I’d call the police, if it were me.*
It strikes me that, back when I was working the road as an emcee and feature, I would often get put up in a “comedy condo” somewhere in a populated cluster of similar townhomes or apartments, somewhere in the suburbs. A comedy condo was usually a cheap town house that a comedy club would rent and use as a high-end flop-house for whatever comedians were working their club that week. Invariably it would lack a phone, silverware, toilet paper, and comfortable matresses. But it was always flush with the rare scent of haunted hilarity.Thus, during the comedy boom of the eighties, America’s suburbs had, on any given weekday (especially Wednesday through Friday), lone, bored comedians wandering the sidewalks. Why weren’t we foiling break-ins? Or, at least, committing them?
I also realize that, as far as I know, the voluntarily released/escaped mental patient could be wandering around. I haven’t seen anything on the news about the poor dude being found. I suddenly want to run into him, go get coffee, find out why he’s crazy and why he decided he needed to be free in the gray world of Surrey again. Am I missing some hidden, nurturing vibration, somewhere under Surrey’s streets? Can only the insane hear it?
Suddenly the suburbs become sparser, more industrial. Then they’re gone. But before I turn back, I realize I’m walking toward a shopping mall.
Shopping malls, in the afternoon on a weekday, are where the braver suburban shut-ins go to pace, and walk, and stare and brood, protected from the sun and rain and always within reach of something sweet or fried. Then there are pretentious assholes like me who go to the mall to watch those people, as if we’re going to discover some hilarious new revelation or angle no one’s hit upon before. George Romero covered it in Dawn of the Dead, but that doesn’t stop me from entering, observing, and judging.
Before I go inside I see something heartbreaking, stalled and sky-bound above me: a monorail. A monorail that could take me from Surrey into Vancouver is stalled and out of order, on a track with an entrance that lets out from the second level of the mall.
I tried, earlier that week. A few halfhearted attempts with sympathetic-looking staff members of the Smile Hole, me saying, Hey—we ought to all go into Vancouver after the show! And then, variations on the same response: Fuck that, Vancouver’s full of weirdos. S’just hang at the bar here.
Another repeated motif in my life—being in a boring city close to a fun one, with no money or transportation, and surrounded by people happy with the boredom. Sterling, Virginia, kept me out of reach of Washington, DC. San Antonio, Texas, was full of comedy club bar staff who hated the “faggots” up in Austin. And now Surrey—who needs Vancouver when there’s ice beer and free pretzel ’n’ nut mix?
Inside the mall, in the distance, I hear singing. I follow it to the food court.
On a stage surrounded by the various food vendors, random Canadian citizens audition to be in a commercial for something called Turtles, which appears to be some sort of chocolate cookie snack. To the tune of “My Blue Heaven,” people have to sing a song about Turtles. The refrain is “I . . . looooooooove . . . Turtles!” I get a large coffee, sit at a table, and watch.
The people auditioning, and the crowd watching, have more joy and playfulness than all five shows I did at the Smile Hole. Whereas I was this driven, nervous, ambitious young comedian with something to prove and burrowed deep inside my own head, the auditioners are unpretentious, self-effacing, and unashamed. Whereas my audiences were drunk, surly, and closed off to any sort of comedy except the shitty kind they saw on TV, the audience in the mall food court shifts gears effortlessly and enjoys everyone who goes up. A little girl does a whispered, spooky version of the song, and the crowd loves it. An old man spreads his arms to emphasize every note, articulates the words through a gap-toothed smile, and ends his song with a little “Yip!” The crowd loves that, too. The performers have no expectations for the audience, and the audience has no expectations for the performers. I spend an hour watching people sing about chocolate cookies, and all of them get closer to the way I should be performing comedy than I have in the last five years.
I walk back to my hotel. I read for a bit, have dinner, and switch on the TV. I am, at this point, completely addicted to a Canadian version of the show Cops. This one features no bleeping of curses, lots of drunks, and arrestees who, once they realize they’re going to be on TV, ham it up for the camera. Even the cops seem amused by it all. I imagine the escaped mental patient is somewhere right now eluding a squad of gentle, smiling cops and singing to himself about chocolate cookies.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1994
Every inch of the floor is covered in clothes.
I’ve found a secondhand clothing store near the hotel, and I’m looking for a jacket. My overcoat, a green Russian greatcoat-style monstrosity, is starting to feel like constant luggage. I bought it in college. I’m slow to buy new clothing—I tend to buy twelve of the same T-shirts, three pairs of jeans, some button-up shirts to wear over the T-shirt on fat days, and then a light coat and a heavy coat. Simple. Some days I envy Winston Smith in 1984— same overalls every day? Perfect.
Now I want something in between. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but when I walk through the doors of the Second Chance boutique, I’m delighted.
It’s essentially a retail space where people bring in clothes to donate or, I guess, sell. Either way, they all end up in the same place—strewn all over the floor. I’m not kidding—there isn’t a single clothing rack or shelf in the place. There’s a checkout counter, where a lumpy woman reads a paperback copy of North Dallas Forty. And then, all the way to the back wall, are clothes. Shirts, pants, jackets, dresses. It’s like a gentle hurricane politely let itself in, blew everything off the walls, and left.
