The Man Who Cancelled Himself Read online

  I didn’t call Merilee when I got back to town. I did catch a glimpse of her, but that was on the front page of the Star, a photo of her waddling down Central Park West in maternity clothes and sunglasses, very pregnant. The headline: WHERE’S POPPA?

  Damned if I knew.

  You’re probably beginning to wonder exactly what it is I do when the money runs out. Let me tell you about my not-chosen field. I’m a pen for hire, an invisible man, a ghost. In my own defense, I’m not one of those “As Told To” lunch-pailers who routinely run some doddering ex-movie star’s self-congratulatory twaddle through the word processor. Or maybe it’s the food processor! No, I am the ghost. The reigning champ, if there can be such a thing as an invisible champ. Four number-one best-selling memoirs to my noncredit, as well as someone else’s best-selling novel. Unlike the lunch-pailers, I know how to handle stars. Used to be one myself, and I was married to one and am not, repeat not, the father of her child. I also happen to be a former lion of American literature, a master of the finer nuances of character, tone, structure—which is to say I know how to make up better stories than they do. Sorry if this is disillusioning you, but you should never, ever confuse a celebrity memoir with Truth. And you’re old enough to know this by now.

  Of course, there’s one other reason why my celebrity memoirs tend to be breakout hits. Things—how shall I put it—have this way of heating up when I arrive. I don’t mean the way Lyle said the control room heated up when Katrina wiggled in. I mean the way famous people have this unpleasant way of turning up dead. By other than natural causes. Ghosting, you see, isn’t just about making up stories. It’s about dishing dirt on friends and foes. It’s about secrets, past and present. Usually, there’s someone around who wants them to stay quietly buried. Most ghosts say fine, ’nuff said. Not me. I rise to the challenge. At least my ego does, and my ego is executive producer of this particular long-running sitcom. Not that I look for trouble. I don’t. Trouble just has this uncanny knack for searching me out, like a pig nosing around in the dirt for truffles.

  I told you I never thought I’d be a sitcom writer. Well, I never thought I’d be a ghost, either. Same as I never thought Merilee Nash would be pregnant with another man’s child. “Just another one of those little surprises that make life so interesting,” as Ozzie used to tell Dave and little Ricky on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Of course, Ozzie is history now, and father no longer knows best. Nobody knows best. I sure don’t. I used to think I did, but that was the old me. The me who knew everything. The new me knows next to nothing. The new me is growing dumber every single day.

  Two

  HUDSON STUDIO, WHERE The Uncle Chubby Show was taped before a studio audience every Friday evening during the season, was located down on West Twenty-sixth Street, on the edge of the garment district. It was a street lined with wholesalers and sweatshops and shops that did nothing but service sewing machines or sell body parts for mannequins of the nonhuman variety. Trucks were double-parked everywhere, loading and unloading dresses, furs, and leather jackets. The studio itself offered little in the way of curbside appeal. It was a converted warehouse, six stories high, with its upstairs windows bricked over. There was a two-bay loading dock for trucks. There was no fancy sign. Just the words Hudson Studio stenciled on the double doors of smoked glass. Not that those doors were easy to get to.

  There was a blue police barricade on either side of them and a knot of uniformed cops stopping everybody. This because about two hundred angry protestors from Citizens for Moral Television had rolled out the unwelcome mat. They carried signs saying “CHUBBY MUST GO!” and “JUST SAY NO TO PERVERTS!” They chanted, “Shame, shame, shame on you!” for all to hear. Especially the news crews from local TV stations and Entertainment Tonight. The protestors were plenty worked up. A few were even stretched out in the middle of Twenty-sixth Street with the hope of getting arrested for blocking traffic. Had to be from out of town. That tactic doesn’t play in New York, where nine out of ten cab drivers would just as soon go over you as around you. One of the cops let me inside.

  There was a tiny reception area with a desk where a young black kid in a Hudson Studio T-shirt sat reading about last night’s sorry performance by the Mets in the Post. A phone, a walkie-talkie, and his feet were on the desk before him. After he’d checked my name against a list I asked him how long the protestors had been out there.

