Grace Barnett Wing slowly moved her legs off the couch where she had fallen asleep. Every movement caused pain in her 68-year old body. Well, not 68 yet, thought Grace. Grace’s birthday was in a few weeks on October 30th, and she planned to have a party all by herself, no friends, no neighbors. Not that she knew any of her neighbors. The wooded area where Grace lived in Northern California was thick with twisted green trees and large white flowers. The breeze from the Pacific Ocean blanketed the flora around Grace’s property with a salty mist that kept the branches guessing which way next to grow. The growth was so dense that Grace could not walk to her neighbors if she wanted to.
The late afternoon sunlight made puzzle shadows on the Persian carpet as Grace’s bare feet touched the floor. She hoisted up so her spine was against the dark green fabric of the couch back. She was now sitting up. She glanced at the six or seven prescription bottles on the Mission end table to her right. Back in 2006, Grace suffered with diverticulitis of the large intestine. But after the surgery, she had an unexplained relapse that forced the hospital to place her in a medically-induced coma for two months. The procedure made it difficult for Grace to walk, and since then had been on many prescription drugs, including pain medication. And she used a cane. The pain in her left hip was bad this afternoon, but she was averse to taking any more medication. Afterall, that is why she had slept for most of the day.
Grace looked at the oil painting on an easel she had been working on for months. It was a painting of Jim Morrison. Grace had three evenings of wild sex with Jim Morrison back in 1968, and Grace was trying to paint something that represented those three evenings. This was not easy since she did not remember much of it. The drugs. The alcohol. At least one or both of them. Morrison could not have remembered much of it either since he was tripping on something.
A loud whack of the large bronze door knocker came from the front door, which she could see from the couch. Who could that be? No one came to Grace’s house unannounced. She was slow to get up, and then the door was whacked again, only this time in threes and louder.
“OK, OK, I’m coming?” said Grace as she walked with her oak cane capped with a red crystal sphere.
Grace opened the door. Two men dressed in black suits and wearing sunglasses with their hands clasped in front stood at attention.
“This the Slick residence?” asked the one on the left.
“Yes. What is this about?” asked Grace.
“Are you Grace Slick?” asked the one on the right.
“Yes. Yes. What do you gentlemen want?” asked Grace with a stern voice that did not have the same strength as back in the days when she was singing with the Jefferson Airplane.
The suit on the right pushed passed Grace and walked into the house. The suit on the left stayed immediately outside the front door.
“Hey, you cannot just come in here. I’m going to call the police,” said Grace. Grace was worried. Had she not paid her taxes? Do they know that some of her pain medication was obtained over the internet from Canada in not the most legal of means.
The suit in the house walked around, poking his head in the kitchen, he opened the bathroom door, a closet door. He paused at the oil painting of the Morrison-Slick sexual encounters. He pulled out a walkie. “Everything seems to be safe here. You can bring him in,” said the suit into the walkie talkie.
“Bring who in?” asked Grace.
The sun was low and was bursting through the front door, silhouetting the man who walked in. When he stepped deeper into the great room where Grace’s couch and painting were, Grace focussed her eyes on the man. She could now see his face. One suit remained inside the house, the other outside. Grace saw other vehicles in the circular driveway, as well as other suits ambling around the grounds, all with there hands clasped in front, as if they were robots.
Grace felt like this must be a dream. Some kind of dream. Here right in front of her was a man she thought to be, it certainly looked like, yes, it is the….no, it couldn’t be. It is the damn pain medication. She was delirious.
“So I finally get to meet the famous Grace Slick,” said the man.
“OK. OK. I think you do a great impression of President Bush. That is cool….but….”
“You use a cane? But I can still see the Grace Slick I had a crush on. Oh, wow. This is…this is amazing to me,” said George W. Bush.
“This is not happening. You are not Bush. This is all some kind of fucking mind trip. You are with the media? Rolling Stone? Blender? Spin? You assholes have been trying to get in here for years. Well, fuck you. Tell me where you are from?” asked Grace Slick.
“I am trying to wrap up stuff, you know, for myself, during my last year…my last year as President. Meet the people that influenced me. That changed me on some level. You are one of those people,” said President Bush.
“What? Me? I changed you? This is like a joke, right?” said Grace.
“White Rabbit. That song White Rabbit changed my life. I still have the very same Surrealistic Pillow album. It’s in the Oval Office. I keep it their for good luck,” said Bush.
“OK. That’s good to know,” said Grace, flummoxed beyond comprehension. She had now come to the conclusion that this was indeed the President of the United States. And it appeared to her, at least, that the man had lost his mind. The world was falling apart, she thought, and here Bush was in her house talking about a song she wrote back in late 1965 for the group she was with before the Jefferson Airplane called The Great Society.
