I'm the One That I Want

by Margaret Cho

  I didn’t know what to do really. I thought I could just go on as if nothing happened, but it kept bothering me. Roman made me so mad. His interest in my project was all a ruse, just so he could get me into his fat little hands. But wasn’t I encouraging it just a little? Did I have so little confidence in my writing that I thought I had to add sex to sell it?

  I kept thinking about his mouth on my breast, his kickstand. I got angrier and angrier. I was going to make him pay. I turned in the next draft of the screenplay, but now with an added scene in the beginning where the lead character goes on a blind date with a short, fat monster of a man and is sexually assaulted by him. She gets away, but not until he grabs her breast and says, “I want to be your baby.”

  I wish I could have seen Roman’s face when he read it. He was fucking pissed, but he didn’t know exactly how to handle it. Lane knew nothing about us, or of his intentions to have sex with me. Roman was married with kids and didn’t need anybody knowing anything.

  He called an emergency meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel with me and Lane and Greer’s assistant Ched (Greer had long since abandoned me to Ched). Roman’s fat little hands gesticulated wildly in the air as he went off on some lie about how he had showed the script to a “French distributor” who hated it. The “French distributor” especially hated the newly added pages about the blind date, and the unrealistic and unfair portrayal of a short man. The “French distributor” also pointed out that it was clear from the script that I hated men, and that if I were to continue in this business, I would need to rectify that.

  Lane was mad because she didn’t understand. Everything seemed to be going so well and now Roman was suddenly going ballistic about some fictional “French distributor.” She had suspected there might be something going on between us, but she wasn’t about to say anything to him or me about it. She just wanted to make the film. She wasn’t too concerned with the drama that wasn’t on the page. Roman was yelling at her, “If you knew how to do your job, this script would be ready now!!!!”

  Lane got defensive and said, “I’ve been working with Margaret all this time, and she hasn’t listened to me at all! Why are you blaming me?”

  Roman laid it on the line that we were going to have to do another draft—“and it had better be fucking astounding, because we need it like fucking yesterday!”

  We went back and forth, and I kept asking Roman, “Who is this ‘French distributor’ anyway? What is a ‘French distributor’? Does he hand out fries or something?” Then Roman would explode again. The meeting seemed to last hours, and Ched did not say one word the entire time.

  Suddenly Roman made everybody leave, except me. When the table had cleared, he turned to me and said, “How about it?”

  I said, “What?”

  Roman looked at me hard and said, “Let’s get a room.”

  I said no so loud, people from other tables looked at us. I walked out of the hotel. Roman followed me. He was suddenly trying to be nice.

  He said, “Look, don’t worry about it. If the rewrites are satisfactory, I’ll make your film.”

  I looked at him. I didn’t know what to do. Roman took the valet ticket out of my hand. He paid the driver. I got in my car and went home feeling sick.

  Lane Called me that night and said, “What was that?”

  I broke down and told her everything. She sighed and said, “Oh, so that’s why. I can’t believe he did that. I can’t believe you did that. I mean, that whole thing between you guys happening, and then turning it in as a rewrite. It’s kind of funny, but you really pissed him off. I knew he was lying about the ‘French distributor.’ He’s not a very good liar. It’s okay. I am sure we can work around it.”

  We tried to get it to work. I wrote that movie over a hundred times until it was completely unrecognizable to me. I took out the offending scene and added story points that felt stupid and inauthentic. I still wanted to make my film. I still needed the money to make it. I had to show Roman I was sorry somehow. I had to write my ass off in lieu of giving it to him to fuck.

  The notes Roman had made were incredibly obscure and conflicting, so the rewrite became a confusing and complicated mess. I know he just wanted me to fuck it up so that when he did get around to finally saying no, he would have real reasons for it.

  On Monday, Lane went into Roman’s office and told him to leave me alone. She said that I had told her what had happened and that if he didn’t stop hassling me, she would tell everyone in the office.

