Gorilla and the Bird

by Zack McDermott

  I found a little slice of serenity in Fort Greene with one gay male and one straight male. It took me two weeks to realize that Jon was actually the gay one. The reveal came when Jon saw me walking to the bathroom one morning in some fairly tiny boxer briefs and said, “You sure can wear a pair of underwear.” Jon and Greg were fantastic, and they had a Roomba, but my room was way too small and I wanted to be back in the city, so that one lasted only two months.

  My first East Village apartment followed, with a hard-partying fashion photographer roommate. The first Saturday I lived with him I came home at 4 a.m. to find him standing next to a pile of coke on our coffee table surrounded by a shirtless Frenchman and two girls screaming along to Queen’s “Under Pressure.”

  Then it was a fifth-floor walk-up on the border of Chinatown and the Lower East Side. It was July, piping hot outside, and the unit had no AC. Most of our neighbors were Chinese, and much fish was cooked in underwear with open doors; eight or nine people in two-bedroom apartments. But I could live with the heat because my roommate was a gorgeous German girl with an amazing body who regularly walked around in her underwear. There was a Streetcar Named Desire level of sexual tension until we started sleeping with each other toward the end of the first week. That was also a one-month sublease, but we caught feelings, and before either of us knew it, we were reluctantly involved in a semi-monogamous relationship.

  Union Square followed—there I lived with a French United Nations intern. He idolized—and looked like—Henry Kissinger. I introduced him to marijuana and trap music; he became quite the fan of Three 6 Mafia. Our other roommate was tatted and ate prepackaged Trader Joe’s sandwiches for almost every meal and blew through a couple of bottles of Two Buck Chuck every night.

  In September I found what I thought would become a more long-term solution: a three-bedroom walk-up on the corner of St. Marks Place and Avenue A, above a not-quite-dive bar manned by an aspiring-actor-level good-looking Irishman. My roommate, Lucas, was the younger brother of my closest friend at Legal Aid. It sounds a little dramatic to label him a drug dealer—it was only pot—but that is how he paid his rent. So I guess Lucas was a drug dealer.

  Most people living in New York on a limited budget end up migrating to Queens or Jersey. But while my vagabond lifestyle was partially a result of financial necessity—making it in New York on $50,000 a year requires some ingenuity—the real appeal for me was exposing myself to so many different people and lifestyles. Nearly everyone I met seemed to have a side hustle or dream job they were chasing, and hardly any of them exhibited even a hint of self-mockery about it. I quit smirking when I met waiters or bartenders who told me they were aspiring actors or musicians. It meant something different here; long-shot goals weren’t the joke I historically took them to be. Members of iconic bands did start out bartending on the Lower East Side; future Hollywood stars did wait tables while they attended the Actors Studio. And, unlike in Wichita, no one here called you “queer” for pursuing a pipe dream.

  In my case, the pursuit was stand-up comedy. Growing up, I had always preferred hearing “You’re funny. Ever consider trying comedy?” to “You’re an asshole that loves to argue. Ever consider becoming a lawyer?” But there’s an easy-to-follow recipe for becoming an attorney: decent grades and LSAT score, $160,000 in law school loans, and scoring in the top seventieth percentile on the bar exam. The path to becoming a successful stand-up comic was a little harder to wrap my head around. But one month into living in New York I realized that I’d already inadvertently completed step one: move to New York. Step two: if you won’t give it five years, don’t give it five minutes. I had five years. Step three: get up onstage, every single night.

  At first I approached stand-up like every other inexperienced comedian before me: stand on feet, ignore shaking hands and trembling legs, and nervously recite poorly crafted jokes scratched out the night before, striving for verbatim delivery. But then I realized, if I wanted to be good, I had to let my balls drop—be “me” onstage. Or, more accurately, I had to isolate and embody the craziest corner of my personality up there. And to do that I decided to method-act my way into that exaggeratedly crazy version of myself.

