My Incredibly Wonderful, Miserable Life

by Adam Nimoy

  But that was last night.

  Jonah and I climb up the bluff and pack up the car to go home. He’s still mad and upset and wants me to stop at a gift shop at Zuma Beach. After a three-day vacation on the coast that cost me all of fifty dollars, I’m more than happy to buy him some trinkets.

  The place is full of junk but all he wants is a bar of soap shaped like a seashell. And after the gift shop, and then the market to get him a snack, he immediately feels better. And as we drive down the coast, he looks out his side window at the ocean.

  “Thanks for this weekend, Dad. It was really good.”

  “Yeah, you’re welcome, honey. It was really good. I think we did a good job and next time it’s going to be better because I’ll be better prepared. And we’re going to have wet suits to protect us from the cold so we can stay in the water longer. Just like the surfers. Yeah, we’re going to get wet suits.”

  PERMIT ME

  THE SUMMER IS FADING. Today, I’m driving to the house to pick up Maddy and take her to register for her sophomore year at Santa Monica High. Afterward, we have an appointment at the orthopedist’s because she’s been complaining that her foot is hurting, the one she broke last year in a soccer game. So I pick her up and she looks really pretty because they take new ID pictures at enrollment. And I tell her how nice she looks, and she’s all excited to reenroll in school and tells me she can’t wait to start school again, that she’s had enough of summer. She says she has all her paperwork and there are some things I have to sign. I look at the paperwork and I see that my address is nowhere to be found on any of the information cards we’re supposed to turn in.

  “Maddy, why don’t you also put my address on the cards?”

  “Because I don’t live with you, Dad, and my home is at the house.”

  “Maddy, I’m hoping there’s going to be a time when you do come to stay with me, and in the meantime, I would like to be on the mailing list for stuff coming from the school.”

  “Dad, I’m not going to be living with you because I live with Mom. And I’m not going to put the address of your stupid apartment on the information cards.”

  She says this as we’re about to get on the freeway to Santa Monica. Maddy just sits there looking all determined in her pretty clothes and makeup. It’s another clear and sunny day in L.A., which doesn’t seem to go with this little storm that’s brewing inside me. She’s clutching the registration packet in her hand as she looks out the window.

  “You know, Maddy, that is so unfair and really makes me feel bad. I do all this running around for you and get you to school on time and make doctors’ appointments and get you to the math tutor and I don’t get any of the benefits of having you with me. I mean, this deal of only seeing you when we’re in the car is not very satisfying and I’m thinking that maybe Mom should drive you to school a few days a week ’cause I’m getting tired of showing up at seven AM on the dot just to shuttle you. I just want you to know that it really makes me feel bad not only that you don’t come to stay with me but that you act like I don’t even exist enough to put me on the registration information.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s just the way I feel right now. I mean, maybe we can work on it, but my home is at the house and that’s the address I’m giving the school.”

  So, whatever, I give up. For now.

  I get her to registration on time, early in fact, and we’re way ahead of a huge line that’s forming behind us and running right out the doors of the attendance office. All her friends are there, they’re back from summer, and Maddy’s so happy to be registering with them. They’re all passing us by, on the way to the back of the line, telling us how smart we were to get there early. When we get up to the front and hand in the paperwork, the woman behind the counter looks at the address cards.

  “So you’re permitting in from out of the district?”

  “Yeah, my mom has her office in Santa Monica.”

  “Do you have the permit from the district office?”

  Maddy turns to me with a worried look. The woman behind the counter is a lifer—the type who’s been here for years: patriotic white blouse and blue sweater. A big woman, because she’s been sitting at a desk for the last twenty years. She’s very nice and tries to be patient as I look up at her.

  “Isn’t the permit on file from last year?”

  “We have to have a new permit from the district office each year she enrolls. We sent a notice to your home during the summer about permit renewals.”

  I turn to Maddy.

  “Well, I didn’t know anything about this.”

