It didn’t take much time to get to the root of it. And the root of it, of course, was Nate. I heard him on the phone one afternoon, getting aggressive with a club: “Either I get the money tomorrow or there ain’t gonna be no show, okay? . . . Look, I don’t give a shit. Fuck y’all. Fuck this whole damn thing. If Kevin Hart don’t see that money, Kevin Hart’s not gonna show up, and you can tell all them people in that club of yours the show is canceled and Kevin Hart ain’t coming.”
I’m sure that threats are an effective way of doing business for the mafia, but I don’t want to be feared. I want to be enjoyed. That’s why I got into the business in the first place.
However, I wasn’t very enjoyable when I found out that Nate was using my name like that. The biggest fights I’ve ever had with him, or anyone who’s worked with me since, have been when I’ve caught them using their involvement with me to disrespect somebody else. Even if things don’t happen the way they’re supposed to, there’s a professional way to talk about it.
It took Nate a long time to understand that. Yet he did keep his word: He got me twenty-five hundred dollars for a weekend—double what I’d been making—two months earlier than the deadline he’d set. I have no idea what his dealings were or how it happened so quickly. All I know is that he’s the angriest asshole with the best heart that I’ve ever met in my life.
73
* * *
ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS WHEN EVERYTHING COMES FULL CIRCLE, EVEN THOUGH I’M CONTINUING TO MOVE FORWARD, WHICH I THINK IS GEOMETRICALLY IMPOSSIBLE UNLESS I JUST WENT AROUND THE WORLD. NEVER MIND, I THINK IT’S ACTUALLY POSSIBLE.
Whenever I was back in L.A., I continued auditioning for small parts so that I could stay on screens and in the faces of casting directors. Eventually, I landed a bit part in a movie called Meet Dave, which wouldn’t even be worth mentioning if not for the fact that the star of the movie was Eddie Murphy.
I hung around the set every day hoping to meet the legend who started me down this path. But everyone guarded him like he was the president. “Hey, don’t go over there . . . He don’t like to talk . . . When he comes here, just be ready to work.”
Months after the movie came out and bombed, I decided to ask Dave for Murphy’s number and tried calling him, just to see if he would speak with me. My heart was thudding through my shirt when he answered. I explained that he was a big reason why I was doing stand-up and that I was about to do my first hour-long special, I’m a Grown Little Man.
“My advice is don’t ask for advice,” he responded patiently. “Trust yourself and your own way of doing things. Just because something worked for someone else doesn’t mean it’s gonna work for you.”
It was good non-advice advice, which he has continued to give me over the years. With the blessing of the man responsible for the first comedy special I ever saw, I felt ready for my big show.
I had a solid hour of material. I had a producer, Michelle Caputo, to take care of the filming. I’d rented the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York. And I’d given away all eight hundred tickets for free to make sure the house was full.
However, a week before the taping, Torrei’s mom called. “I want to remind you that the credit card bill is due,” she chirped. “I see you all had a good time this month.”
The bill, which was usually in the hundreds of dollars, was in the thousands—the maximum allowed on the card—and I didn’t have enough money left in my account to pay it. It just so happens that the previous month, I’d discovered a loophole that allowed me to get an additional card for the account in Torrei’s name.
I stormed into the bedroom. “What you been doing with that damn credit card?” It took every ounce of restraint I had not to grab it and snap it in half. The only thing stopping me was that I knew it would bend instead of breaking, and I’d end up struggling like an idiot to snap it.
“What do you care? You get to buy whatever you want for yourself. I never get anything.”
“You maxed out the card. How are we gonna get to New York now?”
I still hadn’t booked plane tickets and hotel rooms for me, Torrei, the kids, Nate, and Na’im, who was opening the show. But my bank account was nearly empty. The credit cards were done. And I had thirty-five dollars in cash for food until then. We were fucked.
I swallowed my pride and called my opening act:
Me: Na’im, man, I need some money.
Na’im: Wow—what for?
Me: Does it matter? I’m asking. It’s that bad.
Na’im: All I got is three hundred dollars.
Me: Sorry, man, but can I borrow that?
Na’im: All right, but just so you know, I need it back.
I went to the bank and withdrew the rest of what I had, leaving seventeen cents in the account to keep them from closing it. I then went to a travel agency to buy tickets.
I didn’t have enough money to fly to New York. But the agent found a cheaper flight to Philadelphia that I’d be able to afford if I brought one fewer person.
I asked Torrei if she was cool with staying home, and she flipped out. So I broke the news to Nate that I couldn’t afford to bring him. I needed him there, but I needed the peace and quiet at this time more.
Next I had to figure out the rest: hotel, transportation, food, and an outfit for the show. I could ask Torrei’s parents to drive us from the Philly airport to Manhattan, and then to the show itself. But short of everyone sleeping in the car, I couldn’t think of a legal way to take care of the rest of these things.
I’d have to do it illegally.
I called hotels in New York until I found one that accepted checks, then returned to the bank and asked for a set of checks for my account. Fortunately, they gave them to me without asking about my balance of seventeen cents.
I had a college show the weekend after the taping, and maybe I could get that payment into my account quickly enough to keep some of the checks from bouncing.
Torrei’s parents met us at the airport. Her mom was so pissed that I couldn’t afford to cover the American Express bill that she didn’t speak to me the whole ride, except to say: “I trusted you when I got you that card. I told you not to ruin my good credit. What’s the matter with you?”
I agreed. I apologized. I promised her I’d call American Express and work something out. She was right to be upset.
We pulled up to the hotel, poured out of the car, and walked to the reception desk, where I needed to deliver one of the best acting performances of my life:
Me (whipping out checkbook confidently): So, who do I make this out to?
Receptionist: Just make it out to the hotel.
Me: And, um, when does it clear? Just so I know, for me to get a little more clarity on how it works here.
Receptionist: I’m not sure. Probably the next business day.
Me: Okay, great. And does the hotel have a happy hour at all, with free snacks and drinks?
Receptionist: No, I’m sorry.
Me: Not that it matters. It’s just a nice thing sometimes. For my wife. She loves those. (To family.) Come on, y’all, let’s get up to the room. Hurry it up.