The Comedy Writer (32 page)

“You were so cute,” she said. “You farted in your sleep.”

I covered my face.

“Get up, sleepyhead, we're wasting the day.”

She dove onto the bed and hugged me and I pulled the sheet tighter around my head. “Stop it.”

She started massaging my back and neck. I resisted at first, then forced myself to relax.

“It's so refreshing to meet a man without muscles,” she said. “Honus, that's all he cared about—working out, pumping weights, getting buff. He used to be at the gym all the time—Honus.”

“What time is it?”

“Late.”

“How late?”

“Almost seven-thirty.”

“I can't get up now, I need sleep.”

“Come on, up and at 'em, snoozie. The early bird catches the worm.”

“And the early worm gets eaten.”

She jumped on the bed.

“Get up, Monkey, we're gonna miss everything!”

“Stop it, please!”

I was growing more anxious by the second. What was this
we're
stuff? We weren't a
we re
, we were a
me
and a
her.
This was no honeymoon, I had things to do. Sure, we'd had sex, but I hadn't exactly taken her virginity. Virgins don't lick where she'd licked. They spit where she'd swallowed. They “ow'd” where she'd “oh'd.” And there was something else bothering me.

Doheny had the biggest bush on the planet.

It's funny what bugs you in the morning light, but it was true, her bush was gigantic. Think home plate. Which was odd because she was otherwise fair. From the waist up, she was smooth—no fuzz on the arms, no hairy nipples, not a hint of a mustache. Below the belly button, she was Larry Csonka.

A Turkish mermaid.

Watching her prance around the apartment now was difficult. Her mound looked like ten thousand Slinkys growing out of her abdomen—she could've been hiding a set of balls in there. I had banged her, though, and I owed her whatever it is that decent guys owe the women they bang. I would live up to that debt—be it in the way of hugs, breakfast, forced banter in the Bagel Nosh line. But that would come later; right now I owed myself rest.

I stayed in bed another two hours, despondent. I slept all knotted up, in and out of nightmares, awakening every ten minutes to see her sitting in that chair, or leaning against the windowsill, always with the stare, always the grin. The last time I awoke, it was to a stale, sickening odor. She was back in bed now, sitting up under the covers. I lifted the sheets, saw the cause of my nausea dangling from her mouth.

“You have to do that in bed?”

“Sorry. I was trying to keep it from going in your face.”

“Put it out.”

She said, “Yes, Master,” and dropped the cigarette into the empty Coke can she was holding.

“Are you wearing a fat outfit in this picture?”

“What?”

She was studying a snapshot of me and Amanda at my sister Bette's wedding.

“Where'd you get that?”

“In the drawer. Are you wearing a fat outfit?”

“It's a tuxedo.”

“Oh.”

I rolled over and she said, “You look like you're wearing a fat outfit. You're not wearing a fat outfit here?”

“No.
No.
I'm not wearing a fat outfit. What the hell's a fat outfit?”

“You know, something that makes you look fat.”

I twisted the covers in my fist. When I pretended to sleep, Doheny grabbed my ear through the sheets; not the soft, pliable lobe of the ear, but the top part, the cartilage, the part that hurt when she bent it. She whispered with her smoky breath, “I have a prediction.”

“That's nice.”

…I have a prediction,” she singsonged.

I floated again past the bait. “Mm,” I said.

Then she said something that made my toes cramp; something so heinous, so unconscionable, that I really had to snap my butt shut to keep from crapping. “I predict that one year from today we'll be married.”

Despite the authority complex, the suicide threats, the mommy thing and everything else, it was this moment that finally convinced me that the char-breathed insomniac trying to yank my ear from my skull was truly disturbed. And it scared the hell out of me. Because a thought occurred: If Doheny could believe this, and little doubt she did, then she could believe anything.
Anything.
She could believe I was the devil, or that she was an alien, or that she should cut my throat while I slept.

“Doheny,” I said with appropriate meekness, “I think you're great and all, and last night was really phenomenal, but I don't think we're going to be hearing wedding bells soon.”

