The Comedy Writer (41 page)
Ghost
came out that year and was a smash hit, which put an end to any chances I had of selling
How I Won Her Back
, seeing as they were both about young people dealing with the death of a mate. Levine stuck by me, though, and after another year, I got a development deal with a producer at Universal who had made some of the most popular teen comedies of the eighties. I wrote the script in three and a half weeks with my brother and a friend and the day we turned it in we found out that the producer had had a falling out with the studio, “ankled” to Fox, and all his projects at Universal were dead. Even though nothing was getting made, I was grateful to be getting my at bats. I accepted the fact that the everyday struggle to succeed is what life is all about, and in fact it's the fun part.
Seinfeld
ended up making
The Virgin
, but it was written by a staff guy and I didn't know about it until the day before it aired. When Levine called with the news, I was ecstatic and then pissed off when I realized they hadn't had the decency to let me watch it being filmed. I was to receive “story by” credit and the guy got the title “written by.” They were kind enough to offer me another episode,
though, which I wrote and was paid well for, but it never got made.
Ted Bowman never got
Ice Cream Man
made, either, to my knowledge, though I did stumble across a movie called
The Ice Cream Man
in a video store. It was a low-budget slasher movie starring Ron Howard's little brother Clint, but Bowman's name wasn't on it, nor was the “No More Mr. Softee” tag line. I continued to see Bowman's producer credit on action pictures, so I assumed he was doing fine financially, even though he had to settle his traffic case out of court.
For a long time I considered writing a magazine piece about successful Hollywood producers—I was going to call it
Success-pool
—but I couldn't muster the energy for such a negative undertaking, and the truth of the matter is that most of the producers I met were decent to me.
I never saw Colleen Driscoll again. It had taken me and Tiffany Pittman one afternoon to clean out my apartment and thankfully she never showed. I dropped the keys in the mail with an extra month's rent and a note for Mr. and Mrs. Beaupre and back in Boston I kept my number unlisted. As for Tiff, I always take her to dinner when I get back to L.A. for meetings, which is about three times a year. She brings me to the new hot spot and fills me in on the commercials she's shot, the pilots she's up for, and the famous people she's fucking.
Herb Silverman fell off the face of the earth. He moved from his apartment around the time I left town, and I never saw him on TV or in the movies. The only time I ever heard his name again was in a magazine article about up and coming L.A. club owners. I called to see if it was him, but he didn't call back, and that was that.
I used to talk about Colleen all the time, initially trying to make
sense of it all, but eventually for the entertainment value. I'm not a psychiatrist, but I have learned that talking about crazy things is good therapy and I did come to enjoy the stories. Friends would approach me at bars and parties around Boston and ask me to tell other friends or even strangers about Doheny. This I was happy to do because after all she had become what I'd always hoped for: an annoying girl from my past who I told stories about. I'd recall the eating disorders and being clubbed by the two-iron and the plastic knife fight. I even told women about her, which was probably a mistake. Most were amused, some were alarmed by the violent turn the story took, a few even accused me of being in love with her. The truth was there was no way I could tell a woman about Doheny without sounding a little petty. In time Doheny gained a legendary status among a certain Boston crowd and a bartender at the Delux even named a drink after her, though it was called a Davy Crockett. I couldn't get away from the girl. She was a big part of my history now, even inspiring me to write a children's story (see Appendix), which was published and got a nice mention in
Time
magazine. I dedicated it to her—out of guilt more than anything—seeing as she'd given me the idea (though I decided to go with a more uplifting version, as opposed to hers).
eked their way into the postseason in the fall of 1990, and I walked to all the home playoff games from my studio apartment in the Back Bay. They got squashed by the A's and even though the Celts and Bruins were having bad years, I enjoyed it when the weather turned cold again. I didn't like hot winters, I didn't like places where I had to stop and think about what month it
was. I was glad to be around my parents, and my brothers and sisters, and friends. I liked living in a place where summer meant something. I'd missed the leaves and cranberry bogs. I'd missed meeting pretty girls who weren't automatically models. I'd missed Mike Barnicle. I wanted to meet someone and fall in love and treat her well for the rest of her life, but there was no rush. Odds are I'd never become a movie mogul living on the East Coast. I'd probably never see Amanda Parsons again, but I didn't feel too bad about that because Amanda didn't love me and Hollywood moguls come and go and someday I'd be lying on my deathbed, facing the void, and I was a blessed man because I knew the truth is there is a God, and that everything means something.
