SEVEN DAYS IN L.A.

The true story of a writer, a church, a gun, an HBO deal that never existed and a pretty girl with wavering eyes.

Special Guest Blog by David N. Donihue

Tuesday night. Around 10 p.m.

When he handed me the pistol in a parking lot just off Hollywood, I wondered how I was going to give out hugs in the Bible study room without anyone noticing that there was a forty- five in my pocket. His eyes looked unsteady. They always do. Sadly, I know where the guy’s coming from. If things could just slow down, I could get my bearings. But my life is mine, and never really slow. Except when around a few solitary friends.

Justine is one of them. That super cute platonic friend that you can wrestle with and be made fun of by, and you both know exactly where everything stands. No confusion, just straight up love and understanding. She calls me every day just to check in; I dig that shit. I’m lucky to know her. We keep each other in check.

“Take it easy” she said the other night. She reassured me of my talents and good looks and I talked to her about her endless crush on my brilliant space case of a friend Noel, who can’t seem to figure out where he’s coming from or what to do with her. Matters of the heart seem to put more panic in us than matters of guns and finances.

Jumping back to about 8 p.m. I’m at church. Tonight, as part of the young adult Bible study, we’re tested on spiritual gifts. This is an odd one. A series of tests that show what areas you are gifted in and what areas you suck at. I score high on Prophecy, Wisdom and Intercession. Low on Speaking In Tongues and Celibacy. Go figure. Midway through the test, he shows up. I don’t know him well. His name is Eric. He’s good looking, charming, and seems like a bit of a loose cannon. I met him the first time about a month ago. Justine had told me about him, how his brother had passed away recently and she knew he was in need of someone to talk to, but feared spending time with him as he obviously had a thing for her.

“Don’t worry about it. Have dinner with the guy at a public place and just listen to him talk. It’ll be good.”

Well, he had charmed her, and she brought him to my birthday party, I suspect to make Noel jealous. He gave me a cigar and told us all about having to trek across the country to deal with a D.U.I. I wasn’t shocked. Something about the way he moved seemed familiar; not so much “from liquor or drugs,” though that wouldn’t surprise me. More, he seemed to be shifting in his shoes but playing it off as party star energy. Masking his depression and anxiety with an enthusiasm for small talk and sheik brattiness. Respectable. Sad.

That was also the first time I saw Kara again.

Kara is a beautiful girl. She’s tall and rail thin with cool loose dark blonde curls and huge amazing eyes that seem to shift between the sophistication of an ambitious and confident young woman, and that of a “wow – holy shit world” 10-year-old kid. I went to her birthday party not long ago. She looked stunning in a long black dress. I found myself stumbling for words. Cute girls never make me stumble for words.

I know very little of her, but what I do impressive. She’s a flautist. Not always the center of attention, yet gravitates towards the stage. She holds herself at a distance as if she’s consistently careful not to give off any wrong impressions.

She turned her back on the Catholic church as a kid because they wouldn’t let her be an altar boy anymore. She must have looked adorable, the outfit, the hair pulled back.

She’s had started her own summer program for kids. She’s twenty seven, and a take charge of your own destiny type. She’s remarkable.

Her eyes constantly dart off into the distance in thought, and then revert back to pick up wherever the conversation was headed. But her face and eyes can’t hide what her mouth often doesn’t say.

“I’ll bet you’re a shitty liar,” I say.

“Yeah, I’m terrible at it.”

She might not always be forthcoming about her thoughts, but when she is, they are genuine, and I have nothing but respect for that sort of self-preservation-honesty mix.

Thursday 9pm. Kara and I sit down for Indian food.

I’ve been a bit whip lashed lately by life, but par for the course. Money is quickly deteriorating in my world, as the company I work for still hasn’t paid any of us writers.

I’ve lived in LA for two and a half years, have been making my meager living entirely off of my writing, have seen one film produced, a war-type epic I co-wrote, and have been struggling along as a screenwriter for hire, choosing only projects I believe in.

A producer, Wayne, and Jesper, a creative consultant, wanted to meet with me in regard to a mini-series on ancient Rome, knowing my background in writing on topics of politics, war and religion.

I met them at a Starbucks in Encino. Jesper was from Denmark. Looked around forty, blonde hair with a touch of grey. Clean cut. Wayne had a Roman style mustache and goatee, and was apparently a Roman expert. They were blue collar fellows, and it made me trust them more.

