"it was so quiet that night - i'm sure you could have heard the sound of ice rattling in the cocktail tumblers in the homes way down the street."
the street of skid row in arcadia, usually lively, was tired on the night of february 17 and exuded a misgiving calm. kathleen's 312 manor lies at the end of the street, in a semi-seclusive, albeit genteel neighborhood. everything considered - someone should have heard something. fresh from "the human slaughterhouse on skid row," as the papers have commissioned it; kathleen has sixteen stab wounds, some inches deep, several bruised ribs and heavy rope-burns around her throat. for the first time, the doll's story of the bloodbath at the 312 will be heard.
kathleen, "the doll," doesn't have a manager. she doesn't have a spokesperson, an assistant, or even a maid. what she does have, though, is her brother sodapop - who "fixes what needs to be fixed," - and headlock, who "drives the car." there is also nineteen year-old trotsky, who tends to the property while kathleen or jimmy is away. that being said, she is not one of your run-of-the-mill celebrities, what always flanked with a fleet of people, nor is she the wild drug-dealing party monster that the papers typify her as. "she is the doll," jimmy illustrates, "when she's good, she's really good - but when she's bad, she's better."
the way to kathleen and jimmy's lonesome lane estate takes you up the hills, beyond the valley, high above the city of cielo. the drive goes along a curvy, beaten, single-lane road that dead ends at a gate - the gate of the kisses' 10050 summer retreat. her residence at skid row is now easily distinguishable, thanks to all the cop cars and press vans; to boot, the house has been spotlighted in countless television news specials and features nonstop since the day of the murders. the home in cielo is quite the opposite. these are the hills where the pretty people live - where the real world ceases to exist. the doll's domicile is set back against dense trees and thick flowers; hidden in the folds of the land and totally invisible during the daytime. howbeit, in the night, her lights can be seen all the way down in the valley.
i arrive at 10050 lonesome lane in the middle of the afternoon and it was hot - 89°; a bizarre temperature for early march in cielo. maybe summer has come early this year, to the delight of all. i approach the black security gates, entangled with budding primrose vines, and a grim veil drapes over me. a few minutes pass and headlock runs up; he motions me to come closer to the gate. he asks to see my credentials and after a bit of small talk, presses a button to allow me entry. as we walk up the cracked driveway, well overdue for a pave-job, i notice that he's carrying a gun on his hip. i also observe that the usual troupe of flashers aren't piled outside, caterwauling to catch a glimpse of the doll - they have been keeping their distance since the murders.
casing the place, i make my way towards the main house - i see a garage to my left, the doll's black gravedigger parked outside, dripping and gleaming bright; obvious victim of a pre-summer car wash. continuing on, off in the distance, i see a large, lavish-looking pool, surrounded by thick, shady bushes and blossoming patches of mountain laurel and lilac, the ground nearby blanketed in wildflowers. to the right, is the main house. far in the back is the guest bungalow, on the edge of the ravine, where trotsky rooms. in all, it's at least three times the size of her skid row property. the 312 was "elbow to elbow with snobby snobs and had a backyard that you could spit from one end to the other without too much of a headache." in so many words, it was a small squat. 10050 lonesome lane - nicknamed 'the love shack' by kathleen - is a not just any port in the storm; it is the port in the storm.
she peeks out from a window upstairs and then opens it to shout inaudibly. moments later, she appears on the lawn. her once tan and beautiful body is now littered with ragged scrapes and spotty bruises; she has gauze dressings on her arms and legs, hiding deep gashes, as well as a thick bandage wrapped around her ribs, supporting a gaggle of contused ribs. there are dark, purple rope burns around her neck.
she doesn't say hello, she just turns toward the view of the valley and lifts her hands to shield the sun from her eyes; i follow suit. then, once a few moments have passed, she says, "booze, dust, breaking hearts - believe what you will; make up more if you want." i tell her that i have no means to hang her out to dry with the fence. she smiles and politely quips, "good, because i know people who know people who could break your legs if you do."
headlock yells to her from the garage that she has a phone call in the main house. she treads inside and i, getting used to the feeling, am right behind her. her 10050 love shack is an attractive place and in many ways a simple, modest home. the front door opens into the living room - i spy wooden floors, white walls and exposed beams; a wood stove sits in one corner and an ample bookcase full of records stands in another. there is a hayloft overhead, ladder leading to the plush, pillow garret above.
the wolfman jack show is on the radio, sounds of laughter and happiness ring through the lively household. that is, until i glance down at the sofa in front of me - draped over the back is an american flag, stained heavily with blood. in front of the lounge is a zebra rug, decorated in a similar fashion. a blood-spattered lamp off in the distance fits the design motif perfectly.
