Outside Kathi’s gate, at arm’s length from her intercom, I roll down my Nissan’s window and the old, bubbled, fraying tinting makes a horrible crackling sound as it goes down. I still have my journalism brain turned on, thinking in terms of news headlines, of what it will look like, the story of me making my way into Kathi Kannon’s life.
The headline will read: LOSER GETS BIG BREAK.
The headline will read: MORON MEETS MOVIE STAR.
The headline will read: NERD’S DREAM COMES TRUE.
I close my eyes; I breathe deeply, sucking in that famous Beverly Hills air as I aggressively try to brush down my puffy hair, the bits on the sides that curl up, refusing to cooperate. My body often lets me down when I need it most.
I’m thinking, Can I do this?
My self-doubt is trying to ruin it. How hard can this job be? Sure, Kathi has some mental health issues she’s openly discussed, but it’s Hollywood—who doesn’t? Sure, Kathi is a former drug addict, but I can manage that. I know I won’t be an enabler, an assistant who drives their celebrity boss off the cliff. I know that cliff very well. I know nothing good comes from it. I know what self-destruction looks like. I have a long résumé of getting drunk and high and having unsafe sex a few too many times, a few too many close calls. My therapist calls it passive suicidal behavior and I figure she might be right. I’ve cut back on my drinking and smoking pot and casual fucking. If I’m going to kill myself, to end my crusty life, it will be active suicidal behavior.
Maybe if this job interview doesn’t go well.
I’m not exactly suicidal-suicidal—I don’t have a plan or anything—but suicide has always had a spot on my vision board. With my shitty news job and pathetic, lonely life, I admit I think of suicide like some people think of going back to college.
I reach my arm out of my trusty Nissan’s window and press the call button on the intercom; it’s hard to push and leaves a round indentation on my finger, like when I was a kid and squished my thumb down on the top of a pencil eraser. I’ve been in Kathi Kannon’s orbit for only a few moments and, staring at my finger, I realize I’m already, deliciously, marked by her, when suddenly a voice from the intercom screams: “HURRY!” And then cuts out.
Was that her?
Confused, alarmed, I look around and shout back at the silver box, “WHAT?!”
Silence. I look around for answers, advice, but her trees, her gate, that smoking Santa Claus painting offer nothing but derision, mockery, jeering.
I turn back to the intercom. I’m listening for anything, any sign of what to do next, how to proceed. I’m ready to introduce myself. To sell myself. To humbly accept rescheduling if she tells me she forgot about this meeting.
I reach out, about to push the button again, but then—
I hear a little click.
Did I break something?
Then I see the gates to Kathi Kannon’s estate parting, her world opening up to me, just like that, in a snap. Just like it’s no big deal. Just like she doesn’t even care if I could be a murderer, a stalker, a Mormon.
Did I break something? Did I break into something? Is something falling apart or snapping into place?
HURRY! I hear ringing in my ears.
I throw the Nissan into drive, gears catching and jolting, tires making a brief ripping sound as they catch the pavement, the car lurching forward toward the gates, which are opening slowly, slowly, slowly.
HURRY!
I inch and creep—start, stop, start, stop—through the gates until finally my side-view mirrors fit, and I speed onto the property toward some unknown emergency.
I’m thinking, This is great.
I’m thinking, This is luck.
I’m thinking, This is crazy.
2
I race up the driveway, passing a blur of Christmas lights (in daylight, in July!) glowing on trees that line the entrance. I pass a massive oak with an extravagant glistening crystal chandelier dangling from one of its heavy branches, a tennis court framed in thick artful vines, a three-car garage with all three doors open wide, no cars inside, just shelves and shelves and shelves filled with books and books and books. I can smell them, funky and old. I’m thinking, All those poor books, exposed like this. I’m thinking, Kathi Kannon is a voracious reader. Or a hoarder.
I park my Nissan next to a sign that reads, ANYONE CAUGHT SMOKING AND OPERATING A FORKLIFT WILL BE SENT HOME IMMEDIATELY. As I absorb the surroundings, sucking them into me like the clean air, I notice two pathways and wonder which leads to Gracie Gold and which to Kathi Kannon. One path is lined with stark gray cement and the other with weathered and rustic bricks, some of them painted bright red, some of them painted blue, green, pink. There’s no question which path belongs to the colorful Kathi Kannon. I’m thinking, Bruce should have given me all these details.
I run up the splendid brick walkway, past a guesthouse with a sign out front that says, IN HELL FROM SEX, past a plastic porpoise inexplicably floating from fishing line tied to a tree branch, as if swimming up her hill. On the tree trunk is a 3-D hologram picture of a hand that flips the bird over and over as I hurry past.
I feel the hot Beverly Hills sun leave my back as I enter the shadow of her mansion, her front porch reaching out to me, consuming me. The home is L-shaped and made of old red bricks with a wraparound porch and red pottery-style tapered roof shingles. Plants and glass sculptures—birds, crystals, baby-doll heads—dangle from the wood beams.
I dash to her hulking front door and can practically smell the old solid wood used to make it—using a little knowledge I picked up as a contractor’s son. The door is taller and wider than traditional doors, a throwback to the many years ago this house was likely built, a time way back when they made things custom, to fit this specific entryway, this singular portal to this one-of-a-kind habitat. Above the door is a phrase embellished like calligraphy, hieroglyphics, painted in lobs and fine strokes: KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR. The brass door knocker is a ball sac. Beneath that, the door features a panel of stained glass featuring a weathered and saintly priest with a petite young altar boy kneeling before him, giving him a blowjob.
Through the glass, I see something, someone moving. I squint to make it out. A figure, a ghost, a shadow, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Is that Kathi Kannon, movie star, the living action figure once ripped from my crying grasp? I take a step back. I look around frantically, like in movies before a dramatic explosion or abduction. Behind me, the earth gets quiet, birds flutter away, squirrels scatter across the tennis court, like they all know a storm is coming.
Knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door.
I’m thinking, Here comes God.
The air seems to thin out, to make way for her; the front door swings open, and like embers shooting up from a fire, she appears, her hair blown back by the door, an e-cigarette dangling from her mouth. Her eyes widen and her lips part and she says, “Hello, I’m Kathi Kannon from Jaws 3.”
I hold my breath and stare at her, Kathi Kannon, Priestess Talara, real and living, barefoot and disheveled, dressed in a flowing black robe over a loose black T-shirt and tattered black leggings. She’s wearing no makeup, no pomp or circumstance, no fucks to give. Her face is tired but alert, familiar and yet mysterious—she looks so much like the woman I remember from my childhood movies yet donning gravity and time like some kind of disguise, like some kind of mask that’s taken up residence upon her, leaving her both an old beautiful acquaintance and a strange, fresh new one.