“Because people worry about my mental faculties.”
All anxiously hold their breath. He’s going to say something… serious—
“You are David Letterman — aren’t you?”
Hilarity! Foot-stomping ovation! The kid stays in the picture!
Now Jay and Kit ease into the familiar, comforting shuck-and-jive What was it like?/How does it feel to be back? shtick.
Ice-breaky stuff to give guest and host (audience too) their sea legs.
Jay says, “Now, one thing the people out there may or may not know is that there was an irony connected to this whole ‘event.’ ”
“Event? You mean, when I got hit on the head?”
Laughter. A man of the people, regular guy. Deserving, courageous.
“Yes!” says Jay. “Mind if we talk about it?”
“That’s why I’m here. But you talk — I’ll listen.” Laughter. “Because, man, I am tired.”
Applause. Whoop-whoops.
Jay says, “OK. That’s fair. Fair deal.”
“I just flew in from rehab,” says Kit, on a roll. “And boy, is my mind tired.” Laughter: tidewater ripple: tsunami applause.
“Carrie Fisher wrote that for me.”
Jay cracks up.
Kit adds, “And I’m [bleeped] nervous.”
With the unexpected obscenity, Leno joyfully loses it. The crackling realness of the moment. Rapture from the crowd, then—
A (lady’s) voice, from audience: “We love you, Kit!”
Jay, sternly: “Have that woman escorted from the studio… and immediately taken to Mr. Lightfoot’s hotel room.”
Laughter. Whistles, catcalls. Applause.
A (man’s) voice, from audience: “I love you, Kit!”
Jay and his chin lose it again.
Giddiness, contagion. Punch-drunk love. Admiration for the conquering hero’s return.
Jay gently admonishes the audience like the old friends they are. “All right, calm down now.” Back to his guest. “And I want to talk about the play, True West—what a triumph— [applause begins; Jay deftly thwarts another prolonged salvo by continuing] but… and this fascinates me. You were preparing to do a film when you got [awkward] hit on the head…”
Kit nods matter-of-factly. “Darren Aronofsky. Wonderful director.”
“… now the irony is that you were actually going to play — to portray—a character who was very much like you. A famous movie actor who was normal — at least, relatively! — until he was involved in an automobile accident that rendered him with [awkward for Jay now], well, not ‘diminished capacity,’ but I guess what you’d call a kind of neurological disa—”
“Brain damage,” says Kit tersely.
The audience laughs, though slightly discomfited.
“Oops,” says Kit. “Sorry to be political incorrect.” (In a nanosecond, sharks to blood, the mob registers possible retard-omit of — ly from politically.) “Politically incorrect,” says Kit, self-correcting without fanfare — and all is well again. Just a case of nerves.
“Come on!” Kit says boisterously, throwing down a challenge to the crowd. “You can say it— brain damage!”
Raises his arms like a conductor while Jay bashfully shakes his head at the mischief making. The audience reverberates: “Brain damage!”
Not once, not twice, but three times.
Applause — ovation.
They are his.
Together Again
“HOW LONG HAVE you lived here?”
“About a year. It used to be Woody’s — Woody Harrelson’s.”
“Very cool.”
The Taosified beach house sat on two lots, north of the Colony.
She invited him over after seeing him on Leno. Why not? She apologized for not coming to the play. She said, with a laugh, that she was worried he’d have seen her in the audience and freaked out.
“Does Alf stay with you?”
“No.”
A vexing beat as the waves crashed.
“Did you know that Woody’s father is in jail for shooting a federal judge? He’s a professional hit man! People even think he might have been the guy on the grassy knoll.” Kit nodded indifferently. “You look… so great. You were so funny on Leno.”
“I missed you,” he said.
Past tense. The air went out of her. “I missed you too! It’s just… I–I… Kit, it was so hard for me. It’s been really hard! And… I know that sounds so self-obsessed and it’s true. I so fucked this up… and it’s been so weird just to try and stay present, to see that — to see that that’s the kind of person I am, or wound up being, because I don’t even think I’m— Sometimes it’s like, I look back and say, ‘Who was that?’ ”
He smiled sardonically. Then, with the smallest hint of a stammer: “This — this is the part where the girlfriend hasn’t seen him for a long time.” She wasn’t sure if he was being cruel. “This is the scene where they feel bad together.”
“Kit,” said Viv, starting to cry. “I am so sorry for what happened. I am so sorry that I — that I couldn’t deal with it.”
“Not your fault,” he said stalwartly, determined not to get emotional. Not to give her that.
“The whole thing with Alf—”
“Not your fault, Viv.”
“—has been pretty much over for three months.” She felt like she was on the witness stand of her own court-martial. “Not that that means anything. Or should. But he— Alf was my connection to you. And I know that sounds weird and like a cop-out…”
“It’s OK.” He wouldn’t look at her.
“It’s not OK. And I just need you to — I just walk around this planet feeling so fucking miserable. Kit, I still love you so much! And when — when you got hurt… I know it sounds like some stupid cliché—I was talking to Steve Soderbergh (not about this), and he said, ‘Clichés are true, that’s why they’re clichés’—but I think I just loved you too much to go to the hospital and see you that way—”
He looked toward the ocean. “I thought I saw a seal out there.”
“Probably just paparazzi,” she said, vaguely relieved to be taken out of her moment. “Their Malibu disguises are really resourceful.”
She changed tack and gossiped about the business. Who was sleeping with whom, who’d been fired, who was at Promises. That she’d signed with Gerry Harrington, and Angela wanted to throw Kit a dinner — Angela was working for Dolce now. They walked on the sand and smoked weed. The conversation got looser. Viv asked if he still liked to fuck. He said that he did and managed pretty well. She took a flier and said maybe they should, “as a healing thing.” Kit laughed, then she said all actresslike that no one ever fucked her like he did.
“I have a girlfriend,” he said. Square business.
“Oh. Who?”
“You don’t know her.”
“Is she an actress?” He shook his head. “Is she a Buddhist?”
He smiled. “Civilian. High school sweetheart.”
“Oh right — the old flame. I think I read that in the Post. What’s her name?”
“Cela.”
“So if she’s the old flame, what does that make me?”