Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

“But you— you— I know your courage, Michael, I’ve seen it. It’s real . My God , you’re a long-distance runner. With everything you’ve been through, you have earned the right to bargain with the Angel of Death. Even if she’s your wife, especially if she’s your lovely wife. And don’t underestimate our Catherine. Don’t you dare, you know better than that. You know how tough that girl is. You’ve both earned the right. To bargain for a little more time, time to watch your kids grow, time to be together. Time to make a movie , which is a fair portion of what I believe your purpose is on this planet, what you’re meant to be doing. What I think you’re meant to be doing, from all the years , & everything that I know, everything that I feel & know about you. You’ve earned the right to bargain for a little more time to make sense of your life . Because all you need is a little more time , to see— that there is no sense in life but the doing of what you love , & the loving of those you love. That clarity will come, Michael, it’s right around the corner for you. You see, your gift is that you captivate people. You have marvelous energy , people love to look at you, to listen . Lord knows what you’ll do when you make that terrible film your own! Now that’s a challenge. You’ll captivate us all!

“This fear you have is not in depicting yourself as a dying man—& who, by the way, says the All That Jazz Michael Douglas must die? — no. That’s not what you’re afraid of. That is distinctly not your fear. You’ve flirted with death so much lately… the world was practically shouting at you two to ‘get a room’! Michael, you are an artist. I believe that has always been your central drama. ‘Am I an artist?’ That is the question that arises during your hour of the wolf. No? Do you remember we used to talk about the hour of the wolf? That terrible time between 3AM and 4AM when we are completely alone . ‘Am I an artist?’ Well, I’m going to give you the answer. I’m going to answer that question, and all you need to do is accept it as truth . As gospel. Because I know something about it. I know a lot about it. And I have never lied to you, ever. Not even once. Not even a white lie. Well, maybe I overbilled you now and then, but nothing too serious… ha! So here’s the answer, like it or not: Yes. You, Michael Douglas, are an artist. And I say that before God. You have my one hundred percent guarantee .

“Every artist I’ve ever known has the same fear, I call it the If I jump into the abyss, will I die? fear. And do you know what the answer to that is? If you don’t jump, you’ll die.”

The phone rang, and she broke away. Which was good because he needed a moment. When the old woman hung up, she turned to him and smiled. He knew that was the image of her he would carry with him into both their eternities.

“Thank you. Thank you, Calliope.”

“Make this wonderful project a journey — for you .”

Her eyes got mischievous.

“Can you dance?”

“I’ve been known.”

“But can you cut a rug? That’s what we called it when I was a girl.” She reached to touch his arm. “I seem to have opinions lately.”

“You always had opinions, girl.”

“Maybe so. But I have even more of them today. It apparently comes with the territory of being very, very old.” She took another deep breath. “I have one final piece of advice.”

He girded himself again, a protective reflex he’d acquired during a lifetime of counsel from his straight-shooting mentor — and friend.

“Fire away.”

Her eyes flared.

“I would love to see you do a turn on Dancing With the Stars . It’s my favorite show! I think it’d be marvelous preparation for your movie. The sooner you begin cutting a rug, Michael Douglas, the better!”

Falsies & False Positives

Across

town, Gwen saw her own therapist, the one she met at Our House, the grief center she’d gone to for support when her husband died. She felt blessed that Phoebe was already in her life when her daughter became ill (Gwen now choking on those words), because she really helped, & really helped Telma too.

“Have you cried yet?”

Gwen hated that question.

“No. Not really. I’m too angry.”

“It’s good that you’re angry, you should be. I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

Silence, then again:

“Gwen, have you been able to cry?”

“No!”

The repetition some sort of therapist’s ploy.

More silence.

“I’m afraid to. I’m afraid to.”

“And why is that?”

“Because if I cry”—tremulous voice—“the anger might go away, & without the anger—”

Silence.

“Without the anger…” The shrink cued her to fill in the blank. The patient remained quiet. “Without the anger, you’re afraid you’ll fall apart. That you won’t have the strength you need to see justice done.”

. .

Gwen wasn’t really sleeping; she took sleep when it came, like coins being dropped into a half-conscious beggar’s palm. Under siege, she spasmed awake with little starts & yelps, reacting to whatever movie flickered behind fitful shutlid eyes. It was one of the hellish cruelties human beings were subject to — to be unable to use sleep to escape from a waking nightmare, to find oneself in a place where nothing worked, there was no comfort, no alternatives, no let-up, like a person burned and tortured in such a way they cannot sit or stand or lie down without excruciating pain. She told her lawyers she needed time to think. Gwen couldn’t act until certain things were handled.

Until Telma had been told…

She haunted the Internet’s vast trove of horrific misdiagnoses & wanton, wrongful surgeries. A woman in the UK lost a breast by hospital blunder, something they knew right away but didn’t tell her for nine years. In a ghoulish twist, she became a counselor to those with breast cancer. Her ballroom dancing pastime was no more; the beloved strapless dresses retired to the closet, a murdered raft of pretty girls, carefully, quietly hanged. She went through menopause without hormone replacement therapy because if you’ve had breast cancer, HRT is out . Insurance paid £100,000.

There were a lot of similar cases, closer to home. An L.A. woman had a double mastectomy & reconstructive surgery as the result of a misread biopsy. She was awarded $110,000 for each shorn tit. Was that because she couldn’t afford the right lawyer? Gwen’s counsel said Gwen needn’t worry because her daughter’s case had “unique & compelling attributes,” and they believed a settlement of around $15 million was feasible. They also believed that a proviso of any settlement would be the hospital’s insistence that the records of the case be sealed forever, as St. Ambrose would have trouble surviving the primal rage that such a bogus mutilaton of a child would engender, not to mention a child as charismatic as Telma; not to mention that child having become a beacon of hope for other children thus afflicted, & for their parents too; not to mention that Telma would become a poster child — an electronic billboard! — of the hospital’s malfeasance and cynical desecration of the Hippocratic Oath. The calculus of the $15 million figure of course included restitution for the physical & emotional travails of reconstructive surgery that Telma would eventually endure in the relatively near future. If the records weren’t sealed, the original error would never fade in public consciousness, to the contrary, it would compound yearly, monthly , as the press nurtured & obsessed, the maimed darling growing up under their exploitative sponsorship into a lovely young woman that another surgical team (the reconstructivists) would pounce on in the name of closure and healing, but the people wouldn’t see it that way, the people would see it as Frankenstein redux.