abigale the happy whale
by Henry Halloran
a large family of Humpback Whales swam through the Santa Monica Bay toward the beaches of California. The sight of loud, happy Humpbacks was common in these waters—but these were not loud, happy Humpbacks. They were very quiet, and very, very sad. They paddled along, never looking back or singing or smiling. And strangest of all, these whales hardly even bothered to eat.
Except for Abigale the Happy Whale. She swam at the very back of the group, like the caboose of a train, which was about how big she was. As she floated past the chairs and refrigerators and broken glass that litterbugs had dumped on the ocean floor, Abigale ate about as much seaweed as a little whale can eat without throwing up
all over the place. When she wasn't singing or laughing or eating, Abigale was playing with her friends, the smaller Sea People.
For a while the Golfin' Dolphin putted along beside her. Boy, was he ever teed off. One of the Land People had thrown a golf club into the sea and clobbered him on the snout. Abigale gave the fish a big kiss. This made him feel better.
“Do you have time to play nine holes?” the Golfin' Dolphin asked.
“Thanks for the offer, but I can't today,” she said. “We're on our way to the beach.”
“To the beach?” the confused dolphin repeated. “How can a whale go to the beach?”
He didn't get an answer, though, for Abigale was gone.
The whales continued to swim over junked cars and shipwrecks and lost Frisbees, and Abigale didn't stop until she ran into her old friend Clem the Clam. Clem was acting like a real dip because someone had dropped an old television set on his clam bed.
“What kind of chowderhead would do something like this?” the steamed clam snapped.
Abigale the Happy Whale couldn't answer, but because she dug this shellfish, she pushed the boob tube off his clam bed.
“I've got to go now,” she said. “We're on our way to the beach.”
Clem wanted to call out to the young whale, but he was so surprised he just clammed up.
The whales swam over rusty anchors and fishing poles covered with green gunk and even a mirror framed with barnacles. That's where Abigale saw the reflections of Blackie the Goldfish and Fred
Doofish the Red Bluefish. They were looking in the mirror and weren't exactly thrilled to the gills with what they saw.
'This is terrible!” Blackie the Goldfish cried. “I've got more oil on me than a can of sardines.”
“Well, at least your problems are only scale-deep,” Fred Doofish the Red Bluefish said. “I've got a liver the size of a beanbag chair and I'm turning red from the inside out.”
This was because Fred had eaten seaweed that was polluted from a nearby factory.
“I don't care what you look like or how big your livers are,” Abigale said. “I still love you both.”
Fred and Blackie smiled and watched the Happy Whale splash away past an empty catfood can and a broken beach chair.
“Where you going, Abigale?” they called out.
“To the beach,” she said, and their mouths dropped open like a couple surprised fish, which is what they were.
The Humpbacks were closing in on land when Abigale bumped into her old friend Wordsmith the Swordfish. Wordsmith was wearing a large black ring around his sword, which is where most people's noses are.
“Greetings, my dear,” the well-spoken swordfish said in a nasally voice.
“How are you today, Wordsmith?” Abigale asked.
“I'm darn piqued,” he said, which meant he was darn angry.
“You shouldn't be,” she said. “I think your new ring looks great.”
“For your edification,” Wordsmith said, “this is not a ring. It's just a tire that some buffoon discarded into the sea and that somehow attached to my protrusive proboscis.”
“Huh?” said the baffled whale.
“A tire got stuck on my nose!” he cried.
Luckily, Abigale was able to talk Dr. Gus the Octopus into making a house call. After the good doctor had jacked Wordsmith up and pulled the whitewall off the swordfish's snout, he asked Abigale where she was off to.
“We're going to the beach,” she said and she started to drift away.
Well, let me tell you, Dr. Gus the Octopus was up in arms over this. Using his good seven arms (the doctor's eighth arm was in a sling because he'd hurt it on a pop-top from a soda can), he ran and caught Abigale.