In a town like LA, often the real movers and shakers are in jeans in t-shirts, while bullshit middle men take the time to manicure, put on silk and drive small penis automobiles. They were friendly, warm, and spent a good hour and a half drilling me on how I write and work with others, and whether or not I can meet their stringent network deadlines.

I read them some samples, and they hired me on the spot. $3,477 per week for 13 weeks to co-write on a mini-series for HBO. I would be one of a team of six writers who would come together with a staff of researchers to whip out some brilliance, as HBO apparently had a production called ROME that was experiencing delays, and they would need a teaser to quench the audience’s thirst. That’s where we would come in.

THE REAL ROME, you know kinda like Real Sports or Real Sex, would be a docu-drama, three episodes, small budget of 4 mil per. The last few months of my life were filled with family tragedy, death and the ever-present holiday inspired lack of work. I was dead broke, and getting broker. Needless to say, this was the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

The group consisted of quite the talented mix. Anna, a brilliant writer and script consultant, who I was partnered with. She’s fifty, funny, warm, and not afraid to flip you shit. She has a remarkable list of work under her belt, doing script consulting for some major writers and producers. I forgive her hippie nature on account of her kick ass personality.

Jeff K., a former stage and commercial actor slash Roman buff from Toronto with a wife and kids. He’s a straight man who likes Broadway.

Jeff B., an ambitious 23-year-old writer who had moved here with his wife just after his father-in-law’s death, to take on this job and crank their lives into some form of positivity amidst the grief.

Don, an East Coast indie filmmaker with a constant smile and a real life to him. Husky and fresh faced, Don is a real sweetheart. He gets excited when the others pitch stories of Roman castrations and 100,000 people getting impaled.

And there’s Patrick, a talented former sci-fi writer with short silvering hair, good looks and a zest for action stories. He has a very fast paced, high energy personality that could either be brilliance, dementia, or substance abuse, God bless him.

We got passes to eat lunch at the commissary on the CBS lot. We started mapping out the series. We were told Glenn A. Larson, a hot shot TV producer, was partnering on all of Wayne’s projects and he would be joining the gang shortly, as would be Jim Caviezel, on a project with Wayne as well. I had visions of asking him to turn the bottled water into Merlot, but we didn’t have any.

Things were moving fast. A man by the name of John was introduced to us as a producer from HBO, who we told our pitches to. He seemed impressed, thought he was quickly out the door to his next order of business.

Bobbi, a costume designer, apparently recommended by the studio was sent over, along with a director of photography. We took a tour of Western Costumes and saw a room already set up, with HBO / THE REAL ROME on the door and costumes already being made, collected, and ordered for mass production somewhere in India.

Wayne called a meeting. The order for three episodes has been pushed to six. We would now be employed for 26 weeks guaranteed. All of us immediately started making calls, canceling other employment, thanking former Latin instructors, looking at new cars online, etc. There’s only one problem. There’s a three week delay in payroll. Peripheral conversations of borrowing money from family and friends occur.

Justine keeps calling to ask if I’ve met Jesus yet. “No, and I don’t think it’s really him, he just played him on TV…”

The creativity and research goes blasting into high gear. Wayne continues to feed us scenes from his vast knowledge of Rome, much of them involving penises. Wayne is one of those truck driver gay men. The type who get busted hooking up at Park & Rides and Highway Rest Stops. Most of his Roman knowledge seems to center around sexual practice, with the researchers having yet to confirm any of his tidbits.

Synopses are handed to wardrobe and production designers. John the producer, continues to be seen coming and going from Wayne’s office, presumably checking in on our progress.

Nearly two weeks ago, we were told very suddenly we were moving offices from CBS to either Sunset Gower or Universal. That HBO had pulled us from our current location due to a problem with the lease being too short-term.

We’ve spent the last two weeks working from home, and stressing about when we’re going to see a check, as we are continually told that there is just another glitch in payroll.

The costume department has been paid, and now as of Thursday, we’ve been there six weeks and not seen a dime. By contract, we are all already owed an enormous amount of money. Last week, the writers started speaking of going to the guild with this issue. This would bring our employer under scrutiny by HBO, and it’s almost certain that when that happens, some middle management producer from the studio is bound to step in and “save the project from chaos” by replacing the staff with all of his friends. This is what Wayne tells us, in his very calm and gentle nature.

Wayne admits to being new to the producing game. Online, he has no producer credits, but there are some legitimate articles from legitimate press on how he’s donated a million dollars to give fire engines in his home state of Alabama

I tried to keep the other writers from doing anything rash.

