coin, shook his tail feather in the face of death until the reaper lost his sense of humor. The punch line was a big fat speedball to the heart, a massive dose of heroin and coke that left him dead in an expensive hotel room in Los Angeles, bloated and bleeding on freshly laundered linen thousands of miles from home.
I sat down at my desk and watched footage on the Internet: the old CBS newsreelâall grainy and washed-outâfrom the day Belushi died, posted on a fanâs website. A swarm of photographers milled outside Belushiâs bungalow at the Chateau Marmont; the coroner, grim-faced, wheeled his body out on a gurney. That famous toga was now a death shroud: a thin, white sheet covering his body and pulled up over his head in an attempt to give dignity to the unmistakable girth beneath. For some people this unpleasant image would have been enough, but I wanted more. I wanted to see autopsy photos: the incisions made by the coronerâs blade, the thick, careless stitches that left the deceased looking like Frankensteinâs monster. But what I wanted to see most was an image from the inner sanctum: the photographs of Belushi lying dead in his hotel bed, his naked body seeping gas and fluid onto the sheets. This was the money shot, the point of impact where life abruptly ended. To see how a celebrity looked at the very moment of passing, that mysterious instant where life just stopped. This was what I lived for.
Before my parents died, I never even knew pictures like that existed. It was at their funeral that I heard someone whisper it, a family friend who I barely even knew. He leaned over to the person sitting beside him and said, âKinda like Jayne Mansfield, huh?â At the time I had no idea what he was talking about, but his words stuck with me. In our first few weeks together, Aunt Lynette took me to the local library to get me some books to keep me occupied, and instead of staying in the childrenâs section, I somehow found my way over to the movie star bios and checked out a book called
Hollywood Babylon,
which told me the whole story about what had happened to Jayne Mansfield. It was then that I realized what the person at my parentsâ funeral had meant,but strangely enough, knowing that Jayne Mansfield had been through what my parents had didnât make me feel bad at all. It made me feel strangely comforted. Jayne Mansfield was a
Playboy
Playmate and actress, a cheaper, gaudier version of Marilyn Monroe. She died when the car she was traveling in hit the back of a truck in poor light, allegedly decapitating her and killing the two men beside her while her children sat in the backseat. Now, when I started to feel that familiar anxiety starting to grow, that feeling that death was upon me, lurking, I would look at a picture of Jayne Mansfield in the front of that car, and everything would seem okay. Death didnât just come for me, or my parents, it came for everyone: the rich and famous, the beautiful and privileged. The thought made me relax, and I imagined the relief I felt was similar to the feeling some people got when they cut themselves. I didnât have it in me to be a cutter (too squeamish), so this was my anxiety release. Looking at these pictures kept me sane.
I checked in at the Celebrity Autopsy Room. The website was run by an anonymous webmaster who called himself the Coroner. He had set up a Frequently Asked Questions section to try and impede the flow of disgust leveled his way.
Yes,
he posted,
I can live with myself. No, I donât know what itâs like to lose a loved one, but Iâm sure itâs terrible. No, I am not being disrespectful to the dead, if anything I am preserving their legacy by showing the truth of their final days. No, I will not post a photograph of myself on the website, as it will only assist those of you with vigilante justice in mind to track me down and beat me with a baseball bat, as you have threatened to do so many times
I sat down at my desk and watched footage on the Internet: the old CBS newsreelâall grainy and washed-outâfrom the day Belushi died, posted on a fanâs website. A swarm of photographers milled outside Belushiâs bungalow at the Chateau Marmont; the coroner, grim-faced, wheeled his body out on a gurney. That famous toga was now a death shroud: a thin, white sheet covering his body and pulled up over his head in an attempt to give dignity to the unmistakable girth beneath. For some people this unpleasant image would have been enough, but I wanted more. I wanted to see autopsy photos: the incisions made by the coronerâs blade, the thick, careless stitches that left the deceased looking like Frankensteinâs monster. But what I wanted to see most was an image from the inner sanctum: the photographs of Belushi lying dead in his hotel bed, his naked body seeping gas and fluid onto the sheets. This was the money shot, the point of impact where life abruptly ended. To see how a celebrity looked at the very moment of passing, that mysterious instant where life just stopped. This was what I lived for.
Before my parents died, I never even knew pictures like that existed. It was at their funeral that I heard someone whisper it, a family friend who I barely even knew. He leaned over to the person sitting beside him and said, âKinda like Jayne Mansfield, huh?â At the time I had no idea what he was talking about, but his words stuck with me. In our first few weeks together, Aunt Lynette took me to the local library to get me some books to keep me occupied, and instead of staying in the childrenâs section, I somehow found my way over to the movie star bios and checked out a book called
Hollywood Babylon,
which told me the whole story about what had happened to Jayne Mansfield. It was then that I realized what the person at my parentsâ funeral had meant,but strangely enough, knowing that Jayne Mansfield had been through what my parents had didnât make me feel bad at all. It made me feel strangely comforted. Jayne Mansfield was a
Playboy
Playmate and actress, a cheaper, gaudier version of Marilyn Monroe. She died when the car she was traveling in hit the back of a truck in poor light, allegedly decapitating her and killing the two men beside her while her children sat in the backseat. Now, when I started to feel that familiar anxiety starting to grow, that feeling that death was upon me, lurking, I would look at a picture of Jayne Mansfield in the front of that car, and everything would seem okay. Death didnât just come for me, or my parents, it came for everyone: the rich and famous, the beautiful and privileged. The thought made me relax, and I imagined the relief I felt was similar to the feeling some people got when they cut themselves. I didnât have it in me to be a cutter (too squeamish), so this was my anxiety release. Looking at these pictures kept me sane.
I checked in at the Celebrity Autopsy Room. The website was run by an anonymous webmaster who called himself the Coroner. He had set up a Frequently Asked Questions section to try and impede the flow of disgust leveled his way.
Yes,
he posted,
I can live with myself. No, I donât know what itâs like to lose a loved one, but Iâm sure itâs terrible. No, I am not being disrespectful to the dead, if anything I am preserving their legacy by showing the truth of their final days. No, I will not post a photograph of myself on the website, as it will only assist those of you with vigilante justice in mind to track me down and beat me with a baseball bat, as you have threatened to do so many times
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