“Whales can't go to the beach!” Dr. Gus the Octopus insisted. “You'll all get stuck in the sand.”
This made Abigale stop and tread water for a while.
“Why would we be going to the beach if it would hurt us?” she wondered aloud.
“I have no idea,” the doctor said, “but if you ask me, something smells terribly fishy.”
Abigale the Happy Whale swam past all the sad, quiet whales until she got to the Head Whale, Henry Dale.
“Why are we going to the beach?” she asked him. “Dr. Gus the Octopus said it could be dangerous.”
“We're not going to the beach,” said Henry Dale the Head Whale, “we're beaching ourselves.”
“But if we beach ourselves, then we'll get stuck in the sand,” Abigale said.
A tear rolled out of one of her eyes.
“Look around you,” the Head Whale wailed. “All you see is pollution. The Land People throw junk into the sea because they can't see us beneath the calm surface. We have to beach ourselves to get their attention.” Then Henry Dale the Head Whale led the rest of the Humpbacks past Abigale until she was just another sad whale at the end of a very sad line.
The family of Humpbacks was only a few hundred yards from shore when Abigale passed under the broad shadow of Moby Duck. Moby was the biggest duck in the world because oil had spilled from a ship onto his feathers. At first he had looked like a licorice duck, but then things started sticking to him, and pretty soon he looked like a floating junkyard.
This is what was stuck to Moby Duck:
Two buoys with blinking lights.
A Wiffle ball bat.
Three Styrofoam cups.
Seven life preservers.
Four bottles with messages in them.
Two without.
A doll with one arm.
A sofa.
A Big Mac container.
Twenty-two corks.
A small rowboat.
A clogged-up snorkle.
A large rowboat.
And a pair of men's size 48 underwear that had the words BE MY VALEIOTNE written on them in red.
Needless to say, Moby Duck was feeling down.
“What are you doing so close to the shore?” Moby quacked.
“We're beaching ourselves,” Abigale whispered in a choked-up voice.
“Oh, no!” the sad duck cried. “Why would you do something like that?”
“We have to let the Land People see us, so they'll stop polluting,” the young whale replied.
“But that won't accomplish anything,” Moby Duck said. “After all, they see me and they still pollute.”
Abigale realized that this duck covered with yuck had a point. Beaching themselves wouldn't help anybody; it would only add to the litter. That's when she decided to take matters into her own fins.
Abigale skimmed across the ocean floor and in one big gulp ate a soup can, a tennis racquet, a compass, and a boot. Then she came to the surface and blew the stuff right out the spout on her back and onto the beach. The other Sea People had had it up to their gills with pollution, so they joined in to lend a helping fin.
The Golfin' Dolphin chipped in by whacking an old volleyball onto the beach with a nine-iron. Dr. Gus the Octopus tossed a six-pack of soda bottles and a rusty thermos at the same time. Wordsmith the Swordfish carved up an old ladder for Blackie the Goldfish and Fred Doofish the Red Bluefish to carry piece by piece to the shore. Clem the Clam was always willing to stick out his neck for friends,
so he helped out, too. Before long, all of the Sea People were cleaning up the water. The Dogfish, Rin Fin Fin, was barking out orders to Sid the Squid and Neil the Eel. Tab the Crab was there in a pinch, and Bob the Lobster turned out to be an unselfish shellfish. Shucks, folks, even Rose Royster the Rich Oyster went to work for a while.
When Henry Dale the Head Whale saw what was happening, he too began gobbling up the garbage and blowing it back onto the shore through his great spout. Soon all the other whales started doing the same. In a little less than one afternoon, they swept the entire sea clean. And you want to know something else? They had a whale of a good time!
When the Land People saw all their junk coming back at them, they had no choice but to clean it up and properly dispose of it. After all, if they didn't, then there wouldn't be room to go to the beach. Big trucks came from far away and hauled the stuff off to real junkyards. The junk that went on the final truck was stuff they pulled off Moby Duck.
Then the school of whales swam back out to sea.
And for the first time in a long time, they were all as happy as Abigale the Happy Whale!