  “Mom was online last night renewing her business permit with Santa Monica.”

  The woman interrupts. “But you’re still going to have to go to the district office to get a transfer permit because otherwise, I can’t enroll you.”

  There is no way I’m going to hold up the line arguing about this.

  “Oh, okay, thank you.”

  And so, we walk away.

  By now, I am so angry I can’t even see straight. And I have to make a conscious AA effort to keep my cool before I totally lose it. We walk out of the attendance office past all those girlfriends who are smiling and waving and standing in line to enroll.

  “You see, Maddy, if I had received that notice in the mail this wouldn’t be happening. You know I would never have let this happen.”

  “I know, Dad. What are we going to do?”

  I start walking quickly back to the car and Maddy follows. It’s a huge campus and we have a ways to go, past Barnum Hall and the Technology building, to get to the parking lot. I love the SAMOHI campus. Even though it still has some decrepit parts to it, it’s a nice campus with a good vibe. Today the weather’s nice and sunny, and there’s a clean breeze coming in off the ocean. But all that doesn’t really matter right now as I pull out my car keys and pick up the pace.

  “Dad! What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to run to the district office and I’m going to beg them to give us a permit. But this really makes me mad.”

  “If I can’t register today, I won’t get to take my picture.”

  “I know, honey. Let’s just hurry. We have an hour before registration closes. As it is, I have to call Dr. Grogan’s office and cancel your appointment for your foot and see when we can get back in.”

  So I call the doctor’s office as we’re walking and rebook the appointment. We jump in the car and pull out of the parking lot, but everything’s jammed at the front entrance because so many cars are trying to get in for registration.

  “Dad, I just can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Honey, if I had known that permit was required, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”

  “I know, Dad. You do take very good care of me.”

  “I’ve always tried to take good care of you, Maddy. Always.”

  And I’ll be damned if she didn’t pull those registration cards out of her backpack right then and there and fill in my address.

  IT’S MILLER TIME

  “DAD, CAN YOU film me surfing?”

  “Jonah, I really don’t have time for that right now.”

  Jonah’s learning to surf and he’s been going pretty regularly with some of his friends from school. He likes it when I bring the video camera to get clips of him riding the little waves.

  “Please, Dad. The surf should be really good. We’ll just go out to Bay Street.”

  “I have a lot of stuff to do and I really can’t be watching you for half an hour.”

  “Just for ten minutes, Dad. Come on.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s never just for ten minutes, but I’ll film you for fifteen.”

  It’s a little windy and the surf’s not that great but it’s such a clear blue day and there aren’t many people around. It’s like my own private white sandy beach in the cool high noon of spring. I notice another guy standing farther up the beach. It’s Dave Sanders, and he’s also watching his son surf. Our boys go to the same s
chool, and when they finally see each other out in the water, they hang out together waiting for waves. I walk over to Dave. He’s been managing a restaurant on the Westside for years. I ask the usual small-talk questions: about business, how much longer he thinks he’ll stay in the game, if any problem celebs ever come in and make a scene and have to be thrown out.

  He starts telling me about Jason McCallum, the adopted son of Jill Ireland and stepson of Charles Bronson. He says that in the eighties, Jason would come in at ten in the morning and order lobster and two bottles of Dom Perignon for breakfast. Jill wrote a book called Life Lines about her attempts to help Jason battle his drug and alcohol problems, but Jason OD’d in 1989. I still think of him from time to time because although I was never heavily into narcotics, I often felt the pull. And I used to know Jason when he was a kid.

  Charles Bronson died in 2003. He was eighty-one. Charlie happened to be in Spain shooting a film the same time Dad was there shooting Catlow, the western with Yul Brynner. At the time, I didn’t know that much about Charlie. He was a big star in Europe but not well known in the United States. His breakout role in Death Wish was still three years away. But in 1971, he was in Spain making a western, The Red Sun, with Toshiro Mifune and Ursula Andress. Thanks to James Bond and Playboy, Ursula was someone I did know something about.

