I tried to correct him. “Actually, I have to get to the library. ...”
Sarah cut me off. “Oh, that’s great. We have a special guest tonight. You’re going to love it.”
“Oh, I can’t come. I have a paper on the fall of Rome and it has to be no less than forty pages single spaced, and I haven’t started it yet and it’s due tomorrow.”
Then Jeff said, “Isn’t it great that Heather is going to join us tonight?”
I said again, “I wish I could, but I’m really behind. I have another paper on War and Peace, and it’s ninety percent of our grade and I haven’t even checked out the book yet, so I need to go to the library and start reading.”
Then Sarah said, “Tonight we are going to be studying some passages from the Book of John.”
Was everyone deaf? Was I in the Twilight Zone? Why was no one hearing me say, “No!” The Christians must teach some incredible sales techniques. No wonder so many of them are successful in business.
I tried again. “I can’t come tonight.”
Then Jeff said, “We are so excited to have you join us tonight.”
Now I was getting annoyed. Finally, I just said, “I’m Catholic. We don’t study the Bible. Sorry.” I practically started running with my heavy backpack bouncing up and down my back. As cute as that Sigma Alpha Epsilon was, I avoided him for the rest of the blessed Christian semester.
Growing up, we lived within a mile of a Jehovah Witness Kingdom Hall. They would always knock on our door and my parents taught us to say, “No, thank you. We’re Catholic.” Sometimes they would say, “OK,” but oftentimes they would say, “Well, please take our literature. It’s about building a stronger family.” I always felt so bad for them; still do. Walking door-to-door in the heat, does anyone really just join a church because someone knocks on their door and asks them to? I guess some must; otherwise, they would stop doing it.
Over the years, I was continuously approached and invited to other Christian churches. Catholics never recruit anyone because they don’t have to. Catholics don’t get excited when you show up, but they do get annoyed when you duck out early. They’ve trained generations to come on Sunday and bring a check, and that is why I’m a practicing Catholic today. I know the deal. It never changes and I like it like that. But when Ben handed me Conversations with God, I told him and myself that I was very open to other means of spirituality. I’d taken a few yoga classes and said “Namaste,” which did make me feel like I was breaking the Third Commandment—“Thou shall not worship other gods”—until a friend explained to me what it actually meant.
I’m not the closed-minded Catholic I once was. Sometimes I even toyed with the idea of checking out Scientology. The lead in the hit sitcom Dharma and Greg, Jenna Elfman, is a Scientologist. That must have had something to do with her getting the part. How else could you explain a show about a hippie girl marrying a conservative guy lasting for five seasons? Maybe there was something that Scientologists could unlock in me so that I could actually book a role. It later occurred to me that lots of famous successful actors were Catholics, Jews, and Protestants—many more than Scientologists—so it was best to stick with what I knew and not rock the God boat.
I liked that Ben was in AA, too. When I first started stand-up, I considered going to an AA meeting, not because I was an alcoholic, but just because I felt I could really use the free stage time. I had also heard about a certain AA meeting on Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills that a lot of industry people went to. I fantasized about attending and possibly getting a recovering yet more powerful theatrical agent. Ben loved this meeting and often went to it. That is where, according to Ben, he met the female Miramax executive who wanted to make his life story into a major motion picture.
My first manager was in AA. His name was Eric. He saw me at the Comedy Store and told me to call him the next day, so I did. He told me to come by his office, which I did later that day. As I drove up, I thought his office looked more like an apartment building than an office building housing the goings-on of the entertainment industry. Well, it turned out it was his apartment. I knew this wasn’t a good sign, but I was so excited to have someone—anyone, actually—want to represent me that I convinced myself that this way he could concentrate on my comedy career twenty-four hours a day. Just like Ben, Eric smoked cigarettes, drank a lot of Starbucks, and thought I was beyond wonderful. Unlike Ben, he was not attractive. He was bald even though he was only twenty-seven, had never visited an orthodontist, and was about thirty pounds overweight. One day, I couldn’t get a hold of Eric, and when he called me back, he told me his phone was disconnected and he needed $180 to get it turned back on. Of course, I gave it to him. How else are all these casting directors and network executives going to get a hold of me?
