Best to Laugh: A Novel (8 page)

13

I
WAS
SO
OUT
OF
PRACTICE
letting people get to know me that when I did, it took on the weight of confession, as if to reveal personal information about myself was a sin. That’s how I felt when I shared with Ed and Maeve at the pool what I had with Solange, that I wanted to do stand-up comedy. Their reactions couldn’t have been more positive; Maeve surmised I’d probably have my own sitcom by next year, and Ed said he’d head up my fan club.

“So how long have you been thinking of doing this?” Ed asked, after Maeve cannonballed into the water.

“Practically all my life. But it’s been a . . . dream deferred for a long time.”

Ed smiled. “I’ve taught that poem. But you’ve decided not to ‘let it dry up like a raisin in the sun’?”

It was the kindness in his voice (and maybe a few renegade premenstrual hormones) that made tears spring up in my eyes. Grateful for the shield of my sunglasses, I shook my head.

“So what was it that made you regenerate this particular dream?”

Maeve swam past us, kicking up fountains.

I watched her for a moment. “Coming out here. Going to the Comedy Store. Taking steps for a change . . . instead of standing still.”

“So what’s next?”

“More steps, I guess. And getting over being so scared.”

“Well, it’s a scary thing. Fear of public speaking—let alone stand-up comedy—is ranked right up there with death of a spouse or loss of a job.”

“Are you trying to make me feel better . . . or worse?”

Ed’s laugh rolled into a shudder as he regarded the bottle of chocolate soda he held perched on his stomach. “Why do I keep drinking this stuff? What grown man in his right mind drinks something called YaZoo?”

A
FTER
TYPING
SOME
PRESS
releases for Ellie Pop and a letter from Greg informing the manager of the band Firestorm that, no, it was not only impossible but illegal to have a contract rider assuring a blonde and a brunette in the hotel rooms of the lead singer and keyboardist, I sat at my desk, tapping my pencil. My intention had been to work on my act, now that I had decided I was going to have one, but I was tapping far more than writing. Why was it such a struggle to come up with five measly minutes of material? What did I want to say, exactly? Something funny, sure, but what? And how?

Some comics did characters and/or impressions, and while I could do funny voices, I wasn’t exactly Rich Little. Should I cultivate a wacky persona like Phyllis Diller or be politically insightful like George Carlin? Or should I take the observational (and popular) “Isn’t life weird?” route? The only thing I definitely knew I didn’t want to do was talk a lot about myself—(a) who’d be interested in that? and (b) my personal life was too personal.

Bad News Bears Go Up in Smoke!
Revenge of the Pretty Baby!
High Anxiety Halloween!

Trying to make something funny out of combining titles of recent movies, I realized I hadn’t and was crossing out the drivel I’d written when the door opened. I looked up, expecting to see the UPS guy, who this person was definitely not. He wasn’t wearing brown shorts, for one thing, and was so skinny that the ratty T-shirt and jeans he had on seemed to weigh him down. He was bald, except for a strip of blue hair that rose in spikes down the crown of his head.

“Hey,” he said, surprised.

“Hey,” I answered. “It’s . . . Francis, right?”

A hint of color bloomed on his pale face. “Uh, actually, it’s Frank.
Blank
Frank.”

“Oh,” I said, not exactly following him. “Well, it’s nice to see you . . . Blank.”

His blush intensified. “It’s not just Blank. It’s, uh, Blank Frank. I, um, use the whole name.”

“Sorry, Blank . . . Frank.”

Solange pushed aside the curtain behind my desk and entered the room.

“Solange,” I began, “this is—”

“—I’m sorry,” she said, crossing her arms as she regarded the interloper. “I told you before: Beat Street isn’t interested in punk rock at this time.”

“Yeah, but you’ll change your mind if you listen to this,” said Blank Frank, digging a cassette tape out of his pocket.

“Look,” said Solange, “right now we’re just not—”

The musician darted toward my desk and set the cassette on it.

