You need a teacher, because those who can’t do, teach. So if you wanna learn something, go to someone who can’t do it. Dammit, I think I wrote this one wrong.
At the Laff House
36
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I’M RUNNING OUT OF CHAPTER TITLES. HOW MANY MORE OF THESE ARE THERE?
Dad: Kev, you like getting your dick sucked, don’t you?
Me: Uh, yes . . .
Dad: Well, have you ever had your dick sucked on crack?
Me: I can’t say that I have, Dad.
Dad: Well, that’s how it happened. I was fucking around with this chick after your mom and I split up, and she told me to try it. She was right: It was the best dick-sucking I ever got. I did it again and again, until I realized it wasn’t her that was so good. It was the crack.
Me: Okay, Dad.
My father was back in my life. It was the last thing I’d expected. We were sitting in the kitchen of my mom’s house, having his version of a heart-to-heart talk.
He said that with those magic rocks, he’d gained the power to sleep with women who were way out of his league.
He said, they would do anything for crack.
He said, all he was trying to do was get his dick sucked more, but he got hooked.
Evidently, in a crevice of my dad’s brain that wasn’t clouded by crack smoke, he had a conscience. A few weeks after he stole my brother’s car and barbershop supplies, he asked for help from a local priest who’d been trying to get him to quit drugs. Since then, he’d been in and out of rehab.
I’d been working hard in the interim to get my brother to forgive him, track him down, and see if we could help him. Eventually, we found him: at a rehab program in Mount Airy. We visited him there and told him that whatever he needed to stay committed to the process, we were ready to do. And now he was back.
As we sat in the kitchen where he’d once lived and cooked grits, Dad opened up for the first time that I could remember. I listened to every word closely, piecing together the puzzle of my father.
When he said, “Y’all got no idea what it’s like to get all tricked up with crack and be treating all these people in the crack house to everything you got and then they won’t buy you a damn twenty-five-cent bag of potato chips,” I tried to understand.
When he said, “I thought I could turn it off and on like a faucet. Then I discovered the faucet was broke, you understand? But now I’m done with that shit and I got a clear head and I don’t miss it,” I believed him.
And when he said, “Do you wanna hang out or something?” I knew that we were going to have a relationship again.
Though my brother still understandably held a grudge, I didn’t. The man had made an effort to clean himself up and face his family. He was still my dad and the crazy-ass person I loved.
With my brother and father back in town, I had something like a family again. I could pick up the phone and call or see them anytime. Dad was sober. Mom was happy. Kenneth owned a business. And I had a direction in life. Things were looking up for your humble narrator—and they were about to get even better.
37
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FIVE CHAPTER TITLES AGO, I REFERRED TO MYSELF IN THE THIRD PERSON. DOES THAT MAKE ME SEEM EGOTISTICAL?
For a solid year, I slugged it out in the clubs and bars, hamburger restaurants and fish-fry places, bowling alleys and community centers. I didn’t just rely on TuRae for work. Every time I met a comedian, I’d ask if I could open for them. I was never afraid to approach them with my hand out; the worst thing they could say was “No.” And if they did, then I’d stop by their shows and support them anyway. Often they’d come around and that no would turn into a yes.
I went from making no money a week to fifty dollars to seventy to, finally, ninety. Once I hit that number, I felt good: I was earning more than I’d budgeted when I left City Sports, enough to pay my rent after my mom’s checks ran out.
This was possible because of a plus-sized, foulmouthed character named Big Jay Oakerson that I’d become friends with. He lived in New Jersey and had something that I sorely lacked: a car. So every time I got booked as a headliner, I’d make sure to get Jay a guest spot too so I’d have a ride. Being able to accept more gigs meant being able to accept more money.
Big Jay was the only white comedian I saw at that time doing black rooms and getting love—at least most of the time. I once saw a dude tell him, “Shut up, white boy,” with such hatred that Jay just said, “Good night,” and walked right off stage.
We were finishing a show in South Philly one night when TuRae told us the news: Def Comedy Jam, which was the biggest thing in our world at the time, was hosting a competition—and they were going to do it at the Laff House. Bob Sumner, who created the show with Russell Simmons, was going to be there judging the comedians. He was known as “the star maker,” so every comic in the city signed up: me, TuRae, Big Jay, Tommy Too Smoov, Michael Shawn, Jamal Doman, Denny Live, and Michael Blackson, the African King of Comedy.
The prize was five hundred dollars and a personalized Def Comedy Jam championship jacket. But more important than the jacket or the bragging rights that went with it, the winner got an opening slot on the actual tour when it came through Philadelphia. This was a chance to perform on stage with Earthquake, D. L. Hughley, A. J. Johnson from Friday, and other national headliners.
Before the competition, the other comics were intensely focused. They had headphones on and notepads out and were busy warming up as if it were the Super Bowl of comedy.
What worried me most of all was that this was a real contest. I couldn’t just bring my loud-ass friends. Def Jam had its own judges who would determine the three finalists—and then the one winner.
I was on fourth. When the stakes are higher than what you’re used to, there’s one rule: Go with what you know—don’t change it up. Because when you start performing new stuff instead of polished stuff, you’re more likely to bomb. I did my tight five minutes, and I destroyed.
The three finalists were me, TuRae, and Tommy Too Smoov. Word got around, and two weeks later, we performed for a packed house. That night, I was chosen as the Def Comedy Jam competition winner.
My brother was there. My friends from City Sports were there. My buddies from the neighborhood were there. Torrei, who I was dating again, was there. Even my dad was there, though he slept through my set.Afterward, he gave me the kind of encouragement that only a father can: “Ah, I don’t think it was that good.”
“I saw you sleeping during the set!”
“If it was better, it would have kept me awake, wouldn’t it?”