Eric soon started calling me “baby girl” and wanted to see movies with me. I joined him, thinking we could talk about getting me some showcases at other comedy clubs during the previews. It didn’t occur to me that Eric was interested in me sexually, because he was so much less attractive than me. But some guys, no matter what looks back at them in the mirror, think that as long as you take the time to talk to them, you also want to fuck them. So sure enough, with my $180 still withstanding, Eric leaned in to kiss me. As I pushed him away, I thought, Oh shit. Now I have to find a new manager, and does this mean I still have my spot at Igby’s comedy club? I already invited a bunch of people from high school. I told him as politely as I could that I was only interested in him as a manager and he said he understood. He stopped returning my calls and was soon evicted from his apartment/entertainment management offices. Needless to say, I’m still waiting to be repaid the $180.
Ben and I started hanging out in the afternoons. He’d call me in the morning and we’d make plans to meet at Jamba Juice, which he always paid for. If we walked into any shop, he offered to buy me something, whether it was shampoo or clothing. If we were in a Barnes & Noble, he’d buy me more spiritual self-help books. The books were the only things I accepted. I didn’t want to feel like I owed him anything. Because I was unemployed and he was doing whatever he claimed to be doing, we both had a lot of free time and were spending it together. He liked to do everything I liked to do: eating at fine restaurants, talking about me, watching my one-woman show on VHS over and over again, and making out. Since we’d only been seeing each other a week or two, he wasn’t putting any pressure on me for sex, but I was really falling for him.
He was thirty-eight years old and had an incredible body. He told me all those years of doing heroin helped preserve his body. He also said how much he loved kids, and, of course, I’ve always loved kids and wanted to be a mother. We made plans for him to meet my sister Kathi and her two little girls for lunch on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. I told my sister all about Ben and how fun, gorgeous, and cool he was. I did, however, leave out the rap sheet, and alcohol and heroin addictions. As we waited for Ben at the restaurant, I started to worry. It’s not like him not to show up (not like him—I’d only known him ten days!), then he called my cell.
“What happened? Where are you?” I asked concerned.
“I’m really embarrassed. I don’t have any cash on me for lunch.” I thought that was strange, but before I could inquire anymore, he told some story about accidentally leaving his wallet with his AA sponsor the night before and the sponsor couldn’t return it until later that day.
All I cared about was seeing Ben and for my sister to meet this sexy, hot, rich babe who was so into me. And at least he was going to his meetings, right?
“That’s fine. I got it. Just come.”
Ben came, and he and my sister hit it off. Walking back from the restaurant to his place, he put one of my nieces on his shoulders and could not be more charming as he invited my sister and her kids into his gorgeous three-bedroom apartment. My sister approved, of course.
A day or two later, he called me and said he went down to get his car and it was gone. I was shocked, because he lived in a beautiful co
mplex overlooking the ocean with secured parking. How could his car have been stolen?
He said, “I need to rent a car in the meantime, but with my legal problems, my credit is shot.”
I said, “But all you need is a valid credit card to get a rental car.
He responded, “I don’t have a credit card. That’s why I pay cash for everything.”
Then knowing in my heart it was a mistake, I said, “Well, I could rent a car for you.”
“Really? Are you sure? You are so amazing.”
We went down together and rented Ben a Camry for a week. He paid me the sixty dollars a day in cash, so I felt fine about it.
