they call kathleen 'the million dollar brat'- a nickname seldom mentioned in the newspapers; instead, it is a handle only to be found rolling off of the tongues of the jet-setters. tonight, we find kathleen at her very own riot house - in the gardens - in the six-hundred and sixty-sixth bungalow.
ever the lady of the place, kathleen opens the door and greets me with a wide smile. she is dressed in a very short, peter pan collared dress and her ratted blonde hair is pinned with blue and purple plastic hair-clips in the shape of a bow; she has on little girl lace socks and a pair of maryjanes - kathleen is a slave to her aptly named 'kinderslut' fashion. she has round, glittering blue eyes, which are carefully made up. her lips have a thin shine of gloss, but the focus is on her eyes - kathleen is all about the stare that can cut right through you.
behind her, appears joey kiss - the younger brother of kathleen's ex-boyfriend, jimmy. as the newspapers before me have accurately reported, joey's appearance bears almost an eerie resemblance to jimmy's. the two brothers each have shaggy dark brown, almost black, hair that is covered up by a dated trilbies; joey and jimmy both loom well over six feet and have body types similar to that of a broomstick. dressed in a classic greaser's uniform - leather jacket, black jeans, white tee shirt and motorcycle boots - the brothers kiss can easily pass for extras in any 1950's movie about teenage rebellion.
kathleen ushers me inside the abode. instead of the dramatic junkie war zone that the tabloids depict it to be, what filled with broken bottles, drug paraphernalia, bloodied belongings, eviction notices and other things equally as condemnable - it couldn't be any more different.
fall has hit cielo late this year and as a result, the city's people are not prepared for the winter that is approaching at full tilt. kathleen, though, is ahead of the curve - against the wall, in the middle of the living room sits an old fashioned wood stove that is filling the entire bungalow with not only palpable warmth, but an unmistakable homey scent. joey piles a few more logs on and the fire hisses, crackling and spitting out tiny sparks. kathleen shivers and asks, "anyone for tea? it's colder than a goddamn witch's tit right now." trotsky, pawing through a tattered copy of
the pilgrim's process
with a furrowed brow, gets up and hurries off to the kitchen. kathleen, from the living room, jokingly bellows, "that's right, trotsky - you aren't being paid to stand around and look beautiful!" she then looks back on her guests - myself, sodapop and joey - and says, "besides, that's my job - if it were your job, trotsky, i'd be on the dole."
after what feels like the blink of an eye, trotsky emerges from the kitchen with a tray of tea. i select mine and take a sip - it's bitter. scowling, i playfully remark, "hey, did you spike this tea with anything?"
kathleen shoots trotsky a dirty look and everyone quickly tests their tea. "aw, shit," trotsky says, "you got mine by mistake." ultimately, the guilty gang confesses that they have been recently lacing their tea with speed - to keep the moral up.
"well, it all started during the first drafts ☺ - i said, like ladies, we're going to put a little in our tea," she explains. confidants, however, affirm that kathleen is a completely different person on speed - one source declared, "she may say that it's for ☺; but every time she does it, she takes all her clothes off and talks to walls and walks in circles; but she doesn't write her book."
to be frank - after the third pot of tea, kathleen does begin to lose focus. she takes to a series of blue luggage trunks and rummages through them until she finds what she's looking for. then, she slips into a state of undress and proceeds to parade around numerous kinderslut fashions, recently purchased on a surreptitious trip to grimaldi - a popular party isle for the international and affluent libertines. coos emerge from those paying attention, to which kathleen retorts in a hillbilly drawl, "well, you better take a photograph - the folks back home will never believe this!"
as kathleen is slipping into yet another, the telephone rings. trotsky answers and charges off to find headlock, only to come back and hand the phone to kathleen. she answers with, "what do you want to know?" within seconds, the conversation turns from the possibility of a friend to the dark reality : it is none other than jimmy kiss on the other end of the phone.
sodapop notices me meticulously eyeing his sister and leans towards me; in a low voice, he says, "she and joey are very close and they are also very much in love - i just wanted you to know that."
