Body of Art

Honestly, all this happened like a lifetime and a half ago, so if I am not one hundred percent accurate in my reflections and recollections, forgive me, I’ve had so many go rounds that you wouldn’t believe it, or maybe after reading my story, perhaps you will, I hope. Besides, people my age should be indulged.

As far as everyone knew, or thought they knew I had the ideal life. I lived in a nice middle class neighborhood, had a goofy younger brother, a beautiful, always perfect, loving mother, a wise, handsome, pipe smoking father who wore an ascot and of course, a talking magic bicycle that made it possible for me to solve all my adolescent problems. Of course, that was my television life, the sit-com life that ran for five years and then, after my show was cancelled, went into re-runs during the after school slot for another two years. So, for several years America came to know me from their living room and dining room television sets as I grew from a gangly adolescent into a budding young woman; announced by a nifty jingle accompanied by shots of me on my bicycle in a too short dress that blew around and exposed quite a bit of inner thigh and buttocks while just teasing at my panties that went:

“Who has no cares, has curly hair, has a bike that goes anywhere, who’s always fun, loves everyone? Googie is her name! It’s groovy; it’s Googie and her magic bicycle friend! It’s kooky; it’s Googie and her magic bicycle friend! Who has no cares, has curly hair, has a bike that goes anywhere? Who’s always fun, loves everyone, Googie is her name!”

For a certain age demographic at the time, this was the treasured, reassuring fantasy that also doubled as a vehicle to sell everything from A to Z to female pre-teens, tweens and teens unable to grow up, who I imagine sat sucking their thumbs and holding their Teddy Bears after school while they watched and wished they were me as they tried to forget their own shitty lives. This made me a fortune compared to what most people make, of course, it was nothing like it is today, the whole cross marketing concept was still in its infancy, still being developed to a certain extent, by my mother; not that it would have mattered a whit to me anyway as it turned out. This is what is sometimes hard to explain to people, yes; I was the child star of an inane, insane somewhat suggestively pedophilic fantasy that ran on television for several years and theoretically earned me millions but no, it was not a fucking picnic.

As evidence I offer my memory of the day I was told that my father had died. You would think that such a day would have been imbued with some atmospheric portent, gloomy and overcast perhaps, or raining even. But no, it was a beautiful, sunny southern California day in a neighborhood on a studio back lot that has doubled for nearly half a century as the background of America’s suburbia. Yes, I worked on a storied and venerable studio lot, just down the street from where a character named the “Beav” had theoretically lived, where people actually paid to be driven by in tour buses and took pictures of the fake, empty houses. Yes, they even got excited when they saw me wave to them and took my picture too, they even had to be cautioned not to jump off of the bus and run over to stand speechless and smitten in my very unreal, real presence. I mean, it was hard not to begin to think that I wasn’t something like royalty when the general public would go nuts, point at me, shout my name and look astonished that I really existed. But that’s Hollywood, and that’s partially what has made my life so twisted. Anyway, back to the day my father died, we were wrapping up for the day, shooting the end of an episode first, because of course, if you didn’t know, nothing on a television show is done sequentially, it’s done according to when and where you are scheduled to shoot on any given day, either in the fake neighborhood, the fake interior, or the featured background. I was on my magic bicycle, wearing my trademark slightly too short, revealing dress and said, “Oh my goodness magic bicycle, It’s getting dark and I’m going to be late!” My magic bicycle of course said nothing, it had a light on the handlebars that could be remotely operated and would flash in time to the first A.D’s words, who would read the bicycle lines and trigger the light on and off to the accompaniment of the bicycles voice, that would be dubbed in later, by a voice actor that I never actually met, “Don’t worry Googie, I can go into hyper speed.” Of course, once or twice I did ride the bicycle when no one was watching, but for insurance reasons, I usually only sat on it while I said my lines and occasionally, would come to a rolling stop. All the other times I was seen riding the bicycle were illusions; with either me pretending to ride a stationary bike in front of a green screen or cut-a-ways to diminutive male stunt doubles wearing wigs. So, after saying my lines I was only allowed to slowly roll into the driveway in front of me with my legs down and come to a stop and say, “Wow! That was a blast magic bicycle!” Then the director would always say something like, “Cut! Brilliant Googie! The best you’ve ever done!” Then I’d get off the bike and the props manager would come up, take off the bike seat, put it in a plastic bag, (so he could keep it for the stationary bike he’d always explain) and roll the bike into storage until the next time it would be needed, which seeing as it was my co-star, was pretty much, virtually, every day. But this was still not my real life, it was my television actor’s life, my real life of course was much more complicated and confusing. On one hand not only because the general public was so taken with and nice to me, but so were all the adults on set. Like my make up lady, Mary Ann, or my studio teacher, Judy. I remember Mary Ann coming up to me and telling me some variation of “You’re just the prettiest girl in the world!”

