He said, “I figured you’d do something like that and I probably shouldn’t say anything, but that’s just the Golden State, there’re are forty-nine others. And what about them furrin countries — isn’t Switzerland full of fancy écoles? England, too, all those oldy-moldy piles of brick where they cane your bottom for kicks and turn you into a masochistic earl or whatever.”
I laughed. “I know, the whole idea’s ridiculous. The kid would need a trust fund.”
“You’re saying ridiculous but you’re thinking maybe before Zelda went completely nuts she set the kid up financially. One can always dream.”
“I shouldn’t pursue it.”
“My opinion’s gonna make a difference? Good luck.”
SubUrban’s Wikipedia listing described the show as “a vehicle for lowbrow, often vulgar, infrequently on-spot humor.” Mediocre ratings during the first season hadn’t prevented renewal because the network was searching for “edgy comedy aimed at attracting a younger audience.” Viewership increased a bit at the beginning of the second season but began to taper at the end. Cancellation came with no warning from the network.
The setting was an apartment building in a nameless midwestern city that served as the hub of a dysfunctional social grouping: a grumpy widower named Horace and his two children, a fifteen-year-old would-be lothario named (get it!!) Horner and an intellectually precocious, nunnish seventeen-year-old named (this you have to get!!!!) Virginia. The house pets Lou Sherman had cited were an inert, flatulent basset hound who supplied voiceover wisdom and a goldfish in a bowl who enjoyed faking death. Additional charm was supplied by neighbors: a Nigerian couple named Marvis and Bulski who dressed formally and believed themselves above it all, and a caricature-gay fireman named Chad-Michael-Anthony whose sleep patterns had been permanently destroyed by middle-of-the-night alarms. He’d installed a flagpole in his house in order to “practice my leg lock.”
Chad-M-A’s platonic roommate was the mandatory bombshell, Corinna, played by Zelda Chase clad in costumes that skewed toward lingerie. She’d projected the same triad of traits in every episode: glazed-eye intensity, serpentine body movements, monosyllabic utterances. All of which made her character the show’s most frequent object of ridicule.
She also got to work the flagpole.
I watched a scene featuring a lot of her, found it pathetic and creepy, searched for another, had the same reaction, and logged off. Copying down the cast list, I added the production company, H-S Partners, and the assistant who’d babysat Ovid, Karen Gallardo.
Nothing further on the actors but H-S had gone on to create a more successful series involving the wacky world of pest extermination called Spray Me.
One carryover from SubUrban: the goldfish.
Joel Hyson and Greer Strickland ran the company, currently headquartered in Culver City near the Sony lot. Proceeding alphabetically, I phoned and asked to speak to Hyson. An adenoidal receptionist who sounded around fourteen said, “In a meeting.”
“No prob, I’ll talk to Greer?”
“About what?”
“Zelda Chase.”
“Who?”
“She was on the cast of SubUrban.”
“She’s not on Spray.”
“I know that. I’m one of her doctors and I’m doing some follow-up.”
“Give me that name again, I’ll leave a message.”
Locating anyone else’s address bottomed out, with only Stevenson Beal, the actor who’d played Chad-Michael-Anthony, listed on a business directory because he had a new gig: real estate agent in Encino.
His voicemail insisted he was really interested in what anyone had to say. Emmy-caliber performance, but no place for him in the industry.
No justice in the world.
Expanding my boarding school search to five other states, I kept offering my bogus story with no success, saved the best for last and phoned Sherry Andover and told her about Zelda’s Bel Air arrest.
She said, “Sounds more aggressive than before... any actual physical contact?”
“None listed in the police report.”
“All right, I’ll give her the benefit. But I’ll be watchful, thanks, Doctor.”
“Appreciate it, Sherry.”
“If I tightened my criteria too much, I’d be empty and collecting unemployment.”
I took a longer-than-usual run, showered, dressed, and drove to LACBAR. This time, Yvette the receptionist managed a nod.
I said, “The boss back there?”
She rolled her eyes. “Boss. That’ll be the day.” She buzzed me in.
On the far side of the cubicle area, Kristin Doyle-Maslow perched atop a desk and held court for a group of six people. She saw me and waved expansively. To see it, you’d think we socialized regularly. I pretended not to notice and kept walking. She shouted, “Doctor!” loud enough to preclude my faking deafness.
I stopped. She crooked a finger at me. Come here, Junior.
I stared as if she were a sideshow curiosity. That creased her face and caused her to hop off the desk and come charging toward me.
When we were inches apart, she forced words out in a labored stage whisper, a sausage machine extruding links. “These. Are. County health managers. Gatekeepers. We need them. To get with the program. So we can mobilize outpatient services.”
“We.”
“The treatment community. Come over and meet them, you don’t have to say anything, just don’t diss me.”
I looked at her.
“Please,” she growled, destroying any etiquette value the word might have. “How can we help patients if we can’t net them?”
“I’m in no position to endorse—”
“Don’t endorse shit, just come over, I’ll do the talking.”
Six people were staring at me. I followed her over, smiled and stood by as she spieled about community needs, the advantages of outpatient care in the exciting new environment wrought by a meld of treatment advances, government funding, and private citizens combining to “combat mental illness as we all liaise and partner with localities in order to tailor caregiving to diverse, area-specific needs.”
Then she smiled at me and I knew she’d break her word. “This is Dr. Delaware, one of our local practitioners. He opted to partner with us in the brief treatment of a seriously ill street person who’d slipped through the cracks and is finally obtaining the care she needs. Because he gets what we’re about. In fact, he’s here now to see to her overall psychosocial needs and I hope we’ll be able to collaborate in the future on optimizing her multimodal care. Any questions for the doctor?”
A woman said, “What type of patient?”
I said, “Can’t discuss that.”
A man said, “What about ethnicity? Are you truly diverse?”
Kristin Doyle-Maslow said, “She’s a seriously ill patient and yes, we are.”
“Is she of color?”
I said, “Can’t discuss that.”
Another man said, “Are you doing something other than pushing meds? Is she being treated with cultural sensitivity?”
Kristin Doyle-Maslow said, “Absolutely. This particular patient—”
“Can’t be discussed,” I said.
A woman, now glaring at The Hyphen, said, “I appreciate your honoring confidentiality, Doctor.”
I said, “Glad you understand,” and walked away, feeling sullied.
Thank you, ladies and germs. Now I’ll balance a ball on my nose while barking “The Star-Spangled Banner.”