ROSEY PART III
war of the worlds
THE SISTINE PANTRY
Adventures of a Screenwriter
ROSEY PART THREE
Gorgeous, right? Cast your gaze on those lines, the upward swoop of the windows, that cow-catcher meets Darth Vader grill and from an esthetic perspective it’s hard not to love in the broken and ill-favored year of 1994, a year of beginning with an earthquake that felt like a gigantic palm was trying to force our house off of its foundation. Jeff Bezos founds Amazon with that penis-with-Peyronie’s disease trademark and oh, my God, Justin Bieber and Lil’ Baby hip hop from the womb! O.J. allegedly murders Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman with a combat knife then hits the road with his chauffeuring buddy Al Cowlings in that white Bronco for the greatest low-speed chase since Moses took his people to the desert. A players’ strike causes cancellation of America’s favorite pastime when the World series has been played every year for nearly a century.
How inviting then are those deeply tinted windows, blotting out the sun stroked beast of artifice otherwise known as L.A. and the jagged edges of 1994. To leisurely cruise the 405 and annoy the lane scalpers who flip you off not so much for being in the way but out of deep envy.
Of course, the limo is white which is eminently bad luck for someone like myself who swears up and down that white is a reflection of humankind’s misbegotten labor to neutralize original sin, a time-honored excuse used to pimp purity of the soul which is why wedding dresses are white and pick-up trucks shouldn’t be – just ask The Juice.[1] But on this day in June, 1994 that snowfall white stretch job is the quintessential limousine and one of the stipulations Rosey, her life punctuated by invincible schemes, made to Katarina in exchange for her blessing to let me go to Ottumwa. There’s more. Arriving with Roseanne are two professional body builders who squeeze out of the limo with a wheel chair and the reigning Miss Iowa. That’s right, the reigning Miss Iowa, as in…
According to the rules of the Roseanne/Katarina Phone Convention, the body-builders would carry me to and from the car – a bit of over-kill that might make me look ridiculous had it not already been for the Philadelphia Collar I’m wearing like a sign on my back that says KICK ME. As we’re leaving Roseanne yells out to Katarina, “Don’t worry, we’ll take really good care of him!” She pulls hard to keep the galloping scorn from rearing up in her voice and for that I am thankful. Not so much that Rosey will be kinder but how Katarina would retaliate to sarcasm:
At the airport one body-builder carries my bag as if it was a toy from a Flight Attendant Barbie Set while the reigning Miss Iowa’s job function becomes known. With a smile as wide as a map of the lower 48 she gets behind me and pushes my wheel chair. Note to self: Miss Iowa is not wearing her sash. I’m wondering if she really is the reigning Miss Iowa or just another pretty girl they paid to play the role of Miss Iowa to fool Katarina. Tom shows me pictures of the reigning Miss Iowa at the Miss America pageant. What’s more Miss Iowa pushes my wheel chair through the airport and waves at people with a stiff hand swivel that beauty pageant contestants, mobster dons and popes have in common. Besides looking like one, I feel like a schmuck for doubting Rosey and Tom. Sort of…
Ottumwa, Iowa. 16 square miles of Waldon Pond by way of The Bread Belt, a transcendent ant colony of easy going life where the cafes might out-number the population if anyone bothered to count and a green in summer that comes close to the emerald hedges of Donegal. It’s a place where grandmothers are treated as queens and meat is king, home of the JBS Swift food processing plant. Five sitting presidents have made it a whistle stop and in 1982 Ottumwa, home of the gamer/social media site, Twin Galaxies was named Video Game Capital of the World, which would hold some significant cache if someone other than Ottumwa’s mayor had decreed it as such but who’s checking?
It’s also home of M*A*S*H character, Radar O’Reilly and the non-fictitious Tom Arnold was born here on March 6th, 1959. In 1993 The talented actor Bill Bixby (My Favorite Martian, The Incredible Hulk) directed Tom and Rosey here in the made for TV movie…
And since then Ottumwa has become and a kind of Rosey and Tom amusement park. They have a temporary 2500 square foot “trailer home” that they’re using until their dream house, their Xanadu is completed. Right now it’s a 10,000 square foot empty hole in the ground but their Loose Meat Diner in downtown is always packed. For the first night they put me up at this place --
--with a dozen roses and a note that reads, You’re a little whuss but we’re glad you made it. Love, Rosey & Tom.
