Who Stole the Funny? : A Novel of Hollywood (6 page)

J.T. would repeat. Unfortunately, somebody had to pay for the

team uniforms, which put J.T. back to square one.

“Here’s an ironic funny,” J.T. said one day. “I can’t pay the bills on my teaching salary and the only thing I’ve ever done in my life, the only skills I have, I left behind in Hollywood.”

J.T. needed a directing gig.
Now that,
J.T. thought,
is funny.

The Meeting of the

So-called Minds

The Pooleys, Dick Beaglebum, the Studio, and the Network all

met in a very public place. Public so no one could throw a tantrum and get away with it. And public to make sure there were witnesses in case of bad behavior. It was standard protocol for savvy executives.

Each side thought this would be a tough sell and was adamant

not to budge.

There was no small talk, no preliminaries. Not even a hello.

Dick opened the negotiations with a story about parity and how

everyone here “ . . . is a partner. So there is no reason for hostilities, and whatever the outcome, the only thing that
truly matters
is
the
show itself;
not the individual Entities, but the sum of the Entities,”

which of course was the pop culture miracle known as
I Love My
Urban Buddies
!

Then, like members of a choral ensemble who’d actually prac-

ticed the composition “I know who should direct this show,” Debbie, Lance, the Pooleys, and Dick each chimed in as if on cue in a perfect fugue:

“J.T. Baker.”

“J.T. Baker.”

“J.T. Baker.”

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

“J.T. Baker.”

There was an awkward beat—a very awkward beat—as an ag-

ing waitress set down a big plate of fries on the table. Debbie had practically inhaled the first order. She’d grabbed it from the waitress and made it very clear that these French fries were hers, dammit! This time her hand froze in mid-reach toward the second

plate o’ potatoes. “Wait—
what did you say?
”

“J.T. Baker,” everyone repeated.

They all looked at one

another. Not one of them

The Hollywood Dictionary

had planned on this agree-

ment. Not only that: no one

HONCHO:
Someone who passes

had a backup plan.

the buck while getting the big

bucks.

“Can I get you guys any-

thing else?” the old waitress

asked.

The tableful of honchos was paralyzed with indecision.

Fuck!
each one of them thought.
Who can I blame for this
?

The phone had rung at the Baker house. It was three hours past

any sensible business day in Hollywood (even on a
Who-Died-

Sunday
), but that was nothing new for anyone who had received
those
phone calls in the past. The answering machine in the kitchen had Dick Beaglebum’s excited voice on it. Natasha was glad that Jeremy had wandered to his room before they played the message.

Now she and J.T. stood, staring at each other, hearing the
voice
. . .

the voice from the past. The voice that represented money for the family. Insurance for Jeremy. Suicide for J.T.

J.T. was a loving husband and lived for his family, but he was

still a head case. Dick Beaglebum once told J.T. that if he gave fifty percent of himself to a show, it would still be more than R o b b y

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one hundred percent of what others gave to the weekly process.

J.T. had been so offended by the possibility of that premise that he’d curled up into a fetal position for two days. Yup, J.T. was that kind of head case.

Natasha understood all of the implications before she heard

Dick’s enthusiasm/compassion on the message machine—just af-

ter the message from Southern States, the farm supply store, telling them that the organic dairy feed and the 235 bales of hay were in.

“We need to talk,” Natasha said as she steadily erased the mes-

sages.

J.T. began to shake.

With great enthusiasm and compassion Dick had left his phone

number and a speedy message about the three episodes and how

J.T. was getting a second or maybe a third life in show business.

“Maybe a fourth or a fifth . . . anyway, call me, J.T. UVWYXZ!”

Then the phone rang again. It was Debbie from the network

saying it was, like, great that J.T. was on board. Then the phone rang again. It was Lance. The studio couldn’t be happier with the choice to have someone so experienced come in at this tragic but chaotic moment; someone to keep
the ship sailing;
someone to keep
the train on track;
someone who could keep
the ball in play
.

