Paparazzi
In the latter half of the twentieth century, a new species of predator emerged, a link in the food chain that preyed on celebrities: the famous, the infamous, the rich, the beautiful, the stylish and the outlandish. Armed with a camera, this predator stalked its victims with dogged determination. It is difficult to foretell who will fall victim to this predator's thirst for blood. It is unclear to me, at least, why it preys on Paris Hilton, hounds Lindsay Lohan and stalks the Kardashian clan. What is it that makes some celebrities become fodder for the supermarket tabloids and not others?
When Damian Yost first started a rock 'n' roll band in the garage of his parents' home in Totowa, New Jersey, he never envisioned that one day he would be targeted by the dreaded paparazzi. He thought that fame would bring with it only autograph seekers and starry-eyed adolescent girls hoping to catch a glimpse of their idol. He never dreamt that unscrupulous photographers would invade his privacy with a force to match that of the Allies storming the beaches at Normandy.
"Why me?" Damian asked Manny Goldsmith, his manager, when he saw his photograph on the front page of The National Tattler.
"Because you're a star," Manny replied. "You're talented, handsome, successful and rich."
"So are Bono and Rob Thomas, yet I don't see the press hounding them. Why am I cursed with this unwanted attention? All I did was have lunch with an actress from one of the soap operas while I was in New York. It wasn't even a date. She was just an old friend. Why on earth would anyone care?"
"Because you're a celebrity—and not a garden-variety celebrity. Take a good look in the mirror. You're the Brad Pitt of rock 'n' roll."
Damian threw the paper down and grumbled with disgust, "I don't want to be grist for the gossip mill. All I want to do is write and record songs and perform concerts for my fans."
Manny was unsympathetic since he often wished he had his client's problems.
"Well, whether you want this attention or not, you've got it, and you'll just have to learn to live with it."
For a time, Damian tried to keep a low profile. He refused to attend any of the star-studded events to which he was routinely invited, nor would he take the women he dated to public places. This strategy worked. The paparazzi soon lost interest in him and moved on to more "newsworthy" celebrities. After all, the entertainment industry was ripe with scandals, and the tabloids were willing to pay handsomely for photographs of celebrities caught with their knickers down.
Relieved that he was no longer a tabloid poster boy, Damian felt free to resume a normal life—normal for a rock star, that is. He was able to go to Yankee Stadium, see a Broadway show or catch a Jersey Devils hockey game without cameras being shoved in front of his face. Of course, he was still accosted by fans wherever he went, but he could handle them. Fans were much more considerate and respectful than reporters and photographers.
Sadly, Damian's newfound freedom was to be short-lived, for the rock star was about to meet the woman of his dreams, and their romance would thrust them both into the public eye and make them prime targets of the paparazzi.
* * *
Cathy Knowlton, like Damian Yost, valued her privacy. In her college days, she had been full of fire. Bent on saving the world, she became a social worker after graduation. But when she left her quiet, suburban neighborhood to work in the city, she came to the painful realization that some people were beyond saving. Reality extinguished the fire that had burned so brightly in her soul, and she returned to Pilgrim Lake a disheartened, disillusioned woman.
With little interest in the future and eager to escape the present, Cathy delved into the distant past. She became a writer of history, in general, and Massachusetts history, in particular. Her days and nights were mundane and routine, yet it was a lifestyle that suited her. When she was not writing at her desk in front of a large bay window overlooking the North Atlantic, she frequented libraries, bookstores, museums and historical societies. Her closest associations were with editors, curators, librarians and fellow historians.
Then one night while she was driving home from Salem's Peabody Essex Museum, Cathy's Subaru ran out of gas. She coasted to a stop on the side of the road, put on her emergency flashers and reached for her handbag on the floor of the front passenger's seat. When she took her cell phone out and saw that the battery was dead, she tossed it onto the seat in frustration. She had been so immersed in researching her latest book that she forgot not only to fill her gas tank but also to charge her phone. Cathy had no choice but to wait at the side of the road for a car to pass by and hope that the driver was a Good Samaritan and not a crazed killer or rapist.
Fifteen minutes later, Damian Yost pulled up in back of Cathy's Forester. The rest, as they say, is history.
