Free The Man Who Cancelled Himself by David Handler

will do that to an otherwise diverse group of people,” Tommy explained.
    “Tommy’s overselling a bit,” Marty apologized. “We’re actually kind of divided in our feelings about Lyle. Some of us dislike him—”
    “And the rest of us can’t stand him,” Tommy cracked. “A lot of writers just plain hate him on sight.”
    “Why is that?” I asked.
    “Saves time,” Tommy fired back bluntly.
    “One time,” recalled Annabelle, “I’m, like, he actually stuck a table draft down his pants and farted on it in front of the whole cast and crew.”
    “I still haven’t decided if that improved it or not,” muttered Tommy.
    “I suppose you feel sorry for him, Hoagy,” Marty suggested tactfully.
    “I don’t feel anything,” I said. Though I was starting to feel Marty overplaying the nice guy bit. “I’m here so I can get to know him.”
    “I wish you luck,” said Marty. “I don’t think anyone’s ever been able to know Lyle. Not really. You reach a point with him and he pushes you away. Christ, I’ve known him, it must be twenty-two years, and he’s never been to my house. Never given me a birthday present. He doesn’t even know when my birthday is.”
    “Because he doesn’t care.” Tommy shifted in his chair, joints creaking. He sounded like a bowl of Rice Krispies when he moved. He pointed a crooked finger at me. “You worry me.”
    “I worry myself.”
    “We tell you what we really think about Lyle and he’ll just use it against us. The man’s been known to pull some major vindictive shit on people.”
    “We can make it off the record.”
    “How do we know we can trust you?” Tommy demanded.
    “You don’t,” I replied. “But you can.”
    “Of course you can,” echoed Annabelle. “Would those eyes lie to you?”
    She was referring to Lulu’s eyes, not mine. But I’ll take support wherever I can get it.
    Tommy Meyer peered at me skeptically. I had expected this. Because I was one of them, but I wasn’t. An awkward role, no question.
    “Okay, wait, do we dish or don’t we?” Annabelle wondered.
    The partners made silent eye contact with each other. Before Tommy turned back to me and said, “Main thing you should know about our grand-high-exalted mystic ruler is that he’s big, he’s fat, and he turns everything into a major battle.”
    We do dish. I had expected this, too. Because when it comes to dishing I’ve found most people can’t help themselves.
    “It’s a battle you can never win,” Tommy continued. “It’s his ball, his court, and his game. Lyle always has to get his way. Always. He won’t listen to anybody else. He won’t take criticism—”
    “I’m like, he doesn’t even hear it,” said Annabelle. “He has this screen that filters out anything negative.”
    “He has to feel like he’s in total charge at all times,” said Tommy. “If he doesn’t, he feels threatened. And when Lyle feels threatened you’d better duck—he wigs out big-time. So nobody challenges him. Not ever.”
    “Not even you?” I asked.
    “We used to,” said Marty, a bit defensively. “First season. It bothered us the way he kept changing our scripts in rehearsal. He’d throw out half our gags, schlock everything up. So we’d fight.”
    “Creative differences,” Tommy recalled sourly. “We wanted to do something creative and he wanted to do something different.”
    “But the fight’s gone out of us,” admitted Marty. “We have zero clout. We can never change his mind. So what’s the point? Besides, who are we to tell the man he’s wrong? He has the top-rated show in America. We just give him what he wants and try to stay out of his way.”
    Tommy: “Think of us as master furniture makers laboring in a chair factory.”
    Marty: “Formica factory. Formica says fake. Plus it’s a funnier word.”
    Tommy: “You’re right. Formica factory it is.”
    Now here were two guys who had been writing together a long time. They even punched up each other’s