But then what the fuck makes me so superior? I can’t even find Amy.
“I’m popping next door for another kale smoothie,” he says. “You want?”
“No, thanks,” I say.
“JoeBro,” he says. “You got to get out of your head, brother. Watch the H man.”
“Calvin, I’m pretty beat.”
“The video is two minutes.”
“I actually hate Henderson.”
“Nobody hates Henderson,” he says. “You crack me up, JB.”
I give in again and I watch Henderson on F@#K Narcissism. He’s on his couch, in one of his trademark laugh-at-me T-shirts (#BOOBS), talking about a girl with a dirty vag. I don’t like that abbreviation; it’s a pussy or it’s a vagina but it’s not a vag. He calls the girl an organic pig who smears superfruits all over his sheets and her vag is hard to reach because of her bush. My hands start shaking and I turn up the volume.
“Blueberries,” Henderson rails. “I tell her to keep the blueberries in her vag and I think this is a reasonable request. I get hungry. I take a bite. But these sheets, my sheets, these are high thread count sheets, people. Okay, I’m sorry to be that asshole, but I did not just get a deal from Comedy Central. I got a deal from these idiots. So these sheets are not cheap. And she is gonna make it up to me, you know, a little lovin’, but then my show comes on and she wants to watch it. Do you believe this shit? So now I got blueberries, I got blue balls, and I’m my own cock block. You sit on your shitty futon in your shitty apartment and you dream about having the girl and the sheets and the money and then you get it and hello. Can I get laid in my own bed? Hell, no! I’m my own cock block!”
The crowd roars. He looks at someone in the audience. He shouts: “Love you, Amy baby. Super kisses, baby, it’s all good, right?”
My heart thumps and my throat closes. The camera does not pan over to Amy and I rewind the clip and he says it again—Love you, Amy baby. She’s sleeping with the enemy, my enemy, our enemy. Vile duplicitous cunt, and in Crimes and Misdemeanors, Mia Farrow pulls this shit on Woody Allen. They watch movies together and bond over their disgust for a television producer played by Alan Alda. Woody is smitten, sweet, noble, and in the end, Mia Farrow chooses to marry the producer. She tells Woody that he’s not so bad. When I wrap my hand around Amy’s cum-stained throat, she’ll say the same thing about Henderson, tell me to lighten up. In this moment, at the counter in the bookstore, having found Amy, I have to do something vile too. I have to text Calvin: This is genius.
Calvin rushes back, maybe he did a little Adderall, and he’s stoked that I have seen the light and join him in worshipping at the altar of Henderson, funnier than Richard Pryor, smarter than Jerry Seinfeld—Did you know he didn’t even go to Harvard? He never ran the Lampoon like Conan!—and yet Henderson is a genius—Literally, his IQ is like 10,000—and he deadlifts and he wrestles and the man can do anything. Right now he’s in Malibu, surfing and Instagramming while riding waves. I could go to Malibu and drown him and smash her head against rocks but with traffic and bus schedules, I wouldn’t make it by sundown.
“Does he live at the beach?” I ask.
“No, he lives up in the hills,” says Calvin. “He has these Friday night workouts where he fills the house with people and jams on new material, you know the way comics show up randomly, he likes to do it in his home.”
It’s Friday. My heart might explode with Rachael Ray knives. “Cool,” I say. “You wanna go?”
Calvin shrugs. “I don’t know, JoeBro. I’m, like, in the writing zone and I used to hang out with his crew. I mean I’ve met him, but, like, I’m trying to keep it all about the writing right now, you know, get back into the scene when my shit blows up instead of just hanging out and stuff.”
Oh, but Calvin, you’re never blowing up because you are never finishing anything. I breathe. I reason. “Well, that’s great, but sometimes, the thing you need is to get back in touch with people, you know. I bet if you told him about Ghost Food Truck he would go nuts.”
Calvin sighs. “True, but like, I feel like I’m entertained by him and I love him but he would just not be the right producer for GFT, you know?”