  “Since eight o’clock this morning. Said they won’t go away til they take the man off the air. Don’t they have nothin’ better to do than stand out there in the hot sun all day?”

  “If they did they’d be doing it.”

  He flashed me a grin. “Have a good one.”

  Lulu growled at him. It’s her least favorite expression. I’ve never known why.

  She ambled along beside me, snuffling, as I went down a long, narrow corridor past a rabbit warren of offices, storerooms, and conference rooms. I passed through the double fire doors at the end of the hall, then climbed a wide steel staircase vaguely reminiscent of one in an inner city high school. It was actually used as such when they filmed Fame there several years before. After two flights I reached a landing. Here there was an open door marked “PRODUCTION OFFICES” and a closed door marked “DRESSING ROOMS—NO ENTRANCE—PRIVATE.” There was a big padlock on it in case you couldn’t read. There was also a men’s room, which smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned since the glory days of John V. Lindsay, a water fountain, which was out of order, and a bank of grimy windows overlooking a rather repulsive air shaft. If you’re looking for luxury, TV production is not for you. The glamor is on camera, not behind it.

  I went in the open door. There was a narrow alcove immediately inside the door with private offices on the left—first Lyle’s, then Katrina’s. Both doors were shut. A couple of desks were positioned just outside them. The alcove opened onto a big room that had the hastily assembled look of a campaign headquarters. Dented, mismatched steel desks were set up here, there, everywhere. Several had computer terminals parked on them. Production assistants, most of them young women in various states of grunge, were frantically working the phones and bustling about with armloads of office supplies and scripts. There was tremendous energy in the air. Everyone was moving, moving, moving. Everyone except for a trio of strapping young men who sat on the dogeared sofa in the corner, sipping coffee. Actors. I could tell by the bulging nylon shoulder bags that lay at their feet. They live out of those bags. From nine to five, they are like the homeless. I also recognized one of them from a singing muffler commercial. It was the muffler that sang, not him. There was a mammoth photocopier at the far end of the office, where two P.A.’s were running off copies, and a kitchen where two more were making coffee. Also a corridor that led to the stars’ dressing rooms and to the makeup and costume rooms. A second corridor, next to Katrina’s office, led to the writers’ offices.

  I stood there a moment, taking it all in, until an officious young woman in an Uncle Chubby T-shirt and crew cap buttonholed me. “Yeah, who are you playing?” she demanded brusquely.

  “I’m masquerading as one of the writers.”

  Her manner changed instantly—all the way from Get lost, loser, to Hold me, touch me, feel me, heal me. “Oh, gee, I’m so-o sorry.” Big smile. “You must be Hoagy.”

  “Somebody has to be.”

  “I’m Naomi Leight, your P.A. I work for all the writers, but I’m especially looking forward to working for you.”

  Naomi Leight had the single worst nose job I’d ever seen. It looked like she’d gotten it slammed in a car door. Otherwise she was not unattractive. Her black hair was lustrous, her lips pouty, her complexion creamy. She wore rings on all of her fingers and one of those heavy studded necklaces of Katrina’s. She was on the tall side in cowboy boots, and her skintight jeans, artfully ripped at the knees, clung for dear life to her every curve. Her eyes bothered me, though. They had an eager, sneaky glint in them. They were the eyes of a born conspirator.

  She was sti
ll smiling at me. “I’m really sorry. See, I thought you were an actor.”

  “Now there’s a truly horrifying thought.”

  “C’mon, let’s get you settled …. Oh, hi, sweetie,” she exclaimed, stopping to pat Lulu, who glowered up at her. Lulu can smell a predatory female from a mile away. And still clings to the feeble hope that Merilee and I will kiss and make up and all will be well again in Lululand.

  Naomi led me down the short, L-shaped corridor to the writers’ offices, swinging her hips big-time. All the doors were closed. I was early. Mine was the office at the end of the hall. The door was unlocked.

