The Man Who Cancelled Himself Read online

  Tommy was still struggling to get up out of his chair. “Shit what?”

  “Shit, we still haven’t got a job for Rob,” Marty said miserably.

  “Shit.” Tommy slumped back into his seat.

  Marty sat back down. Silence followed. Now a number of people were gazing up at the ceiling. Until, slowly, they began looking you-know-where again.

  I tugged at my ear. “Would someone tell me what’s wrong with Rob being a wood shop teacher?”

  “It doesn’t give us enough,” said Marty.

  “He can’t bring any stories in,” said Tommy.

  “Unless he cuts off a finger,” said Marty.

  “And we can only do that, what, ten times,” said Tommy.

  “I’m, like, it’s boring.”

  “B-Bland.”

  “What if he taught health education?” I proposed. “That covers a lot of ground in a typical suburban high school—sex education, AIDS awareness, drugs, alcohol—”

  “N-Nutrition,” added Bobby, with great intensity. “Kids don’t know how to eat right any more. We have an entire g-generation being raised on the Taco Bell instead of the L-Liberty Bell.”

  “I swear to God, Bobby,” jeered Lyle, “one more line like that outta you and I’m taking out a gun.”

  “I liked that,” protested Katrina.

  “So, what, he’s Mr. Novak?” asked Tommy.

  “If you like,” I replied.

  “Who’s that?” asked Katrina.

  “A sixties classroom show starring the late Jimmy Franciscus,” replied Marty.

  “Wait, wait,” said Annabelle. “You call him that because he’s always late, right?”

  “No, I call him that because he’s dead.” Marty thumbed his chin. “So Rob’s the cool guy. The one that they can turn to when they’re in trouble. He listens. He cares. He gets involved. All of which means he can drag a million stories in the door with him. I like this, Hoagy.”

  “Extreme!” cried Annabelle. “It’ll even bring in the Beverly Hills 90210 crowd!”

  “Slam dunk,” conceded Tommy.

  “B-Brilliant.”

  “God was searching for a positive new direction,” Marjorie responded cautiously. “We may have found it.” Her way of voicing approval.

  “I love it, I love it, I love it!” squealed Katrina. Her way. She got up and ran toward me with her arms outstretched and her hooters ajiggle, shades of Morgana, The Kissing Bandit. I didn’t know whether to duck or run. Before I could do either she’d planted a hard, wet kiss on my right ear, temporarily deafening me.

  Yes, everyone loved it. Everyone except for the one person who hadn’t said a word. “Last time I looked I was still running this show,” Lyle growled irritably.

  Which chilled things considerably.

  “What do you say, Chief?” asked Marty. “Great, huh?”

  Lyle ran a fat gloved hand through his red curls and leaned back in his chair, which groaned under him. He glanced balefully around the table at everyone. “Try it,” he said grudgingly. “Only don’t get carried away. Remember we’re not doing To Mr. Fruitwell, With Love. We’re doing The Uncle Chubby Show.”

  “For now,” muttered Tommy under his breath.

  The protestors were still out there on the sidewalk in front of the studio with their pickets. They seemed quieter and limper than they had that morning. Maybe it was the hot white summer sun and foul, heavy air. Maybe it was that the news cameras had bagged their footage for the day and moved on. I don’t know. The cops just looked bored.

  The Kids took me around the corner to Big Mama Thornton’s for lunch, Chelsea’s version of a shit-kicking Southern roadhouse. The walls were of aged barn siding and studded with dented hubcaps and chrome bumpers and old Louisiana license plates. There was sawdust on the floor, and Michael Bolton was not, happily, blasting over the stereo. John Lee Hooker was—“Streets Is Filled with Women,” from the Detroit sessions produced by Bernie Besman in the late forties.

  Our waitress wore jackboots and a T-shirt and a great deal of crust around the edges. “Okay, don’t tell me,” she said hoarsely as she stomped over to us. To Annabelle she said, “Diet Coke.” To Bobby she said, “Regular Coke, no ice.” To me she said, “Gibson?”

  “Never touch them. Make it an iced tea.”

  “I meant,” she said, “is Mel Gibson the father?”

  “With lemon,” I added wearily. Lulu wanted to tear her throat out. “No sugar.”

  We all ordered pork barbecue with cole slaw and hush puppies. Lulu went for the fried catfish.

