The Comedy Writer (18 page)

Back at the Blue Terrace, I poured two triple vodkas, which I sweetened and colored with OJ and limes and disguised in tall glasses. It occurred to me I might never see this woman again, so I decided to get to the point.

“What's the shortest you ever knew someone before you slept with them?” I asked.

To my surprise, she didn't balk.

“Slept?”

“You know …”

“Gone all the way? I don't know, probably a month or so.”

“Hm.”

“What does m m m' mean?”

“I didn't say, m m m', I said, 'Hm.' “

“What does ' mean?”

“That's kind of a long time.”

“A month is a long time?”

“Well, for your all-time shortest, it is.”

“You said
all the way.
There
are
other avenues of expression. But the truth is I didn't lose my virginity until I was a junior in college. And that was to a guy I thought I was going to marry.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing. We just grew apart—we're still good friends.”

“And did you enjoy sex at first?”

“Loved it,” she said pointedly. “I'm very sexual, Henry, don't
get me wrong. IVe been having orgasms since I was eleven—I just don't like to fuck for the sake of fucking.”

“Why not?” When she shot me a look, I quickly said, “Where'd you have your first orgasm?”

“None of your business.”

“In the bathtub?”

(Where Amanda had hers.)

“No!”

“Well, where?”

“Boy, are you nosy.”

“Hey, I'm a writer, too.”

Jenna resqueezed the lime, licked her fingers. “I can't believe I'm telling you this. If you must know, I was on my horse.”

“You're kidding!” A bit too enthusiastically.

She blushed.

“Please tell me everything—from the beginning.”

“Why are you so interested in my orgasms?”

“Well … come on.”

She flipped off her shoes, pulled her legs up on the couch.

“It was great,” she said. “I was on my horse Bakey, just riding around, and I felt pretty good down there, like I think all girls do when they ride. And as I bounced around, the feeling just got better and better, and I leaned into Bakey and it felt better and better, and I pushed down and it was even better … and then it happened.”

I took a gulp of vodka, chewed some ice. “Jenna, was this horse by chance on its back?”

When she gave me a playful slap, her proximity permitted me to pull her close and I stabbed her ear with my tongue, then rolled her on top of me on the couch. This would allow her to feel in control,
even though my hand was suddenly under her shirt stroking the smooth of her back, and my knee was working her like old Bakey.

“That feels good,” she said, and I began to grind my leg into her a little harder.

“My back,” she said. “Why don't you give me a massage?”

I stayed on the couch and Jenna sat on the floor in front of me. First I squeezed her neck and the muscles around it, then I worked my way down both sides of her spine, one vertebra at a time. As I did this, I softly brushed my tongue over her neck. When Jenna dropped her head and let out a low moan, I ran my fingertips lightly up the inside of her arm. She seemed to be letting go, so I gambled and slid my hand over her right breast.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Releasing tension.”

“I'm not tense there.”

“Mine.”

“Henry, I should warn you right now. My goal is to be out of this room in fifteen minutes.”

“Then let's get crackin'.”

We began to make out and as I pulled her on top of me, she quite naturally positioned herself over my knee and we were off to the races. As I yanked her shirt over her head, she said, “You don't know anything about me.”

“I know you've got great tits.”

I moved my mouth to the pink and faint blue of her breast.

“You don't even know my birthday.”

She started unbuttoning my shirt.

“When's your birthday?” I asked.

“July tenth.”

I started unbuckling her pants while I worked her neck.

“And where do you live?”

* 'Hancock Park.”

I slid my hand into her panties and she opened her mouth.

“Do you like it there?” I asked.

She arranged herself on my finger and slowly nodded.

The phone rang once, the answering machine clicked on, Colleen's voice: “Hi, it's me. I was just wondering if you were through
'boning your date's brains out,'
as you so nicely put it—”

I managed to punch the machine off at that point, glancing back just in time to see Jenna Weingarten getting up off the floor—where I'd thrown her in my haste—pulling on her shirt, grabbing her bag and shoes, and storming past me with a snortiness that would have cleared the streets of Pamplona.

I chased her down to the car, but there wasn't really much I could say other than “Let me explain,” and of course I was glad she didn't. I ended up standing on Doheny Drive in my bare feet watching her Alfa hang a left onto Beverly Boulevard, and then I listened to it rev away toward the safety of the Hancock Park apartment I would never see.

much on the way to the bus station Monday morning. I had already given Colleen the eighty-dollar fare to New York, which she'd snapped out of my hand with a grunt. She was too pouty to talk, and I was too pissed off and dizzy to force the conversation. At first she'd refused my generosity, saying she'd prefer to wait for “those idiots” at Western Union “to get their shit together.” After the previous evening's horror show, there was no
way in hell I was permitting her to stay another night in my apartment, but I humored her by agreeing that Western Union was indeed a fly-by-night operation—had been for over a hundred years— and insisting she take my money because the fools might never come through. When she still declined my “charity,” I told her not to be silly, that I fully expected remuneration when she landed on her feet back in New Jersey, that I knew she was good for it.

