It's So Hard To Type With A Gun In My Mouth (8 page)

It was no surprise to me, shortly afterwards when Vern came screaming out of the closet. SCREAM-ING. All of a sudden there was a blonde Cabana boy living in Nell's house and it appeared the little fucker was an alcoholic. My nice quiet neighbor had turned into Steve Rubell of Studio 54. There were nightly parties, and loud music and cars and beer and men...lots and lots of men. It was my own personal nightmare, I buy a house in the suburbs and Boy George moves in next door.

So one night Vern comes over shit faced. I stand at the door not letting him in. "Can I help you, Vern?"  " Why don't you come over? I've got porn."  Ok, he crossed the line.  I slammed the door in his face. I'm fuming. I walk back to my den to finish watching a movie when... without warning... a brick sails through my picture window. It smashes into a thousand pieces and breaks that horrific piece of crap vase my agent gave me. "Vern finally had a purpose".  I call the police.

Now I swear to God to you, on my father's grave, this is what happened next. Two huge officers enter my home. I tell them about the cabana boy, and the booze and the cars and the brick. There is nothing they can do because they didn't witness any of the events. While I'm asking them what I can do to protect myself, one of the officers enters my den. He turns to the other officer and says,  "Hey Stanley. Look at this."  I think he's found evidence. The second officer joins him and I hear him say. " Is that fabric on the walls? This place is fabulous."  "Yah?"  I'm like, "Hello what has this got to do with Sodom and Gomorrah next door."  "So how do you get the fabric to stick.", the first officer questions like Joe Friday. And the second excitedly adds, "I could do this in my den." And I'm thinking "Why can't they just beat me like Rodney King". They want to know where I got the sofas, who did the painting, where I got my windows... who's a better design station HGTV or PBS. I'm thinking, "Should I reach for their gun?" 

So they leave.... with swatches... to show their "wives". Yah right. They probably have an apartment in the Castro. And I'm still left with the Vern problem. I want nothing to do with him. Not because he's gay, but because he's a creep. He's a gay creep. Why couldn't he be hip like Elton John?  Why couldn't Elton John move in next door to me in Northridge? Why, because he'd rather have a steel wool enema.  So I'm stuck with Nell's gay Barney Fife.

I call my carpenter and he comes over the next day. "Don, I want you to build a fuck you fence."   And I describe an eight-foot fence, the unfinished side facing Vern's house, with space on the top for vines and gun turrets.  Don is a master carpenter and builds the fence in four days. It's a beauty... my own personal Berlin Wall.

Now I go to my favorite place Home Depot... where, "You can do and we don't give a shit." I grab a guy in the garden department and this is what I say verbatim.  "I want a very invasive vine, something that goes deep and fucks up the plumbing. It should spread like wildfire and drop lots of flowers and berries. I want it deciduous so it drops leaves in the fall... and I want six of them." The guy looks at me like I'm crazy and then says..."Are you building a fuck you fence?" I nod. " I got just the thing."

He sells me these plants that come with magic beans. I get the plants home and couldn't wait to put them in the ground. I bought Vigaro to make sure they took off. And take off they did. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I expected Jack to come down the stalk chased by the giant.  This thing covered the fence, the sidewalk, the gate, his roof, his car and the cabana boy. It was a joy to behold.  Six weeks later I put my house up for sale.

In escrow I left specific instructions on how to water the vine and when. Moral of the story... never... ever... throw a brick through my window.

March 11, 2006 -
JUANITA, THE HOMICIDAL HOUSEKEEPER
 

I've decided to tell you about Juanita, the homicidal housekeeper and then enter the witness protection program.  Before I begin I want to make myself perfectly clear. She is legal. She has her papers, she is a citizen... get off my ass. (Not that I'm paranoid but I know there's someone in Arizona reading this going, " Ah huh... hiring illegals, huh!")

