Meanwhile, my relationship with Torrei was deteriorating. The more she did to help me with my rent and transportation, the less I was around. And the less I was around, the more her family and friends tried to convince her that I was a loser who was using her and giving her nothing in return. It was a fair argument, though in our minds we were making sacrifices for a better tomorrow. When we fought, however, she’d throw her friends’ criticisms in my face.
Admittedly, I was guilty of the same thing she was doing, because friends were putting ideas in my head about the relationship too. During one of our drives to New York, Keith gave me a lecture about priorities. He said that years ago, before he started going to New York regularly, he was in the mall with his girlfriend and rented a movie to watch. They came home, flipped on the television, and happened to see his friend Robin Harris doing comedy.
“Why aren’t you on television?” Keith’s girlfriend asked.
He thought about her question for a moment, then answered honestly: “Because I’m sitting here with you.”
His point was that I shouldn’t let my relationship get in the way of putting in the extraordinary amount of time and dedication it takes to make it. Being a comedian was like joining the army, he explained: You had to leave home and form a new family with your fellow soldiers.
The difference, though, is that soldiers make one choice—to enlist—and then leave home for a certain number of years. Comedy is a choice that must be made every day, and it can feel to your partner like you’re choosing the clubs over them. So it put a serious strain on my relationship when I’d come back from New York at four or five in the morning, then sleep until two the next day and catch the afternoon bus back to Manhattan.
One night, it was snowing pretty hard, and I was racing to New York in Torrei’s Maxima, worried that I was going to be late to my show. I didn’t want to miss a spot, because I might not get another one.
In the midst of the storm, as I was exiting the highway, the Maxima’s wheels hit a patch of ice, and the car spun out and crashed into a concrete barrier. I wasn’t injured, but pieces of the car were all over the ramp.
The worst damage came later, when I told Torrei about the accident. Not only was she pissed at me, but her parents were too. They yelled at me for fifteen minutes, telling me I was a loser and a dropout and the worst thing that had ever happened to their daughter’s life. Torrei and I got in a huge blowout afterward, which only served to prove them right.
“You got my family believing that I’m dumb,” she said.
“You’re going to New York every day and you still got nothing to show for it,” she said.
“I gotta take the car to work, so now you’re hurting my career too,” she said.
I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I just put my head down and took it. The next morning, I brought her car to a body shop and gathered every cent I had—and a lot of cents I didn’t have—to pay for the repairs.
45
* * *
WHAT HAPPENS HERE DOESN’T NORMALLY HAPPEN TO WINNERS, WHICH IN A SENSE MEANS I WON
I was so broke after covering Torrei’s car repairs that I had to pawn my stuff to make rent money. Sadly, I had nothing of value to pawn except my CD and DVD collections, for which I received eighty dollars. It was movieless nights for a while after that.
I was still struggling in New York, but Keith continued to warm up to me. “You’re doing better, Kevin,” he said after one of my sets at Stand Up NY. “The material isn’t personal enough yet, but it’s getting stronger. I think you’re ready to audition for Lucien.”
Lucien Hold was a legend, the owner and booker of the Comic Strip on the Upper East Side. Every great comedian from Chris Rock to Jerry Seinfeld had gone through this same audition with him on the road to making it. For Eddie Murphy, passing his audition with Lucien was the first big break in his career.
When I arrived a couple of weeks later for my audition, the host told me how the process worked: I’d perform on stage for Lucien and the audience. Afterward, Lucien would call me into the back room, share his thoughts on the set, then let me know whether I’d passed or failed.
Fortunately, I had an unbelievable set that night. I was on fire, the audience exploded, the room was destroyed. Any other violent comedy metaphors you can imagine, they happened. (For an art form that’s about making people happy, comedy really does have a lot of unhappy imagery about things people don’t want in their lives. No one ever says, “I tickled the audience” or “I made the building turn to gold.”)
Afterward, Lucien called me into the back room. He had a pencil mustache, a thin frame, and pale skin, as if he lived in the club and never saw sunlight. I joined him, excited to get feedback from the legend himself.
He sat me down, adjusted his shirt, and spoke: “Kevin, I watched you, and I don’t think this is for you.”
I could barely get the next words out: “W-w-what do you mean?”
“I don’t think stand-up comedy is for you. I didn’t get it. The jokes didn’t resonate for me.” I stared at him, dumbfounded. “I’ve been watching comedy for some time. I’ve seen the best of the best. I’ve seen them all, and I don’t see it in you.”
I stuttered something incomprehensible. How could it be that the audience was laughing so much if I wasn’t any good? It didn’t seem possible, unless I was somehow misperceiving things from the stage.
“I’m just being honest and straight up rather than holding things back,” he continued. “I don’t want you to waste your time. Maybe you should start looking into other things, finding different interests that suit you better. I think it would be very valuable to you at this point.”
In that moment, I felt my heart drop out of my chest, splat onto the seat, and slide onto the floor under Lucien’s feet as he stomped on it. His words cut deeper than any insult I’d experienced before. If he’d been racist, at least I could have understood where the hate was coming from. It wouldn’t have been personal to me as an individual, but about something I couldn’t control. But this was specifically about my talent, or lack thereof.
My whole comedy life passed before my eyes: the first open mic, winning Blazin’ Thursdays, quitting my job, telling Mom my life plan, traveling around Philly with TuRae, Keith telling me to change my name, and all the long drives to New York.
Was all that just a waste of time? I was so confused. Everyone else seemed to be giving me a positive response. Maybe I had overestimated my talent once again. If comedy wasn’t in my future, then I had no future. There was nothing else I wanted to do. I couldn’t go back to selling sneakers.
On the other hand, what kind of person has the audacity to tell someone to give up their dream? Maybe I just wasn’t the type of comic that he liked. Maybe he was having a bad day. He could have just said, “You’re not right for this club,” instead of saying, “Give it up forever.”
I didn’t get angry at him. I didn’t tell him he was wrong or cuss him out or defend myself. I just said, “Okay, thank you.”
Then I shook his hand and left. I took the subway to the Comedy Cellar, found Keith, and told him what had happened.
Keith: Fuck Lucien. So what?
Me: I don’t know. It was harsh. Hurt a little.
Keith: Get thicker skin.
Me: Uhh . . .