A Carlin Home Companion (20 page)

In the fall of 1990, the beginning of my third year, I took a rather famous class at UCLA: Communications 101 with Jeff Cole. He was a rock star of a lecturer in the Communications Department. He was funny and cool, and he talked about popular media culture in a way that allowed you to feel like a fan and a scholar at the same time. He was voted favorite lecturer a number of times during those years. We watched everything from
All in the Family
to the famous 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate. The class was the perfect blend of entertainment and sociology—basically what my father had been doing his whole career. I saw how the media subtly shape our worldviews. This enabled me to see below the bullshit that they try to feed us. It was like learning how to read the secret code of our culture. I immediately applied to get into the department and was accepted.

I thrived. I loved the classes and the camaraderie of the professors. The department was more like family than school. I created a circle of friends who were smart, curious, and full of life, and I kept all this very separate from Andrew. I never invited people to my house or talked about him to my friends. Not surprisingly, this new separate life fed Andrew's jealousy and paranoia, and I'd dutifully have to check in with him every few hours. But I didn't mind. I knew I was biding my time.

The first quarter in my new major, I took a class that focused solely on First Amendment issues—something I was already passionate about because of my father. The first day, the lecturer, Geoff Cowan, told the one hundred or so students, “My favorite part of this course is teaching the famous First Amendment case called
Pacifica v. the FCC
. The reason I love teaching it is because I get to recite George Carlin's famous ‘Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.'”

I was the one who practically fell out of my chair.

After class I introduced myself to Geoff. He asked me if my dad would like to come to class to discuss the case. I asked my dad, but he declined. He felt out of his element, and knew nothing about the law behind the case. I tried to explain to him that no one expected him to argue the case. They just wanted him to talk about the comedy that inspired it. He still said no, but a few quarters later he did accept another invitation—to be part of a forum I organized, in conjunction with Geoff and the department, about the chilling effect of politically correct speech on campuses. Dad was genuinely thrilled to participate, and after the event, I could tell he was even a bit in awe of my new scholastic career.

Although I was now president of the Communications Students Club, I still had no idea how any of this would translate into the real world. Some people went into advertising, others into Hollywood agencies or studios, but I knew those were not options for me. Those felt like selling out to me. I needed to find my way.

I nervously signed up for a writing class, afraid of being critiqued but wanting to find my voice. The class was about learning how to write in the more personal reportage style that Hunter S. Thompson had created and made famous, and I thought it was something I'd be good at. When I got my first graded paper back, I could feel my stomach tighten. I slowly peeled the pages back to the last one to see my grade and comments. “A—Kelly, you need to pursue writing. I can tell you have a lot to say and a great way of saying it. Keep on writing!”

“Keep on writing!” Tears came to my eyes when I realized that I might just be able to carry on the Carlin family's gift of the gab. I saw a future for myself.

When I got home I immediately called my dad to tell him about the comments. He said, “Congratulations, Kiddo. You're on your way!”

I was on my way! On my way! On my way where? Back to Andrew? Ugh.

*   *   *

This newfound vision for my future made my daily life with Andrew even more oppressive. Being in his presence began to physically repulse me. Everything he did reminded me of the self I was when I picked him as my partner—wounded, naive, and desperate for love.

He once again never cleaned up any mess, so his shit took up every square inch of open horizontal space. His personal hygiene was horrific. Because he was diabetic he'd sleep-eat in bed. Because he'd snorted way too much coke for all those years, he'd created a hole in the cartilage between his nostrils; there were unmentionable disgusting ways he would deal with that when he had a cold. In the past, because I was an insane person sharing his space, I somehow tolerated it, but now all I could see was the hell I'd constructed for myself. I spent as little time as possible at home. I led a double life, pretending to the outside world that everything was okay, but also hiding from Andrew the joy and sense of purpose I got from school.