  “There are no locks on any of the office doors,” she informed me. “Lyle had them removed. He believes in open doors. He wants people to feel at home.”

  “I guess he and I grew up in different kinds of homes.”

  “The outside door to the dressing rooms is kept locked. Maybe you noticed. That’s for traffic control and to ensure the stars their privacy when the audience comes in. Everything else is open.”

  She turned on the light. My office had a small student’s desk and chair. There wasn’t room for any other furniture. At some point in show-biz history it had served as a performer’s dressing room. There was a mirror with light bulbs around it and a narrow shelf for cosmetics. Prior to that, I’m fairly certain it had been a broom closet.

  “Now if there’s anything you need,” Naomi offered. “Anything at all …”

  “A window would be nice.”

  She giggled, a practiced, insincere giggle. Major suck-up. “Sorry. Lyle has the only office with a window.”

  “Then how about a hanger?”

  “There’s a hook on the back of the door.”

  “Worst thing you can do to a jacket. Ruins the drape.”

  “Then I’ll see you get one right away,” she promised me with heartfelt sincerity. My hanger was the most important thing in her life. “Wire or wood?”

  “Didn’t you see Mommie Dearest?”

  “Wood it is.” She sashayed out, giggling.

  I helped Lulu off with her pith helmet. She cased our new digs, nose to the floor, which took all of seven seconds. Then she curled up under the desk. I opened my battered Il Bisonte briefcase and unpacked my notepads and took off my jacket. By this time another young woman, this one bovine and plain as milk, had come scuffing around the corner with a stack of scripts and my hanger. The hanger she handed me. The script she dropped on my desk with a thwack. Then she was gone.

  I hung up my jacket and sat at the desk with the script. A sitcom script is quite short—this one was forty-six pages—and almost all dialogue. Description and stage direction are minimal, even less than a screenplay. Several production sheets, green, were on top. One glance at a sitcom production schedule will tell you a whole lot about why prime-time TV is what it is. Every minute of every day is accounted for. Rehearsals, run-throughs, rewrites. More rehearsals, more run-throughs, more rewrites. Camera blocking, pretaping, taping, pickups … It’s a tight, tight, schedule, and there is no margin for error. No one can be late. No one can be sick. No one can be difficult. Because there’s barely enough time to get the show done at all—let alone done well—before you’re already on to the next show. And the next one. And the next.

  Another young woman appeared in my doorway, this one round and very short.

  “No way!” she exclaimed. “I’m, like, I see!”

  “You see what?”

  “Why the women are all going, ‘Ow, mommy-mommy’ over you. But I’m, like, huh? Which new tall, totally excellent babe? And then—okay, wait—I remember you’re the new writer. The one who’s helping Lyle. I’m, like, Annabelle.”

  Annabelle Gamba was a cross between a hyperactive New Jersey mall teenager and a troll doll. She was well under five feet tall, with a cute little face and black button eyes and a deep passion for purple. Purple lipstick and eye shadow. Purple nail polish on her soft, childlike hands. She had on an oversized cotton sweater, purple, and knit leggings, purple again. Her tiny patent leather pumps were black. So was her hair, which she evidently teased with an egg beater. It towered in chaotic splendor a full eighteen inches above her head. Whole gallons of mousse held it in place up there like some kind of ceremonial headdress.

  “Okay, wait,” she jabbered on. “So, like, are you?”

  “Are I what?”

  “Gay. They begged me to find out.”

  “Not in any known sense of the word. I’m divorced, actually.”

  “I know all about that. Hurt?”

  “Only when I laugh, which hasn’t been a big problem lately.”

  “No, no. I meant, is Bill Hurt the baby’s father?”

  I sighed inwardly. “I only know what I read in the papers.”

  “No way! Merilee won’t even tell you?”

  “Merilee especially won’t tell me.

  “So, like, are you in play? There are a lot of women here who would—”

  “No, I’m afraid I’ve been kicked clear out of bounds. You’ll find me out in the parking lot under the team bus, covered with cleat marks.”