  Both our families were staying at Hotel Aguadulce. Charlie was there with his wife, Jill, and Valentine and Jason, two of the three boys from her former marriage to David McCallum (a.k.a. Illya Kuryakin, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.). Jill was pregnant at the time with their first child together. She was English with long blond hair. She was beautiful.

  Most fans remember Jill for her role as Leila Kalomi in “This Side of Paradise,” the Star Trek episode in which Spock is struck by spores that cause him to release his emotions and fall in love with Leila. When we ran into the Bronsons for the first time at the hotel, Dad later told me that Charlie had visited the set one day while Dad and Jill were working on a love scene together, and Charlie was clearly not too happy. One of the crew knew Charlie from some film they had worked on together. “Hey, Charlie,” the man said. “Are you going to be on this show?” Charlie’s face went sour. “Are you kidding?” he said and walked off.

  I hung out with Val and Jason regularly even though they were much younger. Although we were on the Costa del Sol, Hotel Aguadulce was basically in the middle of nowhere and there was not much to do. One afternoon, after we’d spent most of the day by the pool, Jill and the boys were packing up to go back to their suite when Jill asked if I’d like to come with them. Gulp. I asked my mom if it was okay.

  They had a really beautiful suite of rooms. I noticed a guitar in the corner. Jill told me it was Val’s and that Jason used to have one until he put his foot through it during a tantrum. She said this as she looked at Jason with what can only be described as loving disapproval. I told her I had a guitar of my own back in L.A., and she asked me if I wanted to play something. Gulp, gulp. It was afternoon and I remember the Spanish light glowing through the balcony windows. I also distinctly remember trying to stay calm as I reached for that guitar. Jill said she was taking lessons herself but that she didn’t like bar chords because they were too hard for her to play. I tried to think of a song that didn’t have too many bar chords. And then I sat on her bed and played a pretty damn good version of Neil Young’s “Tell Me Why.” I was nervous as hell, but as I played, I was relieved to hear that song come out of me with absolute perfection. And there was only one bar chord. I played that song for Jill. Jill Ireland. I sat on her bed and played her my song. Neil’s song.

  And she loved it.

  * * *

  The following week, Jill invited our family to join hers for dinner in the hotel dining hall. During the meal, Dad asked Charlie and Jill if they would lend us the tutor they had brought along for their children so that he could work with my sister, Julie, and me. We were in Spain during the school year and Julie and I had homework and we weren’t doing it. All eyes turned to Charlie for his reply and he did not look happy. In fact, he scared the shit out of me.

  “We paid for him to fly out with us and we pay him a salary and expenses.” Charlie was terse, but the street kid from Boston wasn’t giving in.

  “I realize that,” Dad replied. “That’s why I’m willing to reimburse you for part of it.”

  Charlie sat motionless like they were in some poker game and Dad had just upped the ante. The Italians didn’t call him “Il Bruto” for nothing, because Charles Bronson was one mean-looking motherfucker, with beady eyes and stony features. In fact, I always thought he was a tougher-looking version of Dad. The dining hall was dark, which really set the mood for the showdown.

  The room was crowded and noisy but no one said anything at our table as Charlie pondered Dad’s offer, looking like his hand-grenade persona might explode at any minute. And then Jill stepped in:

  “Please, Charlie, Steve has plenty of free time and the boys don’t need him all day.”

  That’s when I fell apart. That’s when I turned to mush. That’s when I completely fell for Jill Ireland, this gorgeous Englishwoman who was once married to Illya Kuryakin.

  Charlie just sat there in some sort of funk like Jill had just told him no sex until he agreed.

  “Let me think about it.”

  Those were his last words on the subject as I dug into my flan and stole a look at Jill. She had this self-satisfied smile like she was going to keep at him until he gave in.

  In the end, Julie and I worked every weekday with Steve, the Bronsons’ funny tutor from UCLA who could play “Light My Fire” on his mouth accordion.

