Advocate, The: Love and repossession

At 4 A.M. I was startled awake by a loud pounding on my front door. My first instinct was to ignore it. Then the man started yelling at the top of his lungs, "United Auto Recovery!" He'd come to repossess my car. As if this wasn't humiliating enough, the person I'd been dating for a month was sitting up in bed next to me, her eyes wide, wondering what the hell was going on.

I reassured her that everything was fine and told her to stay in bed. Then I threw on some clothes and made my way to the door, realizing that if I didn't get up to give him the keys and retrieve my personal things from the trunk, I'd lose an incomplete set of golf clubs, one Rite Aid beach chair, and three quarts of Pennzoil--which I imagined I wouldn't be needing any time soon, given the situation.

There were two of them, and I have to say, for repo men they were really nice guys: towering but pleasant, a la Shaquille O'Neal. There was a gunlike bulge in one of the guy's Levi's--and I knew it wasn't because he was happy to see me. They escorted me to the carport, where I retrieved my things from the trunk and then reluctantly, although with a glimmer of relief, handed them the keys. "Thanks, guys. It's been a fun ride."

As I made my way back to my apartment, my mind was in overdrive. How would I explain this once I got back upstairs? I really liked this girl, but it's not a typical fourth date to be awakened in the early-morning hours by two brutes demanding the keys to your date's car.

My gradual financial meltdown had begun six months after the sitcom I was writing for was unexpectedly canceled, catapulating me back into the crowded pool of unemployed TV writers, just when unscripted "reality" shows were becoming the new thing. The future was looking grim. Bottom line: A career in television is like Russian roulette. You either live of you die. There is no middle ground.

But would she care? I was now carless in Los Angeles. Not an attractive quality--sort of like not having feet or arras. I thought about how much fun we had had just a few hours earlier as we shot pool and talked about growing up queer in Bible-thumping families. Because we had so much in common, we were able to get to know each other without any pretense--rare in a town that thrives on the importance of celebrity, money, and power.

I would miss her toes. She had perfect toes.

But what could I do? It was done. Suddenly I felt oddly calm. I guess there's something freeing about inadvertent resolve. If there's nothing you can do about a situation, you have to accept it. I suddenly had no expectations--a good state to be in, given the current trajectory of my career.

Yes, it was my fault that I didn't have the money to send to the bank so I could keep my car. But I had been violently shaken off my rung on the criminally overpaid ladder of TV writing. And yet unlike the writer in Sunset Boulevard, who dodges the repos and winds up floating dead in a swimming pool as a result, I was facing my problem head-on. I was completely broke, but courageous. I hoped the woman in my bed would agree.

I considered trying my well-rehearsed "rational excuse for my lack of success," which I fed my parents during our biannual phone calls: I'm at the mercy of an insanely erratic industry, in which constituents are either shopping for a million-dollar house or at the local 7-Eleven trying to decide between a six-pack of Michelob Ultra or a loaf of bread. And there's no science to it. It's a gamble, but the payoff can be huge. And you can wear shorts and flip-flops to work and say "fuck" 20 times a day without getting fired.

Thank God my parents pray for me.

My mind raced through a list of daily chores I would now have to rethink. Could I get one of those cute little carts to transport my groceries? I pictured myself outside Trader Joe's, trading "best buy" tidbits with an elderly neighbor with her own stuffed cart. I hoped I could find one in navy tartan.

As I turned the doorknob and readied myself to face my girl, I took one last deep breath, and to fortify me I thought of what Bob Dylan once said: "Any day above the ground is a good day."

Then I opened the door.

Nielsen has written for The Naked Truth, Brother's Keeper, and other TV shows.