  He fired her. At least that was what she said. I don’t know whether to believe her now, because when I talked to her months after this whole thing, she was still working for him. I don’t know what the point was of telling me that he had fired her, except to emotionally blackmail me further, to convince me that chaos followed me wherever I went.

  Whatever the real story, I was told Lane was being fired because we couldn’t deliver the movie he wanted. He wasn’t ever going to make it anyway—he was just playing for time to see if I was going to fuck him or not.

  When Lane told me the deal was off—curiously, even though she had been fired, she still made calls for him—I told her that I had expected it.

  I went straight to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Absolut Citron. I drank the entire thing, standing in front of the open freezer door. I didn’t want to feel anything. I was afraid of what I would feel, that the pain would be so great, I would die from it. It was like when you bang your foot against the door, and you have a grace period of a few seconds, knowing the pain is coming and anticipating how bad it is going to be. I tried to get as fucked up as I could in that interim.

  I felt like a failure. I couldn’t even fuck my way to the top! Maybe it was that I felt worthless and betrayed and that I wrote my heart out and now I had no heart. I had done it all for Glenn, and now where was he? I guess I hadn’t done it for Glenn at all, because when I started really working on the script with Lane and Roman, I forgot all about him.

  I’ll never really know what I felt then because I wasn’t about to allow myself to feel anything but the sledgehammer of vodka and the slow death that it brings.

  Roman still wanted to act like we were friends. I think he was afraid I would talk about it onstage. He left messages on my machine, trying to find out where I’d be performing. I did get around to telling the story onstage, after I had recovered somewhat. The audience was horrified and excited; they could tell I wasn’t making this up. They cheered wildly for my minor victories against Roman, and mourned the loss of the deal along with me. I am sure someone told him about it, because a little while later he called to find out about the movie and if I was making it. He said that he was still in love with it and wanted to see if he could get involved in it again and why don’t I give him a call when I have a chance.

  I didn’t talk to him for years after that. The next time I saw him, it was after this entire horrid epoch of my life. Roman came to the Westbeth Theatre Center one night when I was performing in my show, I’m the One That I Want, in which I talk about my experience with him so candidly.

  It was Friday night and so very hot as Fridays were that entire summer of ’99 in New York. It was close to the end of the run, and the place was packed. It was one of those great crowds, I burned up the stage like it was my birthright. I looked down at one point, and I saw him. I stopped dead in my tracks. Roman was sitting right there in the front row. The air was hot and humid, but I was chilled to the bone. I didn’t know what to do. I was performing on so many levels, holding the audience of 250 in the palm of my hand, and still trying to stay calm even though one of them was the one I talk about as being “unfuckable.”

  I tried not to look down at him, but I could feel his rage rise up at me like a noxious smell. It is unbelievable, but I just carried on. Nobody could tell that there was anything different about my performance. I just avoided that part of the stage, as if I could avoid him and his anger and what he did to me. I was not going to give him the satisfaction. I w
as not gonna let him see me falter or fail. I would win, as I deserved to.

  He moved finally. I think he went to the back of the theater. At least I couldn’t see him and I could pretend to myself that he had left. I felt a little more comfortable. I thought I had made a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t him after all. Maybe he still had no idea I was talking about him onstage. Maybe everything would be okay . . . I’m sure I was just paranoid. It is funny how the mind plays tricks on you and you can’t figure out what is and what isn’t.

  Deep down, I knew it was him. Underneath it all, I felt like the entire time I was up there I was going to be shot. That Roman would just stand himself up on that kickstand and start firing away. For some reason, I pictured him with a musket.

  I braced myself for the hot burning lead, all the while still captivating this audience of screaming fans. I cannot believe that I pulled it off. The show ended, and it was okay. Nothing happened. He didn’t hang around after the performance, he didn’t stand by the stage door, he didn’t try to kill me. After all, it was okay.

