Monday 10 June 2013

The Whole Story



Years later, when I was living in L.A., and actually married at the time, Larry was single and living in Laurel Canyon. I think we were in our mid to late thirties. He called and asked me to come over to his house because he had something incredible to tell me. Well, when I got there, Larry’s anxiety was not his normal everyday get-up-in-the-morning-and-hate-everything-about-myself panic. No, this was definitely heightened. His face had a washed-out pallor like a vampire who drank someone coming out of Starbucks and couldn’t sleep from the caffeine. I figured either Larry had just read something about a new fatal disease and imagined he had contracted it and was about to die or it was a woman, which of course it was. 

The night before, LD had gone to the movies and while at the refreshment stand fell head-over-sneakers for the popcorn girl. He kept saying, “John, I think I’m in love with the popcorn girl. And I think she might like me. I made her laugh and she gave me more popcorn. What should I do? I think she’s in her twenties, is that too young?” 

      We decided that being a comic automatically took a few years off your appearance and a decade or more off your rate of maturity. So the fact that she was old enough to legally hold a job meant she was old enough to date a thirty-something comedian. 

In our emotional life, there are people years and there are comic years. Psychologically, we’re half-life regressive. For every decade a regular person matures, we mature five, until at some point we’re physically old enough to either actually experience a partial life or just blame it on dementia. 

Since LD did not ask the popcorn girl what her name was, or where she lived, and I knew Larry would never be able to just walk up to a strange woman, he’d have to approach her armed with his best weapon-- one that didn’t require his standing before her stammering. It was far mightier than a sword or even a cocktail in his hand—the weapon was the written word. As previously mentioned, comics, especially Larry and I, were scared adolescents around a woman we fancied. If either of us were a Governor and a very pretty girl were in the electric chair and we could save her life, we’d be too insecure to pardon her, thinking she’d rather get toasted then talk to us. 

He read the letter to me, and of course it was very funny. One line stood out. Larry had written, “If you go out with me, I’m prepared to give up meat for you.” 

He finished the letter and we decided to go to the movie theater that night so LD could hand-deliver it. LD had a brown Fiat (he purchased it when he worked on the TV show “Fridays”) whose first engine he’d blown up because he’d forgotten to put oil in it since the day he bought it. So we drove there, parked nearby, walked into the theater and Larry asked for the popcorn girl. We were taken to a lanky guy, in his early twenties, with acne splattered across his cheeks like crumbs left on a comic’s chair, wearing the exaggerated expression of a Broadway star belting out the lyrics, “I’m younger and better looking than both of you.” 

Larry feigned confidence that unfortunately toppled out of at his mouth and he stammered, “Uh… I’m looking for the popcorn girl.”

“What popcorn girl?” the kid said, like the authority in his fiefdom was absolute. 

“The one who was working here last night,” Larry, trying to cover his disappointment, spoke like he had no authority anywhere on the planet.

“She’s off tonight,” he quickly cranked out, warning the universe the schedule he made was never ever to be broken.

Before His Honor could dismiss us, LD squeezed in, “Can you give her this?” Not giving the Sheriff of Nottingham the time to say no, Larry handed the guy the envelope.

The multiplex mogul, no longer feeling threatened by us thirty-something, alfalfa males, actually smiled nicely at us and said, “Sure, I’ll give it to her when she comes in tomorrow.” 

LD and I turned and walked back to his car, discussing how long he should wait for a reply before knowing whether he’d been rejected or not.

We circled the block and were about to go home, when I thought I saw the guy open up the letter. I told LD, and Larry, never being one to back down from the opportunity to confront his own embarrassment, decided to go back and find out. 

When we approached the ticket booth, the guy was indeed reading the letter, not just to himself, but to three or four other members of the acne brother and sisterhood.

LD walked up to the guy and asked as impolitely and impotently as he could, “Are you reading my note?”

The kid smiled and said, “Yes,” after which he and his crew of pimple people began laughing. 

