Bruce Wagner - I’m Losing You

Katherine Grosseck

TO: SNOWITE@MSN.COM (PARGITA SNOW)

FROM: KGB@AOL.COM (KATHERINE GROSSECK)

Lovely Pargita Meter Maid (AKA Her Snow Whiteness)…What the fuck am I doing here? I mean, besides going to dailies and jacking the director’s ego. Well, that’s what I get for exec-producing. Hate Toronto, always have. The only thing good about it is Leonard Cohen, and he’s from Montreal, n’est-ce pas? Though I have to say the movie’s looking good. Laura Dern is some kinda wonderful. (Did you ever see Smooth Talk , the thing she did with Treat?) Anyhow, Laura saw Janie Wong and flipped when I told her we were an, ahem, item. It’s kicky being on the street with her — she’s mobbed by kids because of Jurassic . Laura is really smart and apparently heard all about you from Jodie, which had me freaking for like maybe a second. (Did you and JF ever make out? Oh, never mind.)

TO: SNOWITE@MSN.COM (PARGITA SNOW)

FROM: KGB@AOL.COM (KATHERINE GROSSECK)

Writing you is almost good as sex — in my head, I call it “flesh crocheting”—must be Cronenberg’s influence. (We had dinner with him and he’s sweetly super-normal. Long live the New Flesh!) I like how you never write back ‘cause you’re the Big Nonverbal Image-whore. Did you know that I’m wearing your plug? Well, I am. My very own Snowmobile — Her Snow Whiteness’s Eighth Dwarf…

TO: SNOWITE@MSN.COM (PARGITA SNOW)

FROM: KGB@AOL.COM (KATHERINE GROSSECK)

So unfair you’re in Rome and I’m still here. When what I really want to be is… stuck in the middle with you . I wanna buy a castle for us in Ireland — in Cunnymara, by the sea. Do that whole resident tax thing and live there six months each year like the big bohemian lezbo artists we are, would you like that, Geet? I wonder if Cheryl sold their place when he died, did you know the Michael O’Donoghues? They had a castle in Connemara. Galway, I think…I could finally read Finnegans Wake and we’d paint and make movies and go on cliff-walks and get sandblasted by scary Celtic winds. Oh my Pargita— Oh my Pa-pa …I ride your clit on the cardiac rapids — me, sure-footed, obedient pack-mule of your canyons. The Snowmobile is deep within: I wear it for ATM and groceries and teeth-cleaning — all the sweet mundane Muzaky chores of everyday life. There I stand at the twenty-four-hour Ralph’s, on line at the cashier, a stab and a shiver while the pimply Latina says Have a good one . Do you know how I fall to sleep at night? I imagine myself flying to Italy, snuggled in First Class booties, slipping into ROMA/AMOR like a burglar, spy in the house of Love. Racing up Spanish Steps, heart in mouth…then your heart in mouth, copper arms again, splayed under mine, those fingers I dream of gripping the iron headstand, all your smells an altar. I turn onto my stomach. Your hand with those fingers, those rings I gave you, moves up thigh to cork — Eighth Dwarf out, yanked from dreamy sleep, then out I come and nod away in the arms of Manchild — sure beats the shit out of counting sheep.

