The Comedy Writer (6 page)

“Sure.”

“You know that story?”

“Sure. What?”

“About Spielberg—how he got started?”

I nodded yes, but when he kept staring, I said, “What he do?”

“He snuck onto the lot at Universal one day, found an empty office, and just moved in. He brought his scripts, moved some furniture in from another office, plugged in a phone. He waved to the guards, dropped in on executives just to say hi, ate in the commissary. Basically, he acted like he belonged there, and before long everyone was treating him like he did. That's how he got his first deal.”

“No shit?”

“You've got to push yourself, 'cause if you don't, no one else will.”

Three-thirty in the morning, she was getting it real good. From my bed clear across the hall I could hear her.
“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, yes, yes, yes!
I closed my eyes, imagined her sitting on me, those monster jugs sloshing around the room.

I was finished before she was.

Still, I couldn't sleep. I'd had a fleeting opportunity after I came, but I kept dwelling on things, keeping my brain alive, I hadn't taken advantage of the burn in my eyeballs and now it was gone. I ran
How I Won Her Back
over in my head, thought of a line for the scene in which the protagonist and his girlfriend break up: “If you walk out that door, you're making the biggest mistake of my life!” Great movie line—too perfect for a book maybe—but fine for a romantic comedy. I got a notebook out of the fridge and wrote it down. Back in bed, I got to thinking about what the hamburg flipper had said. The stupid bastard was right; no one was going to push me if I didn't push myself. I was a salesman, for God sakes, I
should be selling myself. Most writers didn't have the savvy I had. Most writers were geeks. I'd been in the trenches. I knew stuff. Maybe things weren't so out of my control anymore. I felt a giddy surge of adrenaline. The wait was over. Tomorrow I was going to make something happen.

A knock. “Dude, you up?”

I pulled on a pair of shorts, opened my peephole. The Herb guy who'd stolen my seventeen-dollar brownies. In boxer shorts this time, wearing my potholder T-shirt.

“Dude,” he said again.

I opened my door.

“Do you remember the theme song from
Family Affair?”

I was so exhausted I actually thought about it for a moment.

“What are you doing?” I finally said.

“Were you sleeping?”

“What do you think?”

“Sorry. Tiff wanted to know if you had any popcorn.”

I stared at him.

“Wasn't my idea. Come on, let me in. I got blow.”

I sighed. “Wait here.”

Herb swung the door open and a fireball of hair entered my room. He walked over to a picture pinned to the closet door, a snapshot of my high school girlfriend sitting on Santa's lap. I was Santa, though no one would be able to tell.

“Who's this?”

“Santa.”

“The babe.”

I picked an empty plate off the floor, brought it into the kitchenette. “Old girlfriend.”

“Want a bump?”

He held up a little amber vile.

“No.”

It was the first coke I'd seen since Len Bias died. Suddenly I smelled something and. Herb took a hit off the roach he was carrying. “You get high?”

“Not tonight, thanks,” I said.

He held the joint out, though, and I took a hit and we started talking. He'd just been laid so was in no rush to get back and he ended up staying a half hour. Herb Silverman was from South Boston, and his real name was Tommy Sullivan. He'd changed it because there was another Tom Sullivan in the Screen Actors Guild, and anyway he thought Herb Silverman was pretty cool because it made people think of—what else?—a Jew, and that couldn't hurt in Hollywood.

“But you don't exactly look Jewish,” I said.

“I get that a lot, and my answer to that is this: 'What, I have to have a big schnoz to look Jewish?' They usually back off after that. Besides, Mike Medavoy and Ray Stark look more Irish than me. Least I don't got the freckles.”

“And you find it helps, the Jewish thing?”

“Got me my SAG card, and I'm not waiting tables anymore.”

“Because of your name?”

“Hey, it worked for Whoopi and Sammy. I mean, what's the big deal? Jews are always giving themselves Waspy names: Jerry Lewis, Winona Ryder, Bob Dylan, Marvin Davis. Why can't I become a Jew? This is a tough business. Every little bit helps.”

We talked about Boston a little and when he found out I grew up in Rhode Island, Herb beamed.

“I love Newport,” he said. “Went to a wedding there once—girl named Josie Keenan from Jamaica Plain. Great wedding, lot of
laughs. We got divorced ten months later. I could've hung in there two or three years to make it look good, but I didn't see the point. All those know-it-alls who say to stick it out, they aren't married to her.”

“I guess. Never been married.”

“Well, if you do, don't ever drive cross-country with her.”

“No?”

“Noooooo.
I'm telling you, that did it for me. I found out so fucking much about her in those six days, by the time we got here I didn't want to ever see her again. Split up two weeks later, scout's honor.”

I nodded.

“Two weeks,” Silverman repeated.

“I believe you.”

He looked back at the Santa picture and said, “Why do you have her picture on the wall?”

“I don't know.”

I remembered the Jiffy Pop and went into the kitchenette.

“What's her name?”

“Grace,” I called.

I came back out and Herb said, “What happened?”

“Hm?”

“Why'd you break up?”

I handed him the popcorn. “I don't know. It was high school.”

“Must've stung if you've still got her picture hanging around.”

“Long story.”

“What, she catch you fucking around?”

This sounded like an easy out, but I said no.

“You catch
her
fucking around?”

“No.”

I made a move for the door, but he held his ground.

“Well, what happened?”

“I don't know. Jesus, it's four in the morning. I've got to go to sleep, man.”

I opened the door. Herb walked into the kitchenette.

