Tell-All (15 page)

“ ‘As I opened the taps,’ ” continues the voice-over, “ ‘filling
her sunken, pink-marble tub with frothy steaming water, I added the bath oil, and dense mounds of lather billowed. As I readied these luxuriant ablutions, my dearest Katherine said, “Webster, my darling, the pints of love essence you erupt at the peak of oral passion taste more intoxicating than gorging on even the richest European chocolate.” My beloved belched demurely into her fist, swallowed and said, “All women should taste your delicious emissions.” ’ ”

The soft-focus, idealized Miss Kathie shuts her violet eyes and licks her lips.

The fantasy couple kiss, then break their embrace.

“ ‘Lowering her silken sensual legs with infinite care,’ ” I read in voice-over, “ ‘Katherine immersed her spattered thighs, her acclaimed pubis descending into the scalding clouds of iridescent white. The hot liquid lapped at her satiny buttocks, then splashed at her silken bustline. The misty vapors swirled, perfume filling the sultry bathroom air.’ ”

My own voice continues, reading, “ ‘It was the year every other song on the radio was Mitzi Gaynor singing “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” and a large RCA radio sat conveniently near the edge of the pink-marble bathtub, its dial tuned to play romantic ballads, and its sturdy electrical cord plugged into a convenient wall socket.’ ”

We get an insert shot of said radio, balanced on the tub’s rim, so close that steam condenses in sweaty droplets on the radio’s wooden case.

“ ‘In addition,’ ” continues my voice, “ ‘an attractive assortment of electric lamps, each equipped with subdued, pink-tinted bulbs, their flattering light filtered by beaded shades, these also stood around the rim of the luxurious bubble bath.’ ”

A slow panning shot reveals a forest of lamps, short and
tall, balanced on the wide rim of the oversize tub. A black tangle of power cords snake from the lamps to wall outlets. Many of these thick cords, almost pulsing with electric current, look frayed.

“ ‘Sinking up to her slender neck in the fragrant foaming bubbles,’ ” continues the voice-over, “ ‘Katherine released a contented moan. At that moment of our inestimable happiness, playing the lovely
Grand Waltz Brilliant
by
Frédéric Chopin
, the radio slipped from its perilous perch. Just by accident, all the various lamps also tumbled, plunging deep into the inviting waters, poaching my beloved alive like an agonized, screaming, tortured egg.…’ ”

On camera the perfumed foam boils, billowing, rising to mask the flashing, sizzling death scene. My voice reads, “ ‘The end.’ ”

We cut back to the auditorium of the lavish Broadway theater where a Japanese bomb explodes, blasting shrapnel into
Yul Brynner
in the role of
Dwight D. Eisenhower
. The
USS
Arizona
lists starboard, threatening to capsize on
Vera-Ellen
singing the role of
Eleanor Roosevelt
. The
USS
West Virginia
keels over on top of
Neville Chamberlain
and the
League of Nations
.

As the Zeros strafe
Ivor Novello
, my Miss Kathie climbs to the foremast of the battleship, menaced by antiaircraft gunfire and
Lionel Atwill
, biting the pin of a hand grenade between her teeth. With a jerk of her head Miss Kathie pulls the pin, slingshotting her arm to fling the grenade, lobbing it too wide. The cast-iron pineapple narrowly misses
Hirohito
, and instead beans
Romani Romani
in the string section of the orchestra pit.

From an audience seat, fifth row center, a voice screams,
“Oh, stop, for fuck’s sake.”
Lillian Hellman
stands, brandishing a rolled copy of the score, slashing the air with it as if with a riding crop. Lilly screams, “Just stop!” She screams, “You’re giving aid and comfort to the enemy!”