* * *
"It'll never work," Cathy said, her teary eyes filled with love.
"We can make it work," Damian insisted, urging her to take the small, blue velvet jeweler's box from him.
"It's not that I don't love you because I do. You know that, but I could never be comfortable in your world."
Damian laughed off her objections.
"Last time I checked we both lived on the same planet, the third one from the sun."
"You know what I mean. I'm a writer. I spend most of my time either in front of a computer or studying dust-covered volumes from the past."
"I don't see what the big problem is. When I'm on tour, you can bring along a laptop and write. And when I'm not on tour, we can live here, and you can continue to museum hop."
The young woman saw the logic in his argument, but she was still convinced that a marriage between them would never be successful. Damian lived in the public eye, while Cathy shunned it. On more than one occasion, she had infuriated her publisher by refusing to go on television or a book-signing tour to promote her work.
"You can't live your life cooped up in this house, venturing out only to visit monuments to the past. You owe it to yourself to enjoy the present and look forward to the future—a future, hopefully, we can share."
Cathy obstinately prolonged the stalemate for several more days, but eventually, her emotions won out over logic. She said "yes" to Damian's proposal, and a wedding date was set.
When news of the impending marriage leaked out, the paparazzi descended upon Pilgrim Lake, hoping to snap a candid picture of the twosome. Cathy had originally planned an outdoor wedding where she and Damian would exchange vows beneath a flower-draped canopy on the beach. With the paparazzi patrolling the town, however, these plans had to be canceled.
"I suppose a big, formal wedding is out of the question, too," Damian said with a teasing smile.
"Those bloodsuckers would be over us like ants on a picnic lunch."
"Oh, no! Things must really be serious. You're resorting to corny similes."
As usual, Damian had a way of breaking through his fiancée's malaise and bringing a smile to her face.
"What does it matter?" she said, bravely casting aside her disappointment. "It's only a silly ceremony anyway. What matters most is that we have each other."
"That's my girl! Besides, this interest in our relationship will blow over soon enough. We'll become old news, and the paparazzi will move on to fresher kill."
"Now who's resorting to figures of speech?" the bride-to-be laughed as the young couple fell into a passionate embrace and forgot about the predatory photographers who lay in wait just beyond their front door.
As Damian had predicted, not long after he and Cathy were married in a small, private ceremony performed by a local judge in the Pilgrim Lake Town Hall, the paparazzi began to lose interest in them. There were rumors, after all, that Brad and Angelina's romance was on the rocks and that Madonna was kabala-ing with Alex Rodriguez. Enquiring minds would be eager to buy the tabloids to learn the "truth" of these stories, and those tabloids, in turn, would be willing to pay handsomely for photographs of the celebrities involved.
Meanwhile, Damian and Cathy were enjoying their new state of matrimony. Less than six months after the impromptu wedding ceremony, the newlywed bride was able to leave her house and visit her favorite museums and libraries, unimpeded by men and women armed with cameras. While Britney Spears's steps continued to be dogged by the paparazzi, Damian and Cathy were able to live their dream in peace, at least temporarily.
* * *
Given Damian Yost's good looks, charm and talent, it was only natural that Hollywood would become interested in him.
"I'm a singer, not an actor," Damian told his manager when a movie deal was offered.
"A lot of singers have gone on to acting: Crosby, Presley, Sinatra, Darin, Bon Jovi, the Wahlberg brothers. You don't want to be a rocker all your life, do you? Not everyone in this business has the longevity of The Rolling Stones."
"I don't know," Damian sighed, not anxious to make a career change at that stage in his life.
"Why don't you give it a try, at least?" Manny suggested. "Make one picture. If it doesn't work out, then record another album or go back on the road with your band. No harm done."
"Let me talk it over with my wife, and then I'll get back to you."
Cathy was even less enthusiastic about the switch to acting than her husband was.
"Surely, you're not considering the offer."
"I have been giving it some thought," Damian admitted.
"Why would you want to stir things up again? We've been so happy lately."
"It's just one picture. A couple months' worth of work—tops."
"I don't want to be apart from you that long."
"You aren't going to be. I want you to come to the West Coast with me."
