Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster (9 page)

Taken by the fistful, for a long time, and combined with alky-hol, they eat away at the lining of your stomach and intestinal wall. Somehow, all throughout the heartburn, difficulty urinating, bloat, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, and generally feeling icky, never once did it cross my mind that I had an
ulcer.
Ulcers were for stressed-out caffeine addicts, not stressed-out painkiller and red-wine addicts.

During rehearsals, I felt really, really awful. I was starting to feel much worse than I ever did in the States. But doctors had become people to lie to for painkillers; it never once occurred to me to go to one for a
real
reason.

Opening night, and we were a smash hit. The place was packed, and the reviews glowing. We stayed up into the wee hours getting trashed and celebrating our awesomeness.

Then the next night, my intestines ripped open.

I swear. I was at my flat, after the second night’s performance, sitting on the loo, when I remember feeling a terrifying rip in my stomach area, and I’m convinced I actually heard a horrible ripping sound. This hideous sensation was immediately followed by a hurt so powerful, so all-consuming, that, to escape its clutches, I did what any sane person would do and passed out. I had, of course, been endlessly peeing right before said moment, and I barely had time for this quite heroic and even Schultz-like thought before I plowed headfirst into the white tile:
Uh-oh, I must’ve really pulled a stomach muscle or someth
—

It occurred to me much later that if I had died then and there (and by all rights I should have), and assuming it had been a slow news day and Victoria Beckham had decided to stay home, the front page of one of the trashier UK papers might have looked a little something like:

“3rd ROCK”-ER

SHOCKER!

Star Found Rotting!

Once Beloved Ex-Alien Dead

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,”
says horrified witness. “She was completely
covered in blood and sick.”

(FULL STORY PAGE 16, JUST PAST HOROSCOPES)

All right, I have to stop. What kind of sick, deranged person would have fun writing her own faux-bituary? With her name misspelled, no less. Jesus, I creep myself out sometimes, I really do.

Let’s get back to boring stuff, like the Rip.

I groggily woke up from my Elvis catnap hours later the same night, having no clue as to where the hell I was.
Whose red bathroom is this?
For the longest time I was just stumped.

Then an overpowering smell of copper.

What the fuck?

Blood? Eww, gross.

Since no one else was there, I assumed that the blood was mine. I had clearly puked blood everywhere, as if in a passionate frenzy. That’s when I got an inkling that something very, very bad had happened to me.
Uh-oh.

I tried to sit up.

A venomous pain walloped me with such a supernatural force that I was slammed back into the tile.
Oh, Jesus, oh my God.
I began to cry the silent wail of a four-year-old who’s just had her hand slammed in the car door. The silent cry that threatens to turn into a scream at any second. A pre-cry, I guess you’d call it. A cry that’s far, far worse than a cry.

I’ve felt pain before, real pain, but this was my first introduction to
sheer agony.
And it did not go well. I immediately wished for death, just to escape it. If I had had a gun at that moment, I would’ve used it without hesitation. The only sane thing I could think of was
Call someone, maybe they’ll have a gun. Or a machete.
I’d even be happy with a butter knife.

For the first time in my entire life, I had no idea what to do. I was lost, deep in a terrifying dark forest of torment, and I hadn’t a clue as to how to get myself out.

Never had I felt more totally, utterly
alone
than I did at that moment, in the early-morning hours of that cold December day in my rented flat on Cadogan Square. Well, up until that day, that is. I was about to become very intimate friends with
alone.

I began silently praying,
Get to the phone, just get to the phone, everything will be all right if you can just get to your stupid cell phone.
All while screaming my openmouthed silent cry. It was almost as if giving my pain a sound would’ve been disrespectful to it. Or awaken it further.

“Ohhhhh,”
I said softly as an ice pick rammed into my side. I realized the pain was actually getting worse. It was this pulsating, living thing that seemed to emanate from just under my left rib cage.

Think, you dumb fuck. Where’s your stupid phone?

Just then I remembered my habit of dumping everything on the bed of the tiny guest room when I got home with a carefree
Oh, I’ll deal later, I gotta open the wine to let it breathe
, which no alcoholic would ever do
.

Even though my flat wasn’t big, it sure felt pretty enormous when seen from an inch off the floor. Every time I’d move even slightly, a thousand knives instantly plunged into my stomach. I found the tiniest bit of relief in “child’s pose,” which I soon discovered is not a speedy form of travel. But what choice did I have? There I was, inching along like an exhausted turtle, covered in blood and vomit, sweat pouring down my face, sobbing like a four-year-old, completely committed to the fact that if I was gonna die, I was damn well gonna do it next to my goddamn phone.