  “Now, does she always eat with you in restaurants?” Annabelle asked, keenly interested.

  “If that’s where I happen to be eating.”

  “And what if you’re at home? What does she eat then?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Bobby sat there quietly twisting his paper napkin around one knuckle, again and again, tighter and tighter. Origami for the clinically hostile.

  “Was that a fairly typical notes session?” I asked him.

  “P-Par for the course,” he replied bitterly. “Most shows g-get ripped apart and thrown back together that way. That’s w-why they don’t make any sense half the time.”

  “Today’s gang bang was maybe a bit more amped out than usual,” Annabelle said, sucking on her Diet Coke through a straw. “I’m, like, now that Katrina’s sitting in.”

  “Leo told me she thinks Katrina is pure evil.”

  “No way!” shrieked Annabelle. “Leo would say that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she let Leo love her.”

  “Y-You don’t know that,” Bobby blurted out.

  Annabelle batted her eyes at him. “You are such a bunny.”

  “That’s gossip,” he insisted vehemently.

  “I’m, like, Leo is gay,” Annabelle explained for my benefit. “I’m not putting her down or anything. Just explaining. Katrina came in as an extra for a party scene last season. She was one of the dancers. She can dance for real. Used to be on Club MTV, I mean. And I’m, like, she still works out two hours a day just to hold onto her shape, which would go so fast if she let it. Anyway, Leo fell for her extreme. Gave her a full-time job. Got Gwen to buy some of her stupid jewelry for the show. And when the sublet ran out on Katrina’s apartment, Leo let her move in with her. Bought her clothes, gave her extra spending money. I’m talking love here, okay?”

  “Did the two of them—?”

  “No!” replied Bobby, sharply.

  “Nobody knows fer sure if they did the wild thing or not,” said Annabelle. “Me, I wouldn’t put it past Katrina. On account of, that woman is full of blah-blah-blah.”

  “Blah-blah-blah?”

  “Shit. She led Leo on. Let her believe whatever she wanted to about her, okay? When the whole time she was just using Leo to get in the door. Soon as she spotted something better—Lyle—she went for it. Dumped Leo cold. Wham, zoom. Told her never to call her again. I heard she’s done it before, too. With this musician she used to live with. She treats people like sponges, okay? Squeezes every last drop out of them. Check it out—Leo loved her. She let Leo love her. And that’s a pretty shitty thing to do when you don’t love a person back, if you ask me. Not that I’m a feelings specialist like you are, Hoagy. I do know Leo hates her. And hates Lyle for stealing her. And that’s not gossip. That’s fact.”

  “I’m surprised Leo has stayed around,” I observed. “Why doesn’t she quit?”

  “Too illegit to quit,” Annabelle replied. “She and Lyle have so many crooked deals cooked up together. No way she’d pull down those kind of bucks anywhere else. Besides, she’s not the type to walk. She’s the type to get even, if you know what I’m saying.”

  Our waitress brought our food. The barbecue was tangy and peppery and I was starved. Bobby ate his with his fork held underhanded and his face over his plate, like a little kid shoveling down a bowl of Maypo. Annabelle just nibbled.

  “B-Boys will be halfway t
hrough their rewrite of Act One already,” Bobby mentioned between forkfuls, glancing at his watch.

  “They’re awesome how fast they are,” Annabelle agreed, nodding her headdress.

  “They’re total hacks,” he sniffed. “B-Body-and-fender men. No commitment to their art.”

  “This isn’t art,” I reminded him. “It’s television.”

  “T-Too damned cynical for their own good,” he went on, with mounting intensity. “Tommy especially. I mean, Tommy’s a really smart guy. And talented. But he b-believes in nothing.”

  “And why do they stay around? Same reason as Leo?”

  Annabelle shook her head. “It runs deeper than money,” she hinted darkly.

  “How much deeper?”

  “D-Don’t listen to her,” Bobby argued, blinking at me. “It’s strictly the money. They both have m-monster overheads. Marty’s ex-wife, Beth, Lives in West Nyack with their three teenage kids. And then he and his new wife, B-Brandy, have a baby and a four-year-old. Plus they just bought a house in the West V-Village. Tommy’s oldest son, Ronnie, goes to Harvard. His daughter starts college next year. He’s got a big house in Tarrytown. …”

  “He commutes?” I asked.