Onstage, the entire Japanese Imperial Army grinds to a silent halt. The dead sailors strewn across the deck of the
USS
Tennessee
stand and twist their heads to stretch their stiff necks.
Ensign Joe Taussig
brings the
USS
Nevada
back into port while Lilly hauls herself up onto the stage apron. Her spittle flashing in the footlights, she screams,
“Fouetté en tournant
when you throw the grenade, you stupid bitch!” To demonstrate, Hellman rises to stand, trembling on the point of one toe, then kicks her raised leg to rotate herself. Kicking and turning, she screams, “And go
all the way around
, not halfway.…”

In the reverse angle, we see
Terrence Terry
and myself seated at the rear of the house, surrounded by an assortment of garment bags, hatboxes and unwanted infants. The house seats are otherwise empty. Terry speculates that Miss Kathie keeps botching the grenade throw intentionally. Her previous hand grenade slammed into
Barbara Bel Geddes
. The throw before that bounced off the thick skull of
Hume Cronyn
. If Webster plans to kill her at the peak of a new stage success, Terry explains, it hardly makes sense for Miss Kathie to defeat the evil
Emperor Showa
. Rave opening-night notices will only increase her danger.

Onstage, Lilly Hellman executes a perfect pas de bourée step, at the same time putting a pistol shot between the eyes of
Buddy Ebsen
.

Handing the pistol to Miss Kathie, Hellman says, “Now, you try it.…”

The pistol misfires, killing
Jack Elam
. Another shot
ricochets off of the
USS
New Jersey
and wounds
Cyd Charisse
.

In my lap, I scribble into a notebook. My head bowed over my work. Tucked beneath the notebook I conceal the latest revision to
Love Slave
, a fourth draft of the final chapter. A scenario beyond the omnibus crash, the grizzly bear pit, the bubble-bath electrocution.

Onstage, Lilly Hellman performs a series of jetés while leveling a flamethrower on the
Flying Escalantes
.

Across an aisle from Terry, I sit writing, the notebook pages open across my lap in the dim light. The nib of my fountain pen scratching, looping, dotting lines and sentences across each page, I say that no memory is anything more than a personal choice. A very deliberate choice. When we recall someone—a parent, a spouse, a friend—as better than they perhaps were, we do so to create an ideal, something to which we, ourselves, can aspire. But when we remember someone as a drunk, a liar, a bully, we’re only creating an excuse for our own poor behavior.

Still writing, I say how the same can be said for the people who read such books. The best people look for lofty role models such as the
Katherine Kenton
I’ve given my life to create. Other readers will seek out the tawdry strumpet depicted in
Webster Carlton Westward III
’s book, for comfort and license in their own tawdry, disordered lives.

All human beings search for either reasons to be good, or excuses to be bad.

Call me an elitist, but I’m no patch on
Mary Pickford
.

Onstage, Lilly claps her hands together twice and says, “Okay, let’s take it from the point where shards of bomb casing shred
Captain Mervyn Bennion.”

In silence, everyone present, from
Ricardo Cortez
to
Hope Lange
, says fervent prayers to live beyond Miss Hellman, and thus to avoid being posthumously absorbed into her hideous self-mythology. Her name-dropping
Tourette’s syndrome
, set to music by
Otto Harbach
. In the presence of Miss Hellman, there are no atheists.

Lilly Hellman screams, “Katherine!”

Miss Kathie screams, “Hazie!”

Hiss, bray, bark
…
Jesus Christ
.

We all have some proper noun to blame.

The truth about Miss Kathie’s poor performance is that she’s always looking for the stray mortar shell or rifle round intended to end her life. She can’t concentrate for fear she’s missed reading any new draft of
Love Slave
and might be killed at any moment. An exploding battleship. A stage light plummeting from the flies. Any prop collapsible stage knife might be replaced with an actual dagger, wielded by some unknowing Japanese soldier or
Allan Dwan
. As we sit here,
Webster Carlton Westward III
could be planting a bomb or pumping poison gas into Miss Kathie’s backstage dressing room. Under such circumstances, of course she can’t manage an adequate pas de deux.

Terry says, “Why do you stay with her?” He asks me, “Why have you stayed with her for all these years?”

Because, I say, the life of
Katherine Kenton
is my work-in-progress.
Mrs. Lord Byron, Mrs. Pope Innocent VI
and
Mrs. Kaiser von Hindenburg
might be Miss Kathie’s best work, but she is mine. Still writing, still scribbling away, I say that Miss Katie is my unfinished masterpiece, and an artist does not abandon the work when it becomes difficult. Or when the artwork chooses to become involved with inappropriate men. My job title is not that of nanny or guardian angel, but I perform duties of both. My full-time
profession is what
Walter Winchell
calls a “star sitter.” A “celebrity curator,” according to
Elsa Maxwell
.

