Anyway, we get there, and this bitch is living in a fucking trailer—a rusty trailer—and’s got this daughter who looks like a sick elf—short with blonde hair and toothpick arms and legs; pixie ears—and the woman, who Catherine said was some great beauty, she’s gone to pot and got stringy, dishwater blonde hair—grasses hair, like the French word for dishwater and grease is the same thing. I’ve seen an old picture of her, though, and you couldn’t say she wasn’t a good-looking broad and like I say about ten years ago she was this big cheese in New York.

But what was funny was the way she treated her kid. What was it she called her? Let me try to recreate the scene.

First this weird bitch looks kind of upset because Catherine didn’t come by herself but brought this stranger with hiking boots along, but she invites us into the trailer anyway. Now it’s bigger inside than it looked outside. It’s really a nice little apartment, comfortable looking, tastefully decorated like a magazine ad out of the fifties.

We go into the living room. The kid is in there eating popcorn, sitting on the floor, with her head against a leather armchair. Yeah. No, chocolate bonbons out of a plastic Glad bag. Like a pixie, but a wilted one.

Anyway, I didn’t say shit. I just sat there. The kid kept looking at me though. Pig? No. Hog? Yeah. That was what she called her.

“Tatum, you hog,” was the first thing this woman said. “Give me that chocolate.”

She took it, put it in the refrigerator, came back and sat in the chair, and Catherine and I sat on the couch, and the kid sat on the floor between her mother’s legs.

“It’s really good to see you, Cathy. I saw your show. It was wonderful.”

“Why didn’t you come to the opening?”

“Well, I couldn’t get away. They tie you down, you know. I work for this trucking company.”

“You drive a truck?”

“No.” She laughs. “I write up invoices.”

“Mommy, I want some popcorn.”

“Tatum, you hog, you just had chocolate.”

“I want popcorn.” Tatum beat on her mother’s knees with little white fists. “Popcorn!”

By the way, this woman’s name is Gillette, can you believe it? Like she was named after the fucking razor blade.

“Here you go, darling.”

She reached in a drawer on a table beside the chair and took out a cellophane bag of popcorn. She tossed it to her. “Hog.”

Then she introduced the girl.

“This is Sister, my daughter.”

She held the back of the child’s neck, then pinched at her hair. The child had green, slanting eyes. Almost Japanese eyes, except she was as pale as Midol. I kept my distance, but Catherine made her way over to her.

“I thought I’d find you living in New York, then someone told me you were living here!” Catherine said.

“Uh, I still go to New York for occasional shows. But I don’t work in a rush the way I used to.”