Six Weeks and Four Hours With Neal Pollack
by Josh Danart ()
Neal and I had been shacked up in a bungalow in the Hollywood Hills for six weeks. We had been tasked with writing a treatment for a sequel to the Pauly Shore vehicle, Biodome. Things weren’t going well. We hadn’t written a single page and our stash of marijuana was frightfully low.
When I had signed up for this assignment, I had expected more. Why shouldn’t I have expected more? I was given the opportunity to write with Neal Pollack, the greatest living writer of not only my generation, but sixteen previous generations and yet no actual writing had been done. The muses had not contacted us. Well, that’s not entirely true, they had called us (collect I might add) to tell us that they had missed their connecting flight in St. Louis and the airline had redirected Erato’s luggage to San Antonio. I was at my wit’s end.
“Neal, we need to write something,” I said in a voice that would have recalled to a casual listener of someone who had been shacked up in a bungalow with Neal Pollack for six weeks.
Neal just looked at me with those piercing charcoal eyes. I knew I had overstepped my bounds by pushing the master, but time seemed short and our product was non-existent.
“You worry too much,” said Neal with a zen like calmness, “The words will come.”
“When?” I asked with my voice trembling with anxiety.
“It is not our place to ask when, but why,” said Neal in an even calmer voice.
I found his serenity unnerving and obnoxious, but at the same time found it soothing and comforting. Was this the same man who had written my favorite book, Fifteen Fun Things To Do In Jacksonville, Florida While Being Handcuffed To An Escaped Mental Patient? I had expected a man of unfiltered ebullience and a font of literary expertise, instead seated in front of me was a stoned, semi-bloated shell of a man who had been beaten down by the Hollywood system and relegated to writing sequels to bad movies. Maybe I was the problem? Was I supposed to bring more to the table? Perhaps a PC with a word processing program? I assumed an esteemed man of letters would have more writing implements than a shish kebob skewer and a vial of blue ink. Maybe I assumed too much.
I wandered out of the fetid, dank living room where we had been cooped up and onto the patio. The bungalow had a majestic view of the City of Angels. I breathed in a large breath of smoggy, putrid air and it felt good. Real good. Then I heard a clamor from behind me. I turned to see Neal lying on the floor with our writing table resting on top of him. I rushed into the bungalow.
“Neal, can you hear me?” I asked with genuine concern.
No response. Neal’s eyes were closed and I automatically assumed the worst. I began to panic. Then a feeling took hold of me, a feeling that made me feel as if I had superhuman strength. Throwing caution to the wind, I lifted the pressboard IKEA table off my prone writing partner. With one arm shaking under the weight of the table, I picked up Neal with my free arm and slung him over my shoulder. I let go of the table and it came down onto the floor with a soft cushioned thud. I carried Neal over to his semen-stained sofa and laid him gently down.
“Neal, can you hear me?” I asked again.
No response. I realized I hadn’t checked his pulse. Then I threw caution to the wind again, by not checking for a pulse, because I had no idea how to check for a pulse. Instead, I pressed hard on his chest trying to recollect what those EMTs did in “Emergency”. Then Neal sputtered and his eyes shot open. He said nothing. Just stared up at me. Slowly he rose from the couch and surveyed the room.
“That was close.” Neal said.
“What happened?” I asked, greatly relieved that he was alive.
“I died for three minutes.”
“That’s impossible, it only took me a few seconds to get the table off of you and then another few seconds to start thumping on your chest.”
“Ah, yes, venerable tiger (that’s what Neal liked to call me),” he said, “but you are assuming that I was alive before the table fell on top of me.”
“Uh, yes.” I said searching for meaning in this conversation.
“Well, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me.” Neal said with a witty smirk.
“What are you, twelve?”
“Never mind that,” he said in disgust, “My recent near-death experience has opened my eyes and the words of our screenplay will now flow.”
Neal walked over to the closet and pulled out a brand new iMac. He booted up and in four hours had written the entire screenplay. My admiration for Neal Pollack now knows no bounds. That experience not only changed my life, but the lives of all seven people who went to see our, nay Neal’s, sequel to Biodome.