  She nodded animatedly, her big hair nodding right along with her. Forget about mousse. This girl used epoxy cement. “Cool. I’ll pass it along. See, there aren’t many eligible men around this place. They’ve all been after Bobby for years. He’s a major bunny, even if he is full of blah-blah-blah.”

  “Blah-blah-blah?”

  “Anger. Plus he’s kind of wocka-wocka in the commitment area.” Her glance fell under my desk on Lulu. “No way! You have a dog!”

  “I understand you’re the staff pet specialist.” Annabelle fell to her knees and began to stroke Lulu.

  “Pets and kids. And I’m, like, desperate for new material. Mind if I follow her around and take notes?”

  “That’s really up to her.”

  Lulu yawned in Annabelle’s face. Possibly her most definitive response. Certainly her most noxious.

  Annabelle jumped back from her. “Shit, her breath!”

  “She has rather strange eating habits.”

  “Okay, wait. What about Rusty?”

  “I’m not familiar with his eating habits.” She shook her head at me. “No, no. I mean does she get along with other dogs?”

  “They’ve never complained before. Why?”

  “Because Rusty’s built like a truck and I’m, like, he’s vicious.”

  “I assumed that was just his character in the show.” Annabelle let out a playful shriek, the sort you’d hear coming from a thirteen-year-old’s slumber party. “No way! Haven’t you noticed he never does any scenes with The Munchkins? Just Lyle? That’s because their mom, Amber, is scared shitless he’ll eat them. For, like, real. That dog’s mean. Also superterritorial. Rusty may not be cool about another dog being around the studio. That’s why I asked.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to play it by ears.”

  Under the desk, Lulu snuffled at me indignantly.

  Annabelle frowned at her. “Now why’s she doing that?”

  “She’s a bit sensitive about her appearance.”

  “Oh. Well, Rusty won’t be around anyway until we do blocking on Thursday. Lyle doesn’t like having him here because of ticks and—” She stopped. “Whoa! I’m, like, wait a minute. She understands you?”

  “She likes to think so. I prefer to think she misses my subtler nuances. And there are many.”

  She shook her head at me in disbelief. “I love this!”

  “You won’t after a while, believe me.”

  “But I can use this!” She stuck her purple lower lip out. “If Rusty can play it. He has his limits—his forte is chasing Lyle into the laundry room and barking at him menacingly.”

  “How are The Munchkins to write for?”

  “A snap. They just play themselves, which is all any munchkin can do. You like kids?”

  “In very small portions. Shish kabob is ideal.”

  “Well, Casey and Caitlin are real sweet. Real normal. Not
like stage kids at all. Amber won’t let them get swelled heads. She’s a totally gifted director herself. She did that biker Hamlet with Luke Perry for Shakespeare in the Park.”

  “I understand Amber was Lyle’s assistant director for a while.”

  “Second season,” Annabelle confirmed. “So she could learn the technical side of sitcoms. And be around her kids. Plus Lyle promised her he’d eventually let her direct some episodes for him. I’m, like, fer shure. They were getting it on, was what that was about. Amber was nuts for Lyle. Even wanted to marry him after she and her husband split. Only Lyle dumped her cold. Fired her, too. A classic double boning. But that’s nothing unusual. Lyle’s exes are all over this place. His ex-wife, Fiona, is his costar. And then every season he picks out a new babe to doink.” She counted them off on her tiny fingers. “First season was Marjorie Daw from the network. She’s real sweet and an unlikelier pair you never saw. Second season was Amber. Last season was Katrina, who’s already, like, history. Count on it. New season, new babe. My money’s on Naomi Leight. She’s ready, willing and doable. Major snoop, too, which he gets off on, being that he’s so paranoid.” She glanced at her wristwatch, one of those with the cat chasing the mouse around the dial that they sell on late-night TV. “I don’t know what it is about the man, but for six months he’s a total goner. He’s found the greatest woman in the world. She’s perfect. He loves her. They move in together, start talking about doing a family together. And then, wham, he breaks it right off. And starts all over again with someone else.”