The Last Black Unicorn

by Tiffany Haddish

  Tiffany: “When I was in love with him, when I was with him, he was not in a wheelchair. He got shot in the back, okay? That’s why he’s in a wheelchair.”

  Ex-Boyfriend: “I bet you were fucking in that wheelchair.”

  Tiffany: “Stop trippin’!”

  Ex-Boyfriend: “I bet you would.”

  Anytime we had an argument, he would always bring up Roscoe or some kind of handicapped dick.

  Well, we’re not dating anymore. I guess that was easy to predict.

  Other Guys I’ve Dated

  I’ve dated a few policemen, and that was generally cool. Cops tend to be pretty good dudes. They are strong and polite, and they treat you right.

  Well, not all of them. One of the guys, he ended up going to jail for robbing some Mexican fruit stands. He was a crooked cop.

  I didn’t know about him robbing the fruit stands, obviously, but I had a feeling something was off with him. When he would come to my house, he always put his gun on my dresser. It made me uncomfortable. It was like he was subconsciously saying, “Don’t try nothing, bitch, or I’mma shoot you.” That’s what I felt. I didn’t like that, so I backed off of him.

  Good thing, too. I don’t want to date no guy who robs poor Mexicans just trying to make some money selling fruit. That ain’t right.

  I dated two dope dealers, but there’s nothing really funny about that. They’re in jail, too. Come to think of it, I’ve dated about five guys who ended up in jail in some form.

  One was this African dude who would always bring me clothes.

  Well, I didn’t really date him. It felt like I dated him, because he would call me so much, and he would bring me shoes and clothes that didn’t fit. He put them in front of my house—like, right at the front door, like some sort of broke-ass Santa Claus.

  I never went anywhere with him, because who leaves gifts at your door? And they were bad gifts, like really small clothes, double zero clothes. Or a pantsuit, and it’s double zero, too. I don’t wear a double zero. I’m not close to that size.

  He brought me some Dada shoes, but they were a size six. I wear a ten. I was like, ugh. I didn’t like that. I threw the clothes and the shoes away, and then he stopped bringing me things, because he went to jail.

  He was running some of those Nigerian prince email scams. Using people’s credit cards and checks, for identity theft. Hitting up old people for their money, that kind of stuff.

  The Nice Guy

  I dated a lawyer once. He was much older than me, like sixty, and he was so nice. He was always kind, always polite, and bought me nice things. He took me nice places, taught me a lot, was easy to talk to, a good communicator, and we had a lot of fun. Wherever we’d go, we would have a good time. We could go to a baby shower and still have fun, and we went to that kind of stuff all the time. He was dope.

  But that’s not why I dated him. To be honest, I dated him for racist reasons.

  I dated him because he was white. At least, I thought he was. I didn’t ask him, I just assumed.

  I found out the truth when he went in for surgery on a torn rotator cuff. I went with him to the hospital to help him afterwards, because I’m a good girlfriend. When he was asleep, I wanted to see if we was healthy—you know, because we’d been hooking up without a condom for a while.

  So I went through his charts, and right there, plain as day on his blood test, it said he’s African-American. I went up to the nurse, all confused.

  Tiffany: “He’s not African-American. Why y’all got this on here? He came in here with me, I know him.”

  Nurse: “No, that’s his chart. That’s what it says.”

  I got sad, because I really thought I was dating a white man. When he woke up, I gently broached the subject:

  Tiffany: “You black?!?!”

  Old Boyfriend: “I don’t normally talk about it.”

  He didn’t know his mom. He was raised by his white, English father in London. When he asked his dad about his mom, his dad was like, “Your mom was mixed, but she was a harlot.” Some English people call a ho a harlot, I guess. So his dad was calling his mom a ho.

  You know the sad thing? If he’d been white, I might have kept dating him.

  Well, maybe. There were other problems. He was also old.

  He kept asking me to have babies with him. That didn’t make sense. Here he was, sitting around with a messed up shoulder, already sixty, and he wants me to have a baby.

