— It’s not.
— Well, whatever. That’s your big concern here?
— The rest of it works.
Cross-Country Problem Solving, Episodes Two and Three
A couple more years pass. You’re still sober, but by now you’ve been unemployed for several months, so you begin to consider your options. You’re not committed to staying in New York. You hear that a friend of a friend who’s producing a new TV series in Los Angeles might maybe possibly be looking for a personal assistant. You’re still not one for making advance plans. Your advance plan at this time is to start packing. You haven’t forgotten about the driving issue, but it’s been long enough by now that you’ve mustered up some small hope that you might be able to push through. You have learned thing one since then, if not thing two, so rather than shipping every last one of your possessions off to the city where you once resided for less than two weeks, you sublet your apartment, furnished, and leave New York with only a suitcase and a pile of books. What you don’t do is schedule an interview before you get there, maybe consider interviewing over the phone. What you do is you just go. You can’t think of a reason not to. Nothing is happening in New York. You’ll figure out the driving thing when you get there. You’re older and wiser now. It’ll be different. You have friends in LA, you can ask for help if you need it, even though you probably won’t. Ask. Or need it. Or ask. You fly to LA, interview with the friend of a friend; he gives you the job. It’s only two days a week, but that’s fine. You’ll pay your dues, if not your rent; one thing at a time. Hollywood will for sure recognize your overall hilarity and promote you accordingly.
In exchange for performing tasks that are for the most part unrelated to writing sitcoms — the fetching of dry cleaning, the steeping of tea, the filing of folders, the paying of bills, the running of general errands — the big perk of the job is that Donny, your new boss, lets you sit in on the writers’ room meetings. You are to be silent in these meetings or you will be banished, possibly in a way that involves public shaming. This is not, you discover, The Dick Van Dyke Show. It’s not one of those writers’ rooms you see on TV where everyone is laughing, riffing, trading sarcastic but good-natured jabs, effortlessly working together to make the comedy happen; it is one of those rooms where a couple of personalities have created an atmosphere less conducive to comedy than to insults, hurt feelings, tantrums, and slammed doors. It’s tense. So you heed your boss’s advice to speak only when spoken to, take notes, eat the free snacks, and brew tea when asked. One day, a heated argument transpires between the lead actress, who is allowed by contract to be in the writers’ room even though she is no kind of writer, and one of the actual writers, who is telling her in no uncertain terms that what she thinks is funny is very clearly not funny. Her joke is dumb-blond based, which is bad enough, but the real problem is that it just doesn’t make sense, not even after she explains it. The brown bear has to explain to the light-brown bear what a milkshake is. Silence. The brown bear is smarter. Silence. Because it’s brunette! God! Silence. It went to bear college! Come on. It’s like a bizarro riddle. Everyone is at a loss. One of the writers speaks up. Do you watch this show? Fuck you, Jonah. Bear college isn’t a thing. Yeah, I know, that’s why it’s funny. You picture it, she says, you picture bears at college, bears walking around, with bear books, playing bear Frisbee. It’s funny. It’s really not. It’s hilarious! Bears at college! Doing things that bears don’t do! This goes on for some unendurable length of time, it might be only five minutes but it feels like a hundred; everyone tries to humor her until she leaves, but she won’t, and you can think of no more excruciating way to spend five minutes. This discussion is officially unbearable, you say, to your surprise, out loud. The writers can’t really stifle their laughter. It’s not that funny, your mild pun; what is funny is that you, the newbie, have spoken up to the temperamental star, and she giggles too. She asks if you have any ideas for a bit that might make both parties happy, preferably a bit that has nothing to do with bears. Something kicks in, and you say you do before there’s time to think better of it. Okay, so the waitress has just put a milkshake down on your table. “Here’s your margarita!” she says. You say to your date, “I know this is only our first date, but I hereby authorize you to euthanize me should I become unable to distinguish between a milkshake and a margarita. If I appear to exhibit pride upon identifying a milkshake as a margarita. Failing easy access to euthanasia, just bring a pitcher of margaritas. If you can be sure they’re not milkshakes.” It’s a bit long-winded and only modestly funny, but it succeeds in breaking the tension in the room, which bursts into relieved laughter. A heavily revised and edited version of your joke makes it into the episode. This is your entire career in sitcom writing. It’s not that there couldn’t be more from here; there could. It’s just clear now that nothing about this endeavor has been enjoyable.
You’re a couple grand deeper into debt than before you left, with one more résumé credit you don’t really need. What you really want to do is write fiction. You can do that anywhere. New York is too expensive and you don’t want to be there anyway. Clearly, it’s time to move to Chicago. Just because it’s the first I’ve heard of the idea doesn’t make it surprising at this point. You will move and keep moving until you land in the right spot. This move happens with more or less the same amount of haste and suitcases as the last. Weirdly, I can tell just by the sound of your voice over the phone, about a week after you get there, that you’re happier in Chicago. The way you gush about alleys and abandoned buildings sounds like you’re describing Prague or Copenhagen. It’s my place, Mom. I’m glad, sweetheart. I know you needed to go. I can come visit.
But I’m sick with cancer. You’ve decided you were a fiction writer the whole time, that you had to get the TV job to know this for sure. You come home to visit while I’m in the hospital and read me some scenes about me from your novel that are pretty funny, but you don’t have any big plan about where to go from there. You say I’m not about plans, I say Yeah, I got that. You move from LA to Chicago to be a fiction writer and I get sick and this messes up your not-plans.
It’s a wonder you don’t start drinking again, and when you come to the hospital you try to argue with me while I’m hooked up to twenty kinds of machines and wires.
— You’re seriously trying to say I started an argument with you when you were in the hospital?
— We had an argument. You stormed off. Can I finish?
— Yes, I can’t wait.
There’s an old lady in the bed next to me and she’s rambling on and on about I don’t know what, but she keeps talking even though the curtain between us is drawn. You and Victor are visiting and this lady’s chatter about I-don’t-know-what is making me nuts. Lady! I yell over. Stop talking! The curtain is pulled! Mom, you say. Don’t Mom me! This is my time with my visitors! That cunt is invading my privacy! Mom! Oh don’t be all holier-than-thou, Betsy. Okay, I’m going. That’s great. Walk off. I liked you better when you were still drinking! You peer around the corner and whisper that you’re so sorry to the lady before leaving the room.