“Take a listen, okay? That’s all I’m asking.” Backing toward the door, he looked at Solange, palms out. “It won’t make your ears bleed or anything.”

“It’s the ‘anything’ I’m worried about.”

Before pushing through the door, Blank Frank smiled at me. “Just let me know what you think, uh—”

“—Candy. It’s Candy.”

I
’D
SEEN
B
LANK
F
RANK
a few times on the grounds of Peyton Hall, in the company of a man so textbook dapper in his dress that he should have been twirling a walking stick.

“Who’s that?” I had asked the first time I saw him. Having accompanied Ed to Limelight Liquors where he’d bought a bottle of wine for another date, we were coming up the Boulevard when I noticed the slim, silver-haired man in a suit and bowtie climbing the steps of the four-plex next to mine.

“Francis Flover,” said Ed. “He used to own the Bel Mondo, this nightclub on Sunset that was really famous in the ’40s and ’50s. He and Robert X. Roberts hate each other.”

“Why?”

Ed shrugged. “Some Hollywood slight—who knows? Maybe he didn’t like the way Robert X. tipped his hatcheck girls.”

“Look at that ascot! He’s so—” I searched for an expression I rarely had occasion to use—“natty.”

Days later, I ran into Francis—almost literally—as I was coming out of my apartment and he was coming out of my neighbor’s.

“Candy, meet one of my oldest pals,” Melvin Slyke said, and with great courtliness Francis Flover executed a snappy little bow before taking my hand and telling me he was “enchanted.”

Another time, on the way to the pool, I saw him walking with someone whose sartorial tastes lay on the opposite pole from his own; where Mr. Flover wore a bowler hat, this guy wore a blue mohawk, where a fob watch might be tucked into Mr. Flover’s vest pocket, thick chains hung
in heavy loops from the skinny kid’s belt—so much metal he could have outfitted his own private chain gang.

“Candy!” said the older gentleman. He doffed his hat. “Meet my son, Francis Jr.”

The younger man ducked his head in greeting, and I saw that he wore a small silver hoop through his eyebrow. It was the first time I’d ever seen a facial piercing and I tried not to stare.

Now at my desk, after reading the label of the tape Blank Frank had given me, I put it into the cassette player and said, “And for all you listeners out there, here’s something from a new band called United States of Despair.”

I pressed play, and an assault of guitar chords filled the room like the angry voices of a mob.

Solange’s reaction was not favorable.

“Turn it down! Better yet, turn it off!”

I half-obliged her by doing the former, and we listened to a voice belonging to a lead screamer shouting over the guitar, bass, and drums. I couldn’t make out many of the lyrics, but I did recognize the phrases “death sentence,” “shock the septic system,” and “annihilation-celebration,” which were repeated in a chant.

After we listened to the cassette’s three songs, Solange replaced it with one of her own, and the twangy strains of some cowboy band filled the air.

“Ahh,” said my coworker, her hand to her chest. “Yodel me back to civility, Otto Gray.”

A
LTHOUGH
I
MISSED
THE
ENTERTAINING
DRIVER
who announced my stop as Bronson, Charlie Charlie Bronson, I hardly took the bus to work anymore. It was only about a mile and a half from my apartment to Beat Street Records, and I enjoyed getting there on my own two feet—especially after Maeve turned me on to roller skating.

My weightlifter neighbor had turned into my weightlifter friend. Although Maeve had grown up in Beverly Hills, she was fairly new to Hollywood and had decided I was a worthy sidekick in her neighborhood explorations. The first invitation she extended had been to breakfast at Schwab’s Drugstore.

“Look,” she said, swiveling on her counter stool, “there’s that actor who played the bad guy in
The Godfather.
”

“Maeve, there were a lot of actors who played bad guys in
The Godfather.
”

We watched as the man in question sauntered to the nearby pay phone.

“Yeah, but that guy was really bad.”

The second invitation was to a roller rink on Sunset and La Cienega.

“You’ve got to try it,” she said. “It’s great for the quads and the calves—not to mention the glutes—and besides, it’s a lot of fun.”