“And Alice In Wonderland is my favorite novel,” said President Bush. “You know I have been reading a lot of biographies of Presidents. They were actually very very boring reads. I skipped a lot. My life, well…anyway, I went back to Alice In Wonderland a few weeks ago. Read it on Air Force One. There’s a lot in there,” said Bush.
“So why exactly are you here, again?” asked Grace.
The hookah-smoking caterpillar…I just love the lyrics. White Rabbit builds and builds to its finale, until you sing “Remember what the Dormouse said. Feed your head. Feed your head Love it, just love it,” added George like a high school kid.
Grace was feeling weak in the knees, and so backed up and sort of plunged back onto the couch.
“I can see you have had some medical problems. Alcohol. I know about that. But we both licked it. We both licked it. We have a lot in common, Ms. Slick. And I wanted to thank you for all the fantasies you gave me. You were really my first crush. Oh boy, did I want to…well, you know. I was young. I just wanted to meet you, touch you. And here you are, right in front of me. I am so lucky,” said Bush.
Grace stared at Bush. She was not angry. She was not sad. On some level, she felt special, like possibly a new chapter in her very tired life might be forming. But then, why would she want any chapter to be with this man. Then she had a rush of anxiety, like this was some mind trick. The Xanax. Where had she put the Xanax.
“I can see that you are having some difficulties. But I wanted to tell you thank you. Thank you for being you, for having that great voice, for writing and singing White Rabbit. It fed my head alright. And when the polls show that I am like in the trash heap, I blast White Rabbit on my stereo in the Oval Office. Dick. Dick Cheney hates the song. Screw him,” said George.
“We have to go, sir,” said the suit in the house.
“We probably will not ever meet again, but I consider this to be a supreme pleasure,” said Bush as he glanced over at the oil painting. “What’s this of? This your work?” asked Bush.
“Yeah,” said Grace. “It’s Jim Morrison and me fucking each other over a three-night drunken weekend in London back in 1968.”
“Really. Really. Damn, I wanted to be Jim Morrison so bad. Just for like a week. Got to go,” George said as he offered his hand to Grace. Grace reached up, and then shook hands briefly. George turned and walked toward the door.
“Who else you seeing on your little last-year-of-the-Presidency tour,” asked Grace.
George W. Bush turned his head just as the suit in the house was about to follow him out.
“Micky Dolenz. He was the coolest Monkee. I hear he’s in New York now,” said Bush.
The President walked out the door, followed by the suit who shut the oak door from behind. Grace lied back down on the couch, but she did not have the energy to lift her legs, her bare feet remaining on the carpet. She closed her eyes and dreamed what the world would be like if she had never written White Rabbit.
Britney Spears took a shower in the pink and white checkerboard tiled bathroom that was on the second floor of her Los Angeles beige stucco house. The bathroom was actually two rooms, one containing a toilet, a bidet, two sinks and a closet. The other, just as large, was entirely tiled as a shower with four shower heads. It was about two hundred square feet in size, and Britney had all four shower heads going at once. She moved around the shower room from shower head to shower head, letting the water hit her nearly bald head, something the public had not seen lately. She also massaged her belly and buttocks as she moved with a bit of a bounce, humming to herself Mary had A Little Lamb. Britney had been biting her nails to the quick to the point where they had started to bleed, which, in addition to the wig, required her to wear fake nails when she went out in public. Britney thought of how it was easy to put a wig on and put fake nails on, but it was not so easy to put on a thin body. Afterall, she had gained weight. Lots of it.
About an hour before stepping in the shower room, Britney had stepped on the digital scale. It read 169, as in pounds. Britney had not been on the scale for two months. So it came as a shock to see that she was now two pounds more than her weight immediately prior to giving birth to each of her children. She stepped off the scale and started to cry. In fact, she became hysterical. She fell to the floor of the bathroom, naked and sobbing. She tried to curl up into a fetal position, but her girth prevented her from achieving that goal. She rose and looked into the mirror above the double sinks. Britney had forgotten to remove her makeup, and because of the tears, her face was lined with streaks of eye liner. She grabbed her breasts and felt that they had dropped like balloons half filled with water. She opened the medicine cabinet and surveyed the dozen or so prescription pill bottles. Britney grabbed one after the other. Vicodin. Hydrocodone. Percoset. Demerol. Oxycontin.
“No. I can’t. I am not going to,” Britney muttered to herself.