the second she hangs up with joey's older brother, the telephone rings again. it is another magazine, inquiring to do a short interview as soon as possible. without hesitation, kathleen covers the receiver and innocently asks if i mind. without waiting for a response, smiles and says, "you understand."
the interviewer poses three questions and kathleen answers with, what seems like, all of her contempt for the media. without batting an eyelash, kathleen snorts at the first question and replies, "oh, well i'm making it a personal undertaking not to screw with anyone's head." at the second question - which seems suggestive of drug usage - she laughs, "you must think that first thing in the morning, when i wake up, i take a big swig of jack daniels; and then i smoke a boatload of foilies and i that don't go to work for two or three weeks at a time." for the last question, kathleen keeps it short and sweet, with, "black tar heroin? no, i call it 'mother's milk.'" she hangs up straight away and eyes me, then says, "and that's why i can't go for that."
kathleen continues to chat openly on the phone for an hour or so - she rings up friends and invites them to stop by, checks in with headlock at 10050 lonesome lane to make sure he's not falling asleep on the job and room service to send more tea bags. interestingly enough, she turns the speakerphone on and - after a languid attempt at a conversation with the person on the other end - leaves the room. the person remains engaged for a good while, until they realize that kathleen is, in fact, gone. before hanging up, the poor sap complains, "i hate it when she does this."
the night goes on right under our noses and as i sit in kathleen's home-away-from-home, with a temperature comparable to that of summer, i find the speed tea to be wearing off and sleep soon ensues....
....i am rousted by the sound of sodapop's motorbike near sunrise. kathleen and joey are the only ones still awake - trotsky is curled up with mates in a pile of arms and legs on the floor, while a movie persists on without the dreaming bunch - and soda has just left to give a drunken girl, who was wandering aimlessly through the rose bushes, a ride home. i look at the clock on the mantle : it's nearing 6 o'clock ante meridiem.
"good morning," kathleen utters quietly, so as not to wake those still in repose, "you want some coffee?" she then grins, "or do you want some more tea?" and nods towards the teapot between she, joey and a stack of papers with a plethora of ink colors scrawled through and besides the words. i shake my head no and joey lets out a chuckle - he is on his sixth cup of tea this morning.
"have either of you slept? like, at all?" i ask curtly, using all my willpower to keep from falling face first onto the ground, due to a bout of lethargy. kathleen shakes her head no and her tangled blonde curls bounce back and forth, side to side. "i have nightmares."
"don't listen to her," joey says, brewing up a pot of coffee; cigarette screwed between his lips, "she takes disco naps." a disco nap, as it is ultimately divulged properly, is a short nap - usually lasting no more than twenty minutes - that one takes either before or after participating in illicit, unlawful and dishonest activities. additionally, some disco naps are involuntary, though, according to kathleen, "it just really depends on how many cups of tea you've had."
with that, i embark on gathering my things; managing to locate everything but my jacket, i at last discover it under trotsky's sleeping body. with only the gentlest touch, i attempt to move him - my efforts stand futile. the struggle carries on for a moment, before kathleen enters the room. with one swift movement, she places a ballet slipper against trotsky's ribs and rolls him over. his eyes open wide and he resumes his prior position.
she shrugs and wraps one of her rather sinewy arms around my shoulders, cleverly steering me towards the door. "i don't like long goodbyes," kathleen says stoically, "you better write something good or we'll come find you. remember, for every bad story - joey and i abduct one report - why, it just might be you if you're not too careful."
winter in cielo is one thing, as is morning in cielo; however, the two combined possess a power all its own. stepping quickly in the brisk air, i discern two things : a terrible headache and the sun rising from above lookout mountain. then again, i must respectfully rescind the afore mentioned cielan opinions - there's nothing like a sun rising over a mountain peak when your head feels like a claw hammer is being repeatedly struck against your temple; also, you just realized that you have left your cab fare in a jacket underneath a deep-sleeping young caretaker. to make matters worse, you have no sunglasses; you are out of cigarettes and there is a lengthy walk ahead of you. thus, as i grumpily trudged towards home to type the very article that you are reading now, i thought that as members of the press, we may control what goes into a story; but we can forget that kathleen - 'the million dollar brat' - is the story.