The Comedy Writer (30 page)

“What about ice skating? Must be something you could still do. You could coach.”

“I want to be a writer! Now help me.”

I closed my own notebook. “Can you write a letter?”

“Of course I can write a letter.”

“Then you can write a book. Just write a two-page letter a day, keep the subject the same, and in a week you'll have fourteen pages. In a month you'll have fifty-six pages, and by September you'll practically have a book.”

“That's too short for a good book. Good books are always four hundred pages at least.”

“Whatever. You'll be well on your way.”

A couple days later I came home to find that my clothes had been picked up and washed, the bed changed, the floors scrubbed, carpet swept, dishes done and put away. There were little pink flowers in paper cups throughout the room and Doheny was in the process of papering one of the walls.

“Whoa,” I said. “Unbelievable.”

She held a roller behind her back, cocked her head.

“You've really been at it,” I said.

“Uh-huh.”

I checked out the wallpaper, which was a buttery yellow and okay with me.

“Where'd you find this stuff?”

“Your landlady dropped it off, so I thought I'd get you started.” Colleen smiled and gestured toward the wall. “Well?”

“Nice. Very nice. You know how to do it?”

“I helped my sister when she moved into her place.”

“Wow. I'm really … I'm stunned. The whole place … Very impressive.”

“It's okay. I like cleaning when I get stoned—it relaxes me.”

The apartment really did look good. She'd even fixed the Murphy bed and gone shopping (“I found some money in your pants”) and there was a bowl of oranges in the fridge, already peeled. “This way they'll be ready,” she said.

“Why not just peel them when you want to eat them?”

“I want 'em ready when I want 'em ready. I'm kind of anal like that.”

“Well, why don't you chew up some apples and put them away for when you're ready to swallow?”

“Ha ha. Now I need you to do something for me.” She held up her notebook. “Will you read it?”

I was on a roll with my
Seinfeld
script and didn't welcome the interruption. “Maybe I should wait until you're finished,” I said. “This is supposed to be coming from your heart. Might not be wise to get an outsider's opinion at this point.”

“Don't worry, I won't let you influence me.”

“Well … okay.”

“Now, don't be afraid to mark it up. If you see anything good, put a check next to it, and if something's funny, put an exclamation point. If something's really cool, mark it, and if a character is really great, make a note. Don't be afraid to make a mess of it. Anything good I want to know about.”

She'd taken my advice literally—the book was a letter to her mother. Each chapter, twelve so far, recounted a childhood incident—usually set at an ice rink—where her mom had wronged her
by playing favorites with one of her two sisters. Despite her breathless, wounded rantings, it didn't come across as the story of an evil, uncaring mother, but rather of a whiny little rink rat. If it worked on any level, it was that, because of the misspellings and an overdose of thesaurus-type malaprops, it could be mistaken for some kind of slacker parody.

By page three I had a headache. On page seven I had to go for a walk. I skimmed over the last three pages on the shitter.

“So what do you think?”

“Shut the goddamn door!” I said.

She did. Then: “Well?”

“It's wonderful.”

“It is, isn't it?”

“Amazing. Great start. Keep at it, you're onto something.”

“What about starting each chapter with Oear Elaine'? Did you like that?”

“It's a gimmick,” I said with a big wipe of the ass, “but it works.”

This may sound akin to egging Billy Bibbit into giving the Mother's Day toast, but I was pleased she was showing an interest in something that didn't come with a laugh track. I knew the writing thing wasn't going to last, the poor girl had Ritalin written over her every lurch. She'd get on to something else in a few days, so why burst her bubble?

to go to my Bowman meeting when I heard the ringing a couple blocks away. I waited around and by the time the ice cream man pulled up, a few kids were already standing
on the corner and others were on their way. Ten or twelve of them eventually stepped up to that window, all between five and twelve years old, not a guardian in sight as thick arms dished out slushes and Fudgsicles and drumsticks. Who was he, I wondered again. Had he been checked out by a county board of ice cream vendors? Why was everyone so comfortable with this unseen man, this Aqua-lung-park-bench-eyeing-little-girls-with-bad-intent stranger flying through their neighborhood?

I waited for the kids to be served, then stepped up and ordered a frozen lemonade from a skinhead. Holy fuck. The guy couldn't look more suspicious if he had sawed-off handcuffs on his wrist. Tattoos on both shoulders; earrings, nose rings, tongue rings, eyebrow rings—I think he sensed my disapproval because the smile he gave the last little one melted away as quickly as the soft white ice cream.

…What flavor lemonade?”

“Lemon.”

He reached into the bowels of a dented stainless-steel chest, scooped out a cup. He wore a lime-colored T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off at the seams. I wanted to follow each kid home, tell their mothers and stepfathers what I'd seen, but I knew that would just make everyone fear me, not the ice cream man, and so I coughed up the buck and drove to my appointment at Paramount.

“So what do you have for me?” Ted Bowman asked.

“Well, I've thought a lot about what you said. It's a sensational idea and I've worked out a few good set pieces, but to tell you the truth, I'm about three days away from cracking the thing wide open.”

“You haven't cracked it?”

“Oh, yeah,
have.
It's just that I want to wait until I get it just right before I lay it on you.”

His face darkened. “What the hell are we doing here then? You should've called and pushed the meeting back.”

“I've got this other idea that I wanted you to hear. It's never been done before.”

“I don't want to hear other ideas. I got enough other ideas.”

“Just listen to me. This is my best story. You're going to like it.”

His development person, Sonya, served me a Pellegrino and dashed off.

“I don't want to like it.”

“Please, Ted, it's really good, and you're the first one I've pitched it to.”

“You got three minutes.”

