Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

How thrilling the proximity, and how improbable to share the citadel! He would have accepted the lowliest position — polishing marble there, or candlesticks. For Big Stars were different than you and me, this he knew from an early age. The boy who watched reruns ( The Rifleman, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best ), too ashamed of his looks to go to school, knew. The boy who locked himself in the bathroom, tetracycline vials around the sink like votive candles, his face an angry mask of suppurating knots, knew — fussing with them till they wept clear fluid, as if drawn from spinal waters. All he wanted was to be Kurt Russell. Won’t someone make it so? Jan-Michael Vincent…any old sunbaked smooth-faced boy in hip-hugger jeans would do. He longed for fields of undamaged skin, craving Sal Mineo’s buttery cheeks — when they finally came (still sitting on bathroom floor, eyes clenched shut, mirror forgotten for now), he rode to the dusty ranch and necked with Johnny Crawford while his father was at the General Store. The things they did in that barn…he would have “Lucas” next.

Les planned to become a psychiatrist — he would listen to Big Star woes, a shoulder for Big Star tears — but changed course in mid-residency. He was moonlighting at a Malibu emergency room when Streisand came in with an allergic reaction to fish. She was hyperventilating and badly mottled. He shot her up with Benadryl and right away she could breathe again. Any intern could have done it, but Streisand thought he was God. She invited him to her home for a troubled-youth charity hoedown. Les didn’t know a soul yet there he was, bonding with Larry Hagman and Ray Stark, Ann-Margret and Shirley MacLaine. That’s when he had the vision, more like a religious exfoliation: skin as the Comer, hotter than plastic surgery. O Pioneers! Now, after all these years, they wanted to drag him from penthouse to pillory and march him down Wilshire to the hillock of Via Rodeo, for all the Big and Little Stars — and the nothings — to see.

“How are you?”

Obie tucked herself into the chair, hunched in a fetal position. “It’s been a real shitty week.”

“What happened?”

“Stuff with Cat. Career shit. Bull shit.”

She was going to cancel, but had canceled the last three sessions already. She blew her nose and Calliope pushed some Kleenex.

“Are you sick? You don’t look like you’re feeling well.”

“I think I have a — this sinus infection. And there’s…this drug thing, so stupid . With Les. It’s more a pain in the ass than anything else. Have you read about it?”

“I saw something in the paper.”

“It’s like, enough . It’s so ridiculous . Poor Les — he’s really upset, he’s like, shaken . You know, he’s concerned about his career.”

“As he should be.”

“Has he talked to you about it?”

“You know I wouldn’t share something like that.”

“Nothing’s going to happen.”

“There are no guarantees. And it can’t be much fun.”

“I know — I’m not in denial, I’m not saying it’s nothing . It’s just, I’m so used to— he’s not. He’s never been in the glare of the whole whatever. But there’s no way , that would be insane . I mean, for them to— I’m the one, if anyone. And it’s such a victimless crime, if a crime at all. I mean, don’t these people have better things to do? I want to talk about something else.”

“Did you take anything today, Oberon?”

“What?”

“Did you take anything today?”

“No! Why?”

“You’re slurring some of your words.”

“I am ?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the Zoloft.”

“Zoloft doesn’t make you slur.”

Obie blew her nose again, then closed her eyes. “There’s something I really need to talk about.”

“In a moment,” she said, sternly. “I don’t want to see you in here under the influence.”

“I’m not —”

“That’s a rule, Oberon.”

“I haven’t slept in two days and I have this sinus thing that I took some — what’s it called, Atarax? — it’s like unbelievable , they’re like reds . I haven’t felt this good since high school. I’m kidding. I mean, I could barely drive over here.”

“Just so we’re clear on the rule.”

“We’re clear on the rule.”

“If you can’t drive, we’ll call your assistant to pick you up.”

“There’s an idea. It’s just I’ve been sneezing for, like, forty-eight hours and this is the first time I’ve stopped. I was freaking out ‘cause I read somewhere about someone who had to be hospitalized because he couldn’t stop sneezing and then he died .”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“I’ve been offered this really interesting role. A remake, for no money. Italian film. Pasolini. But really interesting. And I did something — I think — I know it was connected to the part and some of it was the drugs , which I’ve now stopped. But I feel weird about it and wanted to talk.”

“Something with Cat?”

“God, I wish . Someone I know befriended a homeless woman. I don’t want to say who it is. He picked her up on the street and gave her money. Put her up at the St. James — or the place that used to be the St. James. She has a little girl. Anyway, they came to the house and she blew lunch over the whole celebrity thing. Meeting me. I mean, this is a woman who has been living in weeds off of freeways . We all got loaded and fooled around — I mean, she’s clean, not your standard homeless person, I know that sounds terrible. But very pretty, kind of like Annette Bening. My friend wound up taking her to another room. You could hear them… fucking so I took the girl to the other side of the house.”

“How old is she?”

“Around seven. Calliope, it’s really awful!”

“Why are you so upset?”

“I just feel so weird about this but I know why I did it. God , sometimes I wish I wasn’t an actress — the fucking burden . See, in Teorema —that’s the project I’m going to do for, like no money because it’s so great — this character I’m supposed to play is totally free, totally uninhibited. She has no…sexual morality. That’s what attracted me to the part. She’s a seducer . She sleeps with a whole family : husband, wife, daughter, son, the whole deal.”

“You’re saying there are no boundaries.”

Obie closed her eyes and nodded. “We played this game where I made her reach inside me.”

“You what?”

“I’m not a monster and I know she wasn’t…aware — what was happening. She was already sleepy because I think her mother gave her part of a pill, a Valium or something. So she was groggy, whatever, to begin with. My friend said that’s what she did, and I remember thinking how weird it was to give your kid a pill. But my mother did that too. So — she was half awake and I — took her to the guest room.”

“And what did you do?”

“I was going to put her to bed — should I…can I tell you this?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t judge me?”

“I won’t judge you.”

“This is exactly what the woman would have done—”

“What woman?”

“The character . From Teorema . I was totally covered by a blanket and she was more than half asleep, Calliope, I know I was completely covered the whole time. I feel weird but I’m not even sure it’s wrong — there’s no way she had any idea. ‘If an arm falls in the forest’—”