I didn't anticipate ever seeing the girl or cash again. I wanted her out of town, out of my life. Nevertheless, she made a production of writing down my number, which I dictated with little enthusiasm. It was a write-off, I figured, and a damn wise one. I'd rather lose my phone, get evicted, even starve before I'd spend another night with this checkerboard-square monster.

“Why does it stink like a pina colada in here?” she asked.

“I happen to like the smell.”

I double-parked in front of the bus station, carried her bags into the terminal. The bus was due in on schedule in forty-five minutes, which pleased me. Something about the cavernous room and the sad-looking people kick-started my vertigo, so our goodbye was brief.

I put her bags down in the middle of the room, shook her hand.

“Well … so long,” she said.

“Yeah.”

As I turned, she said, “By the way, I thought of another.”

“What?”

“You know, another shitty thing Honus did.”

“Yeah?” I said absently.

She sat on a bench beside a young black woman.

“He never thanked me for nothin'. I did a lot for that guy. I mean
everything.
He didn't know anyone when I met him. He
couldn't even hardly speak English. He was all alone before he met me. All alone. One thank you, that's all I was asking for … but I never got it.”

Her eyes started to well up, but she may as well have been picking her nose and flicking it at me, for all the sympathy I felt.

“He could've at least said
danke.”

“Yeah, well … I'll see you.”

“Will I? See you?”

I scratched my head. “No.”

“Well … thanks for helping my sister.”

At the door I glanced back at Colleen sitting there on the bench, all
Hee Hawed
up in another pretty country dress, her hair pulled back in a ponytail—not an L.A. ponytail with the hair on top, but hanging from the back of her head like they used to wear it— quietly reading her
Psychology Today
like a thoughtful, sedate, guileless little angel. The image that came to mind was of those fancy deep-sea fishing lures—all frilly and happy and bright and fun-looking, and deadlier than a silo full of strychnine.

in Los Angeles. Except for an occasional blue street, slick from the fallen petals of the jocaranda trees, and a ghostly fog that haunted each morning and was exorcised by noon, it seemed just like winter. Spring, though, had come to my heart. I'd fixed
How I Won Her Back
to my agent's specifications and had begun another spec script. I was getting used to the hamburg flipper uniform and the compassionate stares from the customers at Johnny Rockets, where I was now assistant grill man to a seventeen-year-old dad named Kelvin. Levine was doing his job, too. He had me making the rounds, getting to know execs and producers who liked
How I Won Her Back.
Strange meetings.

One was with Rodney Dangerfield. He wanted someone to rewrite a script he'd written about a schmuck who becomes a great
opera singer when he drinks wine. It was a comedy and it had its moments, but I told him it could be funnier and the wine thing was confusing. “I'm not clear why it makes him sing so well,” I said. “Is it a particular wine, or just any wine? Is it magic wine?”

“How the hell do I know?” he said. “It's a movie, for Christ sakes! How do you shrink your fucking kids?”

Most of the studio execs I met were young educated males. There were female execs, too, but they didn't seem interested in comedies, at least not the ones I was writing. The execs paid me compliments, we talked about back East, and then I'd leave. Sometimes there were brief queries of what I was working on, or they'd mention one of their projects, usually a rewrite, but no offers. There were plenty of irons in the fire, though, and this gave me hope, which is often more inspiring than success itself.

When I found out that Letterman was looking for top ten list writers, I was quick to apply. To prove that I could be topical and, more importantly, fast, I found a news item in the morning paper, wrote a top ten list, and had Levine fax it to New York that afternoon. The article was just a blurb, really, about how some radio stations were refusing to allow the band name Butthole Surfers to be spoken on the air. I came up with
Top Ten New Names for the Butthole Surfers
, which went as follows:

10.) Megadump

9.) The Spastic Colons

8.) The Dan Quail Surfers

7.) Collonica

6.) Public Enema

5.) Stool Sample

4.) Salt and Sphincta

3.)
The Turdles

2.) The Traveling Dingleberries

1.) The World's Most Dangerous Gland

Never heard from them.

Didn't matter, nothing was going to get me down. I was free of the woman. Free! I practically skipped down the street, smiling at strangers, picking up more litter than usual, giddy over my new independence. I was putting down five pages a day on the average. Writing late at night, I would sleep until noon, grab a quick workout at the Beverly Hills Health and Fitness (ninety-nine bucks a year and not even in Beverly Hills), read the paper over a sandwich, then start writing again. At five I'd take a walk in the park off Santa Monica Boulevard. The homeless would be setting up camp for the evening. Armies of Central American maids stood silently at the bus stops. A couple times I tried to speak to them, but they just smiled at my broken Spanish and said nothing. I figured they didn't like to talk, because I never saw them speak to each other, either.

At six I'd go to work at Rockets, return around eleven, shower, watch the news, write for an hour, watch Letterman, write for another few hours. When I crawled into bed, I felt at peace. It was the first time in my life I'd really gone for something, put my soul on the line. As the sky started to lighten each morning, I was full of the satisfaction that comes with courageous efforts. But just as the dark hours unleashed imagination and optimism, the noon sun greeted me like a line drive in the face. I would awaken in fear, wondering if I was just a megamaniacal fool who had nothing to say, who had no right to write. Fortunately, these doubts would fade as the day progressed, and by evening I was inspired and feeling sufficiently immodest to write again.