There are little towpaths through the floor of clothing. I walk them like a meditation maze. There’s something about everything laid out flat at your feet—you can tell, instantly, what will fit and what won’t. It was as if I floated outside memories of myself passed-out drunk in college and kept a sense memory of my dimensions.
And there it is: a black leather jacket, like Alan Arkin wore in Wait Until Dark. Mid-thigh length, cut like a sport coat, with flapless pockets and three big buttons up the front. It’s perfect. I don’t even try it on. I take it up to the counter, give the cashier ten dollars Canadian, and slip it on once I’m outside. It doesn’t feel like a jacket I bought. It feels like a jacket I left in Surrey, in another life, and have just now recovered.
Back in my room, the jacket keeps paying off dividends. A paperback I have of Nightmare Alley fits perfectly in one pocket. In the other, Carioca Fletch. The pockets of the overcoat never quite held books correctly, always spitting them out like watermelon seeds if I sat in a cramped airline seat.
I feel like I can survive the next four days.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, THROUGH
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1994
The opening act who drives me to the four one-nighters compares everything he sees with pussy. Wednesday’s show is at a diner. A drunk comes in midway through my act and demands I start over. Thursday we’re at a banquet hall and two separate girls on two separate dates throw up. Friday we’re at a bar and when I sit at the bar and try to read Carioca Fletch the bartender says, “This is a bar, son,” and then tells me to put the book away. Saturday we’re at a Chinese restaurant and there’s vomiting and a fight.
But I’m safe in my leather jacket, and we both return Sunday morning vomit-free.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1994
My hotel room is padlocked. Padlocked. The rest of my luggage and my return plane ticket (for a flight I have to make in two hours) are inside. Behind a padlock.
I call Reed and, miraculously, he’s at home. I need him to come over to the hotel and get the door unpadlocked so I can go home.
“Well, I’ll come over,” he says with this doubtful tone that tells me something bad is about to begin.
He shows up and here it is: he wasn’t paying f
or my extra days.
“You know, I made it very clear to you that you could either stay in the hotel on your days off or come stay at my place.”
I said, “Yes, you gave me both choices, and I chose the hotel.”
“But that means you were agreeing to pay for the hotel room.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I say. “Because that was never stated when you gave me the so-called choice.”
“Well, it was implied,” says Reed, teaching me a new word.
“No, you didn’t even come close to implying it,” I say. “You talked about getting some food for me to put in your fridge, and that there was a shower and TV. But you never said, ‘If you stay at the hotel, you will have to pay for the room.’”
Reed says, “Well, I’m saying it now.”
“Well, now’s too late. My passport, my ticket, the rest of my luggage is in the room.”
“Well, I don’t have the money to get it out.”
I’m near tears at this moment. But I also get an unexpected burst of courage, and here’s what it feels like:
I don’t care anymore if this guy hates me or badmouths me to other club owners. Because now—and I’ve never felt this before—I actively want him to hate me. It becomes imperative, for my self-worth, that an asshole like Reed actively loathe me. If someone like this were to like me, to like my comedy, and to like the way I conduct myself professionally, it would mean I suck as a person.
I’ve encountered this a few times since then. Not very often. But there are those rare occasions—and they’re bracing, freeing sensations when they occur—when you absolutely crave someone’s disapproval and disgust. You can see it actually helping your career, your social relations, and your life if it becomes known that this person thinks you’re shit. It’s happened so far with a handful of people, but . . . Reed? Take a bow, you coke-soaked ogre. You were the first.
“I don’t think you know what ‘imply’ means,” says Reed.
Now my voice is flat, unhurried, and, I can see, frightening to Reed. “You need to pay for the extra days. You need to pay for them now, so that I can get my luggage, ticket, and passport and fly home. And you need to take me to the airport.”
Reed stares at me for a moment. “You didn’t pull in very big crowds.”
“Please get the padlock off my door so I can go home, Reed.”
He grudgingly goes to the desk clerk to see if they can temporarily take the padlock off the door. He’ll call my manager later, see about getting reimbursed for the money he’s got to pay.
Then the desk clerk saves me.
“This room hasn’t been paid for at all.”
Reed’s been caught. What the fuck was his plan? To somehow talk me into paying for my entire time at the hotel, after the gig was over? To hold my remaining luggage hostage? What if I’d taken everything out of the room when I’d left for the four nights out on the road? Reed had the tactical foresight of a goldfish.
Before Reed can say anything I look at the desk clerk. “Sir, I am a comedian who just completed his contractually agreed-to performance at both this man’s club and four single-night performances. I was told the room would be paid for, and the balance isn’t my responsibility. I’m asking you politely to remove the padlock so I can collect my things and then go to the airport. This is not my financial obligation.”
I sound like a desperate robot. The clerk removes the padlock; I swoop up my bag, ticket, and passport and then hop into Reed’s car. I watch him, through the hotel lobby’s windows, halfheartedly talk with the clerk.