"pretty gruesome, right?" she inquires with a grin and hands me a drink. i nod and take a sip - it's straight whiskey and ice and not the iced tea i was stupidly expecting. i swallow and hold back the tears as she continues, "you think that's bad? jimmy and his kid brother, joey, received the charming chore of cleaning up the crime scene after the fuzz was done with it."
i feel a look of disbelief come across my face and jimmy, loping in from the kitchen, says, "it's all true - every word." he is tall, thin and shirtless. candy bar in one hand and beer in the other, he is none other than kathleen’s main squeeze. he tells me that once he and joey had removed the furniture to replace the carpet, they could see exactly what kind of evil-doings took place. jimmy tells me that joey found other significant pieces of evidence, but refused to expose it to the police or press. by the time the two had removed the carpet, blood was found underneath, having soaked into the wooden floor below. also, in jimmy and kathleen’s bedroom, the filmmaker boogie had been stabbed, and in his blood were the words 'piggys' and 'live freaky, die freaky' written on the walls. a piece of rope was left swinging over the rafters, clearly deemed useless for the investigation. jimmy says, "i lost it. there was blood - all over the place. it looked like the set of a horror flick. i love her and i find it hard to talk about this and say what i mean, because in this instance, it is not my reputation on the line, but the reputation of the girl i love." jimmy, a man not often sodden with tears, pauses briefly to wipe his eyes. he continues, "she is the toughest girl in the whole wide world."
kathleen stops him and suggests we go out to by the pool, as the heat has become stifling in the house. jimmy grabs more beer from the refrigerator; kathleen grabs her cigarettes and illegal drugs. in the loggia by the water, she skins up a joint and continues for jimmy, "there was a lot of talk in the papers about parties in the house," she says, "and it's all true, what the people say. the 312 was the party that never ended. it was a seldom sight to not see the gates constantly opening and closing - people coming and going. i would be working and jimmy would be working; yet, every night there was always someone coming over. i’ve been there. in my house there were plenty of parties where people smoked drugs and guzzled booze. i have never been to a single party where someone wasn't stoned."
jimmy emerges from the shade and, once realizing kathleen is rolling fatty, scampers over to trotsky’s guest house and invites him in on it. it takes her a mere minute - she is skilled in her craft and has perfected her art. a few quick flicks of the wrist and her pile of grass is gone, revealing one rather fat doobie. "time waits for no man," she says, and lights it up, without trotsky and jimmy.
the two return and jimmy says, "you know, when i phoned her that day from mulholland - that could have been the last time i talked to her." he takes a hit and says, "she was bitching at me, because i was trying to weasel out of attending a party with her. she also talked about possibly getting signed with hep parade, to which she was keyed up about. it just seems so silly now."
"you would have never believed it, though!" kathleen laughs, "the killers - they looked just like kids! they wore beads and had long hair and were barefoot - they totally fit the part of someone you would see hanging around the 312 on any given night." kathleen goes on to say that one of the young girls, sent to check out the property for other party guests, smiled and waved to her through one of the windows - so kathleen smiled and waved right back. the girls continued walking, casing the grounds. "they had to be the dumbest crooks alive," kathleen says, "trotsky snores louder than jimmy does. if you ask me, that's the million dollar question - why did they pass trotsky by?"
she shrugs the mystery off for another time and carries on, "the next thing i know - and this is no shit," she says, "a young, blonde boy came into soda's bedroom with a knife and told me to follow him. i was scared shitless." she and her friends accompanied the man into the living room, where another man with a gun was waiting for them. "you’ve got to understand that these weren't your average horror movie monsters - they looked like barefoot, hitchhiking, grass-smoking kids! i didn't know if i should laugh, cry for help or what." the group of eight stood trapped in front of the 312's stone fireplace. once assembled, the older man with the gun demanded they lay on the ground and bram goodman, brother of beau, said, "why? what do you want?"
kathleen looks up from skinning up another smoke, "so he shot him." bram’s eyes opened wide; he fell to the floor instantly and the girls began to scream - some for help and "some just for the hell of it."
the blonde man with the knife then started to jump around the room, trying to scare the girls. he hopped back and forth and would yell, "watch out!" and wave his knife in front of their faces.
he stepped on bram’s hand and bram yelped, "so he put two more bullets in him," kathleen says. although she doesn't seem fazed by the tale, there's a cold tone in her voice.
jimmy wraps a lanky arm around her shoulder and says in a low tone, "it's okay baby - we're going to get them." he is referring to the instance that two of the assailants managed to flee the 312 property and are still at large. jimmy tells me that he filled up a gun cabinet in the 10050 love shack and now has kathleen sleep with a pistol by her bed. "i told her to shoot first and ask questions later."
kathleen keeps going, "they shot bram and boogie, who, up until that point had been filming everything, lowered his camera. naturally, the killers demanded her pick it back up and continue recording." the film remains in evidence for now, "but i’m sure it will be out in no time. the toybox will not have the release of DIG!
compromised any further." next, the young man asked if the group had any money - only the girls did. with many opportunities having already passed to escape and very few chances left, kathleen began thinking of a way to beat feet, "there's a back door, but that just leads to a gate, and i need keys to get out or i have to punch in a code. it was basically a murder movie and i was trying to buy myself time. i kept asking if he wanted assorted expensive items in my bedroom, which is all the way upstairs - i tried to give him a pair of jimmy's boots, a diamond ring and my collection of overdrawn credit cards, to which he all denied." by the time the four made it back to the living room, the man with the gun sent the man with the knife off to get some rope to tie everyone together with. he returned and tied kathleen up first by wrapping the rope around her neck and threw it over the rafters above and then "he tried to tie my hands up, but he did a piss-poor job." kathleen remained silent and the young man tied up the rest of her friends. as he had run out of rope, he fetched towels from the bathroom and poorly tied up the rest. the knots were useless, "very loose," and mostly for show.