She slammed the medicine cabinet door shut and grabbed her purse that was sitting on a pink wood chair. She removed a pack of Marlboro Lights, pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a 18 karat gold lighter from Tiffany. She took a deep drag on the cigarette and returned to the mirror. There you go. The cigarette gave her some comfort. The smoke shielded the face, and she looked, well, she looked cool. Sort of. But this moment of contentment lasted for maybe a minute. Britney felt the panic return, and so she opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed the Oxycontin bottle, removed the cap and swallowed four pills, without the assistance of water. She actually took a drag on the Marlboro as if that would help get the pills into her stomach. Britney had never taken four Oxycontin at the same time before. So this was new. This was going to be exciting. But she needed it. And that is when Britney turned on the four shower heads and stepped into the shower room, totally naked, her arteries filled with the drug and the Marlboro in her mouth.
“Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow,” whispered Britney as she slowly danced around the shower room.
“Britney had a little life, little life, little life. Britney had a little life, its time was sure to go,” lip synced Britney as she slipped and fell to the floor of the shower room. Because of the Oxycontin, she did not feel the force of the fall. Britney’s elbows were bleeding, and if she could see her buttocks, she would see a large blooming bruise that was quickly turning from red to blue.
Britney lied on the shower tiles, the shower heads going full blast, and she laughed. To herself, just above a whisper. Almost a cackle. She grabbed her fatty stomach. She grabbed and grabbed as if she was looking for something.
“I can’t find my stomach muscle. I can’t find my stomach muscle. I know you are there. I know you are there. Come out., come out wherever you are,” laughed Britney Spears.
Britney’s head slowly came to rest on the shower floor, her eyes closed and her mouth opened. She went into a very deep sleep. An unconscious sleep. The kind of sleep where there are no dreams. And that was good for Britney. Because any dreams right now would be bad ones.
The sound of the shower mixed with Britney’s snoring and the steam from the shower room billowed out into the bathroom fogging the medicine cabinet mirror which revealed Britney’s fingerprints.
Since the congressional elections when the Democrats took back control of Capitol Hill, George W. Bush has had a bowl of organic bananas delivered to the Oval Office every morning. It was 7:15 AM, and George was sitting alone at the Presidential desk, the bowl of fresh bananas sitting to the left of the hunter green desk mat that had one Mont Blanc fountain pen sitting alone in the center. George reached into the pocket of his dark grey pants and pulled out a key. He reached down to the bottom left drawer of the Presidential desk and opened it with the key, revealing a wide mouth crystal decanter. He removed the globed top of the decanter and placed it inside the drawer. The aroma of rum rose to his nostrils. George peeled one of the organic bananas exposing about two-thirds of the banana. George held the bottom of the banana and held it up, taking a small bite. He thought of the Rhesus monkeys he had seen at the Houston Zoo. George looked at his digital wrist watch. The time was not 7:22 AM. Condi was not expected till 7:30, and everyone knew that the President liked his appointments prompt but never early. So he had eight minutes to eat his breakfast. George leaned down with the banana in his left hand and dipped the exposed fruit into the wide mouth crystal decanter, submerging the banana tip about an inch into the Pusser’s Rum. He let the banana absorb just enough of the rum before it got too soggy and broke off. George raised the banana and placed the tip into his mouth, biting off two thumbs worth of rum-soaked banana. He chewed slowly, savoring the rum. And as it went down his throat, it felt warm. George did one more rum dip and eat, and then re-capped the decanter, locking the drawer. He finished the banana and tossed the peel into the wastebasket to his right. There was a knock on the door. George looked at his watch. 7:29. Condi was always one minute early. This morning they were to discuss…George went blank on the agenda. It didn’t really matter. What he did today or tomorrow was no longer relevant. His legacy was secure, George thought. He had set the gears of the earth in motion and no one can stop it now. So today was merely moving deck chairs around. And he was comfortable with that. A good way to start the day.
Continued From Yesterday.
Jennifer Aniston listened to Stephen Huvane, listened to his speech about the American Girl, the American White Girl, that is. But it did not seem to maytter, this idea. The image was important to Stephen Huvane, not the human being.
“Is something wrong with me? How can I possibly be that perfect American girl? How? I am really quite pleasant, you know. I am low maintenance. I do not demand a lot from a man. But they…they keep…they keep leaving,” said Jennifer as she shoved the cigarette in her mouth for the twentieth time.
Stephen recognized that his client was upset, nearly in tears. It was touching, and though he at times allowed himself to get caught up in the emotions of his high profile clients, he viewed the emotions as publicity opportunities. Maybe the “jilted” Jennifer was a better image move than the “mutual separation” scenario he had proposed. Look at her. You wanted to hug her, take care of her. To say Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn separated mutually lacked any market value. It was avoidance. It was weak. It did not have balls. But sitting in front of Stephen Huvane was a story with balls, a story with value. To get dumped by a string of men can add value. Look what happened to Judy Garland. Sure Garland’s life was a mess and Judy Garland was a drug addict and miserable. That wasn’t the point. The Judy Garland name and image was golden. That was the point. That’s what was important. The market value of the life, not the quality of life.
