Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (23 page)

Duh
. Good note. Done!”

William found this funny. So funny that he inhaled the rubber

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eraser on the end of the pencil he was smoking. He began to choke.

He pointed to his throat.

“He’s just pulling another one of his stupid jokes,” Marcus

said as he continued to look through his script for more director’s notes.

“Um, I don’t think he’s kidding.” Ash tried to address the

crowd. Not a single person listened except for J.T. The two men stared at William for a beat. William kept grabbing his throat and looking more and more desperate. His face was bulging to comic

proportions and even his hands were turning red.

“Yo, bro—HELP—” was all William could muster. Then he be-

gan to lose consciousness.

“What’s wrong with you people?!” J.T. yelled. “Someone call

911!”

J.T. and Ash stepped into action to save William and do the

Heimlich. Ash was stronger than J.T., so he went behind Wil-

liam and put his arms around his chest, just below the V in his rib cage. J.T.’s contribution was to keep yelling. “Did anyone hear me?

Someone call for help!”

Just before Ash was about to squeeze William and hopefully

dislodge the rubber eraser, William opened his mouth and smiled a goofy smile, with the little eraser sitting on the end of his tongue.

“Gotcha! Gotcha good! Both of you! Ha! That was a good

one, huh, bro? Fo’shizzle my nizzle, my main man,” William said to Ash.

Ash took in a large breath. “What the fuck are you talking

about? Really?”

“Really, really?” William asked, sincerely.

J.T. immediately took over before the man who was meant to

be his calming influence actually lost it. “William,” he said through a clenched jaw, “how’s ’bout I put a cap in yo ass if ya keep on muggin’ da language of the black man. Get it? Can-I-state-it-any-clearer?”

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“Cool, bro.” William shrank back, but not before giving some

Chicano gang sign with his left hand.

Ash and J.T. looked at each other, then at William, then back at each other. The last look said it all:
What a nut.
As they returned silently to their seats, William pleaded like a little boy, “C’mon, don’t be mad. It was only a joke! I thought you guys would appreciate a good joke. C’mon!”

Just as they’d settled back into their chairs and the sniggering from the producer-writers had quieted into white noise, Marcus’s mouth twisted into an inhuman contortion. This meant he was

furious, but had to hide it for some reason behind a smile. J.T.

looked around for the source of the latest affront.

Marcus was tracking someone with his eyes. He’d asked if it

was
safe and now that lesbian actress was walking near his notes session!
Another minute and she might’ve heard one of the carpet-muncher jokes. That was definitely unfair. He glared at William.

William mouthed,
Sorry, boss,
very sincerely. He was feeling a tad nervous. In a matter of seconds he had pissed off both the director and the showrunner. He slowly shrank into a corner.

“Oh, Helena!” J.T. called her over.

“What the fuck are you doing?! Are you out of your mind?!”

Marcus Pooley hissed to J.T. Then he turned and intercepted Helena, hugging her in his simian way. “Oh, Helena, what would this show be without you?”

“I agree,” Stephanie Pooley chimed in. “You’re . . . brilliant!”

“Brilliant is the phrase!” Lance repeated.

J.T. tried to get to the point. “Helena and I spoke earlier and—”

“You . . . SPOKE . . . with Helena?” Marcus Pooley was feigning apoplexy. Or maybe he wasn’t faking it.

“Yes, we
spoke
. That’s what directors and actors do when there is a place in the text that the actor is wrestling with. She was having trouble connecting the words and the character. We spoke. ComR o b b y

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municated,” J.T. said. Something was wrong. Marcus wasn’t actu-

ally angry—he wasn’t as good an actor as his wife.

“You had to use the word
wrestling
in front of a lesbian?”

Stephanie now stepped in with diversionary tactics. “I mean, is that a stereotype or what? Just because her sexual preference isn’t what you Bible Belters think is okay, you don’t have to be evil and ignorant and judgmental! How dare you!” Stephanie was glower-ing at J.T.’s shirt pocket.

