Kathi yells, pacing, almost dancing, “More motherfucking Nova Quest! Me and the whole original cast and we’re donning our famous outfits again, dressing to impress, to headline the new film. They want to revive the franchise, bring the story to new generations and old fans alike.”
“Holy shit! Congrats!”
“I didn’t want to get too excited, you know,” Kathi says. “There were rumors for years, but everyone in Hollywood is a monster and it takes so many steps to get there, but this is a big step, Cockring. This is our big step.”
“Yeah!”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Kathi says, grabbing her nail polish and flinging a towel around her shoulders. We gather our things and head back to her stateroom. She spills all the beans:
Reviving the franchise.
Stardom again.
More money.
Shooting in London.
More travel.
I’m thinking, Cool!
I’m thinking, Oh, wait. We’re moving to London?
I’m thinking, Reid?
“Bring him,” Kathi shouts, winks, smiles, and then fills her lungs with e-cigarette vapor. “We’re going to have the best time! The time of our lives! We’ll rent a big house in London. Have friends over all the time. I’ll make sure you get paid a big per diem from the studio. I’ll make sure your name is in the credits.”
I die. “My name will be in the fucking credits of a Nova Quest film? Onscreen? On IMDB?”
“It’ll say ‘Cockring: Assistant to Kathi Kannon,’” she says.
Breathless, I float as I follow Kathi up and down the hallways to her room.
A cruise ship is a strange place. It’s billed as relaxing but you’re never still, the boat always in motion. It’s never quiet. You’re never alone. The halls all look the same, patterned carpet to hide stains. Fake-wood doors to keep weight down. Twists and turns, like snakes eating snakes. Railing along the wall to help you keep your balance or cling to life during a capsize.
Walking behind Kathi, I’m thinking, I’ll follow her anywhere. And now, this Nova Quest news at hand, I’ll follow her to my dreams coming true.
* * *
I wake up early the next morning to a text message:
KATHI: Take the morning off, Cockring. Our lives are changing. I’m going to rest and celebrate in slumber and whatnot. You should celebrate by sucking some of the Moby Dicks on this boat. Meet me later before I have to do my stage show and tell.
Kathi’s kindness isn’t always what it looks like. Being set free from her sometimes feels like the toddler telling the parent, “Go, go, I’ll be fine.” Only for the grown-up to return home hours later and find the fridge door open and all the condiments spread on the walls. Sometimes when an assistant is away, it’ll mean even more work later.
I make the best of it, grab some breakfast and wander the deck. It’s me, overdressed in my modest bathing suit, passing every shape and size gay guy in what seems to be tinier and tinier Speedos. No one makes eye contact; we’re all just looking at crotches, as if we’ve beautifully perverted that old saying into “My eyes are down here.”
Tempting as it may be, my heart is with Reid, and I swat away the lure. I sit by the pool, scroll through my phone, peruse the shops, eat lunch, do another few laps on the deck, then head back to my room and plop in bed. As the afternoon sun turns orange and friendly, I take it as a good sign that I haven’t heard from Kathi all day. But Kathi resting all this time means she’ll be up all night and I may as well prepare for that with a nap. I close my curtains, turn up the AC, kick off my shoes, and put my phone on vibrate. The ocean lulls me kindly back and forth and my eyes grow heavy. With all cylinders always firing, a brief nap can be a welcome and powerful drug.
Hours later, closing in on six P.M., I wake from a deep dream that I’m baking to death in a desert, the sound of water all around me but I can’t find it. I gasp for air as I grab for my phone: Where am I? What time is it? What’s happening?
I have a barrage of text messages:
KATHI: It’s getting late, my glory whole, and I can’t snooze booze the bombay in the tinkus any longer. There’s a weird smell and smelt in this room and no vacuums within reach to live within my pale sad space of quiet teardrop lemmings and leggings and luxury all a lie in the face of cracked skin and crumpled hearts you know?????
I hurl myself out of bed. As I put on the clothes closest to me and see my frantic, crazed reflection in the mirror, with the window showing the gorgeous ocean behind me, the contrast is real.
I rush to Kathi’s room. The door is open. I dash in and find it trashed, a housekeeper trying to tidy up but not knowing where to even start. There’s glitter everywhere, sheets are off the bed, pillows are on the lamps, clothing hangs from art on the walls, there’s writing in lipstick and eye-liner on the floor and mirror:
Recognition becomes ordinary after its turn. If they believe my truth or let. It does and doesn’t matter that everything has meaning whatever lasting. There really is meaning in everything. If they love me, they believe me. Look for the dreams in things.
Housekeeping asks me if it’s okay to clean the mirror, to erase the lines in makeup that may or may not be brilliant. “Where is she?” I ask them, to no resolution.
I run around this floating paradise looking for Kathi Kannon, film icon.
The Rite Aid.
The bar.
The restaurant.
There!
Kathi and Roy are in the dessert section, having a buffet-style feast surrounded by a stark mix of gay dudes—both the kind who are older and well dressed and “supper” together each evening, and the glittery kind who grind their perfect teeth and keep mini packets of lube on their person at all times. These are all the kind of strangers I try to protect Kathi from, people who could coax embarrassing comments or steal her jewelry or phone or prompt some embarrassing action or feed Roy grapes.
Kathi spots me.
“Cockring!” she shouts. “Can you believe they have every kind of dessert! I got you a donut shaped like your anus!”
“Hiii, good evening,” I say, wondering what secrets have been betrayed, wondering what photos or videos have been taken, wondering if these guys think I’m cool because I know Kathi Kannon.
My responsibilities include protect her, protect her, protect her.
I shake some hands.
Kathi bolts up from the table, she visits with other diners, she gets another plate of food, she leaves her phone at the prime rib station. I’m rushing around behind her, collecting her.
I pull her aside. “Kathi, we have to go to your room please.”
Roy, still licking Kathi’s saucy fingers, sort of flips me the bird with his eyes.
“What’s going on?” I ask her.
“Everything and nothing.”
“Are you, you know, altered?” I ask.
“How dare you, Cockring? I love you,” she says, truth behind her eyes mismatched with her chemically dilated pupils.
“You’re getting an F!” I yell. “And you have to perform soon!”
“We’re gonna be rich and famous again, darling. Let’s party.”
I wrestle Kathi from the buffet and guide her back to her room as she’s tapping at her phone, texting, shopping, searching for pictures of paradise when there’s one right outside her balcony.