Dead Stars Read online

  The man came from nowhere, pushing Jerzy to the ground, foaming & messy & hitting & lurching for the camera, but Jerzy hung on for life (the strap around his neck) plus who knew, maybe he could get a ¼ of a mill for the hairdresserhouse curb pics (well, not quite that, & he spent it all on drugs), Farrah was shouting at her friend to stop, can you believe it? Shouting at her friend to let Jerzy be, & by then the others were erupting from the car shouting “Shame on you!”/“You are an asshole!”—Jerzy was only worried about his camera being seized, the man had homicidal fury in his eyes, but must have been worried if he kept it up his friend Farrah might be so stressed out she would die right there in the street . . . . . . . . . . he understood him when Harry said he would carry that Moment with him forever—the Emma communion Moment—the looking at her nakedness—how they could never take that Moment away from him.

  He was a master of the dead man walking shot: a recklessly unguarded Chris Reeves or Patrick Swayze, using walkers to drag themselves to the terraces of their hosp rooms. They would turn unbidden & look into the ether—Jerzy would be in a tree with his sniperscope—they couldn’t see him. They had sensed something out there. You could see it in their features, gaunt hopeless animal look, wounded gazelles who knew they would soon be culled from the herd by jackals. His only regret was not getting Steve Jobs, in any way, shape or form, not even close. Not getting to stare into those Da Vinci eyes. Jobs had been his grail, his Hermione: a good pic of the dying animal would have been historic. Apple might even have bought it directly, just so it wouldn’t be out there. Jesus, he hadn’t thought of that until now, they’d probably pay tens of mill——————he was coming on to another speed biscuit, & it was as if it had been laced with regret. He said to himself, Jobs would have been the show-stopper, the centerpiece of my Gagosian. Jobs’d have been the draw. If I’da got Jobs, my name’d have been made. I’da done a mash-up/mixtape of the sorrowsfull Job poisoned app Gaze & my coven of barely legal papsnatch, called the show The Naked & the Dead . . . . . .

  . . . . . . standing on the sidewalk in front of Sur with the rest of the loserazzi, contemplating a retreat to his car to snort some lines, when he saw her. She was petite & wore her hair in one of those piled up ponytails. She was an odd one; if you blinked, you could think maybe she wasn’t a little girl, maybe really a tiny freak like Kristin Chenoweth, ultra-petite, unwizened, middle-age chick. But a second blink brought you back to the objective truth—she was probably 11 or 12.

  Something about her jammed the frequencies, & could throw a person off.

  “Is anyone from Glee inside?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I read that Heather Morris & Ashley Madekwe like this restaurant.”

  “Ashley who?”

  “Madekwe.”

  He thought she said “my dickweed.”

  “Well, that could be.”

  “I’m probably going to be on the show next year.”

  “Oh yeah? On the Project?”

  “No, the real show.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Telma. What’s yours?”

  “Jerzy.”

  “Is that Russian or Polish?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah what?”

  “Russian & Polish. It’s both.”

  “Did you see Never Say Never?”

  “The Bieber movie? Yeah.”

  “I was the girl—one of the girls—Justin brought onstage to sing ‘One Less Lonely Girl.’ But they had to cut it. They told my mom there was a scratch in the negative.”

  “Bummer when that happens.”

  “Telma!”

  The voice came from across the street. Jerzy looked up. “Telma, come on!”

  He attached a middle-aged face to it.

  “What’s your last name?” she asked.

  “Kosinski.”

  “Are you on FaceBook?”

  “Nope.”

  “How can you not be on Facebook? Do you tweet?”

  “Yup.”

  “What are you?”

  “Telma!!!!”—the woman from across the street.

  “@jerzythelenzer12.”

  “@Telma.i.m_iWillSurvive.”

  She handed him a card with the info, then strode to the crosswalk, appeasing her mother.

  “I’ll tweet u!”

  “Right on,” he said, under his breath.

