I’m Losing You (21 page)

You'll Never Eat Me During Lunch
…

Grosseck and Snow killed my movie. Pargita is directing Jodie's film; they start shooting in less than three months. I'm not speaking to either and trash them everywhere I can, any chance I get. If a director isn't found in two weeks, the jig is up. We'll lose Harvey, and Holly too. Saul is desperate, even suggesting
I
direct (don't laugh, E, it's too heartbreaking). Saul thinks we should ditch the Usual Indie Suspects and go for Milos or Phil Kaufman. (Script's out to Larry Clark.) Saw Jodie at Zev Turtletaub's, who may put up some money. Told her I was going to sue the
shit
out of her director and hoped court appearances wouldn't interfere with their schedule. Jodie played dumb—one thing she's never been accused of—and I can't blame her. It ain't
her
problem::::::::::Bless his heart, Dr. Donny R gave me Demerol pills left over from his cancer-dead mom. As you already know, I'm mixing them with coke. And I thank you for your concern, Princess E, but please do not call 911—yet. The Dark Prince of ICM told me a
hilarious
story, which I herewith include to earn my advance (gotta zing for my supper, right?). He represents a screenwriter with AIDS. The writer sells a script to a Big Director. It's not quite a go, but you know not bad, a script in active development, boxed blurb in the trades bla bla bla. Sells it for three hundred-something. Anyhow, the guy's had AIDS for like twelve years, asymptomatic. He's in the closet about it. Finally he gets CMV, one of the Big Three opportunistic infections. Maybe there's four. Or
five
, what the fuck do I know. CMV attacks the retina, right? (I've learned more over the years about all this than I care to know.) Eventually you go blind but not before they stick a thingee in your chest, so when you're at home you can infuse yourself with this cell-killing shit that sort of holds back the tide till you drop dead. Sorry, E. I know you already know all this but Vidra doesn't. Or maybe she does, for all I know she's Queen of fucking AmFar. Am I slurring words yet? Anyway, the screenwriter decides to come out of the closet, minimally. Tells his mother he's Positive—she lives in Akron or something. Mom
completely
wigs. She calls the director. “Please!”—she's crying—“you have to make my son's movie, he's dying of AIDS!” So the director calls the writer, who (of course) says, “Rumors of my death have been greatly::::::::::

Maps to the Stars

Dearest diary, I must speak my peace, at least to you. Here, then, is how I was fired.

It was a Monday night {the busiest, with the most celebs} and CAT BASQUIAT was there with an older woman. CAT has been in a number of times {once with ROBERT DOWNEY JR.} and is always very gracious and open, much like the many profiles of him infer. CAT and his older lady friend sat in a back booth in my section. {I thought maybe she was his agent or manager} and were very into themselves. He left the table and when she gave me her VISA, I noted the name on the card to be PHYLLISS WOLFE—who I immediately connected with the article in THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER as producer of TEOREMA. Naturally, I said something—perhaps that was inappropriate, perhaps not, but in this town I hardly think so. She seemed pleased to be “recognized.” I told her I'd auditioned for the role of the Stranger and even went so far as to rent the movie upon which their project was based. She was friendly but I wisely took my leave before the inevitable Awkward Moment. By the time I returned with the credit card slip they were arguing, with unexpected VIOLENCE. CAT slammed his fist on the table and Ms. Wolfe seemed badly shaken. I felt a kinship to her and was actually worried he might strike out, and though he isn't that kind of person at all, one cannot tell—THAT was my crime. I
very LIGHTLY said, almost joking, like a schoolmarm, “Alright, let's settle down,” and that was when Ms. Wolfe glowered at me {if looks could kill} and MR. BASQUIAT said quite cockily to “go clear a table.” Which I did, and gladly. It was so clear they'd transferred their problems onto me as a classic scapegoat. People are majorly crazy!!