Three separate times Reed points out the window at me. His face is a pinched mask of rage.
We drive to the airport in silence. I hop out, and he starts to say, “So, your manager—”
I slam the door and walk through the airport’s automatic doors. Behind me, in a cloud of coke-infused snot, Reed drives away.
Sitting at the gate, suddenly sweating and shaking from the confrontation, I look up at a TV showing the news. The lead story is about the “escaped” mental patient— who turns out to be a multiple ax murderer. He comes from extremely wealthy parents who, trying to lessen the taint on the family name, had their son committed to the voluntary facility, purely for the bragging rights of saying their son wasn’t really a criminal.
And he’s been apprehended—early that morning— behind the Best Western King George Inn & Suites.
I’d walked four nights, back and forth down an unlit path, muttering, “Somebody fucking kill me,” in a rhythmic, persuasive cadence. With an ax murderer on the loose.
True story, folks.
FULL DISCLOSURE
Stuff I did on the Internet while writing this chapter:
Played some space shooter game with the sound off while listening to podcasts
Printed a recipe for Welsh rarebit, then decided not to make it
* Reed isn’t the guy’s name. I’m also changing the name of his club, which had one of the worst names of a comedy club I’ve ever heard and is now closed. Keep this in mind when you read the name I give it in this chapter—the real name was worse than the one I made up. I’ve changed Reed’s name on the vague worry he might read this and sue me—a remote possibility, since shortly after my stint at his horrible club he organized a benefit show for a local motorcycle club; a member’s daughter was battling cancer or leukemia or something. He then used the money raised to pay off a massive coke debt and flee to Hawaii. or someplace. No one’s sure. If you’re not the type to read footnotes, or you are and you think I’ve given away some deft comedic twist by revealing that Reed was the human equivalent of a spoiled pork sandwich, I’m going to say pretty much the same thing at the end of the paragraph this footnote interrupted.
†see?
* He actually said this.
* Drunks were kings in comedy clubs during the boom years. During the postboom years—1993 being the absolute nadir, if I remember— drunks were gods. or—who were the fathers of the gods? Titans. They were fucking titans.
* it looked like he’d eaten an unripe banana.
* That’s what always stayed with me, growing up in the suburbs—any outdoor activity can be viewed from dozens of curtained windows, like royalty peeping out from behind theater box curtains at random amusements. But I also always thought, “You don’t know what innocuous action, taken out of context, might affect the life of someone watching you.”
As a horrifying example, this story:
A friend of mine had a paper route all through the eighties. it ranged wide and it ranged far—at one point, as far from his house as he could get in our neighborhood. So one icy morning, he’s at the farthest point and is seized by an impending avalanche shit. It’s coming, and right soon, and it’s five in the morning and there’s no toilet in sight.
There’s nothing he can do. in the gray morning, he quickly drops his pants and defecates on a stranger’s lawn.
Who was in that house? Hopefully happy, sleeping people. But what if, in the depths of winter, there’d been some desperate soul who’d been awake all night, pondering his sorry lot in life, and had decided, around 3:47 a.m., “I’m going to throw open the curtains at dawn and decide whether to go on or end this pathetic charade here and now.” Come five a.m., he peers out on God’s creation, sees the paperboy shitting on the lawn, and hangs himself with a jump rope in the basement. Worst Beckett play ever.
Those Old Hobo Songs,
They Still Speak to Us
Got a pecker made-a cigarettes
And eight dead wives
My ass is full of soup
—Opening lyrics of “Squirrel House Christmas,”
Clemm Dogderbek, c. 1926
The song-story tradition of North America’s “hobos” (a slang term that combines the words “hope” and “bowl of beans given to me for free by a woman who then initiated intercourse”) is rich and worthy of deep study. The above lyrics, recorded by traveling archivists, are a sterling example.
Clemm sings of a “S
quirrel House Christmas,” which is a hobo-only holiday during which a group of hobos— or a single tramp—would ingest his body weight in alcohol and attempt to climb a tree (“squirrel house”) and throw pinecones at pedestrians (“Christmasing”). The vivid description of Clemm’s reproductive organ as being composed of cigarettes has a playful origin, since many hobos would trade a glimpse of another hobo’s penis for a single cigarette. Since Clemm uses the plural term for “cigarette,” he is boasting that he either
a) has a large penis (and can thus demand a higher penis-view-to-cigarette ratio) or
b) receives many requests from other hobos to view it.
If b is the actual truth, then Clemm is further insinuating that his penis is free of the usual “summer plums” (chancres), “tuft tigers” (pubic lice), or “yipe stripes” (bruises brought about by beatings from railyard bulls or, more often than not, punching one’s own penis from sheer boredom).
“Eight dead wives” is not as morbid or violent a term as it first appears.
A “live wife” is a slang term for any debt owed to a fellow hobo. Since many hobos were forced to repay debts with sexual favors (“wifing”), Clemm is saying that he’s paid off eight recent debts (“eight dead wives”) and is feeling victorious (“my ass is full of soup”).
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