The Boy Who Never Grew Up (60 page)

“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 three 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.”

“So you need
Uncle Chubby,
too, don’t you?”

Annabelle shot a glance at Bobby. “Cut to the chase, Hoagy. We all need
Uncle Chubby.
It’s our lifeline. The writers, the actors, everyone.”

“Including Marjorie?”

“Supervising
Uncle Chubby
is Marjorie’s whole reason for being here,” Annabelle replied. “She has some daytime stuff she oversees, but nothing that couldn’t be handled by the West Coast. If
Uncle Chubby
goes off, she’ll probably get the ax. If she can keep it on the air for another year or two, running smooth, she’ll be made a vice president. Maybe even develop some new shows out of New York.” Annabelle patted Bobby’s hand. Her way of telling him to signal our waitress for the check. He tried, but the waitress ignored him. “Marjorie loved Lyle major, y’know. And he broke her poor little heart. She still isn’t over him.”

“Yes, I believe Amber mentioned something about that.”

For the third time Bobby tried to catch our waitress’s eye and failed. He was starting to blink and squirm in anguished frustration. I couldn’t take any more of it, so I honked Lulu’s big black nose with my shoe. She promptly sneezed, causing our waitress to glance our way. Bobby signaled her, relaxed, mission accomplished. Lulu snuffled in protest. She doesn’t like anyone to touch her nose. I assured her that it was an accident. She bought it. Sometimes it’s a plus having a partner whose brain is the size of a chick pea.

“Me, I never understood why Marjorie fell so hard for Lyle,” Annabelle confided, leaning forward over the table intimately. “I’m, like, the man got off on being cruel to her. Still does. She deserves better. Only, she scares most guys off. I mean, she’s a stone fox—in a wholesome, drop-dead sort of way. Plus, she’s kind of six or eight inches too tall for most of the guys in television.” Her eyes glittered at me. “But for the right guy, she’s Ms. Right.”

“Any particular reason you’re looking directly at me?”

“I’m, like, you do happen to be tall.”

“I also happen to be Mr. Wrong.”

“Positive you’re not in play?” she pressed.

At my feet, Lulu growled.

“Now why did she do that?” Annabelle wondered.

“Because she’s positive. Does Marjorie confide in you?”

Annabelle shrugged. “We’re pals. I don’t know if she tells me everything.”

“Has she told you God wants to ease Lyle out?”

Annabelle and Bobby exchanged a guarded look.

“I’m, like, there’s no telling what they’re planning to do,” she replied evasively. “I mean, we never know.”

“Because
they
n-never know,” Bobby added, his eyes avoiding mine. “Until they d-do it. They just aren’t that t-together.”

“She hasn’t said anything.” Annabelle forced a smile. “Not to me, anyway.”

“I see.” They were playing it cagey. I didn’t blame them. But I also didn’t think they were very good liars. It wasn’t speculation. It wasn’t paranoia. It was for real—Chad Roe was in and Lyle Hudnut was out. For the second time. The first time had been last spring, after that day he went to the Deuce Theater. Only who had been behind that? Who set him up? The Boys? They certainly stood to gain the most. “Let me ask you this—is there anyone who
doesn’t
want Lyle ousted?”

“His fans,” Annabelle replied. “They love him. By the millions.”

“I mean anyone who actually knows him.”

“K-Katrina,” Bobby said, blushing at the mention of her name. “First thing The Boys would do is fire her.”

“And what’s the second thing they’d do?”

“The second thing they’d do,” answered Annabelle, “is fire Leo.”

The soundstage where
The Uncle Chubby Show
was taped was one floor up from the production offices. It was not a large soundstage by West Coast standards. Space is more precious in Manhattan than it is in Burbank. It was more like a really large padded cell. In more ways than one. Just inside the steel fire door was the control booth, one wall of it nothing but television monitors and speakers. Six chairs were parked before a console facing it, each equipped with a microphone and control panel. There was a second row of controls situated behind it with six more chairs and mikes. Against the back wall there was a black leather sofa and a pair of armchairs where network and studio people could watch the taping in comfort. Later in the week, the booth would be command central. Right now all of the activity was out on the studio floor, where three burly stagehands were dismantling the set for the pool hall and carting it away to the freight elevator while three more were unloading the flats for the Japanese restaurant set. Two others hastily assembled a bookcase that would serve as the backdrop when Rob phoned Deirdre in the new opening scene.

Chad and Fiona were running lines on the sofa in Deirdre’s living room. Chad wore reading glasses, either because his eyes were starting to go or because he thought they made him look deep. Lyle was on the kitchen set walking through Chubby’s scene with Jimmy the milkman, one of the few scenes that wasn’t undergoing a radical change. Unless you count casting. The actor from the singing muffler commercial was out. The actor who’d originally been hired to play Jimmy’s friend, Tony, was now playing Jimmy. The living room and kitchen sets, which were much smaller than they appeared on TV, were lit from overhead and faced a tier of bleachers that would hold three hundred people on tape day. The four cameras were presently parked out of the way, covered, as was the sound equipment. There were coils of cable everywhere. Microphones and TV monitors were suspended from the ceiling over the bleachers, along with a big
APPLAUSE
sign. A few crew members and extras were sitting up there in the bleachers, watching and waiting. So were The Munchkins, whispering to each other like they were at a school assembly. So were Amber and Gwen, who abruptly stopped talking when they spotted me. I took a seat in the front row. Lulu had elected to hang with The Boys and The Kids, who were downstairs working on rewrites and making a huge fuss over her.

“Okay, pal, I’ll be over at the sink doing the dishes,” Lyle told his new Jimmy. “You’ll knock and …” Lyle stared at the script, rubbing his tight curls with a gloved hand. “Nah, that’s no good. I got it—I’m trying to get the pilot light going in the oven. It’s out, see? So when you walk in I got my head stuck in the oven. Much funnier, right?”

“Yessir,” the actor chuckled. “Much funnier.”

Lyle opened the oven door and knelt before it with a grunt. “Okay, go ahead and knock.”

The actor went ahead and knocked.

“Yo, Jimbo,” Lyle called out, head in the oven.

“Yo, Chubbo,” read the actor. “How’s by you?”

Lyle sat back on his immense haunches, wheezing slightly. “Okay, wait. What’s your name, pal?”

His name was Bart.

“Bart, instead of saying ‘How’s by you?’ say … ‘Don’t do it!’ Remember, my head’s in the oven.” He turned to a P.A., who sat at a table nearby with a laptop computer. “You getting these changes, honey?”

“Yes, Lyle,” she said.

“Great. Then I’ll say, ‘Jimbo, what the heck are you talking about?’ And you’ll say—”

Naomi Leight came clomping onto the set in her cowboy boots, interrupting him. “God’s on the phone, Lyle. He wants to know how the show is coming.”

“How
the
fuck should I know?” fumed Lyle. “I’m still making it up.”

Another P.A. was trailing a few steps behind her, clutching an armload of pink pages. “Scene one rewrites,” she announced, passing them out.

“About fucking time,” snarled Lyle, snatching one from her.

“What should I tell him, Lyle?” Naomi asked.