I'm the One That I Want

by Margaret Cho

  As much as I loved being high, I also loved copping. Paging the dealer and the beautiful sound of the ring of him calling you back. Then, nervously going to pick up the drugs, the entire time envisioning DEA agents kicking in the front door as the money changed hands. I loved the fast exchange and hasty exit, escaping the dealer’s house with a huge beautiful green bag of perfect weed—once I got one that looked just like Easter grass—sticky and voluminous. It would always fill me with hope and renewal and good will toward man. I got out of buying drugs what most people got out of Christmas. It also made me feel like I knew how to take care of myself, and that even though the world was a scary, unsure place, everything would eventually turn out okay.

  I copped from a friend at work, who got it from some artsy old man who lived on the beach and who got high and stared at the water all day. What a beautiful life!

  Oh! The drug dealers I have known. One guy sold dime bags out of his mail slot, conveniently located behind Petrini’s Market on Masonic (where a friend got stabbed in the meat department). You’d step down into the doorway and tap on the door, and fingers would take your ten and hand over a little plastic packet of verdant dreams, and that was that. No conversation, no feigned friendship in the uneven power play between addict and pusher. You didn’t have to talk about bands you didn’t like, or even break open the bag and smoke the token joint with the dealer. Best of all, there was no painful waiting for the phone to ring after you had paged your dealer—watching the minutes ache by as your jones got stronger and threatened to take you over. Even though the waiting could be unbearable, you could console yourself with the thought that any second, he might call, any second your whole day could change, and that made the ache perversely fun. This place was like a drug drive-through, and acquisition met desire in a perfect dance. Walking home from work, I could duck in that doorway, and within the space of a minute, I felt complete. In those days, I found true happiness in my empty house, midday rain outside and a new stash in. You almost didn’t have to get high—just knowing that you were going to momentarily, and then later, and again and again. I darkened that drug doorway many times—I even got inside once or twice. The guy that ran the place looked just like Santa Claus. He started selling bad, powdery, baby laxative crank out of the mail slot and the whole operation soon ended. I miss him to this day. He showed me that life as an addict could be surprisingly easy. A mail slot and ten dollars and a little bag of green could bring such happiness. That was the best way to get drugs.

  The worst Way was hanging out with Cone. Cone was this disgusting guy who was friends with my friend June’s dad. He sold drugs to us—but we had to spend a long time talking to him, because he wasn’t even exactly a dealer. He was some kind of a middleman, a pusher once removed. We spent days waiting around for other dealers, hanging out at his scary house. Cone hung carpet over the door of his bedroom so that it was soundproof. This was doubly evil because not only could nobody hear you scream, but the fabric would soak up the smells of pot, gross pot dealer guy BO, and the faint sour-ball smell so specific to Cone, and recirculate it around the room. There was a whole lotta foul going on. Cone was fat, but he wore these tight Daisy Duke shorts that not only went up his ass but up in the front, too, so it looked like he had a vagina. One time, I accidentally took his turquoise-and-silver-covered Bic lighter and he came over to my apartment to get it back. My roommates and I clung to the walls so he couldn’t see us in the windows, and screamed silent screams, sneaking looks outside to see the side view of his Man-gina as he banged against our front door. Cone had a big-screen TV and always stopped at the Playboy channel and lingered over the soft-core porn until we would yell at him to change it. As we waited for our drugs, he would argue that molesting children was justified, as long as the child made the first move. But pot was worth it. And worth more.

