My Incredibly Wonderful, Miserable Life Read online

  I answer the phone. An automated voice comes on, the kind where it’s the voice of a robot woman and there are pauses where a real human woman gives you the specific information.

  “HELLO. THIS IS THE SUBFINDER SYSTEM. . . . The Santa Monica Malibu School District . . . HAS A JOB AVAILABLE. YOU WILL TEACH . . . kindergarten and first grade level. . . . THE JOB LOCATION IS . . . McKinley Elementary School. . . . REPORT FOR WORK AT . . . eight o’clock AM. . . . TO ACCEPT THIS JOB, PRESS 1. TO REJECT IT, PRESS 2. FOR MORE OPTIONS, PRESS 3.”

  I have to think about this for a second because this is just above the preschool level and I’m not sure I can handle it. I’ve got a law degree. I’ve directed some top network television shows. And now I’m being offered a job subbing at the kindergarten and first grade level. I really don’t want to do this.

  “TO ACCEPT THIS JOB, PRESS 1. TO REJECT IT, PRESS 2. FOR MORE OPTIONS, PRESS 3.”

  But I need the work and I know I should just bite the bullet and do it, so I go to press 1, but I press 2 by mistake.

  “YOU HAVE REJECTED THIS JOB. THANK YOU FOR USING SUBFINDER. GOOD-BYE.”

  “No, Robot Woman! I made a mistake and punched the wrong number!”

  I jump out of my sleeping bag and desperately call Sub-Finder to get the job back. After much pacing and maneuvering through the system, I finally press the right button and get the job. I flop back down onto my air mattress, which pops its cap, and I slowly sink to the floor.

  * * *

  Except for the occasional attitude mishap, I used to be a very good television director. It’s not an easy job: The days are incredibly long and you’re on your feet most of the time, struggling to shoot as much film as possible within the time allotted. You get tired and you get hungry. But when that camera is rolling and you’re standing beside it, watching great performances being captured on film, all the pain and fatigue and hunger fade away. And you start to feel like this is where you were meant to be, this is where you belong, that all the events of your life have led you right up to this very moment, the moment when that camera is rolling and the actors are on their marks and everyone is waiting for you to say, “Action!”

  But now it’s 7:45 on a Tuesday morning, and I’m on my way to McKinley Elementary School to teach kindergarten and first grade.

  I arrive at the main office fifteen minutes early and a nice Armenian woman gives me the keys to the classroom. I get to the class and the place is a mess: There are toys and books everywhere and the teacher’s desk has mounds of paperwork. I start to wonder what I’m doing here. And then I remember something my dad once told me about directing TV: that even on the lesser shows, the rubbish I didn’t want anyone to know about, something will happen—I’ll learn something or I’ll meet someone who will make the experience worthwhile. With that in mind, I read through the lesson plan I manage to find on the desk.

  The kids line up on the playground as some of the parents smile and wish me luck. The bell rings and I lead the kids into the classroom. Some are troublemakers who have no interest in listening to directions. And there’s a know-it-all girl who’s on top of everything and will someday make a fine U.S. senator. In the middle of the day, she raises her hand and informs me I’m doing “a very good job.” And there’s a boy who comes in late. His name is Seth. He has short, wild curly hair and wears cool clothes: dark blue turtleneck shirt, faded jeans, black shoe boots. His dad walks in behind him and doesn’t acknowledge me as he says good-bye to his son. The dad looks like the funky-groovy-artist type: long hair, loose-fitting jeans, weathered corduroy jacket with elbow patches. He kisses Seth good-bye. In front of all the other kids, he kisses him. And it’s the type of display of affection that some people (like me) might find a little too sentimental, and that others (like me) might find somewhat embarrassing, and that still others (like me) find essential for the proper functioning of this planet.

  Seth plays beautifully with the other kids. When it comes time for free play, he asks me to bring down a box filled with hats and he puts on a fireman’s hat and a yellow jacket and totally immerses himself in the role. Then it comes time to read individually. The kids walk over to the couch area to find books. Seth walks up to me.

  “I don’t like reading time.”