  Thus, Myles McD was born. I couldn’t use Zack as my stage name because I didn’t want DAs to Google me and see me telling jokes about walking in on my mom riding her boyfriend Terry’s BBD: “Get it, Terry, get it!” But professional reasons aside, while Zack might have had the potential to be a decent comic, Myles was an ace up the sleeve—a long-shot chance at making it.

  Myles was the keyed-up, zero-shits-given version of myself. He was a sunglasses-at-night, no-underwear-wearing sort of prick. He had a Mohawk. He wore a handlebar moustache unapologetically. He didn’t wear Zack’s casual uniform of black T-shirts and sensible dark jeans with tennis shoes; he wore skintight retro tees, cutoffs, bandanas, and aviators.

  As Myles, I spent the entire summer smoking pot and getting up onstage. On a typical night, I’d go to four or five open mics before starting the real work in front of the TV at one or two in the morning: joint and notepad in hand, watching first a documentary to mine material, then a stand-up special to study the pros. I was so locked in, sleep was a luxury I couldn’t afford and didn’t have time for.

  I started calling clubs, “posing” as Myles’s manager: “Can Myles come in and do a set tonight? He’s working on a special and wants to tune up in some smaller venues.”

  “Who?”

  “You ain’t heard?!”

  Unbelievably, it occasionally worked and I was able to steal some undeserved stage time as Myles. I still needed a game changer, though, if I was going to make the leap from up-and-comer to headliner.

  I met The Producer early on in the open-mic circuit and we became fast friends. It was my second month in New York. I didn’t know who he was at first, but it was clear he was someone. He didn’t appear to have a regular job, but he lived in a swanky doorman building on the Upper West Side and dressed like a pop star. I had his rent pegged at five or six grand, his sneakers at the average retail price of $500 per, his leather jackets at probably close to a month’s rent. He dressed like he had a stylist—newsboy caps and leather pants on occasion—and he seemed to never wear any of it twice. I knew he wasn’t famous because I didn’t even recognize his last name, but the outfits, the apartment, and the whole no-job thing lent him an air of celebrity.

  We started hanging out at the Comedy Cellar together, and not just as patrons. For some reason, then unknown to me, we were allowed to sit at the legendary back table. The Cellar is a comedy mecca and the table is reserved exclusively for performing comics; it’s not unusual for Chris Rock or Louis C.K. to post up. Basically, a seat there means you’ve made it as a comic. Within six months I’d gone from performing at crowdless open mics to rubbing elbows with the legends. Neither I nor Myles was close to being able to get onstage there yet, but it didn’t seem outrageous to think the proximity signified something.

  As it turned out, The Producer’s sister was the famous one—a pop star who’d also been in some major films. I learned this information before he wanted me to—at a McDonald’s, when he was recognized by the cashier.

  The Producer had started out doing stand-up too, but eventually he phased himself out of performing and turned his focus and attention toward managing Myles. He’d introduce me to industry people as “the hottest up-and-coming comedian” and “my project” and “future star, Myles McDermott.”

  And there was some concrete proof that he meant it. After I finished the first draft of the pilot we were writing together, he rented out a space in Midtown where we held a casting call. Beautiful actresses lined up on folding chairs in the hallway, waiting to audition for the role of my girlfriend. They’d come into the room, read with me, and we’d say, “Okay, thanks. That was great.” Everything was taped. It looked legit.

  It all felt like I was being recruited. “As soon as I push the button, it’s on. This will go fast. Be ready. I’m calling all
my connects.” I was practically frothing at the mouth for this button push, but my eagerness and single-minded focus came at a price. Initially, I had no problem switching back and forth between Zack and Myles, but as the months wore on, I became more and more consumed by my creation. Zack was dissolving.

  Becoming Myles took a toll on my job performance. My intern that summer, Scott—a blue-eyed, baby-faced Minnesotan—might have known something was up. Normal duties for an intern include researching and writing motions, shadowing attorneys in court, and looking up homeless outreach programs and mental health services. I gave Scott two assignments all summer: (1) check my backlog of voicemails and transcribe my messages; and (2) accompany me to Best Buy and show me what HDMI cable I need to stream YouTube videos from my laptop to my TV while I smoke a joint and write jokes.