To make a long story short, the next day Rodrigo calls to say he must let me go! For WHAT, I say and he says “soliciting jobs from clients”!!! OH MY GOD. Can Ms. Wolfe and MR. BASQUIAT be so PETTY? To vent their anger at ME, who struggles the way they have struggled before me? To laugh at my hopes and my dreams? My goal to star {or co-star} in TEOREMA was perhaps unreal, but now, it is dashed like so much driftwood. Diary, I cried and cried and for the first time thought of returning to B.C. But then I took a deep breath and went for a long walk on the Santa Monica pier. I thought of the story I read in the
Times
about the man who handcuffed himself and jumped off the end, the man who was rescued by passersby who just happened to be HEIDI FLEISS and DR. STEVEN HOEFFLIN, MICHAEL JACKSON's plastic surgeon {they were dining at the chic IVY AT THE SHORE}—what doesn't kill me will indeed make me stronger. I will take the blows, gladly, but will NOT be defeated. I'll have no regrets along the byway, and be able to hold my head up high and say—I did it MY WAY—

Sight Unseen

Boy, you're getting greasy! You're just about as juicy as a big old Fat Burger. Make that a Sloppy Joe. Know what I'm gonna start calling you? Minnesota Fats, that's what.

Today, we moved to g-mother Holly's guest house, just around the corner from your pal Diane Keaton (Mommy helped cast one of her
China Beaches
, way back when). Holly and Janusz said we could stay indefinitely but I think a few weeks sounds about right. We were burnt out on Hermosa, weren't we? Too much sun and in-line skatin' fun. Time to enter our
Day of the Locust
phase, Burgess Meredith tromping wheezily through the hills, exotic drinks at the Garden of Allah and all that—plenty of old contract player ghosts in
Beachwood. Hol's doing a movie for DreamWorks of all people so she's here a week or so then off to Texas for two months. A
very
cozy nest we have here, extremely cosi fan tutti, very Holly and that's why it feels so right. We have our own little bougainvillea'd porch; you can hear the plashing of a terra cotta fountain over the pool (little rock angels holding their wee-wees just like you do).

I have
plans
for us, Oceanspray,
big
ones! We're going to take a train ride to your grammie's!—
up
to Portland—
chucka chucka chucka chucka—over
to Idaho—
chucka chucka
—Montana—
chucka chuck chucka
—North
Dakota—chucka chucka chucka chuck woo-woowoooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh
! Won't that be heaven? And I promise: you will have the
biggest
Fourth of July of your life! (Minnesotans do it right.) You've never seen a backyard like Grandma Willy's. We'll hop in her great big cotton—candy bed and I'll write messages-in-a-bottle while you gurgle prayers and salutations to St. Cloud (that's where Grandma lives and where Mama was raised—St. Cloud, Minn.). Say, won't it be wonderful to publish in Braille? Wunnerful? Marvelous? Or do you not have a single thought in that beauteous, will-o'-the-wisp head?

You'll Never Eat Me During Lunch
…

Abortion three days ago. Cat left for Europe just before. On All Bloody Eve we had a long drug-den-to-SST chat (as long as SST chats can be) that culminated in the
achingly
tender offer to send Chelsea, trusty chore whore, along to the clinic (yes, E, I'm being serious). I politely declined::::::::::Know who I dream of every night? Sara Radisson and her blind baby boy. I—oh God, I…shit::::::::::Eric, do you—I really need you to start looking at places I can—do you know about the Doral Saturnia? In Florida? Because I really need a place where I can chill—there's just too many people I know at the Canyon Ranch::::::::::Shelby said Sara's husband left her—alone, with a sightless child! Motherfucking
cock
suckers. Did you know all fetuses are female until a male hormone's introduced? Men are fucking
anomalies, mutations
::::::::::E, why did I do it? What was I fucking
afraid
of? I just want to die! Calliope says I didn't—because it's—directly tied to my father's rape. The fear of bringing a baby—another girl—like I'm some
breeder
—goddammit goddammit
goddammit! It's all so…so
boring
and so
fucking tragic
. I'll be forty-four in six days, six hours and twenty-nine minutes. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven—how I hate this life::::::::::blind babies again, chasing me through fields like in a horror film. They don't run, though, they glide or they fly, like fruit bats. No emotions attached, mercifully. I don't wake up screaming. Maybe that's the problem.

