The Late Bloomer (25 page)

As soon as I sit down on her bed, she pounces on top of me and
grinds her vagina against my (perma-soft) penis, which is safely cloaked under a layer of cotton underwear and blue jeans. My leather belt is looped tightly around my waist—a veritable chastity belt.

When it becomes obvious what is happening—or, rather,
not
happening—I suddenly evacuate myself to the bathroom. When I come back, I tell her I have to get home and make a phone call for work—you know, do an interview.

“You can use my phone,” she offers.

“No,” I say. “I don't have the number on me.”

I leave.

—

While writing a story on actor Ben Stein's new game show,
Win Ben Stein's Money
, I conduct a phone interview with Al Burton, the show's creator. Mr. Burton is a Hollywood legend who has created or produced dozens of the most popular TV shows of the last quarter century, among them
One Day at a Time, Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life
and the Scott Baio vehicle
Charles in Charge
(for which he also wrote the catchy theme song). Mr. Burton takes pride in having “discovered” an unknown Meg Ryan, whom he cast for a 1984 episode of
Charles in Charge.

A leprechaun of a man, short and perpetually smiling, Mr. Burton is curious about my background before coming to Hollywood. I tell him that I used to write a humor column called “The Adventures of Ken&Glenn” and describe some of our antics, which amuses him. “Send me over some of your columns,” he says. “Sounds like a lot of fun.” A few days later he calls me back and invites Glenn and me to lunch at Morton's, his favorite Hollywood haunt on Melrose Avenue.

I figure it will be good for my
People
schmoozing to meet such a respected producer, so I agree. Mr. Burton, however, has his own agenda. After ordering our iced teas and crab cakes and grilled salmons and ahi tunas, Mr. Burton cuts right to the chase.

“Fellas,” he says, “the reason I wanted to meet you is that I have an
idea for a TV show starring Ken&Glenn. I think the stuff you guys did for that newspaper would translate very well onto television.”

“Okay,” I say. “We're all ears.”

“All right,” he says, clearing his throat. “Two words: Chick Magnets.”

I look over at Glenn; Glenn looks over at me.

“Come again?” I say.

“Chick Magnets,” Mr. Burton repeats.

“Chick magnets?”

“Yes,” he insists. “It will be a reality show about two guys who are always trying to get chicks by doing silly, outrageous things. Think MTV. Think
The Real World.
And we would call it
Chick Magnets.
”

Ken respectfully nixes the idea (fearing that “Ken” can only exist in the safety of the printed word, not exposed before a camera) and suggests to Mr. Burton that he instead hire someone more chick-magnetic. Someone much more at ease with picking up girls. Perhaps someone who has actually tried to pick up a chick since Reagan left office. Someone like Scott Baio. Though disappointed, Mr. Burton relents, and my opportunity to become a TV star is lost.

—

The distinction between “Ken” and Ken—that is to say, between “the funnyman with the funny prose” and the real man with the real problems—has grown even more blurry while I have been living and working in Hollyweird, where the convergence of image and reality is a stated goal, not something one should avoid.

There's the “Ken” who invites a Harvard girl he met at a party to accompany him to a comedy showcase at The Laugh Factory. This Ken buys her drinks and says funny things and pretends to flirt with her when she self-consciously crosses and uncrosses her muscular, mini-skirted thighs and brushes her hair off her face. He then pretends he's too cool and has too many sexual options to accept her eyelash-batting invitation to “come into the bathroom and fuck the shit out of me.” The
real Ken then goes home, disgusted, slaps his jiggly tits and wonders when the fuck he is going to get a life and get laid. . . . There's the “Ken” who flirts with Drew Barrymore at a party, but then the real Ken rears his fearful head and leaves the premises when the possibility, however slim, that he may be called upon to screw Ms. Drew becomes reality.

Ken has compartmentalized himself for protection against his own self-critical ego that constantly reminds him that
I am the biggest pussy on the planet and don't deserve the dick and two balls God gave me.

When my boss Jack assigns me a story about the teen rock group Hanson, I enthusiastically begin making arrangements to interview the three blond lads. When I learn that Hanson will only be available for an interview in London, I hastily arrange to fly there and spend the subsequent three weeks traveling through Europe on a much-needed vacation. There, I hope, I will gain perspective on my general malaise and weariness and, in between, walk my slothful body into shape by backpacking everywhere. And I will keep a diary, something I haven't done since college, since before my life became one big series of humiliating sexual encounters that have made rehashing it in print the last thing I want to do.

I arrive at Heathrow Airport on a chilly summer afternoon, and the next day I interview the Hanson brothers on the set of a music video they're shooting in Kensington Station. Practicing the fluff-journalism equivalent of foreign correspondence, I'm having a blast being away from the LA grind. No one knows me. I am invisible.

With my work done, I am set to begin what, in my black, five-by-seven-inch diary, I have dubbed “Ken's European Adventure.”

Before jetting off to Rome, I take a train north, to Cambridge, to see the storied university and to relax in the English countryside.