  Assignment (2) was executed at 3 p.m. on a weekday, only minutes after he’d finished assignment (1). There were forty voicemails—about three full days’ worth—but that’s only because my mailbox was full. The messages were weeks old—DAs calling me to discuss plea deals, clients wondering why the fuck I hadn’t called them back, defense attorneys from other offices looking to conference cases with codefendants. He scrawled them all out on a legal pad. I looked at the five pages of notes and said, “Fuck it. Let’s go get that cable.”

  Before we got on the train to hit Best Buy, I told him we had to make a pit stop at Lids, the hat store. I wanted to get GUCCI inscribed on my fitted Yankees cap. The employee at the hat shop told me they couldn’t do it. “It’s trademarked.” I argued with her, telling her it wasn’t the brand I wanted but rather the name. Like the rapper Gucci Mane. What if my name was Gucci McDermott? She asked me if my name was Gucci and if I had any ID. I asked her if she knew anything about IP law. I told her Gucci Mane’s name isn’t really Gucci either. She said she wouldn’t make it for Gucci Mane either. We went in circles for ten minutes, me growing increasingly livid and disrespectful.

  When we left, Scott asked me, “Just how bipolar are you?” I took it as a compliment—the insinuation was a nod to my craftiness, as far as I was concerned. We got the HDMI cable from Best Buy and made our way to my apartment.

  “I’m assuming you are the one who covered the walls in red Sharpie?”

  “Scottie, hook up the HDMI cable and buckle up, would you?”

  Then I showed a home video of me creating the masterpiece in question. I had been up until 4 a.m. the night before—using the white walls as my canvas and Nas as the soundtrack. I alternated between dancing half naked wearing a sombrero, writing jokes and poems on the wall, and crying. There was some spoken-word poetry as well.

  I released Scott around 6 p.m. and thanked him for putting in such a long and productive day. “You have a trial tomorrow, yeah?” he asked on the way out the door.

  “Ah, fuck. Yeah, man. Meet me at the office at eight forty-five? I’ll prep you.”

  “Uh, okay. What’s it about?”

  “Ahhh, menacing with a knife. Old guy. Landlord. Not the crazy one.”

  Scott beat me to the office by a good half hour. “Scottie, let’s boogie! Lionel Brown’s freedom awaits.” On the way to the courthouse, I handed him a legal pad and said, “Here, write shit down.” Here’s what Scott knew about the case: The older Jamaican fella, dressed in his Sunday best and seated next to us at counsel table, was our client; the fella was, maybe, charged with menacing; and Scott was supposed to write shit down.

  What I knew was that the client was Lionel Brown, a seventy-something-year-old Jamaican man who had been coming back to court for almost a year because he refused to take a disorderly conduct plea. I knew he came to court dressed in his Sunday best every time. I knew he looked fantastic in his Sunday best. I knew I loved listening to his deep voice and slight Jamaican lilt. What I didn’t know was jack shit about his case.

  Judge Pickett drank a giant Arizona iced tea through a straw throughout the course of the three-hour bench trial. Lionel Brown laughed at the DA’s questions. I cross-examined the landlord and got him to admit he wasn’t afraid of LB when LB allegedly pulled the knife on him. “I ain’t afraid o’ nobody, man.”

  Not guilty.

  We celebrated our victory at Legal Aid happy hour, which coincided with an LGBTQ recruiting event hosted by a white-shoe law firm. Since they had rented the place out and we were just crashing the party, the bartender told me we’d need permission from the firm to play any music. So I asked them. Request denied. Skewing 95/5 on the Myles/Zack meter, I put in my earbuds and cranked some Lady Gaga on max volume. “Scott, tape this.” I unbuttoned my shirt halfway down my chest, slithered on my belly like a snake to the middle of the impromptu dance floor, popped up in front of a few of the sprightly young recruits, and started giving lap dances. Shirt came off; pants came off. There was some whooping from the crowd. There was some “This is not part of the event! This is not part of the show!” from the law firm stooges. The manager of the bar said she was going to call the police, which prompted me to give her a signature Chippendales gyration, pants still around my ankles. A fellow first-year attorney walked me out the door not long thereafter. No matter. I’d just received the text that would change my life for good.