“That was personal... That wasn’t to you… That was personal.” 

“I got permission,” he said, like he was shoving a dirty newspaper in a dog’s face. 

“From the popcorn girl?” LD asked more surprised than curious.

The guy shot back. “Yeah, she’s my girlfriend.” 

“She’s your girlfriend!” LD repeated like bad Mexican food that hung onto your esophagus, dangling awhile, before it did a nosedive into your gut. 

Their laughter was Miracle Grow for pimples, as thousands of pink mounds leaned toward us cackling. LD didn’t have his usual temper tantrum. No, this time he didn’t have a stage to walk off of, or a bum to fight to the death over a tuna sandwich. He just shouted from the top, bottom and middle of his lungs. “You shouldn’t read other people’s letters!” as he steamed toward the car. When we were driving away, I saw the letter being passed around, the ticket booth bursting with knives of laughter, looking at us until LD and his humiliation passed out of sight.

22 comments:

  1. I am cringing reading this but with a touch of a snigger.

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    1. It would be cringing for anyone but Larry. It was typical.

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  2. hahaha well at least he got permission

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    1. It was one of the few times Larry did go absolutely bonkers. That part was surprising. He's always ready for a good conflict.

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  3. oh man....how brutal...and envisioning home being named meatless the rest of his life as well...smiles...ha. happy monday

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    1. Thanks for reading. Have a happy Monday too. It's raining here in Northern New Jersey, how about where you live?

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  4. Young raging hormones can make us do some crazy things.... like writing a letter to the popcorn girl.

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    1. The problem was LD was at least 35 or 36 at the time. Maybe older. But he was and still is a child inside.

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  5. Popcorn girl certainly missed out on her chance for fame and fortune!!! Wonder what acne boyfriend is doing with his career these days?

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    1. Yeah, LD's got to be worth and I"m not exaggerating, a billion bucks and that's after her ex wife left the marriage with $300 million. It's so hard to believe. He only owns one house, a beautiful house, but not nearly what he could buy and drives a two or three year old Toyota Prius. He's not cheap by any means, and goes to the best restaurants, but is to neurotic to show off his wealth. Money has just allowed him to make indulge his neurosis.

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  6. LD must have been smitten beyond reason to entrust a personal letter to a young twerp. The things we haven't done in the name of "love."

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    1. I think in his mind he was. He's in his own world anyway, always was and always will be.

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  7. I wonder whatever happened to the letter. It would probably be able to be sold on ebay for quite the dough now. The popcorn girl is probably kicking herself now.

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    1. God, yeah. That's very funny. That kid at the movie theater didn't know what he had. But what if he wasn't there and LD somehow hooked up with the popcorn girl maybe fame and fortune would have never come?

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  8. Larry's right, though. True love is giving someone more popcorn for making them laugh. She was definitely leading him on.

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    1. She had no idea the kind of neurotic guy she was giving popcorn too. Or how much this guy would be worth today. I wonder if the kid at the popcorn place realizes that the person he took the letter from is now Larry David. That would be interesting to find out.

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  9. Best part of this story is your term, "alfalfa males." Some gals like Alfalfa males. It's a shame popcorn girl didn't. Hope Larry's ego has recovered since then. ??

    xoRobyn

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    1. Did I write that term? I have to re read it. It was part of the book, which I wrote several months ago. Larry's ego has more than recovered, he's actually happy now--a term I never though I'd ever used to describe Larry.

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  10. I bet popcorn girl never even got to see the letter!

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  11. You know, I never thought about it. She probably didn't. Poor girl could have married a billionaire.

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  12. Poor LD. "We decided that being a comic automatically took a few years off your appearance and a decade or more off your rate of maturity." Definitely.

    All the pimple references made me laugh aloud.

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    1. As soon as a comic stops feeling like a kid they are doomed. I think LD was more afraid of the kids pimples than anything else. I think that may have been the reason for not being too confrontational.

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