at that time, one of their girls came in from the outside. she said that she was posted lookout and everything was cool, until she heard some rustling in the bushes. "she described a person that could only be the creature from the black lagoon or beau goodman and said that she stabbed him. in fact, i’m quite certain that her words were, 'i stabbed him until he stopped moving.'"
jimmy interrupts her and snorts, "beau? good riddance to bad rubbish!"
kathleen ignores him and goes on, "the man who had the gun followed the girl outside to investigate and told the younger man that when he would send the girls in and when he came back inside, 'everybody had better be dead and the scene had better be as gruesome as they could make it.'" the man raised his knife and soda's girlfriend, daisy, freed her hands to tackle him. "the two scrambled for the knife and rolled around on the ground for a flash." as the rest of kathleen and company escaped their terrycloth shackles, daisy was sustaining defense wounds. that is, until, "soda swooped in like a papa eagle and tossed the kid off daisy. took the kid's knife and gave him what for. sodapop stabbed him a couple times and then i bounced his head like a basketball off the brick facing on the fireplace."
"before i could make it outside," she says, opening a beer, her second, and taking a swill, "i heard six shots and two bodies drop. i heard screams, i heard people running around. it was like a party - a party of death."
sodapop and kathleen ran towards the main gates. there they found one of the killers. "i got the girl who stabbed beau - i got her knife." the two then proceeded to stab, until her "body gurgled blood." after which, kathleen then opted to, "beat her in the head with a rock." she smiles, "i don't want to sugarcoat it - i did some things that were not very nice to those people, but they asked for it. i should have been better prepared; i was not and as a result, i was forced to use crude tools to get the job done."
thereon, the man with the gun caught up to them. "he smacked me right on the top of the head with the gun and started pistol-whipping soda in the face. i pounced on his back and i got a couple good ones in with the knife, but he shook me loose." coming to, she saw the remaining murderess chasing boogie and johnny frigiletti, the young filmmakers, back into the house. "they didn't come out," kathleen says, "but the girl did."
kathleen watched in horror as the girl hunted daisy down and attacked her in the grass. "it was so quick - knife in, knife out; over and over again. i don't know how you could get a kick out of something like that." at this moment, kathleen ran to the main gates and began screaming for help. as she tried to scramble up and over them, the man with the gun pulled her down and into the grass. "i had that rope around my neck and he started dragging me by it. i was like his little puppy - tired from brawling all night and weak from all the wounds i had sustained. i had no fight left in me. the papers say that he 'stabbed me until i stopped making noise,' but that's bullshit. the last thing i remember was him shaking the knife at me and bellowing, 'how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?' i felt the first three or four pokes, but after that - i was out for the count."
she designates here as a good place to break. the sun is setting in cielo, a lovely shade of lavender and pink. kathleen stares off and says, "and that's the fact, jack. i don't know shit about beau hitching to the l'amour, considering he was drenched in blood and probably crawled on hands and knees out the front gates--"
"--besides," jimmy interrupts, "i heard that friends of yours were driving down skid row and spotted him. they pulled over and after he told him what had just happened, they gave him a ride to the l’amour."
"yeah, sure. you just never do know with him - it could be an illness or it could be an act. he’s like the boy who cried wolf, i swear." kathleen woke up in the hospital hours later. by then, the bodies on the 312 property had either been sent off for immediate care or to the morgue, and the cops had begun their investigation. "they rudely rousted trotsky and scared the shit out of him. they handcuffed him and took him outside for a tour of the corpses on the grounds," and then incarcerated him for seven counts of homicide. arresting officers reported that he had 'no life' in his eyes. he was barefoot, shirtless and genuinely spooked. These charges were later dropped, as, "he didn't do it. i know who did it, i saw all their little scumbag faces. and the ones that aren't dead yet, i’m going to find."
jimmy quips, "oh yeah? and just how are we going to do that?"
kathleen smiles and pinches his cheek, "they're hippies with knives - how tough do you think it'll be?" she turns to me, "and that's the name of that tune!"
with story time over, kathleen hands me a beer and sends me off on the road. i blunder around the property in a daze and confuse myself for a good fifteen minutes. whereupon, i wander into the garage and confess to headlock that i was lost on the estate and looking for the main gates. he points off in the right direction and i kick off. to my luck, the grounds are well-lit, mostly thanks to the white christmas-tree lights strung around the fences; hung and left up by the after a party. i glance back in the direction of the main house and see kathleen sitting on the front porch, barely visible in the light. only her silhouette and a flash of golden hair are distinguishable from the driveway; but, still, it makes me think, "wow, she sure is the beautiful one."