The Man Who Cancelled Himself (12 page)

“The woman never laughs,” Marty advised me under his breath. “The ideal network exec to supervise a comedy.”

“Which, fortunately, isn’t a problem with this show,” cracked Tommy.

“How’s God, Marjorie?” Lyle asked her, his eyes twinkling with mischief. He was going out of his way to make her uncomfortable.

“Godfrey is very well, thank you, Lyle,” she replied, steadfastly refusing to employ her boss’s nickname. “Number two son had an ear infection, but it cleared up.” She had an unusually precise way of speaking, each word carefully weighed as if she were delivering a valedictory address. She reached into her briefcase and removed a Cross pencil. Also her reading copy of the script, which she’d marked up heavily.

The Boys shot each other a look of fear and loathing.

“All set, Marjorie?” asked Lyle.

“Yes, Lyle. Thank you.” She whispered hi to Annabelle. They were evidently chummy. Me she smiled at. I smiled back. Lulu immediately let out a low, threatening growl at my feet. She sensed trouble. Possibly it was those green eyes. Merilee has green eyes.

“Okay, start the stopwatch, Leo,” Lyle commanded briskly. “Let’s take this baby for a little spin and see how she handles. …”

“I
LOVE THIS SCRIPT
!” Lyle exulted afterward, when everyone but the writers, Marjorie, and Katrina had filed out. “Every beat is absolutely, totally perfect. Neil Simon would be proud to have his name on it. We’re not changing a word.” He shot a fierce look down the table at Marjorie, defying her to contradict him. “Not one word.”

In fact, the reading had gone quite well. Everyone had laughed at all of the right places. Chad’s handling of Rob Roy Fruitwell had been surprisingly charming. All of which meant nothing. What mattered was how it played before an audience that wasn’t on the
Uncle Chubby
payroll. What mattered were those notes that were scrawled all over Marjorie’s script. God’s envoy had sat there impassively throughout the entire reading, her emerald eyes betraying nothing. She would make an excellent poker player. Most network executives would. They only lack for one element—nerve.

“I thought there were a few minor dents,” said Marty, glancing down at his notepad.

Lyle waved him off with a gloved hand. “We’ll fix those on the floor. No point in—”

“I’d like to hear what the writers have to say, Lyle,” Marjorie interrupted, quietly but firmly.

Lyle gave her The Scowl from behind his surgical mask. Disgustedly, he threw down his pencil and crossed his huge arms. “Okay, fine. Go ahead.”

“First act, end of scene one,” began Marty. “We need a stronger beat when he gets stuck out on the porch in the rain. ‘I hate my life’ doesn’t play.”

“I’m, like, we could move the Chia Pet gag there,” suggested Annabelle. “It got a huge laugh.”

Marty: “What’s funnier than a Chia Pet?”

Tommy: “A Thighmaster?”

Marty: “We’ll work on it.”

Bobby said nothing. Just gripped his script tightly, blinking.

Marty leafed through his script. “I’d also like to take another whack at the scene where Chubby and Rob fix the dishwasher together. We’ve got our Ruth Gordon gag and not much else. Rob needs more attitude.”

“I didn’t
get
your Ruth Gordon gag,” Katrina squeaked. “I mean, where’s the irony, comedically speaking?”

“It’s a guy thing,” growled Tommy, his complexion turning bluer, “You’d get it if you had a penis.”

“It’s a reference to
Harold and Maude
,” Marty replied pleasantly, smiling his smile at her. Clearly, the man went home and whipped small animals. Kittens, maybe.

“I think we should explain that,” she maintained doggedly. “So people will get it.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “It won’t be funny if we stick the title of the movie in there.”

“It’s not funny now,” she insisted, her little voice trembling.

“I know what’s funny, Katrina!” Tommy snarled, furious. “That’s why I get paid! To know what’s funny! If I say it’s funny, it’s
funny!”

Katrina swallowed, struggling to control herself. “Look, I don’t think you guys are addressing yourselves to what’s really wrong with this script.”

“Gee, I could have sworn I just heard Lyle say it was perfect,” Tommy pointed out bitterly.

“Well,
I
say you’re totally missing the point of what
Uncle Chubby
is about now,” she argued.

The Boys exchanged a look.

“Which is what, Katrina?” Marty’s voice was husky, with dread.

“It’s about the six million American kids who will go to bed hungry tonight.” She was back up on the soapbox. “It’s about the sixteen million who have no medical coverage of any kind. It’s about teen suicide and drug addiction and—”

“I’m, like, don’t get me wrongola, but where do the jokes come in?” wondered Annabelle with fish-eyed confusion.