  First off, he can’t hold a baby with that shoulder!

  Second, I’m not about to have to change your diaper and the baby’s diaper. That’s too much work.

  Third, he already had two grown kids. What if they have babies? Now I’m getting grandpa dick. I don’t want grandpa dick. I’m cool with baby daddy dick, but grandpa dick is no good.

  That’s how I felt, anyway. But he was the best boyfriend I ever had. If he was like twenty years younger, it would have been cool.

  Toxic Shock

  This isn’t really a boyfriend story, but it kinda fits in this chapter, ’cause I wanted this doctor to be my boyfriend. Here’s how it went down.

  When I was thirteen—right before my mom hit that baby with a two-by-four and I got put in foster care—I got toxic shock syndrome.

  I got toxic shock because I was using a super-absorbent tampon and I probably should have just been using a junior-sized tampon. I didn’t even know how to really use it right. I had the applicator in there and everything.

  I went through the school day, I got home from school, and then I took the tampon out. I was itching and scratching all over. I just felt so sick. I was telling my mom, and my mom was like:

  Mama: “She’s just faking. She not sick. She’s just faking.”

  Grandma: “She got a fever though, she got a fever.”

  Mama: “She all right. She going to be fine. Just take this Herbalife. That’s what you need to do, just take this Herbalife.”

  To this day, I hate Herbalife because of this incident. She was making me swallow these pills, but soon as I swallowed them, I threw them up. Anything I drank—water, juice, whatever—I threw up.

  Mama: “Oh, she acting. She acting. Stop acting like you sick. Stop acting like you got a problem. You just acting.”

  Then she whipped me. That whipping hurt, but it also felt so good, because my body was so itchy. Every time the belt hit me, it was like a good scratch.

  Then, when my grandma came over, I was completely dehydrated. I had scratched holes in my legs and my feet. You know when you run outside after the ice cream truck in the summertime and the bottom of your feet burn? That’s how it felt all over my whole body. My tongue had swollen up. I was so dehydrated from vomiting constantly.

  My grandma was not having this:

  Grandma: “She need to go to the hospital. I’m taking her to the hospital.”

  Mama: “Don’t take her to the hospital. She don’t need to go to the hospital. She faking. She faking.”

  Grandma: “This is why you gonna end up losing these kids.”

  My grandma ignored her and took me to the hospital. Later on, they told me that if she hadn’t brought me in when she did, I would have died that night from dehydration alone.

  I had toxic shock. That was my first time getting a Pap smear. I was thirteen. They had to break my hymen, all that shit. Two people stuck their finger in my butt. It was the worst.

  But there was this sexy doctor that came in. I’ll never forget that doctor. He was black and really strong and he was scary handsome. He was pressing on my stomach and stuff.

  Doctor: “Does that hurt?”

  I would try to be all sexy and cute, and say it seductively.

  Tiffany: “Owwww yes . . . it hurts. Owwww.”

  It really did hurt, but I was trying to be cute about it. He left the room, but I wanted him to come back. I wanted him to come back, because I thought he was so handsome.

  Tiffany: “I need the doctor. I need the doctor.”

  Nurse: “What’s the
matter?”

  Tiffany: “It’s hurting. It’s hurting so much in my lower stomach and in my area. It’s hurting.”

  Nurse: “You sure? Here, I can give you some pain medicine.”

  Tiffany: “No, I think the doctor needs to come back in here.”

  Nurse: “He’s still on the floor. We’ll get him to come back.”

  I fixed my hair and spread it out on the pillow, made it look seductive. I was thirteen, and I was so stupid. I was trying to make it look sexy.

  When he came back, I threw the sheet to the side and I opened my legs and said:

  Tiffany: “I think I need another thing where y’all check with the thing ’cause it hurts a lot. I think you need to look at it.”

  He threw the sheet back over me.