“Of course you don't! Don't you see? You were hurt by Amanda Parsons, and now you're afraid to admit you're falling in love with me, because you think you'll lose me as soon as you do!”

Having this lunatic mention Amanda's full name out loud was
painful enough without listening to this other nonsense. I hadn't forgotten that the first two hours after waking is heart attack country. I hadn't slept much, there'd been drinks, we'd had stressful sex.

“Can we talk later?” I said.

“Can we talk later?” she mimicked. “He always wants to talk later. Henry, you're a textbook case of denial, and denial is caused by fear. But there's nothing to fear, Monkey, because I love you, too!” She started sprinkling my back with tiny kisses. “Do you hear me? I love you, Henry Halloran, I love you I love you I love you, and nothing's going to change that! Nothing! Not ever!”

when I got a bone in my hamburg. We'd driven up the highway to a strip of sand called Malibu. Besides Venice, this was L.A.'s biggest myth. Scarborough Beach back in Rhode Island had better waves, water, and sand. After staring for a couple hours at the shiny, tanned blondes in their fluorescent green and pink bathing suits, we darted across four lanes to a surfer hangout, which is where I got the bone. It wasn't just a speck of white like you sometimes find, but a legitimate bone the size and approximate color of a wisdom tooth. I'm not the litigious type, so I just threw it in the trash with the rest of my burger and my beach fries. Just one of those days, I figured, no one's fault. I wouldn't even ask for my two-fifty back. So what if the place advertised “the best burgers in the 'Bu”? Hey, south California
advertised the best women in the world, and look who was sitting across the table nailing me dead-on with a double exhale.

“What, do you have a fun phobia today?”

She wanted me to do a shot with her, but I'd refused.

“I have work to do later.”

“What work?”

“Work. I'm up for a project. I've got to get my pitch ready.”

“Let me read your notes. Maybe I can help.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I'm not done. It's just notes. I'll send you a copy of the next screenplay I finish.”

This was dangerous territory, the implication that she would be departing soon, so I quickly added, “I'm having a hard time coming up with a good ending. It's a tough nut to crack.”

Doheny burst out laughing. “ 'A tough nut to crack,' “ she repeated.

“It's an idiom.”

This kind of shit had been going on all day. On the beach, Doheny had asked me why I never jogged. When I replied, “Because I don't like breathing exhaust,” she'd buckled over in hysterics and cried out, “Smoke coming out your mouth. You're too funny!” “I didn't say that, you did” was my response, and she'd even laughed at that.

“You know, it's really true,” she said.

“What's true?”

“It ain't the meat, it's the motion.”

She winked and I gave her a little wave.

“I'll tell you, my mother's gonna love you. I can't wait until you two meet—she loves serious people.”

“I thought you hated your mother.”

“Well, I used to like her when I was little, but then her hormones changed and now we don't get along so good. But she used to be nice. Like one time when I was in fifth grade, right after they got divorced, my mother made me a papier-mache Halloween outfit and that was pretty nice. She made a green mask with fangs and a long tail all the way down my back. Then I went to school in it and this kid, Michael Smits, he goes, 'What are you, a crocodile?' I go, 'No! I'm a fucking dragon, you asshole,' and the teacher, Mrs. Pickle, she sends me to the principal's office and I spent the whole day sitting there in my dragon outfit, just praying fat Smits would come by, so I could claw the shit out of him.”

Then a horrible thought—one I surely would have struck upon earlier if not so harried by the simple fact of being near her.
What if she was pregnant?
With my luck, she was probably as fertile as the grass under a cow's ass. And even if she wasn't, she could easily run out and get knocked up by someone else. Who would she point to then? Oh, how she'd love that, going home with my kid, thinking that that alone would unite us forever. Unite her and Mom!
Against me!
There were blood tests, but how accurate were those?

Doheny had already eaten fried cheese and fried calamari, so I suggested fried ice cream for dessert.

“No thanks,” she said. “I don't want to blimp out on you.”

I winced but pushed on. “Come on, skinny, we'll split it.”

