by Dave Hill
My parents didn’t have cable, so what I should have done to impress them was make the local news on one of my trips back home. To my mom, those people standing and waving behind the local newscaster reporting live from a Christmas tree lighting downtown were the ones with something to brag about. As long as she and her friends could tune in and watch it at six and eleven, it was the real deal. But some cable channel that you had to pay extra for? Not so much.
As hard as I tried to make her understand that I was one in an elite group of only several thousand people in America experiencing minor successes in the field of entertainment, she seemed prouder of my ability to do things like operate the microwave without supervision.
“Where did you learn to cook so well?” my mom would ask as I mixed some impossibly orange powdered cheese into a bowl of macaroni. “You should open your own restaurant! Bob, come here quick—our son’s a gourmet chef!”
Once during my high school years, I decided to try my hand at baking cookies from scratch after everyone else in the family had gone to bed (a necessary prerequisite as my sisters would have attacked the dough like vultures before I would ever have had the chance to get it into the oven. It would have been like trying to grow a crop of marijuana in Snoop Dogg’s backyard). As I sat in the kitchen salivating over two platefuls of slowly cooling chocolate chip cookies, my mom appeared in the doorway. She wasn’t mad that I was messing up her kitchen, she was just looking to get in on the action. In an act of desperation, I offered her as many cookies as she wanted in exchange for not letting anyone else in the house know of their existence. There we sat at the kitchen table, knocking back cookie after cookie as if our lives depended on it while discussing their endless merits—how good they were just out of the oven, how good they were a few hours after they’d been out of the oven, how good they were when they were just barely cooked, and how good they were when they were cooked just a little too much.
“What makes them really good is if you throw in a little extra butter,” my mother said, barely able to get the sentence out between bites. “Now promise me you’ll only let me have a couple more before you get them out of my sight.”
“I could just put them away now,” I told her, crumbs spilling from my mouth.
“You do that and I’ll stab you, David.” She smiled before scooping up another handful, like one of those claw games at the amusement park.
And as we sat there chatting and laughing, a truly disturbing realization dawned on me: the woman sitting across from me was not just my mother, but also my friend. Of course, being a teenager, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that right there and then. Still, deep down inside I knew things would never be the same—we were, and always had been, friends for life. (I know, gross, right?)
In the last few months of my mother’s life, once cancer and the several strokes that followed rendered her unable to stay at the house anymore, I began bringing bags of chocolate chip cookies to her in the hospital and we’d sit there eating them together one after another. The doctors told me not to feed her more than one or two a day, not because they might kill her—the cancer already had that covered—but because apparently even when you’re dying, eating too many cookies is still a bad idea for some reason (science—will we ever really understand it?). Despite the urging of the medical community, though, I still gave my mother as many cookies as she wanted because I knew that—even by the time my mother was so sick she could barely speak—if she could eat cookies she was still my mother, my friend, that lady who was into Goodfellas way more than she’d ever admit.
On what turned out to be one of our last nights together, I stayed behind at the hospital after the rest of my family had gone home, and helped my mother eat her dinner. Like most people presented with a tray of steamed garbage, she wasn’t too interested in any of it. Still, the doctors said it would be good if she could get it down, so I stood over her and made her eat every last bite, bribing her with the cookies the whole way. She kept her eye on the prize and eventually cleared her plate, so I broke out the cookies. There we sat together, mostly in silence, going cookie for cookie with each other. My mom was able to put away four cookies that night, which—given the size of the cookies and her current state—was pretty impressive. Even at my best, I’m good for only a couple before I get a stomachache.
As I set the cookies back on the counter in my mom’s hospital room, I saw that she was about ready to conk out for the night. It was in that moment that I realized that none of that stuff I worried about—doing something to make my mom proud of me or have her understand me or know that I wasn’t going to end up New York City’s favorite deep-voiced call girl—really mattered at all.
“Are you sick of me?” I asked, pulling my coat on.
“Yes, I’m sick of you,” she drawled. Then she stared at me for a few seconds and, with perfect comedic timing, said, “I love you.”
I didn’t plan either of these things, but those cookies were the last thing she ever ate and those words were the last she ever said to me. Sometimes even in darkness, a bright light will just come along and blind you.
Needless to say, I miss my mom terribly and even find myself sometimes forgetting she’s gone as I absentmindedly reach for my phone to give her a ring until I think, “Oh … yeah.” My only consolation is that if she were still alive, there’s enough profanity and other bad stuff in this book that I’d be grounded for life.
“It’s just not decent to talk like that, David,” she’d say as she flipped through this book’s pages. “And the title! What were you thinking?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I’d say. “Do you want me to put the book away?”
“No. I don’t want you to have to get up.”