This job is everything I have been working towards, and the thought of failure, even if it’s not my fault, sends shivers down my spine like no other. I’m embarrassed to even admit the unsteadiness of the present situation.

My mother keeps floating back to my mind. My grandfather died a week back, and that – combined with my brother’s passing in August – has her in one of those “Was I good mother, was I a good daughter?” sort of states.

My grandfather is still in a freezer somewhere, as no one can find his 35-year-old bitch of a wife who married him several years back, took him for everything he was worth, and is now impossible to reach as a signature from her is needed to complete his request of having his ashes sprinkled along with my grandmother’s over Mt. Rainier.

So I’m sitting across from Kara, Thursday night, and all this is on my mind, and I’m trying to stay engaged in the conversation, not come off to heavy.

Writer’s syndrome. I wonder for a moment if I’ve forgotten how to speak. If I have fallen so far into being human that I’ve left the human fold entirely. The human fold is guarded and jaded and disconnected from anything that is human. Even those white girl eastern philosophy bitches who shift their furniture around to feel more in touch with themselves would condemn me on accounts of emotional instability.

You see, I have nothing to say that isn’t too heavy or too light. Everything you say is a product of your experiences, and if all you are currently seeing is shit, than your just going to say a bunch of shit that seems to bring on more shitty experiences that causes you to say a bunch more of shit.

Everyone that I’ve ever known who has wanted to kill themselves were motivated by the thought that they had nothing left to offer that would be positively received. I find it interesting that some of the people with the most love to give had the most self-hatred because no one wanted to receive it. The purest of emotions can be seen as a threat by those who are conditioned by this jaded little spectacle we call life. I can’t believe I just wrote that dumb ass line. Why does anyone ever pay me for this shit?

Now, obviously, this tangent has drifted away from the autobiographical. I have more people in my life who love me and depend on my love and words of support than I know what to do with. I have a zest for life and a passion for the minutia of all types of personalities that borders on habitual. And I rock it too. I still find massive excuses to laugh and be irreverent and silly and just enjoy the ridiculousness of our little ball o’ dirt, but there are some days, when you can’t force yourself into that mind set.

Something lightens inside of me when I see her shift from her sophisticated stance to her uncomfortable moments of weighing things out in her head. I don’t know why, but I find it really charming. Kara has a boyfriend who recently cruised to somewhere in the middle of the country to do something. I forget what. Work and family I think. She had mentioned possibly cutting it off.

I know she loves him, so I had resigned to being nothing more than a friend to her while still being massively drawn to knowing as much as I possibly could about who she is as a person. Through my thorough study and research of the creature that is her, I came to the scientific conclusion that she fucking rules. So, whatever the nature of our relationship is, I’m cool with it. I think I caught her checking me out in the club lights one night.

For a moment, I showed my hand of cards stretched across my face when she mentioned she was leaving town to go see him. The boyfriend.

I managed to utter “How’s that going?” and the moment became built more on what wasn’t being said than what was.

“It’s going well. I’ll be there for four days.”

“That’s awesome.”

I was actually genuine when I said that. You see, Kara’s cool. I have no desire to bring confusion into her life. I’m just stoked to get to know her.

Monday was her actual birthday, which I am suppose to spend with her. The weekend is spent going out to see a show with them, me working and stressing about the absence of my check and three day pay or vacate notice I got on my door.

Monday. 7pm. East Hollywood.

The writers were up in arms. My mother calling to ask if I wanted my dead grandmother’s bedsheets that were still in the package, the woman still hoarding away mounds of odds and ends ten years after her death. That takes talent. And Wayne, who currently owes me an enormous amount of money, was supposed to at the very least bring petty cash down to appease a few of my bills as he had been promising all weekend to throw me a couple grand until the checks arrived.

Patrick, our beloved hot headed paranoid, allegedly “coke-addicted” writer had suffered a burst appendix a few days prior, his fear of ever never getting paid or the project going bust guiding him through the operation. Now, back on his feet, he had spent the day looking for the new offices that we had yet to move into on Lankershim out of fear he was being fired, going from building to building trying to find Wayne. He can’t even get addiction right. He should be just going into the same building over and over and over. But, in any case, his deranged idiocy delayed my boss in meeting with me and giving me any cash. His writing partner has grown weary of him as well, as Wayne seems to be trying to find a way to let him go without any disturbance, continuing to ask us all if we see any signs of drug use.