I have no idea how long it took me, but my reasonable estimate is an hour. When I finally reached my coat (which I had taken off mere hours before, when I had been a virgin to real pain, blissfully innocent of my coming fate), I yanked it off the bed, found my phone in a pocket, and shakily dialed 999. Eerily, just a few days before, back when I was the old me, someone in rehearsals had mentioned that in the UK their 911 is 999.

When the operator answered, I discovered I couldn’t speak. I mean, I
tried
to talk, but I couldn’t. Later I would learn that during my Elvis catnap my perforated tummy had leaked out my stomach contents, which had filled up my body, preventing my diaphragm from moving. This meant that I couldn’t speak or even take more than the tiniest of breaths, and I had no idea why. I’m fairly certain that I wouldn’t have felt better if I
had
known, but it was terrifying just the same.
What the fuck is wrong with me?!

I must have managed to somehow gasp something because, after I passed out again, the next thing I knew, the paramedics were buzzing. As I slowly inched toward the intercom (thankfully only a few turtle crawls away), I realized I was wearing a vomit-soaked tank top and bloody sweatpants. Not my usual outfit when welcoming the cavalry. Then, with one heroic movement, I used the last of my strength to reach the buzzer and press.

As they came up the stairs, I unlocked the door and slumped down into a puddle next to it.
Thank God, I did it, help is here.
Unfortunately, any relief I felt at being rescued turned immediately to disappointment when my saviors finally barged in. Two small men entered, emanating frustration and annoyance. Much later, I would find out that my call had come in at the very end of their shift. But at the time, all I knew was that I had clearly done something terrible to them, and all I could do was gasp out a pathetic “I’m sorry.”

I’ll never forget the expression on their faces when they caught their breath and really looked down at me. It was total, absolute revulsion.

Wait a second, hold on. Could it be possible I was the grossest thing they’d
ever
seen? At least in America we have people who are so obese they haven’t gotten out of bed in ten years and need a crane to get to the hospital. In America, a sobbing B-list actress stewing in her own juices would at the very
least
be asked for her autograph. Then she’d quickly be filmed with a cell phone. People would view the shaky footage, and they’d feel just terrible for me, while secretly e-mailing it to their friends to gross them out. Eventually I’d get my very own
E! True Hollywood Story
, where I’d alternate between being totally hilarious and weeping with shame, and the ratings would be so high I’d get my own reality show and I’d finally be
back on top!!! USA! USA!

I digress, get over it. Anyway, I guess I convinced them that I wasn’t some crazy, suicidal drunk—ha ha, fooled ya—and that something might actually be seriously wrong with me. Even in my pain I marveled at how these curmudgeons did their jobs every day, when clearly they were far better suited for tollbooth workers or prison guards. Besides, I think it’s terribly rude to judge someone who, even though she looks as if she’s an extra from the set of a horror film, is still hotter than either of you.

My flat was on the fifth floor, and I pensively waited for them to load me on the stretcher. Except that they clearly had no stretcher. They expected me to
walk
to the exquisitely slow, miniature elevator, which was obviously built at some point during the Elizabethan era. They then expected me to
stand up
in this rickety, minuscule contraption for four minutes, the length of time I knew it would take to deliver me to the first floor.

Which was absolutely out of the question. An impossibility. But as I looked up at them from my knees, my face caked with tears and blood, into eyes that showed me no pity, I realized that’s precisely what I was going to do.
No, no, no, oh my dear God. . .

“Come on, miss, up, up, up, you go. Cheers, yeah, right, up on your feet, that’s right, I’m sure it’s right painful, here we go.. . . Well, you’re going to have to, no two ways about it. Miss, your screaming isn’t helping matters.. . . Keep on, there you are, almost. Right. Yes, yes, a few more steps. And here’s the lift. Just get on the lift, miss. And here we are. Now that wasn’t worth all the fuss, was it?”

Imagine walking completely bent over, like an upside-down
L.
Imagine smelling what I suppose a decomposing corpse must smell like, and then picture being crammed into a tiny, airless moving closet with two people who are clearly already revolted by you. Imagine all of this while being in the most pain a human can bear while remaining conscious.

Finally the elevator door opened, fresh air whooshed in, and for one brief and glorious moment the three of us experienced exquisite relief. I learned one new thing on the elevator ride from hell—if you smell so bad that you actually gross
yourself
out—man,
you stink.