You won’t believe this. Laura and I had dinner with Dana Delany and we were talking about how we want to write this book on all the kinky massages we’ve ever had. I tell them about the time that girl Gina walked in on us — do you remember? Gina Tolk? With the Sheryl Crow mouth and the white trash New Age vibe? How she used to pull out this big frog paperweight and sit it between my tits like some crystal succuba? So Laura brings up the thing about me being impersonated (she heard about it from Jennifer Jason — they both see Calliope Krohn-Markowitz, the shrink who was attacked) and suddenly Laura goes Oh my God ! She says Calliope has a glass menagerie of paperweights she keeps in the office and Laura’s favorite one — the frog —was stolen by the girl who assaulted her! We screamed . (It seems a few weeks after the attack, Laura asked where the paperweight was and Calliope told her what had happened.) So Dana says we have to call, like, now . We leave a message for Calliope and she phones us back in twenty minutes. I describe the masseuse physically and the shrink says it sounds like her so we actually call the police, on a conference! Me and Dana and Laura and Calliope and the LAPD! Isn’t this fantastic ? Make a great script: The Women meets The Hand That Rocks the Cradle . You know, if they arrest her, she just might slander us on Court TV . “And what did you see when you entered the room, Ms. Tolk?” “Why, the screenwriter — Ms. Grosseck — eating the shaved holes of the director — Ms. Pargita Snow…” “And where were they positioned, Ms. Tolk?” “The holes ?” “The ladies.” “Why, on the bloodstained futon, counselor.” “Objection!” “And what was the condition of the futon, Ms. Tolk?” “Objection, Your Honor! The futon has been described!” “Overruled! Answer the question, Ms. Tolk…” “Could you please repeat—” “ What was the condition of the futon ?” “Objection!” “The futon!” “Why, it was—” “Suh-STAINED!”

Gina Tolk

In these moments, I think ruefully of my sister, Wanda, and how she suffered at the hands of the man who was (and had never shirked from claiming to be) our Father. Wanda and I played out our roles: the casually heartbreaking children of Charles Laughton’s masterful Night of the Hunter —spectral yet corporal. But that is another movie entire and another magical saga too, riven with tears and with blood. For in *** The THIEF of ENERGY Book Two it will be revealed that Wanda was I and I was Wanda; and that I drowned her to save myself. This is the story I had cogently wished to unfurl within the confines of a professional, i.e., Dr Calliope K-M, plaintiff. But I will tell it alone, without help — this is as it should be. Perhaps there is time now. It may stand as a eulogy for a little girl lost at a tender age, too tender to be sanctioned. For you see, Wanda is a part of me I could not revive under any sort of gentle ministrations — the part that succumbed to the bountiful travesties committed upon her by the putative Father who is long dead. Mariel has told me I will meet him soon on another plane in Time and Wanda will thus be vanquished. Mariel has discussed the ‘kidnapping’ in evenhanded tones, applauding me for my sanity-saving ruse, her knowing Voice joined by others whom I have rubbed; their energetic Mass has let it be known. The Voices are deafening and fruition is near.

I left some personal things with Jabba for fear they would be confiscated — the paperweight long since buried. I could not let them have it. I predict thirty days of hospitalization maximal before imprisonment on theft charges, ect. As I am giving my best ‘nutcase’ show this will be an indomitable time (and has already been) to recoup energies squandered in the meaningless dance with Society’s snitching celebrity goons . To think Laura and Dana had to do with my demise is a cruel, mesmeric twist worthy of a future literary gambit — I will try to begin its saga, as I have kept my fat Pilot ‘Explorer’ pen and delicate leather notebook, a talisman purchased at Barneys New York the day of the Assault.

I called Jeremy and asked for a loan and he went off on me. It was well worth it — I received energy over phone, such was his outburst. ‘You took my wife’s jewels, you krazy cunt,’ ect. This, all he could muster, he is a TV hack, lest we forget. He yelped about pressing charges (a slight slur from the stroke but he is no Chris Reeve: he is completely capacitated). We both know there is no way he ever will — I have too much to tell. I am wiling away the time working on my set piece, a sitcom earmarked for CBS, Sybil’s Place , based on the life of society matron Sybil Brand, whose name graces the women’s jail. I hope it will not be confused with Cybill and, too, hope to get clearance from Mrs Brand herself once I am transferred to the jail-house. She seems to be a generous lady and I am counting on her benevolence in this matter; she clearly enjoys giving those incarcerated a leg up. Sybil’s Place will be exempt of the high camp, rough-hewn edges of your usual female prison soaps and, too, will bridge the world of high society within which Mrs Brand has always traveled so effortlessly. (I read in the Beverly Hills Courier that she is ninety-something and hope she doesn’t succumb before giving her legal/energetic blessings.) The show as conceived is a winner and I am prepared for the usual uphill battle and ultimate vindication on all fronts. It is a show for Dream Works or perhaps Brillstein-Grey, the Jews behind the Larry Sanders success.