فصل 08

8

How I Got (Restarted) in Comedy

I quit comedy when I was eighteen, so I could get a job and provide for myself.

I got restarted in comedy at twenty-two, because I had to stomp a bitch for disrespecting me.

It was Bertha. Yes, that same Bertha, the stripper that Titus the Boyfriend couldn’t pimp, but I could. Here’s how it all went down.

When I was still pimping her, Bertha asked me if I could pick her up from the strip club one day. She had me take her to a party. When we arrived, Titus the Boyfriend was there.

Tiffany: “I don’t know if I should stay for this.”

Titus: “Nah, it’s cool, Tiff. It’s cool. I ain’t tripping. I get it. Let bygones be bygones. Me and Bertha, we in a relationship now.”

Tiffany: “Okay. Cool.”

I pulled Bertha aside and told her:

Tiffany: “I will always be cool with you. Just don’t ever disrespect me. If you ever disrespect me, it’s going to be a motherfucking problem.”

That night was fine. I was drinking 211 beer. Now, I don’t know if you ever heard of this beer, but it’s 99 cents. This is the shit that bums buy to get all fucked up on the cheap. It makes you fucking crazy. Of course, Titus the Po’ Pimp has this at his party.

I drank some and fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, it was late. Titus and Bertha were on the floor, right next to the couch I was sleeping on. Fucking. Like, right next to me. I jumped up:

Tiffany: “BITCH, WHAT I TELL YOU ABOUT DISRESPECTING ME?”

I just started stomping on her. I was straight ghetto-stomping her out. She curled into a ball and started crying.

Tiffany: “GET YOUR MOTHERFUCKING ASS UP, BITCH! I’M FIXIN’ TO BEAT YO ASS SOME MO!”

Bertha: “Stop! I’m not going to fight you, Tiffany. I’m not going to fight you. I’m going to call the police!”

Tiffany: “CALL THE MOTHERFUCKING POLICE! I’ll just get your ass deported up out this bitch. You fixing to get deported right back to Jamaica, bitch! I know you here illegally, I’m the one fucking pimping you!! What’s up now??”

Titus tried to stop me from stomping on her. I did what any black woman who was being disrespected would do: I straight punched him in the mouth.

Tiffany: “DON’T YOU TOUCH ME, NIGGA! I WILL KILL YOU!”

Titus: “Why you tripping???”

I just started going berserk. I was drunk as hell on 211, screaming at the top of my lungs, Bertha was crying, Titus was screaming, I was throwing furniture—it was for-real black woman craziness.

Then his homeboy picked me up from behind and carried me out the house to my car.

Needless to say, I stopped talking to Bertha after that. I had no more words for her. That’s how I stopped pimping her.

Maybe two months later, Titus showed up to my house with a ring, asking would I marry him. He had put rose petals all over my car in the shape of a heart and a bunch more all over my yard.

Tiffany: “Are you fucking serious right now?”

Titus: “Tiffany, you the smartest woman I know. Please, will you marry me?”

Oh, yeah—the ring still had the price tag on it, from Kmart. It was $38.

A $38 ring. That’s what he thought I was worth.

Tiffany: “Get the fuck out of here with this cheap-ass ring. Fuck you, don’t ever talk to me again.”

I was so pissed. I cussed him out. I was angry all night.

The next day, I was so disturbed emotionally, I started crying. I cried all day, all night. I could not stop crying at work.

Then I started to bleed. At first I thought it was just my period, but it wouldn’t stop. It was heavy. I was feeling weak.

This went on for weeks. I was bleeding so much, I eventually went through every maxi-pad in all of LAX. I seriously think I used every one of them huge free maxis in all the women’s bathrooms in the whole damn airport.

Eventually, it just ran down my leg. It was just like I had peed on myself, but it was blood pouring out of me.

My manager at the airlines was the same nice, nerdy white guy I talked about before.

Manager: “Tiffany, that’s blood. You’re bleeding. You’re standing in a puddle of blood. You have to go. We’re calling 911. Are you pregnant or something?”

Tiffany: “No, I’m not pregnant or anything. I can’t stop bleeding. I don’t know why I’m bleeding.”

It was so embarrassing. All I could think about was that I didn’t have insurance, and I couldn’t pay for an ambulance.

Tiffany: “I don’t want to pay for an ambulance. Just call my grandma.”

My grandma came and took me to the hospital. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong. There was nothing in my tests. They kept me in the hospital overnight. Nothing showed up that was actually wrong. No fibroids. Nothing. They couldn’t figure it out.