  Tweet me. Tumblr me. I’ll tumble for yuh. Twick or tweet. Tweet or twat. I’m tweaking, I’m twikileaking. I’m twiki-licky take a leak-ing . . .

  Seconds later, his confederates went apeshit—Michael Douglas was leaving Sur.

  He looked great. His hair was a perfect, tousled celebrity in itself, as recognizable as the Biebercut, a snowy, stylish pompadour that shouted, “Cancer-free!” One day the man will die, thought Jerzy, but his hair will live on.

  Lunchtime.

  Time to go home & smokeswallow some biscuits.

  EXPLICIT

  [Tom-Tom & Jerzy]

  Sit.com

  “Why

  can’t you get newly buff.”

  Tom-Tom, Jerzy’s roommate, was on the couch smoking crack & watching a new show about realtors competing to see who could off-load houses with colorful histories first: like the one with the pool William Shatner’s wife drowned in, or the place Phil Hartman got shot or the condo Eric Douglas had in escrow when he OD’d, supposedly now haunted because someone forgot to give his ghost the memo about escrow being cancelled.

  “Jerzy, I’m asking you a very simple question. Why, in God’s name, do you refuse to be newly buff?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Tom-Tom was 30. (Created in ’82.)

  She was/is still pretty.

  She scratched (at) herself.

  “You know what you need to be doing? You need to be doing upper body work, dude. I clipped some pictures, from People. They’re in your room. Rick Rubin—Rick Rubin is newly buff. Remember how fat Rick Rubin was?”

  “Who’s Rick Rubin?”

  “O come on, dude. Rick Rubin the rap producer. You know who he is——”

  “Yeah def jam.”

  “Well there you go. Remember how fat he used to be? Well Rick Rubin used to be fat, but now he’s newly buff. OK? You’re following me, right? Drew Carey? Marc Jacobs? and OMG Perez Hilton—all newly buff. Fuckin sculpted. Well actually I guess Marc Jacobs has been buff for a while, he’s still buff but I guess just not so newly. Shit, you know how fags love to look good? Well when a superrich fag—and Marc Jacobs is superfuckinrich—when a superrich fag sheds the poundage & gets all newly buff it’s like—dude, it probably feels so good it’s like they’re doin speedballs 24/7. All sexed up & on-the-prowl beautiful & newly buff. Shit, I’d like me to be a superrich fag anyday.”

  He slow-bopped to the kitchen for a bite. He wasn’t hungry at all but that forward movement toward the kitchen reflex, whatever kitchen in wherever he was living/crashing, that itinerant reflex kicked in & off he went. (Not thrilling to the newly buff rap either.) The boys on the sitcoms he used to watch always did that, home from school & gravitationally pulled to the kitchen for some laughtrack-accompanied dialogue. Reaching his destination, he picked at some new Wheat Thins already going stale having been shoved back into their box without being properly sealed. He had 3 baked potato chips & washed it down with a coke, he’d bought two dozen of those expensive commemorative cokes in brushed aluminum bottles, they were lined up in a rack in the fridge like beautiful missiles, & Tom-Tom wafted in and sat on a bar stool at the counter & they dialogued, just like sitcom/normal people would. She could gauge how high he was and even what he was high on by studying the minutiae of his behavior under the fluorescent lights; Tom-Tom’s kitchen was like one of those vacuum rooms that astronauts hang in when they’re fresh in from space & the Captain comes to debrief them or whatever while they change out of their spacesuits.

  Ground control to Major Tom-Tom . . .

