The comedy club smelled like all bars did—cold and sticky. Andrew was likely embarrassed to have her here with him, a silent mother figure hovering as he worshipped the black-and-white headshots that lined the hallway. Barbra recognized some of them, the lumpy ha-ha faces staring out of ugly oak frames.
“Steven Wright,” whispered Andrew, touching the scarred glass as if it were a reliquary. He was wishing himself onto the wall, it was clear. Barbra had never seen her stepson look at anything like that before. The Wang children were so used to getting things that it rarely occurred to them to want anything. But was this what Andrew really wanted? A life of lonely motel rooms, performing for white people who probably wouldn’t think that he was funny?
Andrew walked on ahead of her and found them a tiny round table, its black top cracked from years of damp drinks and once-upon-a-time cigarette burns, then dutifully fetched a gin and tonic cluttered with chunks of lemon. His own beer sat sweating and untouched as they suffered through a vaguely amusing comic who talked about mistaking himself for a bear on a hunting trip, a rather boring one who spent his entire seven minutes affecting an unconvincing lisp, and a succession of indistinguishable men in ill-fitting plaid shirts who all seemed to have been blessed with crazy girlfriends. And then it was time.
“Alright, dickheads,” shouted the chubby emcee, his mouth hidden behind a bushy beard that was inexplicably dyed blue. “We’ve got a virgin here tonight! Let’s help pop his open-mic cherry with a warm Austin welcome. Come on up, Andrew Wang! Hey dude, here’s a comedy tip. Don’t suck. Unless you’re gay.”
Without looking at her, Andrew squeaked his seat back and ran towards the stage, managing not to trip as he bounded up the stairs. Once the emcee was done making a lewd gesture with the microphone, Andrew grabbed it and turned towards the audience.
“What’s up, Austin! Yeah, it’s true. It’s my first time here. So, uh, yeah, why do girls always want guys to take them out to a romantic dinner? Dude. Dinner is the least romantic thing ever. There’s nothing romantic about eating. When you buy someone dinner, you’re just, uh, buying things for their . . . you know, for their, uh, for their ass. Right?”
Barbra cringed. What was wrong with Andrew? He’d bragged about how much laughter he’d gotten from doing stand-up at his school, but if this was any indication of his abilities, those classmates must have laughed out of pity or embarrassment.
“I mean, it’s either going to turn into shit and come out their ass, or it’s going to turn into fat and stick to their ass!”
Probably the latter.
“The next time a chick asks me to take her out to dinner, I’m just going to tell her to sit on her ass and listen to this poem—I mean, what’s not romantic about poetry?—Roses are red, violets are blue, let’s go to bed, because I want to fuck you! Yeah!”
Andrew paused, waiting as the trickle of polite laughs failed to become a roar. Barbra considered being offended, but found that really she was rather amused. At least the excruciating awkwardness had resulted in something unexpected.
Someone near the front of the stage called out: “He said, ‘Don’t suck’?!” She craned to see who it was, but the heckler was hidden by his friends. Andrew flinched and continued.
“So . . . I’ve totally disappointed my dad. I know what you’re thinking—I’m Asian, so this must be some joke about how he’s disappointed that I’m not a brain surgeon or not a lawyer or how I took a whole month to learn how to play Vivaldi or something. But, no, no, my dad is cool about that kind of shit. He actually wants me to play the guitar and get laid. No, honestly, he does.” This apt description of Charles did make Barbra laugh, a sudden yelp of it, but she was embarrassed to be the only one.
“So, the thing is, my dad, the immigrant, is really, really disappointed that I have an allergy. A peanut allergy. Because immigrants do not believe in allergies. I swear to God, ask any brown person with an accent that you see and they’ll tell you that allergies are some New World shit.” Well, that was true, thought Barbra, remembering her own surprise when the mother of one of Grace’s young friends refused to allow her daughter to play at the Wangs’ because their housekeeper didn’t use nonallergenic cleaning products.
And then, without warning, Andrew launched into a cross-eyed accent that made her cringe. “My dad was, like, ‘I sail here under cover of night! I fight pirates! I hide out in American sewage system and work as busboy for twenty year, and you cannot defend yourself against peanut? One peanut? Peanut that so teeny tiny and de-ricious?’”