The Comedy Writer (39 page)

The officer was already talking to Doheny when I approached. She was shivering on the front steps with her arms crossed over her chest, the standard beaten-wife stance she'd picked up watching
Cops.
Two fat hippie ladies whom I'd never seen before were comforting her, and she was milking it like a newborn calf. When she saw me, Doheny jumped behind one of the women with a look of abject terror. Both women yelled profanities at me, and the officer said, “Get back where you were, sir!”

I threw my hands up and backed off. Doheny took advantage of her momentum.

“I'm sick of being codependent!” she yelled.

I turned. “What the hell is she talking about?”

“It's not
'she/
Henry. It's me,
Doheny.
I'm a real person, with real feelings and real emotions, not just some
'she'
you can chew up and spit out.”

“Shut up.”

The officer stepped forward. “No more abusive language, sir.”

Doheny was right behind him. “This is a dysenfunctional relationship
and I've allowed you to push me around for long enough, but I won't do it anymore!”

“Are you insane?” I said.
“Yve 'pushed you around'?
You've beaten me to a fucking pulp.”

“Sir!” From the officer.

“See?” she said. “That's your view of it because you're codependent on me. You need me around to pick on, so you can feel superior. That's why you keep me hanging around but won't commit. It makes you feel good to know you're better than someone, doesn't it?! Isn't that right? Well, I got news for you, buster, you're not and you're outta here!”

“Go, girl!” from one of the earth mothers, followed by a smattering of applause.

“Look, sir, why don't you just step back and cool off?”

“Because I live here. She's the one who's going somewhere, not me.

Of course I was walking away from the building when I said this. I waited on the sidewalk a few minutes. Finally Cakehead the Cop approached and said, “The young woman says she won't press charges if you just leave.”

“But I live here, not her.”

“She says she lives here.”

“She's a liar. Ask anybody, it's my apartment.”

“That's not what her friends say.”

“Her friends?
They're not her
friends.
She doesn't have friends.”

“They say they've seen her around.”

“I've seen the mailman around. That doesn't mean he lives here.”

“It's not true that she's been living with you?”

“No, she hasn't been
living with me”

“Then what was she doing on the roof a few weeks ago?”

“Playing me like a fiddle, that's what.”

“You hadn't seen her before that?”

“She stayed with me a couple days, that's all. I was trying to help her out.”

“So she
has
been living with you.” Cakehead looked as if he'd just tricked me into a full murder confession.

“I didn't say that, I said she's been
staying here”

Splitting hairs now was his look.

“She claims she lives here.”

“And I'm telling you that's bullshit. Call my landlady, she'll tell you, I pay the rent.”

“Who pays the rent is irrelevant.”

“What?! Well, what the hell is relevant?”

“I'm going to ask you now to control your language, Mr. Hal-loran.”

“I just don't see what the hell you're talking—”

“I said, 'Control your language.' Now, if you can't do this, we're going to continue the conversation down at the station.”

“All right, all right. It's just that this is … baloney.”

The officer went back to the gaggle of hags and bat-wielders on my front steps while I waited on the sidewalk catching dirty looks from all sides and then Herb Silverman came by and I was happy to see him because he was immediately on my side. I told him to tell the cops what the truth was, and he approached them, and then a few minutes later two cops and he returned, and they said I either had to go with Herb or else.

…Or else what?”

“You can either go with your friend, Mr. Halloran, or we're going to have a problem.”

“What is that, some kind of veiled threat?”

“It's not veiled. If you don't leave, I'll place you under arrest.”

“Then arrest me, because I'm not going to be kicked out of my own home and let this con woman take over my residence.”

The officer rolled his eyes, unfastened a pair of handcuffs from his belt.

Silverman pulled on my arm. “Come on, Henry, let's go over to my place. We'll deal with it later.”

I pulled away. “No! If they think I'm not staying in my own home, then they better fucking arrest me!”

