“How’s tomorrow?”
I could see the relief in his face. I didn’t have extra money to pay him with, but I knew I’d find it somewhere. I later found out that he’d already had his bags packed and was about to return to his hometown to become a teacher.
One of the problems with touring clubs is that sometimes the local hosts are terrible, and we have to perform to a dry crowd. We solved that problem by bringing Joey along to MC the shows—and he’s hosted with us ever since.
Eventually, he even got his car back.
* * *
A year after Joey joined, we came up with a name for this ragtag group of otherwise unemployable misfits.
We were in Vegas complaining about our relationships and drinking tequila out of red plastic cups—the ones that are always stacked next to the free alcohol at parties. I suggested that we all run away and move to Jamaica together. As we toasted to that, Harry burst out: “We the Plastic Cup Boyz!”
“What the hell is that?” Spank asked.
“Nigga, we always got plastic cups. When you see these red cups, it’s always a party or a good time. So we the Plastic Cup Boyz.”
I was tired of saying I was bringing my “crew” or my “team” or my “package” to each club. We needed a name. So from that day forward, we were the Plastic Cup Boyz and Nate had a new responsibility: making sure we had red plastic cups everywhere we went.
76
* * *
I THINK THAT LAST CHAPTER TITLE WAS THE ONLY HEIGHT JOKE IN THIS BOOK SO FAR
It was an amazing setup.
Joey hosted, Spank opened, Na’im featured, and I closed. I wasn’t touring as a comedian anymore, but as an entire traveling show. It worked for the clubs, because they didn’t have to do any more work to book the night, and it worked for the audiences, who got a solid, consistent show.
The downside was that traveling with a group this big was expensive. At first, we weren’t making enough money to fly, feed, and lodge five people. But once we sold out a few clubs, Nate asked, “Kev, I got a question for you: Are you bold enough to go percentages at the comedy clubs? That’s my question that I want to ask. Damn.”
“What do you mean?”
He explained that he wanted to work out a deal with the clubs where instead of getting a flat rate for performing, we’d be paid a percentage of the money the club made at the door each night. It was a risk, because we’d make less on a bad show but much more on a good show.
Being a gambling man, I took the bet.
The biggest challenge was making sure the clubs didn’t lie about attendance, so every night Nate would walk through the crowd with a mechanical counter. On more than one occasion, I caught him checking the bathrooms just to make sure he hadn’t missed anyone. At least, that’s what he told me he was doing in there.
After every show, he’d be in the manager’s office with his counter, calculator, #2 pencil, and bill-counting machine. He’d go over all the numbers, asking questions about every line item. Then he’d count the money three times just to make sure it was right. He’d be there so long settling, a manager or promoter would pull me aside afterward and say: “You know, there are computer programs that can do all that stuff.”
Almost half the time, though, Nate would discover that the numbers were off in the house’s favor, so he’d ask for what was right. If that didn’t work, he’d yell for what was right. If that didn’t work, he’d threaten for what was right. And once, when that didn’t work, and a promoter started pushing him, Nate stabbed him with his pencil. We never played that club again.
As we toured more, we put together a system that enabled me to walk away with thirty-five hundred dollars a weekend. Add in another fifteen hundred a week in merchandise, and we were making twenty thousand dollars a month.
Then came Wayne.
Wayne was Spank’s hookup from the airport. Since he could fly for free, he started coming out to join us on weekends. The thing we liked most about him was that he never kept his money in the bank; he kept it in his pocket. This made him the ATM for everyone on the road: “Hey, Wayne, give me a hundred.”
At the end of the weekend, Wayne would get his cash back from Nate. Eventually, he wanted to get more involved.
“Hey, Kev, you know how you’re always going to clubs after these shows. I don’t mind making sure y’all are safe and keeping people off you. If things get crazy, I can handle it.”
On the particular night when Wayne said this, we were at the Improv in Fort Lauderdale, and there were probably a hundred open seats in the house. There was nothing I needed to be protected from other than my own spending habits.
On the other hand, Wayne was a big guy, and maybe this would keep Nate from trying to pretend like he was my security. At every club I went to, I had an out-of-shape middle-aged man walking behind me with his stomach poking into my back and one hand thrust into his pocket like he was packing. “Nate, what you ’bout to do?” I’d laugh. “You gonna shoot that man with the fingers you have balled up in your pocket? Back the fuck off, so people can stop thinking I’m a human centipede.”
Everyone in the group liked to keep me in check, but Wayne more than anyone had no problem telling me, “Hey, man, sit your stupid ass down!” So I figured he’d be better at the job, just because he was clear when he spoke. Though I didn’t need any security, having a bodyguard made it look like I was succeeding. And in entertainment, perception is reality.
So I told him: “Okay, yeah, I probably need that. I can break off a couple dollars and pay you for security.”
Wayne eventually became our travel agent too. One day, we were checking into a hotel and I overheard Spank saying, “Yo, Wayne, stop being a bitch and tell him.”
Wayne didn’t say anything, so Spank did: “Wayne got fired from the airport.”
“Yeah,” Wayne cracked, “you bitches was calling me like an hour into my shift—nonstop, every motherfucking day. So yeah, I got fired. I’m spending all my time helping y’all.”
“Tell ’em how long you been fired for.”
Wayne wouldn’t say anything else, but Spank ratted him out again: It had been months. Wayne’s car had even been repossessed. I’d been paying Wayne just two hundred dollars a week, so I have no idea how he was surviving.
“Come on, man, I got you,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.”
And now there were seven of us Plastic Cup Boyz.
77
* * *
YOU’VE HEARD IT BEFORE, NOW HEAR IT WITHOUT JOKES
The one time we needed Wayne as security, he hurt us a lot more than he helped.