There must be a part of me, I reasoned, that stays with Torrei because it’s so familiar. I’d spent years under my mom’s strict control, getting beaten if I stepped out of line or even thought about stepping out of line. So as much as I hated the drama with Torrei, I was also addicted to it.
The sweet taste of living free and alone, however, was soon soured by guilt. I was disappointed in myself for abandoning Torrei when she was pregnant. And I didn’t want my daughter to be born into a broken home. Surely I could be understanding of what Torrei was going through right now—emotionally, physically, and hormonally—and stay strong. Going back was the right thing to do.
After a month on my own, I moved back in with Torrei. I kept my lease on the other apartment, just in case, and sublet it to J.T. Jackson, one of the funniest actors in Los Angeles.
In the meantime, I started doing my first shows with Nate as road manager. Traveling with him was an uncomfortable experience at first. Nate had been so overworked and exploited by his last employer that he did everything: He was my driver, navigator, publicist, security guard, caterer, accountant, and valet. He did so much for me that it was embarrassing.
I’ve never shat on a person once, even when I felt they deserved to be shat on, but Nate chewed out club owners and promoters on my behalf like I was Mariah Carey or something.
Eventually, I had to speak up. “Nate, people keep coming over and saying my tour manager’s an asshole.”
“Kev, listen to me, man—I get shit done. Don’t ask me how I do it, but I always do it, know what I’m saying? If I ain’t do what I had to do to get the shit done, the shit wouldn’t be done. But you don’t wanna know how I get it done. As long as they mad at me and not mad at you.”
“I don’t want them to be mad at anybody. You’re a reflection of me.”
We would get into it all the time, but I appreciated where his heart was at. So I stuck with him, and kept reminding him not to be a dick to people.
* * *
Then, on March 22, 2005, it happened. I stood in the delivery room and watched the doctors guide my daughter into the world. As soon as I saw her, tears ran down my face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. The little boy who’d spent half his childhood in a fort made of bedding in Ms. Davis’s basement was now a father. This beautiful baby was mine to love, nurture, and raise. To succeed, all I had to do was not do anything my father had done.
I wanted our daughter to have a name similar to Kevin, so I told Torrei we should call her Kevina, which, by the way, is a totally valid woman’s name. It’s the female form of Kevin, in the same way that Roberta is the female form of Robert. But Torrei wisely slammed the door shut on that dream. Instead, she came up with the best name I could ever imagine for a daughter: Heaven Leigh Hart.
It was a happy day for us. While Torrei and Heaven were recuperating in the hospital, the nurse asked if I had a car seat for the ride home. I had no experience with babies, so I didn’t know this was a legal requirement.
I immediately drove to Target and spent probably two hours reading each box, asking employees questions, selecting what I thought was the safest seat, and then struggling to install it.
You want to know what heaven is like? It’s like putting Heaven in that car seat for the first time, making sure the padding and straps are set just right to protect her tiny body, and knowing that we’re taking her home to be part of our lives forever. It was my first daddy task, and I took it as seriously as her life.
Torrei was in a wheelchair, so I helped her get into the car as well. Before I slid into the driver’s seat, I looked at Torrei sitting in the front and Heaven in the back, and suddenly I didn’t feel trapped in a crazy relationship anymore. I felt privileged to be part of a family.
When we got home, there was no fighting. It was all about taking care of my two girls. The fact that such an angry time in our lives had produced such a sweet, gentle, beautiful soul seemed like a miracle.
Every time I saw Heaven in those first weeks, I told myself: I need to make this work. For her.
67
* * *
USING MY GODDAMN BRAIN
For a month, my relationship with Torrei felt miraculously normal. We woke up together, usually to the sound of Heaven. We ate our meals together, watched television together, went out together, and took turns each night putting Heaven back to sleep when she woke up crying. We were a team.
But there was one thing missing from this team: Someone had to go to work and earn money. I still had a mission, but it was one I now needed to balance with this new responsibility of being a father. As soon as I told Torrei that I was going away to perform, we fell right back into our old pattern.
Torrei: Who you going to go fuck?
Me: Terrence booked me some spots. Really.
Torrei: Whatever, whatever. You probably got a bitch waiting for you right now. What am I supposed to do?
Me: Someone’s gotta stay with the baby.
Torrei: So you get to do whatever you want while I’m stuck here?
Me: We don’t have a choice. If I don’t work, we can’t feed the baby.
Torrei: Okay, you go “work.” Just don’t get that bitch pregnant.
I had a lot of shows lining up. Terrence was such a talker that he’d sold me to bookers who’d never heard my name before. His argument was the same every time: “You may not know this here guy, but he’s the next big thing.”
I was “the next big thing” for years as Nate and I went back and forth, side to side, around and around the country, hitting up the small clubs that Glenn wouldn’t touch. Outside of carving a couple of days from each week to spend with Heaven, I didn’t say no to stage time. I ended up doing every college you’ve never heard of and every shit comedy club you wouldn’t take a date to.
At first, the goal was to get back to the craft and be productive. But eventually I noticed that there were people at the shows who knew me: mostly from Soul Plane, sometimes from Scary Movie 3, even occasionally from Paper Soldiers.
Those movies had come and gone, but each one had captured a few fans. That, I recognized, was more valuable than a holding deal, because a true fan pays dividends for life. So if at every show I could pick up a few more fans, then leaving Hollywood to tour might turn out to be the best possible thing I could do for my film career: I could overcome the stigma of being a proven failure by becoming too popular for the entertainment business to deny. I needed to build myself a following so big that, instead of worrying that saying yes to me or one of my projects was a mistake, the gatekeepers would worry that saying no was a mistake.