My arms were grabbed from behind and I was shoved against a police cruiser and in a flash I felt cuffs snap around my wrists and I started to struggle with three cops and a quarter ton of weight on my back.

Now in retrospect the Beverly Hills cops were probably being pretty gentle with me. They held me against the cruiser and bent my arms a little awkwardly and one of them had a club or an elbow pressed against the back of my head, but it was approximately the right amount of force necessary to keep me down. At the time, however, I felt they were being assholes and I let them know this, and then I found out what a real asshole could be like when the Orange Cop showed up and spun me around, ran me into the side of a palm tree, and slammed me down on the sidewalk. I tasted something hot and salty, which turned out to be just what you'd think, and it felt like I'd chipped a tooth, but I hadn't, I'd just filed one down a little. The blood went down my throat and back into my
system like a triple dose of common sense, and I immediately shut up, which calmed the Orange Cop, too, and he let me just lie there handcuffed for a few minutes while the other officers talked to my neighbors and took down phone numbers and statements and found out everything but the truth.

but there may as well have been nuclear fireballs landing around me. The world had lost its beauty. Los Angeles was a thief, under its nylon mask of smog, aiming five million exhaust pipes at its citizens' heads, robbing the young of their breath and the elderly of their lives. The palm trees were dead, soulless. The awnings were filthy, the colors muted. Flowers were frauds.

I'd once read an article in which somebody called writing “the response of a disturbed soul.” It wasn't therapeutic, they claimed, it only made the agony worse. I didn't believe this when I read it, but now I wasn't sure. Peace of mind seemed a lifetime away. It was hard to imagine a time when I drove around feeling happy, hopeful, safe. I'd smile at people back then, knowing I was paying my dues, confident that someday I would feel the exhilaration of success.

Spring was over and so was hope. My toes were tingling, my legs growing weak. The nauseating terror started to build within. I would not submit to it today.

The first night I'd slept at Silverman's, then two nights at a motel on Robertson near the 10. I was lucky the cops hadn't arrested me, I reminded myself, but a manic itch continued to rattle inside my marrow. Five hours of shut-eye in three days. I tossed and turned, feet twitching, and even when I did find sleep, it was a struggle to maintain it. One afternoon I snuck into my apartment, grabbed my notebooks and a couple pictures of my dead girlfriend Grace, and bolted out the back door. I called in sick all week and they didn't question it. I prayed for my mind to stop—just four consecutive hours of rest—but my mind was my enemy and wanted me to suffer.

Now it was Thursday afternoon. I'd decided to go to the UCLA library and work on
How I Won Her Back.
What I needed was a firm chair, silence, a desk, and a world-renowned medical center nearby. When I got to the library, it happened again. The arms started to go numb, the toes tingled, I became aware of my breathing, then a whiff of nausea. Oh, God, would I be able to get the next breath? My heart fluttered. Or was it my stomach? Please, make it my stomach. But it couldn't be, I hadn't eaten for three hours. Things should be settled in there, and I couldn't be hungry already.

A bathroom! I had to find a bathroom to look at myself, assure myself I wasn't dying. I looked at my hands; good color. I squeezed my fingers together, watched the blood rush to and from the tips. This was probably a good sign.

I walked slowly, a human bomb that any movement might set off. I passed a redheaded man with a beard. I knew that he could be the last person I saw alive. Then a woman. She looked familiar. The angel of death?

My fingers were no longer numb. I was safe again. For a while. Like a woman in labor between contractions, except I was giving birth to death. I felt the fear build and subside and then build again, over and over, never quite reaching a peak, or reaching one and seeing a bigger, scarier one in the distance. In the bathroom, I looked in the mirror. I was there. I touched my cheek; a white blotch appeared. This was good, there was blood in my face.