  Just to be sure, I hid upstairs in my dressing room long after everyone had left. I saw Roman’s expression when I was up there. It was just murderous. There was blood in his eyes. He must have been mad, because when things happen to women, we are supposed to remain silent. Our shame should make us want to act like nothing happened, maintain the decorum. I refuse to be silent, therefore I become some sort of criminal.

  I think if we all told our stories and said out loud what has happened to us, to warn other women, to comfort those who have had the same things happen to them, to show that we are not alone, the world would suddenly become a bigger and better place.

  People ask me sometimes if I ever go too far, if I ever reveal too much of myself and later regret it. I don’t think it is possible to get too personal. We all have pain. We all have doubt and sadness and horrible things that have happened that shouldn’t have, and when we cover them up and try to pretend that everything is okay, then our stories are forgotten, and our truths become lies.

  I tell the truth because I am not afraid to. I tell the ugliness to show you the beauty. But there is so much ugliness still left.

  16

  THE DRINKING CURE

  I was very disappointed by the entire screenplay episode. I was very disappointed by life. It seemed like my existence was hopeless, and that everything and everyone was against me. I thought the only solution was to drink myself to death.

  It was interesting when I actually decided on suicide. It seemed very practical to me. I wasn’t sad about it. It wasn’t a big, tragic melodramatic thing. I just felt relieved. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I was at peace.

  I knew that I didn’t have the courage to jump off a building or blow my head off, but I always held those as options in the back of my mind, in case things got completely intolerable. I was content to drink as much as I could until I just stopped breathing. That seemed sensible enough.

  Of course, this decision to drink myself to death had been a long time coming, but now the alcohol also helped me to stand being myself for another day. I hated myself and everything I had done, and I wanted to get out, get away from me. Being drunk gave me the ability to romanticize my fall somewhat, feel beautifully doomed like Marilyn Monroe, swallowing handfuls of pharmaceuticals and red wine. I felt it would all be good for the biography someone would write in the future. That’s funny, but it’s true!

  I still had to try to make money, so I took comedy gigs when they came along, but I was usually so drunk onstage I would have to hold the mike stand to keep the room from spinning around me. I was slowly turning into The Rose.

  Once, at the Irvine Improv, I was headlining the show, but I had so little confidence in my ability that I brought three other acts with me—not including the other two guys already booked. I went on last and barely eked out a pathetic set while the patrons left in droves.

  Too fucked up to drive back to L.A., the three comics and I got a room at the local hotel. For some unfathomable reason, I sent two of the comics to the store for more booze so I could fuck the other one while they were gone.

  I don’t know why I did this. I didn’t even like him. He was a nice enough guy, but I wasn’t attracted to him. He got on top of me and moved his fingers around inside me and kept saying, “Where’s your spot? Where’s your spot?” and I couldn’t even feel it. It was confusing. “Spot! I usually park on the street.” Or “Spot? I don’t have a dog.”

  Fortunately, the other guys came back pretty fast as there were no stores open, and we all fell asleep fully clothed on the bed. Later, that guy kept calling me and calling me, to see if I was okay, to tell me what CDs he had in his stereo, to see if he could find my spot again. I couldn’t talk to him, it was too embarrassing.

  If I was promiscuous, it wasn’t out of a love of sex. I tended to despise sex, ever since that first awful time. I was just using it as an escape, a way to get power and alleviate boredom, and also, interestingly enough, a way to avoid real intimacy.

  Waking up with a hangover was a regular, normal thing, but the morning after the “where’s your spot” incident, it was truly evil. I think that I did drugs and alcohol with such a vengeance so I could avoid mornings like those, hoping against hope that I could bypass the hangover and just not wake up. It was all part of the suicide solution.

  That morning, my headache woke me before the morning light. I drove back to L.A. midday, feeling every few seconds like I was about to throw up. Getting home, I tried to ease the pain by watching In the Name of the Father while hanging upside down on my couch, but even the Irish struggle could not compare with the war raging inside my head. The hangover lasted well into the night, the second evening of the horrible Irvine gig, and carried over to the next drunk. And on and on.