  “What don’t you like about it?”

  “I don’t get it. I can’t understand the books.”

  “Well, okay, let’s look at a book and see how you do.”

  I pick up a short book and sit next to him and he starts to read. I go one-on-one with him and let the other kids fend for themselves because if I were their regular teacher, I’d be doing this with each of the kids throughout the school year. Although Seth stumbles here and there and I have to correct him, he makes his way through the pages. It’s a well-written story about a greedy snake that catches more than enough field mice for his supper. One clever mouse outsmarts the snake, enabling all of them to escape. Seth and I get through the entire book, and when he’s finished, he seems to feel a sense of accomplishment.

  Then we go out to recess, and I watch them play on the field and the jungle gyms. Again I start to wonder what I’m doing here. When it’s over, I lead the kids back to the class like a mother hen as they follow behind. While we’re walking, Seth comes up to me and hangs on my arm as he skips along. It’s as if he’s telling me he trusts me, that I’m one of his pals. And that’s when I finally get it, that’s when it becomes clear to me that being at McKinley Elementary School on this particular Tuesday is exactly where I’m supposed to be.

  RECIPE FOR AN ADDICT

  I’M HANGING MY head out the back window of Dad’s maroon Mercedes puking my guts out as he curves through the night down Sunset Boulevard. It’s 1976 and I’m twenty and Dad’s driving and Mom’s in the front seat and Rae, my girlfriend at the time, is sitting next to me in the back. As Dad drives, I just keep puking all over the side of his beautiful 1970 280SE with the 4.5-liter engine. I’d hate to be in the car driving behind us. I’m probably splattering all over their windshield. And in between bouts, I keep thinking to myself, How the hell did I get here? How . . . the hell . . . did I get here?

  * * *

  How I got there is pretty simple really; in fact anyone can do it.

  1. Start by smoking pot all day.

  2. In the evening, go out to dinner at, say, a Japanese restaurant with your parents and your girlfriend or boyfriend.

  3. If you’re underage (like me), just ask a parental unit to order a large sake. Drink as much as possible before the waiter notices.

  4. Order shrimp tempura and chicken teriyaki and eat all of it.

  5. Go to a Hollywood party. (My party of choice is at Bernie Taupin’s house, Elton John’s collaborator. Bernie and Dad met in London. I have pictures of them where Bernie’s desperately trying to make the Vulcan salute.)

  6. Upon arrival at Hollywood party, hobnob with some of your idols. (At Bernie’s, that would be Bernie, Alice Cooper, Steven Stills, and Dennis Wilson.)

  7. Act cool by ordering a glass of scotch on the rocks. Chivas Regal, if available. Johnny Walker will do. If not, any other hard liquor will substitute just fine.

  8. Drink entire serving and allow to simmer with already ingested sake and half-digested shrimp tempura and chicken teriyaki.

  9. Let stand for half an hour to forty-five minutes while you continue hobnobbing.

  10. Feel fine. Feel numb. Feel something stirring in the pit of your stomach.

  11. Tell girlfriend you have to go to the bathroom and that perhaps she should follow.

  12. Enter bathroom and begin first round of puking your guts out.

  13. Miss toilet bowl so girlfriend has to clean up after you.

  14. Walk out through front door while girlfriend notifies your parents.

  15. Walk through the flowerbeds to get to the sidewalk because you can’t find the steps.

  16. Ignore valet guys, who now watch your every move.

  17. Pass out on the front lawn, spread-eagle.
/>
  18. Lie half-conscious until the rest of your party arrives.

  19. Allow parental unit (Dad) and girlfriend to drag you into backseat of Mercedes 280SE or any other luxury automobile. (Luxury automobile preferred for heightened dramatic effect when puked upon.)