“I didn’t mean to—wait,
wrestling
isn’t a male or female term, I just meant that your actor—”

“And you’re calling our actress an
actor
?” Marcus Pooley jumped in.

J.T. made the mistake of getting defensive. “I call all of my actors
actors
.
Actress
is not a term I usually use, for reasons I don’t feel it necessary to get into now.”

“My
actors? When did they become
your
actors?” Marcus Pooley immediately snapped back into being genuinely furious.

Marcus was in cocaine withdrawal. He hadn’t had his chemicals

in over an hour.

J.T. felt exhausted. Not
that
again. He had to get back on track.

“I think,” he ventured, “that Helena has a few issues about all of the Chanukah
bush
jokes, and I agree with her.”

“You agree with her
?” Marcus Pooley’s eyes could not have squinted more. It was a squint one usually associates with the

grunt that accompanies childbirth.

“You . . .
agree
. . . with her?” Stephanie asked with a huge smile plastered on the most visible of her two faces.

Something was definitely wrong.

“Yes. That’s what I said. I
agree
with her,” J.T. repeated, standing his ground.

“Oh no—I
don’t
have a problem, J.T.,” Helena said brightly, leaving J.T. hanging out to dry.

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

J.T. whipped around so quickly he felt a spasm in his back. He

stared at Helena. “You . . . don’t?” he asked, confused. “Wait . . . you said—”

“I said that I loved these jokes. I think the writing is brilliant.

Winning! Refreshing. You must have misunderstood me, J.T.,”

Helena said.

“How can you say that with a straight face?” J.T. asked, his

shoulders slumping. Even though this sort of thing had happened to him too many times before, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was hurt. He looked at Ash, who just shook his head.

Steph continued the attack. “There you go again! A
straight
face! Another lesbian reference! She
killed
on those jokes,” she howled, now staring at J.T.’s left hand. “Killed!”

“Really. I’ve never laughed harder,” Marcus Pooley chimed

in. “What the fuck world do you live in? What planet are you

from?”

Hearing that line from a guy who looked like a chimpanzee

pulled J.T. out of himself. “Okay . . .” he managed to say. He was starting to get a good lay of the land: he had to be wary of his actors, too.
How sad,
he thought.

“Sorry, my bad,” J.T. said quietly.

“You’re bad
is quite the understatement,” Marcus Pooley chortled.

“If notes are over, I’d like to go devise a way that I can give you the illusion that I’m a director,” J.T. said.

“Sarcasm is the last fucking thing we need this week, mister,”

Stephanie Pooley snapped at J.T.’s shoes.

“I have one question for you, Ms. Pooley,” J.T. said calmly.

“Only one? And you call yourself a director!”

“When you say all of these awful and cruel things to people, do you ever look them in the eye?”

No one moved. Stephanie finally exhaled like a frustrated

child—in the direction of J.T.’s left shoulder.

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“Just wondering.” J.T. merely smiled, turned, and walked away.

Ash met up with him at the stage door.

“I hate that director fuck,” Marcus Pooley took aim at Lance

after J.T. left.

“I agree, I agree. I’m working on it,” Lance said.

“You see how he thinks it’s
his
show?
His
actors!
His
sets! I mean, who does he think he is? I look people in the eye!” Stephanie Pooley snarled at Lance’s briefcase.

“Gimme time. I’ll make you two very happy. Just give me time,”

Lance said.

Alone in his corner, William had the same smile as the

Cheshire cat.

J.T. was numb all over. As he and Ash passed into the small holding area between the stage door and the door to the lot, he thought it was a little strange that his brain could notice that he could not feel his body parts.

“You hangin’ in?” Ash asked.

“I think I’m gonna quit, Ash.”

“What? You can’t quit.”

“I know. I’m a coward. I think about Jeremy and I know he’d

want me to
do the right thing.
The right thing is to walk out of here.

I can’t
do the right thing
.”