  Tom-Tom used to be his d
ealer in NYC. They once were romantically involved, and even tho they weren’t anymore, they still fucked on & off because they were so jacked all the time, but the fucking wasn’t epic, more like creative masturbation. Tom-Tom’s deal was that she got fired off Season 3 of American Idol for misrepresenting her life situation, what they call pity-party plying. (At the time, Jerzy was so completely amazed, she never told him/anyone she was auditioning) (He fucking hated that show but still forced himself to watch for professional reasons so as to familiarize himself with the contestants because the tabloids tended to pay premium for pics of these jerkoffs especially in the last weeks before a winner was picked) Tom-Tom always used to sing to her clients when they copped; her voice had a cool tumblr timbre but Jerzy never knew that she actually had ambition. All the rappers used to deal dope & they became huge, right, so why not Tom-Tom? She auditioned in Arkansas because she thought outside of NYC she’d have a better chance. (As shit turned out Simon was the one who really loved her.) So she a-capella’d Stefani Don’t Speak & you’re-going-to-Hollywooded. When she got there, she had a frienemy roommate, & the frienemesis’ dad came out from Akron to be supportive & wound up getting killed by a drunk on Delongpre & the frienemy daughter refused not to continue, & totally slayed with nilsson/can’t live (if living is without you). To make matters worse, there was a kid, black kid from DC, fat gospel perennial type had a fuckin bullet lodged in his head from random 4th of July shot, the docs said it was too dangerous to remove. A lot of sob stories that year, more than usual. Tom-Tom started getting spooked because she didn’t have a story, well she did, but not a hum-dinger, the irony being that everyone in her fucked up family had somehow managed to stay alive, and she just didn’t want to go the route of, you know, “I’m a dope dealer, I’ve been raped 3 times, I like to dyke, I’ve had 7 miscarriages, but I have such hope” & all that. So Tom-Tom got in touch with an ex-girlfriend who lived in Long Beach, girl she used to swing/scam businessmen with, they’d double-team them at bars, go back to their rooms & blow em not fuck em, dose em with GBH and take their money. Tom-Tom got back in touch with the swinger because she knew the swinger had a brother who was a 3-quarter quad. They hatch their little plan & get their stories straight. And Tom-Tom tells the producers that she has to go home, its urgent, her fiancé’s having health issues, they want to know why she didn’t tell them she had a fiancé with health issues & she works it, deliberately holds back the details, strategically thinking it’s better if they have to pry it out of her, finally she has her pre-planned breakdown in front of them, “I didn’t want anyone to think I was playing the sympathy card!” The idea was wack to begin with but it’s starting to go off the rails. The producers tell her to stay put (like she knew they would), they will absolutely fly the fiancé out—smelling the sellable blood of tribal TV tragedy. Tom-Tom said OK & they sent a car to take her to the airport. With cameras, they were going to film the whole thing, the shit was spiraling out of control! Tom-Tom panicked. She called the producers and said that her fiancé’s parents were frantic, they had just called to tell her their son went completely against doctors orders and was on his way to Hollywood as we speak with his sister in tow. Oh! The producers said just give us the airline info and we’ll take care of it, we’ll pick em up (w/camera crew), but Tom-Tom said no, they’re not flying, they’re driving in like this especially outfitted for-quads van & she didn’t know where they were at this point in time! The cockamamie backstory being (hatched with the swinger), the ¾-quad fiancé was rushing home on Valentine’s Day, a dozen roses on the seat beside him, when he swerved to avoid a squirrel & went straight into a telephone pole . . . of course the truth & the problem with this storyhatch being, the disabled bro of her ex-criminal she-lover turns out only to be a semi-quad, not from an accident, but from botched anaesthesia during a lap band procedure, plus he’s got advancing MS. Which could’ve or should’ve worked in Tom-Tom’s favor if she’d given the whole thing more careful thought i.e. been more on her hustling game, not amping up her usage when she started to panic. Someone on the Idol staff thought the half-quads thigh/calves looked too atrophied and spastick for someone who was supposedly a recent quad & when they found out about the MS they dug a little deeper & interrogated Tom-Tom’s ex-, who didn’t have the skills/chops to act her part very well either, the house of cards began to crumble then BOOM she’s off the show. Looking back in solitude & therapeutic meditation she came to the conclusion she had classically self-sabotaged, that she was afraid of success, Dr. Phil did a whole show on it which she almost got on but was dropped from the last minute.