“Jeez. Do they actually go to Cliché School?” Natasha mut-

tered.

The phone rang again—two voices, one male and one female.

The Pooleys were so excited to be working with someone like J.T.

They had heard so many old, er, great stories about him.

Where’s the fucking sunset when I need it?
J.T. thought. All he could see when he closed his eyes was the smog of Los Angeles and everything that represented to him.

J.T. ran to the sink and threw up. He was savvy enough to know

he was being asked to step into a hornet’s nest. No one in Hollywood would ever say anything positive about him and he knew

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W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

that. Something was really wrong. Lance’s train needed to stay on track; his ship needed a sailor; his baseball needed to be kept in play—
out of foul territory
. There definitely wasn’t a
fair
territory in this game. There never had been. And speaking of has-beens . . .

He threw up again.

“Now who’s the cliché?” J.T. tried to say as he wiped his

mouth.

Natasha put her arms around her shivering husband/director.

So fragile,
she thought. She cleaned him with a warm hand towel.

“We should’ve changed our phone number again. Do you

think you have to go?”

“You know I have to go,” was all he said as Jeremy ran into the kitchen. He wanted a snack but knew he couldn’t eat or drink past eight o’clock because he was due at the hospital for blood tests, then the dialysis . . . Natasha and J.T. went silent.

“Who puked?” Jeremy asked.

“Your father was finally hit with the postpartum, cow-birthin’,
Green Acres
blues,” Natasha said.

J.T. tried to smile and hide his shaking from his child.

Jeremy, however, absorbed everything. From having to face

daily medical traumas, he had knowledge of the world that other kids his age just didn’t have. He bravely understood that without a kidney transplant, he would die. “Dad, please don’t go back into the caves. Please. Please don’t contaminate yourself with those people because of me. Please.”

“Contaminate?” J.T. said, still trying to distract Jeremy. “I’m not sure if that’s the right—well—no, come to think of it, that
is
the right word. Never mind.”

The caves
. That’s what J.T. called the soundstages. When J.T.

worked, he would usually enter the caves before the sun rose and leave the caves late into the darkness of night. The weather was a constant in the caves. Reality was warped within the caves
.
Mil-R o b b y

B e n s o n

4 1

lions of dollars were at stake, so in order to attain success, people allowed almost anything to go on inside the caves.

Anything
.

What went on in the caves was biblical in scale: people lost all sense of priorities and moral proportion in the service of their own advancement. Temptation, power, and delusion ran rampant

within the caves.

“Mom, I know. It’s not my fault and could I please go to my

room while you and Dad talk . . . and then Dad will pack and

then . . . he’ll leave. I’ll go to my room. I love you.” Jeremy grabbed a banana and left.

With everything J.T. and Natasha were trying to microman-

age cerebrally, they also had a jolt of pride because of their son’s

. . . compassion.
True compassion,
J.T. thought.
He’s doomed
.
Why
couldn’t he be more selfish? Why couldn’t he be a good little jerk, like
a regular kid? Why did he have to be so damn good?

“I’ve gotta corrupt this kid, Natasha,” J.T. muttered. “I’ve gotta turn him into an asshole. That’s what he needs. He needs a good old-fashioned asshole lesson.” He was trying to get Natasha to

laugh. Even smile.

Jeremy was their number one priority. J.T. knew he had to go

back into the caves. His Directors Guild insurance had run out and this job meant an opportunity to renew the insurance so that Jeremy could get the best health care possible. It was a no-brainer.

Natasha and J.T. sat at the kitchen table for two hours. Barely a word was spoken. After that they sat on the end of Jeremy’s bed, watching him sleep. Barely a word was spoken. After that, J.T.

packed a suitcase in preparation for three weeks in Los Angeles.

Barely a word was spoken. They kissed.

“Darling, reach out
. Call Asher,” she said.