Because there is no such thing as GFT and I am going to move back to New York someday—I promise my brain, I will—but I say this:
“Honestly, Calvin, you are a funny dude. Like, GFT could be a one-hour, but picture Henderson and his people chomping at the bit for it and then you use that ammo to go to your one-hour places.”
I will sit here and tell lies all day long to get Calvin to commit to this party. Amy will be there. I need to be there. But I cannot show up alone. I cannot be that guy and I cannot bring Harvey because the only thing creepier than a guy alone at a party is a guy with an old guy at a party.
Calvin hesitates. “I don’t know the password.”
I am so close. I’ve won him over with my compliments and there’s no choice. I need that password. I need it now. I text Delilah: Random question. Do you know the password for Henderson?
She writes back: Jim Walsh’s Hooded Bathrobe
I write back: Thanks
She writes back: Best one ever right? I love his passwords. Love old 90210 .
I don’t write back. She writes more: I might go. Are you going?
But I can’t have Delilah around. After I show up with Calvin, I will slip away, some bullshit about meeting a girl, and then I will find Amy and get her alone and I can’t have Delilah following me around asking me who I’m looking for. It’s vicious, it’s cruel, but there’s only one way to stop her from showing up at Henderson’s. I write back: Actually fuck it. Do you wanna get a late dinner, 10 or 11? I wanna go to Dan Tana’s. Yeah?
She writes back: YES
Calvin is playing music, going into party mode, raving about Henderson’s guac. And I’m sure Delilah is in her apartment, bouncing up and down, deciding what slutty dress she’s going to wear for me tonight, not realizing that she would look much better if she covered up, if she teased me.
I imagine Amy is on her knees sucking off her boyfriend and I bet she doesn’t have to do anything to get ready for their big party tonight. I bet they have maids.
12
YOU don’t go to a party empty-handed and my reusable Pantry bag is stuffed with rope, my Rachael Ray knife, rubber gloves, plastic bags, duct tape, and Percocets from Dez.
I spent all afternoon looking for pictures of Henderson’s house online. Sometimes it’s easier to plan the crime if you know a little bit more about the scene. But I couldn’t find pictures of Henderson’s house online and I went a little crazy trying to figure out what to do.
If Amy loved me, it would be different. I could make eye contact and signal for her to meet me outside and we could whisper to each other about our regrets and our unresolved feelings. I could tell her to make an excuse and we could slip off together and drive into the mountains or the beach. Los Angeles is full of places to hide a body, but when the person inside the body doesn’t love you, it’s not an easy thing, turning that breathing person into a dead one.
I bought a ton of Percocets off Dez, figuring this is Hollywood. People overdose all the time. But then I realized that Henderson’s in love with her and if she passes out, he will be all over that shit and call an ambulance. So I Lyfted to Home Depot, where I bought random stuff, rope and duct tape, plastic bags, cable ties, and plastic gloves. The girl at the register winked and said she’s also a big fan of Fifty Shades and this is what has become of our society. Fucking and killing are the same damn thing.
Now I walk outside with my bag and Delilah texts: Not stalking but have fun grocery shopping. ☺
I ignore it. For her own good. I want her to learn to be less available.
At La Poubelle, Calvin is already semi-wasted, practicing hashtags. “Which do you like better?” he asks. “House of Henderson or Henderson’s House?”
I start planting the seeds for my alibi and tell him I invited this girl from Tinder. He says cool
, and he better remember this in the event of an investigation. Calvin orders an Uber and three of his buds show up—fuck fuck fuck—and we pay our tab to meet them outside. The guys all brought beer and they toss their sixers in the trunk, and they give me shit because I insist on holding my reusable Pantry bag on my lap. It’s too crowded and Calvin’s friends are too loud and they won’t let up about my fucking bag.
Pissant one: “Is your makeup in there?”
Pissant two: “No, his dick is in there.”
Pissant three: “I heard about those retractable dicks. You get a lot more done every day.”
Calvin: “Guys. If you give JoeBro any more shit about his retractable dick, he’s not gonna tell you where you can get one.”