  –That’s what I want to do.

  Back in the dining room now, watching TV, her attention fully on Million Dollar Listing while Jerzy’s on the bong.

  –What. Be a realtor?

  –Housedresser. Home stylist. That’s who the realtors call when they’re trying to sell an empty house and they need to make it look lived in.

  –You mean like housesitters?

  –No! Those are different. Anyone can sit in a fucking house. That’s a different deal. Housedressers are the ones who like get the props. They’re like set decorators. Production designers. It’s like a play! What the realtors do if they can’t sell the house because maybe the furniture’s shitty or it’s got funky fungshwee—some of these realtors try and sell a house without even filling the pool, oh! big mistake!—the homestylist goes in and makes sure the pool is filled & even makes sure there’s like expensive shit floating in it—floating chaise lounges from Restoration, or whatever. And they bring in shitloads of flowers, they even put framed pictures of fake families on the fireplace, in the bedrooms, all around the house, Jerzy I am serious. They do whatever it takes to make the house desirable. I’d come in and work it, like, they say you be in & out in a day. The people on this show? The people on this show? The people on this show just paid $35,000 to get their house dressed & BAMBAMBAM the house sold the next day! Jerzy, I want to start a company! I want a housedresser website! You feel me? Can you feel me?

  –Yeah, I’ll fuckin feel you. Whip em out for me.

  Tom-Tom was shooting Demerol too. She was a nurse at the VA & not only stole it directly but took surplus from C patients when they died.

  –So I still want you to tell me why you can’t be newly buff. Or why you can’t wave off Oscar talk. And if you can’t wave off Oscar talk and you can’t be newly buff, then tell me why you can’t be linked—to a, you know, reality star bimbo. Dude, you got to lower the bar. Get your ass linked to Kelly Osborne. Fuckin scavenger bitch can only do four things: gain weight, lose weight, eat dope, & go to fuckin celebrity funerals. If you’re famous, look out if Kelly wants you as a friend! Cause she’ll crawl up your ass to die but you’ll die first! Have you seen pics of her at the burials? Front and center, like front row fashion week in fuckin Paris ’cept the tears drop down from that chubby face—can you imagine what that face smells like?!—the tears drop down & puddle in that vulture vadge . . . but no shit, I would love to have my ass linked. Please, Lord, link me! And if the good Lord don’t see my ass fit to link, than maybe Lord Jesus can at least let me be Emily Deschanel, just for like a hot minute, so I can talk about my rockin new body, & my sister’s rockin success, & my rockin new life as a mom!

  –You know what you oughta get your head out of the ass of those fuckin magazines.

  –Zooey Deschanel needs to be fuckin raped by fags. See how adickable she is with her ass blown out from multiple unadorkable dicks. [her attention went back to the show] Did you know the guy who used to be the host got busted for stealing paintings & shit from dead people’s houses?!?!?!

  –What show.

  –This show. ‘Million Dollar Listing’! I love him!!! They said this house {eyes glued to the set} was rented by Natalie Portman while she was pregnant, but I’m not sure I believe that. Tho you know what? If you tell someone who’s interested, you know, a potential buyer, you say, “Natalie Portman once lived here,” well that actually is a form of housedres
sing, right? That’s like extreme housedressing, right? I mean, even if it isn’t true. If she didn’t live there or lease it or whatever, she might have actually stayed there, how would anyone know but her? You have to like ask Natalie, if you were ever trying to prove it in court. Because you don’t have to have your name on the lease to live someplace, not that she ever has her name on anything, the stars always list shit under their company or lawyer’s name or whatever. And even if you lied about it, that’s proably not even illegal. Because it could be hearsay, right? Yeah, I’d say that was completely acceptable . . . hey how was your day baby?

  –Aw-ite.

  –Get anybody good?

  –No. Marisa Tomei. Sky Ferreira.

  –Who’s that.

  –Just a bitch. A model. Oh, Chelsea Handler—