I cannot clean this house alone. I don't want to clean this house alone. I don't want to clean, period.  I'm pretty anal and very organized but I won't clean and can't cook, basically I'm a waste of skin. Besides, this house is huge... like an airport terminal and there are four flights of stairs. My friends say..."It's not a house...it's a building".  And I have a lot of crap too...lots. I have Goodwill on speed dial.  I can't clean this shit, I need someone in charge who can handle it...  someone who's strong and more organized than I... someone like Maria. A single mother, who waded across the Rio Grande, to find opportunity in our country and ended up cleaning my sock drawer.  I'm going to rot in hell, I know.

Before we talk about Juanita, you need to know about Maria, the first housekeeper. I loved Maria but she dusted with a hammer.  Before she would come over to clean, I would just break four things and cut down on her workload. I have never seen a woman like her in my life.  I would be in my office and suddenly I would hear this tremendous crash, like a plate glass truck just careened into a mirror store. I would shout out, "Anything break?" and she would shout back, "No, itz ok. ", and then, after she left, I would go through the trash and find service for 18 in the dumpster.  I paid her 75 dollars for 3 hours and spent 9200 dollars replacing what she broke. But I couldn't fire her. Why? She had like 85 children in El Salvador.  Then one day she called. "I no work for you no more."  "Why?"  "I go back my country." A few weeks later I read a mudslide had wiped out an entire Village and I knew that Maria had made it home safely.

Maria sent me Juanita. I think they're cousins. Where Maria was soft and tender and has 11 thumbs, Juanita is more like a diesel dyke...with a tattoo on her forearm, the kind you get in prison. She stands about two inches taller than me and wears the same suit size. At first I thought she was a transsexual but no, she's a woman... she just has a five o'clock shadow.  Where Maria was clumsy, Juanita is frightening. I'm scared shitless of her.  She walks into my house like she's plotting a murder. And she makes demands... "Buy me Tilex" "I have 409" "I SAID.... BUY...TILEX."  "Now? Do you want me to buy it now? Should I drive to Ralphs? It's only 30 miles."  I'm so scared of her, I am overly nice to her... the worse she treats me, the better I am to her. Wait an effing minute... I just described my last marriage.

Juanita has this game she plays..."train the gringo". She doesn't have time to deal with my neurosis. And her plan is working, she's got me jumping through hoops. She cleans the whole house in two hours (Maria took three) and when she's done she makes me clean what she's missed. She sits in the living room watching "Días de nuestras vidas". 

One week her van broke and she couldn't clean on her regular day.  So she shows up on an off day, a day when she has half the time to do the entire house.  "Do you want me to get you the Vacuum for you?" I ask innocently. "No" She just stares. I can feel my soul melting. I'm being sucked into some Spanish middle ground like in Poltergeist.

But here's the good news. She doesn't break anything. How can she... she doesn't touch anything! What she does is leave little boobie traps all over the house. She'll move a carpet or lock a door or leave a razor in the shower or a stick of dynamite in the oven.  But she doesn't break anything.

Juanita just cleaned my office. I can tell she's just cleaned in here, there's a wet circle around the area rugs. The bitch moves nothing. I could drop dead on the floor she'd mop around me.  And there's one other thing... her van. She parks it in my driveway. When she leaves there's enough oil drippings to grease the Space Shuttle.  I dropped a match; it looked like the eternal flame at Kennedy's grave. Two Arabs wanted to set up a drilling rig in my driveway. SOMEBODY STOP ME BEFORE I JOKE AGAIN!

I guess the moral of the story is clean your own damn house! I would but I need the material.

6:08 PM

Ya know those slabs of salmon you get at Costco, the 18 dollar ones. My dog just ate mine... he ate it frozen... and he ate the saran wrap it came it. When did he do this? While I was watching the Dog Whisperer. Please! I beg you!  Have me put to sleep!

8:50 PM

I have just come back from dinner. I had to go out because my dog ate my salmon.   Friends came over; they wanted to go to Marie Callender's.  I didn't want to go because the last time I ate there I got sick.  I said, "They put something in the food that doesn't agree with me."  But everyone else wanted to go and so I acquiesced. The waitress is pleasant in her brown and white stained uniform. She brings the food and it looks harmless enough. I ask for everything on the side. I'm trying to weed out what made me sick. We start with salad.  I take three mouthfuls and begin to gag. I reach into my mouth and pull out a long, black, oily... hair. "What's that?" The moron sitting next to me asks. "It's what they put in the food that makes me sick." I reply, as I upchuck what I've eaten so far.

