The Comedy Writer (9 page)

I sat on the bed and listened to them and he sounded exhausted and soon said goodbye. When I still couldn't sleep, I got dressed and walked up to Hughes Market. It was four-thirty and there were only three other shoppers: a couple burnt-out rockers and an old woman. I was starving and couldVe easily filled a cart, but I was almost broke, so I grabbed a basket and shopped carefully. I bought raisin bran, one percent milk, three apples, four bananas, bread, chicken bologna, a six of Diet Cokes, instant hot chocolate, spaghetti, generic tomato sauce, generic toilet paper, and five packs of generic macaroni and cheese. I should've had the willpower to leave then, but I kept thinking of Tiffany on her shoulder blades in the hallway and I grabbed a box of instant brownies, three more Jiffy Pops, and threw in an
Enquirer
at the register. It came to just under thirty-five bucks and on the way home my shoulder was starting to ache, but I felt centered because my refrigerator would have food again, not just notebooks, and the brownies might even help get me laid. I put everything away and read for a while, then went to bed and thought about Tiffany and I began rubbing one out again. I was very horny and the thought of tasting my own semen suddenly appealed to me, but then I came and I thought, What the
hell
was I thinking?, and I wiped off my stomach and fell back asleep.

I was awakened again by someone trying to kick my door in. The landlady Mrs. Beaupre, I somehow figured, though this made no sense. When the banging persisted, I got out of bed.

“Who is it?” I called.

“Colleen” came the answer.

Colleen. I didn't know any Colleens.

Through the peephole I observed a young woman with thin lips and large almond eyes.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Could you open the door, please?”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to you about something.”

“I don't want any.”

“Henry, I'm not selling anything.”

She had a persistent little voice, and she'd said “Henry.” “Henry,” she'd said.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“No.”

I waited for an explanation.

“Well, what do you want?”

“I read your article in the paper. Please
open up.”

This made me swoon with fear. Suddenly I felt embarrassed about still being in bed at … I looked at the clock: 6:13 A.M. What the … ?

“Just a second,” I said.

I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, threw my hand under the faucet and slurped up some water. I took a few deep breaths and opened the door.

The woman looked to be in her late twenties, but she had the shiny forehead of a teenager. Her dirty blonde hair was long and straight, with a short puff of bangs. A red-and-white checkerboard dress was what she wore, and no stockings, and if she'd told me she'd just stepped off the set of
Hee Haw
, I would've believed it. Her body was pale and unexceptional by L.A. standards, but probably
okay back in Tennessee or wherever the hell she learned to dress like that.

“I lived your story,” she said.

I squinted and forced a crooked smile.

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, I really loved your story. You know, in the
Los Angeles Times.)

“Oh. Yeah. Well, thank you. That's very nice.”

“Can I come in and talk to you about it?”

“How did you know where I live?”

“Called information. You're listed. Can I come in?”

I thought again about the hour, about how odd this was, about how damn pushy she was being.

“Actually, this isn't the best time.”

“Why not?”

“Well …”I rubbed my chin. “It's a little fucking early, that's why.”

She flinched.

“Can I come back later, then? We'll go somewhere for breakfast to eat.”

“I already have a breakfast meeting,” I lied.

“How about lunch?”

Although I was bewildered and maybe even slightly flattered by the attention, something about her struck me as being “off,” and I hesitated. Whether it was the pushiness or the fact that one almond eye was slightly off-center and larger than the other, or just good, solid intuition, I don't know, but something about her definitely frightened me. It frightened me so much that I heard myself saying “Sure” out of pure intimidation.

“Great. I'll come back at noon'

“Noon it is,” I said. Then: “I have a better idea. Why don't we meet at Ed's Coffee Shop—on Robertson between Beverly and Mel-rose.

“Okay,” and she left.

I crawled back into the crib until eleven-thirty, then showered, brushed my teeth, put on a clean white shirt, and ate a small bowl of raisin bran to rid myself of morning breath. I was annoyed that the raisins came in a separate bag. The fuckers. There were already too many unnecessary decisions in the world, now I had to decide how many raisins to allot myself. I liked the pure chance of it before—let the raisin gods decide, not me.

On the way out to meet my fan, Tiffany stuck her head out her door wearing a big grin. “Hear me last night?”

“As a matter of fact …”

“I was doing it right in the hallway!”

“Yeah,” I said, “Yeah. What happened, you lose your keys—or just couldn't wait?”

“No, it's just that he's like this forty-five-year-old lawyer and he's pretty straight, so I thought it would be exciting for him.”

“Huh.”

She stepped into the hall and I saw that she was in her undies, her bra barely managing to contain its heavy cargo.

“Can you give me a lift to work?” she asked. “I left my car there last night.”

As we drove up Melrose, neither of us spoke much. I was bitter. All I could think of was her animal moans and her perfect, scientifically engineered body, and this flabby-assed Porsche-driving pig, who was probably married and had three kids, getting his nut off while I
was free and single and pushed to the point where I was considering tasting my own load across the hall. I dropped her off at the Moustache Cafe, then headed back to Robertson Boulevard.

It was too hot for coffee when I got to Ed's, so I sat at the counter and ate a piece of watermelon. I opened the paper to the sports section, but was too anxious about meeting my new groupie to read. I kept glancing at the door when anyone entered. Finally she came in, made a quick sweep of the room, and called out, “Monkey!” I looked behind me, then squirmed as I realized I was the chimp she was referring to.

“Have you been waiting long?”

She kissed me on both cheeks, grabbed a chunk of my melon and stuffed it in her mouth.

“Uh, no,” I said. “No.”