To which Judy added, “And smart as a whip! Mary Ann, did you know that she’s only twelve years old and graduating from High School?”

To which Mary Ann said, “Is that so! Wow! Say, Googie…could you autograph your picture for my niece? She just adores you and has been begging me for an autographed picture since she found out I was your make-up artist.”

Which Judy topped by whipping out a piece of paper, “Here’s your High School Diploma with my business card stapled to it. Now make sure and tell your mother that even though you’ve finished High School you’ll still need a set teacher, just like we talked about.”

I remember being proud and astounded, “Did I really finish High School?”

“Why yes, silly. Don’t you remember all those tests that we took together?” Judy reminded me.

“Uh, yeah, I think.”

“Well that was it, you graduated from High School.”

“Wow that was easy.”

“Remember now; don’t forget to remind your mother how helpful I was.”

To which Mary Ann added, “And tell her what great friends we are too, but don’t tell her about those chocolates we share in secret!”

“Oh no, we won’t ever tell Mommy about that!” I said in real horror, because Mommy had been watching my weight and was adamant that I was getting too fat. I remember her screaming, “No one wants to see two little sausage legs pumping a bike!” No, no, there were a great many things that you couldn’t tell my Mamasaurus Rex.

Anyway, it should have been a beautiful day, I was actually skipping back to my trailer, which of course, per my mother’s demands, after she found out my TV mother’s trailer was as big as my original trailer, was now twice as big as her’s. I had my high school diploma in my hand, the evidence of the hard work I couldn’t remember having done, but I certainly knew that my high school diploma was something that my mother had been particularly anxious for me to attain. As I came up to the trailer I could hear my mother arguing with my agent as he was begging, “Debbie, be reasonable, they aren’t going to give up creative control!”

To which my mother replied, “Don’t be so weak! Fight for it! You’ve got to hit them high, scrape them off the ceiling and then settle for less, but if you roll over easy you won’t get anything! You let them know; this is the Googie show! No Googie, no show!

My agent should have shut up, but no, he didn’t want to go along with it, he had other clients, he wanted to work with the studio again, he knew that the producers already hated my mother. “But the producer has to answer to the network and you want to take the show in an entirely new direction! He can’t just up and do that!”

“He just doesn’t have my footprints on his backsides yet! He’s going into syndication this season and if we don’t get a piece of the action now, we’ll never get it. We’ll tease the network with a percentage of the Googie Tween clothes line and buy them off that way. “

My agent didn’t understand, “You’re crazy! It’s a giant multi-media corporation; they don’t care about your stupid merchandizing schemes. To them, that’s peanuts!”

My mother blew her top, “CRAZY! STUPID! PEANUTS! Nimrod, do you know what those two monkey looking twin kids are raking in off that crap show they’re on? WHAT THE HELL DO I PAY YOU TEN PERCENT FOR?”

“The monkey twins are just doing small direct to video stuff and you’re forgetting, you skinned me down to 5 percent.” My agent scoffed.

The Mamasaurus blew a gasket, “YOU’RE AWFULLY DAMNED CLOSE TO GETTING ZERO PERCENT! NOW GO AND MAKE MY DEMANDS KNOWN AND LET ME HANDLE THE STRATEGY OR YOU’RE FIRED! NOW GET YOUR SPINELESS, TWO FACED ASS OUT OF HERE!”

I was going to run around the corner but my agent came boiling out before I could. Red faced and flustered, leaving the door behind him open, he nearly knocked me over as he ran out. Instead of apologizing he just kept going and I heard him say under his breath, “Poor kid.”

I cautiously edged in the door, unsure of whether or not I should approach my mother for another hour or so, unfortunately as I was about to turn and run, the trailer floor creaked and betrayed my presence. My mother turned around and said, “What now?” Perhaps thinking that I was my agent, returning for another go around, and seeing instead it was me she said, “Oh, it’s you, close that door.”