  POt Was the basis of many relationships. I smoked pot with Sledge every day, every two hours, for five years. We couldn’t do anything without first being high. It started in the morning right after coffee. We’d jack up high as kites on caffeine just so we could surf on the head waves with hits off his bronze bat, a small pipe that could be easily concealed in a clever pot box or your front pocket. It looked a little like a miniature cigarette holder. After getting sufficiently high, we’d laugh or make mixed tapes or go shopping or try to write or get more coffee to get wired again. Sledge would get up early because he was a shame-based stoner. He didn’t like what he was doing, so he had to try to deny it as much as possible. His pockets and black nylon gay man-purse were filled with stony accoutrements: mints, eye drops, gum and lip balm, an arsenal of products to cover up the tell-tale signs. I got up early, too, and we’d get together at his Castro Street apartment right away. If the phone rang, we let the voice mail get it. We’d be burnt to a crisp by 4 P.M. and need the sludgy, silty coffee from Café Flore to jolt us back into the world of the living. I hate that time of my life and I hate Sledge now so much for making all that waste seem like so much fun. I wasted so much of my life just walking around high and shopping, and if I were to do it all again, I wouldn’t, and that is the truth. Yet I had so many chances to get away from pot addiction and I always went back. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t have to buy the drugs anymore. Sledge had the dealer. And I didn’t have to be high alone anymore. I had my drug buddy. We ruled the Castro and smoked and ate and smoked and ate and ate well into the night. I always felt fat, but now I felt fatter.

  SOmetimes, We did Ecstasy, which was good because it would help me lose weight, if only for a day. I think one of the reasons I was so attached to Sledge is that he always told me that I was pretty and thin. I needed that then as much as I needed being high. He was my most frustrating friend but also one of the closest and the hardest to give up—just like pot. Pot will make you go insane, eventually. It also makes you hungry. I remember countless stony feasts up at Sledge’s apartment. He had this foodie boyfriend for a while who’d make us real Caesar salads, where he would actually rub the bowl with a piece of cut garlic. That was the gayest thing I have ever seen.

  We would sit in the kitchen and watch him seasoning that big wooden bowl, and pass joint after joint after joint, and then pass thin slices of salami wrapped around hunks of cream cheese, which we would swallow whole between tokes. I think we were looking to bombard all the senses at the same time. First, the “Sledgehammer”— choking, nasty hits of green, sticky bud—and then trying to retrieve yourself from the Great Green Beyond with the creamy, crunchy, chewy, pungent, subtly sweet everything of food that never seemed to stop coming. Each new dish appeared with a collective groan and a sigh as if the expulsion of air would create more room in our bulging bellies crammed full with escape and bread.

  After that, there would be more pot to make you forget the pain of overeating—and to make you want more, even though you are not sure if your body can take it. Then, eating again to take away the guilt of the eating in the first place. Sledge was so thin. I thought I’d be okay. I thought I could do it if he could do it. He told me I was thin. He told me it was okay. But it wasn’t.

  COmedy helped me pull away from this self-destruction, at least at the beginning.

  It gave me something to look forward to, besides the constant state of numbness that had been my only pursuit. I couldn’t be too high when I performed. I was paranoid enough onstage. Trying to do it high was impossible.

  My first performance in a comedy club was with Batwing Lubricant, my high school improv group. We did a showcase night at the Other Café, the legendary comedy club in the Haight, where performers like Robin Williams, Paula Poundstone, and Bobcat Goldthwaite regularly took the stage. We killed and were invited back for another night. The comics hated us because we were so young and cocky, but that didn’t take away from what was a life-changing experience for me.

  I saw, in that dark and smoky club, the rest of my life. I thought if I could just be allowed to go onstage and make people laugh every night that I wouldn’t care if I made
money or became famous. Just the ability to do it would be payment enough. I don’t know if I feel that way anymore. I have become jaded in my own way, and I love the material success that I have been so lucky to receive, but the way it all started was with my intense love of comedy and everything that went with it.

  It wasn’t easy in the beginning. The other comics were suspicious of newcomers, and I was scared of most of them. I would go to the Sunday Showcase at the Punchline, where the local acts ruled the stage, and I watched and learned from the masters. On a good night you could see Bobby Slayton or Will Durst, and at the Other Café, you could go watch Paula Poundstone. Rick Reynolds ruled the Improv, and in those early days, I went to shows like I should have been going to class.

