Keith: What are you gonna do, bitch about it?
Me: No, I just thought we could talk about it.
Keith: Shut up, stop being a bitch. Get your dumb ass up.
Me: Okay.
Keith: Don’t you have a spot tonight? Go get on stage. I’ll see you later.
Me: I just need to get back out there, right? Don’t give up and all that. End on a high.
Keith: Stop blubbering about it, dummy, and go do it.
I walked to the Boston Comedy Club, got on stage, and . . . bombed. It felt like I’d been kicked in the back of the head by ten kids, then shit on by a flock of birds. I couldn’t have felt any more humiliated as I drove Keith back to Philly that night.
“Look,” Keith explained. “You have people who understand what you’re doing right away, and you got people who won’t get it until everyone else does. That’s just the way it is. To succeed, you have to see how good you’re capable of becoming before anybody else sees it. I’m one of those people that see it, and that’s all you need: just a couple people backing you who believe in you.”
He spoke almost the whole ride home, lifting me up. He told me that when he auditioned at the Comic Strip, even though he passed, Lucien told him there were too many black people in comedy and no one was looking for more. And when Sam Kinison auditioned there, Lucien told him there were too many white people in comedy and his act was never going to work. Kinison went on to become one of the most famous comedians of the eighties.
“It ain’t gonna happen overnight,” Keith went on. “It takes time. So until it happens, don’t fucking bitch about it. Be a man. Have a man’s intuition about taking care of business and go do what you’re supposed to do, which is work on your shit.”
“Goddammit, you’re right,” I finally said.
If it weren’t for the talk I had with Keith in the car that night, I don’t know what I would have done. I might have given up, at least for a little while. But instead, I kept going back to New York and working harder. I was eventually booked at every other club in the city, but I never went back to the Comic Strip.
46
* * *
THE STRUGGLE IS EVEN MORE REAL WHEN PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING AT YOU
In the wake of Lucien’s rejection, I became a little more sensitive to criticism. When the guys at the Comedy Cellar called me a “hack” and “slow” every day, it started getting to me.
It took me a while to remember that it was a compliment to be harassed by the comics I respected. They wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t see potential in me. Keith wouldn’t be spending all this time with me if he didn’t feel the same. I just needed to get better—and get better faster.
Determined to prove Lucien wrong and to shut the other comics up, I became stronger and more dogged. The guys at the Comedy Cellar started calling me “Mission Man,” because I worked like I was on a mission. Once Estee Adoram, the booker at the Comedy Cellar, took a liking to me and began putting me on stage there regularly, I felt redeemed, like the hard work was paying off.
Since showing off, bragging, or egotistical behavior of any kind was mercilessly savaged at The Table, I kept my excitement in check, even when I was proud of myself for a new booking or a good show. Instead, I’d cut myself down before they could get to me or just roll good-naturedly with the punches.
Some people make fun of you because it makes them feel better about themselves. Others make fun of you to make you a better person. These comedians all belonged to the latter category. Eventually, they set up something called hack court: They’d put someone’s joke on trial, and if it was found guilty of hackery, they’d all work to hack-proof it.
The comedians there felt like they were doing important work, and the more they drank, the more passionate they became. They were the Drunk Knights of the Dirty Table, and their quest was not just to improve each other’s material but to elevate the art form of comedy.
Buried, occasionally, among a thousand snaps was a genuine compliment. One night Jerry Seinfeld sauntered into the room, and Colin Quinn said: “Hey, come here, Jerry. Meet Kevin Hart. The son of a bitch is funny.” I coasted on that for the next six months.
When Chris Rock walked in one night and Tracy Morgan dropped by the next, I was introduced as a guy “with a lot of potential.” These compliment islands made the ocean of invective easier to take, because I knew that at heart, they saw me as one of their own. I’d been accepted onto the comedy Division 1 team—maybe as a benchwarmer, but at least I had a shot at playing.
But then, in the midst of feeling good about myself and my future, I fell asleep at the wheel of a new Jeep that Torrei had just leased with help from her parents. I smashed it up good too.
After I managed to pay for the repairs and asked to use it again, Torrei lectured me. “You keep falling asleep and wrecking my cars. It’s about time you got your own car.” She stepped closer to me and thrust her face into mine. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t afford it. You’re saying that we gotta figure this out or figure that out before we move in together, meanwhile your rent isn’t paid on time and this bill’s late and that one’s overdue. What the fuck is going on? How is it possible for you to go back and forth so much and not bring any money back? Who are you with up there?”
Her logic was as follows: If Kevin is going to New York every night to work and coming home at the crack of dawn with no money, is Kevin really working? Probably not. He’s seeing someone else up there.
And in a sense, I was: New York was my mistress. But I wasn’t sleeping with anyone up there. I didn’t have time to.
“Hey, I’m with you, and only you, one hundred percent,” I reassured her. “But this is my life. Either you’re on board with it or you’re not, but I gotta do this stuff if I want to make it.”
The more I tried to explain the situation to her, the less she understood. I had to leave for New York soon, with or without her car. So eventually I just said, “I gotta go. So if you still feel like you don’t trust me, then come with me tonight and see what it’s all about.”
That was what you call a bad decision. In my mind, I thought she’d see for herself that I was moving forward in my career. She’d see me getting recognized at the big comedy clubs. She’d see me being accepted by successful comedians. She’d see me making a name for myself in the city of “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”