This she loved. We were joking around like a happy couple. It was a necessary evil. I didn't want to give her any reason or need to blackmail me. Go with the game, make her think I was hers—kids or not. There'd be no bitter pills to swallow; we'd just drop it in water, let it dissolve.

I sipped my Sprite and said, “When did you have your last
period?” It came out less matter-of-fact and more gargly than I'd intended.

“None of your beeswax. That's personal.”

“Doheny, you had your finger up my ass this morning. How can this be personal?”

“That was between the two of us. A woman's period is her own business. Period.” She lit a cigarette. “Besides, I never keep track. I figure if I'm gonna get preggie, I'm gonna get preggie. It's like last time—I was pregnant for two months and then I had a miscar-riage—so I guess it wasn't meant to be.”

Two bleached-blond surfer dudes walked in, surfboards at their sides, dried salt on their brown hides. Doheny whistled and called out, “Nice buns!”

“No,” I groaned.

“What?”

“Don't ever do that around me.”

“Just 'cause I'm on a diet don't mean I can't look at the menu.”

The waitress dropped off the fried Chunky Monkey, but my appetite was gone. As Doheny brought a forkful of ice cream to her mouth, a plume of cigarette smoke spilled slowly from her nose.

Doheny kept her hand on my shoulder as we drove back down the PCH. The writing was on the wall now, it was no big deal to her if she got “preggie” and destroyed my life. She didn't keep track of things like that.

“Must've been pretty rough,” I said. “Having a miscarriage.” “Not really. I just had bad cramps one day, then I started bleeding.” She whistled and took a hit off her smoke. “Bye-bye, Junior.”

I managed to seem unfazed. “Well, at least you know you can have children. Sure wish I could.”

A huge fast exhale. “What? You can't have no kids?”

“Nope. I'm sterile.”

“You're shooting blanks?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, that sucks, Hen.”

She placed a hand on mine.

“It's not so bad,” I said. “Guess I could always adopt.”

“Yeah, I wouldn't mind that. Maybe I could even quit smoking.”

I smiled, thoroughly baffled.

“How'd you find out?” she asked.

“That I'm sterile?”

“Mm.”

“Had tests done.”

“Why? You weren't ever married, were you?”

“Nope. Went in on my own.” I reached in the backseat, held up the sperm cup. “The bad-news beaker.”

“Wow. Must feel weird to know you can't ever knock no one up.”

“Sucks. But you learn to live with it.”

Doheny lit a fresh cigarette with her old one.

“So is it a hereditary thing?”

“Huh?”

“Being sterile,” she said. “Was your father sterile, too?”

The twitchiest of twitches from me.

“Uh-uh. Skips every other generation.”

As I pulled up at a red light, she glanced at my feet and exclaimed, “I didn't know you tied double knots!”

I managed something like, “Ehh.” A second later there was a bang, a crash, the tinkling of glass. We found ourselves five feet into the intersection.

I wasn't in a very good mood before I'd been rear-ended, but five seconds ago seemed like the good ol' days. My door was jammed shut from the impact, but what really angered me as I climbed out the window was that there hadn't been a screech or anything to warn us to brace ourselves. Somebody had creamed us dead-on, he'd been daydreaming, and I discovered that whiplash wasn't just lawyer bullshit. The ass of my poor Arrow would never be the same. The bumper was off, the lights were broken, the wheel wells were wrinkled, and the four gang members who'd clobbered me were swearing about their souped-up El Camino's broken headlight while passing around a blunt.

“No harm here,” I said and after climbing back in the window, I limped home with a roaring muffler, stiff neck, and a little dragon girl with tequila breath.

I'd written for
Seinfeld
and he said Larry David liked it, too, but ultimately the decision came down to Seinfeld himself and once again he passed. I was starting not to like Jerry Seinfeld. This was the perfect script for him, it made no sense that he would pass. Half a dozen people in Levine's office had called to compliment me. I even heard from an ICM agent, stroking me a little, feeling me out. The good news from Levine was that Ted Bowman agreed to see me again. He was no Seinfeld, but at least he was giving me a fair shot and I was grateful for that.