Disco was supposedly dying, but not at the roller rink where a blasting throbbing beat accompanied skaters and damaged eardrums. I had skated as a kid on little metal skates that affixed to your shoes and were tightened with a key, and it took me a little while to get used to the heaviness of a boot skate, but once I did, I could skate circles around Maeve. Then again, she could skate circles around me.

“You’re smooth!” I shouted over Donna Summers telling me she’d love to love me, baby.

“Why does that surprise you?” asked Maeve, skating backwards.

I shrugged before shouting, “I guess it doesn’t!”

“I’m not just some big galoot, you know!”

Maeve presented an imposing-looking figure but it was sheathed in the thinnest skin known to humankind, and I’d learned it was best to ignore her when she went into one of her I’m-so-misunderstood rants. This strategy seemed to work; without attention, the tears threatening to rise out of her hurt feelings would evaporate, and her usual good cheer returned.

A shirtless skater wearing tight vinyl shorts and a black motorcycle cap whizzed by us, twirling around like a music box dervish.

The beginners stayed on the perimeter, tethered to the railing by their sweaty hands. The utilitarians skated beside them, content to move around the rink without falling. The next tier—to which Maeve and I belonged—was composed of fairly good skaters who could easily skate backwards and could do a basic spin turn, whereas the center of the rink was reserved for those who moved like dancers and gymnasts on wheels, executing jetés and arabesques and the occasional flip. As flashy as their athleticism was their dress code, whose basic tenet was that skin should be seen and not covered.

The second time we went to the roller rink I again rented skates, but the day afterwards I bought my own pair and now used them as a means of transportation.

It was a straight shot down Hollywood Boulevard to work, and the
polished granite Walk of Fame, from Sycamore to Gower, was a skater’s dream surface. During the morning skate the Boulevard was light with traffic, and I’d read the names on the stars I slalomed through: Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds, Red Skelton.

Heading west on the way home, my ability to dodge was the more important skill as buskers had set out their guitar and saxophone cases and tourists clogged the streets, armed with maps, sun hats, and cameras.

From La Brea to Fuller, the street inclined, and by the time I got home I had worked up a reasonable sweat and had a perfect excuse to jump into the pool.

Having just skated past the neon Peyton Hall sign, I saw that I might not be getting into the pool as early as I had intended.

“Hey,” said Blank Frank, perched on the bottom of the steps that fronted my building. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going hot,” I said, lifting the back of my hair to fan my neck.

“So did you listen to it?”

“Listen to what?” I asked innocently.

“Oh, I don’t know—to the traffic. To your conscience. To my tape.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, sitting down next to him. “That one.” I started unlacing a skate; while I could climb stairs with them on, I’d learned it made better sense not to.

“And . . .”

My mind shouted out two options,
Lie!
Tell the truth!
but I decided the latter would ultimately save me time and energy.

“I . . . I liked the energy—wow, it was manic—but I really couldn’t understand a lot of the words and the songs all sort of sounded the same.”

Chewing his lip, the punk rocker nodded.

“Yeah, we’re sorta beginners at song writing,” he said agreeably. “And our bass player is just learning how to play. But it’s cool that you listened to it. Thanks.”

“Not at all,” I said, and, surprised by the easy way he took my criticism, I decided to brave the next question. “You mind telling me how you get your hair to stand up like that?”

“Sure. Glue and blow drying. You can touch it if you like.”

He bowed his head and I touched a blue spike and then gently bounced my palm against the whole jagged range.

“Thanks,” I said, after participating in the weird show-and-tell. “And about your music, even if I had loved it, I’m just a temp. I doubt that anyone would listen to me if I said, ‘There’s this great band you’ve got to hear.’”

“You never know. Hey, you should come and hear us live sometime.”

“Hey, maybe I will.”

“Cool,” said Blank Frank, rising. “How about Friday night? Nine o’clock at the Masque.” He jumped up and holding his arms out, he zigzagged across the lawn the way a kid pretends to be an airplane, in the direction of his dad’s apartment.

