Everyday Psychopaths Read online

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  It’s hard not to be captivated by red carpet events and their flashing lights and ridiculously beautiful people milling about smiling like this was the night of their lives and they were oh-so-happy to see this person and that person and spit out countless stale-sounding comments like “you look amazing”, “you were terrific in that role” and “have you lost weight?” followed by a sincere look, secretly saying, I’m an actor, I’m really good at faking things.

  You see my point. You’re simply spellbound by these “fame orgies” until you’ve been to like 30 of them. Then you’re just robotic and going through the motions. Okay, okay, I might just as well come out and say the real reason why I wasn’t so ecstatic about the flamenco-colored rug experience with extra everything - it’s because I was just an onlooker, an extra among the blessed few who got the chance to dazzle the world with their looks, skills and ad-libbed one-liners. I wasn’t an actor, I was an assistant. I was maybe the best damn assistant out there, but in that glamorous part of the world, it didn’t count for a whole lot.

  When you’re a celebrity assistant your performance actually only counts with one person in the world and that’s your employer. I was lucky in that respect, because B was always appreciative of me and what I did for her, something which made me work extra hard and really appreciate her. That’s also a strong reason we became friends - mutual respect.

  But B sometimes had a hard time to respect herself and her career. She was an immensely successful romantic comedy actress and the star of movies that made women all over the world go “oooh” and guys go “uuuugh”. You know the kind. I’m not saying they’re bad movies and I understood the charm in B’s performances, but neither B nor I were into films where you could predict the whole story line just by reading the DVD cover blurb. That’s one reason she didn’t really respect herself.

  And that was in part what lead to the famous red carpet disaster. And I’m not using the D-word lightly here like some people do when they spilled coffee on a pair of pants or are ten minutes late for a school play. What I’m talking about kept Hollywood buzzing with excitement and bewilderment for months. Was it a bit exaggerated? Yes, but everything in Hollywood is exaggerated and when Miss Perfect, which was the character she played in almost all of her movies, threw up in front of millions of TV-viewers and a whole bunch of other celebrities, the media spin machine went into overdrive.

  When B had launched her projectile vomit, right there on the red carpet, the world stopped for a second and stared at the mash of white wine, shrimp, guacamole and God knows what else, and asked the obvious question: What the hell happened? The famous TV-presenter, who witnessed the whole thing from only a meter away and probably got some of her regurgitated food on his shoes, probably asked the same thing. He was frozen and pale, a rare look on his always polished and controlled facade. Luckily, her husband and colleague, which we for simplicity’s sake call A, acted fast and pulled her away from the action and the crowds and into the bathroom where the vomiting continued for a few minutes, until her stomach was empty and I wanted to throw up just because of the rancid smell filling the room.

  A didn’t look very happy when we, 15 minutes later, escorted her from the scene of the crime and through a horde of paparazzi to our black Range Rover parked just outside the venue. Driver Don was waiting for us and I remember marveling at how calm he looked. But then again, Don had muscle pains and a subscription for medical marijuana to deal with that pain, so he was probably just high.

  “This is it.” A fumed in the car, “This is the last fucking time you embarrass me. I’m sick of your tantrums and you behaving like a lost teenager when we should really have a stable marriage with children and a life to be proud of. I’ve had it.”

  I glanced over at Don, who drove casually and didn’t seem to be bothered by the verbal explosion taking place in the back of the car. More benefits of being high, I guess. Me, I was very uncomfortable.

  “Fuck you, I didn't embarrass anyone. I’m sick and told you we shouldn't have come,” B has been voted one of the most beautiful women in the world by several magazines, but here she looked more like a zombie and she still had a dash of vomit at the side of her mouth. I remember feeling extremely sorry for her then, something I had done for a few months already, because of her constant mood-changes, her excessive drinking and lingering depression.

  A wasn’t one to step away from a fight and continued, “You're not sick, you're sideways. I saw how you prepared for this evening, Martini after Martini. You wanted to make a scene, didn’t you? You want our life to collapse.”

  “Shut up!” B said, while leaning her heavy head against the window. She didn’t have much of an answer to A, because in a way, we all knew he was right. Her drinking had been out of control for a while and now she had finally reached rock bottom with a slam.

  After driving for little more than half-an-hour we got home to the couple’s sprawling white, multi-million dollar mansion in the Hollywood Hills and while the couple quickly escaped to their quarters, I sat down with a beer in the kitchen and wrote in my diary. I was simply too afraid to go online to face the storm and the six missed calls from agent Julianne I just couldn’t care less about.

  All I could feel was how my heart bled for B. I knew that somehow the negative trend in her life had to be reversed, but I didn’t have a clue on how to do it and felt helpless thinking about it.

  B, on the other hand, had her ideas.