  Dude, how quick can you get to the Bowery Hotel?

  Hour.

  Come. Look like Myles. Meeting someone important.

  I made it to the Bowery Hotel just before the arrival of whomever it was we were meeting. The Producer was outside chain-smoking Marlboro Lights. We hugged and I told him to give me a cigarette.

  “This dude we are meeting with is the shit.”

  “Okay, who is he?”

  “Just let me talk. You just sit there and be Myles. Don’t say shit. Be funny.”

  “I can do that. But who the fuck is this?”

  “He’s a guy who’s done a ton of shit. Just let me talk.”

  “I will. Give me another cigarette.”

  We smoked one more and grabbed a booth in the back. I kept my sunglasses on, like a dick. Our waitress dropped off menus and waters as our guest arrived. “Let me order,” The Producer muttered under his breath right before our guy sat down.

  “Eric, this is Myles. Myles, this is Eric.”

  We shook hands and I took my sunglasses off. Even Myles couldn’t keep up that front for too long. “This is what I’m talking about,” The Producer said, nodding in my direction.

  “Okay, I can see it,” Eric said.

  “What are we seeing, gentlemen?” Both laughed too hard.

  “That’s him, man. That’s it. That’s Myles. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Oh, I see it.” Eric even sounded genuine somehow.

  The waitress came over and The Producer ordered half the menu for the table.

  “So Myles knows what you do. He knows your reputation. We want to pitch you some crazy shit. Basically, cross-country road trip, starring him obviously. Kind of a white-trash Ali G thing. This guy is like the young Larry David, but he’s also from Kansas and he knows that world. We want to take him through the South, through the Midwest, and fuck with people. No script. He’ll do whatever. He’ll get arrested if that’s what we need.”

  “I will. I’ll do anything.”

  Eric nodded enthusiastically at everything The Producer said. My friend was the appeal, not me, not the idea. Still, I couldn’t see beyond The Producer’s enthusiasm. I thought I’d arrived.

  Three days later, I walked out the front door of my apartment and into the pilot I knew we were shooting.

  Chapter 3

  It seemed weird that the paramedics followed me inside and stayed with me until I was escorted to an internal waiting room. Weirder still, every door I encountered was locked and required a series of maneuvers by a staff member to open.

  A couple of homeless-looking guys nodded off in their chairs. There was a middle-aged white guy, built like my biological father: potbellied, slightly fatter, and with grayer hair. He had to have been cast to play Mack McDermott. My dad left
when I was five and I hadn’t seen him in a few years. The last time we parted ways, his right fist was cocked in front of my face as he slurred, “I should knock you the fuck out!”

  The actor playing Mack looked sad, near tears. I patted him on the head, trying to console him. “Don’t fucking touch me!” he yelled. I backed off but told him, “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

  Simultaneously exhausted and restless, I paced the intake room, guessing at the purpose of this specific scene. Are we even still shooting, or can the producers tell that I really need to see a doctor? I was freezing. Maybe they were worried I’d get hypothermia. The medical equipment looked too expensive to break, so I decided against trashing it Mötley Crüe style. A green horizontal stripe, about the width of a man’s size 11 shoe, was painted at waist height along the walls. I ran my hand along the stripe as I walked the corridor. Green means go.

  “Bailey Wilmer, Klaus, Kewley and Keenan, my brother, my sister, the Jacobsons.” I started listing people I was going to take care of once I made my fortune—friends from elementary school, the girl I’d lost my virginity to at fourteen, high school friends, people I barely remembered.

  The purpose was twofold: (1) The Producer had promised me we were going to be rich beyond belief once we got our show off the ground. They needed a reminder that I was to be paid, and handsomely, for the shift I’d just put in—twelve hours, alone, in the cold, half naked, confused, searching for signposts, and now crying again. (2) Everyone needed to know just how brilliant I was. What a photographic memory I had. I rattled off at least fifty names inside of a minute, failing to repeat a single one or pause in the middle of a sentence.