Stupid and Contagious (32 page)

“Just so you know . . . we know you’re in here and have known since you came in,” he says.

“Are you talking to me?” I ask, not in the De Niro way, but in an innocent
who, me?
way.

“Yes, you.”

I come out of my stal , and so does he. “How’s it going?” I ask. Total y nonchalant. I notice that there are two security guards standing at the door as wel .

“Listen . . . I understand this is important to you,”

David says.

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”

“But the thing is . . . even if I wanted to let you back there to see him . . . it wouldn’t do any good.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he says, “Mr. Schultz is in Barcelona at the Global Food Business Summit.”

“Barcelona . . . Spain?”

“No, Barcelona, Rhode Island,” he says.

“He’s out of the country?”

“Yes.”

“And you let me sit here for over an hour?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I ask in bewilderment.

“I don’t know,” he says, like he genuinely doesn’t.

And it comes out so matter-of-fact that I want to punch him in the face.

“You’re an asshole,” I say. Obviously not the
right
thing to say, because as soon as I say it, the two security monkeys grab me and drag me out. They escort me into the elevator, and just as the doors are almost closed, that Spade wannabe sticks his arm out and stops the door. It opens up again to reveal the smug little prick standing there with his arms now crossed.

“Oh, and by the way . . .” he says. “Mr. Schultz has his own private bathroom here, so even if he
was
in the office . . . you
never
would have actual y had your little toilet conference.” And he turns and walks away.

Just as the doors are closing again, I hear him say,

“Who’s the asshole now?”

He won. The little bastard won.

When I get to the lobby I see Heaven and Strummer right outside waiting for me. As I come outside, she can tel by the look on my face—and the two security guards attached to either side of me—that things didn’t go as intended.

“Did you at least get to see him?” she asks.

“No.”

“Did you get to see
anyone
?”

“Yes, his receptionist. And, of course, the coffee teamsters,” I say, motioning at the two men who just tossed me at Heaven.

“You were there an awful y long time,” she says.

“I real y don’t want to talk about it.”

“Al . . . righty, then.”

“What about you? I hope you had a better time than I did?”

She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Wel , I had an interesting one. Educational . . .”

“Do tel . . .”

“I learned that cat piss glows in the dark. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, me either,” she says. I don’t know where she comes up with this stuff. Her mind . . . it’s like I’ve come upon this secret vault that science wil someday discover—or probably never discover. Which is fine by me. Kind of like when there’s a band I real y like but nobody knows about them. I want people I like to hear them, but when the whole world jumps on the bandwagon I get pissed. Because I found them first.

Unless, of course, it’s one of
my
bands . . . in which case the world is more than welcome to jump. But Heaven . . . I’d prefer it if nobody else jumps on her.

Heaven

Brady and I grab lunch at this place cal ed Honey Hole Sandwiches, which sounds slightly pornographic, but supposedly they make a mean sandwich. It has sort of a gothic bayou theme with a ful bar that looks like a run-down bayou shack of sorts. The people that work here are friendly and seem to real y enjoy making sandwiches.

After lunch Brady changes out of his nice(r) shirt and throws on his old CBGB T-shirt. We get back into the car and drive over to the Convention Center, but there’s nothing going on.

“Hmm . . . that’s strange,” I say. “I guess it’s not as big a deal as I expected.”

“Guess not,” Brady says.

“Then let’s just go to Viretta Park,” I say. “It’s right across the street from his old house.”

“Lead the way,” he says, and I pul out our map of Seattle as we drive to pay our respects to Kurt.

When we get to the park, which is right across from Kurt’s old house, I get chil s as soon as we pul up.

The neighborhood is extremely nice. Real y big houses.

Obviously

an

exceptional y

wealthy

neighborhood.

I think we’re both surprised by how few people are there. It’s certainly not empty, but it’s not the thousands upon thousands of kids that were at the Seattle Center ten years ago. Then again, those kids are now grown up and probably have better things to do. We park the car and walk onto the grass.

There are two hippie guys, stoned out of their minds and stinking of patchouli oil, leaning up against a tree. One of them looks at Brady and scoffs.

“Hey, Trendy Wendy,” he says.

“Trendy Wendy?” Brady says back, not sure what his deal is.

“Yeah, Trendy Wendy,” he says and points at Brady’s CBGB T-shirt. “Where’d you get that shirt . . .

at the
mall
?”

“I’m from New York. And I got it in New York—

where I
live.
”

“Poser,” the stoner says.

“Um . . . no. I live in
New York,
” Brady says.

“Just ignore him,” I say.

“Oh, now
you’re
the voice of reason?” Brady says to me.

“Yes,” I say.

“Fine,” he says, because he knows I’m right. And any other day, in any other place, I’d have told the kid to fuck off myself. But not today. Not here.

There are people sitting on the grass, leaning up against the trees, playing guitar and singing Nirvana songs. The bench seems to be an altar. Kids have come here for the last ten years and scrawled messages to Kurt on it, but today it is overloaded with a bunch of candles, flowers, and pictures of Kurt.

There are also poems and letters written to Kurt, and there are even a couple Teen Spirit deodorant sticks on the bench, which I think is pretty clever. The kids are singing “Al Apologies.” As I stand by the bench looking at the makeshift altar, having my own private moment, a tear forms in my eye. I can’t help it.

We get to talking to a few of the kids, and I meet a girl who came out here with her mother from Kansas.

Just for this. She tel s me that they happened to meet Kurt’s grandfather earlier in the day, and he invited them over to his house for tea. He actual y gave the girl a few childhood pictures of Kurt. That’s a pretty cool story—and keepsake.

What strikes me, actual y, is the age of these kids.

