The Man Who Cancelled Himself (48 page)

“Which God is he talking about now?” muttered Very, who had moved right behind me.

Lyle was staring off into space now. “It was for my people. I did it for us. We’re a family, don’t you see? We’re about caring. And love. We’re about being
out there.
My family understands. Sure they do. And they forgive me. Because that’s what families do. That’s the great thing about them. That’s why …” He trailed off midsentence, sat there in glassy-eyed silence. Didn’t move. Didn’t so much as blink.

Very took control of the microphone. “Okay, Mr. Hudnut, it’s all over. The exits are covered. Please cooperate with us and we’ll have you out of here with a minimum of fuss. Car’s waiting downstairs in the loading dock. Freight elevator will take us directly to it. We don’t want any more of a scene than you do. Okay, Mr. Hudnut?”

Lyle didn’t respond. He’d withdrawn deep inside of himself, a low, tuneless hum coming from his throat.

“Wrap him up,” Very commanded his troops.

They moved in. Lyle just sat there, frozen. He seemed completely unaware of what was happening around him. Until suddenly he sprang to his feet and dashed across the kitchen set and out the laundry room door. He moved surprisingly fast for such a big man. There was an emergency fire exit there behind the set. No one was guarding it. He barreled through the steel door and was gone, six uniformed cops in hot pursuit.

Very cursed under his breath. “Not to worry, dude,” he said to me with a tight grimace. “We got men on the fire escapes downstairs. He can’t go nowhere.”

Katrina stood before me, tears streaming down her face and her lower lip quivering. She bit it, hard. Started to say something to me, but changed her mind. She slapped my face instead, a sharp, stinging blow. Then she ran into the comforting arms of Leo, who hugged her tightly and murmured, “There, there,” in her ear, like a protective mother. Leo glared over Katrina’s shoulder at me, a hard glint of triumph in her eyes.

Marjorie Daw was still frowning at me.

One of Very’s men barged into the booth now and pulled him aside, briefing him in rushed, frantic bursts. Very made a face, then motioned me to join them.

“Seems we got a small problem, dude,” he said, with admirable cool.

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

“Hudnut won’t give up. He’s up on the roof, threatening to jump. He’s asking for you.”

“What for?”

“How the fuck should I know?” he snapped, losing that cool. “Go up there and talk to him, will ya? See if you can bring him down.”

“Wait, aren’t there people who are trained in this sort of thing?”

“Not time for that. He wants
you.
Move it!”

An ancient cast-iron spiral staircase took me up there, my footsteps resounding sharply in the dim, narrow stairwell. There was a steel fire door at the top, open, and two grim-faced young cops crouched just outside with their guns drawn in the warm, greasy rain. The city sounds were startlingly loud up there after being in the soundproofed studio. The air was so heavy and misty I could barely make Lyle out. He was just a hulking shape standing over by the edge of the roof, his back to us. There was a low ledge before him—the top of the building’s facing. Nothing else, besides sky. The tar roof was slick and puddled.

He heard me splashing across it toward him and turned. “Hey, ya made it, Hoagster!” he called to me genially. He seemed completely relaxed and cheerful. “You two guys beat it, okay?” he ordered the cops. “Scram, or I’ll jump! I mean it!”

They turned to me, eyes wide. They were big men and they had guns but they were scarcely out of their teens. I nodded to them. They gratefully retreated through the fire door, leaving us. I went over and shut it behind them. Then I started slowly back toward Lyle in the rain. “This isn’t a very good thing to do, Lyle.”

“Why not?” He gazed longingly down at the street six floors below.

The police had closed it off; blue-and-whites formed a barricade across it at either end of the building. Protestors and bystanders were bunched out in the street, waiting for something, anything to happen. And hoping they’d be lucky enough to be a part of it. It was at times like this that I hated people. In the distance I could hear a fire truck’s horn blasting away. But it would take him several more minutes to get here in the rush-hour gridlock. Forever.

“Why not?” he repeated, insistently this time.

“You’re a sick man, Lyle. You’ll be hospitalized. You’ll be helped. Your life isn’t over.”

He stuck out his lower lip at me. “Yeah, it is. I’m a performer, Hoagster. And I can never perform again, not ever. They won’t let me on camera again as long as I live—except for maybe a Barbara Wawa interview, live, from my padded cell, in a couple of years. So, ya see, there’s no point in going on. None. If a performer can’t perform, he’s dead … This … This just makes it official.” He gazed down at the street again. “They shoulda just let me go before—that day in high school. It woulda been so much better if they’d just let me go. Then none of this would ever have happened. I shouldn’t have listened to ’em. I shoulda just gone ahead and jumped. Ended it, there and then. I’m sorry now that I didn’t. Totally fucking sorry. Will you tell ’em that? Will you put that in the book for me?”