“Is there a problem with my agent?” I asked.

“He’s incompetent.” She flatly declared.

“I don’t want the show to end.” I said.

“You let me deal with that, what’s that in your hand?” She demanded.

“My high school diploma.” I smiled; trying to put some warmth into what was a cold moment.

“Ha! Now I can be your set teacher, how do you like that?” Mamasaurus crowed.

I didn’t want to tell her that I’d hate and dread such an arrangement, or that my teacher had told me to remind my mother that she was supposed to continue despite my new academic credential. Instead I merely waffled, “Uh, OK?”

“I can do your make-up too, that stupid bitch hardly does anything anyway. God, all she does is brush your hair, apply a little lipstick and send you out on set. Thank god you got my looks kid.” The Mamasaurus gloated.

“But why?” I wondered aloud.

“Why what?” Mamasaurus shot back.

“Why would you want to do their jobs?”

The Mamasaurus looked at me with incredulity, “For the money! God’s sakes kid, what with the Coogan account, the agent and government slicing it up, there’s hardly anything to live on! You know, driving you here, driving you there, handling all your affairs and sitting around here on set takes up all my time. I’ve given up a career so that you could be the little princess here!”

My apology reflected the complaint my mother often directed towards me, “I’m sorry you couldn’t go to law school because of me Debbie.”

My Mamasaurus seethed, “That’s why I have to squeeze these cheap bastards for every dime I can.”

Hearing her talk this way alarmed me, “What? I thought I made a lot of money.”

“God, you poor little nitwit, you’re lucky you’ve still got me.” The Mamasaurus sighed.

“You and Daddy.” I reminded her.

“Forget about him, he’s not coming home.” Mamasaurus curtly announced.

My father had been battling different addictions, as I’d made more money he’d become more dependent and consequently, more removed and frequently absent from my life as he went in and out of rehabilitation centers. I suppose the root of his addiction was alcohol but he was the kind of addict that never met a drug he didn’t like. He was always trying to balance himself with different drugs. A downer required an upper, which once combined, required a hallucinogen, which needed an opiate to round it out. He had just come out of rehab a week before and had been floating around my life again, and it had seemed, was actually getting straight but I’d already learned not to hope too much for him.

“Oh no! Did he have to go to the hospital again?” I wondered aloud.

“Yeah, he ended up in the hospital alright.” Mamasaurus replied.

“Will he be gone long this time?”

“Yeah, forever this time, the weak fool overdosed himself.”

As I stood there, trying to process this, I felt my stomach turn until I felt a sickness that only resolved as I let out a long protracted high pitched fart that announced what would become a lifelong gastro-intestinal response to stress. It’s been diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome, nervous stomach and spastic colon, I just call it my emotional barometer, the pressure builds up and I drop a stink bomb in response. Saying it’s not ladylike is silly though, I’ve discovered over the years that it’s a malady that primarily afflicts women, women who are trying to be ladies especially. Ladies in general seem to internalize stress more than men, we don’t strike out or externalize our stress, we vent internally until eventually; that pressure builds until we are forced to vent that internalization, externally. This creates the problem of how to pass gas silently and makes every true lady a master of sphincter control to eliminate audible reports. The smell of course can be covered by a spray of perfume, the smoking of a cigarette or by blaming a small, purse carried dog. Of course, the Mamasaurus didn’t suffer from such a malady as she was much like a man, if she was displeased she let everybody know it. I can’t remember if she was always that way, maybe she had been a lady before. I don’t know for sure but it seems to me that prior to my sit-com success my mother hadn’t been the Mamasaurus Rex. As I remember, when she first started taking me out to auditions and such, she had been more considerate, less ambitious and driven. Maybe at that point she was just like a lady, still internalizing all the stress of her thwarted ambition. Sometimes I’m convinced that it was only after I’d landed a hit television series that she became the Mamasaurus, it was like all of a sudden she was in a position to succeed, to actually access all her dreams, bury all her detractors both real and imaginary and it was the worst thing that ever happened to her. It was as if, with my stardom, she could live through me and stomp out her own torment of having had an ordinary life. Trust me, I know, and this is the moral of this entire story I’m telling, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.

