Tasteful Nudes: ...and Other Misguided Attempts at Personal Growth and Validation

by Dave Hill

  “Dave! Dave! Dave!” they chanted in unison.

  I’ll be the first to admit I sometimes seek approval in the wrong places, but it was still awesome. I felt like the lord of the fucking underworld.

  Before we passed through the final set of prison doors, the warden handed me a copy of the poster used to advertise my show. It looked pretty much like a typical comedy show poster with the exception of one bold block of text in the corner that read “Must have one year clean disciplinary to attend.”

  “Next time let’s make it one month clean disciplinary!” I told him. “I wanna pack the place!”

  He just looked at me after that, so I decided to focus back on all that clapping and cheering in the distance as we headed back to our car. I couldn’t get enough of it, so I made sure to keep a leisurely pace.

  “Would you come on?” Laura groaned at me. “I wanna get out of here.”

  “Look, just because you’re not having a good time in prison doesn’t mean I have to be miserable, too!” I scolded her before basking in the adoration of my Big House buddies some more. I felt like Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption only I couldn’t wait to come back.

  “See you next year, Dave!” one of the inmates called out to me from his cell window, waving between the bars.

  “Yup, see you next year,” I thought, waving back. “I guess I’ll just go do whatever the fuck I want now.”

  It was hard not to consider how wildly the inmates’ lives and mine were about to diverge after all the good times we had just had together.

  As we drove back to New York City, I was beaming. I had not only come out of that prison alive and unviolated but had actually managed to put on a show that everyone in attendance (other than Laura) seemed to really enjoy. But what was even more striking to me were the aftereffects of my visit to Sing Sing in the weeks that followed. My day-to-day anxiety seemed to be cut in half and I felt almost calm in situations that might have otherwise sent me into a panic. I didn’t suddenly fancy myself some sort of tough guy or doer of good deeds or anything like that. It was more like the anticipation of performing in front of a few hundred violent felons had built up so much pressure inside me that I busted some sort of emotional gasket by actually going through with it. And with that pressure gone, I could suddenly breathe easy, walk with a more confident stride, and not freak out about everyday life so much. All of a sudden someone’s overly loud headphones on the subway weren’t quite so grating and those televisions some asshole chose to install in the back of every New York City cab weren’t as annoying. I even found I could accept McDonald’s completely unpredictable and seemingly arbitrary removal of the McRib from their menu as just a part of life.

  I was almost embarrassed to bring up this newfound state of well-being to my therapist when I saw him the week after the show.

  “They say prison changes you, but could four or five hours behind bars really count?” I wondered.

  “You took a trip to the underworld,” he said after squinting at me for a couple of minutes. “And it sounds like you had a really nice time.”

  It seemed so simple, but I had to agree with the guy. I did have a really nice time. And if I can have a really nice time in a room full of murderers, rapists, and other negative types, well, I reasoned, I can probably have a really nice time just about anywhere. In fact, part of me keeps wondering if spending even more time in prison, like maybe a few weeks or months, might have an even more positive effect on me.

  Here’s to never, ever finding out for sure.

  Bunny1

  I always thought I had a fairly reasonable understanding and acceptance of death. A person gets old and sick, hit by a bus, or accidentally tossed over the side of a boat while tied up inside of a large burlap sack late, late at night and next thing everyone knows he’s dead. Even as a little kid, I somehow got that dying was just another part of life, a sort of victory lap at the end of a (hopefully) nice long stretch of time on earth. When a relative would die, I’d have to put on my little navy blazer and clip-on tie, my family and I would swing by the wake, hit the funeral, and then afterward I’d get to hang out with all my relatives and eat fancy little sandwiches, cakes, and other good stuff my parents didn’t normally keep around the house.

  “Your great-grandmother died,” my dad would tell me.

  “Oh, cool, a party!” I’d reply. Come to think of it, I might have been a little too accepting of death back then.

  When my mother died last year, however, it was a whole other thing. It was as if no one had ever died before in the history of time and the very concept of death had never even existed. Learning that my mother had died sounded about as ridiculous to me as if someone said, “Hey, Dave, did you know your mom used to play for the Knicks? It’s true.”

  This is me and my mom. For some reason, I can’t remember where or when this picture was taken, but as best I can tell, we were having a really nice time.

  “Huh?” I’d respond.

  The idea of my mother being dead just didn’t make any sense to me even though I saw her a few times after she died and she was about as dead as they come. I touched her, I held her hand, I kissed her. No two ways about it—dead, dead, dead. Still, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea, so I decided it was easier to just tell myself she had moved without telling anyone. My mom had lived her entire life in Cleveland, so it seemed well within her rights to just throw a dart at a map and make a new home for herself wherever it landed, be it Paris, Paramus, or wherever.

  As crazy as it sounded, the idea of my mother having moved instead of being dead was much easier to swallow. Of course I knew it wasn’t true, but in the deep, dark trenches of my mind, I’d sometimes catch myself wondering how I might steal a few days and track my mother down wherever she had run off to.

  “Mom, I’ve been looking all over for you,” I’d say once I found her. “Why Akron?”