Cathy cringed at the very idea. Her writer's mind had always associated images with words and phrases. East Coast evoked scenes of fishing boats, weather-beaten saltboxes, rocky New England shores and lonely lighthouses—in other words, home. West Coast, on the other hand, meant crowded freeways, expensive shops on Rodeo Drive, wild parties held at Malibu beach houses, Rolls Royces and Ferraris, fur coats and gaudy diamond jewelry.
"I don't want to live in Southern California," she protested. "Not even for a few months. I was there on vacation once, and I hated it. I'm a Yankee through and through. Excuse the hyperbole, but if you take me out of New England for any length of time, I'll wither and die."
Damian smiled at his wife's attempt at humor, but he suspected on some level that what she said was true. Although he had been born and raised in New Jersey, he had no difficulty adjusting to life in Pilgrim Lake, nor did he anticipate any problems in adapting to life on the West Coast. But Cathy's attachment to her home was much stronger. Her roots were deep, and he had no desire to pluck her from the town she loved so much.
In the end, Damian went to Hollywood alone while Cathy stayed in Massachusetts and began a new book.
* * *
When the rock star's movie was released, the critics panned it, but the public—especially females between the ages of twelve and twenty—loved it. While it did not receive a single Oscar or Golden Globe nomination, it did become one of the top-grossing motion pictures of the year. With the huge financial success of his first film, Damian became the new Golden Boy of Hollywood, and his phone rang nonstop with offers. Not long after, he joined the ranks of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and Harrison Ford when he was named the sexiest man by People magazine. With this title and his emerging popularity as an actor came a renewed onslaught by the paparazzi.
Damian, who was caught up in the intoxicating success of his new career, no longer seemed to mind the photographers that hounded his every move. He was far too engrossed in his promising future to miss his privacy.
"I can't believe it!" he cried with unabashed excitement. "I've got offers from Spielberg, Zemeckis, Scorsese—and look, there's even one here from Tim Burton."
Cathy didn't reply. Instead, she stood silently at the window, peering through a crack in the blinds at the photographers lined up across the street from her house, eagerly awaiting a glimpse of her famous husband.
"Are you listening to me?" Damian asked. "I'm talking DreamWorks and Miramax. My next film isn't going to be a cheap chick flick."
Cathy seemed oblivious to what her husband was saying.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"They're back again," she announced. "And this time they won't go away."
"Forget about them," Damian said, more than slightly annoyed by his wife's oversensitivity to the paparazzi. "They're just doing their jobs."
Cathy turned from the window, anger distorting her beautiful face.
"How can I forget about them? They're always out there like a flock of vultures ready to devour us whenever we step outside."
"Aren't you overdramatizing the situation?"
"No, I'm not. I don't know how much more of this constant harassment I can take."
"Don't let it bother you. It's me they're after, not you."
"Oh, no? I went out to the mailbox yesterday morning to get the newspaper, and they came across the street after me. They got right in my face with their cameras and asked me all kinds of questions about you and about our marriage."
"And where's the great harm in that? They take your picture, and they ask you some questions. So what? You don't have to answer them if you don't want to."
"You just don't get it, do you? I can't step foot out of this house without photographers dogging my steps. I'm like a prisoner here. I want the freedom to go to the post office and the grocery store without someone following me."
"Well, get used to it," Damian said, anxious to end the argument once and for all. "That's just the price of success."
"We Yankees are known for our thrift," Cathy said as she once again stared at the photographers across the street. "And we often decide some things are just too costly."
* * *
"Divorce?" Damian echoed his wife's request. "Why do you want a divorce? What have I done?"
"Nothing. It's not you; it's me. I'm not cut out for this life you lead."
"Is this about the paparazzi again?"
"Look, I don't want to get into another argument with you. I love you, and I'd like to end our marriage amicably. I just want to go back to living in my own little world of researching history, visiting museums and writing at my computer."
"Who's stopping you?"
"Lately I haven't been able to concentrate on anything except those parasites camped outside our door."
Despite Damian's objections, Cathy remained firm. The marriage was over.
