Of course there was always Alexia-Jane, and maybe Martha. That’s how I pictured it – Joanna vanished, Alexia life-sized here and now, Martha half-sized, and somewhere near.

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Joanna kept to her part of the house, and we did things by appointment. One night in the city I went to seeThe War of the Roses, which somewhat resembled our home situation. The titles showed just one red rose – I guess Hollywood doesn’t know about the House of York. I thought DeVito and Douglas were great, and K Turner odious. I could see that he neglected her – mostly absorbed in his lawyer work, but nothing else terrible, though they did disagree about the kids. But we never got into her head, just saw her ferocious anger. Must have been something else bugging her, so the film lacked that depth. I guess I’ll long remember its last few seconds, both entangled in the fallen chandelier, when he made a final, tender, death gesture, and she cast away his arm. Deep – but what? How did this work with me and Joanna? Teicher said revenge was too sweet for her to give up, so J’s anger at me resembled Turner’s.

Ted Meth was happy to be my divorce lawyer – one of his specialties. One morning at his Westfield office I told him what I knew, and he came up with a plan. He would file the papers, because it was better to attack than defend a case like this. We spent a couple of hours going over most everything, including any violent incidents. I forgot to tell him about the time she threatened me with a Mosel wine bottle. New Jersey was a no-fault divorce law state, but there had to be some sort of reason. So I told him how she mocked me as Doctor Libido in one of our Murder Weekend scripts, and that was enough for him to start. He charged $150 an hour, $50 for typing and filing, etc., and he’d try to get it done in less than a year. Sounded reasonable, so I wrote him a $ 5,000 retainer check. Ted had been WWBLR’s lawyer in our parlous times back around 1976, and we got through. Barely. He told me Joanna would get 40%