The Comedy Writer

The Comedy Writer Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: The Comedy Writer Read Online Free PDF
Author: Peter Farrelly
Tags: Fiction, Humorous
her.
    “Come on, let's go downstairs.”
    “I can't.”
    I nodded at this.
    “Then tell me what's wrong,” I said.
    She managed a vague smile. “You're what's wrong,” she said.
    The head tilted a hit, as if in the midst of some sudden realization.
    “Sorry,” I said and then I watched as she leaned forward and suddenly she wasn't there anymore. All that remained was a plume of pearl-colored exhaust that the desert breeze had pushed out over the bay.
    I stayed on the steps for a long time afterward. The Santa Anas had finally quit and as night fell a surprising chill settled over the L.A. basin. Back in my room, I drank a can of beer, then sat at the table and thought about how afraid I'd been on that roof, about how confrontational she'd been, about everything I'd left out.

two
    I woke up one day and the cough was just there. This wasn't a cold, it was a cough. Everything else felt okay except for this dry hack. A smoker's hack. I didn't smoke cigarettes, but neither had Andy Kaufman and he died from lung cancer. And what about pot? I'd smoked my share of that. Bob Marley had smoked his share, too. Jesus, I was getting carried away. Nobody was dying. Weren't there usually warning signs? Then I remembered the dizzy spells. On and off for a couple weeks I'd had them, but hadn't given it much thought. Lack of sleep, I'd figured, maybe my blood sugar was off. Everything was clear. The sense of impending doom I'd been living with, the headaches, the recurring tightness in my throat when stuck in traffic. Good God, maybe throat cancer, too.
    Then a break. A big break. Health insurance at work. I couldn'tbelieve it. My little job at Ernesto's was going to save my life. I thanked God they hadn't fired me after the lettuce disaster (having returned from the market with a dozen cabbages). Actually, Chef Louie
had
fired me, but I'd immediately gone to the owner and begged for another chance. I told him I was desperate and I didn't know much about restaurant work, but I was driven and responsible and would work twice as hard as anyone else. Joe was a middle-aged Italian guy from Jersey, and I looked him in the eye when I talked and I could tell he wanted to say no, but he had a heart and finally he caved. He'd try rrie as a waiter, he said—lunches only—and if I fucked up one more time, that was it, I was out of there, and he wasn't goin^ to listen to any more of my shit.
    Dr. Hoffman's office was on Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills above an old pharmacy. In the waiting room I sat with a
People
magazine on my lap, watched the bustle of nurses and assistants behind the fogged, sliding windows. Dr. Hoffman was a couple years older than me—maybe mid-thirties—and seemed genuinely pleased to have a new patient. When asked what I did for a living, I told him I was a writer. Usually I would say sales, just to avoid the next question (“Anything I would've heard of?”), but the doctor struck me as the type who'd be married to Cybill Shepherd or a Charlie's Angel, so I guess I was networking. He was good-looking and probably getting better with age. His hair was starting to gray, which highlighted his tan, and he had big bleached teeth and trendy blue glasses.
    When Hoffman heard the cough, he seemed concerned. A chest X ray was ordered up. They did it right there, in his own lab. Excellent, I thought. This was the kind of efficiency that could save a lung, or at least part of one. I could live on part of a lung, I'd justwalk less. Or slower. The hell with that, Fd walk
more.
Maybe Fd even run! Fd stretch out that carved-up organ until it was as big as a normal lung. Fd been blessed by this early diagnosis, given a fighting chance; I was damn well going to take advantage of it.
    Then a thought: Maybe she'd come back to me now. The deathbed scene, she returns, I pull through, we fuck a lot after. This cancer thing could be the break I was looking for!
    No. If I did have it, Amanda was the last person Fd tell. She might blame
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