They gave me some medication, like some birth control stuff that’s supposed to make it stop. My stomach also felt like it was on fire, like it was burning up. They said I didn’t have ulcers or nothing like that, but they gave me something for it.

I got so skinny. I was down to 110 pounds.

I felt like I was dying. I was crying all the time, bleeding all the time. My stomach was hurting all the time. I was so fucking sick.

They eventually gave me some antidepressants. They recommended that I see a psychiatrist, so I did.

The therapist was nice. She talked to me all about my life and everything, and I was constantly crying in there. But it was weird, because everything I said, she would laugh. She’d be giggling and stuff.

Tiffany: “Why you laughing? This shit’s not funny! My life fucking sucks!”

She’d stop and compose herself. But pretty soon, she’d be laughing again.

Therapist: “Tiffany, what do you love to do? What makes you happy?”

Tiffany: “I like teeth. Maybe I should just be a dentist, because I really love teeth. I really like the way teeth look, but I don’t want to hurt anybody, so maybe I could just be the dental assistant.”

She laughed at that, too.

Therapist: “Have you ever thought about comedy?”

Tiffany: “It’s funny you say that. I like seeing people smile, hearing laughter. That makes me happy. You know, I used to do comedy, in high school.”

Remember when I went to Laugh Factory Comedy Camp? And how great that was? And remember how I had stopped doing comedy when I had got kicked out of my grandma’s house at eighteen? I stopped doing comedy because it wasn’t paying anything. Right? I told her all about that. About how great it was for me, and why I quit.

Therapist: “Well, maybe you should start doing that again, at least as a hobby. Do stand-up comedy again. It made you so happy then, why not now?”

Well, fuck. I forgot about that. I forgot how much I loved comedy. I forgot how much joy it brought me.

I decided to try it, do some open mics. Basically, open mic is some shit that anyone can get up and do.

I thought about it, and I prepared, and I got ready. I got up and did five minutes, and I got a ton of laughs. It was amazing. I went back the next night, did the same five-minute set, but with some improvements. It was even better. People loved it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I was bringing the house down and people were in tears at my brilliance, throwing roses on the stage, and screaming my name. That shit didn’t happen for at least ten more years

But open mics are tough. Most of the people suck and aren’t funny, and the crowd can get annoyed and become hostile. To get any laughs at an open mic is really good. And I got laughs. People liked me. They enjoyed it.

It was like, the smallest thing, but it was so profound for me. I had known this at fifteen, that this was my calling, and I had quit. And now here I was, telling my stories and hearing people laugh at them and feeling that rush again.

I started doing lots of open mics, getting my comedy chops back again. And the more time that I spent on comedy, the more the bleeding stopped. The stomach pains stopped. The crying and depression stopped.

I don’t know how or why, but all the bad shit stopped. All of it. Just from doing open mics.

I started to become more happy and more joyous. I started thinking more positive. I started reading positive books.

Then Titus tried to get me back. He started coming to my open mics, and he would write jokes and put them in my mailbox or whatever. They were terrible jokes! Fucking knock-knock shit! I was done with him, though. I’d already fucked Roscoe by this point, and I had re-found comedy, I didn’t have no time in my life for a fake pimp who thought I was worth $38.

I kept doing open mics and kept feeling better, and then I got my first paid gig. It almost derailed me, and sent me off comedy forever.

One of my aunties called me and said her friend was having some women’s group meeting or something, and they wanted me to perform at their event.

Aunt: “And it pays $50.”

Tiffany: “Yeah, right. How much time they want me to do? Two hours?”

Aunt: “They want you to do fifteen minutes. That’s it.”

Tiffany: “Oh hell yes!”

I got there, and I knew it was a women’s event ahead of time, but damn, there were NO men there. I had come with another comedian friend, a guy, and he was like:

Friend: “Tiffany, a lot of these ladies sure is leaning in close to each other.”

Tiffany: “Oh, they probably can’t hear each other over the music.”

I came out onto the stage, all excited and ready to give my fifteen-minute set. I’d been practicing and refining it at open mics. My jokes were all about dating and having a man, and this woman yelled out:

Woman: “I bet you I can fuck you better than your man!”

I was like, What did she say? I just stood there confused for a second, because I just did not believe she could have said that. Then I kept going with another joke about a man. Then some other woman yelled out:

Woman: “We don’t want to hear about no men. Damn, baby. Your body look good. You fine! Let’s talk about that!”

