Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; Chapter 4

Kathy and Jason are in Kathy's small single room apartment. Jason dislikes the small space and Kathy's screwdrivers made from orange juice and cheap gin and soon enough, absurdly, picks up that Kathy has two apartments and this one is the shit one, and resents that as well. To complete the bad tinder date feel Jason notices a copy of Remembrances of Things Past by Proust on Kathy's nightstand, and yes, I only know that book as a Monty Python reference. She's not read it very far, and Jason admits he only knows it as his show did a dramatic recreation of a scene one time. Jason then notices Kathy has a Cheerful Charlie, which is some kind of talking robot doll. He starts talking to it and just when he's about to turn it off it says "hey, I know how you can get your name, game, and fame back! Go talk to your girlfriend." When Jason asks who that is, the Charlie says "Heather Hart." (Oh, no wonder I was thinking of Mary Hart earlier; Jason's showbiz girlfriend has the same last name.) Jason weirdly takes this in stride, and starts to ask about Kathy, but Kathy immediately hauls away the Cheerful Charlie, as she doesn't want it snitching on her. This is literally her given reason, and I'm glad we've come to a place where real life and Phillip K. Dick novels coincide, as Cheerful Charlie is clearly an Amazon Echo except with a better interface. This leads to Jason quoting a line from Finnegan's Wake (which Kathy has not read but seen the film four times) and when Jason, who's met the director of said film on his show offers to tell what the man is really like, Kathy stridently refuses. She wants to believe what she wants to believe, much in the same way she's more or less respecting that Jason is who he believes he is.

Jason then lets slip that he is a six. Kathy has only a vague idea of what that means, but remembers that Jason said that, cranking Jason's paranoia up another notch. Increasingly, Jason is trying to manage Kathy like he managed Heather and Marilyn: in this case, trying to keep his date smooth sailing with a police informant. She removes the purple tracker dots from his documents. Talking about Kathy's cat leads immediately back to sharp reefs as Kathy manages to move from her cat to Mr. McNulty, her handler. Jason manages to squeeze out of Kathy that most of her money goes into Other Apartment, where she has some sort of weekly time-share arrangement with one or two other girls. Possibly not liking admitting things, Kathy confesses that her husband is alive, and in a gulag in Alaska. She's working with the police to keep him alive and safe, as well as for the money. So she's sending other people up the river to save one, and estimates she's sent about "150" up shit creek.

Jason says that this is evil, which naturally pisses off Kathy. She says she gets letter from her husband, Jack, "all the time", which Jason points out are likely fakes and Jack is already dead. Kathy weeps with almost shocking intensity at this, so Jason lies and rationalizes "well it's probably cheaper to keep Jack alive and have him write letters than fake it", which gets Kathy to calm down. Man, lots of Tinder date memories for me here!

Jason realizes Kathy is in an impossible situation from which she can't get out, but tries to get Kathy to give up this little life. She ignores him of course, but says Jason is a good person for trying. Speaking of good person, apparently Jack gave full permission for Kathy to have sidepiece action. And besides, Kathy hadn't met Jason before, and Kathy was in a psychiatric hospital for eight weeks one time, and she met two people who were totally convinced they were celebrates, too. Huh. Maybe she's moved back to her delusional stage again...anyway, that's why it was alright for her to fuck a guy who thought he was Mickey Quinn named David, because it was Destiny, and she'd still pick Jack anyway because she cares for Jack more than the rest of humanity, and no Jason, I'm not going to turn you in after we fuck, I love you.

Jason objects, saying they've known each other only a few hours, but Kathy is very earnest and serious on the love issue.

They decamp to an "Italian-type" restaurant where Kathy seems to know the staff, and both sit down to what Kathy describes as "really authentic" and Jason describes as "fucking awful" Italian food. Jason now senses some crisis building in Kathy, and asks her what a fit from her would look like. She responds "toddler style tantrum with truckstomp profanity directed at anyone impinging on my freedom." And yes, she does feel like that's coming on, which makes sense, she hasn't been taking her medication. Kathy doesn't take her daily psych meds because it fucks with her mind. Kathy sees that Jason doesn't want to be involved with Kathy's incipient psychological episode, and invites him to leave. Jason refuses, both out of concern for her and convinced she'll rat out Jason instantly if he does. Kathy says that the people around her will take care of her, like that degenerate drunk at the bar, or that cook back there in the tiny kitchen who lacks A/C. Jason challenges her to take some fuckin' responsibility for her actions, and Kathy points out Jason can go fuck himself, Kathy has not hurt Jason. Jason gives up, realizing he's totally in the thrall of this mentally ill police informant and they both know it.

Kathy tries some sexy talk about how her love is a growing vine reaching for Jason, and Jason flags down a waiter and discovers they don't serve hard liquor here. Any sort of managing of Kathy now gone, Jason is honest with Kathy and said "this place sucks, let's bail." This provokes the psychological attack in Kathy. She begins screaming, throwing herself on the floor while swearing like she's channeling the collective unconscious profanity of the world's longshoreman. The manager and the waiter of the shitty Italian place, after assessment, pick up Kathy and dump her out on the street, and then extract a bribe of $300 from Jason to keep the cops out of it.

Under the neon sign of Senor Luigi's or whatever, Kathy recovers. Jason realizes she called his bluff and won. She may not know much, but her manipulation skills are first rate.