14

N
OBODY
WAS
INTERESTED
IN
JOINING
ME
at the Masque. Ed had his usual Friday night first date that never seemed to lead to a second; Maeve was going to a movie screening with her mother, and Solange had told me she’d rather lean out her bedroom window and listen to her neighbor’s cat, who was in heat and was hellbent on letting both the feline and human worlds know.

“Come on,” I said. “It’ll be fun.”

The look on Solange’s face could have recurdled buttermilk. “No, it won’t be.”

On the way to the pool after work, rehearsing the excuse I’d give to Blank Frank for missing his performance, I saw his father emerge from the laundry room next to the garages, holding a basket.

“Mr. Slyke’s,” he said, indicating the precisely folded clothing stacked inside. “He’s feeling a little peckish, so I offered to act as his manservant—well, at least his launderer. Say, Frank mentioned you might be going to his show this evening. Would I be imposing too much if I asked to join you? I know it’s rather late notice and you probably already—”

“—no, no, that’d be great. Let’s go together!”

W
HEN
M
R.
F
LOVER
PICKED
ME
UP,
he handed me a cellophane-wrapped bouquet of red and white carnations.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll . . . I’ll put them in water.”

“And while you do, I’ll just say hello to Melvin.”

I returned to find my neighbor, dressed in a paisley bathrobe, standing on the landing with Mr. Flover.

“Candy,” said Melvin Slyke, wagging his finger. “You keep your eye on this one. Make sure he doesn’t do any of that slam-dunk dancing.”

“Okay, Melvin,” I said as both men laughed.

“And cut him off after two drinks. After three he’s a wild man.”

“I can see you’re getting better,” said Mr. Flover. “If only your jokes were.”

The two men laughed again and good-byes were said, and minutes later I was cruising down Hollywood Boulevard in a sporty little silver convertible with a dapper gentleman who wore a red carnation in his lapel.

Mr. Flover was telling a funny story about Frank’s first guitar lesson when at the stoplight at Highland Avenue, he whispered, “There but for the grace of God . . .”

I followed his gaze to the tall, gaunt figure making his zombie-like trek down the street.

“Do you know that man, Mr. Flover? Because I see him on the Boulevard all the time.”

“I can’t say I know him, but I know his story. His name is Erwin Paulsen. Although everyone always called him—for obvious reasons—Slim. He was a lawyer—with a firm catering to show business clients.”

The light turned, and as the car moved forward I looked back at the man shambling along in rag shoes.

“What . . . what happened to him?”

Mr. Flover’s lower lip pushed out as he shook his head. “A house fire. His wife and daughter perished in it. The story was that he was out ‘entertaining a client’—a starlet—when it happened.”

“Oh, man.”

“A number of people—from his old firm, his friends—I know a few, in fact—have tried to help him over the years, but he is . . . unreachable. Unreachable and inconsolable.”

A block and a half later, our pensive silence was yanked away when a man darted into traffic. Mr. Flover braked hard.

“Olé!” shouted the jaywalker, who wore a bolero jacket and flannel pajama bottoms. “Olé! Olé!”

“Goodness,” said, Mr. Flover, as the man crossed the street, snapping and swirling a ratty red cape. “Be sure to tell me if you see the bull.”

T
HE
M
ASQUE
WAS
SMALL
AND
DANK
and full of pierced and tattooed people wearing mostly black clothes festooned with holes and/or safety pins.

“I don’t suppose there’re any chairs,” said Mr. Flover.

His supposition was correct, and instead of joining the huddle of people in front of the stage we chose to park ourselves against a grungy, graffiti-decorated wall. Well, next to, both of us making the tacit assumption that to lean against it meant we might stick to it.

“I’d buy you a cocktail,” said the ever-courtly Mr. Flover, “but I don’t really see a bar, do you?”

I looked around. The only thing that indicated the place was a performance space and not a graffiti artist’s old root cellar was a platform stage, loaded with amps, coils of cords, instruments, and microphones.

“I think this is more a BYOB kind of place.”