  In a way, I liked being hungover, because it was the only time I was kind to myself. It was the one time I would allow myself to eat fattening, rich foods without beating myself up about it. I needed the calories to get back on my feet again. I treated myself to big bagels stuffed with cheese and avocado, alongside massive bowls of matzo ball soup. The starch blocked the pain in my stomach and my head, and eating took away the horrible brown taste in my mouth.

  After eating, I would get movies and sit at home all day watching them, imagining that I was doing something for myself, like I was attending my own film school.

  Sometimes, I just had to drink in the morning to keep from being sick. At first, I tried to be genteel about it, feeling like David Niven and serving myself tall Bloody Marys, but after a while, shots from last night’s bottle seemed good enough. I’d start to average two or three hangovers a day, drinking to get over the first one, getting drunk, falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the day with another one, drinking it away and getting a headache again.

  Then the sun would set and the true drinking would commence, until I passed out for the night and the whole thing would begin again the next day.

  I still took massive doses of diet pills, which would somehow balance out the alcohol, along with packets of Mini Thins, which were over-the-counter “pep” pills that you could purchase at 7-Eleven.

  On top of those pills were sheets of blue diazepam, a kind of Valium that was obtainable in Mexico. I also had my precious prescription for Xanax, worth its weight in gold.

  Wine made me fat and sicker the next day, so I just switched to vodka, frozen until it was syrupy, taken in shot glasses that were actually big enough to be highballs. I drank them freezing cold and fast, and it felt like an icicle right through the head.

  I also loved tequila, Patrón being my favorite, which left a tingly purple aftertaste at the back of the throat, and a warm glow throughout my body. The bottles frustrated me because they were deceptively small, their stinginess due to a deep cavern at the base. They were expensive and I bought two at a time, getting used to the Silver, somewhat cheaper vintage, as opposed to the top-of-the-line Gold label.

  Drinking
in bars was an everyday occurrence, with Siobhan, at the bar at the Dresden at 6 P.M., before all the swingers came with their cocktail irony, and it was still a divey, tacky place. She and I would sit there and knock back double whiskeys and watch the news. Then we’d stumble over to Pedro’s across the street and drink more and more and some nights easily put away twenty drinks each. She started having seizures at night, probably because of the massive amounts of alcohol, and had to stop drinking. I lost my drinking buddy, but not my enthusiasm, and so I kept it up for both of us, still hanging out with her in bars and watching her drink her 7-Up and telling her I missed her as a drunk.

  I was in bars every evening, but my favorite drink was the one right at the end of the night, the one to put you to bed, the one to grow on. It was the reflective drink, the one that would cleanse all of the sins of the day. It was, in its own way, a meditation, a silent reverie for the day’s end. I would knock back my eight-ounce shot and climb up into my antique Chinese bed and, as always, hope I died before I woke.

  I am convinced I did die once. I did so many drugs one night, on top of an already-raging whiskey drunk, I floated off into a deep, drowsy place. My spirit was as heavy as hot, wet sand. I came to a dark place, filled with long shadows and narrow corridors. The walls were made of that kind of Victorian portraiture where the subject would sit next to a burning candle and the artist would trace the outline of his shadow on the wall, making a pattern and cutting it out of black construction paper.

  When people die and come back to life, they see long-lost relatives telling them it isn’t their time yet, they see their lives flash before their eyes, they are enveloped in an unearthly peace, they see the behind of the universe, the backdrop of the stars, and sometimes, they see God. I see arts and crafts.

  I saw my body beneath me and I couldn’t get back. I tried to move my body from where I was, but I couldn’t. I stayed up there on the ceiling, trapped by the shadows, terrified, trying to get my mouth to say, “Call an ambulance.” I couldn’t get down for the longest time, and then after a while, the fear subsided. I knew I was going to die. It was okay. I didn’t fight it.