The people you would think
make sense
being here aren’t the majority. The majority are younger. There’s a little girl in a Nirvana T-shirt who can’t be more than thirteen years old, which means that she was three when Kurt died. And they don’t seem like depressed or fucked-up kids. They seem like good, intel igent kids who just love the music. They relate to it because they think that Kurt was
real.
And he was. A lot of people are crying. Others just sit quietly, drinking their coffee. What’s weird is everybody here has a cup of Starbucks coffee.

Then this idiot comes from out of nowhere. It’s been pretty peaceful so far, but he’s some local cable access TV host who’s got al kinds of conspiracy theories about Kurt’s death. He starts screaming al of this crazy shit . . . rattling off statistics, pointing the finger at Courtney Love, and just making a giant fuss.

He has one camera pointed at the crowd and another one attached to his hip, so he can also tape himself.

He’s making a scene, and it’s real y uncomfortable.

“Get out of here!” one kid yel s.

“It was al a cover-up!” he yel s back. “You’re al content to sit here and cry, but none of you are doing anything to fix it! What have you done for Kurt?” He starts to fol ow some of the kids around with his camera, shouting in their faces. When he picks on some poor fourteen-year-old and actual y pokes him, Brady steps in front of him.

“Dude, chil out,” Brady says. “These people came here to pay their respects to Kurt. They don’t need you screaming in their faces.”

“Courtney’s own
father
thinks she did it!” he yel s.

“Shut the fuck up,” says the hippie dude that was cal ing Brady “Trendy Wendy” ten minutes earlier. It’s true. Nothing unites people like a common enemy, and Brady and hippie guy, along with everyone else, are now on the same side.

are now on the same side.

“You’re al accomplices then! Murderers!” the wacko yel s.

“Listen,” Brady says, and he suddenly gets in the guy’s face. “There are a lot more of us here than you.

If you don’t take your little cameras and your big mouth and get the fuck out of here, we wil tear you apart limb from limb, and then come back here ten years from now and celebrate
your
death.”

Everybody starts cheering, and the hippie guy actually
hugs
Brady. Then everybody goes back to playing songs and singing along.

I walk back over to the shrine and notice a sign that someone made and put under the bench. It reads DON’T FORGET LAYNE STALEY. He was the lead singer of Alice In Chains, another Seattle band. Layne died of a heroin overdose two years ago this month (bad month for Seattle rock stars) at the age of thirty-four. And almost as soon as I notice the sign I see a three-legged dog walking over to the vigil. I swear to God, this is true. It freaks me the hel out because the cover of one of Alice In Chains’s records had a picture of a three-legged dog. The only difference is that the dog on the album cover was missing a front leg, and this dog is missing a back leg, but it’s almost like a sign.

Like Layne is here with us, too. Or maybe he’s with Kurt, and they’re both okay.

“What’s with al of the Starbucks cups?” Brady says when he notices that there’s actual y a table ful of canisters of Starbucks coffee and coffee cups. “It’s like they’re here to mock me.”

“The dude who owns Starbucks lives right up there,”

I hear someone say, and Brady and I both turn around.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Brady says.

“I shit you not. Howard, I think, is his name. I come here al the time to pay my respects to Kurt. I’ve met him. He’s real y cool. He donated al the Starbucks coffee for anyone who was going to show up here today.”

“What house?” Brady asks.

“First house to the right,” the kid says, pointing.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Brady says.

“You need to go over there,” I say to Brady. “You must. I mean . . . you absolutely must. This is
fate
!”

“That is kinda weird.”

“Total y. You were psychical y brought to this spot.”

“Wow,” Brady says. “Thanks, Kurt.”

“Go over there,” I urge.

Brady turns to the kid, “That house right up there?”

“Yup,” the kid says. Brady looks at me, runs to the car, grabs his proposal and a baby bottle, and takes off toward the house.

I walk back to where the kids are sitting in a circle, singing.

“Can’t believe it,” some girl says. “Dead at twenty-seven. Too young.” And I’m once again reminded of my fear. I stil haven’t found a husband. I haven’t even gone on a date. Unless you count Darren the other night, but we didn’t even go out to dinner. I start to get anxious and try to push it out of my mind. I don’t want to think about this right now. Or the fact that my professional career in PR is a fading memory. Or that I can’t even hold down a fucking waitressing job, let alone a serious relationship. And I’m going back to . .

. what?

I try to quiet the inside of my head and just
be
here.

Where it’s calm, and people are singing and remembering Kurt. But they start singing “Something in the Way,” and my brain starts replaying my breakup with Darren and the two failed mini-relationships I had after Darren. And then it fast-forwards into al these little movies—little ful -color vignettes of al the stupid things I’ve ever said or done. Maybe it’s giving me examples of why I’m stil single? Why I’m unemployed? Why nothing is going my way? Maybe it’s al my fault.

But wait—fuck that! I’m single because I’m picky.

I’m single because I’m not going to
settle.
Yes, I’l find a job, but not just any job. And yes, I need to get married relatively soon or I wil die, but I
still
wil not settle. It’s
not
al my fault. Stop the tape.

“ I guess we’re playing for keeps now. I guess the kidding around is pretty much over, huh?”

—
Carl Spackler,
Caddyshack

“But how can you be sure?”

—
Buttercup,
The Princess Bride
Brady

I walk up to Schultz’s house and my Y chromosome kicks in immediately. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, I start comparing his house to my would-be mil ionaire’s mansion. This place is
impressive
and everything. But I’d have at
least
five cars out front—

just like any self-respecting rap star does. And I’d have someone there making sure they are waxed to perfection. Daily. I know . . . I’ve seen too many episodes of MTV
Cribs.
But you know what you
don’t
see on those MTV
Cribs
episodes, where they flaunt famous people’s wealth? Moats. When I make
my
money I am going to build a moat in front of my house.