On the way out of the library, it struck again. My chest muscle tightened, my breath shortened. That's it, it was on to the health center to get my blood pressure taken. Suddenly a burst of fear. I was admitting it, giving in to it, accepting the fact that I was dying. I ducked into a building marked WOMEN'S CLINIC. The young black woman at the front desk gasped. I imagined how bad I must look.

“I didn't hear you come in,” she said.

“I know I'm a guy, but could you get someone to take my blood pressure?”

“Sorry, women only, hon.”

“Please. I think something's wrong with me. I've been sweating and out of breath all day.”

The woman looked at me with concern. “Wait here.”

She left the room and presently a rich-looking woman in her late thirties came out to see me.

“If you have a problem, go to the medical center.”

“Could you just take my blood pressure? I feel very tense.”

“I'm sorry, but you're in the wrong place.”

“But doesn't it just take a minute? I'm really—”

“Read my lips. You're in the wrong place.”

I drove around the corner to the hospital. Four or five people were standing outside the emergency room smoking cigarettes. The inside was packed. Most of the people were minorities. Their looks told me I had a long wait. I wondered if there'd been a fire or some other catastrophe.

I walked across the street to a drugstore to get something to drink. It was a small place and as I entered I tried to remember if drugstores sold drinks. This one did. I got a ginger ale because it was free of caffeine. As I was paying, it occurred to me that this might not be a good idea. Didn't they say not to eat or drink if you're having a heart attack? I remembered my father telling me that that was the worst part of giving mouth-to-mouth: when the victim throws up.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing in the corner of the store: a blood pressure machine.

“Could you get up?” I asked the old black woman who was sitting in it sideways, waiting for a prescription.

After she did, I felt bad. Maybe she didn't realize it was a blood pressure tester and thought I just wanted her seat. Maybe she thought I was a racist. I sat and read the directions. Where was the red dot? I couldn't find a red dot, but I put my arm in the loop anyway. I plugged in my two quarters, hesitated before pushing the start button. What if I went into arrest as the thing was clamping onto my arm? I could be stuck there for thirty seconds. The black woman would surely summon help, wouldn't she? Yes, the woman I'd just insulted would save my life.

I pressed the button, but nothing happened. The coin return didn't work, either. I pressed the start again. Still nothing. I got up but didn't ask for my money back. As I walked slowly back to my car, I couldn't get a deep breath. There was no chest pain, just the
sense that my lungs had shrunk, or my stomach was pushing into it, or my … or my heart … or my heart …

Or my heart had finally broken in half.

I sat in the middle of the sidewalk, held my hand against my chest. People passed without glancing down. I felt embarrassed for them, embarrassed for all of us. Suddenly I couldn't hear anything. I saw people and cars but couldn't hear them. I slid up against a building, put my finger against my carotid artery.

“Henry … ?”

I looked up and it was Gus Anders with another man.

“Are you okay?”

“Hey,” I said.

“What are you doing there?”

“Waiting for someone,” I said. “Gonna catch a movie.”

The other man smiled at me, but it was a sad smile and he seemed to get it and started drifting down the sidewalk. It was a little early for a movie and I was spewing all kinds of weak vibes and Gus said, “What's going on?”

He shuffled about, put a hand on his knee, knelt beside me.

“I don't feel so good, Gus. My heart or something, maybe my thyroid … everything's falling apart.”

Gus took my pulse. He started to fade out. I felt it coming on, it was within my control to halt it, but I didn't this time, I didn't run from the wave, I ran toward it and dove in headfirst.

at least how they used to be portrayed in the movies. I thought when you had a breakdown, they put you in a hospital, or your family came and got
you. But this was the nineties, and breakdowns were now commonplace and vastly underrated. The doctor gave me a prescription of Xanax and a few Klonopins and told me to go back to my room. He hadn't even termed it a breakdown but a “lapse of sanity.” Even I started seeing it differently. It was just like getting a bug, or having too much sugar, or maybe a caffeine overdose. I was fine now, it
was
just a lapse. I wasn't crazy, just tired.