Whenever asked to state my profession, I am fond of replying: Having my cake and eating it too. What better way to describe being a humorist in Hollywood? It is possible to mock the glitz, glamor and moral vacuum and at the same time enjoy an abundant supply of all three, to satirize the excesses of ego and yet indulge my own untrammeled amour-propre.
Now this week’s inexhaustible supply of cake derives from my holiday story “The Christmas Card.”
Exactly two weeks ago, as I was putting the finishing touches on this tale of skydiving, guilt and redemption, I was speaking to the guy who started it all. Eugene told me about his first skydive some six months ago, and planted the seed for the story. Now Eugene made an unexpected offer:
“I have an extra reservation for skydiving this weekend in Camarillo, do you want to go?”
On the phone, seated by the computer in the comfort of my own home, a gasp left my lips, a gasp as if at that very moment of hearing the invitation, I had already leapt from the cockpit and into the ozone.
“Gimme 30 minutes and I’ll have a decision,” I said.
There are times when all the psychological groundwork has been laid. The stealth genie had been at work, and all somebody has to do is ask and you are ready—a pushover for the wildest feat imaginable.
With the skydiving narrative I had gotten off light, so far. I had depended on research of other people’s jumps and my own gift for fully imagining imaginary situation—to go 13 thousand feet in the air from the comfort of my study. (Students of literature may be inspired to emulate my own, not infrequent, practice of writing first and researching later. But sooner or later comes the point of comparing the reality to what I imagined: for example, I will finally travel to the country I have depicted, and be able to correct my mistaken perceptions, sharpen others and make new observations.) If I was worth my salt, I had to bail out of an airplane, just as my character Bernie had done.
Now there were haunting parallels between the story and chronology: in it a nebbishy accountant who has taken up skydiving perishes in a jump the weekend before Christmas. After being invited to Camarillo, I looked at the calendar, and the date of the proposed jump was theweekend before Christmas. Holy cow! This coincidence might give even the least superstitious person pause.
In my story Bernie even refers to the jump as “my Christmas present to myself.”
I could be accused of being selfish and taking away other people’s presents from under the Christmas tree by going on this adventure. Also, I could be taking a foolish risk. These are the consequences of facing a challenge that no one, not even oneself, could have anticipated.
It was so easy to be superstitious, be prudent, and turn down the offer of going on a skydive. And yet, everything inside said yes. The psychological groundwork had been laid months earlier—especially during the weeks of composing my fictional story about skydiving. My imagination had been dwelling on this subject; now my body was ready and willing to follow. Tell you the truth: it didn’t take me 30 minutes to decide; it took me three seconds.
Still, one thing could be a real deal stopper. On Sunday, the day of the jump, I was taking care of my young daughter, that was so embedded in my routine that it automatically boded a no. But why not? I thought. My ex-wife has been prone to change plans, why couldn’t I? I asked her the favor of taking care of our daughter for the day, and she obliged.
Thus the way was paved. The die was cast to leave Hollywood early Sunday morning and drive to Camarillo.