Katrina considered this, Lyle beaming at her like a proud parent. “We’re past jokes,” she replied. “We have a public responsibility here. And from now on, we’re going to meet it. That’s what we’re about. We’re not about
comedy
anymore. We’re about
dramedy.
Understood?”

The Boys stared at her in horror. Annabelle’s mouth was open, but nothing was coming out.

It was Bobby who broke the silence. “I-I think that’s g-great,” he blurted out.

The Boys shot him a look. So did Katrina. Hers was grateful. Theirs wasn’t.

“I-I for one will be thrilled to t-tackle serious issues,” he sputtered. “In fact, I-I already have an idea for a story that would be perfect for—”

“Don’t pitch in front of the network, Bobby,” commanded Lyle harshly. “You’re not good enough.”

Bobby froze for an instant. Then he jumped to his feet, kicking his chair over, and stormed out of the rehearsal room. Annabelle watched him go with motherly concern. Lyle cackled.

Tommy stabbed his finger at Lyle. “Exactly who is doing the talking here, Lyle? Is this you talking or is it her? We better get this straight right now. Because the last I heard this was supposed to be a sitcom, not Bill fucking Moyers!”

“Yeah, Lyle,” Marty chimed in. “What the hell is this?”

Annabelle nodded in agreement, her lacquered headdress nodding right along with her. “I’m, like, yeah!”

Sensing mutiny, Lyle held out his gloved hands, palms up. A placating gesture. “What this is is normal, healthy, creative give-and-take,” he replied soothingly. “Something for us folks to work out among ourselves. No sense keeping Marjorie tied up here for it.” He got to his feet with a loud grunt. “We’ll pick this up again later. Right, Katrina?”

“But, Pinky,” she whined. “You promised me I’d get to—”

“Right,
Katrina?” he thundered, his eyes turning into murderous blue slits.

Her own eyes widened with fear. Too much fear. She was terrified of the man. I wondered why. “Right, Lyle,” she whispered in her little girl voice. “Whatever you say.”

“All right,” he said cheerily. “If that’s all, we can break for lunch now and then we’ll—”

“That is not all, Lyle,” Marjorie Daw stated stiffly: “I still have Godfrey’s notes, as well as my own.”

“Just give ’em to me after tomorrow’s run-through,” he said, brushing her aside. A bullying maneuver. “That way you’ll be able to visualize it better.”

“We have serious problems with this script, Lyle,” she insisted, holding her ground. “And they have to be addressed
now.”

He glared down at her. Marjorie glared right back up at him, her jaw firmly set, her back straight. She would not be steamrolled. No cupcake she.

Lyle plopped back down into his chair. “Okay, fine,” he said with weary condescension. “Let’s hear the word of God. By all means.”

“On the positive side,” Marjorie reported, enunciating each word clearly and carefully, “we feel very good about that scene in Act Two when the kids are watching TV together. Their scenes test very high with audiences. They would like to see even more of them if that’s possible.”

Lyle said nothing. Just sat glaring at her like a petulant child. I had no doubt that behind his mask his lower lip was stuck out in a belligerent pout.

Marjorie turned a page in her script. She had lovely hands, her fingers long and gracefully tapered. She clasped them before her on the table, as if she were in prayer. I wondered if she always did this when she was delivering the word of God. “We’re also high on the final scene, when Deirdre accepts Chubby for who he is. That’s a very sweet scene.”

“I
wrote that scene,” boasted Lyle. “Every word of it.”

The Boys stared at him in stone-faced silence. Obviously, they did not agree.

“But we don’t like how the story gets there,” Marjorie continued. “We feel it’s pitched much too heavily toward Chubby.” At this Lyle began to redden. “Rob doesn’t even arrive on camera until the second act. That seems awfully late.”

“We can move the act break back a scene,” offered Marty.

“We want him in much earlier, Marty,” Marjorie said. “We want to see them spend the whole evening together.”

The door opened. Bobby returned, his eyes red. He had been weeping. But he had his composure back now. He took his seat next to me. Lyle ignored him.

Tommy scratched his head. “You mean you want to see them eating dinner before the pool hall scene?”

“We don’t feel good about the pool hall scene, Tommy,” she replied primly. “In fact, we feel there’s altogether too much emphasis on gambling. First, you have Chubby losing forty dollars to Jimmy the milkman on a horse. Then you have Deirdre, who’s our moral compass, hustling the money out of Jimmy at pool. It’s simply not appropriate for an eight o’clock show. Particularly for your return episode.”