Before daybreak, J.T. drove two and a half hours to the nearest airport that had an early Monday morning flight to Los Angeles. If 4 2

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

he could get on the 6 a.m. flight, he’d be in Los Angeles by 9 a.m.

That would put him sitting at the production meeting in the San Fernando Valley by ten (if he was lucky), ready to
steer the boat
,
keep the train on the tracks,
and, most important,
protect the foul
lines and make sure the ball stayed in play.

The Red-eye

J.T. could never sleep or watch a film on airplanes. He couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to watch a movie when they

could look out their window and see planet Earth from thirty-

five thousand feet in the sky. The stars, the moon.
What’s wrong
with people?
he thought, watching them pay five dollars for a set of crappy headphones.

J.T. sat in the coach section, the studio’s budget not stretching to business class, according to his trusty agent, Dick Beaglebum.

At least he had a row to himself. Red-eyes from Johnson City, Tennessee, didn’t exactly tend to be fully booked. He could get up and pace if he needed to, and J.T. frequently needed to.

He had no script to go over—there hadn’t been time to send

it. He kept thinking about the turn of events that had brought him to this point, to getting back on a plane to the place he’d sworn to leave behind forever.

Jeremy had been seven when they left Hollywood. Less than

a year later, he’d collapsed one day, and when he woke up, he was in the hospital with a peritoneal dialysis catheter snaking from his abdomen and his father massaging his feet and staring at him with one eye closed.

J.T. couldn’t help it. He had a habit of viewing the world with one eye closed, as if filming
the moment
. The exact provenance of 4 4

W H O S T O L E T H E F U N N Y ?

this quirk had been debated at many family Thanksgivings, but

the truth was that seeing the world in 35 millimeter was J.T.’s secret way of keeping disturbing realities at bay. He no longer knew if this had started only after he became a director, or if he’d taken to directing because a part of his soul responded to distancing himself through a lens.

J.T. panned to Natasha as she wiped Jeremy’s clammy fore-

head with a cool blue washcloth. The Bakers had been briefed by doctors, nurses, and therapists about what life would now be like.

They were only beginning to come to grips with the understand-

ing that young Jeremy had a very serious illness, and that the treatments would greatly alter their lives from then on.

Jeremy was staring at a sitcom on the TV above his head. The

laugh track was bugging the hell out of his parents. J.T. looked around for the remote. “Jeremy, would you like me to turn off this god-awful tripe?”

“If you’d directed it, it would be funny,” Jeremy said, his throat still painfully dry.

While other fathers and sons talked sports, Jeremy and his dad

would spend hours talking about “the Funny”—the noun, not the

adjective. At seven, he understood the quad split. The kid just . . .

had
it.

“Wow. Um, thanks,” J.T. looked away, embarrassed. “Maybe

you should rest now.” He found the remote attached to the nurse’s call button.

“Daddy, who . . . ?” Jeremy’s vocal cords had so little air to support his voice that strange

harmonics were taking the

The Hollywood Dictionary

place of his natural speak-

THE QUAD SPLIT (TAKE ONE):
A

ing voice.

single monitor that shows four

Natasha urged him to

different camera angles at once.

drink some ice water. “Who

what, sweetheart?”

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4 5

“It’s okay, Jeremy. Just close your eyes. Sleep.” J.T. spoke with the helplessness of a father who could not control the situation and the authority of a television director who was used to being in control of everything.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Jeremy. We’re here.”

“Who . . . who stole the . . .”

“Who stole the what, sweetheart?” J.T. asked, concerned that

his son might be hallucinating from the drugs.

“No one stole anything, darling,” Natasha said, her voice nur-

turing.

Jeremy’s eyes, clear with the genius of innocence, slowly moved from the television to his father.

“Daddy—Who . . . stole the funny?”

“Who stole the funny?” J.T. repeated. He snapped his head

back and looked at his wife, dumbfounded.
Brilliant. Our kid is
fucking brilliant!