I retrieve the most recent draft of Webster’s torrid tell-all and offer it across the aisle to Terry.

From his seat, Terry asks, “How come she’s not electrocuted?”

Miss Kathie hasn’t taken a bath in days, I tell him. She reeks of what
Louella Parsons
would call “aroma
d’amore.”

Terry reaches across, taking the pages from my outstretched hand. Scanning the top sheet, he reads, “ ‘No one could’ve anticipated that by the end of this day my most beloved Katherine would shatter every single, solitary bone in her alluring body, and her glamorous Hollywood blood would be spattered over half of Midtown Manhattan …’ ”

The voice of
Terrence Terry
continues as an audio bridge from the previous scene, reading, “ ‘… my most beloved Katherine would shatter every single, solitary bone in her alluring body, and her glamorous Hollywood blood would be spattered over half of Midtown Manhattan …’ ” as we dissolve once more into a fantasy sequence. Here, the lithe, idealized Webster and Miss Kathie cavort about the open-air observation deck on the eighty-sixth floor of the
Empire State Building
.

In voice-over Terry reads, “ ‘In celebration of the six-month anniversary of our first introduction, I’d rented the loftiest aerie on the fabled isle of Manahatta.’ ” He reads aloud, “ ‘There, I’d staged a romantic dinner for two catered from three thousand miles away by
Perino’s.’ ”

The mise-en-scène includes a table set for two, draped with a white cloth, and crowded with crystal stemware, silver
and china.
Julian Eltinge
tinkles the ivories of a grand piano which has been winched up for the evening.
Judy Holliday
sings a program of
Marc Blitzstein
and
Marc Connelly
songs, backed by the
Royal Ballet Sinfonia
and
Myrna Loy
. In every direction, the spires of
New York City
blaze with lights.

The voice of
Terrence Terry
reads, “ ‘Only the crème de la crème of waiters and entertainers were present, all of them snugly blindfolded as in the
Erich von Stroheim
masterpiece
The Wedding March
, so Katherine and I would not feel self-conscious as we indulged our carnal assaults upon each other.’ ”

To highlight the fact that this constitutes their umpteenth sex scene, the willowy, soft-focus Miss Kathie and Webster copulate perfunctorily, as if robots, not looking at one another. With their eyes rolled back within their heads, their tongues hanging out the corners of their mouths, panting like beasts, the pair change position without speaking, the wet slap of their colliding genitals threatening to drown out the live music.

“ ‘We made love beneath a billion stars and above a sea of ten million electric lights. There, between heaven and earth, blindfolded waiters tipped bottles of
Moët champagne
directly into our greedy, guzzling mouths, splashing bubbly upon Katherine’s savory bosoms, even as I continued to pleasure her insatiable loins and oblivious waiters slid a succession of chilled, raw oysters down the slippery chute of her regal throat.…’ ”

The fornicating pair continue to couple.
Jimmy Durante
steps up to the microphone, blindfolded, and sings
“Sentimental Journey.”

“ ‘In keeping with my planned tribute,’ ” reads the
voice-over of
Terrence Terry
, “ ‘at the instant of Katherine’s bucking, clenching
petite mort
, various steaming rivulets of her feminine juices cascading down each of her sculpted thighs, upon that crescendo of passion, the assortment of floodlights which bathe the apex of the tower were activated by an unseen hand. The searing light which broke upon us, rather than being the usual white hue, shone tonight in the exact same shade as Katherine’s insanely violet eyes.…’ ”

The pair step apart and begin absently wiping at their sopping groins, using dinner napkins they then wad and drop. Similarly soiled linen napkins litter the rooftop as the pair continue mopping themselves with the hanging hem of the white tablecloth.

“ ‘Within moments,’ ” reads Terry, “ ‘we’d severed our fleshy bond and sat dressed impeccably in evening finery, enjoying an elegant flavorful repast of roasted squab served on
Limoges
china alongside cooked carrots and garlic, double-stuffed baked potatoes or the option of a small dinner salad with ranch dressing or rice pilaf.