Touching Kiefer Sutherland (1)

In 1989, I broke up with my first boyfriend. I touched Kiefer Sutherland. And I won the title of Miss Coors Extra Gold.

My first boyfriend was older than me. He drove a Corvette, owned a house, owned a business. Scott was arrogant. A true chauvinist pig. I met him in a bar. He was also a part-time pool shark. Once, Scott grabbed me by my hair then yanked me into a car through a window. His brother was driving. What happened was, I was out with my best friend without permission, and Scott felt entitled to drag me home. You give someone that power. Took me two years to take it back. Scott’s dominance felt familiar. One afternoon, he shoved me backwards  into a closet where I hit the back of my head and blacked out a second. My best friend was with me. We were inside my apartment. Soon as she screamed, “I’m going to get your father!” I crawled from the closet, stood to my feet then said, “You better get the fuck out of here.”

Scott’s face had already blanched. “He’ll kill me,” he said. Yes. Everyone was afraid of my father. He got out just in time. When my father arrived I recognized the look on his face and was sorry, sorry Scott had gotten away.

I’ve not ever allowed another man that sort of power of me again. But it’s complicated isn’t it, our silk-worm threads of desire. The same year I broke up with Scott I touched Kiefer Sutherland. I had a picture of him hung on a wall of my studio apartment. His bad boy smirk. He was fantasy fodder. You saw Kiefer as David in The Lost Boys, didn’t you? That’s the smirk, the danger turning me on, a promise of violence, me contradicting myself.

 

When I touched Kiefer Sutherland I was twenty-one. I wasn’t Miss Coors Extra Gold yet. I wasn’t anyone. Young, thin, blond. That’s who I was. Shy. Insecure. Flailing. I’d won a couple modeling contests that had gotten me nowhere. I worked as a waitress in a steakhouse. I sort of attended college. I wrote once in a while. Also, I drank.  I was good at that, honing my skills. My favorite place at the time was the Colorado Social Club, and my best friend and I could have drank you under the table.

My best friend, she was beautiful. She had Brittany-Murphy-like-doe-eyes and gazelle legs. We used to hold hands. Her car was this mile long Thunderbird. She had a thing for Rod Stewart. Christine was her name. She was with me when I touched Kiefer Sutherland. The first time I told this story, about Kiefer Sutherland, I was Miss Coors Extra Gold and delivering a speech at a vocational college. I opened with how tenacity had won me the contest. I closed with touching Kiefer Sutherland, although I didn’t put it that way. My speech was about tenacity. Getting what you want. I remember rows of upturned faces, sunshine, my outline in pencil on note cards, my hand shaking.

The second time I told this story I wrote it down in narrative form then sent it to a small literary journal that published it. Later, the story won an honorable mention in a small contest. I called it “Touching Kiefer Sutherland” and it was about a girl at a crossroads. It was different from this one.

When I sent Christine a copy of the story she called me from Texas, because that’s where she was by then, and said, “That’s not how I remember it.”

First lesson in writing about an event from real life. Perception is everything. Christine saw different things. I mean, she saw things different. What mattered to her didn’t matter to me. She remembered details about Dennis Hopper. About Carol Kane. About the movie director. About the director’s assistant or whoever she was. I simply didn’t care about those people. I was there for Kiefer Sutherland. I was a moth to his flame and fluttered ever closer, singing my wings. I wanted him to burn me.

Before I won Miss Coors Extra Gold, I wasn’t deliberate about much. That’s a confession. I was deliberate about self destruction. Sure. I was deliberate about drinking. Everything else. College, I went when I felt like it. Writing, I did it sometimes. But touching Kieifer Sutherland. Absolute intent. That was deliberate. Perhaps fatalistic. I flew straight into you like a moth at a window. A collision most people would hardly notice. Soft but severe. Sure. I’ve met celebrities since then. Most were coincidental. I was at a party, concert, or club, something. Then So-and-So tapped me on the shoulder. Or So-and-So sent someone over. “Hey. So-and-So would like to meet you.”  But you, Kiefer. I came after you. Soft but severe. Bam. My lack of grace in the moment, stunning. I want you to know that.

Third time I told this story was in a strip club. I told my friend Billy. He said, “That’s the best story in the world.” Billy always said nice things to me. A few months later he called in the middle of the night.

“Guess where I am now.”

“LA?”

“Right. But guess where I am exactly.”

“I don’t know. Tell me.”

“A party, baby.”

“How surprising. I love you, Billy, but I’m tired.”

“I told him the story.”

“Told who?”

“Him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your story about Kiefer Sutherland.”

“Yeah. But who’d you tell?”

“I’m at a party with him.”

“Wait. What? You’re at a party with KIEFER SUTHERLAND?”

“No. CHARLIE SHEEN.”

“What?”

“Charlie loves the story.”

“You told Charlie Sheen my story about Kiefer Sutherland?”

“I’m at a party with Charlie Sheen RIGHT NOW. You have to come. Charlie Sheen is here. And I told him your story.”

“Shut-up, Billy.”

“Want me to put Charlie on the phone? Hey, Charlie!”

“I’m hanging up Billy.”

“Charlie! Come here!”

“I’m in Denver, Billy. It’s the middle of the night. And I’m not flying . . . ”

“Yeah? This is Charlie.”

Actually it was. I think so. Billy was a good friend, and he never lied to me, and he was always partying with somebody somewhere because he had good drugs and knew everyone, so when he put Charlie Sheen on the phone, I believed him.

Billy. He had these twinkling eyes, a great laugh, infectious. He used to play that song for me, “Damn, Wish I was Your Lover,” because I was so in love with it. One night, he kept me from jumping out the back of a car when I was drunk. He crawled into my bed once and held my hair while I puked over the side into a bucket.

He also had a pretty serious drug problem. Equally self destructive. People fall off the planet, don’t they? I mean they jump when you’re not looking. Or you let go.

*

The years 1986-1996. Those were my . . . Let’s just say I was self-absorbed. My years of destructive. I took chances. Partied with rock stars. Flirted with disaster. I also spent a lot of time obsessing over the ways my father had wronged me. Yet I couldn’t live without his attention, however I could get it, whatever it was. My supreme clutch play of all time? I swallowed a bunch of aspirin then called my father. Soon as he answered I hung up. When I called back, he answered again, and again I hung up. Third time I called, serious this time, as I’d begun to feel groggy and my ears were ringing, he’d taken the phone off the hook. All I got was a busy signal. So I called a friend. Those years, ten years, I made less than productive decisions. Sometimes counter-productive. You know what I mean. I fell for my girlfriends who fell in love with men. I’d throw myself at a man who’d never fall for me. Old story. A million years old. I didn’t feel worthy of it. Love, of course.