  The idea that my mom had simply relocated stuck with me for months. Then one day I confronted reality. My mother was a nice lady, in fact, a great lady. She wasn’t the type of person who would just move without telling anyone, leaving all her stuff behind, sticking my dad with all the house chores and making it pretty much impossible for me to borrow money from her anymore. She would have at least left some cash behind for me. It just wasn’t like her at all. So, after mulling it over awhile, I finally decided to give in to the popular opinion that my mother had actually gone ahead and died. The stark truth was something I still couldn’t quite comprehend, but compared to the idea that she’d just skipped town, it required much less detective work on my part. Accepting her death also made my family more comfortable letting me borrow my dad’s car, handle sharp objects, and bathe without supervision.

  My mother was a very spiritual and religious person, about as Irish Catholic as they come. I know she believed in an afterlife and, in fact, was pretty much counting on it, not necessarily as some sort of great reward or anything, but so she could at least have somewhere to go after she got done with earth. So, despite the various opinions on the subject, I very much hoped that she was at least enjoying a nice afterlife somewhere out there.

  Of course, once I let the concepts of death and the afterlife settle in a bit more, I jumped to the next logical conclusion—that my mother could see me at any given moment. And once I began operating under that notion, I started to realize how much completely disturbing and upsetting stuff I do almost every second of the day—unthinkable, unspeakable things, many of which I should have probably closed the blinds for. At that point I decided I had to lay down some ground rules with the lady.

  “Rule number one, Mom,” I sighed under my breath, “stay out of the bathroom, even when I’m not in it.”

  To be honest, even I would rather not be around for most of the stuff I get up to in my bathroom, but I’ve got no choice. I was mortified to think that my mother would have to witness any of it—everything from typical, disgusting guy behavior to the application of more skincare products than
any straight man should even be allowed to keep in his home. When it gets right down to it, my bathroom is just a house of shame.

  Making matters worse is the fact that I live in a studio apartment.2 My bed takes up about half the place and naturally that had to be off-limits to my mother’s beyond-the-grave eyes, too. I’m not suggesting that I am in a constant state of flagrante delicto or other things requiring me to take my pants off.3 It’s just that I—like a lot of people, I’m assuming—have this habit of pulling my boxers down to my ankles in my sleep and then just letting all my various parts, both private and otherwise, hang right out there for anyone in the afterlife to see. Call me a prude or overly protective if you want, but I just don’t think my mother should have to look at that sort of thing.

  The rest of my apartment is mostly taken up by my desk, which is where my computer sits. And my computer, of course, is what I use to access the Internet. So, needless to say, I had to tell my mother the desk was off limits, too. I just didn’t think she would understand the kind of important research I sometimes have to do.4

  “Mom, I’m taking an online anatomy course,” I’d have to tell her. She was a smart lady—I just don’t think she’d buy it.

  With my bathroom, bed, and desk all off-limits, that leaves my mom with just the entryway and kitchen. And, sure, me sitting on the floor tying my shoes or standing at the stove making spaghetti are both really great in their own way, what with all the grunting sounds and the way I check to see if the spaghetti is ready by throwing an entire handful at the ceiling. But I tend to think my mother deserves better.

  Aside from my concerns about what exactly my mother can or can’t see from the hereafter, though, I would really just love to be together with her one last time. It’s not like we’d even have to do anything particularly fun or interesting, either. We could just sit in the den together and watch TV. We wouldn’t even have to watch my shows or agree on something we both might like. We could watch all of her programs, even the sucky ones. I’d even let her have the remote. Right now, sitting quietly in a room with my mother watching Antiques Roadshow or whatever else might be on PBS seems like just about the greatest thing that could ever happen. Or maybe we could watch Goodfellas again—a movie that becomes twice as entertaining when you watch it with my mother as she claims to be repulsed by it while secretly delighting in every bloody, profanity-laced scene.

  “This is awful!” my mother grimaced as we watched it together one night years ago. “Their language is horrible and they all just seem like really negative, terrible people.”

  “I can turn it off if you want.”

  “No. I don’t want you to have to get up.”

  While my mom might be gone, my dad is thankfully still around, so I find myself determined to make the most of our time together, which, statistically speaking, is probably not going to be all that much longer. Before too long, one of us is going to be dead and—between you and me—the smart money is on him. Lately, we’ve been spending most of our time together at the house, chatting and drinking coffee of various strengths. And when that gets old, we usually grab some food together. And if there’s one nice byproduct of my mother dying, it’s that the idea of cooking or—even worse—heating up some leftovers, is one I can easily defeat with the mere suggestion of pulling the car out of the garage and heading someplace for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or, on a good day, all three.

  “What should we get for lunch?” I’ll ask him. “Italian? Mexican? Indian?”

  “Yes,” he’ll reply.

  “Oh, Davey, that’s extravagant,” my mom would have said were she still here, stopping our plan in its tracks. “Why don’t we just stay home and I’ll boil something?”

