Secret Celebrity

chapter six

I think I should explain why a ten-year-old girl would become so fascinated with a twenty-five-year-old Richard Gault that she would want to be him. Picture this: It's a rainy Friday afternoon in my South Boston neighborhood. I'm walking home from school but I don't really want to go home. But what are my choices? It seems on every other block there's a church. Doors unlocked. Everyone welcome. But I'm already too jaded by the whole religion thing. Easy to be when your parish priest is known for trying, and failing, to get kids to kiss the cross he wears on a very long chain around his neck. Very long. So long the cross falls right on top of his d*ck. We might have been young but we weren't stupid. I keep walking. On every corner there's a bar. Off limits for a kid, not that any of it looks very appealing. The doorways are so dingy and depressing it makes me think I'll never want to go into one of those joints, no matter what magical spirits they might offer. The only place left is the movies.

Maybe six people are the four o'clock show. It's a futuristic movie about roving bands of rebels carousing through the streets of some nameless U.S. city. Richard Gault plays the leader of the good-guys group. Occasionally he's on a motorcycle but mostly he just walks around dressed in black, protecting his turf. He looks a little like Brandon Lee, but he doesn't do any martial arts stuff. He doesn't have to. People know not to fvck with him. If anyone tries to bullshit him, he nails them on it. He gets what the deal is. You can't fool him. You can't manipulate him. But he isn't robotic or anything. He has his weaknesses. He lost the girl he loved (I don't remember this part too well. Did she die? Disappear?) and it's made him see life as terminally chaotic and senseless. The irony being that his very presence brings order and sense wherever he goes.

I couldn't (unlike Waz) tell you any of the dialogue from the film. But I wanted to be able to be that cool and move through the streets of South Boston the way he moved through futuristic USA. However, even though I wanted to be him, I also wanted to be with him. I wanted to be his new girl. I wanted to be walking around, hanging out with him, hanging on his arm. And even though I didn't really know what a blow job was all about when I was ten, I did know that if Richard Gault had been wearing a cross on a long chain, I wouldn't have minded kissing that. So there you have it. Richard Gault—my first role model and my first sexual fantasy. You don't forget those things—even twenty-five years later.

~~~~

The afternoon talk show host has just finished crooning a stage tune to his audience of mostly middle-aged women. It's about halfway through his show and it's time to bring out a new face. "I'm thrilled to introduce you to my next guest. It's his very first television appearance. You may not recognize his name but he stars in Smashland, a new movie opening this Friday. And, he has just finished his first album for A&M records. Please join me in welcoming Richard Fault."

A breathtakingly handsome man in his mid-twenties walks out on the set. He seems embarrassed by the applause. He shakes the hand of the talk show host and sits in the designated guest chair. The host looks at him like he could fall in love. Like he is falling in love, taken in Richard's green eyes, high cheekbones, and longish thick dark hair.

"So this must be an exciting time for you," the host says, getting excited himself.

"It's weird," Richard replies, slumping in his seat.

"There's a lot going on. It's easy to get hooked on the velocity. You know what I mean?"

"Well, you're in the fast lane now," the talk show host says, as if bestowing Richard membership into an illustrious club.

Richard nods as if he agrees but then unexpectedly switches gears. "Thing about the fast lane," he says, "is it's fine as long as you don't veer on over into the suicide lane. And in this business that's an occupational hazard."