  Doctor: “Miss Tiffany, that’s very cute but you do not need to be looked at down there anymore. You’re going to be just fine. I just looked over all your lab reports and everything is getting back to normal very quickly. You’ll be out of here by tomorrow. Okay? Nobody needs to look at your private parts anymore.”

  Tiffany: “Are you sure?”

  Doctor: “Yes, I am quite sure.”

  Oh my God, I was a thirsty kid.

  Controlling, Jealous Boyfriends

  Every boyfriend I get is jealous. Every man that I date is jealous of other people around me or jealous of me. I don’t know what it is about me. I got to figure that out.

  I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve dated who are all about, “No phone calls from dudes. Who is this dude? What’s his name? What kind of business is it? Are you cheating on me? Are you cheating on me? Blah blah blah blah blah.”

  So many of these guys fussing at me every single day about dudes. Do they not realize I’m in a male-dominated business, and I’m going to have to talk to men every day? That’s just a part of my gig. I try to explain this, then I hear, “Well you shouldn’t be flirting. You shouldn’t be sending emojis.”

  When I did this television special one time, I got two, three hundred text messages from all these different comedians. The guy I was dating went through my phone and deleted a bunch of them.

  I let him do it, because I have nothing to hide. I don’t know why guys do that, but they always look at my phone. Every guy that I’ve dated has gone through my phone.

  But I can’t even get mad at the dudes who are jealous and possessive. You know why?

  I’m picking them.

  I pick every dude. I literally walk up to them, grab their arm, like, “You are beefy. What’s your name? You sexy.”

  That didn’t work in high school. In high school dudes were like, “What? What is wrong with you? You talk to Tiffany? What’s wrong with Tiffany?”

  It works now. Now guys respond.

  Well, at least the guys I tend to be attracted to—possessive and jealous and controlling—they respond.

  The good guys, they don’t as much. They get scared.

  One of my comedy buddies tried to help me:

  Comedy Buddy: “Tiffany, you need to just smile and don’t say shit. Look at the dude. Smile and then look away. If they like you, they going to come for you. You’re a beautiful girl. You should never say, ‘Damn, you look beefy’ or ‘You’re handsome.’ You don’t need to do that.”

  For most guys, I think he is right. For most guys, if a woman approaches them, they don’t know how to process it.

  If you’re a woman and you compliment a guy, even something simple like, “Oh, nice shoes,” and you don’t work with them every day, you’re not seeing them every day, it’s just some guy you meet and you compliment them—they think something is wrong with your pussy. They think, even subconsciously, that your pussy must be broke.

  That’s why so many guys tell me, “You be acting thirsty.” Comedy Buddy always says this:

  Comedy Buddy: “You act like you’re an ugly girl. You’re like an ugly girl inside of you, but a pretty girl on the outside. Did you know that?”

  It’s like fat people who lose weight, in their head, they’re still that fat person they used to be.

  The other day, I was thinking about why I am like this. I think I act like this, and I end up picking jealous and possessive guys, because in some sick, twisted way, I think that means they care. I’m like, “Look at all the energy he’s putting into finding out what I’m doing.”

  The reality is, in my life, no man’s ever really cared. As a kid, I didn’t have any man that cared about me.

  My dad didn’t care. Stepdad didn’t care. Uncles didn’t care. Nobody cared.

  I think that I interpret possessiveness from men as love.

  Also, my grandma said to me as a child:

  “Every man is going to think of you as property. That’s why they want to put they last name on your name. Then you’re their property. So you want to make sure whoever you end up with knows how to maintain their property. See yourself as a house. You have to view yourself as the house on the highest part of the hill. You can’t let everybody come into your house. They can’t catch no bus to your house. They can’t ride no bike to your house. They got to have a nice car with four-wheel drive to get up to your house.”

  Ain’t that some fucked up shit to say to a little girl? Especially a poor girl, who was in and out of foster care?

  The reality is, for all of my twenties, I thought of myself as an apartment in the projects. Right in front of the bus stop. “Who wants some? Who wants to come in the apartment, hey! Let’s have a party. Who wants to be in here?”

