Stewart, would ever tear Katherine tobloody shreds the way savage grizzly bears eventually would.…’ ”

In voice-over, we hear TerrenceTerryreading from the revised final chapter of Love Slave . As wedissolve from the theater of the previous scene, we continue to hear theambient sounds of the rehearsal: carpenters hammering scenery together,tap dancing, machine-gun fire, the dying screams of sailors burnedalive, and Lillian Hellman. However, thesenoises fade as once more we see the soft-focus interior of Miss Kathie’sboudoir. We see Webster Carlton Westward III,shot from the waist up, his naked torso shining with sweat, as he liftsone hand to his nose, the fingers dripping wet, and inhales deeply,closing his eyes. His hands drop down, out of the shot, then rise, eachhand gripping a slender ankle. Lifting the two feet to shoulder height,he holds them wide apart. Webb’s hips buck forward, then pull back,drive forward and pull back, while the voice-over reads, “ ‘… On thefinal day of Katherine Kenton’s life, Ioh-so-gently nudged the prow of my aching love stick against the knottedfolds of her forbidden passageway.…’ ”

Once again, the man and woman copulating areidealized versions of Webb and Miss Kathie, seen through heavy filters,their movements in slow motion, fluid, possibly even blurring.

Terry’s voice continues reading, “ ‘Thepungent aroma of her most corporeal orifice drenched my senses. Myever-mounting admiration and professional respect boiling for release, Ithrust deeper into the fragile, soiled petals of her fecund rose.…’ ”

In the year preceding the FrenchRevolution, according to Terrence Terry,the antiroyalists sought to undermine public respect for Louis XVIand his queen, MarieAntoinette, by publishing drawings which depicted the monarchsengaged in degenerate sexual behavior. These cartoons, printed in Switzerlandand Germanyand smuggled into France, accused the queen ofcopulating with hordes of dogs, servants, clergymen. Before thestorming of the Place de la Bastille, beforethe national razorand Jean-PaulMarat, these crude line drawings infiltrated citizens’ hearts asthe vanguard for rebellion. Comic propaganda. Obscene little sketchesand dirty stories marched as advance men, eroding respect, smoothing thepath for the bloody massacre to come.

That’s why the Webster specimen had writtensuch filth.

Continuing to read from the final chapter of Love Slave , thevoice-over of Terrence Terrysays, “ ‘Plungingmy steely manhood, sounding the noble depths of Katherine’s succulenthindquarters, I couldn’t help but experience every one of hermagnificent performances. Moaning and slobbering beneath me, here was Eleanor of Aquitaine. Squealing and clenching, herewas Edna St. Vincent Millay. Her diminutivewaist gripped between my insatiable, beastly paws, ZeldaFitzgeraldtossed her head, howling with every breath.…’ ”

In soft focus, the younger, idealized loversloll, tangled in gauzy sheets. The voice of Terry reads, “ ‘The lovelythighs which gripped my tuberous lust had trodden the boards at Carnegie Hall. The LondonPalladium. The luxuriant flesh which rocked below me insynchronized bliss, the delicious symphony of our mutual devouring ofeach other, this delicate flower grunting at the brutal onslaught of myplunging invasion, she was Helen of Troy. Rebecca ofSunnybrook Farm. Mary Queen of Scots…’ ”

Chirp, cluck, bark … Lady Macbeth. Growl, bray, tweet … Mary Todd Lincoln.

“ ‘Abandoning the sodden glory of herpuckered shelter,’ ” Terry continues reading, “ ‘I spewed my steamingtribute, gush upon jetting gush, the pearlescent globules of myadoration and profound admiration spattering Katherine’s unutterablybeautiful visage.…’ ”