These guys are pale and puffy with ostentatious T-shirts under wrinkled flannel button-downs and they hate Woody Allen and they love Wes Anderson. They dismiss Crimes and Misdemeanors as wordy and I think they never even watched the whole thing. I wish it were socially acceptable to brandish a knife. But the driver is an innocent bystander and I wouldn’t subject him to any additional torture. We are close, and I still don’t know how I’m going to kill Amy.
Pissant one: “Americans aren’t funny enough to get Parks and Rec.”
Pissant two: “Parks and Rec isn’t American enough to get Americans.”
Pissant three: “I’d fuck Amy Poehler.”
Pissant one: “I’d Poehler Amy Fuck.”
Calvin: “Is that because she’s your Poehler opposite?”
Calvin nudges me; he did too much coke. “JoeBro, come on,” he says. “You’re the one who wanted to go so bad. Get into it. People would fucking kill to be going to this party right now.”
We continue up into the hills and this country needs a draft; these assholes should be challenged, beaten down. The Uber driver is unassuming and blank and I wouldn’t be surprised if he kills us all. People disappear in Los Angeles; this is a sad place, haunted. We are still driving, up, up, up, and I am not a pissant in Pumas and these idiots won’t shut up.
They brand Chelsea Handler a slut and Jimmy Kimmel a sell-out and Jimmy Fallon a lucky motherfucker and they are wrong about so much in the world and are we there yet? I don’t aspire to slave away and live up here. These hills are glum and neutral, even as we climb, and my ears pop and I should have come alone. I don’t have a plan and these hills aren’t even the right hills, the glamorous sparkling mounds that hover above Chateau Marmont. These are the hipster hills, where lazy people in cool clothes pretend they never wanted to be gross rich but only wanted to be comfortable, you know, chill.
My phone alarm goes off because it’s ten thirty. I text Delilah: Some shit going down, hang on, maybe late night drink instead of dinner.
She writes back: That’s cool. Let me know! I can bring booze!
The world is too extreme with Delilah and her lack of self-respect and Amy with her big fat ego. I will deal with one girl at a time and I put my phone in Airplane mode. We slow down. We are here. The driver says he is not available to shuttle us home later and he gets to leave, the lucky bastard—and my throat is tight and my underwear shrunk—the dryers at Hollywood Lawns are no good—and my teeth chatter. I was starting to think I’d never get here and now this is it.
I follow the pissants into the house where Bobcat Goldthwait lived for a few weeks in the late ’90s (like I give a fuck). There is a security camera by the open gate and a sign over it that reads STICK YOUR TONGUE OUT AT ME I’M FAKE. The thing about Californians is they think fearlessness is cool; there isn’t a single security measure intact, which is great news for me.
We cross the overgrown lawn where hipsters idle taking selfies and talking about making it to Mecca. We give the password and enter through the oversized mahogany door—motherfucker—and I smell eucalyptus and cucumbers and money. I don’t see Amy. I grip my bag.
“Calm down,” Calvin says. “Look around. Lord Henderson is the freaking honey pot.”
I let him go find the guac and then slump onto a couch and I’m annoyed that I like the couch. I haven’t been anywhere nice in so long. If I had money I would have a house just like this, and I can’t believe Amy is Henderson’s girlfriend. She lives here, with all the fine things and I was deluded to think that she would be holed up in a shithole with a sisterhood of competing aspirational climbers. My head spins and I get up. I will not sit on this couch, knowing that she has sucked Henderson off on this couch.
I walk toward the kitchen and Calvin joins me. He still doesn’t have any guac; he ran into some buds. He took something. I can feel it. He’s morphing. He’s pushy. He reaches for my bag. I flinch. “I got it.”
“It’s cool,” he says. “Everyone is putting the booze they brought in the kitchen. Henderson has a whole bar set up.”
“I got it,” I insist.
