The Comedy Writer (14 page)

This seemed to snap her to attention. “Oh. Oh, yeah. I'm from Cape Cod.”

“I'm from Mashpee—summers. Actually grew up in Rhode Island.”

She nodded. “That's great. Rhode Island.”

“Biggest little state in the union,” I said and boy did it sound dumb.

When she turned back to her cobb salad, I slouched toward the door.

I'd parked my car around the corner to save the three-fifty valet cost, but I stood with Levine while he waited for his.

“Thanks for lunch,” I said.

“Don't ever do that again.”

“Do what?”

“You know what. You acted like a fan. It was embarrassing.”

“But she grew up in the town next to me.”

A black 300 Mercedes pulled up. Levine handed the red-coated Mexican four dollars and climbed in.

“Oh, come on. What's the big deal?” I said. “If she wasn't famous, it would seem rude not to mention we were from the same area.”

After the attendant had closed the door, Levine rolled down his window. “But she
is
famous,” he said, and he drove off.

that I first felt the tumor. There'd been no pain, no heaviness there, I'd stumbled upon it. I'd come home with a resolve; I was going to straighten up my life, organize. My first move would be to get Colleen on her way. Unfortunately, she wasn't in, so I cleaned the apartment, then tried the
L.A. Times
girl at the office, but she didn't take my call. After
washing my plastic plates, I decided to wash myself. I was a healthy man when I stepped into that shower, but now a lump. On my balls.

A goddamn lump on my balls!

I was sick. No, that wasn't sick, that was dying. Time to see Hoffman. No, I should see a different doctor this time, someone a little more thorough, a little older. Then I figured, what the hell, Hoffman had my chart, the insurance info was already in his computer. And he'd know what to look for, he'd already checked out my lungs.

The lungs! Of course! I'd been right after all. It probably
was
cancer I'd seen on that X ray. Cancer spreads. If it was in my balls, surely it was in my lungs, too.

Oh, boy. Why was everything coming down on me now? First the Suicide Lady, then her sister, now this. Maybe there was something to this karma thing after all. But what about Amanda? Hadn't that been the big karmic in-your-face slam dunk? I didn't deserve this. I was no saint, but I wasn't Hitler, either.

“Emergency,” I said to the doctor's assistant, “I must see the doctor as soon as possible.” She told me to come in in forty-five minutes. Traffic was light and I arrived early, so I sat downstairs at the pharmacy's lunch counter and had a piece of pecan pie and an orange drink. I stared at the orange and purple liquids circulating in big rectangular bowls. I wondered how long the stuff swished around in there before it all got drank. Probably filled them up every week or so when they got half-full, I figured. Maybe some of it lasted years. I still had time, so I ordered another pie, lemon meringue this time. Why not? I was a dead man. I finished my orange drink, then stained my teeth with a grape one.

I considered the possibility that the tumor was benign. Wouldn't it hurt more if it were really killing me? Maybe they
wouldn't even have to take it out. Unlikely. How were they going to know it was benign if they couldn't cut into it? Maybe they could stick a needle in, take a sample. I shifted in my seat.

Still, that there was no pain had to be a promising sign. Then I remembered a story about the congresswoman from Rhode Island, Claudine Schneider; how she'd found out she had cancer. Her husband had noticed it. The woman was sitting there minding her own business, probably feeling immortal, like we all do when we're not sick, and her husband saw the lump. It was sticking out of her neck like an early pea. Cancer didn't always telegraph its arrival. Besides, I'd been dizzy lately, there were the headaches—how much notification could one expect? It was time to face facts. I was a dead man. It didn't matter that Claudine Schneider had beaten it. She didn't have it in her balls. Then a thought: What if they said I could live, providing they … ? Oh, good God, my cock would look ridiculous standing there all alone, ball-less.

Dr. Hoffman didn't seem alarmed when informed of my discovery. He asked if there'd been any pain while urinating. None. He told me to drop my drawers and stand in the middle of the room. I looked at the ceiling while the man rotated my nuts in his fingers.

“I don't feel anything,” he said.

I gently captured the lump between my thumb and forefinger.

“Right there.”

The doctor started fiddling with it. Again I thrust my chin to the ceiling. I inhaled sharply as he started lobbing my other nut around.

“You have one here, too,” he said.

I felt for myself. Jesus, it was true! My pathetic sack was carrying
two
tumors; my life expectancy had just been halved.

“Those are the epididymides,” Dr. Hoffman said.

“Do you think they're malignant?”

The doctor smiled. “It's not cancer.”

“What?”

“Everyone has them.”

“Huh?”

“Well, every
man”

“Seriously?” I started to smile now, too.

“Seriously. I'd show you mine, but you might start thinking I'm a weirdo.”

Hoffman dropped his gloves in the wastebasket.

“How come I never noticed them before?” I asked.

“Maybe you don't play with yourself enough.”

I was starting to feel good again. I was blessed with a funny doctor and a second chance.

“So it's normal?”

“It's normal. I can't tell you how many guys have come running in here after discovering those things, thinking they were gonna be sounding like Mike Tyson in a couple weeks.”

I was giddy and laughed a little too hard at this. “Yeah, that's what I thought!”

As Dr. Hoffman started scribbling something on the chart, he said, “Go home, Henry. Your balls shall live to see another day.”

