I'll Be Here All Week (23 page)

“But we also have Second Cup,” Sam says. “And Second Cup is better.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you'll work there?”

“Maybe it's better than Starbucks.”

“What about waiting tables?” she asks.

“I've done that before, as you know,” he says. “I'm not against it. It's been a while, though. Something like twelve years.”

“They'll still hire you,” she says. “What about bartending?”

“I think I wanna stay out of bars if I'm not doing comedy. I don't want to just work a different job in the same place.”

“Good point.”

Spence doesn't tell her, but he thinks about caving in. It's only Monday. He could take a couple of days off and then start making phone calls. He could rebook some of the dates he lost from Rodney himself. Plenty of clubs will hire him anyway, especially if they get to pay him a little less without an agent stepping in. He could call the clubs he likes and stay away from the dives and saloons. Maybe offer to work cheaper if he has to. He could try and find another agent. There's some lady in Brooklyn who is just about as low-rent as Rodney. She'd probably sign him tomorrow if he called her.

Maybe Jamie wants the job?
he thinks and almost smiles.

He looks out the window and watches the people walking down Yonge Street. The idea of not moving feels good, too. Just staying in one place for a while and going nowhere. If he could afford it, he'd take the entire month off and just sit in Toronto. Wait and see if anyone misses him. In the back of his mind, however, he's scared to death because he's pretty sure no one would.

He also thinks about calling Rodney. He doesn't tell Sam because he knows she'd think he's crazy. But he hasn't had to really book himself for several years. He doesn't remember how to do it every single day. He knows that he hated it, which is why he hired and kept Rodney in the first place. He never really liked Rodney all that much, but he absolutely hated making all of those phone calls to club owners.

And he doesn't really know what else to do with his life.

“What are you thinking?” Sam asks. He realizes that he's been staring straight ahead with the same piece of sashimi wedged between his chopsticks in front of his face for at least a couple of minutes.

“Thinking about working at Banana Republic,” he lies.

“I could teach you how to fold pants,” she says and grins like a clown.

“Perfect.”

This is not the first time he has fired Rodney. That's probably why it didn't seem like such a big deal at first. For a while it was a yearly thing. The most recent was that time a few years ago when Rodney booked him to open for some TV star that turned out to be a complete jerk. It was some fourth banana on a sitcom who constantly complained about how he hated that his opening act got more attention from the audience. The TV star demanded Spence be fired, and Rodney did it without hesitation. Spence swore that was the end of their business together. He hired Rodney back three days later.

“No regrets,” Sam says to him. It's not a question.

“I'm fine,” he lies.

Rodney hasn't tried to call. He usually doesn't for at least a couple of days every time he's fired. If the guy is smart, he won't call at all. He should know that this time it's serious. If Rodney is smart, he'll stay away for good. But if there's a paycheck to be had, Rodney will likely try to make a comeback. Spence has given Rodney more second chances than he's ever been given in his life. In the past, he's always thrown his hands up and gone right back to business as usual. But he won't do it this time. Today is about starting over. With his life, his career, and Sam. He won't go back to Rodney.

But he could.

Spence watches Sam as she eats more sushi. He secretly hopes that Rodney isn't smart.

“How about selling cars?” Sam asks. He grimaces and remembers that year in pharmaceutical sales. His friends all made a mint selling Viagra while he barely got by because he had to peddle the world's least popular antianxiety pill. Sam sees the look on his face and changes the subject back to waiting tables and being a substitute teacher.

You'd better grovel, Rodney,
Spence thinks.
You'd better beg me for forgiveness.

It's every few minutes that he thinks that maybe he'll take Rodney back again. But only if Rodney is the one who apologizes this time. If Rodney admits that he was wrong and has been screwing things up, Spence can take him back. He can work things out. He'll take a couple of weeks off here in Toronto and recharge his batteries. He'll spend time with Sam and then hit the road again with a fresh new outlook on it all. He'll make better money once Rodney is really on his side and not taking such a high cut. If he makes more money, he can tour less anyway and spend more time with Sam. They both want that anyway. That's the deal.

“Or you can just keep doing what you've been doing,” Sam says, and he wonders if he was thinking out loud. He smiles at her and shoves the sashimi in his mouth. It seems a bit warm. How long was he holding it?

“I don't know,” Spence says. “Maybe.”

“You're leaning toward it, aren't you?”

“Sometimes it scares me that you know me so well.”