  Jill died in 1990 after a long battle with breast cancer. She was fifty-four.

  JUST TELL ME IT’S NOT OVER

  JONAH REGULARLY MAKES me take him to the pound after school to check out who’s there: to see who’s new, who’s been there a while, and who’s missing, either because they’ve been adopted or “alleviated.”

  We pass by one of the cages and there’s a new kid on the block, a dachshund-Chihuahua mix: small, short-haired, brown, shorter body than a dachshund but higher off the ground, big floppy ears, tail wagging, little snout. He’s smiling at us. The ears don’t quite stand up like a Chihuahua’s, but flap around like he might fly off at any moment. The eyes smile along with the mouth and the tail never stops. Mr. Personality. We can tell right away he’s a winner and will likely survive the pound experience.

  The adoption date says he’s available on Monday. I have resisted every dog up to this point, but Jonah is so desperate, he’s even been online looking at pugs and Boston terriers because that’s what he thinks he wants. I keep putting him off because he’s got enough animals, with Zero the black cat, Serafina the calico, and Buddy the golden retriever, who will bark at his own shadow for hours. But Jonah wants to complete the set, because he says three doesn’t make sense: If it was okay to have two cats, why not two dogs? And I know he’s doing it in part to help fill the void I left behind and I can’t really blame him. So I figure what the hell, I don’t live there anymore anyway, he can have as many animals as he wants. And that little dog sitting on death row is pretty darn cute—but Jonah will have to deal with his mother on this because even though Nancy and I have been working very hard to get along for the benefit of the kids, there is no way I’m going to try to convince her to take on a new animal.

  At first, Nancy vehemently resists the idea, but Jonah grinds her down until she finally agrees to drive to the pound to take a look. And on Monday morning at 7 AM, Nancy is there. She’d be the first to admit to having trouble being anywhere at that hour. But for Jonah, and that little, smiling dog, she is there.

  They named him Otto because of the dachshund in him. It was a toss-up between that and Tito, for the Mexican side, but the Germans won out.

  * * *

  I’m now on my way to The Apple Pan to meet a friend for a burger. The Pan is one of the few things left in West L.A. that’s older than me
.

  Just as I arrive, I get a call from Maddy. She’s been on edge lately because she’s struggling in science and this week, she has to swim in PE at 7:30 AM and it’s freezing and she doesn’t have time to shower and get the chlorine off and put her lotion on.

  This morning she had a little breakdown when I came to pick her up but I managed to get her to school on time. And I made a good lunch for her. She told me she loves my lunches because I put different things in them. And she seemed okay when I dropped her off, but Nancy had to pick her up early because she wasn’t feeling well.

  Now it’s 1 PM and she’s calling me on my cell, crying hysterically, and through the tears I can just about make out what she’s saying: that Nancy said we were starting to see other people and why can’t you come home, Dad, and it’s been almost a year and it’s been long enough . . . and that she needs me and Jonah needs me, especially for his Bar Mitzvah, and please don’t tell me it’s over, Dad, please say it’s not over, please, Dad, please.

  I tell her how sorry I am that she’s having a hard time and that she needs to calm herself down and this is why we need to go to therapy to talk about all this. I tell her I’m at lunch and that I’ll call her afterward, and she starts to calm down and says okay and we hang up.

  When I pick Jonah up from school, she calls him on his cell. While he’s sitting in the car, I can hear her voice. She still has a sweet little voice, just like when she was a little girl, only now Maddy’s fourteen and a half. She’s saying things to her little brother that I can hear through the phone.

  “And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “We got Otto a collar with dog bones on it and we got him a name tag and a bed and guess what else?”

  “What?”

  “We signed him up for dog training and you’re going to take him to Rancho Park on Saturday.”

  And when we get to the house, Maddy’s so much better. But when I sit down next to her and put my arms around her, she whispers to me, “Please tell me it’s not over. Please tell me.”