So anyway, that’s how I found out that my father had died. Of course, my mother denied all this had happened, according to her autobiography, which had a weird seductive picture she’d had taken on its cover, a glamour shot she’d called it, it was more like she awakened one day to find herself a sheltered widow, burdened with a child to raise. What her autobiography failed to note though was how she erased my father from my life, she even legally removed my last name, leaving me with only one name, Googie. Things only got worse as I got older and discovered that I was making over a hundred thousand dollars an episode, yet was only banking the mandated minimum amount. The rest of the money was being spirited away to Costa Rican, and Bahamian offshore accounts, or into other various, dubious investments suggested by the dozens of mysterious Uncles who came and went through my mother’s bedroom door. It finally got so bad that I decided to take action. With the help of my agent, Judy my old teacher and Mary Ann the make-up lady, I hired Bernie D’Attorney and in a rather ugly, publicized court case, divorced my mother and became a legal adult at age 16 so as to gain control of my own earnings. It was horrible and in truth, I didn’t handle the stress well, in fact, perhaps in honor of my father and supplied by my supportive friends, I started drinking rather heavily. Sadly, despite the tabloid publicity, I didn’t feel that anyone understood my reasons for separating from my one and only parent and took the opportunity during a fixed, fake, awards ceremony set up by the network to promote its own shows to explain my position. To this very day, I still occasionally see old clips of me stumbling up to the microphone and saying, “I want to axe-cept, dis awad, I mean, AWARD, even though, there is people, who is supposed to be taking care of the money of childrenses, acting, but aren’t. It’s really sad, and long, and bad, and a long, long story.” I’ve always been grateful that the director of the show had realized that I was wasted, about to cry and hurriedly cranked up the award show theme music to get me off stage, I just happened to pass gas in the same timbre and moment as the music and so it sounded like it was recording start up static, though the face I made as I farted somewhat betrayed me.

I admit it, I fell in with a crowd of reality stars, heiresses and fellow child stars gone bad. It was a fast crowd and even worse, I didn’t save a dime by divorcing my mother. After the party expenses there were legal fees, increased representation fees, rehab, therapy, and D.U.I. fines; all I really did was to re-distribute the wealth into other hands. Then of course, the Googie show was cancelled. Naturally, I was so beloved and known as Googie that I couldn’t possibly be cast as anyone else! In terms of my marketable worth that’s true and that’s what I was told, but now, now that I’m older, I’m not so sure. I mean, I liked to pretend, I could remember lines, I could smile, I could laugh, I could look surprised, I could act goofy, I could seem scared, hurt, I could cry, but what kid can’t? I usually went big and mugged for the camera. I mean, I was pretty good as a kid actor, but I wasn’t doing Shakespeare, it was light children’s entertainment. Nothing really dire, scary, pithy, contradictory or complex ever happened on my show, even though the magic bicycle could fix anything! I can’t say that I was one of those kids that got into acting because I loved it, I never put on shows in the garage for kids in the neighborhood or anything like that. I didn’t teach myself show tunes and do Community Theater, I kind of did it as a fun thing that my mother wanted me to do and I happened to luck out, get a part in a successful pilot, that became a successful series, that made a lot of money. It pleased her, it pleased me and it kind of snowballed out of control from there but I’m not sure it was ever an insatiable desire. So to a certain extent, I have to tell you, as an actor, I was honestly only so-so and maybe even sucked most of the time but that’s all it really took to pull off a stupid show about me and a magic bike, it wasn’t drama to stand the test of time. Plus, although I’m not ugly, I’m also not exactly the hottest chick in Hollywood, I was a really cute kid, that turned into a really cute girl but I wasn’t tall, blonde, big-boobed, ultra-fuckable, pin-up material. So instead of going back to work, I became the darling of the tabloids as my life became more and more bizarre and deviated from my fake TV life. Yes, I shaved my head and then I gained a police record for underage drinking and driving that gave me a really, really, goofy mug shot. Then there was the time that some sick and crazed pervert broke into my condo and stole all of my clean underwear. Though he was soon apprehended after having put them up for sale on E-Bay, that day, as I drove to the Rodeo Drive department store to get more underwear, Paparazzi caught me as I was getting out of my car going commando. Which of course, almost came as a relief to me; as I had discovered that the suggestive nature of my Googie show bicycle riding had created a fetishist’s following of men of all ages fixated with my genitalia. The tabloids of course picked up on this immediately as a way to sell papers, there were constant updates and speculations about my virginal status, it was like my hymen was either a state secret or the Holy Grail, I could never figure out which. Having my nest photographed would just put all this nonsense to rest I figured, once they’d seen it, they’d realize, “Hey, it’s just a vagina! Just like my wife’s, mothers, sisters or girlfriends. It’s normal, it’s like any girls, it’s not magic, it isn’t the voice of the bicycle, now I can put that issue to rest and get a life.” I couldn’t have been more wrong, the papers went crazy, my perverse fans went blind masturbating, my vagina went viral and as everything reached a fever pitch, I did something really, really, too crazy to for anyone in Hollywood to understand, I left Hollywood.