A guy with foot-long purple spikes jutting out of his head bounded onto the stage and screamed at the assemblage, “Are you ready to rock and roll?”

The crowd roared back that it was.

“Then let’s bring ‘em up! Ladies and gentlemen—if there are any of you out there tonight—give it up for the United States of Despair!”

The dapper Mr. Flover put two fingers to his mouth, adding his whistle to the cacophony.

A motley crew of four jumped onto the stage, and three yanked their guitars off their stands. The drummer plopped down behind his drum kit, and beating his sticks together he shouted, “One, two, three, four!” and within seconds the room thundered with a fast heavy drum and bass beat.

“I pledge my allegiance to the United States of Despair!” shouted/sang Blank Frank, grabbing the microphone. “And to the hypocrisy from which it crumbles!”

The guitars whined like giant mosquitoes as Frank writhed.

“One nation, under Cash, with liberty and justice for no one!”

The crowd was a swarm of violently bobbing heads, their movement as chaotic and random as germs under a microscope slide.

“I don’t suppose you’d care to dance?” shouted Mr. Flover and we both laughed, understanding that at the Masque, one jerked or flailed or bobbed, but one did not dance, not even when the band switched from social commentary to songs of romance.

“Hey asshole—you suck, I don’t—don’t leave me!” bleated Blank Frank. “I rock, you walk—all over me!”

The live music sounded even rawer than it had on their demo tape, and without my having the luxury of turning the sound down, it began to pulse inside my skull.

“Break bones—break hearts—break meeeeeeeeeeeee!”

With that, Frank threw down the microphone and dove into the audience and rode on top of it, like a piece of flotsam on a churning sea of hands.

“Oh dear,” shouted Mr. Flover over the noise. “I hope they don’t drop him.”

The refrain to the song was sung over and over, and when Blank Frank was flung back onto the stage, he grabbed the mike and joined his fellow musicians in continuing the chant, whipping both band and audience into a frenzy. The musicians, their heads bobbing with such ferocity that I feared spinal damage, jabbed their guitars at each other while the crowd in front of the stage lunged and pushed and threw themselves at one another, in a dance that had to hurt. That I didn’t see any blood didn’t mean none was shed.

They played one hard-driving song after another for an hour and then, with a loud, scary scream from Frank, the band members fled the stage as if a fire alarm had gone off, and even as the crowd shouted for more, they didn’t come back.

Finally a dim light blinked on and the audience began to break up, shouting invitations to meet up at the Formosa, the Frolic Room, the Pig N’ Whistle. We joined the sweaty stream that emptied out into the alley and stood against the building, waiting for the band.

“Mr. Flover, thanks for coming!” said the spike-headed drummer, enveloping the older man in his muscular arms.

“Yeah, thanks!” said the bassist, leaning in for his hug.

“Mr. F!” said the rhythm guitarist.

It was an odd picture, these tattooed and mohawked punk rockers enthusiastically greeting and hugging Mr. Savile Row.

“Hey, Pop!” said Blank Frank, bumping his guitar case against the doorframe. “Hey, Candy! Guys, this is my friend, Candy!”

The band mates introduced themselves.

“I’m Rock,” said the drummer. “Rock Bottom.”

“Mayhem,” said the rhythm guitarist. “Mayhem Rules.”

“Ian Riley,” said the bassist, almost apologetically.

“I know you probably have things to do and people to see,” said Mr. Flover, “but if any of you would like some fortification before you do those things or see those people, I’ve got a big pan of spaghetti back at the apartment.”

“Sounds great, man,” said Rock Bottom, “but I gotta go see my girlfriend at Cedars.”

“She’s in the hospital?” asked Mr. Flover, concerned.

“She is,” said the drummer solemnly, before letting loose a laugh.
“But only because she’s a nurse. Pam works the night shift and likes me to join her on her ‘lunch’ break.”

“Pop, we’ll just load up the equipment and meet you back at the house,” said Blank Frank. “See you there, Candy?”

I answered with words I was saying more and more.

“Why not?”