“Okay. It's about a very unusual friendship between two very different men. But more than that, it's about homelessness and breaking stereotypes and forgiveness, and it's got a lot of action in it, too.”

“Get to the point.”

“Two guys. One black, one white. Denzel Washington and Andy Garcia. The black man, Gavin, is an attorney for White and Case, one of the biggest law firms in Manhattan. This guy was never poor. His father was a doctor and he went to Princeton. His wife is a beautiful editor at a publishing house.”

“She's white?”

“No, she's black, too.” I sipped my water. “They're madly in love, and they've got a great life, and they're decent people, too. Then along comes Migs.”

“The white guy?”

“That's right. Migs's real name is Tony Migliacci. He's around
the same age as Gavin—early thirties—except life isn't so good to him. Migs owns a pretty successful pizza parlor up in Providence, then his partner gets sucked in by some loan sharks. When they can't pay the vig, they lose the business, his partner gets his legs broken, and Migs is in danger of losing his kneecaps, so he splits to New York to hide out with his girlfriend who's going to graduate school down there.”

“He slings pizzas and his girlfriend's in grad school? Come on.”

“I told you, we're breaking stereotypes. Migs has been paying for her schooling and they're engaged. Anyway, on the train down to the city, Migs is paranoid. He suspects every other person of working for the mob. Then when he shows up at his girlfriend's apartment, he sees a couple suspicious-looking characters standing out front and he gets nervous. Instead of going through the front doors, he plays it safe and takes the fire escape. When he gets up there, he looks in the window and sees his fiancee in bed with another guy.”

Bowman chuckled at this. “She's getting popped?”

Sonya slinked back in and sat down.

“Needless to say, Migs is devastated. He stumbles back down the fire escape in shock. The thugs out front see him and give chase. Migs gets away, but in the process he drops his bag, which has all his money.”

“Where are we now?”

“New York.”

“I mean, how far into the story?”

“I don't know, about a box of popcorn.”

He sighed and a suddenly emboldened Sonya said,
“Which act?”

The mosquito picking on the gnat: Hollywood in a nutshell.

“End of first, beginning of second. So now he's stuck in New York City with no money and nowhere to go. He can't go home, he's got no friends, he's got nothing. So he goes to a shelter. Unfortunately, it's the middle of winter and the shelter is full. Before you know it, he's living on the streets, broke, destitute, down-and-out … and then he runs into …”

As I was speaking, something came across the producer's message box. Bowman picked up his phone.

“Yeah,” he said. “No, I'm not happy. Why? Because it sucked, that's why. Look … look … look … look, I'm in a meeting. Look … look, I'm in a meeting. Call me back. Yeah, call me back. Call me back.”

Bowman slammed down the phone.

“Fucking asshole.”

He picked a script off his desk and tossed it against the wall.

“There. That's what I think of your client's fucking piece of shit.”

I sipped my drink, waited for him to calm down.

“Asshole's writing me a project called
Kiddie Cops
—about two kids who blackmail a crooked police chief and get to become cops for a day. Sort of a
Cop and a Half with
balls. Ever see it?”

(

“Burt Reynolds starred. Ron Howard produced, Fonzie directed. Could've been good, but they tried to make it for kids. I'm making this one for adults.”

“Sounds great.”

“Could be, if the fucking jerk had an inkling of what I'm talking about. I'm talking about temptation and power, you know? I mean, if you could be a cop for a day, what would you do? I know what I'd do. I'd have chicks blowing me or they'd get tickets.”

What a poker face on Sonya.

“But what would a kid do?” Bowman said.

I said, “Uh-huh, right.” Then: “Anyway, Migs is on the street, broke and homeless—”

“Your three minutes are up. I'm bored.”

“I haven't gotten to the main part yet.”

“Then get to it—in two lines or less. Come on.”

“Okay, it's simple. It's about Gavin—a guy who has everything in the world and one day God says to him, 'Help this stranger, Migs, and you will continue to have everything,' but Gavin doesn't help him and that's his fatal flaw and he loses everything, and then he sets out to redeem himself by finding Migs and saving him.”

“And it's a rich black guy who helps a poor white guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“No reason, except it's always the other way around and I thought this would be a nice change.”

Bowman was starting to show interest.

“Yeah, right. A role reversal sort of like
Planet of the Apes.”

I couldn't tell if he was kidding, and then I could, and he wasn't.

“It's just a hipper way to go,” I said. “The main thing is, it's a story about redemption. It's got a lot of action, and you love the guys because they're both tragic figures, but there's a few laughs and a real happy, satisfying ending. People are going to be walking out of the theater saying, just saw a hundred minutes of great entertainment and it had a great fucking message!' “

Bowman thought it over. He walked to the window, stared out. A minute passed. I looked to Sonya, but she avoided my glance. Suddenly he spun and faced me. “No. No. Nope. Too thin.”

“No, it's not. You told me to hurry. I skipped the best part.”

“Well, that was stupid.”

“See, the way Gavin loses everything is Migs is freezing one night and starts calling out for help and Gavin sees him from his Fifth Avenue town house window, but he doesn't do anything and eventually Migs breaks into the basement of that building and starts a fire to keep warm and the fire gets out of control and Gavin's wife dies—”

“I don't like it.”

“Okay, I got another. How about this:
Six Brides for Seven Brothers.”

He didn't blink.

“Think about it. I don't even have to say any more, it's all right there.”

Bowman sighed. “Look, forget it. Get the fuck out of here. Fm busy.”

I hesitated.

“Go!”

“Okay, Fll come back in a couple days, we'll talk about the other story.”

“Oh, we will?”

“Fd like to … if you do. Look, Fm sorry if I wasted your time, but Fm very close now. That's a home run, the love in the nineties thing. Why don't we do it tomorrow?”

A blank stare that went straight to my stomach.