Epilogue
When my publisher told me I was contractually obligated to hand in between sixty thousand and eighty thousand words for this book, I told them to go fuck themselves. Again. I’m sorry, but it just seemed like a lot—like a word a day for the next two hundred years or something, which is insane given all the other stuff I’ve got going on. Even so, we did it. We really, really did it—we finished the book (I am referring to you and me now). It was a pretty wild ride, wasn’t it? I mean, sure, I did the hard part, what with all the typing and everything, but you’re the one who had to read it1, which I realize is no easy feat considering the fact that I used a handful of big words that even I had to look up, and I threw in so much profanity that you would have thought I was rehearsing for a community theater production of Scarface (I bet that controlling bastard St. Martin is rolling over in his grave by now). Please know that I only added both of those things so my book would seem more sophisticated, which in turn makes for a richer literary experience for you, the reader. However, if you, like me, object to words like “honorificabilitudinitatibus”2 or any of the other sailor talk that wound up in here, I imagine you had to hold on extra tight just to make it here to the end. And for that I commend you. You are a champion and don’t think I’m the only one who’s noticed.
In addition to all the fancy language and swearing I’ve included in this collection, though, I feel like I covered a fair amount of ground while I was at it. In fact, I’d argue that I’ve told you what I would describe as “a lot of what there is to know about me, Dave Hill, a major, major celebrity, thinking man, and person of both great and wide-ranging influence.” I realize this book wasn’t exactly a “tell-all” or anything, but it was definitely a “tell-some.” I would have written a tell-all, but then I would have been pretty much screwed when it came time to write the much-anticipated follow-up to this, my debut collection of important essays that I typed all by myself, as I wouldn’t have had anything left to write about. Also, let’s face it—they just didn’t pay me enough money to go ahead and tell you my whole life story all in one neat little volume. (Sorry, Mr. Publisher, you’re going to have to add another zero or two if you want me to write about all the stuff that happened while I wasn’t wearing pants and may or may not have been wearing
a mask.) I think I included most of the good stuff, though, and that’s what really matters. Sure, I could have thrown in a few shower scenes or perhaps the graphic details of my many and frequent doctor appointments here and there to spice things up, especially for late-night reading, but I imagine I could do that for the European version. If the magazine store by my house has taught me anything, the people of Europe are a lot more accepting of nudity anyway, which—come to think of it—will be especially great when it comes time to do my book tour over there. But I digress.
All of the above aside, however, the greater question here is “What did we learn from my book?” I mean, sure, there are all those stories to cherish, ponder, and then twist and turn over in your head again and again like a maze you will never, ever solve no matter how hard you try. So there’s that. But even besides the stories themselves, what did we learn from my incredible book in the larger sense, the sense that’s bigger than the both of us or the both of us and also another person who happens to be standing nearby? Or—what the heck?—maybe even all of us put together (me, you, that other person I just mentioned, and also everyone else in the whole world, too, which ends up being literally thousands of people).
Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question for you. I’m an artist, not a mind reader. It’s something you need to decide for yourself and then talk about with other people as you repeatedly encourage them to buy my book even though you are finished with your copy and could easily loan it to them. (Seriously, don’t do it. You’re a human being, not a goddamn library.) And whatever you do decide, may I suggest to you that, as the words in this book grow in importance and resonance for you over time, perhaps you gently move it from wherever you tend to file contemporary nonfiction written by guys who smell really nice and possess what some people might call “offbeat good looks” over to the space on your bookshelf where you keep all the dusty old classics—stuff like The Great Gatsby, the works of Plato, the Bible (the real one, not the one with all the made up stuff in it), How to Win Friends & Influence People, or maybe even something by Hemingway or the Rock. Just don’t put it up too high though. Next thing you know you’re dragging over a stool so you can more easily reach it, you fall off, twist your ankle, hit your head, and wind up lying there in a pool of blood (yours) that’s almost guaranteed to ruin a perfectly good rug. Keep my book on a lower shelf and we’ll both sleep a little easier at night. Or you could maybe place it on an old wooden book stand with it opened up to one of your favorite passages. Next to it you can put an old magnifying glass, one of those pens made out of a feather that you have to dip into an inkwell, and maybe a big, melty candle, just to class things up a bit. It would be cool if somewhere around there you could have a human skull and a taxidermied bird of prey with its wings spread wide open, too, but ultimately I leave that up to you. Think about it, though, because it will look awesome. Ask anyone.
Getting back to the whole learning thing, though, I suppose I should just go ahead and tell you what I, Dave Hill, learned from this book. The simple answer is this—plenty. More specifically, however, I learned that sometimes you have to write your own story to really understand your own story. I also learned that sometimes the truth is far scarier than the most outlandish fiction you could ever imagine, even while hopped up on all the prescription cold medicine money can buy. Perhaps most of all, however, I learned that just because you type in a pair of skimpy briefs and one of those giant foam cowboy hats while you’re at home, doesn’t mean that sort of thing is gonna fly at your neighborhood coffeehouse or the public library, even if you are sitting in the New Age section and “everyone else is doing it.” And, just to complete my thoughts on the topic, I should probably also point out that trying to write with one of those little white-headed capuchin monkeys sitting on your shoulder the whole time might seem great in theory, perhaps even necessary, but in practice it’s next to impossible if you ever expect to get any real work done. Not only are all of his adorable little antics competely distracting, but—in the case of the monkey I rented anyway—all that pipe smoke makes it almost impossible to breathe. And all these months later, I still can’t even hazard a guess at what I might have been doing that that damn monkey could have possibly interpreted as an invitation to sex.
