The First Flight Out of the Cult of Celebrity You Have a Friend in 10A
Im told I went catrastic for the first time in 1984, when JeromeShin (yes, the director) took me up to my bathroommy gaudychildhood bathroom with the big pink Jacuzzi and mirrors on allfour wallsand cut me my first line and asked me to hold his ballswhile he jerked off. The request was casual, like my stepmothertelling me to hold her purse while she fixed her lipstick. Just holdthem? I said.
Yeah, he said, pulling down the top of my dress and lookingskeptically at my half-grown tits. Just hold them.
The pouch sat on my palm like rotten fruit while he worked hissad, skinny dick. It was a year or so after his young wife drowned.He must have been in his early forties then. I was fourteen.
Now tug them! he barked, scrunching up his face.
Startled, I tugged until he came onto my thigh and the hem ofmy dress. (My stepmothers dress. I returned it to her closet without cleaning it.) My fathers party murmured through the floor andthe pipes. All those people milling around, trying to out-fabulouseach other, talking about green lights and opening grosses and sex.Probably every bathroom in the house was hosting some variationon our theme. Jerome cast me in his next movie.
My agent said we had to change my name. No one uses theirreal name, he said, and yours is terrible. We were at the PoloLounge; he was eating a Cobb salad. He reached over with his forkand knocked my hand away from my fries. Actors names are justlabels you stick on a fantasy, he said. You know, like Armani orsomething. But itd be nice to keep some reference to your father.So I went from being Allison Lowenstein-Karr to being Karr Alison. No one could ever explain why we dropped the second l. Itsa no-brainer, my agent told me. Go with it.
In retrospect, I dont think I felt catrastic in the bathroom withJerome. I remember feeling flattered and grossed out and highand sophisticated. Still, my Helpers identified that night as whenmy system first became seriously susceptible to degradons, whenI started to lose track of my Esteem. Jerome, they told me, wasa Usurperwhich Ive never quite been able to sort out becauseJeromes movie is what made me famous, and the Church onlyever liked me because I was famous. Jefferson Morris himself toldme that the Founder says the important moments in life arent justpoints along a single straight line but are moving, swiveling hubswithin a three-dimensional web and belong to multiple trajectories, both ascending and descending. When I held Jeromes balls, Iwas beginning my descent into fucked-up druggie despectum, butId also hooked into that steep skyward line that would bring meto Billy and Jefferson and the teachings of the Founder. But thenthere was everything else, too. Like I said, I cant sort it out.
Businessman, computer businessman, Steelers fan, Asian grandmother, clean-cut guy whos probably a pervert, sullen punk kid,guy with big gold jewelry, retired couple with too much luggage,harried couple with too many children, Texan. They file past myseat, departing souls taking slow zombie steps down a fluorescenttunnel. Well, I guess its hurry up and wait, an older blond ladysays to no one in particular. Were all in this together, she is saying.A flight attendant squeezes past to get to the harried couple, whoseem defeated by the overhead compartment, by their bags anddiaper bags and childrens suitcases bursting with pointless junk.Dont mind us, says the blond lady. But I like the flight attendants, their big hair and sexy blue vests and shiny red nails. Theguy in the middle seat doesnt seem to recognize me, which is justas well. I look out the window at the odd vehicles racing aroundthe tarmac, the shadowy people behind the terminal windows, the transparent flutter of jet exhaust.
I am going to my mothers house. An act of desperation. Thelast time I saw her, three years ago, we got in a fight before I couldeven get through the door
Wheres Helena?
With Billy.
You left her with that loon?
Dont even talk to me about leaving. And hes not a loon.
Hes a loon. Him and that Jefferson Starship guy and their Looney Tunes religion.
Its my religion, too.
Its not a religion. Its a roach motel for idiots.
You dont know. You dont know anything about the Founder.Youre just a blip.
Whats a blip?
Someone who doesnt know anything about the Founder.
Youre brainwashed.
Youre a Nazi.
and then she slammed the door in my face, and I lifted up themetal flap of the mail slot and hollered through it that she was acunt and a Usurper and I hoped she and her degradons had a verynice life together. But now Ive left the Church, or the Churchhas left me, or we left each other, and Billy of course left me, andQuentin is dead, and I spent all my money trying to get Helenaback and failed, and I tried to be in a play, and my friends finally,nicely, suggested I should look for my own place to live.
