“Miracle of modern science,” she says, walking to her makeup bag and pulling out a tube of silver lipstick.
“These are morphine? Like from a hospital?”
“I don’t know where they get them exactly.”
I ball the pills into my fist. “Kathi, what the fuck? Are you kidding me?”
“I tried to get them in, like, a nicotine patch, but it’s more complicated.” Kathi walks to the cabin door.
“Does this affect your bipolar medication?”
“Oh, I don’t ever do both,” she says. “No fun.”
My body numbs with the thought of the manic episode she had in her driveway, and even the one here on the boat, and my fear that these were my fault, my guilt, when the problem is actually: She’s using again, or using still.
“It’s their drugs or mine,” she says. “And it’s my body.”
“Please don’t do this,” I say, hanging on to hope. “They can cancel the show. No one will care. We’ll say it’s a medical emergency.”
“There’s no emergency, Cockring. You can come or not,” she says firmly. She opens her cabin door and joins her escort to the theater. I lock up and chase after them.
“I’m going to open tonight with the song ‘Crazy,’” Kathi says as we rush down the hall.
“What?” I ask. “How? We didn’t give them the music. Do you even know the lyrics?”
She says, “I am the lyrics.”
“No, do you know the words so you can sing it onstage?”
“Fine,” Kathi says. “Forget the song. I won’t sing it.”
Hey, Siri, we’re walking to the auditorium.
Hey, Siri, Kathi is ecstatic. I’m nervous. Roy is carefree, per usual.
Hey, Siri, have I done enough? Or will she do like she’s done countless times before and brilliantly rise to the challenge? Certainly this isn’t the first time she’s been un-sober for some dreadful thing she doesn’t want to do.
The escort says into a walkie-talkie, “We’re here.”
“Where’s the doctor?” I ask. The escort shrugs and points Kathi to a stage door.
“Showtime,” she says, and goes inside.
I’m escorted to a glass-fronted control room on the other side of the auditorium, behind and above the audience with the spotlights and the crew, where I can watch the stage, help with cues, and address any technical problems. As I enter, the lights in the theater dim.
The host welcomes everyone.
Kathi Kannon, Roy in tow, walks onstage to thunderous applause. She looks out, squinting her eyes, cupping her hand over her face to block the bright lights to try to see out.
“Cockring,” she says into the mic. “Cockring? Where are you?”
The audience giggles and stirs, expecting a surprise, but the lights don’t change, nothing happens, the silence is deafening.
“Cockring!” she shouts. “Cockring, play ‘Crazy.’ I want to sing! I want to sing ‘Crazy,’ Cockring!” The mic starts to pitch feedback like we’re in a bad movie.
My forehead is pooling sweat. It’s not possible to play her music. She said she wouldn’t sing it, so the music isn’t cued, the iPod not even hooked up to the huge electrical board. And I’m not mic’d. I have no way to talk back to her.
I’m watching, lethargic and paralyzed, as Kathi Kannon fumbles through stories she’s told a thousand times, starting and stopping and forgetting the endings, no punch lines, only setups and setups that never pay off.
“My mommy,” Kathi says, “was once on the TV show M*A*S*H. But then. I’m hungry. Who’s hungry? Are you hungry, sir? You look hungry, ma’am. I’m a Virgo, anyway.”
I feel far from my responsibilities of protecting her as she stands exposed, blathering, no one to guide her away, no protection from the room which is less and less full of people who want to see her and more and more full of people who want to see her fail, for the spectacle, for the sport of telling their friends about it.
Kathi flings the mic down and starts talking to the crowd, but no one can hear. People are shouting, “What?” People are shouting, “Use the mic!”
Kathi flips them off. She starts to walk offstage to shake hands and mingle. No one knows what’s going on. Roy pees on the stage. And then poops.
People start leaving, laughing, pointing, recording.
I turn to the lady running the spotlight. “Is this funny or bad?”
It’s an honest question. Maybe I can’t tell anymore. Maybe I’m too close to the Shine, too close to the sun. Kathi Kannon has been crazy before and they still loved her. She’s been boring before and they still loved her. She’s never been this raw before, and I have no idea how this ends.
“Bad,” she says.
“Sing it with me,” Kathi shouts, again starting the lyrics to “Crazy,” but she’s unable to carry the thread, unable to find words beyond the first few lines.
“Crazy…” Kathi sings. “Ba da ba ba ba da ba whateverrrrr.”
She’s lost her way, and her audience.
I start to rush down to her, but the cruise director storms in. “I’m not happy!” he yells. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. She’s ill, I think. That’s why I asked for a doctor.”
“How are we going to fix this?” he asks.
“I don’t … I’m sorry. I’m not her agent or attorney,” I say. “I’m just her assistant.” The statement sits in the air a moment, swirls and washes over me; the statement drowns me, grounds me, returns me to the helpless altar boy of my youth watching his mother die.
I look out at Kathi Kannon, wondering how this is the place where it unravels, wondering how this is the moment a miracle has finally evaded her, this of all times, with great news about Nova Quest in the wings, and her self-destruction in the face of it, on stage of all places.
Kathi is in the middle of a half-told story of her meeting George Clooney at Cannes when she stops, her gaze going soft, her focus lost. The auditorium, full of jeering and laughter, goes instantly silent, creating a pregnant pause that consumes the theater, the boat, the Atlantic.
Suddenly, her stature gives way and Kathi Kannon, film icon, collapses. Her legs fold under her and her body plops on top of them, her head falling back, stopped from smacking the stage by the sofa behind her. The microphone she’s holding slams loudly to the floor, and the amplified crash causes people to grab their ears and flinch, as if the world is crashing down upon us all.
The control-room director shouts, “Cut mics! Lights up! Security?!”
The rattle of the sound system turns to screeching and then cuts out completely, yielding to the audible gasps and “holy shits” from the remaining audience.
I shove past the cruise director and dash toward Kathi. I lose sight of her as crew members and a security guard rush to her and circle around. I’m trying to push through audience members who are now standing—some trying to get a better view and others trying to leave and salvage their night of frolic and fucks. I’m moving sideways through the oncoming traffic. I’m ducking under men holding hands and trying to make their way out.