The Todd Glass Situation (14 page)

“I loved the way your friend handled that,” Ed said the next day. I was starting to love the way “my friend” did a lot of things, a feeling that I wanted to share with Ed and the rest of the world. But I still wasn't ready to tell anyone about my
situation.
Chris and I were both determined to keep our relationship a secret, adding a difficult and occasionally comedic element to our lives.

I'd recently moved into a new house with another comedian, Mike Koman. Mike was only nineteen but looked ten years older. Young comedians are fun to hang out with because they tend to be obsessed with comedy in the same way that I still am—even though I've been at it for thirty years, I can still talk comedy thirty hours a day. (And I still suck at math.) Mike and I hit it off immediately. He was looking for a place to live with James Milton, a friend of his from school. The three of us wound up renting a huge house up in the Hollywood Hills.

My room had its own entrance, so most nights Chris would sneak in. On one of those nights, Mike knocked on the door to my room and let himself in before I could stop him. Chris moved like a maniac, flopping out of the bed and onto the floor, where Mike literally had to step over him to walk in.
Mike has to fucking know, right?
I mean, what could he have possibly thought?
Just two normal straight guys hanging out in my room, one in the bed, the other on the floor in his boxers. Totally normal!

Mike and James were only about ten years younger than me, but it was pretty clear that they came from a different generation. They talked about their gay friends in a very matter-of-fact way: “Joe's boyfriend is in town on Monday, so we're all going to go out then.” They never snickered, added editorial comments, or even raised an eyebrow; they might as well have been talking about a straight couple. It wasn't just that they were okay with someone being gay—sexuality, to them, was an unimportant detail, like having brown hair. It didn't seem to confuse them the way that it did me.

I had a tooth pulled and the dentist prescribed Vicodin. I had never taken Vicodin before and was feeling great. It dawned
on me that if I couldn't tell these two guys in my chemically relaxed state, I'd never be able to tell anybody.

I sat Mike and James down on the couch. Despite (or maybe because of) the Vicodin, I hemmed and hawed and took maybe fifteen minutes to spit it out. “You had to know, right?” I finally asked.

“Nope,” Mike said.

While I'd never come out to any of my friends before, I'd talked to other gay people about what the experience had been like for them. The best situations seemed to involve parents or friends who were not only supportive in the moment, but followed up later with acceptance. The worst involved horror and rejection. But most of these stories tended to fall into a middle ground: support and acceptance in the moment of the confession, then never mentioned again. This always seemed sad and weird to me, like people were saying, “I know we're supposed to be okay with this, and we are,
for the most part
, but maybe we shouldn't mention it again for a while . . .”

If it really wasn't a big deal, people would be curious, bombarding you with questions.
What's it like? When did you know? Do you have a boyfriend?
But here I was with Mike and James, who weren't asking me anything at all.
I knew it! They're uncomfortable. Great job, Todd!

Or so I thought. A few days later, we were going out to dinner and James casually asked me if Chris was coming. The lightbulb went on in my head:
They weren't asking me questions because there wasn't anything that they really needed to know.
It reminded me of Dave Olsen and the nonissue of his fiancée. You hear people talk all the time about what's wrong with kids
today, but here was a moment when I realized how incredibly cool youth could be. They really, honestly, truly did not give a fuck, and that made me feel good.

Being around Mike and James was great for other reasons, too. One day I came home from an audition feeling miserable. I hated going on auditions. I still do—the audition process just doesn't work for me, for reasons that I'll get into a couple of chapters from now. “I'm done with auditions,” I joked to Mike. “I just want to be on a show where I'm in a coma, so I don't have to do anything but lay there.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Mike replied.

We were still talking about it at three in the morning. Most shows center around some kind of meeting place that brings all the characters together—why couldn't it be a guy in a coma? His family could visit. Friends would tell stories about how they met him. We'd make up anything we wanted about his life pre-coma and just tell it through the eyes of the people coming to visit him. Mick Jagger could show up and say, “Bloody shame—he used to be a roadie for the band.”

We decided to shoot our own pilot. By now, video cameras had become a lot more affordable and, with the right computer software, you could edit the material yourself. We'd recently added a fourth roommate, Steve Rosenthal, who brought a diligent professionalism to the project we'd started referring to as
Todd's Coma
. We reached out to the people we wanted to help us make it. I asked Sarah Silverman. Steve emailed the famous jazz musician Herb Alpert, who had just done a Gap commercial—we convinced Herb to play a nurse who denies that he used to be Herb Alpert. Another friend of mine played softball
with Fred Willard, whom I'd been obsessed with since watching
Fernwood 2Night
with my dad. And Chris, well . . .

We were at a party together when we saw Ben Stiller. I'd been introduced to Ben years earlier by Judd Apatow—the three of us wound up doing Don Rickles impressions all night—and I thought that Ben might remember me. “Go talk to him,” Chris said. “See if he'll do
Todd's Coma
.”

“I'm too embarrassed,” I confessed.

“Hey, Todd,” I heard Chris saying a minute later. “You know Ben, right?”

Oh Jesus.

“Tell him about your idea!” Chris added.

I wanted to punch Chris in the face. I felt like a little kid being pushed by his proud parents to recite a poem for their friends. But the pitch wasn't complicated so I just started talking, pausing every two minutes to give Ben an out.

Ben could see that I was uncomfortable. “Do I look like you're bothering me?” he said every time I paused. “I'm going away in two days, but FedEx me a few of the ideas you want me to do.”

Two months later, I was lying on a mattress in the middle of my living room while Ben Stiller, Fred Willard, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Pardo, and Herb Alpert rehearsed around me. It was surreal, to say the least.