  COmedy Was all I ever wanted. When I began, I don’t think anyone believed I would go anywhere. After I dropped out of the School of the Arts in my senior year to do drugs and go to Europe, it was no surprise that I didn’t end up getting into college. My parents lied and told their friends that I was living in the dorms, when in reality I was frying my brains out on LSD in Amsterdam. I came home in a black mood, drug weary and confused about what to do with my life. Comedy was the answer, and my indecision became resolve. During the day, I worked at my parents’ bookstore with Dante and Forbes, and at night I would prowl the clubs, trying to get in, trying to get on. I didn’t do as many drugs, because I had something outside myself to focus on. This comedy obsession pulled me out of a major depression. Going to clubs gave me something to look forward to. It showed me there was a life after school. My glory days were not over. They were just beginning.

  My parents did not understand, of course. They never even came to see me perform. They finally saw my show once last year. Even then it was a struggle! In the very early days, I would urge Trace and AJ and Duncan to come to the Rose and Thistle to see me. After the shows, on the car ride home, there would be long, uncomfortable silences, followed by a “Wow, it’s really brave of you to get up there and do that . . .” The experience of going to clubs and hanging around hoping to get noticed was terrifying. The first time I played the Punchline, I was worried I’d have to pay to get in. I was afraid to go into the greenroom because the other comics were in there. All these grown men seemed to be having such a good time with each other, and they had staked out that territory for themselves. They sat around in that holy room smoking, laughing, talking about how bad the crowd was, and patting each other on the back for a job well done.

  I just hung around the closed door, not part of the audience, not one of the performers. No one took me under their wing, no one knew I existed. My invisibility wasn’t particularly painful, because it was just like everywhere else in my life, but I was determined here to change all that. If I didn’t enter the greenroom, I didn’t act as if I was scared to, I just pretended to myself that I didn’t want to, and that standing by the door was where it was at.

  Eventually, I met other people who thought standing by the door was better, too. Before we knew it, we just fell into the greenroom when no one else was there, and suddenly that room was ours, and there were new, younger, scared people standing by the door, where we once were. I invited them in.

  Stand-up comedy was so scary back then. It was okay once I actually got onstage, but the entire day before was nightmarish. I worried constantly about what I would say. I wondered what the crowd would be like or if there even would be a crowd. I was worried about the comics before me and if I could follow them. I thought about what I would say, and then got scared that I wasn’t funny enough. The fear brought on a panic of whether I was kidding myself or not. I asked myself why I was doing this in the first place, putting myself through all this. What would happen if I forgot all my material? What would happen if I accidentally stole material from somebody else without even knowing it and got a reputation as a thief? What would happen if for some reason I was unable to get to the club? Would I be able to call them and tell them I wasn’t coming? What if I just called and said I couldn’t do it? What if I just told them that I was sick and woke up not funny and my dog ate my jokes, and what would happen what would happen what would happen. . . . It would reach a boiling point when I got to the club, then it simmered throughout the night until finally my name was called and I would walk onto the stage. I’d stand by the bar or by the stage entrance and my back would get all cold and my spine would tingle, my hands would shake and I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything or who was performing at the moment. I just wanted to run away, and then suddenly, the emcee would say my name and I would miraculously walk out on my own two feet and get the first joke out.

  Most of the time, it would go fine, and people would laugh and I’d stand a little taller and feel a little more confident. Sometimes, I wasn’t very good. Time would drag and I’d leave the stage defeated, but it never felt as bad as I thought it would. Afterward, I would try to get back on stage as soon as possible, to erase what I had done, to get some kind of performance retribution.

