The Comedy

I’m booked for a show Friday night, a comedy competition. I’m not keen on stand up competitions, I think they’re kinda lame but I accept the offer anyway. I haven’t been having great sets and my calendar of booked shows as been dwindling because of this. Perhaps it’s just in my nature to place external blame, but I feel like The Boy is a big distraction. Nights I should be writing or rehearsing I’m camping with him on acid, trying to start a fire with branches, watching our dogs play on the beach, watching his eyes when he tries to make me laugh. Ah, he doesn’t love you, but he does love to hang out with you.

Friday he comes over and we drink sweet beers in my backyard and go over our sets together. He’s in the show too, a last minute replacement. He runs around with my dog and plays with a rake, I laugh at his jokes, he smiles at mine, we go to a restaurant we both like before the show but the wait is too long. We kiss slow in the car and he says, “we haven’t kissed like that in a while.” We go to a crappy Mexican place and he’s annoyed the whole time about the service. I’ve realized what a snob The Boy can be; East coast Italian from an upper class patriarchal family. He likes things to be just right and pretty and for people to do their jobs correct and well, which isn’t a bad thing. I tell him to relax, he eventually does.

At the show, I drink two beers and mingle with the other comics. I go second, after The Boy, and have a great set. I needed that, I think, and it feels good to get off stage and be praised by my peers. The place is full tonight and the comics are in good spirits. We sit at a bar after the show and the bartender makes us tasty margaritas and gives us a free shot. The Boy tells me his exgirlfriend is gonna be at his show tomorrow. He says something like, “you’re still number one.” Whatever that means. I know the relationship is starting to slip onto the cusp of “unhealthy” but I chase the high anyway. Every time I feel I have enough perspective and vigor to make it go away he looks at me and everything inside me collapses like one of those unsteady bridges that never passed their yearly safety inspections. It all comes down, and I’m in the passenger seat of his car again, rubbing the back of his neck while he runs red lights.

He parks outside my house and we kiss slow and nice again. I say, “I miss making out with feelings” and he says “there are feelings” and I don’t say anything. He knows what I mean, he remembers us sitting in that same spot two weeks ago when I told him I thought I was in love with him and I pushed tears out and he watched me and squinted at me and couldn’t tell me the same thing. He says something selfish and I say, “other people exist, you know? There are other people, right here.” He nods and I get out of the car, smile at him, and close the door.

**

I wear a black mini skirt and a plaid button down and review the collection of vinyls in a house downtown. The other comic I’m carpooling with is searching through the house for his pot. “I know it’s here, I wonder if my wife took it when she left.” His wife just left him, the house is in disarray, I look at his books and tell him I read the Rum Diary too and thought it was boring. He says, “where the fuck is my pot?” He finally locates it and we’re out the door, scooping up another comic with a baby face and a three syllable last name who, as I had just verbally predicted before he slammed the car door shut says, “yeah guys! You ready for this show? There’s gonna be sooooo many hot college bitches there.” I get a high five, “you called it.”

We make the 40 minute drive and I know exactly where the place is because it’s in The Boy’s backyard, a place where I spent many nights curled up in a chair watching him play fetch with his dog and sipping whiskey from a converted desk bar. This show is particularly important for him because he managed to book Mike E. Winfield (from The Office and the host of Off Beat on the FUSE Network). The three of us arrive and they all say “oh, the cool kids are here.” I like being a part of a tiny clique of comics and when the sun beats down in the yard and I have a beer and watch The Boy grill burgers and greet guests, I feel in good spirits, it’s gonna be a fun night. His exgirlfriend who he’s still in love with his coming, so what, I’m gonna hang out with the comics and fucking kill with my jokes and ignore everything that’s not about comedy and my friends.

It’s hard to do comedy in the daylight in a backyard, but I have another good set. People cheer and I make my way to the back with the rest of the comics and they say “you’re gonna be such a great comic when you grow up a little.” It sounds like an insult, but it’s a great compliment. I mingle with everyone, have conversations with a million people, eat a burger, make cocktails for some of the audience members, brag about the collage I made that is hanging above The Boy’s fireplace. Mike E. Winfield showed up with an entourage of Hollywood looking people; girls with thigh high stockings and super high heels.

After the show the crowd dwindled and The Boy disappeared for a while outside, I assume with his ex girlfriend who I hadn’t been able to pick out of the crowd. The sun goes down and the comics stay and we put more burgers on the grill. Naturally, there’s a microphone and PA system set up so we take turns doing each other’s jokes. “Cover jokes.” I go up several times and commit to my impressions of other comics and truly have a fucking awesome time. The Boy is still nowhere to be found but I don’t care anymore, I have the microphone and funny friends and a good drink and a tasty burger and there’s a breeze that’s cool but not too cool.

He finally comes back around and starts participating in cover jokes. We dance in the kitchen, smoke good pot, tell stories about shows, drink more and then I tell him I’m leaving with the guys I came with. I think maybe he’ll say, “no, stay” but he doesn’t.

At 10:30, the boys decide that’s too early to call it a night and so we park downtown near the Comedy Spot, hoping to run into people around there. We do, the owner of the venue, who invites us to come to his front stoop gathering. We hang out on a front stoop downtown and he gives us all a beer. It’s mostly improv people and their significant others and they call us “the stand ups” and the boys are snobby about hanging out with “improv-ers” but I mingle and make conversation and talk about dog grooming and pit bulls and then we leave to smoke hookah with a comic who just opened for Maria Bamford and is so good it’s intimidating. I order a delicious beer and get grilled about The Boy. I start yawning, I’m spent.

The comic with a baby face and three syllables in his name has a studio apartment downtown with a loft bed that I’ve slept in two or three times. It’s t

he most casual physical relationship I’ve ever engaged in; I go over there sometimes, we smoke pot and sit on his bed and talk about a million things like why he’s a 35 year old attorney doing stand up comedy instead of practicing law and eventually he kisses me and we make out in his bed for hours like it’s high school. I like making out with him, he’s aggressive and pulls my clothes off right away and touches every part of my body and it’s different from when I’m with The Boy whose so submissive and detached and doesn’t make eye contact. I’m drunk and being careless and angry and impulsive. I’ve never fucked him, I always made him stop, but tonight I’m in the moment and he’s touching all the right spots and I collapse on the inside again, but in a different way. I want to feel something inside me.

Neither of us finish, and in the morning we don’t cuddle. We sleep until noon and he takes me home on his motorcycle. I’m on the back of a bike jolting forward at every stop sign and feeling the midday air against my bare legs. I grab him tighter when he goes fast and suddenly I feel like crying. I waaaaaant to feeeeeel something insiiiide me. I hope off his motorcycle and he says, “see ya around” and I say, “yep.”

I check my phone to see if The Boy has texted me. He has, it says, “Am I in trouble?” I think, “no, I am” but I just say, “ha. no.”

Go inside, take the longest shower of my life, lay down on my bed and stare at the ceiling fan that I left on all night. My dog hops on the bed and licks my face and I push him away. I just want to feeeeeel alllll of the things. But I keep ending up with nothing.