“If you wish.”

“I do.” He let out a huge sigh. “I … I guess maybe I still
believed
then. I guess that’s the reason I couldn’t do it.” His features darkened. “But I don’t believe anymore.”

“In what, Lyle?”

“In anything.” He turned around to face me, edging back against the low ledge. It barely reached the back of his knees. “Will you do something else for me? One other thing?”

“What is it, Lyle?”

“Will you push me?” He asked this as if it were nothing major. A small favor, like watering his plants while he was away for the weekend.

“No, Lyle. I will not.”

“Please?” he begged.

“No.”

“I-I can’t do it by myself, Hoagy. I thought I could, but I can’t. I don’t have the guts. Help me, Hoagy. Please help me.”

“Don’t do this to me, Lyle. Or yourself.”

“Put me out of my misery, Hoagy,” he pleaded. His voice cracked with urgency and emotion. “It’s my only chance. If I turn myself in I’ll be an animal in a cage for the rest of my life.
Trapped.
You know I can’t handle that. Show me a little compassion. Lemme go. Give me a push. One little push.” His eyes flickered at the fire door. “C’mon, pal, we’re all alone up here. No one can see us. No one will ever know, except for you.”

“That’s a fairly big exception.”

“You’re my only friend, Hoagy. The only one I can count on. You and no one else. Because you care about what’s right. You
know
this is what friends do for each other.”

I stood there. I didn’t say I wasn’t his friend. I didn’t say anything at all.

He didn’t quit. “Okay, if not for me than for the folks. Give Herb and Aileen a break. Don’t put them through the trial, the publicity, the bullshit. … Do it for
them.”

I held my hand out to him. “Come on, Lyle. Let’s go downstairs.”

“You lousy scumbag,” he snarled, turning schoolyard bully on me. “You don’t have the nerve to push me, that’s what it is. You’re a momma’s boy. A fucking momma’s boy. I d
are
ya to push me! Come on, momma’s boy,” he jeered, shoving me roughly in the chest. “Push me!”

“This isn’t going to work, Lyle.”

“Push me, momma’s boy!” he taunted, shoving me once again. “Come on and push me!”

“Cut it out, Lyle.”

“Hell, you’re such a momma’s boy you can’t even control your own wife.”

“Do me a favor and leave Merilee out of this, okay?” He cackled at me. “Know why nobody can figure out who the father of her baby is? I’ll tell ya why—’cause there isn’t a guy in New York or L.A. who
hasn’t
fucked her. I’ve had her. Christ, who hasn’t? She’s got a cunt on her like a swamp. I put it in her ass, momma’s boy. That’s right, I fucked your wife up the ass. Then I stuck it in her mouth. She liked it that way. She liked it so much she
moaned.
She called me her big daddy. She called me her big, bad—”

I punched him in the mouth. Hard as I could.

Which shut him up. And also rocked him back against the low ledge, dangerously off balance. At first, he chose life, waving his arms in desperation, his eyes wide with terror as he fought for survival. But then he suddenly stopped fighting. He hovered there for an instant. I didn’t try to grab him, and he didn’t thank me, or grin, or wink, or do anything like that. Errol Flynn he wasn’t. He just hovered there in midair—cancelled, with no hope of renewal. And then he pitched over the side. I heard the screams down below. Then I heard him hit the sidewalk, a sound I’ll never forget as long as I live. Somewhat like a watermelon wrapped in a wet newspaper, but not quite.

I stayed there on the roof in the rain, rubbing my hand.

Romaine Very arrived in seconds. “You okay, dude?” he cried out as he burst through the fire door, out of breath. I think he ran up the stairs, even though his doctor said he wasn’t supposed to.

“Why wouldn’t I be, Lieutenant?”

“No reason,” he said quickly, frowning at me. “What happened to your hand?”

“Nothing. Just a little arthritis. Common among aging writers, particularly in damp weather.”

He stood there, nodding to his personal beat. “Damn, I hate jumpers. They always leave such a mess behind.” He waited for me to say something. When I didn’t, he turned and looked at me. “You want to talk about this, dude?” he asked gently.

“Now wouldn’t be a good time.”

