Free The Comedy Writer by Peter Farrelly Page B

human being who will accept it, you say, Tuck off!' “
    I opened my car door. “I didn't say, Tuck off,' I just don't have a real big place—it's a studio—and I don't know you from a hole in the wall.”
    “Did you know her?”
    “No, but I didn't ask her to move in with me, either.”
    “Why am I different than Bonnie? Aren't I good enough to help?”
    “Don't you have any other friends? What do you mean, 'Bonnie'? Who's Bonnie?”
    “All my friends abandoned me when Honus and me broke up.”
    “Again, who's Bonnie?”
    She swung her head side to side. “Do you think this is easy for me, man? I been living here two years and I got no friends. You think I feel good about that?”
    “I don't understand. Who the hell's—?”
    “Bonnie was my fucking sister!”
    I stared at her.
    “Bonnie …” she said, and her voice trailed off. “You tried to save her … my sister …”
    We dragged her bags out of some bushes in a small park off Robertson, along with a foot-high pile of
Psychology Todays.
There was an uncomfortable silence on the drive back to my apartment, and then she said, “I wonder why they're so red.”
    “What's red?”
    “Michelle Pfeiffer's eyes.”
    “I don't know. Maybe she swims a lot.”
    This cracked Colleen up and she hit my arm and said, “Maybe she swims a lot.”
    I glanced at her and shrugged.
    “Where you from?” she asked.
    “Originally Rhode Island.”
    “Why is it that everyone from Rhode Island is so funny?”
    “Who? Who's from Rhode Island?”
    “I don't know. Everyone.”
    On the corner of Santa Monica and Doheny, a fucking lunatic with a shaved head and a blue ponytail pulled up beside us in a truck and asked if we wanted to buy a joint for five bucks.
    “Sure,” she said.
    He tossed the joint into her window and Colleen looked to me.
    “I'm
not paying him,” I said.
    “I don't have any money.”
    “Then give it back.”
    She searched the floor for the joint as honks came from behind me.
    “Come on, buddy!” the truck guy yelled, and I heard someone behind me yell, too.
    “What are you doing?” I said as I felt around in my pocket. All I could find was a crumpled-up tenner, so I threw it to the truck and asked for change, but he shot me a look like, “Yeah right, pal,” and then he said exactly that and sped away.
    on the bare floor in front of the black-and-white Motorola for two and a half hours, never budging, turning her attention only to reach for a pack of cigarettes. I was at the table trying to work, listening in succession to
Gilligans Island, The effersons
, a couple game shows, and
Entertainment Tonight.
Earlier I'd brought up the subject of her sister, I had a million questions, but she said she was too tired to get into it and in a way I was relieved. She had, however, provided me with a snapshot— unsolicited—of her and Bonnie and the similarities were unmistakable. This was definitely the dead woman's sister. I glanced at Colleen occasionally, but she didn't notice. She was hypnotized by stale one-liners, celebrity innuendo, and trivia. I thought about what had happened on that roof and couldn't help but feel a little responsible for this poor woman who apparently had no one and nothing.
    Colleen finally landed on
Tom and Jerry
and almost immediatelystarted coughing up approval, a one-person laugh track. I tried to concentrate, but the room was full of whistles and zipping sounds with Colleen's guffaws keeping the beat.
    “That's what I wanted to be before I became an actress.”
    “What's that?” I asked.
    “In cartoons.”
    “Cartoons?”
    “Yeah, you know, like Schulz. Know how much money that guy makes off Charlie Brown alone?”
    I gestured that it was a lot.
    “Only thing is,” she said, “I can't draw to save my rear.”
    “Too bad.”
    “I still want to do children's stories, though.”
    “Great.”
    I looked back in my notebook and tried to focus. Colleen grabbed the three-wood out of my golf bag and took a practice