“Maybe we should be honest. Maybe we should approach this from a perspective of truth,” said Stephen.
“The truth. That would be a new approach,” said Jennifer.
“Jennifer, there is the factual truth and there is the essence of truth. Sometimes the facts and the essence are in conflict. So it is my job to decide whether the facts or the essence serves you better,” said Stephen, knowing that he was shoveling shit with a big scoop, but hell, it was his business to mix shit into something digestible.
“Yeah, so what are you saying,” asked Jennifer.
“Maybe here, now, we go with the facts. Maybe the factual truth is the essence,” said Stephen Huvane. Stephen enjoyed making these pronouncements, and it reminded him that he should write a book on representing celebrities. It was all a matter of how you said things. Shit is only shit if you call it shit. He chuckled at the thought.
“What are you laughing at?” asked Jennifer.
Whoops. His client caught him doing a daydream, a private thought, a mind journey that happens often while dealing with these movie stars who, bottom line, were really only interesting on the screen. In person, they were generally boring, causing Stephen to get lost in thought at odd moments. But he considered it work. He was paid good money to think things through, and so he was thinking, even though he should be conversing with Jennifer Aniston. His clients saw Stephen as part magician, part therapist. And right now Jennifer needed a therapist.
“I am just glad you are rid of Vince Vaughn. He was not good for your career,” said Stephen. He just pulled that one out of a hat.
“Vince is very talented. People like Vince. I liked Vince,” Jennifer said holding back tears.
“Yes. Yes. Yes. But you have class, Jennifer. You have a lot of class. Vince Vaughn is a big lug from the working class. You are from Tiffany. Vince is from…from Home Depot,” said Stephen.
“Just say it was mutual. I’d rather lie about it. It is no pone’s business. I want to get on with things. OK?” said Jennifer.
“OK. OK. A decision has been made. That is good. Sometimes you get to this place only after talking out the possibilities. So this is good. We go with the mutual separation story,” said Stephen.
Jennifer pulled out the gold lighter from her pocket.
“See, I have it. And I will use it. I like cigarettes. And that is the truth,” said Jennifer as she lit another Merit Ultra Light.
“OK. OK. Yes. Good. The truth is good. When it is good, that is,” said Stephen. Damn, he really should write a book.
Stephen Huvane sat on one of the two brown distressed leather couches in his fourth floor Wilshire Boulevard office, a corner office, with knee-high to ceiling windows and a late afternoon view of West Los Angeles. The panorama ran left from Century City to Beverly Hills on the right. The couch Stephen sat on had the better view than the couch supporting Jennifer Aniston, who was smoking a cigarette and air tapping the ashes onto a tray the size of toilet seat that sat on the burled oak coffee table separating the two couches. Jennifer was clicking a Bic lighter on and off she held in her right hand, the yellow flame playing off the falling orange California sun. Jennifer Aniston was wearing tight blue jeans, white socks, Nike running shoes and a navy blue tank top with string straps.
“What happened to the gold lighter I gave you,” asked Stephen.
“What do you do with a gold lighter, Stephen? You keep it. You use it. And if I use it, that means I am smoking. And I am trying to quit, remember,” said Jennifer nervously.
“But you’re using that cheap lighter. Bad image. If you are going to smoke, you might as well do it with gold,” said Stephen.
Jennifer shot Stephen a look and then put the cigarette out in the large tray. She then pulled out a pack of Merit Ultra Lights and flipped a new cigarette in her mouth, lighting it with the Bic. She took a long drag and then blew smoke rings into the upper center of Stephen Huvane’s office. Stephen Huvane was the younger brother of Kevin Huvane, the famous and powerful talent agent who was a partner of Creative Artist Management. Kevin Huvane managed the money and contracts of movie stars. Stephen Huvane managed the image of movie stars. Publicists were once considered the lapdogs of Hollywood. They were now the first to call on a celebrity’s emergency list.
“I like smoke rings. Is that a good image,” said Jennifer Aniston.
“Only if you are acting in a movie. But the way I have positioned you, smoking is not a good image in general. You are Jennifer Aniston, the perfect American white girl. Smoking is an imperfection,” said Stephen.
“What about being dumped by Brad Pitt? Is that an imperfection?” asked Jennifer.
“Well, actually, that is a part of the American Girl experience. It is not an image problem if handled correctly, and I think we handled it correctly,” said Stephen.
“OK. OK. So how are we handling this one?” asked Jennifer.
“With Vince Vaughn, I think we say it was a mutual separation,” said Stephen.
“Is lying part of the American Girl experience?” said Jennifer.
“Very much so,” said Stephen in all seriousness.
To Be Continued.
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