Barry
A red carpet leads into the Palm Springs Convention Center.
On this perfect evening in the desert—temperature in the seventies, sun peeking over the San Jacinto Mountains like one of
the paparazzi lined up along the carpet—the red carpet for Kyle’s event has turned gold.
Flashbulbs pop.
Why did I come?
I mean, do I still carry a torch for Kyle? Am I hoping he will take me back? Or I am hoping that he will throw this pathetic
old dog a bone?
I narrow my eyes behind my sunglasses and study the cult of celebrity before me.
Celebrities line the carpet, entertainment reporters and fans calling their names.
For a moment, these stars make eye contact, notice the invisible, and our collective hearts stop.
And then it hits me: That’s why I’m here: to be seen again.
This is all a game: Money begets money. Fame begets fame. These events not only pull ratings and readers, putting ad money
in the coffers of the networks and newspapers, but they also put rears in seats. If a movie doesn’t sell tickets, the game
is over.
A reporter pushes me, a microphone is extended before my face. For a moment, I think it is for me, but Ida Red—one of the stars of Billy’s Back—moves onto the carpet.
I am invisible. I am on the outside looking in. And having fame and losing it begets a hole in your soul created by a green-eyed
monster called envy that only money and fame could possibly fill again.
I missed my red carpet. I missed my yellow brick road. Hollywood pulled the rug from beneath my feet forty years ago, and
I’m still navigating a path that has only been filled with roadblocks and rejection.
I smooth my hair and my suit, watching the actors wave and pose, and begin to move down the red carpet when I hear, “Where
the hell do you think you’re going?”
A security guard—hand already on his holster—is blocking my path.
“I was invited by Kyle Moses,” I say.
“Who wasn’t?” the guard says. He lifts a meaty hand and points to a snaking line under the colonnade. “The Nobody Line is
over there.”
“But I’m on the list.”
“Jesus Christ, buddy, the entire world is on a list.”
The world shifts underneath my feet.
Ego earthquake.
This happens nearly every week, when I’m rejected professionally, or dismissed as an untalented nobody.
For some reason, I am transfixed watching Ida Red walk the red carpet. She made her mark just as I was being erased, and she
never looked back.
Ida Red is not her real name of course. Very few people’s names—or souls—are real in Hollywood. It’s all invented. Every actor
was born and then named twice: once as a baby by their mama, and once again by their agent.
Ida Red grew up Emma Jean Simmons in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
No one is born in LA, they are drawn to it, like gays to the desert.
Emma Jean moved to Hollywood at the age of eighteen and was discovered working at the ticket counter by a famous producer who wanted to gauge the crowd reaction to his latest horror movie in a real movie theater.
At the time, he was casting for his latest low-budget movie.
It was a new take on the horror genre in which the producer intended to take the mechanics of a scary movie and incorporate them into a thriller where the hero and villain were equally matched.
When he saw Emma Jean’s flame-red hair, emerald eyes and porcelain skin and heard an accent that needed no work, he brought her in for an audition, and the rest, as they say, is Hollywood history.
She was cast as Kyle’s girlfriend, Loretta, in the Billy the Hillbilly movies, an innocent country girl whose brothers and father kill Billy’s family for simply being darn good people.
And which character took the last shot that killed her brother and uttered a line that became legend?
“You was right,” Loretta said to her brother, holding a gun over him as she watched him die, a swimming pool of red at her
feet. “We is blood relatives.”
Ida Red is wearing an emerald gown that matches her eyes and my envy. Her hair is still dyed flame-red, but now it’s too red, as if her head has burst into flame. Ida has undergone more work than a mid-century home. With makeup and extensions,
she looks like a wax figure melting under the sun on the red carpet. Ida has been married more times than Elizabeth Taylor
and—for the past few years—has been “working” as a Real Housewife of Hollywood, where her drunken behavior has made her a
fan favorite. I’m sure that helped fuel this remake, too.
“You high, man?” the security guard asks. “I told you to move away from the carpet.”
He puffs his chest and again places his hand on his holster.
I turn and retreat on the carpet. I cut between a camera for Entertainment Tonight and a woman wearing a media badge that screams People. I am about to step into the shadows and hightail it to my car when I hear, “Barry?”
I turn. Kyle is standing on the red carpet—surrounded by a team of handlers—in a too-tight suit and a crisp white shirt that is open a dangerous number of buttons. He waves and motions for me to come closer. I near the red carpet again when the same security guard blocks my path.