I mean, this was still before the leaked sex video became the preferred method of elevating one’s viability as a sex object, but, according to my agent, I was getting offers again! Yes, they were from soft to hard porn producers because the reality show format wasn’t as developed yet but there were even a few pretty serious, real, movie type deals being brought forward. I’d gone from notorious to slutty and was viable again! Yet, I walked away because I’d taken my college entrance exams and despite my ridiculous educational background, I was really pretty smart. So I left for a not real prestigious small University in the Midwest with a media department and started going to school. Soon though, thankfully, once I was out of Hollywood and enrolled in college, the tabloids lost interest in me. For four glorious years I disappeared into a beautiful, newfound, anonymity. It was great, I found that I could actually do all my own schoolwork and enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment it gave me. I really threw myself into it, buried myself in it, and loved it. I was the type of college kid that lived in the library and hardly ever went out. I skipped all the partying and the other crazy college stuff because it just seemed so stupid, pointless, and in comparison to what I’d been used to, bush league. Why would I, who had spent months partying in Hollywood with the fastest crowd of the indolent, indecent and media princesses, want to engage in the same stupid behavior in a small mid-western college town? Especially since I knew that with enough drugs, royalty and poor, equally behaved like fools under the influence. So, I skipped partying because by the tender age of eighteen going on nineteen, I was kind of a burnout on that stuff. In the backwards little studio of the media department though, what I really discovered was that I loved being behind the camera, rather than in front of it. It was like I’d been floating for years and suddenly found my feet on the ground Being behind the camera gained me a sense of control over things that I’d never felt before. I even found a boyfriend hanging around there, an artist who painted theatrical backgrounds, whose freakish parents, had raised him in Alaska and never had a television in their house on the bizarre premise that it was a waste of time. As such, to my absolute delight, he’d never even heard of, much less seen, my television shows. His name was Danny Danny, the boy so nice they named him twice and we were young artists in love and on the make. It was like heaven being in school, though also as expensive as shit, eroding my already depleted resources and so my sojourn away from Hollywood ended after graduation. Danny and I scraped together all our belongings and returned to tinsel town together, to conquer it together, this time with me as a director and writer, and Danny Danny as an artist.

So then, our story really started the day we had our big idea. Danny had a professor of his (from our little mid-western college) that had insisted that he knew the director of an L.A. gallery and could get Danny an audience. This is why the day before Danny had dropped off some drawings at the gallery and had been called back, while concurrently, I had an appointment to go and present my reinvented self to my old show’s producer, and start making movies with his backing. Seeing as we only had my old car, and our appointments staggered nicely, we carpooled. We were driving in my beater, poised for success, then, just one turn away from Danny’s destination, we heard the wail of a siren behind us. I looked in the mirror just as a motorcycle policeman started motioning me to pull over; it wasn’t the first time since we’d been in L.A., that I’d been stopped.

“Fuck me, not again!” I cried out in agony.

Danny cautioned me as he also rolled down his passengers side window, “Don’t get nervous, it gives you gas and you don’t want to be charged with creating a public nuisance.”

“Like I don’t know that, or like it matters, because of money I’m nervous all the time anyway.” I replied in exasperation.

“I didn’t want to mention it, but now that you have.” Danny smirked, amusing himself at my malodorous maladies expense.

It pissed me off, like he was above all that, like I hadn’t endured his previous evenings of god awful gas, “I wouldn’t talk if I were you burrito boy.” I shot back.