Sam shrugs and looks out the window at the people walking by. For a split-second, her smile seems to fade away. They've been joking around and enjoying the conversation for a while, but she suddenly looks serious, even if she is trying to hide it.

“I know you love to be on that stage,” she says. “There is no taking the performer out of you, is there?”

He grimaces. “Probably not. It's the thing I've done the longest. The thing I know best. The thing I always wanted to be.”

“What about part-time?” she asks, twiddling her chopsticks into her little dish of soy sauce. “What if you did something else and just did comedy on the side again?”

“It doesn't really work that way,” Spence says. “It's a demanding job, even part-time. There's only so much local work before a comic has to hit the road again.”

“I know.”

“And you hate it, right?”

She shrugs. “Why wouldn't I? Who wants to be with someone that is never home? Or the stress of worrying all the time?”

He feels a pain in the back of his neck, and the throbbing starts to grow a bit. He doesn't answer her immediately, but looks at her and raises his shoulders a bit. He knows that there is no way Sam can think about him being on the road and not think about Syracuse and his night in the hospital. Chances are good she'll think about it every time he leaves and goes back on the road. And he'll always be wondering what's next. If he stays with her and stays on the road, he'll always be making up for that night. But he knows she'll never stick around long enough for him to find out.

For a second, he wonders if she's ever seen the good parts of his business or only the worst of it. He wishes he could show her the parts of being a comedian that are so addictive. He wishes he could share with her the intense rush of applause and laughter. He wishes she knew that kind of addiction and that there was some way of sharing it with her.

“You know how I feel,” she says. “I won't beat you over the head with it. I promised you that after the last time that I would never tell you what to do.”

“When a comedian gets famous, he can tour less and make three times the money,” he says. “But . . .”

“You're not famous,” she says.

“And I have no idea how to get that way.”

“Right.”

“And if I knew something else that would keep me entertaining people and keep me happy and keep me here with you, I'd do it in a second,” he says. “The problem is, I can't think of any such thing.”

“I know,” she says. “Neither can I.” She takes another bite of sushi and smiles at him. She looks guilty for a second, as if she feels bad for changing the tone of the conversation. They promised each other a nice day and to put the past behind them. No more talk of Syracuse. No looking back at those awful weeks when they didn't speak. But he's not angry with her anyway. He knows she's right.

“Whatever you do,” she says, “don't go back to Rodney.”

Spence winces and wonders if she's been reading his mind. Every minute he tries to talk himself out of calling Rodney he feels a pain grow in his stomach. He had such amazing balls with Dustin in Iowa. Now he needs to have them again when it comes to Rodney. After all, that's why he felt so alive and amazing just hours ago. Sticking up for himself was a shot in the arm that he needed. Now he needs to follow through by putting that same shot into the rest of his life.

“Maybe Second Cup is a good idea,” he says. She rolls her eyes and smiles and then touches his hand across the table.

And I wanna tell you that I love—

His cell phone vibrates on the small café table, and he looks down at it.

“You gonna talk to him?” Sam asks. She looks a little disappointed. He looks down at the phone. It's not Rodney. He doesn't recognize the number at all. If it is Rodney, he's calling from a completely different area code.

“This is Spence,” he answers as he puts the phone to his ear.

“Hi there. This is Diane Perez,” a woman's voice comes from the other end. “Is this Mr. Spencer?”

“Yes?” Spence says. He's not familiar with the name or the voice, but it's not a wrong number.

“I'm Greg Saunders's assistant,” she says.

“Greg Saunders?”

“With
The Tonight Show
?” Ms. Perez's voice seems to say “duh.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, “of course.” He holds up his index finger to Sam and walks out of the restaurant. Sam looks at him with an eyebrow up but doesn't move. He steps out onto the sidewalk and is surprised by how quiet it is on a rather clear summer Monday evening in the middle of the city. “What can I do for you?” he asks and crosses his fingers.

“Mr. Saunders wanted me to call you to see if you're available to be on the show.”

“The Tonight Show?”
Spence asks.

“Of course.”

“I'm sorry, but . . . is this a joke?” he asks. He wonders if Rodney is just being a sadistic fuck. Or if Dustin is getting even.

“I assure you it's not, although everyone always asks that,” she says.

He laughs. “Go figure.”