  On his own, though, my dad is a total pushover. Still, things just aren’t the same. For my entire life, it was a given that when the check came it was definitely my dad’s problem, not mine. But from the time my mother was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago, straight up to the day she died and, now, over a year later, when all evidence seems to support the death theory, things have somehow changed.

  It all started one night when my dad and I went out to dinner. We had a nice meal, and, when the check came I did my patented reach-for-the-wallet-like-I-might-actually-chip-in (yeah, right!) routine, and for the first time ever my dad didn’t stop me. In fact, I was not only able to remove my wallet from my pocket, but I was able to set it down on the table, and—after a prolonged staring contest—I was actually able to use the money in it to pay for dinner. I figured it was just a fluke. But as we went out for meal after meal after meal, each time the check came my dad would just sit there like some kind of crazy person whose pockets weren’t lined with cash.

  “What the hell have you done with my father, mister?” I wanted to yell at him one night. But you just can’t go doing that at P.F. Chang’s. People get freaked out and the next thing you know they won’t even let you pose for a photo with the big cement horses out front.

  Naturally, this new pattern with me and my father had me worried. Not only had my father just lost his wife, but now it seemed like he didn’t even have enough money to pay for Chinese food. I called up my brother Bob in a panic.

  “Is Dad okay?” I asked him. “Is he having money problems?”

  “No way,” Bob said. “He’s set for life. The guy could probably live another fifty years and still not run out of money.”

  I was relieved to hear this, but I also wondered what the hell was up. And it eventually occurred to me that the only possible reason my dad might have for letting me pick up the check if he wasn’t broke was to show me respect, to let me know that he knew I was a financially secure and responsible adult who could take himself and his father out to a half-decent restaurant. That’s nice and all, but I just wanted to tell my dad that I really don’t need that kind of respect. I always thought we had a nice thing going with our old arrangement.

  “I told you to just cook something at home,” I could hear my mother say as I pondered my rapidly thinning wallet.

  With my mother dead and gone and my dad slowly bleeding me dry, it’s hardly a surprise that I became depressed. And to deal with it, I tried every possible method of dragging myself up from the depths—psychotherapy, acupuncture, homeopathy, holistic medicine, alcoholism, jai alai, prescription drugs, and just about everything else they sell at CVS, including that soap with the so-called “moisturizing beads.” Nothing worked. Until I discovered running, that is, an activity I’d been vehemently opposed to my whole life. Even when chased by animals with an overabundance of strength, claws, sharp teeth, and almost no patience to speak of, I don’t recommend it. Despite my disdain for it, though, running is the one thing that’s gotten me to stop pondering the abyss and instead just go out for a sandwich or something.

  Shortly after my mom died, I went running back home in Cleveland on an especially frigid day when it occurred to me that I might very well be freezing my dick off. I don’t mean that in the figurative, colloquial sense, either. I was genuinely concerned that my member and I were about to part company for good. After patting my crotch in a panic, I determined that my penis, having shrunken down to little more than a cashewlike nub, was thankfully still where it had always been but was now seemingly fighting for its life, clinging to my barely warm body with all its might. It was like a scene from Titanic, all playing out within the confines of my trousers. And I decided the only way my penis—if you could even call it that by then—was going to survive was if I just sort of fluffed myself periodically in hopes that some blood might make its way to my downtown real estate. It occurred to me, however, that I was in public and people could totally see me. So, in order to avoid making the papers, I hastily devised a mathematical equation that told me if I only massaged my privates every hundred yards or so, it would look like I was just adjusting my pants and not actually fondling my goods in public. But, of course, then I remembered there was one person whose gaze never left me—my mother. Embarrassed, I tried to explai
n to her that desperate times call for desperate measures. Between already losing her and my dad making me pay for dinner all the time, freezing my John Thomas off was an indignity I just didn’t think I could handle.

  “Listen, Mom, you need to make a choice right here and now,” I told her. “Would you rather have me run down the street massaging my genitals or lose the ability to ever use the group showers at the gym again with confidence?”

  I chose to believe she preferred the former, so I continued down the street, huffing and puffing and vigorously rubbing my crotch area like it would be weird not to. Crisis averted.

  Even greater than the fear that my mom’s watching me doing something we both would rather not have her see, I struggled with not having her around. Aside from simply wanting to spend time with my mom, I wanted her to know everything was going to be all right with me, even though there are still moments when I’m not entirely sure of it myself. Despite occasional breakthroughs, I spent most of my life wishing I could know that my mother was proud of me, that she understood me, and that she wasn’t worried that I was going to end up a criminal, a showgirl, or both.

  Given my life pursuits—going into comedy, playing in rock bands, writing sometimes long and rambling essays, and other things that don’t guarantee financial or emotional stability—my mother never seemed too crazy about my game plan for survival. Even when successes came, they seemed to confuse her more than anything else. In the last year or two of her life, my mom called to tell me a friend of hers had seen me on HBO.

  “She was just clicking through the channels and there you were on HBO,” my mom said, trying to sound impressed. “That’s pretty good, right?”

  “I think so,” I answered. “Thanks.”

  “Cool, she’s finally getting me and what I do,” I thought. Then she dropped all pretense and asked, “What’s HBO?”