Im in coach but near the front, and I see a tall man in a whiteuniform take a seat in first class. My heart flies up like a flusheddove but gets caught and tangled in a net. If I were hooked up to anAurograph, it would be going crazy. I remind myself that Quentinis dead. Most everyones settled down and buckled up now, exceptfor a paunchy guy whos going to break the plane apart trying tostuff his huge suitcase into the overhead, his round belly assaultingthe face of the woman in the aisle seat, sweat stains in his armpits.A flight attendant comes and splays her red nails across the suitcaseas though calming a frightened animal. She lifts it down and takesit away. The pilot comes out of the planes little locked brain andshakes the hand of the man in white, bending down, nodding andsomber as they exchange a few words.
There are all kinds of stories about me and Billy. The Churchbought me for him; hes gay; Im gay; I was impregnated with theFounders frozen sperm; I was impregnated by Jefferson Morris; Iwas impregnated by Quentin; I was never pregnant at all.
Id only been out of Cloudvista a couple of months when myagent called, all excited. Billy Bjorn wants a meeting. Wear something classy. Dont swear. Be sugar sweet, and try not to act like ajunkie.
Whats the script? I asked.
Who the fuck cares?
Arent you coming?
He wants to meet you alone. They specified.
Billy is not tall, but he wasnt as short as I expected. He movedaround his office with the same gymnastic energy as the commando squirrels I watched out the window at Cloudvista whilethey leapt and dangled and corkscrewed, raiding the bird feeders. He has strong, active hands, and I imagined an invisible tailwhirling behind him as he poured me a glass of mineral water,then darted to the window to point out a jet taking off from SantaMonica (Ive been thinking about getting one like that myselfwhat do you think? Do you like it?), then fiddled with papers onhis desk, then flopped down beside me on a long white couch andunleashed his grin. Everyone knows Billys smile, but you cantreally understand its effect until youre confronted by it in person.You lean toward those teeth, swim upstream, struggle closer tothe origin of all that dazzle, that gush of stardust. Suddenly I wasSuzanne in Tin Can Palace. I was that bitchy lawyer in Pleadingswho doesnt want to be charmed by him but is. I wasnt a washedup twenty-year-old with a pill problem. I was inside a glorioussphere of light. I was a glorious sphere of light.
You, he said. You are special. I can tell. Ive always liked youon-screen, but now, talking to you in person, just sitting here looking at youhe broke off and gave his famous trill of incredulouslaughter. Just look at you, he said, taking my hand. You justyouyou have so much to give. Theres something about you.I didnt expect to react this wayI mean, I wasnt planningbutjust look at you!
I echoed his laugh and tried to amp up my smile. My smile isnot my strong suit, though, and remembering that, I faltered andlooked away. He put a finger under my chin and turned my faceback. And youve still got a sweet shyness, he said. Great.Really great.
Im just so happy to meet you.
Yeah? He shook his head and laughed again, staring at me,giddy. Yeah. Am I crazy here? Are you feeling this, Karr? BecauseIm feeling somethingwhewsomething big.
I had to turn away again. On a side table stood a framed picture of a young man in a white uniform with gold braid and colorful rows of ribbons. Is that your son? I asked, knowing it was.Quentin was the product of Billys first marriage, to his highschool sweetheart. After her, he married an ethereal movie star,and after her, he married a model from Ecuador, and after her, hemarried me.
Quentin, yeah. My boy. He sprang off the couch and pickedup the photo, staring at it for a moment before he dropped backbeside me, closer now, our thighs touching. I felt thrilled andtwisted. I felt something big. I felt like I was a shred of myselfcaught on a sharp hook. I felt like a gust of wind. I felt desperate toget high and certain I would never want to be high again.
I didnt know he was in the navy, I said, looking at Quentinsface, which was a distorted version of Billys square bullet of masculinity, narrower and softer.
Hes not. Billy took my hand. Listen, Karr. Do you ever feellike you need help?
What do you mean? Dont act like a junkie, dont act like a junkie.
Do you ever have doubts? Do you ever worry about rejection?Do you feel like there are people trying to bring you down?
I thought about the men in suits who had greeted me in the lobbyand ridden with me in the elevator to Billys office. They had askedafter my father and stepmother by name. I said theyd moved toHawaii and opened a Zen center, but the men already knew. Witha pair of synchronized winks they mentioned an interview I gavewhen I was seventeen in which I had said I wanted to marry Billy.
I just got out of rehab, I said to Billy. So. Yeah.