“So, what, the pool hall’s out?” Marty wondered.

“Godfrey wondered if Rob could take her to a video arcade at the mall,” Marjorie replied, with a perky smile.

“This is what, the nineties?” Tommy cracked sourly.

“We also feel
how
they meet should be more memorable,” Marjorie plowed on determinedly. “Something of an event. What if it’s not a blind date? What if they meet by accident?”

“I’m, like, you mean a meet cute?” asked Annabelle.

“I don’t
do
meet cutes,” Lyle said vehemently, as if he were discussing one of his bedrock personal beliefs, like the right to vote or bear arms. “I don’t do chance encounters of any kind. That’s shitcom.” He shook his head at Marjorie, his anger mounting. “Okay, so far you
don’t
like the gambling, you
don’t
like how they meet, you
don’t
like where they go. What else don’t you people like, huh?”

Marjorie laid her hands out flat on the table, palms down, fingers spread. She looked down at them. “We’re not happy with Rob. He doesn’t fit in. Marty is right—he needs more attitude. There’s simply nobody there, at least not on paper.”

“Or in the flesh,” cracked Tommy.

Lyle’s fists were clenched now.

“Godfrey feels Rob’s job doesn’t give us enough,” she added. “We’d like him to have one that can bring in stories. A wood shop teacher doesn’t do a thing for us.”

“Anything else, Marjorie?” asked Lyle, his voice now low and threatening.

“That about covers it, Lyle.” Swiftly, Marjorie closed her pencil, took a deep breath, and held it, clenching her jaw. She was nailing sheets of plywood over her windows, preparing for the coming storm. It blew in right away. She knew her man.

“Okay,
fine!”
he roared. “Now
I’m
gonna say something! Now it’s
my
turn! You people are
unreal.
Totally, absolutely unreal! You take all of the joy out of this business. Every bit of it! Rob Roy Fruitwell was
your
idea, not mine.
You
stuck me with him. Now you say he doesn’t fit. Hey, guess what? I
told
you he didn’t fit! I
told
you there was no place for him. But did you listen to me?
No!”

“We’re committed to Rob, Lyle,” Marjorie said sternly, rising to his challenge. “Rob is here to stay. Accept him. Grow with him. I believe he can be an excellent addition to this show.”

“Don’t tell me what you believe,” Lyle huffed at her. “My plumber knows more about good TV than you do. Know what you are, Marjorie? You’re somebody who fucked her way to the middle.”

Annabelle gasped. There was no other sound in the room.

The skin on Marjorie’s face seemed to draw tighter against the bone, sharpening her soft features. Red splotches formed on her cheeks. But she held her ground. “I have a job to do, Lyle. And I am going to do it. You are not going to bully me. I am not going to run sobbing from this table. So you can just forget it. What we want is—”

“What you want is a page one rewrite,” Lyle blustered.

“We want changes,” she maintained.

“Or
what?”

“We want changes,” she repeated.

The two of them stared at each other in charged silence.

Marty stepped into it. “Okay, let’s break it down. See where we are. How do they meet? Do we keep the blind date or don’t we?”

“Let’s hear from our new guy,” commanded Lyle. “Let’s hear from Hoagy.”

They all turned to me anxiously. Lulu stirred at my feet. Even she wanted to hear this.

I tugged at my ear. “Well, what’s Deirdre feeling?”

“Nausea, if she’s watching this show,” Tommy fired back instantly.

“A-Anger,” Bobby replied, his voice a choked spasm. “I-I think she hates the whole idea of being fixed up with someone. L-Listen to those words—
fixed up.
She’s not b-broken. She’s fine. She’s attractive, she’s s-successful, she’s …” He sputtered out, gasping for breath.

“I
like
that, Bobby,” Katrina squealed approvingly. “That’s very astute. And
so
ironic.”

Bobby ducked his head bashfully.

“I like it, too,” agreed Marjorie. “Blind dates make you feel ugly and unwanted. I know I hate going out on them.”

Tommy said, “Well, as it happens, this is a show about Deirdre, not you.” He sat up suddenly, turned to his partner. “Of course, we
could
do the ultimate blind date gag.”

“Which is what?” asked Katrina.

“Hasn’t been used since
Taxi.”
Marty was warming to the idea. “And that was twelve, fourteen years ago.”