I spent almost all the free time I had with my mom. Many days her fibromyalgia symptoms—deep aching of her joints and fatigue—kept her from getting out of bed. I'd bring my homework over, and we'd while away the hours watching bowling, ice-skating, and poker on TV. That's when we hatched a plan to go to Big Sur for Easter vacation in 1990.

It was heaven. Since I hadn't taken a trip without Andrew for the last nine years, I was amazed at the freedom I felt. With each mile that ticked farther away from Los Angeles, I could feel myself relax into my body in a way that I had never known. The unsurpassed beauty and raw nature of California's Central Coast settled into my bones. So many people had come to this very place for enlightenment and clarity, and I wanted some of that, too. We stayed at the famous Ventana Inn, ate cheeseburgers at Nepenthe, and bought pottery at the Coast Gallery—it was the quintessential Big Sur vacation. We soaked in the peace. We made it an annual tradition.

On our spring trip two years later, in 1992, as I settled onto the deck of our room at the Ventana and stared out at the Pacific, I knew it was time to leave Andrew. I felt the truth of this in my bones. It was time. Of course this put the fear of god into me. I feared Andrew's anger, his guns, and his intense jealousy. He was a professional victim and wore these scars loud and proud.

I told my mom that I was going to leave him, and she asked me the strangest question: “Are you sure?” To this day I am not sure what she meant by asking that question. Maybe it finally occurred to her to ask me the question she should have asked when I said I was going to marry him—like some kind of bizarre, delayed reaction.

I knew there was no other option. It was either leave him or kill myself.

*   *   *

On April 29, 1992, a full month after I had returned from Big Sur, I finally mustered the courage to tell Andrew it was over. I walked into the living room ready to sit him down to explain that I needed to separate from him for a month and “find myself” (this was my way of letting him down slowly). Instead, I found him standing in the middle of the room glued to the TV. It seemed that at that very moment, Los Angeles had decided to erupt into a maelstrom in reaction to the Rodney King trial verdict. Andrew paced around the house and then came back into the living room. He slammed a shotgun onto the coffee table and said, “They're coming for our stuff.”

Oh, if that were only true!

I found myself in a surreal world the next few days, going to school by day, knowing that only a few miles away people were going berserk on the streets while classes went on as usual. And then by night, the city went on lockdown, and no one was allowed out after dark.

Finally, weeks later, with the shotgun safely stowed away, I sat Andrew down and told him I was leaving. He was shocked. He said he had no idea anything was wrong. I was on the verge of suicide, and my husband had no idea anything was wrong! For the last two years I had been gone fourteen hours a day, had not slept with him in more than a year, cold-shouldered him when I was with him, and all he could say was that he had no idea anything was wrong?

And so I left. I just left all of it. On May 11, 1992, I walked away from the house and the piles of crap that were stacked up in every room. I walked away from Elliot. And I walked away from Andrew.

 

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

A Slice of Patty-Cake

T
WO THINGS HAPPENED
upon leaving Andrew—I slept with a gun under my pillow, and I got laid.

No. Not at the same time.

*   *   *

Terrified that Andrew would become unhinged and use one of his many guns to kill me, my parents, and then himself in some kind of If-I-can't-have-you-then-no-one-can-have-you frenzy, I slid the bull-nosed Smith & Wesson pistol that he'd bought me on my twenty-fifth birthday under my pillow so I could sleep soundly.

Initially I'd told him that I was only leaving for a few weeks to think about what I wanted for my future. That was a lie. I knew my future was without him, but I was too afraid to tell him that. In order to have the space to figure out what to do with my life, I asked him not to communicate with me during those first few weeks. He gave me three hours. He called my parents' house five, ten, twenty times a day, and every time he did, my mom or dad would say, “She's not ready to talk to you. You need to give her some space. Do you really think this is helping your case?”

