Is My Bow Too Big? How I Went From Saturday Night Live to the Tea Party (18 page)

The therapist asks, “When did this behavior start?”

I say, “Oh, he’s always been like that!”

The therapist asks, “Then, why did you marry him?”

“Because I thought I could change him.”

My fourth therapy experience is in Miami. Dr. Judith is a Christian. She watches me cry about how much I hate Miami. Her face is kind. Her smile is genuine. She is happy here. She listens. We pray together. She tells me that God has a purpose for me in Miami

My fifth therapy experience is 15 years later, still in Miami. Dr. Maria is a Christian. She watches me cry about how much I hate Miami. Her face is kind. Her smile is genuine. She is happy here. She listens. We pray together. She tells me that I should move back to LA.

I ask Paul if he flies his police helicopter over the nude beach so he can stare at naked women. He says, “People are little specks from the helicopter.” I say, “Then how can you see the bad guys?” He took me up and showed me. He was right. The people are little specks. I said, “But I bet you go much lower when I’m not in the helicopter?” He said, “Yeah Vicki, I hover over the nude beach whipping sand into people’s eyes.”

I’m standing in the Biltmore Hotel reception room in Miami. There are bowls of cashews everywhere. I’m studying Miss Florida’s chest. I’m wondering how big and what shape her breasts really are. Her beaded evening gown has metal stays, so one doesn’t really know. My picture is being taken with Miss Florida. My husband pretends he can’t see her or hear her speaking, because he’s afraid I’ll fly into a jealous rage like I have in the past. During these fits, a Bible has been ripped to shreds, a wedding ring has been dented, and a Cohiba has been tossed out of a car window. These are the rules:

1. When a pretty female is in the vicinity, single take is permitted, because of left-over police training. Double take is never permitted unless there is fear of eminent danger.

2. While on police duty, helicopter is not allowed within two-hundred yards of any beach.

3. Television: Absolutely no HBO. All shows after 10 p.m. off limits, except Fox News, TBN, and Joyce Meyers.

4. Near any body of water, large or small, focus must be directed at boating equipment only. Pools are strictly forbidden.

I don’t like Miami.

There’s too much flesh out of control.

When someone’s boobs are in your face,

how can you see their soul?

Paul’s greatest challenge came when I went shopping at
Victoria’s Secret
. He is not allowed inside the store, for obvious reasons. Window shopping is not acceptable either. Neither is casually glancing at customers entering the store, unless they’re obese. Watching passersby is also not allowed—all those tummy shirts. Paul was left staring at an ashtray for thirty minutes. And that’s why our marriage is so good.

For some reason, lately, I seem to have the need at social events to not only sabotage the theme, and the individuals being honored, but my career as well. My husband urges me not to talk. Just read the winner of the Dolphin Sport Award. Maybe subconsciously people can tell I hate Miami. The football frenzy is beyond my grasp. You couldn’t pay me to sit there in a mass of shouting people to see guys smash into each other and chase a tiny, stupidly shaped ball which I can’t even see. It’s a speck. The whole thing is a waste of time and a gruesome facsimile of the bloody coliseum. I don’t just dislike football. I hate it. Like I hate most things “the masses” like: beer, strip clubs, wings (there’s no meat on them), action movies (no dialogue), disaster movies and horror films (enough of that on the news), rock concerts (sounds like hell), soap operas (too fake), shopping malls (too many choices, claustrophobic), and sports TV. I loudly exclaim from the stage, “Why do people root for their home team when all the players are from different states and countries? They have no loyalty to the city they represent. Do people know that? What’s the connection? They’re paid for it!”

Silence.

That night, Muhammad Ali was being honored with the Legend Award. As he made his way around the tables, he walked into a wall. They turned him around and pointed him toward the stage. He shook a lot. He didn’t talk or smile. He went back to his seat. I thought,
He let people hit him in the head over and over. I wonder if that has anything to do with him walking into the wall
. From the stage, on the mic, I say, “I respect Muhammad Ali, but I’ve never seen a fight. If I did, I’d probably cry because basically it’s two guys hitting each other.”

Crickets.

I was never asked back to host. My hometown hates me. They don’t get me and I don’t get them. The only thing more boring to me than three hours of Dolphin football players watching themselves on video playbacks and giving themselves awards is touring the Everglades (the swamp) and looking at alligators, snakes, weeds, and skinny white birds, and trying to pretend this wonder of nature is as spectacular as Yellowstone. Even Dave Barry, who is seated at my table, pretends I’m invisible.

Paul got an “A-” for the evening. Last time he got a “D-” because he was nice to a slutty, drunk woman right in front of me. If he wants to get an “A” he has to make out with me in front of Miss Florida and sing
You Are So Beautiful
to me in the parking lot loudly while we wait for the valet to bring the car.

When I was in the North Miami Beach Pageant, my talent was Balance Beam. My Dad was so nervous he accidentally set up my Balance Beam crooked; one side was three inches higher than the other side. But I was so nervous I did a back handspring without falling off. My feet became like a frog’s… like suction cups… I think I lost because I was flat-chested.

Later that night at home, I asked, “Paul, were you attracted to Miss Florida?”

“Of course not!” he exclaimed. “I’m not attracted to young, together-looking, neat, clean women.” He left out “slim” on purpose. That’s our one unspoken rule. If he ever calls me fat, I’m gone. As I grab a handful of cashews, and walk around a log of dog poop, I say, “I bet she’s bulimic and has Oreo wrappers all over her room, and scars and pimples under her dress, which she throws on the floor when she rushes home in between her important engagements.”

Paul continues, “No, I’m attracted to fat, old slobs.”

I spit the cashews out in the sink.

I call Paul’s uniform his “little police costume” because he takes it
so
seriously. “I had a perimeter and chased a vehicle with two armed suspects, perpetrators, canine, affirmative, vehicle, safety belt…” I think he uses big words because taxpayers are paying him and it sounds more important that way. I mean, all the cops really do is show up after the crime and wrap yellow tape around it, right?

Don’t tell him I said that.

Paul can’t leave his police personality at work. Sometimes in bed, he puts his arm around me and he says, “Do you have any idea why I pulled you over?”

Once, I overslept and he drew a chalk outline around me.

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

–George Orwell

He’s so macho. He has five guns, a motorcycle, a helicopter, he used to be on the SWAT team, he works the cattle at his mom’s farm, and he has big, big muscles. He’s either really, really macho or he’s really gay and he’s overcompensating.

I asked my Dad why there are so many gay people now. It seems like there are more now than ever before. He said, “Maybe it was getting really crowded in the closet.”

And so I stayed in the suburbs for twenty years. I counted the days until Paul could retire with a pension in 2007 and move to LA for me. I volunteered at an orphanage, attended millions of my daughters’ cheerleading, gymnastics, and dance events, went to church, taught an acting class, took up painting, wrote volumes of angst, watched TV, went back to college, finished my degree, baked Tollhouse cookies, and photographed and archived every moment of my babies’ lives. I risked plane crashes and terrorist encounters for small wisps of career satisfaction in smoky comedy clubs, did errands in
Español
, and attended the Oscars only vicariously through the TV set, while my friends sashayed across the stage accepting awards. 2007 arrived and Paul did not want to move from FL to CA. He wanted to stay five more years to get a bonus.

So I put the house up for sale and Paul punched a hole through the bathroom door.

Intermission