GOODBYE, ELIABETH TAYLOR

Who said you could go, Elizabeth? Who said you could leave us here alone without any other dangerous stars to blink at and perhaps go blind because of one silly human blink? Who were you, you broken British tower, you short stumpy thirst quencher whose eyes befuddled so many men, you nearly conquered a certain part of the world in your time, and you kept on conquering and conquering, bashing down knights and paupers, never flattering falsehoods, flashing your diamonds around because you loved them, you loved them, and that was so utterly unAmerican of you, wasn't it, weren't you, because we Americans don't like to admit we love anything that's gorgeous and nonessential, no, not us, uh-uh, we are Puritans and you weren't a Puritan, nothing like that, were you, you ravishing golden sword, and now your Parade just drifted by in some L.A. hospital which had to be, which had to be way too mundane for you. I said that, not you........

Oh, Elizabeth, my first movie star love, whom I adored even more than Debbie Reynolds, whom you did wrong but you did it in such a way, so openly and nondefiantly, so transparently, like a circus queen, no,like an entire circus act without a net, (I remember THE SEATTLE TIMES headline, when I was twelve years old, reading "Elizabeth Taylor Says Needs Only Four Hours Sleep At Night") so intimately, that even my childish mind knew you were right, you were playing by a different set of rules than Debbie's poor little housewife rules and that girls like Debbie could never ever win and should never even try to win but should just step out of the way and allow the wave to happen, allow the tree to fall in the forest, allow the tiger to chew up its prey, allow the inevitable bombs to inevitably fall.....because you can not fool, you can not out talk, you can not out walk, you can not stop Mother Nature. Even if it's wearing the largest diamond in the World, you can't, you can't, you can't. Just step aside, dearie, step aside. Oh, Elizabeth, my first movie star love, my cousin Linda and I would walk through the Silverdale farm fields looking for tokens, for broken pins or bottle caps or crow feathers and send them to you along with little girl notes, and you would send back pictures, signed pictures, pictures signed with ink, and we would spit on our fingers and rub our fingers on your signature to see if the ink was real or not, which ruined the signatures but satisfied our hearts that it was you, you, your hand which signed the photographs, never stopping to think that the world held secretaries, that you paid secretaries to sign those pictures, those millions of pictures MGM shipped out to little farm girls like Linda and me....and we would pin these ravished photographs on the walls of our Grandpas chicken coop and sit and eat stolen peas and smile and feel like the biggest little girls in all the world, yes, us. Yes, us. Yes, us........

Oh, Mrs. Lavender, with that almost-Betty-Boop voice toppling out of that most beautiful face of yours, that seriously beautiful face which was not a joyful Rita Hayworth face or a happy Doris Day face but a solemn face, a face that said, "...and I MEAN it...", "...and I MEAN it...".....oh, Mrs. Lavender, owner of that almost implausible voice, I heard them call you "One of the last of the great Hollywood goddesses", but that is not true, you are THE last of the Hollywood goddesses, there is no other, there is no one left, not one. You have held the throne for decades now, and you have tried to hold on to a life of your own, as well, marrying and unmarrying, sipping teacup after teacup of ashes, ashes, your body torn apart by pain and the surgeon's knife, I hope you are sitting next to Shakespeare now, I hope you are back again in Mike Todd's arms, I hope you are well again, no scars, no audience, no pulp magazines, no pain patches, no crutches, no pumps, and you live and you live and you live and you live......only for you...........