  “He never goes home,” Annabelle replied. “At least not during the week. I’m, like, Tommy hates his wife. She is, after all, a woman. He stays in town at a really, really grungy hotel in Times Square. He likes to fuck hookers and go to porn movies. He and Lyle used to go to them together all the time.” She made a face. “Tommy is … Tommy is …”

  “Skeegee,” I said. “He mentioned something about that.” He had not, however, mentioned anything about how he and Lyle used to go to porn movies together. Not one word.

  Bobby took a gulp of his Coke. “The point is there’s nothing else that would p-pay them this kind of money. Especially in New York. Lyle’s got the only sitcom going here. Everything else is done out of Los Angeles.”

  “And if they moved out there,” Annabelle said, “they’d have to uproot their families and—”

  “They’d get drop-kicked right out the door,” said Bobby bluntly. “They’re shlockmeisters. No style or vision of their own. Which is f-fine if you’re twenty-five and working your way up, but they’re over forty. Forty is old for TV.”

  “If you’re forty you’re part of the past,” Annabelle concurred. “Forty is ancient. Forty is—”

  “You can pull over and stop any time on this one.” I sipped my tea. “You’ve staffed out there?” I asked Bobby.

  He shoveled more barbecue. “I was on a N-Norman Lear show for a season. Hated it. I’m no sitcom writer. I’m a p-playwright. My first play, Cold Storage, was produced three years ago at Playwrights Horizons. Amber Walloon directed it. It was about a m-man who puts himself in cold storage when he can’t figure out what to do with his l-life.”

  “It was brilliant,” said Annabelle, nibbling at her corn bread.

  “Lear’s people saw it and flew me out there—paid me a shitload of money, too.” He was starting to puff up, his arrogance seeping out as he got more relaxed. Bobby was not, I felt sure, someone I’d want to go out drinking with. “There were eight of us. They’d sit us all down in a room with the first draft and say, ‘Okay, kids, we need t-twelve new punch lines.’ We’d each write two or three per gag and initial them, then the executive producer would p-pick one. It was about as human as taking an SAT exam. And the p-people. They spend twelve hours a day on the lot talking about their show, their d-deal, other people’s shows, other people’s deals … I c-couldn’t handle it. I was miserable. P-Plus it’s way too far away from Boston.”

  “Got a girlfriend up there?” I asked.

  “M-Morris Helfein, my shrink.” He went back to twisting his napkin over his knuckle. “He’s been helping me deal with my anger ever since I was thirteen. Like when I walked out of the notes session this morning. That was p-positive. I didn’t let L-Lyle get to me. I went to the men’s room, I controlled my feelings, and then I came back. I’d be lost without Dr. Helfein. I see him Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday mornings. I’ll f-fly back up tonight and be back here before noon tomorrow for rewrites. I can do that from New York, but when I was in L.A., I c-could only see him Saturdays and Mondays. I had to fly back out and skip my Tuesday session, which was really tough.”

  “Expensive, too, I imagine.”

  “Still is. The shuttle c-costs a fortune.” He reddened, blinking furiously. “To save money I stay with my m-m-mom when I’m up there.”

  “Lyle gives you a pretty hard time,” I observed.

  Bobby let out a short, humorless laugh. “Lyle thinks he’s being nothing but good to me. He d-did give me a job, after all. I have Amber to thank for that. And he is trying to teach me the sitcom ropes, in his own cruel, abusive way. Maybe … Maybe I’m just not cut out for this business. B-Because all it’s about is learning how to pitch. I want to learn how to write. I-I want to grow, and you don’t from TV. You get much too used to reducing life to simple problems with simple, feel-good solutions that can be reached in twenty-two simple, feel-good minutes.”

  “Lyle seems to feel Uncle Chubby is the exception.”

  “That’s his standard line,” Annabelle scoffed. “That and about how he never sweetens.”

  “He does?”

  “I’m, like, of course he does. He just won’t call it sweetening. Because that would be him admitting a joke bombed. He can’t. Check it out, he figures the laugh belongs there, okay? He bears it, okay? As long as he does, to him that’s not sweetening.”

  “He always g-goes on and on about how he’s d-doing a unique show,” Bobby sputtered angrily. “B-Better than Neil Simon. Total bullshit. He knows Uncle Chubby sucks. He only says it t-to psych everyone up for the grind.”