His eyebrows squeezed his forehead into a rift of concern. Hisgaze fried me like light through a magnifying glass. Just when thetension was about to break me, he said, softly, I can help you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the pilot says in that twangy, folksypilot voice, today we have the honor of transporting the remainsof Petty Officer First Class Reginald J. Roberts, who was killed inaction in Afghanistan and is being escorted home to his family byLieutenant Commander Howard Stanton. Out of respect to ourfallen warrior, I ask that you remain seated upon arrival until Lieutenant Commander Stanton has deplaned.
Everyones attention goes to the windows. We are curious for aglimpse of the casket being loaded. I cant see anything. The officer has taken off his white hat, and his bald spot peeks over theback of his seat.
Do you know anyone whos died in the war? the blip next tome says. He looks like hes in his late twenties but might as well beolder. Central casting has printed Middle Management on theback of his head shot. A book on how to be an effective leader isstuffed in his seat pocket.
No.
I do. A high school friend of mine. He went into a house andshot a guy who was wired to blow up. Bits of the other guys tissue got embedded in him and caused all kinds of infections. Thatswhat killed him eventually. Imagine having pieces of a dead personrotting inside you, someone you killed, someone who didnt evenspeak your language and whos going to take you with him. Makesme sick. Its like a horror movie.
Hes basically describing degradonsinvisible little pellets ofbad feelings from Usurpers that stick to your body and make theirway into your Esteembut I remind myself that I dont believein degradons anymore. I probably never did, not really, but thelanguage of the Church has rooted in me like a fake accent I cantshake. Awful, I say. Im sorry.
Its weird to think of that poor guy down in the cargo holdwith our bags and everything. He looks at me, and I can see hewants something but I dont know what. Its weird to think offlying after youre dead.
Holding his gaze, I uncoil the cord of my earphones fromaround my phone and put them in my ears.
A word about the Aurograph. People say its nothing more thangoofy science-fiction wishful thinking, but I can tell you theresmagic in it. You focus on your life, and energy flows out of yourbrain and through the electrode bonnet into the monitor. Greenwaves appear on the black screen, spiking when you hit a catrasticmoment, showing where your spirit has gotten all gunked up, andwhen that happens, you get excited; your Helper gets excited; youfeel like undersea explorers whove just found a wreck. To maximize your Esteem, you have to isolate all those moments and letyourself be helped through them. You are a hot air balloon, Billytold me on one of our first nights, his hand on my belly, his breathin my ear, and all around you are invisible tethers held by peopleon the ground, people who are trying to hold you down, usurpyour Esteem. They dont want to let go, Karr. They wont. But youhave to snip those tethers. You have to cut yourself loose so youcan fly. You can do itI know you can. You just need a little help.
Think about something that has troubled you recently, myHelper said after my wedding.
I had planned to think about the helicopters that hovered abovethe chteau day and night and the paparazzi who clamored at thegates like angry peasants, but instead, Quentin welled up in mymind, standing at the window where I first saw him. A green lineclimbed the monitor.
Okay, said my Helper, the Aurograph has registered yourdistress. What were you thinking about?
The night before the wedding, I said.
What in particular?
We had a big dinner for everyone. I was getting ready to comedown to the ballroom, and I was alone in my room after I got myhair done, and I thought I heard someone calling my name. So Iwent and opened the door, and there was Billys son.
He was calling your name?
No. He was at the other end of the hall, looking out the window. Id never met him before, actually. Hed been away on theEsteem.
Who was calling your name?
No one.
Why does this memory trouble you?
(Quentin? I said, and he turned. He was wearing his whiteFounderCorps dress uniform, the one he wore in the picture inBillys office. Even from the other end of a long hallway, I couldtell Quentin was different from Billy. Everything flows out fromBilly, whooshing and blasting you back, and you fight to get closer.But everything pulls toward Quentin, and I felt queasy, like Ishould brace away.
Should I call you Mom? he said, not sarcastically but sadly. Iwas twenty-one. He was twenty-six.)
I just wish, I told my Helper, Id had the chance to meet himearlier so we could have felt like more of a family at the wedding.
Already I had begun to understand that the infallibility of Billywas a cornerstone of the Church, and my Helper looked uncomfortable. Quentin has very important work to do on the Esteem.He helps people reach the highest levels of study.
The Esteem is the last of the Founders ships. According toJefferson Morris, the Founder says the ocean is the place wherewe are most open and compassionate. Anyone who wishes to bereally and truly free of degradons must spend time studying onthe Esteem. I said, I know. I dont mean to be critical. It was justa little awkward.