I was happy and ashamed. I knew the doctor must think I was a big pussy. But why shouldn't I be? Who the hell has satellites around their balls? Everybody, according to him, but how would I know? I stopped and bought a bottle of vodka. To hell with the embarrassment, my nuts
had been spared, it was time to celebrate. Tonight, after my shift, we'd do it up big. That's right, me and Colleen. Because she was the reason for my good fortune. I do something nice, God lets me live, karma again. Maybe that really was the way the world worked.

On second thought, perhaps booze wasn't such a good idea. What if we got smashed and something happened? That I didn't need. I was doing a good deed letting her stay there, the karmic pendulum was swinging in my favor. Getting laid might send it rocketing back the other way. Might get her hopes up, encourage her to stay in touch from New Jersey. This was one pen pal I didn't need. Then I reminded myself to think nice thoughts about her. Poor thing was to be pitied if anything. The vodka would get tucked away for a rainy day. Maybe tomorrow we'd take a drive, a tour of the city. I'd be nice to her. I'd be nice to her all weekend. But not too nice. And then Monday, one way or another, Monday she'd be gone.

Colleen was lit up by the tube when I returned, yukking it up at Wile E. Coyote's expense. When I started to speak, she said, “Shhh,” and that was all right with me. I hid the vodka in a cupboard, along with the two bottles of wine, then sat at the kitchenette table and started reading
Adventures in the Screen Trade
, which was informative and depressing. When her cartoon ended, Colleen changed the channel a couple hundred times, then gave up and tried striking up a conversation, except I said, “Shhh,” so she made a face and started flipping through one of her
Psychology Todays.
Of all the magazines in the world:
Psychology Today?
But there they were, fifteen or twenty of them sitting on top of her bag, all dog-eared to hell. I never actually saw her read one; she'd more or less browse through them like a ten-year-old flipping through
Ulysses.

Soon Colleen tossed the magazine aside, pulled my driver out of my golf bag and started swinging it around.

“Not in the house.”

“Yes, Master,” she said, and she leaned it up against the bag.

She lit a cigarette, started reading over my shoulder. I tried to turn the page and she grabbed my hand.

“Wait,” she said. Then: “Okay.”

I shot her a look.

“What?”

“Do you mind reading something else?” I said. “I'd like to read at my own pace.”

She rolled her eyes, picked up her magazine. “Let's go get a frozen yogurt,” she said.

“Later.”

“You know your phone kept ringing today.”

I pushed the button on my machine. Seven hang-ups. Colleen went in the kitchenette, came out with my notebooks.

“What are you doing?”

“What?” This with a forced nonchalance.

“Put those away. You don't go near that stuff.”

“I just wanted something to read.”

“Okay, let's make something clear here: You put that stuff back in the fridge now and never go near it again.”

“Why not?”

“Never mind why not. Those are important papers and you don't go near them.”

“Okay, okay.”

I was halfway down the next page when she said, “Do you like cats or dogs?”

“Dogs,” I said without looking up.

“I knew it. You look like a dog guy. Why don't you like cats?”

“I don't know.”

“Come on, you must know.”

“I don't trust 'em.”

“Why?”

“Because I had one as a kid and even after fifteen years she still always looked like she was about to take my eye out.”

“What's her name?”

“Fluffy. She's dead.”

“I mean your girlfriend.”

“What?”

“What's your girlfriend's name?”

“Uh, Amanda.”

“How come she didn't come out here with you?”

“Long story.”

She wouldn't let it go.

“She just didn't,” I said. “She works. Now, please, I'm trying to read here. Can we have a half hour of quiet time?”

She dragged on her cigarette as if she were throwing me the finger. “Don't treat me like a kindergartner, Henry. I'm not in kindergarten.”

I didn't look up, just kept reading, and after a few herky-jerky minutes, she started reading aloud from some play. She read the woman lead as if she were playing a bad soap opera actress within a movie, and the rest of the roles sounding like Steven Wright. I bore down, got fifteen pages under my belt before she made a game-show buzzer sound.

“Half hour's up,” she said. “Time for a yogie.”

“Were you on Ritalin as a kid?”

“Yes!”

I'd meant it as a joke, but something about her expression cracked me up. She started laughing, too, and said, “What?
What?”

“Nothing.”

“How did you know that?”

“I didn't. I was just kidding.”

She threw her script on the floor. “Are you ready for a yogie and some playtime?”

“Colleen,” I said, “don't treat me like a kindergartner. I'm not in kindergarten.”

She stuck out her mug. “Oh, good one.”

We walked up Santa Monica Boulevard, past the gay bars and restaurants, to a place called Culture Class. We sat in the parking lot on white plastic chairs and ate frozen yogurt. Colleen was staring at me in an unsettling way; I couldn't decide if she was pretty or not. She looked as if she was going to be a beautiful baby, then her mother did a lot of acid during the third trimester. Like Christy Turlington in a carnival mirror. To the casual observer, I'm sure she was cute. She had the dainty dress and the frizzball bangs supplying lubrication to her forehead and the teenage ass, too, but something about those lopsided cat eyes made me uneasy.

“I can tell you'd probably make a good boyfriend.”

“Nah.”

“You're nice to me. Not like Honus. You wouldn't believe some of the mean shit he did.”

“What he do?”

“Everything.”

“Like what?”

“Like
everything.
He was
so mean.”

“Give me an example.”

“He just … he just treated me like shit. But I guess I had it coming.”