  “Including himself?” I asked.

  “Especially himself,” Bobby replied. “If he ever stopped t-to think about how bad it was he’d b-burn out in a second.” Bobby drained his Coke and smacked his glass down hard on the table, startling Lulu. “I should be doing g-good work,” he groaned. “I should be doing theater.”

  “So why aren’t you?” I asked him roughly. His self-pity was getting to me.

  “You write a p-play and maybe a couple of hundred people hear your words,” he replied bitterly. “If you’re lucky and it runs a while, a f-few thousand. You live in a c-crummy studio apartment with roaches and no heat. Women won’t have anything to do with you. Your family wonders what’s wrong with you. You’re a f-failure. You write a TV show and tens of millions of people hear your words and see your name on the screen. I made a hundred and ninety-seven thousand d-dollars last year, Hoagy. I have a two-bedroom apartment with a d-doorman and built-in bookshelves. Women want to go out with me. I’ve got everything a person could ask for—except for p-pride and self-respect. Because those aren’t my words they’re hearing. L-Lyle has rewritten them. Or The Boys have. Or the network has. They’ve been twisted, m-made cute … I’ve sold them away, for money. If I were stronger, I’d do nothing but plays. My words. My way. Only, I-I’m not that strong.”

  I turned to Annabelle. “And how about you?”

  “Me, I’m, like, clam happy,” she answered brightly. “Everyone I went to school with bageled out in the job world. Took meaningless, low-paying McJobs. They all sit around talking about downscaling, lessness. I’m, like, making more in one year than my father makes in five selling Oldsmobiles in Paramus. Plus, I love being in production. I get a buzz from it.”

  “And what do you get from Lyle?”

  She pulled a pocket mirror out of her black leather drawstring bag and began to swab purple lipstick all over her mouth. She reminded me of a little girl playing at her mom’s dressing table. “Lyle gave me my start, okay? I mean, I wrote a spec script and submitted it and next thing I know I’m on staff, okay? I’m, like, no way! I was about to take a job selling sportswear at Nordstrom’s. So, I’m, like, totally grateful to him. Only, he’s so extreme. Like last season he hired and fired me thre
e times in the same week, okay? He’s, like, ‘You’re too young and immature to get the show.’ So I’m, like, out the door in tears, and he’s, like, ‘Hey, sit down—I just drought of the perfect story for you to write.’ So I’m, like, ‘You fired me.’ And he’s, like, ‘You can’t fire family.’ So I scene it out and go in to pitch it to him and he’s, like, ‘Annabelle, what are you still doing here? I thought I fired you.’ I mean, fer sure. Still, I can deal with that head shit, okay? What I can’t deal with,” she confessed, her dark button eyes flashing with anger, “is the way he’s all the time in my face. Like he’s my father. I can never forgive him for Lorenzo. That was low. We fell in love last season, Lorenzo and me. We met on the show. And when Lyle heard about it he called me into his office and he, like, ordered me to stop seeing him, strictly because Lorenzo’s below the line.”

  “That’s production jargon for blue collar,” Bobby explained.

  “Lorenzo’s a cameraman, like his father,” she went on. “Like that’s not good enough for me or something. Like it’s any of Lyle’s goddamned business or something. I’m, like, Lorenzo’s the great love of my life. He sucks on my toes. He writes poetry. He cooks. And I’m, like, he’s not a pinhead. He has his degree in pharmacology, F.U.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Fairfield University. When he and I moved in together, Lyle freaked. Fired him from the show—for being ‘difficult,’ which he isn’t. No way.”

  “What is Lorenzo doing now?”

  “He got on a soap for a while, filling in for a guy who was on sick leave.” Annabelle looked away uncomfortably. “I’m, like, he’s kind of free-lancing now, y’know? I mean, steady gigs are hard to find, especially if you’ve developed a bad rep. Which is totally unfair. Lorenzo’s still bumming about Lyle. Hates him. I mean, the man’s ruined his career. Or tried to. But, hey, as long as I’m working, we’re cool.”

  “And if you’re not working?”

  “I can always go out to LA. and get a job.”

  “Can he?”

  “No,” she confessed unhappily. “He’s not in the L.A. union. He pretty much can’t leave New York.”