And then I realize it all might begin now, before I even have a drink or a snack, because here comes Henderson. He’s shinier and leaner in person and the smile on his face would be more at home on an action figure. Amy’s not with him, but she probably approved of his fucking shirt, a yearbook picture of Louis C.K. The quote underneath reads “Van Halen Sucks” and schmuck after schmuck slobbers—best T-shirt ever, dude that is bad ass, dude that is it, dude Van Halen does suck—and Henderson says you’re welcome, like he made the joke, like he made the T-shirt, like he has a tenth of Louis C.K.’s talent. There is nothing genuine about Amy’s boyfriend with his gleaming skin. It’s true; when you make it in show business, you make a deal with the devil. The more pictures they take of you, the less there is inside of you (unless you’re Meryl Streep) and Henderson is a ghost, all muscle, no fat, all outside, no inside.
“Get it, boy,” Calvin says. “Get at this guac before it’s all gone.”
“Dope guac,” says some asshole, and I pick up a Dorito and shove it into the guac. There is nothing remarkable about this guac, about any guac, and California needs to calm the fuck down. They’re just avocados. Guac is guac and while sometimes it’s slimy and disgusting, it’s never delicious.
I look for Amy and I don’t see her and where is she? Don’t hanger-on girlfriends have to hang on to their boyfriends at times like this, when random girls are pouring into the house? A fan asks him about his girlfriend. I stop moving.
“She’s up north tonight with my mom,” he says.
Girlfriend. Up north. No. No. I didn’t consider that she wouldn’t be here. I try to calm down but it’s loud and Cards Against Humanity isn’t that fucking funny and droll girls wear bold, old clothes with deliberately ’50s hairdos. Dear Women of New York: You are superior. I go room to room looking for Amy even though she’s up north. I pour wine into a glass and Calvin raves about Henderson.
“Steve Martin retweets him every time he tweets,” Calvin exalts. “Like no matter what he says. How cool is that?”
Henderson swoops in, scooping Skittles into his mouth full of veneers. “Pretty fucking cool, bro.”
“That’s dope,” says Calvin. “Mad dope. Hey, this is Joe, he works for me over at Counterpoint.”
Henderson nods and a girl with a microphone warbles and Henderson asks if Calvin still lives in The Village.
“I’m up on Beachwood,” Calvin answers, fawning like a girl at a New Kids on the Block concert. “Joe’s in Hollywood Lawns.”
Henderson looks at me. He doesn’t have any pores and his eyelashes are too long. “Birds,” he says. “I fucking love that place. All those ripe, drunk girls. Oh man, I used to go there the way you go to Mickey D’s. Feast.”
Henderson feels it and he climbs onto a chair and then onto his marble island and he whistles and the room goes silent. “You guys mind if I grab this here mic and maybe work out this bit I’ve been hashing out on my own?”
Cheer. Yes. We love you, Henderson. And then the chanting: Set! Set! Set!
Henderson tells us that he’s seeing someone. (Cheers.) He says it’s going well. (Cheers.) He says her name is Amy. (Cheers.) He says Amy is out of town
. (Biggest cheers yet, offers to fuck, suck, etc.) Every woman in this place yells something along the lines of I-will-fuck-you and if you want to see the opposite of feminism, go to a comedian’s house.
He goes on. “When the cat’s away, the mouse will masturbate on the sofa and RSVP no to dinner party invitations.” The hooting, and I don’t think a New York crowd would laugh this hard. “But the thing is, I’m happy. I’m in this. When Kate Hudson texts to meet in the CVS parking lot for a quickie, I’m like, no, dude. Go get new tits.”
Again the women are laughing and this is not right.
“I’m so fucking happy that I can drive by an elementary school without feeling profoundly bitter that I never got laid once the entire time I was in elementary school.”
It’s not funny, making fun of child molestation. Henderson doesn’t understand how good he’s had it.
“Earlier today, I had these Japanese hookers, and I was like, ‘I’m so happy in my relationship that you don’t need to suck my dick, just fuck each other.’”
More laughter.
“My girlfriend would hate me if I admitted this so you all have to hold hands across America and promise me that you are not going to tell on me.”
Calvin pledges his allegiance along with all the other followers.
“I think my balls are uneven.”
Girls scream out. “Your balls are sweet.”
“I think my dick is too big. For a Jew.” Again there is laughter, as if a Jewish man analyzing the size of his anatomy is funny at this late stage in humanity.
Hidden Bodies Page 7