Too embarrassed to tell my new friends I am too broke to go out and realizing once again how this unstable career can utterly destroy my best of intentions in my personal life, I am a lame ass. I finally called Kara, telling her I’m going to be able to make it out at all.

My phone is still ringing off the hook as I try to ease everyone’s panic, as I am balancing momentary thoughts of feeling like a total freaking loser. All I feel like doing is buying my friend a birthday drink. Grabbing her some birthday flowers. She had consumed much of my mind over the weekend, wanting to see her, but too broke to go out and to proud to admit it.

My mind is racing with fears of failure. I had recently abandoned those fears. I stopped caring about where my career was heading right before it started soaring full speed ahead. Not financially, but things were falling into place. People were noticing a particular style, I guess.

Seneca said “Cease to hope and you will cease to fear…” There’s some truth in it. The constant string of jobs and pats on the back brought some hope into the mix. The other writers and delayed checks brought the fear.

Monday. 10pm.

I’m pacing back and forth down the street trying to make sense of all the work chaos, as Anna pep talked me, strangely. That’s not her style as much.

“I want the career your friend Robert has,” I say, as I suddenly feel annoyed with my ambitious side taking precedence over the craft itself.

“He was 38 and ready to call it quits when it finally clicked. Now he makes millions. It just took a long time.” She says.

I’m 31 and have written over forty feature scripts and plays. Part of me feels like an old vet while the other part of me still fresh faced inexperienced kid.

“You see David, there is a problem with your work.”

Great. She’s about to add insult to injury.

“Your work has a voice. It’s exactly what you think and feel, which will make it a nightmare at first, but trust me, there will be rewards because of the way you do things in the long run...”

Coming from her, the words settled me. My phone beeped again as I was walking back into my apartment. It was Kara again. Inviting me over. We partook in small talk with her roommate and classical guitarist friend whose masculinity momentarily slipped away when he admitted to liking Titanic. I didn’t ask him what he thought of that Celine Dion song, I couldn’t bear to hear the answer. He’s one of my favorite people I’ve met recently. He’s from Toronto, and has a strange mix of East Coast hard edge and northern “I could give a fuck” passivity. Rather impressive stories to tell as well.

Which brings us back to Tuesday. And the gun. And Justine. And Eric. And the spiritual gifts exercise. Prophecy, Intercession. As I take the quiz, knowing it would be retarded to put much stake into its answers, Eric wanders into the room, looking high as a kite. It’s likely he’s here looking for Justine, who has been avoiding his calls after his romantic persistence made her feel uncomfortable. Damn, he really looks high.

I fucking hate how substances attach themselves to those who are the most sensitive. I only get around to a night of real drinking maybe once a month, so therefore, with my tolerance low but thirst for nothing more than hydration high, it’s easy to stupidly consume to much and find yourself speaking in ways that would have helped me score higher on the “:speaking in tongues” portion of the test.

Eric stammers around, loudly makes fun of the quiz and seems to make most in the room both humored and uncomfortable. I can’t tell if this is a substance or crippling anxiety-prone depression, but something doesn’t seem right, as I sit here with the results of the quiz in fingertips, feeling proud that I scored low on Celibacy. My mind is flying high with work. My family. And strangely, amidst it all, a girl.

Yet, as he shifts all over the room, needing to charm those who seem somewhat concerned about his current mental state, I feel the need to pull him away and find out what this guy is all about. I notice the way his body was working to shut off his mind and heart, and I really feel for him.

“I’m going for a cigarette. Walk with me,” I say.

He follows. He looks paranoid when a cop drives by, and tells me he has a gun across the street in his car, that he had been to the shooting range earlier and was driving on a suspended license due to a D.U.I., so if he got pulled over, they would search and he’d be fucked. I ignore it. And I start hammering him with questions. You can tell me anything. Nothing fazes me.

And he lets’ loose. The stories of his fist fights, heroin and coke addictions of yesteryear, never admitting to even having so much as a beer in the present day, are unsurprisingly followed by stories of an abusive childhood, his brother’s death. And how just after the night I first met him, just as Justine had turned him down, he had to catch a flight back home to see his grandma.

Scared shitless of facing a past that he rarely connects with, he had stalled just before getting in his friend’s car to head to the airport. “I left something upstairs.” He tried to tell them. They wouldn’t accept that and shoved him in the car.

