If at Birth You Don't Succeed (37 page)

On top of that, I still had Gillian to come home to. I loved listening to stories of her rehearsals and showing her the pictures of Carl and me kissing in front of the gate. I liked living my own life and having my own stories to tell. But what I treasured most were the tiny moments that were too boring to share with anyone else. These were the types of vacations I liked to have. I wasn't as brashly cavalier as my dad or as laid back as my mom; I was a guy who took big chances so that he could enjoy small things.

On the night of Gillian's concert, I was one of the first people to arrive because I came with the star of the show. I wheeled up to my VIP seating at a tiny round bar table beside the stage. In the hour leading up to the show, I watched as the small club became packed with a hundred people whose collective body heat managed to raise the temperature twenty degrees by the time Gillian and her trio took the stage. Finally, the room went dark and a hush came over the audience.

I recognized the woman who settled in behind her harp, but it was hard to imagine that this picture of poise in black jeans and high heels was the same person I'd seen nearly fall asleep in her salad after ten-hour rehearsals over the previous week. From the first plucked note I reverted back to the same starstruck fan who had sent her that initial tweet over a year earlier. I'd said then that her music would bring me to Germany and now it finally had.

Over the course of two sets, Gillian was able to not just share an experience with her audience but also shepherd them through an emotional journey. She had them cheering along with drinking songs, stunned to silence after darkly provocative ballads, and hypnotized by the soothing drone of lullabies. Whatever the mood, the crowd moved with her and was moved by her.

Just as the songs had been born from moments of relentless introspection, entrenched struggle, and wistful memory, this beautiful night had arrived by way of chaos, practice, and sleep deprivation, and at the expense of regular showers. As I watched her up there, rocking her harp back and forth like it was an extension of herself, I recognized an artist who knew exactly who she was, what she wanted to say, and how to say it. I was proud, enamored, and a little turned on, to be honest.

The evening was even more special because my aunt Naomi and uncle Gareth had come all the way from London just to see the concert. For the first time, we were able to see one another away from the context of big family gatherings. During Gillian's rendition of Irving Berlin's “What'll I Do?” I looked across the table and saw my uncle—who wouldn't look out of place in a pith helmet standing with a musket beside a dead Siberian tiger—with tears running into his bushy white handlebar mustache. The last time I'd seen them in Europe, we had been worlds apart. But that night, as we listened to my girlfriend perform a standard even my grandma Ruthie would have appreciated, we were just three people sharing a wonderful experience.

I could tell that Naomi and Gareth saw me in a new light. I was an adult now, a man who flew across the ocean, made a living doing what he loved, and was dating the prettiest, most talented girl in the room. I felt different too, like I was no longer the wandering and weary traveler in my own life. The solitude I'd had in Berlin had given me the time, not just by myself, but as myself that I'd been searching for for so long. Berlin made me realize that I didn't need to go anywhere anymore. I had already arrived. I was a traveler who finally knew that no matter where I was in the world, I had found my place in it.

 

CONCLUSION

Thirty Candles

When I was six years old, a fifth grader was the oldest human being I could ever imagine turning into. At Lindbergh Elementary, every first grader was paired with an upper-class mentor. Once a week, the mighty fifth graders would march down the stairs to the first floor and pile into our tiny classroom like giants, their Reebok pumps and LED sneakers creaking the generously lacquered floorboards. They'd loom above us and then sit down with us, and we'd read to each other. My paired reading partner, Alex, read me chapter books like
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
, while I would sound out and stammer my way through
Little Bear.

I remember looking up at those ten-year-olds who so confidently wore jeans and sports jerseys and had mousse in their hair, and thinking,
I can't wait to be a grown-up like that! I wonder if my mom would buy me mousse.… Is this purple sweat suit with the glitter and abstract art printed on it something adults would wear?
For one hour every Thursday, I came face-to-face with my future and it seemed exciting but so distant that I thought I would never get there.