Maps to the Stars

On Sunday, spoke to Mother and did NOT tell her I was let go. I didn't want her to worry needlessly. She doesn't have an inkling of how this town operates; nor should she. They miss me but I reiterated how I said from the beginning I'd give my sojourn in the City of Angels a full year. I'll stick to my guns. Daddy respects me for that but it's easier for him all around because he's stronger than Mom. She hinted they might come out here to visit and that'd be fine as long as it doesn't interfere with auditions, acting class, etalia.

On the Sweets front, I keep turning it over in my mind {seem to have more time to do that lately}. I KNOW there's probably much more under the surface “to be revealed.” What I was told by Rodrigo is most likely the proverbial tip of the iceberg. If I wanted, I could find out what REALLY happened, POLITICALLY. The Incident with MR. BASQUIAT and Ms. Wolfe may just be more of a tempest in a proverbial teapot than anything else, a smoke screen, if you will. It's more than possible Tammy was to blame—the malicious bitch from O.C. who thought I was flirting with PETER WELLER {AS IF he was going to marry her!! Besides, he's NOT my type—like JAMES WOODS, he's too thin-faced and INTENSE}. She is a majorly “ho” and had it in for me from Day One. It may also be I somehow became the sacrificial lamb in a ritual bloodletting of which Ursula Sedgwick was but the first casualty. HARRY DEAN has been the sweetest and most understanding, inviting me to sup at his beautiful home high on MULHOLLAND DRIVE. He's starting a new DAVID LYNCH and said he could get me a “meet.” It's so refreshing being with someone who has made it on his own terms and is not a BULLSHITTER. HARRY DEAN was genuinely outraged at my being let go and is thisclose with one of the investors. He offered to throw his weight around, talking to
Rodrigo at the very least. But I told him no, don't intervene. I don't wish to use him in that way—HARRY DEAN is a genie and I refuse to waste a wish on something so petty. But I will ALWAYS be thankful for his kind offer and concern. He cooked kickass gumbo and I cried some more and HARRY DEAN held me and told jokes and we sang songs and he didn't even try anything—what a gent!!! A true friend. I kissed him good night on the mouth, though. He had earned that.

Jabba is working at a club in Century City called BAILEY'S TWENTY/20 GENTLEMEN'S CLUB. I interviewed today and all looks well. It's topless during lunch {with lap dancing} and is frequented by famous attorneys and their clients, plus a host of top TV executives from the ABC Entertainment Center across the way. It's a safe and very unsleazy environment—site of the old Playboy Club. There is also minimal, well-heeled street traffic—the Shubert is there and Harry's Bar, etalia; it's quite the complex. The dancers are all gorgeous and taller than NICOLE KIDMAN CRUISE! At lunch, I counted twelve, on three different stages all at once. I can live with showing my breasts {the pay is high}—all one has to do is flip through HARPER'S BAZAAR or VANITY FAIR ads, etalia, to see NADJA and AMBER and CLAUDIA and KATE doing just that. Women have been baring breasts since time immemorial; I'm certainly in good company. {DEMI RULZ!!!} Jabba made a joke that her father the talk show host was a “regular”—and I believed it. I hate being gullible.

Hello, Columbus

T
O:
SHARKEE
@
CLS.OHIO-STATE.EDU
(S
TOCKER
V
IDRA
)

F
ROM:
DOLPH
@
AOL.COM
(K
ATHERINE
G
ROSSECK
)

House bare of you now. No, I wasn't with Pargita while you moved out your things. Would it really have mattered? And who is feeding you information, Vidra, is it Phylliss? Is that why you got her a book deal? To buy yourself a spy?

Not even sure why I'm putting down words…sweet habit, I
suppose, downloading my conscience-ness to you, somewhere in the Columbusian gridspace. I still feel the plug, like a phantom limb—I took it out this morning…now all your Tender Buttons are gone, removed for evidence. I'm sequestered and police yellow-taped: Katherine Grosseck Unplugged. Still not sure why I did what I did—the calculus of how it happened (Pargita)—or who I was with you—or who I am now—maybe I'll go see my “impersonator's” shrink. Ha! There's a movie idea for you. Everyone has a double who gets therapized because no one has the time—and the doubles get better! At least somebody does.