After almost three weeks of this, I finally sat him down and told him that it was over. Forever. I was not ever coming back. Thus the gun under my pillow. I really had no idea what he'd do or how far he'd go. I even contemplated changing my name and moving to another city if I had to. Mercifully he slowly accepted our new reality, the phone calls died down, and we began that awkward, predivorce time in our relationship.

Unchained from my old life, I walked among other humans feeling as if it were my first time on Earth. Everything seemed fresh, like a new coat of paint had washed over life itself. Every moment was filled with possibility. I could do and be anything I wanted. My whole life was ahead of me. All the dreams I'd been bottling up for years could now be realized. Creative dreams, career dreams, feeling-like-I-can-finally-breathe dreams—all there for the taking.

But first things first—it was time to get laid.

It had been more than two years since I'd had any sex, and probably five since it'd been anything more than obligation of my wifely duties. Although I'd built a life separate from Andrew, cheating was not an option for me. I'll admit I'd done my share of fantasizing over the young, hard bodies surrounding me at UCLA, but now that I was free to pursue them, I couldn't see myself going to a frat party to get laid. I decided to turn to what I knew.

During the previous year, I'd been hanging out on Friday nights with my old boyfriend, Mark Lennon, and our friends Billy and Susea at Capri, a small Italian restaurant on Abbot Kinney in Venice Beach. We spent hours immersed in great conversation while noshing on plates of caprese, bruschetta, and butternut squash ravioli. It was a bastion of comfort. I'd often glance over at Mark and think,
What if?
So now that I had the chance to really ask the question, I did. I mustered up the courage one night to give Mark a booty call.

“Hey, whatcha doing?” I asked with a perky casualness.

“Nothing really. Just hanging out,” he answered.

“Cool. Any plans for later?” I was never one for direct communication. How does one actually go about saying, “Can I come over and fuck your brains out?” without saying it?

“No, not really,” he replied.

I saw my opening, and boldly I continued, “Could I maybe come over?”

“Uh, sure, but I need to tell you something.”

“Okay—” I said, but thought,
Shit!
He's got a girlfriend I didn't know about. Dammit. I knew it. I
knew
it!

“I'm gay.”

Whoa. I didn't know
that
. My head whirled. My stomach clutched. The floor dropped a few inches beneath me.

“Oh,” was all I could manage. He told me how he'd come to this realization, and how he was slowly coming out to friends and family. But as the information trickled into my psyche, it made sense. Even when we'd gone out, we'd always been more friends than lovers. I began to cry. I knew that it wasn't about Mark. It was that I finally felt my aloneness. There was nothing familiar about where I found myself after leaving Andrew. I realized that I was looking for a safe place to land, and I thought Mark's arms were it. I saw now that there was no going back, just moving forward. My new life alone was now real for me, too.

*   *   *

A few weeks later, my best friend, Theresa, was having a barbeque down at her place in Playa del Rey. I thought,
If there is a cute guy there, I'm going to get laid
. Screw landing in a safe place. I wanted adventure.

At the party, there was a cute guy that I knew from Theresa's office—Bob McCall. We'd met the summer before when I'd done some temp work there. In fact, we'd not only met, we'd had lunch together and talked about music, films, and what was happening in the world politically. It was so different to talk to Bob. Andrew shoved his opinions down your throat and made you feel stupid for having a different thought than he did. But with Bob, it was a natural back and forth, a building on each other's thoughts and ideas, an organic weaving. I remember thinking:
So this is what it feels like to have a conversation with a normal guy
.

Now, a year later, unshackled from my need to be a good wife, I had only myself (and my loins) to be loyal to. Bob and I began to talk in Theresa's kitchen, and I remembered how smart and funny he was. And he had blond hair and blue eyes. I tried on the idea of being with him. After eleven years with Andrew, it was such a foreign concept. We continued talking and flirting. Here was my idea of flirting—I taught him how to patty-cake.

I guess the last time I had flirted was in the fourth grade. But it worked. We were hitting it off. He was a bit tipsy, and we kept having to start over and over again.