I began to wonder if I could be that woman who visits her man “on the inside” on Sunday afternoons. Maybe I could. Ben would be so thrilled to see me. I would by far be the most attractive girl on visiting day. We’d both pick up the phone and touch each other’s hands through the thick plate glass; I’d press my breast up against the glass like in the movie Midnight Run. Or maybe we’d meet at picnic tables and hold hands, since he did say it was white-collar crime, so it wouldn’t be a maximum-security prison. I was beginning to think there was something kind of sexy about it. I totally understand how women fall in love with men behind bars. Think about it. The prisoners have all the time in the world to write long love letters to their women. This was something that Ben had already proven expert at. Unlike other men, they are not busy at work or traveling on weekends. They are never distracted while on the phone with their girlfriend because they are watching the fourth quarter of the basketball game. Instead, they are savoring every second, hanging on her every word as other inmates wait in line to call their baby mamas.
I had dated this cute actor guy, Reefer, whose live-in girlfriend left him for a Menendez brother. He had moved from Chicago to LA with his girlfriend, Anna, who didn’t work, and every day when he came home from a long day of auditions, she’d be glued to the Menendez brothers’ trial on Court TV. The brothers were on trial for brutally murdering their parents. Their defense was that their parents had abused them, while the prosecution argued that they murdered their parents for the money. The fact that they were living the life of luxury shortly after the murders helped prove it. One thing everyone agreed on was the brothers were hot. They were half Mexican and played tennis—it’s a pretty sexy combination. One day when Reefer was home, he answered the phone and the computerized voice on the other end said, “Will you accept a call from the LA County Jail from Lyle Menendez?” Of course, he was shocked, especially when Anna came clean and said that she had contacted Lyle after watching him on trial every day wearing his collegiate sweater and tie. And, even better, they had fallen in love. She moved out, even after Reefer booked a sitcom. But in Anna’s defense, Lyle Menendez’s trial on Court TV did last significantly longer than Reefer’s sitcom.
Anna ended up marrying Lyle. Their marriage was never consummated because his life sentence did not allow for conjugal visits. Years later, I watched a TV special on women who marry convicted murderers and Anna was featured. She said she came to visit Lyle one Sunday like she always had and saw him talking to another woman. She found out that he had been writing and talking to this woman on the phone. He had been cheating on Anna! She went on to say how disappointed all their friends were to hear that they were divorcing. I was thinking, Who are their friends? All of the couples who attended their wedding at the prison and shared a bite of the Twinkie from the vending machine? Did she host dinner parties with other couples and just put the phone on speaker with Lyle on the other end as they talked about the pot roast she made? What an asshole Lyle was to Anna. She left a cute working actor for him and this is how he repaid her?
But what women desire most from men is attention. And when men are in prison, they have plenty of time to give a woman attention. Only one hour a day outside of a cell left Lyle twenty-three hours to write love letters—apparently enough time to write to more than one woman. Of course, they are going to think you are beautiful. Who else are they comparing you to on a daily basis—the 250-pound female guard whose body is stuffed into the brown polyester uniform? But the women feel that they are the only thing their man has to live for, so they gain strength from that. Also on this same TV program, a woman said, “At least I gots me a man. Sure, he incarcerated, but at least that way he can’t beat on me or have sex with other people. Well, at least not other women, that is.”
Ah, how awful, I thought. But again, Ben is different, and we still didn’t even know if he was going to actually have to go to jail, so in the meantime, I decided to just enjoy all the attention he was giving me.
After having the rental car for a few days, Ben asked me on the phone, “Did you read Conversations with God?“
“Yes, I did,” I answered.
“And what did you think?” he asked.
“I thought it was interesting,” I answered matter-of-factly
“Interesting? You found it interesting?”
He was being very sarcastic. I didn’t really know what to say. I wish I had said, “Yes, it’s interesting that an author can create and write possible dialogue between himself and God, and people are buying it and preaching it like it was the Bible.” But instead I just said, “Well, I haven’t finished it, so let me do that.”