I’d been interrupted twice now, and I was too confused to keep going, so I blurted out, kind of kidding:

Tiffany: “What is this? A lesbian event or some shit?”

Everybody in unison was like, “Yeah.”

Tiffany: “Oh, shit! Nobody told me this shit!”

That got a big laugh. I was so uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do, so I just did what I always do when I’m uncomfortable: I made shit WAY WORSE.

I started talking about dick even more, and then I just kept talking about dick. I was going on about all the dicks, and then some woman blurts out:

Lesbian: “I got a drawer full of dicks for you, and you can pick any one you want, baby!”

That got the best laugh yet from the crowd.

Tiffany: “Okay, no. I was talking about one that is actually attached to a man. I love men. Let me tell you about men and they dicks!”

I just went into this whole thing about how awesome men are, and how much I love men, which was pretty ironic, considering that the best man I had ever been with in my life lived in a group home for the handicapped.

If I had been a more experienced comedian, I would have talked about that and made a ton of jokes about that, and the crowd would have loved it. But I wasn’t there yet. I was just being antagonizing and awkward.

Lesbian: “We don’t want no dick lovers here!”

I just started laughing at that, mainly because nobody else was laughing, and I was that uncomfortable. They were only laughing when somebody was heckling me, and I was so nervous.

Lesbian: “Get your funky ass off the stage, dick lover.”

Tiffany: “Oh hell no! See, you can heckle me if you want, but don’t be trying to get me off stage. I’mma stay up here my whole time, and I’mma get ALL my money.”

I did that. I stayed on the full fifteen minutes.

When I got off the stage, I felt like a piece of meat. If you think only men can make a woman feel horrible, you don’t know shit about other women. I felt about the worst I had felt in a long time. And the dude I was with, he was no help:

Friend: “Yeah, I don’t know about this. If you get reactions like this all the time, I don’t think you should do comedy.”

I was pretty depressed. I was reconsidering whether this was for me.

Then the promoter handed me fifty bucks.

I just tanked onstage, the worst I have EVER tanked in my comedy life, and I got $50?!?!

This was great!

I knew right then, in the middle of all those lesbians offering me their dildos, that I was gonna do this for the rest of my life.

I’ve thought about that moment a lot, and why I felt like that. How could such a painful, embarrassing moment become the turning point in my life?

When I think about it, I had already made the decision to be a comedian earlier in my life. When I rode that damn bus all day, two days in a row, just to stand in the courtroom, as a fifteen-year-old foster kid that nobody loved. I told the judge that I was gonna be a successful comedian. That was the day I decided in my heart to be a comedian and make people laugh.

But what happened on the Lesbian Bomb Night was that when I did that show, and those women heckled me, and they were laughing at each other’s heckles—people were still laughing. Yeah, the laughing was at my expense, but people laughed, and I was paid.

I got $50 for fifteen minutes. If I could string together, like, even just four fifteen-minute segments per day, I could be making bank!

But it wasn’t just about making money. When I’m onstage, I feel like it’s—it’s where I am supposed to be. It’s who I am. When I am onstage, it’s like this adrenaline rush. You gotta show up and be on and bust your ass, or people will not laugh. And nothing else makes my mind work so fast and so hard. I like that feeling.

Getting paid that night allowed me to imagine a place for myself in the universe doing something I loved.

It’s a risk though. Everything you get on that stage is earned, not given. You don’t know anybody in the room, and you don’t know what these people are gonna laugh at, if they’re gonna like it or not. It’s very scary.

But the weird flip side of this is that I know I’m safe up there. I know they can say whatever they want to, but nobody’s gonna hurt me up there. If somebody does hurt me, it’s gonna be in a room full of witnesses. I just feel the safest there. And even if I bomb and they say terrible things about me, people will laugh at me, and I’ll get paid anyway. In the worst case, I get paid to make people laugh!

And the power that comes with it is intoxicating. It’s better than any drug. As soon as I step my foot out on that stage, all these eyes are on me. I feel like I’m the bravest and safest person in the room. Everybody’s anticipating what I have to say, and I have this power that I don’t have anywhere else. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it feels so fucking good.

And then, when I come off the stage, I’ve got this high. Even when I do bad, I get that high. And then the high starts to come down, but once they hand me my money, then I’m back high again. Whether it was a good experience or a bad experience, I was compensated for it.

That’s validation.

I felt all of this then in a flash—at that moment the guy gave me $50 for doing fifteen minutes of terrible comedy. I knew, at the core of my being, that my job was going to be to get onstage and make people laugh, and get paid for it.