“I was planning on going back upstairs, pulling the gun out of my closet, and blowing my brains out.” He says to me as we sit down on a planter next to church’s entrance, and I ask if I can pray for him. I don’t know if it will do much good. I’m no pastor. I’m no missionary. I’m just a guy who’s seen a bunch of shit and come out the other side as a generally happy camper who really loves people. But we pray. For a long time. Lord, let the sins others have placed on him not turn him to self-destruction. Let him see how his gifts of charm and humor can help the world around him. Let him find a peace through knowing that he doesn’t have to be a product of his environment, his environment can be a product of him. Let him realize that the sick feeling beneath his skin is the result of others, that he isn’t innately born feeling this way, and that you can bring him back to the core of who he is. Lord, this world has really fucked him over, don’t let him fuck himself over as a result. Lord, let him forgive the people who have hurt him, forgive himself for the way he has reacted to it all, and lift that weight.

We hug hard. I have no idea if I’ve reached him, but having just lost a friend to suicide months prior, I was really praying that this would work. I’m sick of people dying who were dealt a shitty hand, people thriving who shit all over everyone else, and me feeling helpless when I get the phone calls after the fact.

It actually takes a bit of work to ask him for it. “I don’t think you are in a state where you should have a gun in your possession.”

He immediately offers it, using reasons of not wanting to get pulled over with it. Thank God. We walk across the street to his car. It isn’t loaded. The clip lies next to it.

“It’s clean,” he says. “Make sure it stays that way.”

If it was clean, he hadn’t been to the shooting range earlier that day. There was a reason it was in his car, and fear swept over me for his safety and others.

I put it in my pocket and we walk back into the church together. The bulge is huge, but luckily, I am wearing my longer green checkered polyester jacket with my black Fubu jeans. The jeans have deep pockets. The jacket covers the majority of the bulge. I suddenly realized how handy this particular combination would be to gangs across America. Visions of Crips, Bloods and L.A. Locos in plaid polyester sweep through my mind, and I feel happier than I’ve been in the last two weeks.

I hug a few friends goodbye and start the long trek home, being careful not to jaywalk and get stopped. I had lost my I.D. a few days back, and being without any identification with a forty-five in your pocket wouldn’t look good to Officer Friendly. It crosses my mind if Kara would return my calls if she were to drive by and see me in handcuffs with a forty-five lying on the front of a cop car. Hey, these things happen.

I suddenly wonder where the gun has been, and I immediately dial Justine, to reaffirm that she is not to answer his calls. I don’t think he’d harm her, he doesn’t seem to be a danger to others. I think with some tight friendships, this kid could come out the other side of it all.

Justine doesn’t answer her phone at first. Ten minutes pass by as I continue home, suddenly getting really scared for her. This girl is one of the best friends you find in this city. We tell each other everything. I’ve never gotten bored talking to Justine. Never waiting for her to finish a sentence so I could start one. She is an example of a nearly perfect, selfless person. I would never forgive this world if it harmed her.

I walk up the steps. Finally the phone rings. It’s Justine. We talk for hours. She needs to know it isn’t her fault he is this way. She did the best she can. He needs guy friends. Not a girl. No girl can save a man from treating himself poopy.

Wednesday Morning.

I woke up early this morning and took a long walk.

I fucking hate guns. I can’t stand the fact that the no-good piece of scrap metal is buried in the back of my closet, even though it has no bullets. I have no intention of giving it back to him anytime soon, and my friend Mason who leads the Bible study kindly declined via phone this morning to take it, even though he loves shooting ranges.

I thought long and hard about Eric. How easy it would be for anyone to get smacked around by life’s circumstances and fall into that frame of mind. About how much he wants to give love right now, and how his instability makes it impossible for someone to want to receive it, which makes it impossible for him to get stable. The viscous circles of life. The fact that he carried a gun. So tragic, his life circumstances inspiring such fear. The desperate need for control. I suddenly feel more tenderness towards Republicans.

As I sit in front of my computer, wondering if work is going to blow up in my face, if I’m going to lose my job, not see a check in time, get evicted, and look like an idiot in front of everyone, all I feel like doing is typing about a pretty girl with wavering eyes.

Wednesday 8:55 p.m.

I have no cell minutes left. Kara calls. I tell her I’d call her back. After nine, cell time is free. It crosses my mind how many relationships have been destroyed due to delays in expressing emotions during anytime minutes.

9 p.m. I call Anna.