On another day, I said I had to leave for a commercial audition and he said, “God, are you ever going to book one of those things?” That is something that you never say to an actor. He’d only known me for a couple of weeks. Imagine if he’d known me for the previous three years and actually seen how many auditions I went on and never even got a callback.
Ben was becoming less and less enamored with me and becoming more and more of a jerk. We were supposed to go to dinner after I went to the gym. As I finished getting all cute in the locker room, he called me to tell me that he couldn’t go because—get this—he got in a car accident.
“In the rental car?” I screeched.
“Yes, in the rental car. What else do you think I was driving? Is that all you care about? Jesus, it’s all about you, isn’t it?” he barked.
“No, it’s just I don’t know what kind of insurance I have on it and what the deductible will be,” I said.
“Well, don’t worry. I will pay you every cent. I gave you the five hundred dollars, didn’t I? Look, I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.” And he hung up.
The car still drove, but it had body damage. And, yes, he did give me five hundred dollars, but now he’d had the car for almost three weeks. So he owed me approximately another nine hundred dollars, and now this accident. I hadn’t even seen him in the past four days. I started to feel panicked. Things had definitely changed. I knew now that his car was never stolen but rather repossessed. He wasn’t pursuing me like before, and all I could think about was my credit card with that rental car on it that I didn’t have possession of. I just wanted to get the car back so that I could return it and get back to what I and every other unemployed person plans to do when they’re out of work: exercise, clean out drawers, reorganize closets, volunteer, and put photos into albums.
I attempted to get together with Ben on a couple more occasions, but he kept canceling or making excuses like, “I can’t. I have to go to an AA meeting.” Well, far be it for me to stand in the way of a former alcoholic and his sobriety, but I wanted that car back! If I mentioned the car or the nine hundred dollars he owed me, which was rising in sixty-dollar increments each day, he’d get all annoyed and offended that I was even bringing it up. This really stressed me out. I was unemployed, for Christ’s sake! Long gone were the days of strolling the streets of Santa Monica slurping our Frappuccino and me overhearing him tell someone on the phone about this gorgeous, hilarious girl he’d met named Heather. And to think I even fantasized about buying a bunch of new sundresses so that I could surprise Ben in a different one each Sunday when I visited him in the prison yard.
I came to the conclusion then that is was over between Ben and me. I called him a
gain and it went to voice mail. He must be seeing my digits and avoiding me, I thought. Just then, my phone rang. Oh thank God, it’s Ben. I quickly thought to change gears. I feared the worst—that I would never get this car back. I don’t know how I would explain that to my parents, the car rental place, or the police. “Well, you see, officer, I was unemployed and bored and looking for ways to procrastinate writing a script and thought it would be fun to hang out with a thirty-eight-year-old con man.” Instead, I thought I would act casual, like I was still into him, and then once we were together, I would somehow snatch the keys, jump in the car, and escape back to the car rental place. Forget what he owed me. I just didn’t want it to keep adding up or become a bigger problem than it already was.
“Hello,” I answered, trying to sound as sweet as possible.
“Hey, Heather. It’s Eric Fink.” Oh my God—my old manager who tried to kiss me and still owed me $180. He was always easy to talk to and he was in AA, so I immediately told him about my current AA nightmare, Ben. Eric told me that AA people are the biggest manipulators there are. They’ve been through so much therapy and self-help; they only know how to use what they learned in AA to fuck over other people. I felt like saying, Oh, like how you convinced me that I was the next Roseanne, only thinner and prettier, but all the while just wanted to have sex with me and not pay me back my $180? He went on to say, “And I know I still owe you that $160, and I’m going to pay you back.”
Nice, I thought. You just trimmed twenty bucks off the grand total. But I didn’t care. It was nothing compared to what Ben now owed me. I needed his advice on how to get this car back. He convinced me to call Ben on three-way calling. Eric would dial it from his phone so that Ben wouldn’t recognize the number and would answer. Eric would just listen as I spoke.
You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again Page 14