Do you resent Quentins obligations to the Church?
No.
Do you wish your husband paid less attention to the Churchand more attention to you?
Sometimes.
Im going to recommend a class for youits called Overcoming Selfishness for the Sake of the Self. Theres an intensiveversion available at the Ranch.
Okay.
Can you think of another moment in your past that troubledyou in the same way?
I reached, as I often did during Helping sessions, for the yearsbetween Jerome Shin and Billy.
Youve seen my first movie, the one Jerome put me in. I think itholds up pretty well. Kind of gritty but still kind of a caper. Not asgood as Jeromes last movie, but Jerome was one of those peoplewho knew hed do his best work while he was dying.
When we started filming, I didnt want anything from himcertainly I had no pressing urge to be reunited with his scrotumbut I was still offended he didnt try anything with me. He wassoft-spoken and professional. He made sure I put in my hours withthe set tutors. Allie, are you comfortable with this? he askedbefore we filmed my scene in the bath.
Eventually I figured out he was boinking Genevieve Henry. Herbeauty didnt register with me back then. I thought my knobbyknees and flat ass were what every man wanted, not Gennysmouth like a fat berry and her weary eyes. I ditched my chaperoneand went to her trailer and asked if we could talk. She was sprawledon a love seat in a black silk bathrobe patterned with white orchids,reading a paperback spy novel. Sure, baby, she said, tenting thebook on her chest.
A bottle of white wine stood open in an ice bucket on her table.Can I have some of that?
Sure, baby.
I poured a glass and took a dramatic swig. As I told her what hadhappened with Jerome, she kept smiling as though I were somepleasant scene she had paused to admire: a childrens playground,a pretty sunset, a string quartet playing Vivaldi.
When I was done, she said, Thats all?
Well, I said, I guess so. I had never told the story before,and out loud it sounded flimsy and quick. I just thought youshould know Jeromes a child molester.
She swung her small mouth off to one side and studied me.
Finally, she said, Youre not a child. Youre already a bad littlechick. She twisted her lips around some more and looked at herbook for a minute. Then she turned a page and said, Baby, ifyou want to be in the business, you should think about how muchyoure willing to put up with, because if you think youve beencreamed on for the last time, youre wrong.
What did she see when she looked at me? When I rewatch thefilm, I see a gangly, eager girl pretending to be jaded. I see a littlecircus pony, a raw nugget of pure ego. Those movie people snortedme and smoked me; they cooked me in a spoon. Now they say Imweak. They say Im unfeeling to abandon my child to a cult. Butyou try getting out of that prenup, the one where you agreed toforfeit any claim to your husbands tens of millions in case of infidelity, where you certified that any and all of your children wouldbe raised in accordance with the Founders teachings, regardless ofyour own status within the Church. And you wanted your child togrow up happy and secure, sheltered from doubt, able to fly aboveour despectulated world, and you signed it, not knowing youwould be labeled a Usurper, and since your child must be raisedin accordance with the teachings of the Founder, and the Foundersaid children must be shielded from Usurpers at any cost . . . Well,you try getting out of that one. Especially if Helena wont eventalk to you. She knows better than to talk to Usurpers.
It was true I hadnt been creamed on for the last time. Peopleput me in more movies. My father was getting into drugs, so I didtoo, the way other fathers and daughters joined Indian Princessesor went out to brunch after church. At first it wasnt anythingmajor. Wed sit by the pool and share a joint when my stepmotherwasnt around. Kiddo, hed say, tell Daddy how it feels to bea star. And Id say something random like, Daddy, it feels likebiting into a dead mouse or Daddy, it feels like really bad gas,and hed howl, hed nearly fall off his chaise. But then my stepmother was around less and lessshe couldnt quite bring herself to leave him, not that she had such a high horse anyway, OurLady of Dexedrineand we took our show on the road, drivingout to house parties in Bel Air or Malibu, Dad looking like DonJohnson in his blazer and T-shirt behind the wheel of his Corvette (ice blue with a caramel interior, speedometer flickering likea flame as he accelerated). Wed cross the threshold together andpart like strangers, wading through shadow worlds where the airwas thick with bodies and ash and stardust, neither wanting to witness the others search for relief. Catch you on the flip side, hedmurmur.