“So does that mean you're interested?” she asks. He wants to be the one who says “duh” this time.
The Tonight Show.
Here's Johnny. Hello, Ed. Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Leno.
The freaking Tonight Show
.

“Of course,” Spence says and wants to do a backflip. “I'm just curious. How did you find me?”

“Your publicist sent us a tape,” she says.

“My publicist?”

She pauses and sounds as if she's reading something. “Jamie Hernandez,” she says. “He sent us a press kit a few weeks ago. I assumed you knew about it.”

Damn,
Spence thinks,
I didn't think the kid had it in him.

“Oh yeah,” he says. “Sorry, I forgot. Been on the road a lot.”

“Well, Greg—Mr. Saunders—liked what he saw. So he wants to know if you can do it on the show,” she says and then tosses in, “The material on the tape, of course.”

The clean stuff. The new stuff. Everyone likes the new stuff.
The freaking Tonight Show
loves the new stuff. He's going to do his new stuff on
The Tonight Show
.

Fuck you, Rodney,
he thinks.

“Absolutely,” he says.

Spence looks back at Sam through the restaurant window. She shrugs her shoulders and mouths the word
what
. He gives her a big thumbs-up and realizes that he's bouncing up and down like an idiot in the street. “Sure. I can do anything you want,” he says into the phone.

“Have you done TV before?” Ms. Perez asks.

“Yeah, I did
The Late Late Show
once,” he says.

“Oh,” she says, “with Craig Ferguson.”

“No, with Craig Kilborn.”

“Oh,” she says, then does the math in her head. “Oh. Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, great,” she says. “Can you be in LA two weeks from Thursday?”

He has only been to LA once before. That was almost ten years ago, when he did the Kilborn show. Nothing has changed, really. The same gorgeous people everywhere. The same sunny weather. Seeing the underwear models everywhere he goes reminds him that he has spent the past decade entertaining the flyover states. He thought he looked old and tired when he was in Toronto. A day later and he looks like a zombie compared to everyone he sees in southern California.

He hasn't seen much of the city, except from different types of windows. The airplane window, the windows in the taxi, the windows of the hotel. Just like being on the road, he shows up to get work done and leave. There is no time for sightseeing, but he wouldn't enjoy it even if he had the time to do it. He's too busy thinking about what he's going to say on TV and trying to keep the churning in his stomach from making him sick.

The Tonight Show,
he keeps saying to himself. He says it over and over again in his head just to make it seem more real. More than two weeks after he got the phone call from Diane Perez and he still wonders if the whole thing is a big joke. He's waiting for someone to yell “gotcha.” This comes after several straight months of some truly awful gigs and some truly awful blowouts, being inches away from taking a job at McDonald's. All of that seems way more real than anything happening right now.

In the hotel, there's a gift basket from the show. Random fruits, muffins, a nice welcome card. He looks out the window and lets the sun hit him as he goes over his set in his head. He's got four and a half minutes he's got to pull off. Just less than five minutes to entertain millions of people. Two hundred and seventy seconds to turn his career around. It usually takes him twice as long just to get warmed up onstage. Now that's all the time he's got to change everything.

His cell phone vibrates in his pocket. He pulls his phone out and looks at it. A text message from Jamie has come through.

 

Kick ass, man. Make us both rich.

 

He smiles. Out of all the people he has met in the past several years, Jamie is the last person he expected to suddenly be his angel. The kid somehow did in a matter of weeks what both he and Rodney weren't able to do in years. Maybe all this time all that was needed was a fresh set of eyeballs. Spence texts back to Jamie:

 

I can't believe you pulled this off.

 

A moment later, a text comes back from Jamie:

 

I shouldn't have, the way you screwed me out of getting laid in Toledo! You're a terrible wingman. ;)

 

Spence tosses the cell phone on the bed and smiles. He tries to remember the name of the girl in Toledo with the amazing body, but he can't. He doesn't even want to. He wants to think of his four and a half minutes and hope to God he doesn't fall flat on his face. He wants to walk into that studio a nobody and walk out a star. Others have done it. Why not him?

The phone on the nightstand rings, and he answers it.

“The car is here, sir,” the hotel clerk says on the other end. He can't remember the last time a car was sent to get him and bring him anywhere. Most clubs he works tell him to find a way there and make sure he's on time. Sometimes they reimburse him for cab fare. Waiting for him outside is a town car. He can't remember the last time he was in one of those.