“Sure, sure. Only, see, I gotta file a report, y’know?” He came over and put his arm around me. Below, the sirens wailed. “How about I buy you a beer first?”

“I’m more in the mood for a single malt scotch.”

“Whatever.” He flashed a grin at me, began steering me toward the fire door. “Cool, dude?”

“Cool, Lieutenant.”

“I’m with you, dude.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

And then the two of us left the rooftop.

“Do you own a lobster pot?”

She was still frowning at me, standing there in her apartment doorway in a T-shirt and shorts. I could see the lights of the cars streaming up the West Side Highway out the windows behind her. “Do I own a what?”

“A lobster pot.” I watched them bob around in their plastic bag.

She watched me. A long time, searchingly, before she said, “What did you do to Katrina?”

“I did my job. It can be ugly, like I told you.”

“What did you do to her?”

“I used her.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“I let her think I was in love with her.”

“Why?”

“I had to.”

“You had to sleep with her?”

“I had to pry her open. She was the weak link. Lyle took her too much for granted. He shouldn’t have.” I paused. “And I didn’t sleep with her.”

She shook her head at me. “I’m not entirely sure I like you.”

“I’m not entirely sure I do either.”

We stared at each other a long time before she swallowed and said, “The answer is yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I do own a lobster pot.”

“Excellent. I’d hate to see these go to waste. They’re from Maine, you know.” I handed them to her and said, “Enjoy.” Then I started for the elevator.

She let me get almost all the way to it before she said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Nowhere.”

So I didn’t. The lobsters were superb. In fact, all of it was. No, Marjorie did not help me forget Merilee, if that’s what you’re wondering. Or remember her. This wasn’t about that. This was about proving to myself that I was still alive.

Much later in the night I dreamt that it was me up there on the edge of that roof, waving my arms, about to pitch over into the great wide open. I awoke screaming, drenched with sweat. Marjorie wiped me down with a cold cloth and held me for a while. Then she did some other things to me that I see no need to go into here. Although I can tell you she did not wear her bite guard. In the morning she went out early and got us fresh, hot onion bagels. We ate them out on her terrace. She’d picked up the morning papers, too. The
Daily News
went with a one-word banner headline:
“SPLAT.”
The Post went the Van Halen route:
“YOU MIGHT AS WELL
…
JUMP!”
Lyle’s death was such a big story even the
Times
covered it—in the Metro section under the one-column headline
“NOTED TV ACTOR DIES IN CHELSEA ROOFTOP PLUNGE.”
All three papers had the gory details about Lyle’s death, Chad’s death, Fiona’s, all of it. Except for the early stuff. They didn’t have Aileen trying to kill Lyle when he was two, or that he’d tried to jump once before in high school. They didn’t have his six-week-long suicidal depression. They didn’t have him in shock therapy. They didn’t have any of that yet. I was the only one who had that.

It still happens. I still think about Lyle Hudnut and me up there on that roof. I still ask myself if I should have hit him. If I should have tried to save him as he teetered there. If I did right by him. I don’t know. I don’t know about Lyle either—if he could have helped himself from doing what he did. If any of us can. I’m not sure if I hated him or not. I’m not sure if he was evil, or if there even is such a thing as evil. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure of anything anymore. The new me grows a little bit dumber every day.

I guess I’m finally growing up.

Y
OU’LL BE PLEASED TO
know that
The Uncle Chubby Show
returned to its same Monday night time slot a few weeks later, slightly revamped. The Munchkins, tragically orphaned by the deaths of both Deirdre and Chubby in a car accident, were adopted by a childless black couple. The wife had been Deirdre’s law school roommate. The show got a new title,
Our House.
But Casey and Caitlin, as the adorable Erin and Trevor, didn’t change, and neither did good ol’ Rusty. Neither did the house, for that matter. The black couple just moved right in. Ratings for
Our House
were strong. Not number one, like
Uncle Chubby,
but it premiered in the top fifteen and held its audience on a consistent basis. The critics weren’t wild about it, but they were polite. God elected to keep the production in New York for the time being. It made for less of a disruption, and allowed it to hit the ground running. The Boys ran it and Amber directed it. Annabelle stayed on as a producer. A young black writer from Yale Drama School was brought in to replace Bobby Ackerman, who was busy seeing his play,
The Human Dramedy,
brought to Broadway by Mike Nichols. As for me, I didn’t stay with
Our House.
Nothing about my experience on
Uncle Chubby
led me to believe I had a future as a feelings specialist, or wanted one. I also wasn’t asked.