Those were times I was catrasticno question. I had a trickwhere I could squeeze the insides of my knees against my ears sohard I created suction. I would do it in cars, bent forward, trying not to puke, and I would do it on my back when I got boredwith getting fucked. I could see but not hear the guy say, Youre soflexible. I was walking around covered with a thick fur of degradons, and I didnt even know it. But I also remember the way thenight sky looked from the quiet bottom of a glowing blue swimming pool, the shifting membrane of light that separated me fromthe darkness, the drunks who drifted and murmured like ghostsaround the edges.
In the mornings, my father and I would drink coffee in painedsilence until our shame burned off like early fog. Soon wed beback out by the pool, riding the fizz of my stepmothers speed backto civility, sharing a copy of Variety and a pitcher of mimosas andgossiping about the night before, pretending I hadnt been a limpand addled baby bimbo and he hadnt spilled a baggie of coke andmorphed into a crawling, snuffling thing, an anteater with a plasticstraw proboscis, hoovering up white dust from the grout of someones Spanish tiles.
I remember a party at the Chateau Marmont after I got firedfrom what would have been my fifth film and someone pulling medown from a balcony railing when I pretended I was going to jump,and then the Corvettes speedometer was flickering and Dad wassaying I was a star and fuck em, just fuck em, and I yelled at himto go faster because faster was hilarious until the spinning began,a real spinning and not just the world running around trying tocatch up with me. They found me sitting on the crumpled hoodand smoking a cigarette, barefoot, loopy, apparently unmoved bythe moans coming from the drivers seat. His left leg had to beamputated above the knee.
Just try keeping that out of the papers.
A movie star, especially when he has divorced you and stolenyour child with his lawyers and his prenup and his riches, is likeGod. Omnipotent, omnipresent. His huge grinning face looksdown over the road to the airport. He waves his invisible squirreltail on the little TV in the taxi, talking to Regis, pumping his fistin the air about something while the driver dubs him with whatever guttural language hes chortling into his phone. At the airport, he walks across the newsstands, holding his new girlfriend byone hand and your daughter by the other. He flickers across seatback screens. His voice whispers out of a hundred cheap headsets.The man beside you has recognized you after all; he gives a quicksideways glance when the guy in the aisle seat chooses Billys latest. A buddy comedy. It lost money. Billy can be funny, but self-seriousness clings to his humor like mildew. His career is suffering,not catastrophically but noticeably. People think his zeal for theChurch is off-putting. They think he is controlling, a megalomaniac, but they dont feel sorry for me. They only think I am evenmore of a fool.
A movie star, especially when he has divorced you and stolenyour child with his lawyers and his prenup and his riches, is likeGod. Omnipotent, omnipresent.
The naval officer stands and walks to the lavatory at the frontof the plane. I am relieved to see he is not watching Billys movie.Maybe hes not supposed to partake of the in-flight entertainment. Maybe hes supposed to sit and think about the guy in thebox whos soaring on his back over the Great Plains. For threeyears Ive felt like I should be sitting and thinking about Quentin. Iwasnt allowed to go when they scattered his ashes off the Esteem.Jefferson Morris made an official announcement that the Founderhad asked Quentin to cast off his body and move into a new dimension, embarking on a fact-finding mission into the afterlife. He isexpected to report back as soon as he is able.
Most gossip within the Church centers around whether theFounder is alive or dead. Jefferson Morris says he is in exile, thathe wishes to communicate only through Jefferson so as not tointerrupt his state of perfect Esteem. Dozens of blip reporters anddisgruntled ex-Church members have tried to track down theFounder, to prove he is dead, but the trail goes cold in 1970, afterhe sailed away on a solo round-the-world trip. His first communication reached Jefferson Morris five months later, announcing hehad found perfect Esteem and declaring his intention to remain inexile. No wreckage was ever found; no SOS call was ever received.There is a photo from an Italian newspaper (June 20, 1973) in whicha man sitting at a caf in the background is either the Founder orhis long-lost Florentine twin. The FounderCorps keeps an officewaiting for him at every Church center and a house for him at theRanch, dusted every day and made up with clean sheets and towelsjust in case he decides to return. I have nothing I can keep ready forQuentin except myself.
On our honeymoon, Billy woke me up in the middle of thenight. Karr, he whispered. Karr. I know the secret.
What secret? I asked, woozy, disoriented by the gilded ceilingof our hotel suite.
About the Founder.
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The First Flight Out of the Cult of Celebrity - Electric Literature
