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Home is where Mack is these days. “Yeah, I’m a homebody,” he says. It’s
where these two former child stars, one still working as much as she can, the
other not so sure, just want to be. With each other, doing whatever.
“People don’t realize how incredibly kind and loyal and sweet and smart
he is,” Brenda says. “Truly what makes Mack so special is that he is so unapol-
ogetically Mack. He knows who he is, and he’s 100 percent okay with that.
And that to me is an incredibly sexy quality. He’s worked really hard to be
the person he is.”
She keeps a notebook by her bedside, an old Moleskine that he has drawn
in and customized. She writes his one-liners in it, stuff he says in the middle
of the night that cracks her up.
Brenda works steadily. She travels. She hustles. But here’s the thing: They
bought this house, and that’s significant. For Mack? Yes. A home. He’s been a
“tramp,” to use his word. A “vagabond.”
Mack worried that when they started dating, Brenda might have thought
he was still in that world—touring with a weird band, hopping into cars with
strangers, playing handball in his apartment late at night. He is not that per-
son anymore, of course.
At night, he holds Brenda in their bed, in the fluffy comforters and match-
ing pillows she picked out, their fluffy cats lolling around, legs hanging off
the bed, purring. Mack holds Brenda, and he says, “I’m here. I’m right here.”AT CARLITOS, THE FLESH OF THE BRANZINO IS PICKED APART, WHITE FLECKS
amid shards of bones, the eyes staring up at Mack. Across the table, torn rib-
eye in a slick of oil and butter. Wineglasses with oily lip marks around the rims.
The lights are low now, the street dark outside. There’s a guy playing the ac-
cordion two feet from us.
We were talking about Saved!, the religion movie, and I ask Mack when the
last time he went to church was.
“Last time I went to church was my sister’s funeral,” he says. Bobs his head
a little, swallows. “So it was about eleven years ago.”
I look down at the table.
Mack’s sister Dakota, the second of the seven Culkin kids, a year older
than Mack, was hit by a car in Los Angeles and died the next day, on Decem-
ber 10, 2008.
“She passed away eleven years ago tomorrow.”
He bobs his head a little more.
“Tonight”—eleven years ago tonight—“was the last time I talked to her, and
she passed away overnight, kinda thing.”
He stops talking, just for a second, then: “She had a roommate at the time.
She said, ‘We just watched Party Monster, and we wanted to compliment you.’
She said, ‘I want you to stay focused and enthused.’ I was like, ‘Thanks. You
too. Go to sleep.’ And then she went out to go get some Gatorade and ciga-
rettes, and she got hit by a car.”
His eyebrows lift, but his eyes are slits of contemplation.
“I mean, look, I had that last conversation with her, and she told me to stay
focused and enthused.”
Mack sits back, looks around the restaurant. Takes a slug of wine. When he
talks again, his tone is Hey, you know, what are ya gonna do?“Her favorite drink was Budweiser,” he says, the smile returning. “So I’m
gonna drink some Budweisers tomorrow. And listen, I’m not gonna get into
it. But it’s my day, when I mourn my sister. So yeah.”
Some silence hangs. The accordion player stares with a quiet intensity at
his instrument as the music fills the air with some kind of mood, like the sad-
ness of carnivals.
“Yeah.”WHEN HE FIRST STARTED DATING BRENDA, THE FEELING THAT IT WAS TOO
good to be true almost overwhelmed him, almost overwhelmed their very re-
lationship. He was, he says, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “And it’s always
gonna drop,” he says. “Something bad’s gonna happen. Someone’s gonna die!”
John Hughes was special to Mack. Even fatherly, though he doesn’t like to use
that word. When Mack was filming Richie Rich in Chicago, Hughes stopped by
the set and said hello. Mack was physically tired, missed home, and felt unin-
spired by the movie he was in. (He didn’t make another movie for nine years.)
A couple days later, Hughes called him to ask: Are you all right?
It hit Mack even then, as a child: It was the first time anyone had ever asked
him that. In a professional capacity—whether he was all right. It was the last
time he and Hughes ever spoke.
A month before Hughes died, in 2009, Michael Jackson died after being given
an overdose of medication. If Hughes sometimes played the father Mack’s fa-
ther couldn’t be, Jackson was often the schoolmate he never had. Jackson got
in touch with Mack after Home Alone, and suddenly they were hanging out. His
parents neither encouraged nor discouraged the friendship. The way Mack sees
it, Michael had a similar childhood, which is to say that he didn’t really have one,
because his father was forcing fame upon him. So, at twenty-two years older
than Mack, living in a place called Neverland, he felt the same age, in a way.
Mack and Jackson used to prank-call people. Jackson used to do these voices,
real nerdy—“Hello, I’d like to buy a refrigerator. How big are your refrigera-
tors?” And Mack would laugh and laugh.
The last time Mack saw him was in the men’s room at the Santa Barbara Coun-
ty Superior Courthouse in 2005. Mack was twenty-four. Michael was forty-
six. Mack was testifying in Jackson’s defense in People v. Michael Jackson, in
which the singer was charged with intoxicating and molesting a thirteen-year-
old boy who had cancer. He was eventually acquitted.
There was a short recess during Mack’s testimony. Mack took a leak, and
Michael came in. Jackson said, “We better not talk. I don’t want to influence
your testimony.” They laughed a little at this. Michael Jackson, who had been
more famous perhaps even than Macaulay Culkin when he was eight, ten,
eleven years old, looked whipped. Exhausted. Drained.
They hugged.
I ask Mack if he is bothered that people assume—because he was one of many
boys who spent time at Jackson’s home, some of whom accused him of hei-
nous acts of sexual abuse—Jackson must have abused him, too.
“Look,” he says. “I’m gonna begin with the line—it’s not a line, it’s the truth:
He never did anything to me. I never saw him do anything. And especially at
this flash point in time, I’d have no reason to hold anything back. The guy has
passed on. If anything—I’m not gonna say it would“I’ VE HAD A LOT OF FUN WITHOUT
BEING HAPPY. AND I’VE BEEN HAPPY
WITHOUT NECESSARILY HAVING FUN.
YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL.
JUST DON’T CONFUSE THE TWO.
BECAUSE IT’S EASY TO!”
(continued on page 112)