Danny cringed and changed the subject, “What is it with you and cops always stopping you?” he wondered.

“Motorbike cops in particular,” I elucidated, “watch and learn.”

I rolled down my window and as the policeman approached I reached up to my visor where I already had my license, registration, a fine tip marker and a headshot photo waiting. I took my “kit” as I called it down and had everything ready and waiting for when the policeman got to my window. As the policeman came up, I cleared my throat, looked up innocently at him, and while batting my eyelashes, asked, “Did I do something wrong officer?

He stood silently for a moment; his intentions inscrutable with his eyes hidden behind his mirrored aviation style glasses, as his right palm nervously caressed his holstered pistol’s wooden handle. “No, I just need to verify you are of legal age to operate a motor vehicle.”

I pulled a Googie move and again batted my eyelashes innocently, “I know, I look too young to be driving.”

The policeman’s mouth sort of fell open as I handed him my license and he looked at it. “Oh my God”, He cried out, “I can’t believe it! I’d heard, but when I saw you drive by, I thought, no, it can’t be, couldn’t be, she’s left the city, but it’s you, you’re Googie!”

As nonchalantly as possible I replied, “I suppose you’re a fan?”

“Oh I am, my God! You still look like you’re thirteen, just like on the show!” he fawned.

“It’s a blessing and a curse; I’m actually 22 years old now.” I modestly replied.

The officer became contrite, “Well, sorry for having stopped you Googie, you look like you should be…riding a bike. Heh-heh, a magic bike!”

I was understanding, “It’s alright, I’m used to it.” Which sadly, wasn’t a lie; this was the third traffic stop I’d had in two weeks.

My complacence emboldened the policeman, “Say, do you think you could…”

“Give you an autograph?” I assumed.

“Would that be alright?” He played along.

“Sure, without my fans, I’d be nothing. Who do I make it out too?”

“Mike. Say, uh, do you ever ride that magic bike?” He ventured.

I crushed him, “No. Actually, I never rode a bike in the show, a stunt double did. He was an ex-jockey, a tiny little guy who wore a wig and dress.”

It was as if I’d kicked him in the balls as the police officer shouted out, “NO!”

As I handed him his autographed photo I continued, “Yeah, the insurance people wouldn’t let me on the bike, too dangerous they said.”

He stood there processing what I told him until he demanded reaffirmation, “It was a guy, a Jockey? On the bike, wearing a wig, a dress?”

I feigned ignorance of his disillusionment, “Yeah, it’s kind of sad really, I don’t even know how to ride a bicycle because of that.”

In stunned silence, without saying another word, the Policeman handed me back my license, registration and head shot. He unceremoniously, as if in a trance, went back to his motorcycle, got on it and left. Danny watching this, commented, “you know, he seemed, I don’t know, distracted.”

As I’ve said, one thing that really appealed to me about Danny had been his utter ignorance of my Googie-ness and all that it meant. So, in order to preserve that wonderful state of being that he had acquired by growing up in Alaska without television, reading the classics, learning mathematics and understanding science and nature, I never really totally filled him in on what it meant to be the Googster. It had really been pretty easy to circumvent in college with just the advice, “Don’t worry about it, just ignore it.” But here in L.A., in the belly of the beast, it wasn’t as easy to escape explaining.

I looked at Danny and explained, ”Yeah, it’s all because of the bike seats from the Googie show.”

“What? You never mentioned anything about bike seats.” Danny scoffed.

I sighed, “It’s not something I like to think about. In fact I’ve had therapy about this, for awhile; I was obsessed with the idea that I was, particularly smelly or something down there. Especially when I started menstruating, I started thinking I was so funky that I stunk. I’ve gotten over that, kind of, but the sad and awful truth is that there’s a fetish market for my bicycle seats from the Googie show. The prop manager used to change my bike seat every time I rode it. I found out about it in college after I had several bike seats stolen from the bike I rode on campus. Eventually, someone stole the whole bike and soon after a guy I’d never even met before actually came up to me and offered me a new bike and money to keep bicycling, so he could sell my bicycle seats. But of course, I chose not to, I just quit riding bikes.

“Why?” Danny asked.

I couldn’t believe he didn’t understand, “Because it grossed and freaked me out.”

“I mean, why did they want your bicycle seats?” Danny asked in confusion.