“David, I have bad news… As bad as it can get.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t exist. None of it exists. HBO has never heard of our employer. There is no tie between us and them. There is no money.”

I went into denial. I hung up and called Kara back. She told me “I just wanted to thank you for coming out on Monday night…”

She seemed so formal. So calculated. The sophistication had morphed into over-diplomacy. I figured I’d go for broke. Share it all. Let her know I’m a loser and she’s amazing yet guarded and I’m honest, yet my world is falling apart.

So, I read her what you just read. No joke. I read it all to her. I had just found out five minutes prior that I had lost a $90,000 contract, had not a dime to my name, was on the verge of eviction, and now suddenly realizing, that I was destroying a friendship with someone I was really enamored with.

She hung up the phone within sixty seconds of the completion of the reading. Obviously, she wasn’t impressed. My level of honesty isn’t good for anyone. Once again, too human for the human fold.

The truth sets in. My life is fucked. All of my connections know about this job. With my reputation trashed, my crush quite possibly looking into restraining orders, my career over, and my family once again destined to see me as a letdown, I thought about the gun in my closet.

It was as if God took it out of Eric’s hands, and the devil put it into mine. However, for some reason, I still didn’t want to die. The seratonin-dopamine fight or flight phenomena had even failed me a way out.

I got on the phone with Justine. We talked for a long time as I walked back and forth down Hollywood Boulevard. It didn’t matter what she said. Just the sound of her voice. It didn’t just calm me. It made me feel really good. She made me laugh.

“It’s hard to be upset for too long when I’m talking to you… It doesn’t matter what happens, when I talk to you…”

It was so true. Somehow, I related to this girl’s love for others, lack of self-preservation, and irreverent humor amidst the evils of this world. For a second, I felt like an asshole for pursuing Kara, who I couldn’t even talk to, when the person I wanted to share everything with was right there. There was only one problem. It’s not that way between her and I. Both of us, chasing after those we can’t fully talk to. I wish God had never created bodies, just spirits that choose what they project.

The phone rings again. “Dave, we found his house. You’ll never fucking believe it.” Patrick says “We’re gonna make sure these guys don’t try to go anywhere tonight. Do you want to come take turns keeping watch?”

Three of the writers had spent the last couple hours looking for the producer’s assistant’s car, who was rumored to be staying with him somewhere near the CBS lot.

“We’re gonna get these mother fuckers…” Patrick says to me.

Thursday. 10 am.

We are all gathered at a diner near the CBS lot and my mind is already racing with ideas on a script I had put on hold before this all had started. It isn’t over, but my mind is ready to move on.

At the table is John, the supposed HBO producer, all the writers, the costume designer, and the art director that has brought some of the most impressive designs with him that I have ever seen. Incredible really, the minds and talents in the room.

The truth comes out. John isn’t from HBO. We were told he was. He was told that we were. The costume woman wasn’t recommended by HBO, even though her credentials were far beyond needing that. She was referred to Wayne by Western Costume. She hasn’t been paid a dime. Wayne had convinced John that HBO was slow on a wire transfer, and John convinced the line producer he hired to put up about five grand to get things rolling in the art department. Petty cash.

Jesper is here, having known Wayne off and on for 17 years, looking shell shocked, claiming he lost seventy grand of his fiancée’s money to the whole thing, believing Wayne had a deal the whole time fronting the cash.

John relates his end of the story. He finally calls HBO. They’d never heard of Light Force Entertainment, Wayne, or any project called The Real Rome. Why would anyone do this? You would have to be insane. Fucking insane! Wayne probably believed that he could string us along for long enough to get some amazing pages, go into pre-production, get his deal and become unstoppable.

Now, all in all, John and his line producer friend are out the cash. Writers and researchers aren’t going to see any of the money (none of us having worked elsewhere for nine weeks and canceling upcoming gigs), the costume lady is screwed and the art department just plain baffled.

This all on top of Jeff B’s research, finding out the fire stations were required to hire new employees in order to comply with Wayne’s requests, and have yet to see the million dollar vehicles promised by Light Force Entertainment. Jeff B. looks at me and says “Wayne told me his first sexual experience was in a fire station.”

I had thoughts of Rosebud.

I am facing eviction. Have nowhere to go. Jeff B. and his young bride have nothing and a six month lease, wishing they could just go back to Ohio. I hear vague conversations about Bush making it harder to file bankruptcy in the background.