“You should be over it by now, bud. Grow a chin, have some pride, take the picture down. Got any beer?”

He opened the fridge, stared in confusion. “Why the hell you got notebooks in the fridge?”

“Case of fire.”

“Huh?”

“That's the only copy I have of my notes, so I figure if there's a fire and the whole place burns down, the stuff might stand a chance if it's in the fridge.”

He picked up one of the pads and I moved in quickly. “No, no, no, those stay where they are.” I put it back and closed the door.

“You're a writer, huh?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Anything I would've heard of?”

“I'm just getting started. Come on, I'm exhausted.”

I handed him the popcorn and he took a Diet Coke, and I thought he was going to leave, but he stopped at the door. “So you doin' her yet?”

“Who?”

“Tiff,” he said.

“Yeah, right.” I thought about this question and said, “Aren't you her boyfriend?”

This cracked him up. “Noooo. So the truth, are you doing her?”

“I hardly know her.”

“So?”

I shrugged.

“How about those toddies, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“What do you mean, 'Yeah?” You won't see better nuts than that anywhere in town.”

“They real?”

“Are they real?
Who gives a shit are they real? For Christ sakes, she's got a flight recorder, too, but I'm not gonna lose sleep over it. You should see when she's riding you, it is a sight to behold. She loves to squeeze those big toddies while she sways back and forth— she just squeezes and squeezes, it's beautiful. All she does is squeeze—”

“Okay, okay, she squeezes her tits. Go.”

After Herb left, I got back in bed and I knew I was too stoned to sleep unless I rubbed out another one, but I was thinking of old girlfriends now, and I couldn't do that when I thought about old girlfriends.

When I couldn't sleep in L.A., I liked to imagine that I was homeless, walking the streets, cold, tired. I imagined that I'd stumbled across my bed stuck in a cranny in some hillside, maybe honeycombed into the palisades above the Pacific Coast Highway. This made me feel warm and fortunate and I would thank God for granting me this little hole and eventually I would sleep and that's what I did.

turned left on Highland, merged onto Franklin, then hit the 101. Muscling my way
across six lanes of traffic, I made it just in time for the Barham exit, then went right and down the hill to Warner Bros. Studios. I tried to drive onto the lot but was turned away, so I parked at Taco Bell and walked past the guards, waving my lunch and a script at them.

A couple people pointed me to the executives' offices and when I easily got inside the building I thought, The hell with it, I might as well go right to the top. I asked a woman at a water bubbler where the president's office was, and a minute later I was standing outside a door with a gold plaque that read: HAL MARKEY. I took a deep breath, convinced myself I was a loser if I didn't do this, then walked into the room. There were two women manning the phones and a young preppy-looking black man at work on a computer behind them. One of the women held up an index finger, continued her phone conversation. I smiled casually, jingled the change in my pockets, played with my keys. Finally she hung up and raised her eyebrows at me.

“How are you today?” I said.

She must've thought it was rhetorical because she just opened her eyes wider like,
Come on, come on.

“I don't have an appointment, but I was hoping I might just peek in and say hi to Hal.”

“I'm sorry. He's in a meeting.”

“Oh …”

“Maybe you'd like to set up a time to come back later?”

“No, no, that's okay, it's not business and I won't be around later anyway. No big deal. I was just on the lot and I promised him I'd pop my head in if I was ever on the lot.”

“I'm sorry, what's your name?”

“Just tell him Bob's son stopped by. I'll see him next time he's on the Vineyard.”

I leaned toward the door, gave her a look to chew on.

“Why don't you sit down?” she said. “Maybe I can interrupt him.”

She tapped something into her keyboard, a second later there was a buzz, and she picked up the phone.

“Bob's son,” she said. “He just wants to say hello.”

She hung up and smiled for the first time. “You can go in.”

Markey met me at the door, shook my hand, said,
“Hey
, how
are
you?” He was tall, with a winter tan—tighter, shinier than a summer one.

“Good, Hal. How are you?”

“Great, great. How's your dad?”

I stepped into a room big enough to throw a touchdown bomb. There was another man sitting on the couch.

“Great,” I said. “He's great.”

Markey put his hand on my back, led me to the other man, said, “Adam Levine, I'd like you to meet …”

“Henry,” I said.

As I shook Adam Levine's hand, Markey was starting to show his impatience. He said, “Henry … ?” and let it hang there.

“Yes.” I knew my time was short, so I said, “I'm sorry to bother you like this, Hal, but I was wondering if you could just take a look at my script when you get a chance.”

I held it out and Markey took the script, but from the look on his face I don't think he was aware of that fact.

“I'm sorry,” he said, “your father is … ?”

“Bob.”

“Bob who?”

“Halloran.”

Markey looked at the other man, then back at me, and said, “Bob Halloran … ? How do I know Bob Halloran?”

“I don't think you do. He lives in Rhode Island.”

“Well … why did you say … ?”

“Just a point of reference,” I offered weakly.

Adam Levine coughed up a laugh and suddenly Markey got it and he wasn't coughing up anything, and if he had he probably would have let it fly in my face.

“Get the fuck out of here, you fucking idiot.”

He picked up the phone and I picked up my feet. I was out the front door and walking very fast beside some shrubs when I saw the golf carts careening toward the building. A woman security guard shot me a look as I headed out the main gate, but she didn't give chase. I jumped in my car and tore back up the hill toward the highway feeling dumb and sweaty and humiliated, and much more like Rupert Pupkin than Steven Spielberg.