Crunch time,
he thinks to himself as the car leaves the hotel parking lot and heads toward the TV studio. He can already feel the butterflies in his stomach. He reaches in his jacket pocket and takes out the small flask. A little Johnnie Walker. Just a snort. Just enough to take the edge off. A friend who did
Letterman
years ago gave him this advice. Have at least one drink. Don't overdo it, but toss back at least one to keep you from going crazy. Taking a long pull off the flask, Spence believes his friend was right.

The past couple of days, he has been over his material a million times. He knows these four and a half minutes better than he knows his own name. He had to clear it with Diane Perez, who had to clear it with someone else, who had to clear it with Greg Saunders, who had to clear it with someone else. He then had to do all of that again. There was a list of things he was not allowed to say. No product names. No political comments. Nothing that could be deemed too vulgar for TV. They went over his material several times. Then they went over his material again.

The fucking Tonight Show,
he thinks as he sees the building off in the distance.

The studio in Burbank is bigger than he expected. The entire place is huge. He checks in at one desk and then at another. He is cleared by one person and then another. There are signatures and forms and visitor badges. He is then led into a green room that is larger than any of the other ones he has ever been in. He has appeared on several local TV shows. He's been on
Good Morning, Cleveland
more than once. There wasn't even a green room for that show. He just sat in the lobby until they were ready to use him.

“This way,” a kid with a headset says to him and points him toward another kid with a headset. Spence goes where he is pointed. One hallway, then another. He walks past picture frames on the wall of Jay Leno and random celebrities, framed posters of popular sitcoms and TV shows.

“Follow me.” A random staffer all in black leads him into a room and puts him into a chair in front of a huge mirror. He's only had a couple of pulls off that flask but wonders if he's already drunk. It's all going by so fast. The place is like a machine. He smiles and shrugs and tries to act like it's all no big deal to him. He does this every day. He's used to this sort of thing. Legendary late-night talk shows are old hat, as far as he's concerned.

He's only in the building a few minutes before someone is applying makeup to him. The last time he did TV was some local news interview in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. There was no makeup. They just put him in front of the camera as is. The news anchor looked tan and healthy, while he sat next to her and looked like a heroin junkie. By the time
The Tonight Show
makeup woman is through with him, he looks like he lives there in California.

The makeup person is speaking to him, but Spence doesn't hear her. She's polite and friendly and asking him questions he somehow seems to be answering. But he's lost in his material. He's thinking of his act and what he wants to say. He's going over the bits in his head as if any of it has changed at all in the past two and a half weeks. He smiles and he talks to the people around him, but he's not really there.

“Is he ready?” a kid in a headset asks the makeup person who says that he is. The kid checks him out and then crooks a finger. “Follow me.”

Spence follows the kid down the hallway and back into the green room. Wearing a
Tonight Show
T-shirt and blue jeans, the kid couldn't be older than twenty-one or so. But he rushes around with a serious look on his face as if he's twice that age. Looking at this kid, Spence doesn't feel quite as old as he did when he first got to LA. He wonders if working behind the scenes in TV ages a person faster. Maybe the kid is pushing forty but has years of California sun and Botox to thank for his youthful appearance.

Spence takes a seat in the green room and tries to look like he's not having an anxiety attack. He pretends to be reading
Variety
magazine and acting as if he's just hanging out. This is completely normal. He always hangs out in the green room of
The Tonight Show
.

Two minutes feels like twenty. An Asian man ten years younger than he is walks in the room and sits down. The guy is a TV star. He's been all over the place. A year ago he was nobody, and now he's got some cop show that is a huge hit.
Kung Fu: Reborn
or something like that. Sitting across the green room, his legs folded and his sunglasses on, the celebrity nods his head toward Spence and smiles.

“How's it going?” the TV star says to him.

“Oh, you know,” Spence answers and smiles. The TV star smiles back.

“Just another day at the office, right?” the TV star says and looks over the top of his sunglasses.

“Yeah.” Spence laughs. “Sure.”

“Comedian?”

“Yep.”

“Cool,” the star says. “I'm an actor. David Nguyen.”

The TV star extends his hand. Spence smiles and shakes it. “Yeah, I know who you are. I'm Spence.”

“Cool,” David says. “I love stand-up.”

“Cool.”

“First time on the show?”

“This is it,” Spence says and raises his eyebrows.

“Very cool,” David says. “I'm sure you'll be great.”

“Hope so.”

