I Had A Blast.

She's asleep first. I am staring straight ahead, wondering what happened to cigarette smoking. We are in bed. We just had sex for the first time in 3 months. I am cold and warm at the same time. And awake. I want a cigarette. In bed. Next to my wife, while she sleeps. Because tonight it seems like we might still be in love. I want to take a drag and enjoy that.

No one smokes anymore. Cell phones have replaced cigarettes. Eventually people are going to find out that cell phones cause something worse than cancer. You know those black and white photos of mid 20th century American cities? They are from the Depression or something. The ones with everyone dressed like adults walking places with purpose. Well, everybody in those photos is skinny, well dressed and smoking. Now everyone is fat, dressed like infants and pirates, or infant pirates and everyone is chattering about nothing. No one is smoking. We should all light up. 

Who is everyone talking to? My hell is to be on the phone all the time. Everyone else seems to love talking and texting and checking emails and talking more. Makes my skin crawl.

And crawl.

I had a meeting in Beverly Hills this morning and I decided to swing by the Brazilian place in the Farmer’s Market for lunch. I’m peeing in the men's room right near where the oil wells used to be.  The 2 guys at the urinals on either side of me are both talking on their phones while they're peeing. I am thinking 'They are probably talking to each other about how they just talked to each other on cell phones in the other bathroom at the Farmer’s Market.' Then I think - somewhere between their first Ipods and their second divorces they have given up on ever actually being anywhere. These types find face to face conversation vaguely familiar but unsettling, the same way I feel about French Canadians. Or tofu.  

What could possibly be so important that these two guys couldn't get off the phone while they urinated? I almost asked the guy to my left, but knowing that people on cell phones in public hold the rest of mankind in a kind of hazy middle distance, and knowing he probably would look at me with the RCA dog head face if I started talking at him - I let it go and I thought, maybe I'll just pee on his shoe.

Does his - wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, agent, lover, mother, motherinlaw, lawyer, chiropractor, boss, neighbor, long lost sister, therapist, best friend who doesn’t know he’s sleeping with his wife, golf buddy, son’s nanny, second cousin he messed around with in high school, guru, bookie, hot yoga instructor, dominatrix, and/or emotionally stunted little brother - know he is peeing in public while recounting the fantastically interesting events of the last 35 minutes of his life?

I've got no problem with going to the john when I am on the phone with someone at home. But being in a room with a grown man talking in the overly loud cell phone voice about some personal crap I don’t want to hear about while he pees but is acting like he is not peeing to whoever is on the other end of the phone somehow makes me want to pray to Jesus or Moses or Dean fricken Martin that the world does come to a bloody end. Apocalypse now – get on with it already. I mean it. Jesus Christ.

I didn't say a word in that men's room. And I wanted to say less. In my morning meeting I had finally sold my show about telepathic midgets. But I wasn't even happy about it . I'm the 30 year old TV producer in Hollywood. I'm the one who is supposed to be on the phone all the time. Screw that. When you make TV shows about psychic midgets and haunted convenience stores it's redundant to be talking on the cell phone all day about which half dead celebrity is in rehab this week.

Looking at Maggie asleep next to me I want a cigarette so badly I begin to think I smell one burning. She seems to shrink when she is asleep. Her breathing is smooth but distant. She goes some place far away while she's sleeping. There is nothing tiny about my wife in her waking life. Only when she sleeps. Awake she conquers everything. I like that about her and she likes that I like that about her. Or she used to anyway.

I do smell cigarettes. Someone is smoking. I look up, then through the bedroom door. The tiny cherry top of a cigarette glows down the hall. A deep drag is being taken. Someone is smoking in the living room. I approach. Naked. Who the hell is smoking in our little house?

" I couldn't sleep." I hear my father say from behind a wall of smoke.

"Jesus, what are you doing? You scared me."

"I did not."

"You did."

"Sort of maybe. I did not really scare you or you would have hit me." He pauses.  "Right?" 

"What are you doing here?"

"I couldn’t sleep. Your mother snores."

"She does not."

"She does. And she mumbles in her sleep. About groceries mostly, but sometimes love." I consider this statement from my father. My mother talks in her sleep about groceries and love. A little slap of unexpected gratitude hits the back of my head.  Then he says,  "You’re naked."

"It’s my house. I am naked here a lot."

You shouldn't be naked in front of your father. It's a rule. His voice trails off, then, "It's in the bible story about Soddom Gu Mora" 

"You're drunk."

My father slurs "It's in the bible!"  Neither of us speak for a long, strange moment. Then he says, "I couldn't sleep so I took a walk. Your mother has a key to your house in the…uh…basket by the thing…corner thing… you know the box with the stories. The basket by the story box."

"Television. You are drunk."

"I’m not. I had a blast before dinner, that's all."

"Who says 'blast'? What does this mean 'I had a blast'?"

"A snort, you know." My father tries to stand briefly. Then gives up. "Shit."

"What is this world you live in? Blast? Snort?"

"I live in a better world than you."

"Give me a smoke."

"You quit."

"I want one."

My father glares at me and says with sudden focus, "I do too. I want one too, Sullivan. I want a smoke and a snort. And a good piece of ass. I want to drive down Sunset as the sun sets on a sunny summer day with the top down on my fucking convertible." This last sentence proves too much for the inebriate, and upon reaching the end of it he hits the metaphorical wall for a beat. His heavy mouth breathing fills a brief gap. Then - some whispered singing, "I wish they all could be California girls...." After 2 notes my father has no idea what the melody is. He gives up, flicks an imagined ash off his breast pocket and sniffs "I'm old. Everything is ruined." Both of us hold in the dark for another long, slightly less strange moment.

I attempt earnestness, with a kindness chaser: "Everything is not ruined, Dad. It's different."

"Shut the fuck up." He stands, staggers, rights himself then mumbles at the coffee table, "Sometimes I fart and shit comes out."

"Okay. You win. You're old. Just give me a cigarette."

He looks around my living room warily, as if something is not quite right, as if I might not really be his son and he needs to find some proof. A family photo. A cub scout merit badge. A souvenir shot glass from a trip to Tijuana. He gives up and hands me a cigarette and saying, "Your mother has cancer. It's bad. I told her to go to the doctor more often. Check ups. She only went to the vet." He pauses to clarify. "For the dogs not for her." 


I'm thrown. My first reaction is to find a robe but I don't think I should walk out of the room right then. I can't think of a thing to say.  She has cancer? Then he says, "Put on some clothes. People will think your a uh...hippie...or something. A vegetarian. Damn. I need to go home." He hits his shin on the coffee table but doesn't react. "A lot of shit just doesn't matter, Sullivan. A lot of shit. Someone should stop people when they are 20 and 30 and 40 and whenever...all the fucking time...and say...they should say to people 'This shit doesn't matter.' and 'that shit doesn't matter' and 'that shit over there doesn't matter' That's what someone should do. Okay. I'm done. Now you know. She kept putting off telling you. But now you know. I'm done." 

"What kind of cancer?" 

"The bad kind. That's what kind. Okay. Bye."  

With a quick pivot my father walks uneasily toward the closed sliding glass door. He hits it, bounces back. I open it for him. He sways into the backyard. Then with drunken purpose he makes it to the alley and vanishes.  


I stand naked in the living room. I am cold. I smoke half the cigarette. Then sit and wonder if I should call someone.