I ask, “A job?”
She says, “An e-cigarette.” And as quickly as the question exits her mouth, the e-cigarette is headed toward me, Kathi Kannon holding it out to me, offering me a puff. I stare, hesitating a moment, a moment too long. She sighs and rolls her eyes, bringing the cigarette back to her, down to her shirt, wiping the mouthpiece off, and handing it to me again. “There,” she says. “No more cooties.”
I wince in shame. “Oh, no. It’s not that. It’s just, I don’t smoke or do drugs or have fun,” I blabber, betraying the reason for my hesitation, which was simply: I never smoked one of these. What if I make a fool of myself? What if I cough? What if I spit up on her?!
Kathi continues holding the e-cig toward me. “You can’t turn me down. I taught Jamie Lee Curtis how to give a blowjob.”
I nod as if to say, It all makes sense now, and I take the e-cigarette from her fingers. She watches me, a slightly devious smile in her eyes. I feel like the kid I always wanted to be—the kid getting initiated into the group of cool guys, the kid who’s hip enough that he faces peer pressure, pressure to actually fit in versus the actual story of my life, the opposite of peer pressure, never pressured to fit in, always pressured to keep out.
I put the e-cigarette to my lips. I suck in. I imagine myself looking so, so cool. I nod and bob like I’m listening to reggae in my head; I imagine I look like the guy from Grease, until I start coughing uncontrollably.
The headline will read: LAME.
The headline will read: AMATEUR.
The headline will read: FAILURE.
“What’s in this?” I ask.
“Water vapor and meth,” she says.
My eyes widen.
“Just kidding,” she says. “I haven’t made meth in years.”
“Acting?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says with a shrug, taking back her e-cigarette. “I honestly don’t know what’s in it. But whatever it is, it has to be better than real cigarettes, right? Or drugs.” She locks eyes with me when she says “drugs.”
Drugs. She mentions them so casually and so quickly upon meeting me. I’m thinking of her story, her life as an addict since age thirteen, the topic or subtext of every interview and magazine article about her. I’m thinking of the promise I made to myself: I won’t be an enabler, not of a drug habit, not of any bad habits. If I get this job, I promise myself, I’ll protect her. If.
“You’re a little odd,” she says.
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” I respond, like it’s a reflex, a politeness reflex.
“Please don’t call me ma’am.”
“Sorry. It’s my father’s fault,” I say, spitting out the word father. I’m thinking of my dad screaming at me as a kid: ALWAYS SAY “THANK YOU”! ALWAYS SAY “YES, MA’AM”! ALWAYS SAY “NO, MA’AM”! YOU UNDERSTAND ME? MY ROOF, MY RULES! His grating, gravelly, masculine voice is still screaming at me, in my head, all these years later, even while not under his roof, even while not under his rule, even while here, auditioning for a new role in Hollywood’s royal court.
“Come on,” Kathi says, marching onward, toward, yes, a third blazing fireplace.
I follow her through another living room to the backyard, which is like a showroom for folk art, with trees that have their trunks painted in different colors, mannequins fully dressed and posed in unspeakable acts with one another, and a flower bed in which the soil has been topped with glistening chunks of colorful broken glass—pale greens and blues. There’s a trickling water fountain, flashing lights twinkling in random sequence along the roofline, and a fire pit emblazoned with the phrase BURN, FUCKER.
Little dollhouses line the side of a steep hill that borders her property, tiny lights are on inside tiny houses for what could very well be lucky, magical tiny people who get to live there, as if it’s an entire universe in itself, a universe within a universe within a universe. She stops in front of the fountain at the center of the patio.
“I made this one night when I was bored. I smashed a bunch of plates and then had this idea to incorporate the broken pieces into cement as a fountain.”
The water trickles, trickles, trickles.
“Oh. It’s very interesting,” I say.
“It leaks. We did something wrong and have to refill it constantly, but isn’t that just a great metaphor for life.”
“Like, life is garbage?” I ask, instantly exposed. I’ve let my guard down and perhaps spoken too much truth again, revealed too much about me. Kathi stares at me.
“No, like life is art,” she says in a near huff, as if scolding someone who lacks understanding of basic language.
“Right, right,” I say, blushing, sweating, back to being underdog.
Kathi turns slowly and starts to walk away. I follow. I can tell she’s thinking hard—maybe about me. “My attorney told me there are a bunch of questions I’m not supposed to ask you, so I’d like to go ahead and get those out of the way,” she says.
I cringe but manage, “Sure.”
“Are you gay, married, impotent? Did your parents love you? When did you lose your virginity? Are you right-handed? Do you ever want to harm yourself or others? Do you have any fake limbs? Answer in any order you like.”
To her back as we walk, I say, “Um, okay, well, I don’t have any fake limbs.”
“Are you at least open to having a fake limb?” she asks.
I hold my breath, then blurt, “Yes?”
“Onward,” she says, moving purposefully now, e-cigarette back in her mouth, held in place by her teeth, breathing it like it’s a ventilator keeping her alive. We walk across her patio to a gate with old brick steps up a hill leading to a little cottage-type structure. A giant pencil is poking out of the bushes. In the distance is a Native American teepee. A sculpture of a large black erect penis firmly resists falling over in the breeze.
“My mother,” Kathi says, coughing out the word mother, pointing to the cottage, “had the pool house up there converted to an ‘office,’ which basically means she paid fifty thousand dollars to have a fax machine put next to a toilet.”
“That must be a nice fax,” I say.
“You have a very long neck,” she says.
“Yes, ma’am—” I start, but then catch myself. “I mean, yeah, I do.” I grab my neck like I’m choking. “With this thing, you know, I’m a god in some cultures.”
“Me, too,” Kathi says with her best Priestess Talara pose.
“What’s your name again?” she asks.
I open my mouth but then she interrupts. “WAIT!” she says, facing me and grabbing my shoulders. I flinch, fearing she’s about to do a headbutt.
“Don’t tell me.” She stares at me, thinking, struggling to recall it. “Okay. What’s the first letter?”
I say, “C.”
She blurts, “Cockring!”
“Uh, nope.”
“Oh,” she says, disappointed.
I wait for a second guess, and when none comes, I say, “I’m Charlie.”
“Eek,” Kathi says. “No. I’m sorry, I can’t call you that,” she explains. “You look more like a … Samuel. Or a Jimmy. How’s that? Jimmy. Or … Cockring?”