I am not happy. I throw the salad across the table. The waitress asks, "Is something wrong?" And I say, "No, I'm just tossing the salad."  We explain about the hair and she all but said, "Not another one."  The manager comes over... " I am sorry there was a hair in your salad. Would you like something else?" And I

say, "Yes, a toenail."  There is a long pause. "Why don't I just take something off the bill?" And he leaves.  I cannot eat. I don't know about you but body parts in my food, not an appetite wetter.  The bill comes and he has taken 2 dollars off for hair.   What, do they have like a chart in the office? Hair 2 dollars, fingernail 2.57, finger free meal.

I am still nauseous and on the verge of vomiting. Welcome to my Friday night. Isn't it glamorous?   I'm not talking to my dog. This is all his fault. I'm sure we'll be in counseling at the end of the week.

March 12, 2006 -
RETURN FROM HAWAII

Since I open tomorrow at the Riviera I thought it would be appropriate to tell you what happened to me on stormy night a few years ago in Vegas.

I had been working in Honolulu... it's one of those jobs God gives you in exchange for taking your mother to Australia. It was a perfect gig. I had a suite overlooking the Pacific Ocean, friends had flown in from LA to see me, and Judy had flown in from Sydney. It was perfect. 

At the end of the trip we all parted and I got on my flight to LA and that's when it started. We are seated and waiting to close the doors when the flight attendant comes on and says. "The captain has informed me that we are too heavy for present weather conditions. Two passengers will have to get off. "  She then stands in the aisle and points her finger. "You and....ahhhhh.... YOU!". And two people have to get off. WAIT A EFFING MINUTE... HOW MUCH DO THEY WEIGH????  I'm panicked, shouldn't it be more precise than, "you and you".  No one seemed to worry about this but me and we took off. I was a nervous wreck the entire flight. I am not a good flyer. When I fly to me everyone looks like they have box cutters.  So I didn't eat, I didn't watch the movie... I didn't even steal a second amenities kit for my mother.  I was frozen in fear.

We were about 20 minutes out of LA when our plane was hit by lightening and I screamed like a schoolgirl. Actually, there WERE schoolgirls on the plane who were braver.  I broke out in a cold sweat. "We're going down, this is it... SHIT! My best suit is in the cleaners. They're going to bury me in a sports jacket. Who are you kidding, after this thing goes down they'll bury you in a thimble."

Soon there's another announcement.  "Due to bad weather we are forced into a holding pattern until further notice."  To me this is like going up in front of the prison board and not getting parole. I just wanted to get down on the ground and off this plane. But it was not in the cards...  we circled for two hours. Ring around the Rosy at thirty thousand feet.  At this point my blood presses was 600 over death.  No one seemed to be worried but me... and that worried me. Shouldn't someone else care?  Then... another announcement. " We have just been informed that we will not be able to land in LA tonight."  And I think, "We have to circle till tomorrow? I'll get dizzy."   We were diverted to Las Vegas.   Huh? Oh… Wait... that's not so bad. I have lots of friends there, I could see a show, and I could gamble.  God is good.

We land in Las Vegas at about 1:00 a.m. ... it's raining... there is no one in the airport but us. I proceed to baggage claim... 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 1 hour no bags.  It's 2:00 a.m. I go to an airline rep, "When do you think the bags from flight 234 are coming up." and I hear. "Oh they're not coming up. We're keeping them on the plane because we are leaving at 6 a.m. tomorrow."  Slowly I turn...step by step...inch by inch... "When were you going to tell us that?"  And she changes the subject. "Why aren't you on the bus?" Me, "What bus?" her "The bus to the hotel..." It appears that in my nervous anxiety I had missed the announcement that the buses would take us to a hotel where we would spend the night.