6/5/97

. . . I'm still single and haven't had sex in over three years. Loneliness is a bit of a problem, obviously. I've been very private—defensive, really—ever since my relationship with Claudia fell to pieces. The root of my isolation is a general anxiety I have about sex, particularly a fear of not being able to get it up. Of course, such a fear is as ridiculous and illogical as my phobia of elevators was back in college. I recall thinking that my life would be forever doomed, because I'd always have to avoid elevators! But I got over the anxiety, partly through desensitization and partly by simply making up my mind that I'd rather risk getting stuck in one than live a tortured life. I overcame this past problem through strength and courage—I was a man. It is a good lesson for me now with respect to my sexuality. It's very frustrating that I've been so fucking queer about women the past couple of years; and downright regrettable. I've let good opportunities for clean, fun sex slip away. And why? Because I won't let myself relax and confidently allow my body to enjoy itself.

Now. Right now! I'm vowing to change that. I will ruminate more on my self-imprisonment (sexually) later. Maybe this Europe trip is a turning point.

On the Alitalia flight from London to Rome, I read all 211 paperback pages of Douglas Coupland's novel
Generation X.
I relate to the search for meaning that underpins the book's characters and I feel, for the first time in a long time, that there might be other searching souls just like me out there.
This trip was a good idea.

The marble buildings and statues and sprawling piazzas of Rome, if not my musty brick hotel near Termini Stazione, are breathtaking. I spend a week walking—everywhere. I never take a bus or a taxi. I walk to the Vatican, to the Spanish steps, across the Tiber River, out to the Colosseum. I spend long, hot days sight-seeing, alone, existing on little
more than water, bananas, espressos and Diet Cokes. I drop at least ten pounds in less than a week, thus shrinking my boobs and love handles to a point where I am not embarrassed to take off my shirt as I sit by a fountain and write in my diary.

6/10/97

This trip had to happen, for I couldn't have continued living as maniacally as I had been for the past year or so. Ever since coming to LA I'd been whizzing around, trying to survive. I landed a great job and now I have fled to Europe. Slowly, I am gaining perspective on myself. Loneliness and isolation in a foreign country does that.

What I can tell is that I relate to the narrator in
Generation X,
Andy Palmer, who comes from a large family and thus craves his own personal space. He also is afraid to love, yet he craves it. I, too, feel as though I've created barriers to protect myself from hurt. Physically, I moved to the edge of the continent. My location is no accident; neither is my not having had sex for nearly four years. I am so bloody fearful of the disappointment and loathsome aching that sex—failed—has brought on me.

The question, of course, is why I have this erectile problem in the first place. The shrink I saw while at Columbia didn't have answers, so I bolted and have been in a self-induced celibacy ever since. The truth, the plain fucking truth, is that I'm sick of it. Sick of avoiding relationships with women, sick of being alone, sick of being controlled by a fear that should not exist any longer.

When I was little, my father constantly told me that women could fuck things up. Now I realize that Dad's view was quite skewed, since his mom was an idiot, and his resentment of my mom for getting pregnant with Kevin was extreme and self-pitying. Still, his whore-i-fication of the female gender was the first brick lain of my celibacy temple, because I, psychologically, placed women
to the side, so as not to detract from my focus on hockey and life. This fear stayed with me through my teens and into college—repression ruled this era. Avoiding women has become a symbolic act of defense; the problem is now I need not fear women.

The short end of this is that I need to do a psychological housecleaning, throw out all those outdated fears that ruled me. In other words, relax and enjoy.

So, shall I see a hooker? I don't know. Maybe. In one sense it would be good to practice a bit with a pro. But the ideal situation is to find a woman I can love and cherish, get intimate with, naked with, someone who is real and to whom I am emotionally vulnerable, for that is the true test. I need to overcome this nonsense. It is a priority. Move on—or check out.

A week after I return from my European Adventure, I am still feeling rejuvenated, refreshed—and thin. Yet, I am also suicidally close to “checking out” if I keep on disappointing myself. I am exhausted, tired of fighting my body. It's not so much that I want to kill myself as I want to just go to sleep forever, to escape my pain.

“You look so thin,” my friend Lizz says. “Good thin.”

In Hollywood, there's no such thing as
bad
thin.

All those long days hiking outside in Rome, Florence, Munich, Paris and London also have given my face a healthy, sun-kissed color, not the sickly pale hue I've had for over two years. Also, since I returned I haven't been beating myself up for not having a girlfriend. All that diary writing and pondering has disposed of my bad attitude and long-standing she-fensive posture, if you will. I'm confident that it will just be a matter of time before the future Mrs. Kenny Baker walks into my life.

The publicist for Hanson, pleased with my
People
story on the trio, has invited me over to the NBC Studios to view the band's Friday-night appearance on
The Tonight Show.
Hanson's little drummer, Zac, gave me a tip on the store in London where I could get a pair of
electric-green Doc Martens boots, so I want to say hi and show off my thick-soled beauties.