We pitched the show to a bunch of production companies, but nothing happened until, about six months later, the comedian Nick Swardson noticed our video gathering dust on a shelf in Adam Sandler's office. Nick encouraged Adam to watch the show. With Adam's help, we sold the pilot to TBS.

Almost overnight, I had offices on the Sony lot and a million-dollar budget. I was pulling in every day through the gate, just like I'd seen in the movies. I got to hire Steve Rosenthal and Mike Koman—Adam's theory was if these were the two guys who helped you create it, why wouldn't you want them on board? We met with production designers and wardrobe stylists.

I remember driving to the shoot on the first day, getting off the 405 and seeing big signs with arrows that said
Todd's Coma.
There were caterers and cameramen, police officers on motorcycles blocking traffic so we could shoot a scene in the middle of the street.

All because I was bad at acting and didn't want to audition anymore.

The show never got picked up. (You can still find it on YouTube, if you're interested.) While I obviously wished it had been a huge success, I still look back on the experience—no bullshit—as one of the most amazing opportunities I've ever had. (Thank you, Adam Sandler!) I didn't have anything to get bitter about: My new relationship, new roommates, and new professional opportunities had me overflowing with confidence. For the first time I was beginning to feel normal and secure in my whole life, not just the part that I was showing to the world.

It
didn't take long for my relationship with Chris to escalate. We were spending nearly all of our free time together.

I was getting ready to go to Dallas for a gig when he surprised me with a suggestion.

“What if I came with you?”

As much as I wanted him to, I was also terrified. What would I say to the other comedians? None of them had ever seen me with a female companion; in fact, I'd go out of my way to ignore any woman who approached me after a show. Now there was a guy staying in my room with me? They'd have to know, right? I held off saying yes for as long as I could, but in the end, my desire to spend more time with Chris and to share this part of my life with him won out over my fears.

We had a great time. Even better, no one seemed to be the wiser about our relationship. Feeling more confident, I started bringing Chris with me to other clubs.

We had to tell people something, so we said that he was my brother. To be honest, we probably didn't spend as much time as we should have thinking through our cover story. When Chris's dad—who is Chinese—came to our house to visit, we found ourselves scrambling to come up with a coherent story to tell our friends. After that, Chris became my stepbrother.

When people talk about hiding “in the closet,” I don't think they really know what that means. I like to say it means everything you're
not
thinking. It's like keeping plates spinning in the air, all day, every day. Staying closeted isn't a black-and-white issue—it's full of nuances and moving parts. We had to keep track of who knew about us. Who didn't. Who did but wasn't saying anything. We felt like undercover cops trying to remember which cover stories we'd shared with what people. In retrospect, with all the lies and the stories and the hours and hours we spent trying to stay in character, it's pretty amazing that I don't have a better acting career.

Which is why we were so lucky to have Andrea.

I met Andrea after one of my shows. Besides being tall, stunningly beautiful, and smart, she was hilarious. Chris told her about us very early on—Chris was usually more comfortable telling women about our situation, while I was generally most comfortable telling, well, nobody. But all three of us felt comfortable spending lots of time together. In fact, the three of us became so tight that we decided to buy a house together. Andrea was a teacher and secured a low-interest loan through her credit union; Chris and I scraped together the down payment.

People knew we were looking for a new place to live. “Have you and Chris found a house yet?” they'd ask.

“You mean me and Chris and
Andrea,
” I'd instantly correct them. “Yes, me and Chris and Andrea are still looking for a house.” Andrea. AndreaAndreaAndreaAndrea. I'd say her name so many times that it would spin people around, getting them so dizzy they'd stop asking me questions.

But panic set in whenever Chris and I were spotted running errands together. Especially if those errands were at a place like Bed Bath & Beyond. One day we were there buying stuff for the house, when a comedian friend of mine walked over to say hello. “Todd! What are you doing here?”

I looked at Chris, who was maybe five feet away from me.
Oh shit! We can't be seen at Bed Bath & Beyond together. It looks so . . . gay!

Chris didn't have to read my mind—we'd already worked out a protocol for situations just like this one: He quickly walked away without turning back. “Oh, just looking for some stuff,” I replied. “I just bought a house with my friend Andrea and she wanted me to buy some things and AndreaAndreaAndreaAndrea . . .”

Our new home was a duplex—Chris and I took the ground floor, while Andrea took the upstairs—and we set about creating our own little world. Andrea was always down to play someone's girlfriend. She got a dinner, drinks, a free night on the town, and, at the end of the evening, no one tried to fuck her. It didn't always work though—after all, Andrea was a beautiful woman and once in a while she forgot what her role was. Like when Chris took her to a wedding and she wound up getting drunk and making out with some random guy: “We're not
exactly dating,” Chris had to explain nervously to the confused people at his table. “We're more like friends with benefits.” After that we kept Andrea to a three-drink maximum, checking in with her periodically to make sure she was still in character.

But Andrea was always a good sport. One time we were renting a cabin with a group of our friends. We stopped on the way to load up on groceries for a big dinner we were planning. Chris wanted to get flowers for the table, but was embarrassed at how that might make him look to the others, so he casually tossed them in Andrea's basket.

“Who bought the flowers?” one of our friends inevitably asked when we got to the counter.

Thank God for Andrea. “I did!” she said, just like we asked her to.

But Chris overcompensated. “I can't believe you bought fucking flowers,” he said dismissively.

Andrea's eyes looked like they were going to burn a hole right through him. It was absurd what we put her through. When we had dinner parties and wanted to set a fancy table, we would sit Andrea down beforehand and prepare her like she was about to start an undercover sting operation.

“What are you going to say if someone asks who set the table?”

“I'm going to say that I did it.”

“Good. And you're going to say it just that way, right? Not like the other time, when someone asked and you said, ‘Oh, I did it, but it was no big deal—it only took me a minute.' ”