As Danny asked the question I realized that this was why I liked Danny so much, it was so refreshing to actually meet someone who wasn’t naïve exactly, more like untainted. I mean, it wasn’t like he didn’t know things, he knew more things than most people, he knew science, music, art and literature and could discuss them intelligently but when it came to primetime trivia, tabloid sensationalism, and fan boy fanaticism, he was a blank slate. I explained, “They want my bike seats because my butt had touched them. After I talked to the guy, I went online and found that there’s a whole underworld market for stolen Googie bicycle seats on the internet. Fetishists pleasure themselves while watching episodes of the Googie show and sniffing the seats.”

Danny shook his head, “I can’t believe it.”

“And that’s why I love you,” I responded, and it was genuinely true. I really liked the guy that only knew me as who I was now. I never worried that he had a hidden agenda; that he had some duplicitous reason for being with me that had to do with the fictional character I’d once played. I never really told him this, maybe at the time I didn’t know it, but Danny had actually helped me to become me. Because really, immediately after leaving Hollywood, I didn’t have much of an idea of whom I really was. I mean, beyond the fact that I was the titular character of a show that actually bore my real name; there were plenty of reasons for the confusion. Was I being me? Or, was I being the pretend me? Or, once the pretend me stopped, was I the next me that became the pathetic melt down, real me? It didn’t help that I lived pretty much in a bubble, in a world where my every pleasure or displeasure was measured for either favor or pay, away from other children, with more ordinary, ordered lives; or lives that were projected to ever move beyond make believe. Whereas I, being at the apex of the television actors dream, was established by age ten in a career where it was theorized by others that I would continue on forever, interminably being pretend Googie, while other children could be expected to become something, or anything else, as their fates or fancies dictated. Danny helped define me as who I became, not the silly kid’s sitcom star, not the tabloid terror, not the cautionary, mother divorcing, tale of woe, but as a young woman, possessed of talents, thoughts and more importantly, dreams, that were hers alone, not anyone else’s construct, anyone else’s product, anyone else’s property. So, you know, I’ve had time to think about these things over the years. I like to think I’ve moved beyond them, but sometimes in hindsight, I find my recollections terrifying. It is amazing to me that I ever made it at all. I’ve watched other child actors go through even worse than what I went through and have always felt sorry for the ones that didn’t get away. Danny helped me sort so much of it out, not through some magical therapy, some strategy, or some helpful insight but by simply taking me as I was, at the moment, without any pre-conceptions and accepting that as me.

Now that our policeman was gone, we could go back to the reason we were in the area, for Danny’s gallery appointment. I prayed aloud, “God, I hope you can get something going with this gallery, we’re really broke.”

Danny agreed and reminded me, “This was the only place that offered to even view some samples of my work, no one else even responded to my requests. Woo! I know we need the money; I’m nervous too, give me a good luck kiss.”

I gave him a quick kiss and said, “I’ll just circle around”

“Too bad, I was hoping you could come in and look around, you’d see, it’s just like I told you, kind of weird.”

Just then in front of us a car pulled out of its street parking spot. “Holy crap, there’s a spot right in front of the gallery, grab it!” Danny shouted in excitement.

Not one to ignore the fortune of the parking gods I slipped right in behind the car as quickly as it left. Danny jumped out and excitedly reported, “There’s still an hour on the meter!”

When your broke, little things become big triumphs, a two for one coupon can mean famine or feast, a found twenty dollar bill can become something you’ll remember for the rest of your life, and free parking can seem like a lifesaving or favorable portent.

“Bitchin’!” I laughed.

“Now you can see this place.” Danny smirked.

“Should we go in together?” I asked.

“No, no, you go in first and look around; I don’t want it to look unprofessional.” Danny worried.

So, OK, I wandered into the gallery and the first thing I saw was a dissected, plastinated body, the sort of medi-porn that infests local science museums and Las Vegas, masquerading as an educational display when it’s in fact, gross out, freak show stuff. I then wandered through several different framed autographed stills and posters of various movie actors and other movie memorabilia and eventually ended up staring at some undergarments sandwiched in front of a framed nude of Marilyn Monroe. Danny then came in and was walking by me when he stopped suddenly in his tracks and stared aghast at a bust kept in a refrigerated bell shaped jar. The gallery salesman, not noticing me hiding behind Marilyn’s undies came up and commented, “Amazing concept isn’t it?”