But in November 2014, I woke up to find that I was nearly three fifth graders old! My purple bedazzled sweat suits had been replaced by lavender button-downs and my flashing LED sneakers had been upgraded to the exact same pair of brown suede loafers my grandfather wears. I'd gone through my entire twenty-ninth year being asked what I was going to do for my thirtieth birthday and how it felt to officially be an old man. The truth is, I had no idea how I was supposed to feel or why this birthday was so important to everyone else. I felt a lot of pressure to have an epiphany that would give me some profound perspective on the meaning of my existence, like I'd be blowing out my birthday candles surrounded by friends and as I plunged the knife into the first slice of cake and made a wish, it would all become clear. I'd exclaim, “I get it! My life has been about shoes this whole time!” and head off into the mountains to live out the rest of my days as a cobbler.

But in the months leading up to the big Three-O, I actually felt anxious that no life-altering lightbulb had gone off in my head. I didn't feel like I was at a pivotal moment at all. I'd worked hard and had great friends, an amazing family, a girlfriend I loved, and a career I was proud of.
This isn't gonna make a good story
! I thought,
Hopefully, something will go wrong.
I racked my brain to find a celebration that had the potential to be a disaster. After all, failure had been the catalyst for most of the meaning in my life, and because I hoped to live to at least ninety, this birthday was meant to be the climactic cliffhanger ending to the first part of my life's trilogy.

It wasn't until September that I finally called Chris Demarais with an idea.

“Hey,” I said, excitedly, “I'm turning thirty in two months and I know what I wanna do for my birthday.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, intrigued.

“Yup. I wanna rent out a theater at the Alamo Drafthouse and screen the last three episodes of
The Wingmen
. Can we finish them?”

Silence. One of those twelve-month pregnant silences that only Chris Demarais does.

“Uh…,” Chris wondered aloud. “I like the
idea
, and I know we can get episodes eight and nine done, but I have no clue about ten.”

“Can I book the theater then?” I asked.

“Maaaybe?” he guessed. “Actually, why don't you go ahead and book it. No, wait, give Aaron and me until Monday to look over the footage. No, don't book anything yet. But maybe.”

This is as close as Chris Demarais ever gets to making a commitment, so I was hopeful that my college comedy troupe's long-abandoned Web series might finally get the ending it deserved and that my thirtieth birthday would see me closing out an important chapter in both my personal and my professional life. It could also be a train wreck, which was equally appealing.

Me and the four other members of our group, Lark the Beard, started
The Wingmen
way back in 2008, when we were still undergrads at the University of Texas.
The Wingmen
tells the story of four hosts of a dating advice radio show who are being followed around for a documentary. Their romantic wisdom includes such gems as “Do one little thing every day to make your girlfriend sad,” “A man is better than a raft,” and my personal favorite, “Take her to Olive Garden!” In the first episode Chris's character flies off the handle on air, spouting profanity when he discovers that his girlfriend is cheating on him. After being fired from their show and fined $15,000 by the Federal Communications Commission, they decide to start a dating service where, instead of matching clients up, they go out on all the dates themselves in order to meet women and make money. The entire show was improvised and shot in the mockumentary style of
The Office
.

We released the first seven episodes online and it went so well that we got the attention of FOX television, wrote a treatment for them, did five versions of a trailer, got a fancy LA agent to tell us that we were about to make millions of dollars, and then … nothing happened. Everything stalled and, disheartened, the final three episodes were never released or even finished.

In the seven years since
The Wingmen
fizzled, three of the five Wingmen had gotten jobs at a digital media company called Rooster Teeth, several of the principal cast members had gotten married, Aaron had gotten ceremoniously engaged and unceremoniously disengaged, and I'd had time to win and lose a show from Oprah, make an Internet travel series, move out to LA for two seasons of
Have a Little Faith
, and wind up back in Texas where it all started. I didn't have a network contract or a large sum of money to throw in front of my friends as incentive to complete a project we had all moved on from—all I had was my thirtieth birthday and the fact that I'd already told anyone who would listen that the last three episodes would finally be released.

