I skipped the red carpet bit at my movie's opening and snuck in through the fire stairs in the back of the Cinerama Dome. I waited behind the screen until my film started, then slid in through the emergency exit and sat on the floor between the front row of seats and the projection.
I didn't watch the picture. I listened to the sound and watched the faces of people watching my film and I saw when they laughed, when they jumped, when they squirmed.
I saw a young woman sitting front and center—the true home for movie fanatics. She was 16 or so, in the throes of her sexuality based on her dress and the number of times she rubbed her legs together.
I hardly saw her blink, and I thought: this is the one person my movie was meant for. This is the one person in this auditorium who truly gets me. And she'll get to know me, but I'll never get to know her, and it's ok.
She reminded me of me at that age. Sexually powerful, and mostly wasting it on people who didn't deserve me. But what choice do you have when no one deserves you?
And watching her watch my erotica, I wondered what was going on between her ears, between her legs, and she shocked me by crying at the pleasure of Tuesday Walker and Amanda Haines as they pretended to make each other cum.
In the end, I didn't get paid a dime for my movie, but I got my reward..going around to theaters, watching and listening to the reactions of many different audiences. Seeing that 16-year-old version of me openly cry at the key scene, though, that was worth all the money—and security—in the world. That girl was a window that when I looked through it, looked back through me from the inside. Even today, I wonder what that girl's dreams are and I hope they come true.
We had a little party at Kristi's apartment for the cast and after it was over it was just me and Kristi sifting through the mess and we had the deepest conversation of our lives punctuated by one of us picking up the remainder of someone's abandoned glass and drinking that person's drink as if it was our own.
We laughed at the shapes of leftover food.
Every glass was different: "A beer!" "Champagne!" "A red!"
"Is this Hpnotiq or blue Kool-Aid? Who brought this??"
"I don't know. Are you going to drink it anyway?"
"Damn straight."
Kristi drinks it like a shot.
"You know what Ole Jeffy told me? He said there was a turtle or dragon or some animal that bites down and never lets go, even if not letting go means its death. 'And that,' he said, 'is you, heir director, that is you.' And I said is that brilliant or stupid? And he says, 'Oh it's both,' and he laughs."
"Ahhh," Kristi says.
"I have something special to tell you."
"Ok," Kristi says. She braces herself.
"You'll never believe what I'm about to say."
Kristi says, "You're going to marry me?"
"Haha. No, silly, I'm going to buy your movie."
"Really?"
"Yes. Well, Warner Bros is going to buy it from you through an LLC I set up for this purpose. I've been working on it since I read your script."
"Are you serious?"
I nod.
Kristi hugs me, then pulls back.
I say, "Why, did you want to marry me?"
Later, Kristi read me reviews from her phone.
She stopped when she saw me scowling.
"Talk to me."
"I guess I just don't like being treated like an idiot by those who have less pudding than me—as in: The proof is in the pudding. So I'm crazy, yeah, I am. So I'm an alcoholic, yeah, I am. But I can do things."
I laugh, a bit maniacally.
"I can get shit done in multiple domains and I've created enough that to any logical person there is nothing left to prove! And I am a logical person. I am not doing anything I'm doing now to prove something to me or to anyone else. So why now, at this point when I've actually accomplished something, are people with less skill than me and less ability than me and less general smarts and knowledge than me, questioning me, disrespecting me, insulting me, putting me down. And don't say it's 'cause I'm a woman—that's only half of it. It's because—one—(and this will sound egotistical) these people are clueless about the relative pedestals on which we stand and—two—(and this is going to sound accusative) they are trying to take me down because they know that I am greater than them. Like climbing a mountain or throwing rocks at a statue, it's just because I'm bigger than them and they want to take me down."
"Are you suicidal?"
"No."
"You sound suicidal."
"Don't worry, I'm not about to off myself. I have one more thing I have to finish writing and then I'll kill myself. I made my movie. Now I'm going to write my book. Then I'll kill myself."
"You realize how that might not sound rational to people out here."
"Out here like outside my head? Of course I do. And you realize how it might sound very rational from in here, inside my head, where this world is a horrible place to live, an inhospitable place, a profoundly lonely place, and I feel like I am of no value to my family. Remember? When I say, 'I love you very much,' my mother doesn't say anything back. My dad when he was still alive had no interest in having a relationship with me. How do you have kids and then just stop giving a shit about them when they turn 18? So..I feel like the only value I provide to this world is my film. And maybe a book I can write about making my film. Maybe I can publish that. Then I'm going to kill myself. Because I'll be done. Do you understand that concept? Everyone understands the concept of nebulously pressing the flesh, spending their lives playing out their sex roles—always, always—as if that was the most important part of the identity of a human being—but very few people understand the concept of being done."
Kristi and I are sitting on her balcony. She fishes through the mess and finds a half-drunk beer.
She sips it, hands it to me.
I sip it and hand it back to her.
She says, "It's going to be ok, right?"
I look at her seriously.
"No."
She looks at me like I just took away her candy cane.
"Today?" I say. "Maybe. Yeah, it's going to be ok today. But in general—long term—it's not going to be ok. I know it. Deep in your heart you know it. This entire culture knows it. You can feel it in every system, every event, every organization. No, K, we are not going to be ok."
Kristi puts her hand on mine.
I turn my hand over and squeeze her fingers.
"Go in and speak with Mr. Kind on Monday to find a re-writer."
"Won't you be there?"
I stand up.
"Kristi, this is goodbye and I need you not to ask me any questions about it, ok?"
She stands up and I can see she's resisting the urge to hug me.
I touch her head and brush strands of hair out of her eyes.
"This is one of those things you have to do on your own?" she says.
"Yeah."
And I close the door to Kristi's balcony and walk myself to Kaiser Permanente for the last time.