  I just wanted anyone in. I would let anyone in who wanted to guard this property. To protect me. If you understand that about me, you understand why I was with the wrong men so long.

  I know I’ve got to stop it, though. I’m single now. I am just going to kick back and see what comes to me. I’m not going to keep repeating these patterns with men. They are not working.

  The Ex-Husband

  I just got to warn you straight up: this story is bad.

  And not bad in a funny way, like the Roscoe story, or the Titus story. Like, this is just flat-out bad. This story is probably going to frustrate you. It might even get you angry.

  I almost did not put this in the book. I mean, there isn’t much here that’s funny, to be honest. But I ended up putting it in, because of three reasons:

  1. It’s the hard truth about my life. I will always tell the truth, even when it’s not fun.

  2. I hope some young girls can learn from my mistakes and avoid what I went through.

  3. I believe everything happens for a reason, and as bad as this was, I believe it’s made me better and helped me get where I am.

  With that in mind, lemme tell you about my experience with marriage, domestic violence, and self-delusion.

  It all started when I went on that cruise with Titus. The one where he brought $50 for the whole cruise? That one.

  On the plane, I met this guy who was a cop. I ain’t even going to say his real name, it don’t matter. I’ll just call him Ex-Husband. Me and Ex-Husband talked for a while, and he seemed nice. It turned out he was going to the same cruise I was, and he wanted to take a cab with me there.

  But I had Titus, and I wasn’t all that into this guy. But he was a policeman, and I thought, This will be a good friend to have. It’s always good to have police friends, especially black police, because there aren’t a lot of them.

  You already read about all the nonsense that went on with Titus. Well, I left some details out of that story, because I knew I was going to tell them here. Part of the reason Titus was so upset was because of Ex-Husband.

  This dude was straight following me around the cruise the whole time. Like everywhere I was at, he was there. And he always had a video camera filming everything. Like I was singing karaoke, he was filming that. I would be in like a shuffleboard contest, he’s filming that. Ping-Pong, he was filming that. We was swimming in the pool, me and my boyfriend, like hugging on each other, he’s filming that.

  Titus got in an argumen
t with me, started yelling and cursing at me, because this man was following me around with a camera.

  Titus: “Are you fucking this guy? Why is this guy following you everywhere with the goddam camera? Who the fuck is this?”

  I think Ex-Husband even got that on camera. He filmed the argument!

  Now, obviously he wasn’t standing there filming us like a camera crew would do. That would have been really weird. I wasn’t even positive he was filming us, he was sneaky about it. He was always around with his boy and their camera, but I thought maybe he was just filming his vacation. This was back when people did that shit. Everybody was walking around with cameras. Everybody was filming everything. In 2001, that shit was normal.

  It all came to a head when I was in the cruise talent show. I was singing James Brown’s “Sex Machine,” and man, I was into it. I was kinda drunk, so I was gettin’ sexy, yelling into the mic, all of that. The crowd loved it.

  Titus was in the crowd, and I guess he was getting all anxious about me being sexy, so he runs up to me and throws a jacket around my shoulders, like James Brown.

  Then Ex-Husband runs up and throws his boxers and a key to his cabin on the stage. I am serious, the dude took his boxers off somehow, and then threw them onstage.

  Well, that changed the whole dynamic.

  Titus was hella mad. But he wasn’t even man enough to yell at Ex-Husband. He just yelled at me!

  Titus: “You fucking him?”

  Tiffany: “I didn’t even ask that man to do any of that, he just did it himself!”

  Titus: “You fucking him, ain’t you? Where you fucking him at?”

  Tiffany: “Why don’t you go ask him?”

  Now mind you, Titus came on the boat with $50, so he’s highly intimidated. Basically, he’s intimidated by Ex-Husband because the dude has a job. And like, money from that job.

  Then everywhere we went, Ex-Husband was always trying to do stuff for me. Trying to buy me a drink in the casino. Trying to buy me stuff at the port.