And Patrick, the paranoid coke head, wasn’t paranoid or even on coke. He was right all along. It was a sham..

He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I hate to say I told you so..”

I laughed, holding back my tears. “I’m sorry for you man. I know this hits hard,” he says. He was so genuine. He even turned out to be a damn fine writer.

Now, we just had to find Wayne. And our contracts, w4’s, the researchers’ hundreds of dollars’ worth of library books, you name it.

We got in the car and trekked over to where Wayne, Brent and Jesper were staying. Wayne wasn’t there. We later found out he was in court at the time on Indecent Exposure / Lewd Conduct charges, filed in Pasadena, for crying out loud.

When we got there, the true horror set in. They had been staying in a converted garage out behind a little old ladies house. Wayne and his assistant in one room, Jesper in the other. The poor woman had been giving them free rent, as they had promised she would be working as a production coordinator on the HBO series.

My gawd, how did he pull it all off?

How did this guy, without any cash to his name, get us on the CBS lot, a rented bungalow office, a new lease signed on Lankershim, a costume department employed and put into high gear, an art director, six writers, two researchers and two office assistants all working full-time, and all of this he masterminded out of a little old ladies garage?

I am impressed, to say the least. I get him on the phone. We’re all standing in the woman’s front yard, as she looks traumatized by the news, that this lovely man could do such a thing. “I was counting on that job, since I wasn’t getting any money from them for rent of the back house,” she said, looking as if she was going to cry.

Patrick is yelling “Fuck you Wayne” over and over, flipping off the phone that is currently up to my ear.

“Wayne, we know there is no deal between you and HBO,” I say.

“Well, that’s news to me,” he says.

“Wayne, how could you do this to us? This is sick.”

“So, the writers are going on strike then? Maybe it would help if we showed HBO some of the pages,” he says.

“Wayne, HBO has never heard of you. Sam, the woman at HBO has never heard of you. There is no Light Force Productions. Wayne, you need help. I’m going to pray for you brother. You really need help.”

I believe that Wayne actually believed he had a deal. That to con us, he had conned himself. We were dealing with what seems to be, a total fucking sociopath. God bless America.

It’s been ten minutes, and Patrick is still jumping up and down and cursing the phone in the background, as the rest of the writers sing “Liar, liar pants on fire.” I feel like my heads going to explode as I hand the phone over to someone else, and lament the fact that I’m sure to be homeless in the matter of days.

The little old lady announces that Wayne won’t be staying with her anymore, and that I am more than welcome to the spare room in the garage if I need a place to stay.

I suddenly realized that for me, the worsening of life circumstances had only begun.

While this was happening, my phone ran out of minutes. Shut off. No contact with the outside world. No way to have known that Justine’s mother was in the hospital due to an irregular heart beat. No way to check up on Eric, who I was really worried for, and suddenly felt as if there was no way I could reach out to him while dealing with my own dire needs, and a family to whom I owe money, and have suddenly no way of being supportive of, as my dead grandfather is still hanging out in a freezer somewhere outside of Sumner, Washington.

The ripple affect of this unstable career is showing its instantaneous power. Plus, I still have yet to find a way to get rid of that fucking gun, and I know Eric wants it back.

What’s funny, the biggest lesson from all of this, was how I felt that night that Justine talked to me on the phone. The sound of her voice. The way she didn’t judge my failure. The way she listened and made me laugh.

I still feel so humiliated.

Life comes bashing away at full speed even without the help of something as unbelievable as all this. People die all around you. They kick the shit out of each other and lie to each other. Desire and depression mold some into creatures of compassion and humor, like Justine. Some into bottles of escapism, anxiety and self-destruction, like Eric. Some into guarded diplomacy, like Kara, and some into brilliant sociopaths who run a fraud that leaves over a dozen workers screwed for hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost wages, not to mention the humiliation and feeling of a career headed towards doom.

Even having tested high on Prophecy, I never saw any of this coming. My test scores on Intercession aren’t seeming to be of much help either.

But I’m still off to pray. Pray for Justine’s mom. Pray for my co-workers. Pray for Eric. Pray for family. Pray for that bitch that is responsible for the fact that my grandfather is still in need of thawing. Pray for Wayne. And pray that I can sell this story overnight and get enough money to keep from getting evicted, losing my mind, and finding myself living in a little old ladies garage near the CBS lot, promising my elderly landlady a job on a project that only exists in my head.

Written by David N. Donihue. ©opyright 2005.