  20. Have parental unit drive away and speed down curvy street like Sunset Boulevard.

  21. Stick head out window.

  22. Open mouth.

  23. Begin puking.

  24. Wake up next morning with dried puke in your hair. Take a shower. Feel much better.

  25. The following weekend, repeat.

  26. Wake up thirty years later. Take kids to school. Take shower. Eat breakfast. Reach for bong.

  27. Repeat daily.

  FIRST MEETING

  I’M GOING TO an MA meeting for the first time. I found it on the Web for marijuanaholics. It’s being held in a church not far from our first house on Palms Boulevard. My parents bought that house in the late fifties and Dad spent weekends fixing it up. It was for sale about ten years ago and I went inside to take a look. It was tiny. And it was run-down. Now the same yellow house with white trim sits totally dilapidated, as if no one’s truly lived in it since we left in ’62.

  My kids and I are on the phone constantly because they miss me now that I don’t live with them and they always want to know where I am. I don’t want them to know about my drug problem, not yet anyway, so I tell them I’m going to an evening writing class.

  I get to the meeting and it’s weird. A bald guy “welcomes” me. He tells me to collect phone numbers, to start to get to know people. I look around the room: freaks and geeks whom I don’t want to get to know. One guy’s in a suit. Everyone else is in T-shirts and old jeans. These aren’t my people. This can’t be where I’m going to end up. Where are the attorneys? Where are all the Hollywood types? I know they’re out there because I’ve heard about them and I used to work with them in law offices and on set.

  I take a seat. The chairs are arranged in three semicircular rows that face each other. Across the room, I see a pretty girl with long dark hair. Really pretty in a sea of not-so-pretty.

  They give out poker chips to newcomers who are in their first thirty days of sobriety. I stand up and take a chip because I want the girl with the long dark hair to notice me. Someone yells out, “How’d you do it?” I didn’t know I was supposed to say anything and I debate how much of my story I should tell to this group of unattractive strangers. I decide to keep it simple. “I changed my living situation.”

  Other people take chips for sixty days, ninety days, and six months of sobriety. People get up and take their chips and hug Johnny, the chip person. Johnny’s heavyset and scruffy-looking. At the end, when everyone has taken his or her chips, Johnny says, “Thank you for letting me be of service.” The hugging part is pretty weird, like it’s just a formality and no one really wants to hug Johnny, least of all me. Then they celebrate birthdays for continuous years of sobriety. Steve, the bald guy I met when I first came in, gets up to take a cake for twelve years of sobriety. We all sing “Happy Birthday,” and at the end, instead of “And many mooooore . . .” the refrain is “Keep coming baaaaack . . .”

  After the chips and the cake, a surfer dude named Jason sits at the head of the semicircles and talks for twenty minutes. He’s very tan for the middle of winter and has greasy blond hair. He tells his story of what it was like to be a drug addict, how he sobered up, and what his life is like now. Very little of what he says is of any interest to me, so I just look at the girl with the long dark hair. Jason finishes and other people around the room get two minutes to share their hard-luck stories and how they found their lives again in “these rooms,” which I figure is a euphemism for 12-Step meetings.

  At the end of the meeting, the pretty girl announces she’s in charge of putting the room back in order and asks if anyone wants to help. Some people raise their hand, including me. When the meeting’s over and she starts rearranging chairs, I walk up to her and ask what the rearrangement is supposed to look like. She puts out her hand and says, “Hi, I’m Lynn.”

  “Hi, Lynn, I’m Adam.”

  Lynn tells me what to do, and at that moment I’d do anything for her. I help rearrange the chairs, and when it’s over, Lynn thanks me and I decide she alone is reason enough to come back to the meeting next week.

  I return the following week but Lynn isn’t there.

  MY DOLLY

  MY DAUGHTER, MADDY, still has the two dolls she carried with her everywhere when she was little. They’re Madeline dolls from the famous books by Ludwig Bemelmans. Separate friends gave her the same doll because Maddy’s full name is Madeleine. The Madeline dolls are very colorful: blue dress, white blouse, red hair, yellow hat. Maddy called them “Baby Hat” and “Baby Hair” because her favorite word was baby and because early on, Baby Hair lost her hat. She took them everywhere and she held them close. Sometimes she’d undress them and lay them out on the coffee table and try to put diapers on them.