I felt like running, but before I could, she'd asked a couple singles if they minded doubling up in order to open a table for us. She took my arm and suddenly I found myself at a little Formica table in the corner with her jammed in beside me screaming out her life story for all to hear.

and she was from Livingston, New Jersey, not Tennessee, as the picnicky dress had indicated. She'd been in L.A. for almost two years now, having come out alone, then quickly meeting and moving in with a personal trainer from Germany named Honus. Colleen claimed to have once been “a figure-skating champion,” whatever that meant, which was why she had to leave high school early, and she was an actress now, struggling to attain her SAG card but getting by with the help of her
work in the Screen Extras Guild. Most big stars started as extras, she said, and for eighteen months she'd been buoyed by the hope that a sharp casting agent would pick her out of a crowd scene on the Temescal Canyon
Baywatch
beach or off the hallways of
90210
and offer her a leading role in a big movie. It happens, she said, and I said I didn't doubt it.

While she told her story, I was thinking how wacky it was that she had called a total stranger “Monkey,” and that she'd kissed me, and I wondered why she'd needed to see me so badly that she'd rap on my door at dawn, and suddenly I heard her say, “I need a place to stay.”

Like an angel, a young smiling Mexican man appeared. I ordered tortillas and scrambled eggs and Colleen asked for two eggs— “snotty”—and home fries. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and asked Colleen to order me a Sprite while I was gone. The bathroom was just to give me space—I didn't really have to go—so I washed my hands a couple times and hoped I was overestimating her nerve. Back at the table I changed the subject and started querying her about acting and Livingston, New Jersey—which apparently had a lot of ponds and rinks and was a figure-skating hotbed—and basically about everything I knew nothing about, and in the middle of a question about Brian Boitano, she said again, “I need a place to stay
tonight.”

I paused and said, “Why?”

“Because Honus threw me out yesterday. The big jerko said I didn't pay him the rent.”

The waiter placed a cup of coffee in front of me.

“No,” I said, “I ordered a Sprite.”

The man looked at Colleen and she said, “They didn't have Sprite, Monkey, just ginger ale, so I ordered you a coffee, black.”

“Really?” I said, but by then she was looking for a cigarette. I turned to the man and mouthed, “Ginger ale.” When he left, I said, “Well, did you?”

“What?”

“Pay the rent.”

“Of course I paid him, but I was stupid and paid cash money and now I got no proof. Some birthday present, huh?”

“Today's your birthday?”

“No, next week. But he promised me we were gonna go somewhere. He knows I like to go somewhere on my birthday.”

I threw her a commiserative nod.

“He even kept Puffy.”

“Animal?”

She smiled. “My kitty.”

The waiter appeared with our meals, and when he left I asked her where she'd slept the previous night.

“I didn't. Hung out at Ben Franks'. Drank coffee all night and read the paper—that's where I read your article, in the paper. I mean it just blew me away, like you have no idea.”

“Well, thanks.”

“I mean it, seriously, you have
no idea.
Just the fact that I'd be at an all-time low point in my life, and to find that article … The chances are just … Anyway, when the sun was coming up, I caught a lift over here from some guy who'd been trying to fuck me all night.”

I looked up. “Fuck” struck me as a bit harsh for someone who called people “jerko.”

“Oh.”

“I would've slept in my car, except I don't have it anymore. I kind of had an accident.”

“Yeah?”

“The car was hardly scratched, but they took my license away, so I got rid of it.”

I rolled the eggs into a tortilla and asked Colleen to pass me the ketchup from the table behind her.

“Yes, Master.”

“Why'd they take your license away?” I asked.

“Well … they said it was my fault.”

“Was it?”

“It's really debatable. I mean as I recall, no, but, to tell you the truth, I can't recall. You see, I passed out for a couple seconds 'cause of my low blood pressure and now I don't remember much. Bottom line is, I hit a lady in my car.”

“You rear-end her?”

“No, I hit her in the side—she was walking.”

When I flinched, she quickly added, “She was okay, though.”

“But they found you at fault?”

“Exactly,”
Colleen said with a confusing conspiratorial nod, as if this somehow exonerated her. “I looked right, then I looked left to see if there were any cars coming, and there weren't any, so I started to go, and she came out of nowhere from the right, and I ran into her.”

“But she was okay?”

“She was fine, the big whiner. I was only going like two miles an hour.” Colleen sipped her coffee. “The baby was okay, too.”

I stopped chewing.

“The carriage got knocked over and the baby was crying and everything, but he was just in shock.”

“You ran over a baby.”

“Then this cop comes over and I'm allergic to smog, so I ended up going to jail, you know.”

“You ran over a baby?”

“And the judge was a real asshole.”

“A
baby
you ran over?”

“I didn't run him
over.
I hardly tapped him, and it wasn't my fault.”

“Baby was okay?”

“Yeah, I told you, he needed like
one
stitch.”

“And where does the smog come into this?”

“That's why I went to jail.”

“Because of smog?”

“Yeah, 'cause when the cop looked at me, he saw that my eyes were all diluted and red as a bunny's, like Michelle Pfeiffer or something, and he figured I was on drugs, which was just the smog I'm allergic to, so he sent me downtown for three days 'cause it was a weekend and court was closed. But, like I said, first I passed out and by the time the ambulance got there, the baby had already stopped crying, but the judge was an asshole and he took away my license, so I got rid of my car. Now, what do you say? Can I live with you?”

“Live
with me?”

“I mean stay. Just for tonight. My girlfriend from San Diego's sending me money, but it won't be here until tomorrow.”

“Colleen, you saw my place—it's really small.”

“You won't even notice me, I'm tiny, and I'm real quiet.”

“Yeah, I know, but I also have a girlfriend back home. This would not … she would … it wouldn't be good.”