In the morning Rosey picks me up and drives me to their temporary compound with its motorcycles, ATVs and basketball hoops. Add to that Tom and Rosey’s personal assistants, Fawn and Nancy (not their real names; Nancy, Tom’s assistant could give Miss Iowa a run for her money) because Roseanne liked to travel with a trusted entourage. And trust to Rosie was a grail; after a hard life as a woman on the male-driven laugh circuit then a major collision with fame and all its ambulance chasers looking for a job, a scoop, a hand-out when she’s the one who rolled the hard six and hit, then her battle with the network, how they tried to interfere with the show’s content, pawning off a cavalcade of vanilla-flavored charlatan showrunners on her during that first season where it got to the point that the suits brought a stable of lawyers down to the set to make her say lousy lines she hadn’t written (after a messy stand-off Rosey won) then an ex-husband who betrayed her, then a father who allegedly abused her and yeah, trust was a kind of a big issue…
The set of large numbers
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN OTTUMWAN
Rosey and Tom fight.
Rosey wants to take a drive and talk about the book. Just the two of us. In a red pick-up. Only she drives off the road. And into a few acres of berms and moguls, the truck bouncing like a break dancer, Rosey howling like a kid on a roller coaster, me pinballing around the cab. Fix that neck of yours right up, she laughs.
Rosey and Tom fight.
Nancy and Fawn want a loose meat sandwich. Rosey looks at me, which means so do I.
Tom and Rosey fight.
The five of us pile into an SUV and drive to Rosey and Tom’s loose meat cafe for this…
Rosey and Tom laugh when the waitress places my plate in front of me. Earlier, while Tom and Rosey coffee klatched with their red neck color guard of regulars at the counter, some missing teeth, others with their dentures clicking overtime, a little birdy must’ve told the cook to slop an extra spoonful of loose meat on my sandwich. It all tastes fine but I can literally feel the plaque grabbing for the walls of my arteries. Nancy and Fawn want to take their left-overs back to the trailer. Roseanne glances at me. Which means I’m taking mine home, too.
Ottumwa. Shit. I’m still in Ottumwa.
The car is lousy with the cloying aroma of bread and loose meat becoming one in the take-out boxes. Rosey and Tom want to cruise the countryside. And drive really slow in order to surprise and delight the town folk, as in Hey, ain’t that Roseanne and that Tom Arnold fellah waving at us?!
Tom drives, Rosey rides shotgun. Nancy, Fawn and I crowd the back seat like children out for Sunday drive with their parents, only it’s not Sunday and we’re often the adults, conscripted into refereeing their manifold squabbles over Tom’s alleged affairs, the paparazzi, each other’s friends, Rosey’s eighteen personalities, Tom’s one, Rosey’s kids, Tom’s relatives, each other’s clothes, food, eating habits, sleeping habits, driving and above all, Tom being Tom and Rosey – when she wasn’t someone else – being Rosey.
Cranked on the car stereo The Stone’s Gimmie Shelter punishes the speakers while Rosie punishes Tom’s arm. Who knows what they’re fighting about now but Rosey repeatedly punches Tom HARD in the biceps, hard the way Rocky Marciano punched his opponent’s arms to get them to let down their guard. Nancy, Fawn and I bat around a look of dread.
Smack, smack smack. Rosey pounds on Rosey’s arm. It sounds like this:
In the back seat Nancy, Fawn and I bat around a look of dread. Nancy elbows me in the ribs as if to say, they listen to you do something but before I can think about interceding Tom stops the car and yanks Rosey’s sweatshirt over her head to pin her arms. Woah! Fort Knockers.
“I’m outa here!” Rosey hollers from under her sweat shirt, then opens her front door, loses her balance and falls out onto the countryside, here-to-for unsullied by a celebrity with her sweatshirt pulled over her head. Roseanne starts to run...
END, PART THREE