“Whoa, J.T.” Ash gently put his hands on J.T.’s shoulders. “Look me in the eye, buddy. Now—let’s get a grasp on the situation. Yes, these people are scum. But because of these scumbags, your son is going to get the best treatment possible. You wouldn’t have it any other way. If you believe that Jeremy would want you to leave, then that’s his youthful idealism. You can’t afford to be idealistic. That would endanger your family. So think about picking blueberries

with Tasha and Jeremy next summer every time you start to drown in the scum. Promise me.”

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“You’re right. Blueberries,” J.T. mumbled.

William popped his head through the door. “You wanna do the

honors, boss?”

It took J.T. a beat to figure out what William meant and who

was boss. “No, William, I want you to do it. It’ll be good training for you since you are so close to moving up to director.”

William immediately started hyperventilating. “What? I’m an

A.D. You’re the director. I don’t wanna be a director. Who told you I wanna be the director?”

“William, just call it.” J.T. was tired of the games.

“Gotcha, boss.” William escaped back onto the floor of the

cave. J.T. and Ash heard him yell, “That’s a wrap! Good work, everybody. All of the actors: That’s a wrap! After sex!”

There wasn’t a single actor left on the stage, but William sa-

vored the words.
Pretty soon, I’ll be the director calling “That’s a
wrap!”
he thought.
After sex.

J.T. and Ash headed for the production office to find an empty

office.

J.T. had quietly summoned as many of his department heads as

he could; even Carl from accounting was asked to be there.

“Ms. Smart,” J.T. said to the production designer, “I have an idea.

It seems the Pooleys want me to direct the best ever explosion without explosives and with two carolers, children, and no snow. That is all the information I have been given. So I’ll try and responsibly take those instructions and give them the best ever
fucking
explosion that we are capable of producing under these dysfunctional conditions.”

As J.T. started to get involved in his ideas he had a habit of losing track of time and place. In this case, he had a large cup full of ice and was not only chewing on the ice, which was annoying as hell, but his tongue became numb and his speech became . . . muddy.

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“Let’s show them what we are all cabable of doing, eben

though we’re blaying right into their hands.” Crunch. Crunch. “It doesn’t matter. It’s our . . . duty to be as cleber as we can. I’m going to need the helb of all of you. Any and all thoughts are belcome. I want to tell you my idea and then you tell me what you hab to do to make this work by tomorrow morning when we shoot
the best
eber exblosion
!”

Everyone was riveted in the worst way. Finally Ash raised his

hand.

“Es, Ass? Go ahea.”

“Thank you, J.T. I think I speak for all of us here when I say, WHA?” Ash couldn’t help himself. He started laughing, and as

soon as he did, the others started in as well, including J.T. The tension of the day was released, gloriously released. Just what a comedy needed: laughter.

“Eberyone take fibe,” J.T. said. “My tongue is brozen. Sorry.”

After J.T. had a hot cup of tea and the door was safely closed, all of his defenses dropped and he was ready to proceed.

“Okay—now my tongue isn’t numb, but I’m highly caffeinat-

ed. So if I speed-talk, just tell me to slow down.” J.T. took another sip of his tea. “Carl, how much money is in the budget for this best ever explosion?” he asked the accountant.

“One cup of tea makes you highly caffeinated?”

“Two cups. I had one at the table read. Anyway, I don’t

drink coffee and I stay away from cola, so, yeah, a couple of

cups of tea and it’s to the

moon, Alice.”

The Hollywood Dictionary

“It takes me three espres-

GAG:

so shots to even get a slight

(1) A bit. (2) A stunt. (3) In

this case, gag means gag.

buzz.”

“Carl, now I know what

to get you for
your
best ever

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

Christmas
.
But I really need to know how much is in the budget for the best ever explosion.”

“I’m not really at liberty—” Carl began.

“Carl. Carl, if we are going to be proud of our work, we have

to throw protocol out the window. Now, let’s do this the old-

fashioned way—let’s actually
try
. How much money is in the budget to do this gag?” J.T. asked firmly.

“Ten thousand,” Carl answered.

J.T. gagged.

Then he swallowed and said, “We’ll do it for half. That’s how