“But you know who else I can’t tell the difference between? White people.” He glanced at a few of the white people in the audience, half hoping that they would look upset. “I mean, first of all, British, Irish, Scottish? Uh, whatevs. Who knows. Oh, and British people, yeah, you don’t look all that different from Germans. Sorry, dudes, y’all both white. Oh, and you all-American white Republicans? Um, yeah. Your average Texan and your average Frenchman? You both wear high-waisted pants and have butter-based diets. Not that different. Sorry, haters. But let’s talk about the particular, because you guys are all sitting there thinking, Oh no, unh-unh, no way, we might be all ‘American’ but I do not look like this loser on my left, and I definitely don’t look like that mouth-breathing scab in front of me.” Air quotes. What the fuck was wrong with him?
Crowd work. Crowd work. A good stand-up does good crowd work. Andrew held out a hand towards a white guy with a Nirvana T-shirt and light brown hair that hung to his shoulders. “You, grunge boy, nodding down there. That’s what you think, right? Weeeell . . . the only difference I see is that you’ve got a Nirvana shirt on, and that equally brown-haired guy next to you has a Pearl Jam shirt, so you’re probably a little cooler.” Okay, that didn’t make much sense, but the important thing was to try. And out in the audience, someone shouted back, gratifyingly, “Cobain rules!”
“By the way, white people, that’s how we tell the males in your species apart—by hair color. It’s kind of like with cats or horses, you know? ‘Oh, Dave? Yeah, he’s okay, he’s just a tabby, dime a dozen. Eh, kind of a sloppy drunk . . . Brian? Yeah, yeah, that guy’s cool, he’s a palomino. Real nice coat. Shiny. Yo, a little tip: Try to get him on your team when you’re playing Trivial Pursuit. Man, that guy knows everything about the ’80s. Declan? Oh, he’s real weird, but kind of beautiful, not in a gay way or anything, man. It’s just, he’s a tortoiseshell, and he’s got these white paws and these yellow eyes that just look through you, man, like he knows something . . .’”
People were laughing, but he felt the false note in his voice and tried to center it, to take away the performance aspect of it.
“But you know what I think? You know what I really think? Alright, join hands everybody, join hands, this is a real kumbaya moment. Guess what? We all all look alike. Every single one of us.”
It was still there, a hamminess that had come out of nowhere. Here he was, swaying theatrically, kumbayaing all over the place. Maybe it was because he hadn’t really eaten anything besides donuts before drinking those whiskey and Cokes, and these lights were bringing out his claustrophobia. Flashing forward to the rest of his act, Andrew felt a sudden emptiness. It wasn’t that different from what he’d said already. It was all Asian shit, and it wasn’t even his best stuff. What was he doing here anyway?
He looked out at the crowd, their faces turned towards him, waiting, and said, without thinking, “Hey. Have you guys ever had everything in your life change? Like, just everything? Maybe? Anybody?” He waited, hoping that someone would respond. What the hell was he going to say?
Just say everything.
Everything?
Sure. Why not? He’d never see these people again. Everything.
“Like, whatever you think you are just flips the script and you’re left reaching around like an idiot, trying to grab at something familiar, because all you want is some . . . I don’t know . . . some certainty?” A couple of guys in the front row were nodding. Heartened, he went on.
“You know, you’re like, ‘Oh, my father’s not the man I thought he was, but . . . at least I still love Cool Ranch Doritos!’ Or ‘My girlfriend just dumped me because I didn’t want to give it up to her, but, hey, I still drive a sick car!’ Or ‘Oh shit, my sick car just got repossessed but at least I’ve still got all my college buds.’ Or, you know, ‘Oh hey, I’ve been yanked out of college and my family’s bankrupt and I’m in the middle of a crazy cross-country road trip in my dead mom’s car because my dad might be delusional and my sister might be a whore and who the fuck knows about my crazy little stepmother and believe it or not I was a virgin up until two days ago and I just lost it to, like, a thirty-five-year-old who I told myself I was in love with but that’s over and I’m stranded in the weird-ass city and how the fuck is this my life now but, oh yeah, I can still, like, recite the Gettysburg Address so I guess I’m still me, right?’
“Yeah, here’s how the Gettysburg Address goes: Four score and seven years ago our forefathers said good fucking luck.”
Andrew breathed. Oh shit. This was why people loved being onstage. It wasn’t the applause; it was the honesty. He’d always thought of himself as an honest person, but he saw now that he wasn’t, entirely.
A girl in the audience dressed in a horrible purple pantsuit whooped—she whooped for him!—and he thought of the woman in the donut shop, of her nails and her donut icing and of their connection. It was almost easier to open up to people he’d never see again. He plunged ahead.