“No worries, man,” David says, “no worries.”

Spence holds up his fingers and shows David that they are crossed. David laughs and pushes his sunglasses back up to the top of his nose.

“I was the same way my first time,” David says and leans back on the sofa. “But they wouldn't have you on if they didn't have the cards stacked, you know what I'm saying?”

“Guess so,” Spence says. “How many times have you been on?”

“Let me see.” David thinks for a minute. “This would be . . . twice!”

They both laugh. David slaps his leg and seems to enjoy the joke for longer than it is funny.

“This is just the same ol' routine to you then, huh?” Spence says.

David smiles and nods. “Are you high?” he asks.

“No,” Spence says. “Had a drink. But that's it. You?”

“As a fucking kite, bro,” David says and laughs.

Spence smiles and leans back in his own chair, trying to look as cool as David does. A woman with a snake wrapped around her walks in the room, stares at the two of them for a minute and leaves. Spence looks over at David, who obviously thinks he was imagining it. His eyes are as big as the odd smile on his face. Spence decides not to tell him that she was really there. It would be too ridiculous to try and explain it.

“That's cool stuff, man,” David says after a minute. “Stand-up comedy.”

“Yeah,” Spence says. Everyone who is way more successful than comedians always think comedians are cool. Millionaires in awe of people who barely make thirty grand per year and sometimes sleep in their cars. David probably drives a Porsche.

“Hey,” David says, “you like Dane Cook?”

The kid with the headset walks in the green room and looks around. He's carrying a clipboard, and he flips through the sheets of paper on it. He speaks into the headset for a second and listens to someone on the other end. Then he looks at the clipboard again.

“We may have a problem,” the kid says and looks at Spence. At first he thinks the kid is talking to someone on the other end of the microphone. When he realizes otherwise, he gets up from the chair and stands in front of it.

“What kind of problem?” Spence asks.

“We're looking a bit full today,” the kid says. “Would you be available tomorrow if we had to bump you?”

“Sure,” Spence says and nods with a smile. He wants to hang himself.

“We'd just keep you at the hotel and use you tomorrow or the next day,” the kid says.

“That's fucked up, bro,” David says from the sofa. No one pays attention to him.

“It's no big deal,” Spence says to the kid with the headset. He wants to shoot himself in the face.

“It would only be another day or two,” the kid says.

“No problem,” Spence says. He knows that the kid is just being polite. When comics get bumped, they rarely get put on the show the next day. They normally have to wait weeks or even months before they get another shot. Sometimes it never happens. Sometimes you just get to sit in the green room and tell people you almost did the show.

“At least I got to ride in a town car,” Spence says to the kid and laughs. The kid gives him a blank look and nods and walks out of the room.

“That's fucked up, bro,” David says again.

“Nah.” Spence tries to pretend he doesn't want to eat a bag of glass. “Shit happens.”

“Damn, man,” David says, “I'll just bring you out with me, yo. You can tell jokes, and I'll just sit there and laugh.” He holds up his hand and high-fives Spence. He probably doesn't even know he's on
The Tonight Show.
In ten minutes, he'll walk outside and call Jay Leno “Conan.”

Spence feels his pocket buzz and realizes that he forgot to turn off his phone. He pulls it out and reads a text message from Sam:

 

I LOVE YOU, TV STAR.

 

He smiles. He doesn't have to tell her yet. He'll enjoy the green room and the gift basket and the free baseball cap with
The Tonight Show
printed across it. He even gets paid to be here. He'll just come back and do the show tomorrow, right?

Right?

A second later the kid in the headset returns and practically carries David out of the room.

“Kick some ass, bro.” David high-fives Spence again on his way out of the green room.

“You too.” Spence smiles as David leaves to go onstage babbling like an idiot. In the green room, there is a large TV where he can watch the show being recorded. He turns up the volume and watches. Jay Leno looks smaller in person.

“My next guest is the star of a very popular program you can see right here on NBC,” Leno says to the camera and introduces David Nguyen. David walks out with a smile on his face bigger than the rest of his head. He sits down next to Leno and begins his interview by giggling like a ten-year-old girl.

The phone buzzes again. This time it's a phone call from Rodney. First time Rodney has called him since the big blowout. The same blowout that ended in Rodney getting his walking papers. Spence winces and lets it go to voice mail. He's about to get bumped from his
Tonight Show
appearance. The last thing he needs is Rodney rubbing it in.