  I did comedy for many years in San Francisco, living out the rest of my teens in the clubs and one-nighters all around the Bay Area. In addition to that, I worked at FAO Schwarz, did phone sex, and worked at my parents’ bookstore all at the same time to support my comedy habit. FAO Schwarz was the most corporate job I’d ever had, and every day I would dress up in a red yarn wig and bloomers and pass myself off to the bratty kids as Raggedy Ann. One kid kicked me and said emphatically, “Raggedy Ann is not Chinese!” I spent my breaks with the Toy Soldier getting high on the top floor of the parking garage across the street.

  I would get off work at FAO Schwarz and rush over to the phone sex job. Usually, I didn’t have time to change in between, so I would be doing phone sex still dressed as Raggedy Ann.

  I got the phone sex job from a dumpy, aspiring actress named Kiley, who helped other dumpy, aspiring actresses get entry-level positions in the sex industry (no pun intended). This was in the halcyon days of phone sex recorded messages, before the advent of Girl 6 and the Internet. We would get paid about $10 per message, and each was only about a minute long, so it was a good job. You got even more money if you were willing to write your own scripts. I felt like Anaïs Nin, writing erotica for my supper.

  The downside was you had to be in the glass recording booth with the creepy technician, Maslowe, a smallish man with red curly hair all over his chest, spilling out in tufts from his open pirate shirt. He wore knee-high boots with khaki riding jodhpurs tucked into them, so he looked even shorter than he was, and somehow, I picture him carrying a machete, although I don’t believe that it was ever part of his ensemble. Since he dressed so outlandishly, he never commented on my Raggedy Ann outfit. I probably looked normal to him.

  In the cramped and close quarters of the sound booth, Maslowe would sit with his boots propped up on the desk, stinking of Brut. “C’mon, make it real for me. Breathe harder, get me off. Act like you like it. You can touch yourself if you want. I don’t mind.”

  I would try to read again, now totally self-conscious, even more wooden than before. I tried to ignore what he just said, tried to act cool, like “I’m a grown-up, I don’t mind being talked to like that,” but I couldn’t.

  Sometimes, Maslowe would give me a lollipop.

  “This’ll make you sound wetter. More open. Suck it.”

  All of his notes just made me worse, less sexy, more scared. Sometimes he would get so frustrated with me that he would tear off his headphones and leave the little booth. I’d just sit there and wait for him to come back, which he always did eventually. I think he wanted me to chase after him, so I’d find him outside on the fire escape, looking off into the distance. Then, I’d wrap my arms around him, begging him to come back. He wouldn’t listen, and I’d just carry his little body back to the sound booth, apologizing profusely the entire time, and then cream into the mike like Apollonia or Vanity or some other Prince protégé.

  By Jove, I think she’s got it!

  I never did. I just sat there. He
would come back, carrying a cup of coffee, and finish recording me. Despite his “artistic” ambitions, we still had a job to do. The coffee was Maslowe’s way of covering up for his tantrum under the guise of thirst.

  Maslowe got fired, and Kiley took over as sound technician, which made it much easier. We got a contract to do a series of messages, called Hot Girls USA. It was part of Learn English!, an educational program for the employees of a Japanese company. Japanese men could call in and get extra credit for the language course and supposedly get off at the same time. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

  Since the messages were designed to teach English, the text had to be simple and straightforward.

  “Hello. My name is Candi. I have blonde hair. I have large breasts. I enjoy sex. My favorite activity is sucking cock. This is most enjoyable. Do you enjoy sex?” (space for response)

  “Good. I like to have sex every day.”

  I made a lot of money on those sessions, and Maslowe wasn’t there, so I didn’t have to look at his miserable Khaki wearin’ ass, or be grossed out by his controlling, sexually violating direction.

  UsUally after I finished at the phone sex studio, I would go to my parents’ bookstore and work until closing, the red circles and brown freckles fading on my tired face. Then I’d go home and change and go to a show. I was exhausted, but so excited by the comics and the great people I was meeting and the fantastic shows I was seeing, that I went to bed every night hotly anticipating what the next day would bring.