Before I go and we both get back to doing whatever it was we did before agreeing to spend this time together, I would like to take a moment to address the elephant in the room, the one that exists in the form of you sitting there right now thinking, “Hey, Dave, how can I arrange to have you come speak at my institution of higher learning, church, and/or place of business as an elaborate means to try and have intercourse with you?” Well, first of all, thanks for asking. You are just the right combination of formal and naughty, and I love it. That said, however, I am not the kind of person who is likely to accept an offer of somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty dollars to roll into your town on anything less than a Greyhound bus, show up at your institution of higher learning, church, and/or place of business, speak for up to but no longer than three hours straight (including Q and A. No exceptions!), allow you to ply me with alcohol, shrimp cocktail, and Robitussin immediately following the lecture, and then stumble back to your house for what I can guarantee you will be the best nine or ten minutes of lovemaking you and your roommates will ever, ever experience.3 But rather than just tell you no myself, I recommend you contact my public appearance agent instead so that he can field your potentially insulting offer and tell you in no uncertain terms that the odds of me agreeing to any or all of that as long as you pay in cash simply aren’t very good at all even if you agree to pick me up at the bus station and allow me to take any leftover shrimp cocktail home with me the next day. Sorry, I have no doubt that that sort of thing might fly with Stephen Hawking, Salman Rushdie, and just about any current or former NBA player you can think of, but I am quite simply better than that.
Stick around for the meet and greet,
Dave Hill
NOTES
Introduction
1 As I have written this introduction prior to the book actually going to print, I can only assume the St. Martin’s Press people are going to follow through with their promise of making it a “cleverly designed hardcover edition with a tasteful matte finish” as discussed in that one meeting where they said I was talking too loud and that I couldn’t bring lobster into the office anymore. Also, I requested that the book itself be really big and heavy, like an atlas or book of wallpaper samples or something, so that it might be readable by two or more people at the same time. If it turns out that the book you are holding is just normal size and you can easily stand there holding it all by yourself without any strain to the major muscle groups, I will only take it as further proof that the world is bullshit and you can’t take anyone at their word.
2 “Stop it, you damn salmon,” you want to tell him, “your insatiable sexual appetite will kill you in the end.” But the salmon, he won’t listen.
Desnudo en el Mar
1 It’s true. He had the outfits and everything. It was really cool.
2 A ghillie suit is a type of camouflage clothing designed to make its wearer appear to be covered in woodsy foliage. I saw a cop wear one on To Catch a Predator once and—while entirely unnecessary—it was still pretty awesome. The predator in question never saw it coming when the cop in the ghillie suite jumped up from the front lawn and tackled him to the ground. That’s the fun thing about ghillie suits—that element of surprise. If you ever see one for sale, you should probably pick it up. That way if you are ever in a situation where it might be even slightly appropriate to don a ghillie suit—bam—you’re all set.
Loving You Is Easy Because You Live Pretty Close to My Parents’ House
1 Okay, I might have made up that last bit, but it’s just occurring to me now that that would have been pretty awesome.
2 When I was in elementary school, kids used the phrase “go with” to mean “go out with” or “date.” These were simpler times, and we ma
de the best of things with what we had.
As of Now, I Am in Control Here
1 If you’re a history buff, you may notice I borrowed the title of this essay from a press conference given by United States Secretary of State Alexander Haig on March 30, 1981, after John Hinckley, Jr., shot President Reagan in hopes of scoring a date with Hollywood’s Jodie Foster, a plan that—against all odds—never really panned out. Alexander Haig, though—pure balls on that guy. How he said those words without giggling I’ll never know.
2 The popular casual pant.
3 In case they don’t have them where you live, Sizzler is a restaurant chain specializing in steak and seafood priced so low it’s hard not to worry.
4 Glass dick is a nickname for a crack pipe, so when someone’s “sucking on the glass dick,” they’re, ah, you get it. It’s a fun phrase to throw into conversation whenever appropriate (which is to say always). Friends will appreciate your colorful language.
All the Right Moves
1 You can read about this incident in all its gory detail in the chapter “On Manliness.” Don’t read it at the dinner table, though. You’ve been warned.
2 As hinted at in the name, Maple Leaf Gardens was the home arena for the Toronto Maple Leafs 1931–1999. It was long considered to be hockey’s most hallowed ground. There’s probably more Canadian things you could do besides hang out at Maple Leaf Gardens, but I’m not aware of any myself.
On Manliness
1 You know, for intercourse.
2 Author’s note: I am.
3 A Rolodex is an ancient phone-number-collecting machine.
4 No offense if your name is either Peg or Jan. I think they are actually rather beautiful names. They just don’t work for me.
5 It should be noted that a time machine is usually required to properly pull off this move.
6 As best I can tell, he’s great at that stuff.