  When Maddy was nine and her brother, Jonah, was seven, we took them to Olvera Street, a Mexican marketplace located in the oldest section of Los Angeles. They loved the colorful booths of clothing and leather goods and glass sculpture and jewelry. We bought Jonah a sombrero and a set of maracas. We found a pretty dress for Maddy that was handwoven. It was a dark blue pullover with little birds woven into the hem. Maddy tried it on and we could tell it wouldn’t fit for long, but it looked so pretty on her that we bought it anyway.

  Then came December and the Hanukkah party at my mother’s house and Maddy needed help getting dressed.

  “Mom! Come downstairs and help me get dressed! I don’t know what I’m wearing!!”

  “Maddy, I’m getting dressed too so you’ll just have to wait!”

  I’m downstairs all ready to go, helping Jonah put on his dress shoes.

  “I’ll help you, Maddy.”

  “No, you don’t have to, Daddy.”

  “But I want to.”

  I follow her into her room. Her windows face west and the setting sun comes streaming in.

  “Dad, I just don’t know what to wear. I don’t have anything I like.”

  I look through her closet.

  “How about this? The dress we bought you at Olvera Street. You’ve never even worn it.”

  Maddy brightens. “Oh, yeah.”

  She puts on a white, long-sleeved turtleneck, then pulls the dress over her head, and it’s just long enough to still fit. She steps into white panty hose while I pull her red clogs out of the closet. She looks so colorful, just like her Madeline dolls, and I hold her and squeeze her just like she used to hold and squeeze Baby Hat and Baby Hair.

  But by now, Maddy’s outgrown those dolls. Now they sit high up on top of her bookcase looking down on us. The Madeline dolls are worn. Baby Hat is missing a stitched eye and Baby Hair doesn’t have hair anymore.

  And I can’t help but wonder, when was it that Maddy put her babies away and became a big girl. When was that moment, that exact moment, when she had me put her babies high up on the shelf never to be taken down again? Did we know then that would be it for Baby Hat and Baby Hair?

  * * *

  I can hear the parrots coming. The wild parrots in our neighborhood that screech and squawk as they fly this way and that in their groups of twenty or so. I read that some parrot owners discovered that they make terrible pets and released them from their cages. They fly high overhead in the late afternoon, free against the sparse clouds that litter the deep-blue sky.

  And now Maddy’s fourteen. And she’s mad at me—really mad. She refuses to even visit me at my apartment, so every morning I pick the kids up from the house and take them to school so that I can see them. Tonight, I come home from the MA meeting and there’s an e-mail from Maddy waiting for me.

  “Dad, I hate you so much. I never want to see you again. EVER! I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!”

  On Monday, I pick her up from school. I know she doesn’t ea
t breakfast and she has only a cookie at snack time, and at lunch she’s too busy talking with her friends. So by the time I pick her up, she’s starving, and when she’s starving there’s a good chance there’s going to be trouble. So I always bring a cold pack filled with food. Today it’s half a turkey sandwich, string cheese, carrots, chips, and a drink. And she eats everything while I drive her home.

  I come back later to help her with her math homework—graphing quadrilateral equations, which I learn from the text and then teach to Maddy. It’s a routine we’ve been through many times before. And Baby Hat and Baby Hair sit high up on Maddy’s shelf watching us. And by the end of the night, as I get ready to leave to go back to my apartment, it’s “Thank you, Daddy. I love you.”

  On Tuesday, it’s Spanish and I make flash cards of the vocabulary words and by the end of the evening, as I get ready to go, it’s “Thank you, Daddy. I love you.” On Wednesday, it’s a Civil War book jacket and why two days of bloodshed at Shiloh might have been a turning point in the war. And on Friday, it’s To Kill a Mockingbird and how Atticus killed a rabid dog in a symbolic attempt to take on the racism running through Maycomb County. And again, as I kiss her good-bye, it’s “I love you, Daddy” while the Madeline babies sit in silence and watch over us.

  THE LIVED EXPERIENCE

  WHEN I STILL lived at the house, most Sundays were spent working in the vegetable garden. One Sunday, I’m out there digging and planting when Jonah appears.

  “Dad, can we go to the music store to buy some new drumsticks?”