I sit in the audience as Jay Leno introduces the guys, who then play one of their bubblegum-pop ditties called “Where's the Love?” Although in more bitter times I might have lamented the song's lovelorn message, I happily tap my Doc Martens to Zac's beat, amused at the rabid teenage girls screaming in my ear throughout the performance.

After the show, as I wait backstage for the kids to emerge from the dressing room, my cell phone chirps. It's Jack.

Jack says there's a story about a ballerina who might have starved herself to death. It's getting a lot of attention in the national press, he says, so he wants me to interview the dancer's family in San Francisco ASAP.

Early the next morning I drive to LAX and hop on a United shuttle flight, reading a stack of newspaper clippings about the dead dancer, Heidi Guenther, as I speed northward.
A twenty-two-year-old dancer from San Francisco . . . officials told her to lose weight . . . Heidi kept losing . . . 5-feet-4 inches tall, 93 pounds . . . she died a few days ago of an apparent heart attack while driving with her mom to Disneyland.

When I first came to
People
, my least favorite stories to report were the tragedies. They still are. The worst part is looking in people's grieving eyes. Eyes filled with a depth of loss and pain I cannot fathom but that I must somehow muster the strength to portray to our readers. Perhaps what makes it so hard is that every time I see those eyes, I think of my dad's in the last few months of his life. Perhaps reporting these disasters is my penance for not being with my dad in the final, ugly days of his life. I nearly threw up as I knocked on the door of a family who had lost their nineteen-year-old son in a TWA crash off the coast of Long Island, then shook as a distraught father handed me a photo of his son and implored, “Please don't lose this. It's all I've got.” I blinked back tears as I sat in Emery and Virginia Richter's living room in Oroville, California, listening to them tearfully recall what a smart, pretty girl their daughter Margaret had been before she joined
the Heaven's Gate doomsday cult and ended up killing herself a few days earlier, along with thirty-eight other members.

I cry yet again. On a foggy June afternoon in San Francisco, as I press Record on my microcassette recorder and listen to one of Heidi Guenther's best friends, Robin, tell me how a young woman as beautiful and talented as Heidi could practically starve herself to death. As usual, it's the eyes that turn on my tear faucet. In journalism school they taught me to maintain eye contact, no matter how disturbing the words coming from your subject's mouth. This way, the person connects with you as a person, not a journalist, and they will trust you enough to give you the “good stuff.” Robin's caring blue eyes tell a story all their own. Tired and red, they belie the youthfulness that must spring from her when not under such duress. I am drawn to Robin's eyes; they are windows into her soul.

“All she wanted to do was dance,” Robin, herself a ballerina, says. “She loved it more than anything. She was so focused and driven to succeed, even at a young age. All she wanted was to be a ballerina.”

Robin talks of the pressure Heidi felt to be thin, to realize the superthin body ideal that's expected of female ballet dancers. Ex-Lax, diet pills, starvation diets, obsessive exercise regimens. Heidi tried it all. “She didn't want to have breasts,” Robin adds. “She wanted to be flat-chested. She hated her body.”

I nod and dab a tissue under my runny nose. Before leaving, I give Robin a firm hug.
I can't remember the last time I hugged a girl.

Driving back to my hotel, I realize that I easily could be as dead as Heidi Guenther. For the past few weeks, in fact, I have been taking an herbal appetite suppressant. Two pills a day. The pills give me the false sense that my stomach is full, so that I don't eat, so that I can be thin and compete with the Hollywood pretty boys I have to write about. Of course, no one knows this about me. Neither do they know that a few months ago I bought a package of “dieter's tea,” which, like Ex-Lax, flushes food out before it can be deposited onto my love handles and chest. Like Heidi, all I wanted to do was dance the goalie dance; like
Heidi, I panicked when coaches criticized me; like Heidi, I am trying to control my seemingly out-of-control life by controlling the food I eat; like Heidi, I hate my breasts; like Heidi, I hate my body. But, unlike Heidi, I am lucky. To be alive. To have identified the mistakes I'm making, the potentially fatal choices I have made to cope with my haunting self-hatred that I have not shared with anyone, that I have been too Larry Baker macho to admit that it is killing me. To have an understanding soul to call on a lonely northern California night as I stare out my hotel window, desperately wanting my body, my life, my sexuality, back.

I phone Robin and tell her I was thinking of her, of Heidi, of wanting to see her. She admits the same.

Liberated by the realization I'm lucky to be alive, no matter how frustratingly emasculated and androgynous I might feel, the next night I take Robin to an Oakland A's game. I hold her hand the entire time and, taking comfort in the possibility that I have found a kindred soul, I am not nervous.

During the seventh-inning stretch, as the crowd around us rises to their feet and sings a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” I turn and face Robin, run my fingers through her sandy-blond hair and, staring into her expectant eyes, kiss her with a genuine, pinched-eyes passion I've never felt before.

It's the kiss that eventually saves my life.