52.

The public debate began. Audrey was prof led (usually a couple of paragraphs), in local newspapers along the Lollapalooza tour. She received minor mentions in Rolling Stone, Spin, and Modern Woman. In Grand Rapids, Murray snipped every article and videotaped every TV reference. He and Toby pored over the clippings at the dinner table.

Ripley’s Believe it or Not aired an eight-minute segment, consisting mostly of low-budget “reenactments” of her stage act. Four of Toby’s muscle-bound buddies came over to watch the episode. They scoffed, “That actress isn’t half as hot as your sister, dude.”

(Did they realize that the pigtailed young woman squashed on the end of the couch, watching the show with them, was also Toby’s sister?)

McKenna collected the articles, too, on the sly. At Grandma’s house, these were considered contraband. McKenna hid them beneath her mattress and studied them by moonlight.

The famous magician duo, Krebs and Jenner, known for come-dic and gory (yet intellectual) illusions and for debunking anyone who claimed to have psychic powers, appeared on Later with Greg Kinnear in early September. It was a tense moment for the Mape-ses when Greg asked, “So what do you think about this Lolla-palooza girl who, like, eats trumpets and scuba gear?” (Audience laughter.)

Ponytailed Krebs, in his pinstriped suit, one leg crossed onto the other, stroked his chin beard and insisted glibly, jovially, smugly: “It’s a trick, Greg. A good trick, but just a trick.”

As proof, his mousy partner Jenner produced a sledgehammer and obliterated a pile of coconuts. Then, in front of the live studio audience, Jenner ate the sledgehammer.

After the commercial break, Krebs revealed that the hammer was made of hollow milk chocolate. The real sledgehammer had been slid into Jenner’s pant leg through sleight-of-hand, which Jenner then demonstrated. The audience whooped.

Murray erased that tape.

Out in the real world of Middle America, folks gave their two cents to the local news: “There’s no way she’s eating this stuff!” Others declared with equal passion: “She does eat it! I saw her in Denver! I don’t know how it works, but it’s true.” A small minority said, “Who cares if it’s real or not? It’s damn good entertainment.”

Audrey never gave an interview. She would have done so if she’d wanted to. No one was controlling her; no one was telling her what to do (as some have suggested). Jim Rose, however, defi-nitely fueled the fires of mystery. To him, silence was gasoline. At every turn, he advised Audrey to keep quiet while the debate raged. Let our publicist do the talking, he said. A personal interview will kill business. You’re an enigma, he said. A conundrum. A bugaboo. Let people pay full price and judge for themselves.

To this end, cameras were never allowed under the tent. Jim Rose warned against doing TV appearances, which would allow scrutiny of every move in painstaking detail.

Even without interviews or TV appearances, Audrey’s fame grew. For this, I credit her cover-girl good looks—the innocent face, the porcelain skin, the curved lashes, the Farrah Fawcett hair, and the liquid eyes haunted by a touch of sadness. Men like the troubled beauty. Men also like a girl with an appetite, especially one who keeps quiet after she eats. Her footlessness was rarely mentioned.

Kalamazoo took pride in “Lollapalooza’s Eating Girl,” whom they touted as “locally born.” They welcomed every roving reporter who happened into town. City officials gave guided tours of The Caboose and provided names and contact information for all of Audrey’s arty high school/college friends and the professors who’d taught her during those two months. Eventually, newshounds sniffed their way north to Grand Rapids, to Moriarty Street.

Murray wouldn’t answer the door. Toby dropped water balloons from the roof. Faithful old Snoodles, not long for this Earth, yapped and pawed at the living room window. McKenna and Grandma Pencil drank tea on Grandma’s back patio, looking up the street, watching the white vans come and go.

Lollapalooza was only a summer tour, but when it ended in September of 1996, Audrey didn’t return to Moriarty Street. She didn’t notify her family of her decision; she simply didn’t show up. Three months passed. At Christmas, Murray received a collect call ( jab) from Germany. Audrey was living with you-know-who. That’s what she said: “I’m living with you-know-who.” She wouldn’t even say the guy’s name. Over the following year, the Mapeses received two postcards with nothing written on the back except Audrey.

In the summer of 1997, she signed on with Lollapalooza again. She performed for full crowds, but this time around, the novelty had worn off. The shock value was gone. When the tour ended, she flew back to Germany with Johann, and the Mapeses wondered if they would ever see her again.

But then, one month later, in October of 1997, Audrey returned to Moriarty Street for the first time in seventeen months. She strode up the cracked walkway. Strode. As in, without crutches and without hesitation. Speed-walker, almost. The design of her new artificial feet made her resemble a Greek God—specifically, Pan. Half goat.

What ever the Jim Rose sideshow paid, it must have been good. Her new feet cost more than the house she entered.