Before the divorce papers could be signed, however, Damian Yost was killed in a tragic car crash on a freeway in Los Angeles. After a funeral on the West Coast, his body was cremated, and his estranged wife brought the ashes back east with her. The paparazzi, eager to see the bereaved widow, stormed the house. They rang the bell, knocked on the door and even peeked through the windows. The Pilgrim Lake Police Department made several attempts to send them away, but the fiercely determined photographers kept returning.
Late one Saturday night, Cathy looked through the narrow opening of her front door. The coast appeared to be clear. The police had at last succeeded in clearing the paparazzi out with the threat of a night behind bars. Cathy picked up the urn containing Damian's ashes, got inside her car and drove to the Pilgrim River. Not far from the old grist mill—a popular spot for camera-toting tourists—was a steep incline where the water spilled down over a bed of large boulders. Although nowhere near the magnitude of Niagara Falls, the waterfalls on the Pilgrim River that spilled into the lake, for which the town was named, were beautiful nonetheless.
Cathy stood on the bank of the river, and in the light of the full moon, she emptied the contents of the urn into the water.
"As the remains of your body are carried to the ocean from which all life began, so, too, may your soul return to its home."
Suddenly, dozens of lights seemed to explode in Cathy's eyes. The paparazzi, who had followed her at a safe distance, were hiding behind the trees, waiting for the right time to strike. The widow scattering her husband's ashes was the Kodak moment they had longed for, one sure to make the front page of every supermarket tabloid.
"Don't you people have any respect, any decency?" Cathy screamed, shielding her eyes with her arm.
"Look this way, Mrs. Yost," one photographer dared to call out.
A barrage of questions joined the camera flashes, like thunder following bolts of lightning.
"Was this your husband's request, to have his ashes thrown in the river?"
"Is there any truth to the rumor that you two were going to reconcile?"
"Was your husband drinking before the accident? What was his blood alcohol level?"
"Stop it! Stop it, all of you!" Cathy screamed. "Just go away and leave me alone!"
The paparazzi showed no mercy. To them, all was fair in love, war and the pursuit of a candid photo that was sure to appear in the Enquirer, the Globe or the Star.
Cathy tried to run back to the comparative safety of her Subaru, but unable to see clearly with the flashes going off in the darkness, she tripped over a rock and fell. The funereal urn she had been carrying smashed in her arms, leaving several cuts in her tender flesh.
Suddenly, she was no longer beside the bank of the Pilgrim River. She had returned to the crime-ridden streets of South Boston. The vivid recollection of twenty-eight-year-old Marguerite Gonzalez, beaten to death by her drunken ex-husband, tortured her. Cathy, an eyewitness to the crime, had readily agreed to testify against the killer. Before his trial, however, the ex-husband was released on bail, and he immediately attempted to eliminate the only witness to his evil deed. Had a passerby not come to her aid, Cathy would no doubt have died in that dark Boston alley, beaten to death by a man with a long history of violence against women.
Several weeks later, when she was released from the hospital, Cathy quit her job, sublet her apartment and returned to Pilgrim Lake.
Now, as she lay on the damp ground, surrounded by conscienceless paparazzi, she felt she was again being victimized.
Fearing her life was once again in danger, she rose to her feet, raised her bloodied arms toward the full moon and cursed, "Damn you all to hell!"
A single bolt of lightning rent the sky, creating a brief illusion of daylight. When the darkness of night returned, Cathy was standing alone beside the falls. At her feet were more than a dozen photographs. The paparazzi had vanished, trapped inside the four-by six-inch glossies that were scattered on the ground. Cathy bent over and picked up one of the prints. In the photograph, a terrified photographer was frantically trying to escape his two-dimensional prison and return to the real world.
After a momentary twinge of guilt and sympathy that was quickly forgotten, Cathy collected the rest of the photographs, tore them up and threw the pieces into the swiftly moving river.
"As the remains of your bodies are carried to the ocean from which all life sprang, so too may your souls return to their home—supposing, of course, any of you predators even has a soul."
Cathy watched as the swiftly moving current of the Pilgrim River carried the last of the pieces away. Then she walked back to her Subaru and returned to the freedom and anonymity she cherished.
Salem will do anything to get his picture in the paper, including getting his tail "spiked."