“It’s okay,” Kyle says. “He’s with me.”
I shoot the security guard a look that walks the line between I told you so and fuck you, asshole.
For a moment, the fault line underneath my feet stabilizes again.
“Where were you going?” Kyle asks.
“Getting in line with the other guests,” I lie, gesturing toward the colonnade.
“Bullshit,” Kyle says. “Sherry, this is a dear friend of mine from long ago. Would you have someone escort him inside and
put him in one of the reserved seats up front?”
She nods and speaks into a headset. Seconds later, a girl who looks like she should be home babysitting puts her arm around
my back and guides me through the crowd.
“See you after the event!” Kyle yells.
When people hear his voice, they rush the red carpet.
“Billy the Hillbilly!”
I glance back.
Fans are weeping, snapping photos, trying to be a part of his aura for even a split second.
This should have been my life.
Instead, another gay Moses is parting the Red Sea.
“That was quite a spectacle,” I say.
“Just part of the game,” Kyle says as if red carpet galas are as normal a part of one’s day as pumping gas.
We are seated at the intimate curved bar in Counter Reformation.
Counter Reformation is a “secret” restaurant, hidden in the gardens behind the famed Parker Palm Springs hotel, which was once owned by Merv Griffin and recently redesigned by Jonathan Adler, the place where celebrities, Coachella acts and hipster wannabes can linger in mid-century luxe without being ogled.
Counter Reformation serves decadent small plates paired with an eclectic selection of exclusive wines and champagne.
“I’ve never been here before,” I say.
“You haven’t?”
Again, a two-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne is as normal to Kyle as a stop at In-N-Out is for most folks. His reality
is a little different.
The team behind Billy the Hillbilly: Billy’s Back! reserved the entire space at Counter Reformation for the after-party. Counter Reformation is a sort of Paris tabac hidden
behind massive jewel-toned doors and sculptures of potted golden palm trees. I gained access from yet another security guard
solely because my name was on a list.
Your name must always be on a list in Hollywood or you are invisible.
A tower of canapés, almost too pretty to eat, arrives before us. I raise a glass.
“Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s been such a wonderful night, I still can’t believe we ran into each other after all
this time,” I say. “Congrats on all your success, Kyle.”
“Thanks, Barry.”
Kyle clinks my glass.
I take a sip of champagne.
“Was that a convincing monologue?” I ask with a smile, letting my facade drop. “I wanted it to sound sincere, but I’d be lying
if I said I weren’t a tad jealous and a little bit bitter that this never happened for me.” I take another sip. “And I’m still
confused by our breakup. We were so young, but we were so in love.”
The end comes out like more of a begging question: Weren’t we so in love?
“I’d also be lying if I said I hadn’t followed your career and personal life,” I press on. “God, therapy has turned me into a loquacious oversharer. I should be performing Shakespeare.”
“Therapy, huh?” Kyle asks, sipping his champagne. “Over me?”
His burly hands hold the fragile flute tenderly, and I think of when he used to hold my face that way.
Stop it, Barry. You’re just pathetic.
“To think we both started out living in that tiny apartment over the Blockbuster,” he continues. “You worked at the mall,
right?”
I nod at the memory. “And you delivered Domino’s,” I add. “Free pizza, remember?”
Kyle nods. “Do you know how hard it was to deliver a pizza in LA in under thirty minutes, man? That was a much more stressful job than I have now.”
I laugh. “Those were the days.”
Tribal music thumps quietly in the background like a heartbeat.
“You know you fucked up when you broke up with me, right?”
“But I didn’t break up with you,” I say softly. “You told me I was selfish for taking a role I didn’t deserve and threw a
champagne bottle at me.” I nod at the one before us. “You told me you hated me and hoped that I would fail. Am I remembering
that correctly?”
“Perspective is the architect of fate, Barry,” Kyle says with a smile. “From my point of view, you essentially not only broke
up with me when you accepted the role of Coco, but your life changed for the worse almost immediately because of it. If you
look at it from my perspective, I was right, Barry, and you should have listened to me from the beginning. I always know best.
I always take care of those I love.”
My years of therapy with Dr. Doolan set off alarm bells in my head that chime, Control freak! and Run for your life, Barry!
But then Kyle’s arm brushes mine, and my skin immediately ignites like a match at his touch. I half expect a fire to start in the soft fur of his forearm.