On the day before my birthday everything was going so smoothly, I almost felt disappointed. When I left to pick up Gillian from the airport, the final
Wingmen
videos were already exporting, our RSVP list for the Drafthouse screening was overflowing, and my stomach was strangely calm. With no conflicts, catastrophes, or crises to address, I felt like I could rest easy, so Gillian and I snuggled up on the mattress on the floor of my rented Downtown Austin apartment and I fell asleep, for the last time, as a twentysomething.

I was not awoken by an earthquake or even a mariachi band, and they're everywhere in Texas! No, I just woke up well rested and happy, barely noticing that I'd entered a whole new decade of my life. The rest of the day was uneventfully lovely. Well, there were events, there just weren't any problems. The worst thing I had to deal with was that it was a little nippy out when Gillian sent me off to go get hair conditioner, but when I returned, she surprised me with homemade Olive Garden breadsticks she'd shaped into letters that read, “H-A-P-P-Y B-D-A-Y Z-A-C-H.” She'd even remembered to spell my name with an “H.”

I checked in with Chris and Aaron and everything was going swimmingly on their end too. They didn't need my help. Heck, even when I'd stopped by a few nights earlier to edit, I found that 90 percent of the work had already been done. There just were a few stray pickup shots we needed to get, and so we found ourselves running down to the lobby of Aaron's apartment and acting in roles we hadn't inhabited since 2009. But our
Wingmen
characters came back to us as naturally as riding a bike because we all played idiots.

“Try and fit as many nuts in your mouth as possible,” I shouted at Chris from behind the camera. “You're always funnier when you're eating.”

“Raise your voice up half an octave and add about fifty percent more dumb,” Aaron suggested.

Our group had developed such a shorthand that “more dumb” and “more nuts” were all the direction any of us needed. When we started making
The Wingmen
, we had no idea what we were doing. Now, shooting scenes on the fly was a reflex. It was invigorating to be working on a deadline with my best friends again.

Back in our UT days, everything was always down to the wire. Sheer lack of time, sleep, and experience was what motivated us to get stuff done. I remember one night, three days before an episode's premiere, Brad, Chris, and I were all working late at my place during finals week. Chris still had half an hour of footage to color-correct and we didn't have a minute to spare because in those days, exporting thirty minutes of video took the computer two days and there was no guarantee it wouldn't crash during the process.

At four a.m., after three hours of staring at a screen trying to get a fondue pot to look less blown out, Chris begged me, “Zach, I just need to sleep for fifteen minutes, just maybe half an hour…” His eyeballs were so bloodshot that he could have easily gotten excused from class for pinkeye, and the bags underneath his eyes were so dark and pronounced that they looked like folds of rhinoceros skin. I said, “Sure, you can take a nap, but it can ONLY be half an hour. We really need to get this to Aaron so that he can start the final export.” As soon as Chris hit the mattress in my bedroom, he was out cold. Brad and I knew that we couldn't afford this nap, so we did what any responsible producers would do. We went through my apartment and set all of the clocks forward two hours. We even stealthily changed the time on Chris's phone, swiping it from the bedside table. Ten minutes later, I roused Chris from a deep sleep.

“Dude, you gotta get up! It's already past six!”

“What?” he said, still in a daze.

“Yeah, you slept for like an hour and a half, two hours. We gotta get back to work!”

“I don't know why I still feel so tired!” he moaned. “I feel like I've only been asleep for like five minutes!”

“You want me to make some coffee?” asked Brad.

“Yeah, I guess I need it. I gotta get to class by nine. Why didn't you guys wake me up sooner?”

“I thought it was important that you get your rest,” I said. “Clearly I was right!”

After we'd convinced him that he didn't have the right to be anything other than wide-awake, Chris trudged through the rest of his work. By the time he thought it was eight thirty a.m., there was only one scene left to finish.