Danny stared in disbelief as he realized what he was looking at and said, “The artist made a bust of his own head, out of his own poo?”

“Yes, it’s his most renowned existent piece; he’s famous for his series of religious figures. They generated an enormous amount of publicity, excitement and controversy. We had bomb threats over the Jesus, there was a fatwa issued against him.”

“Didn’t he get a load of Buddha?”

“Yes, it was his smallest piece in the series though; he did it in one shot, without a mold. It was very inspiring; his whole issue came out looking exactly like a fat, little, sitting Buddha, naturally, except it did sport a cowlick. Conversely his elephant god Ganesha, took him a month to complete. He was very thorough; he would ingest the foods and texts of the target religious cultures before he excreted. At the time of his death he was working on a line of living religious figures.”

“He was pooping a pope?” Danny asked incredulously.

“Among others, it was tragic really.”

“Holy shit, I should think so.” Danny agreed.

“I mean his death.”

“The fatwa, I suppose?” Danny ventured.

“No.” The salesman firmly denied.

“He got all pooped out?” Danny kidded.

“I’ll ignore your bad taste.” The Salesman disdained.

“I’m sorry,” Danny retracted before asking; “how did he die?”

The salesman pronounced the artists fate as if it were a heroic act, “He starved to death. He lost all of his funding and resorted to eating nothing but religious texts and taking laxatives in order to finish his work.”

Danny argued, “He starved to death but the price on this is over two hundred thousand!”

The salesman replied with incredulity, “Of course! Now that he’s passed away his work is collectable. This is one of the last remaining pieces. The board of health destroyed most of them.

“That’s one expensive piece of shit!” Danny exclaimed.

“You think your funny don’t you?” The salesman replied in a huff.

Danny explained, “Well, uh, it’s just that anybody could make a mold and do that.”

Inspired by this, the salesman took off in a tirade, “But he did! Now, no one else can! It’s like Warhol and his soup cans or Brillo boxes, it was his concept, his intellectual breakthrough that shook the foundations of religious beliefs. He was essentially saying that they are all full of it!”

Catching the salesman’s excitement Danny timidly filled in, “And that he was a shithead too?”

In triumph the salesman expounded, “Exactly!” Before checking himself and deciding to qualify Danny, “Uh, what are you doing here?”

Danny, emboldened by the idea that the salesperson would be impressed he was an artist said, “I submitted some drawings for consideration, you know, to be represented by the gallery here.”

The salesman disdainfully replied, “Oh, the nudes.”

Danny defensively replied, “Yeah, some were.”

With a lifting eyebrow and giving Danny a sideways glance, the salesman declared, “Hmm, follow me, the director left them over by the door. Personally, I prefer my nudes a little leaner and more muscular, if you know what I mean?”

Catching the salesman’s glance Danny gulped and said, “I think I do.”

To which the salesman derisively added, “I suppose the model is your girlfriend?”

“Uh, yeah.”

With a purely patronizing attitude the salesman said, “Um, too bad. The director says they’re wrong for our gallery. Perhaps you could hang them in your mother’s living room, or at the frat house.”

“Ouch.” Danny unwittingly uttered to the salesman’s glee, encouraging him to continue, “I think you can see that in order to be here, you need something a little more conceptually advanced.”

“I kind of figured they’d be wrong after I saw the plastinated dead guy.” Danny agreed.

Rushing Danny towards the door the salesman continued, “Yes, well, good luck. Tootles!”

Danny tried one last time, “Should I let you know if I come up with anything else, you know, more conceptual?”

As the salesman eased him out the door he suggested, “Call first!”

As the door was closing behind him Danny’s curiosity got the better of him, “Say, just out of curiosity, what was the name of the turd-head artist.”

“Harry Crapper.” The salesman shot back.

“Whoa!”

As the door closed the salesman raised up his hands and his fingers danced together as he replied, “Yes, it all ties together doesn’t it?”

I stayed hidden behind Marilyn’s underpants, noting their fifteen thousand dollar price tag as I waited for the salesperson to move away from the door. Once he walked away, I then made a dash for the exit and caught up to Danny who was already in the driver’s seat of the car. As I got in he gave me downcast look and asked, “Can we just not talk for a few minutes while I drive you to your appointment.”