Life of the Party: Stories of a Perpetual Man-Child

by Bert Kreischer

  As I inhaled, I sensed instantly that something was amiss. This didn’t smell like weed and it definitely didn’t taste like weed. I looked at Tracy with confusion. “What is this shit?”

  He smiled. “What is this shit?”

  “Yeah, it tastes weird.”

  “Oh, you never smoked sherm before?”

  “Sherm?” I said.

  “It’s wet,” he said as he hit it again.

  “Wet? What are sherm and wet?”

  He rolled his eyes and started walking back to the club. “So you never smoked PCP before?” He laughed, disappearing into the foot traffic of West Third.

  The answer was no. Not only had I never smoked PCP, I had also never been offered PCP. There were a lot of things I wished I could have told him. Like, for instance, “Hey, when you smoke PCP with a person you just met, you might want to ask them if they would, in fact, like to partake of your PCP, rather than just assuming that they are hip to the fact that the joint you possess is indeed ‘wet.’” Also: What fucking year is this that we need to add PCP to our joint to improve our buzz? Had this been 1978 and we were two kids at a Molly Hatchet concert trying to share a handjob from an old lady who had just been dumped by her Hell’s Angel boyfriend, I might have gotten it. But it was 1999, and weed was fucking awesome as is.

  I walked back to the club hyperaware of what I was feeling, which was mostly panic. From what I knew about PCP, any second now I was going to be covered in spiders.

  I entered and went directly to Tony Woods. I pulled him aside and urgently whispered, “I just got wet.”

  “Then dry the fuck off.”

  “No, sherm-wet. I smoked wet sherm.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I smoked PCP with Tracy Morgan.”

  “When?”

  “Five minutes ago.”

  “No, you didn’t,” he said.

  “No, I did. Tracy asked if I wanted to get high, and apparently when he says ‘get high,’ he means PCP and I said yes not knowing it was PCP, and we smoked a joint that tasted funny and it was sherm, he said.”

  “Tracy doesn’t smoke PCP.”

  “No, he does and he did, and I did, too.”

  “No, he doesn’t, I promise you. He’s just fucking with you.”

  “But he said it was PCP.”

  “No. He’s fucking with you because you’re white.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, you’re white and you probably made some weird white-guy comment, like you do, and Tracy thought he’d play you, and now you’re played.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, look at you. You were about to call an ambulance, and all, ‘Tony, I’m wet, I’m wet!’ Take a deep breath and relax.”

  I took a deep breath. “So I didn’t smoke PCP?”

  Tony took a second and thought about it. “Probably not.”

  “Probably?”

  “I wouldn’t go home if I were you.”

  This panicked me. “Why not?”

  “Because I know you, and if you go home you’re gonna sit in your apartment and start to think you’re on PCP. So stay with me and I’ll watch you.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re just gonna drink and keep cool.”

  I went on stage that night. Or maybe I didn’t. If I did, I bombed. And if I didn’t, I did and I bombed.

  What I know for sure is that Tony and I ended up at a club called Madame X. Madame X was, and maybe still is, one of the many clubs on Houston Street. One of those clubs where you have to walk down a small flight of stairs to enter, and the second you do, you feel like you’re in a different world. Red velvet walls breathed in and out, as you pulsed like blood toward the back of the club.

  And in the back that night, there was a one-man show going on called “Tracy Morgan: Real Talk.” Tracy was holding court for any and every black man that would listen. There were twenty by the time I got there.

  “Here is the thing you need to know about Tracy,” Tony said to me. “He doesn’t give a fuck. TV, film, none of that is why he’s here. He’s here because he’s real, and all these niggas know that. He’s famous, but he treats all of them like they ain’t no different than him, he just got money.”

  And by the display of champagne bottles that littered the surrounding tables, that was clear. Every time the waitress walked by, Tracy ordered more like someone was going to prison the next day. “One more bottle. Fuck it, make it two!” The tab, I assumed, was so sizable, it could easily swallow a couple of Heinekens, but regardless I snuck over to the bar and paid cash for my drinks. I wasn’t used to this kind of hip-hop decadence, but I had definitely heard about it. Tonight I had a front-row seat.

  Tracy is the kind of unbridled genius that comics automatically appreciate. On stage, reins are forced into its mouth, but at a club, around friends and half in the bag, his genius was in full gallop.

  “I got a pretty dick. You can suck it with the lights on, and I don’t even have to know your last name!” The phrase stuck with me. I had never thought about how much of my sexual activity took place in the dark or at night, or with strangers. How ashamed we are of our bodies, and how vulnerable we become when we get naked in front of strangers. I tried to recall any oral sex I had received in the light from a girl whose last name I didn’t know. To present my body in full display, either with overhead lights or in sunlight, and to allow a woman to get so close as to perform a direct examination, made me chuckle in embarrassment. I felt like telling him he should write that down and work it out, because there was definitely something there that people could relate to, but I got the feeling he wasn’t about to slow down and pull out a pen and a notebook. He was on a roll.

  Everything he said that night was a diamond, but a blood diamond, because as the night continued, a small fortune of alcohol accrued on that table. At the end of the night, when the only energy left in the club was Tracy’s, the white waitress appeared through the crowd of brothers with a smile and a bill. She quickly scanned the crowd—landing her sights on me, the lone white guy. Tony chuckled as she handed me the bill and my asshole tightened. Was I going to have to itemize this bill and ask everyone what they ordered and tell them how much to chip in? By the time it was in my hand, it was clear that she assumed I was going to pay, because, by her assumption, I was the one white dude with a mess of black men, and therefore I had to be their lawyer, or agent, or coach. As I fumbled to explain I wasn’t the man she was looking for, Tracy’s eyes wandered my direction. Here, he popped off.

  “Ah, fuck that. I’m the rich nigga in here!”

  Nervous for a second that I would get stuck with the bill, I smiled.

  “Fuck that white boy, he works the door!”

  Dissed, but fine with it, I nodded at the waitress. “I’m not on this bill. I was buying drinks at the bar.” Too preoccupied to listen, she was pulled back into conversation with Tracy.

  “Hey bitch, I’m talking to you!”

  This got her attention. She quickly handed the bill in his direction.

  “No, fuck that shit. How you going to disrespect me in front on my mans and dem? I’m the rich nigga in here! I’m on TV!”

  Whatever Tracy’s goal was, it was working. Now the whole bar was watching—including the bouncers, two ex-NFL linemen, who were standing close by.

  “I apologize. Here you go, sir,” she said.

  At “sir,” the group of black dudes hissed like it was a slam-dunk contest and she had just missed.

  “Oh, now I’m ‘sir’? Couple of minutes ago I was just some nigga who couldn’t pay a bill, but now I’m ‘sir’?”

  “I wasn’t being racist,” she said.

  “But you gave him the bill ’cause he’s white. He ain’t got no money! Why didn’t you give it to me? ’Cause I’m a nigga. But I’m a rich nigga! I’m on TV!”

  At that, Tracy ripped off his shirt and threw it in her face. And just like that, the bouncers were on top of him, standing s
o close they cast shadows over him. Tracy was no more than a quarter of their combined weight, but that didn’t scare him. As they stood there, the bigger of the two spoke his last two words of the night. “My man.”

  Tracy looked at him with disgust, smiled discreetly to our group, and answered as if he was seven feet tall. “I ain’t yo man,” he said, and threw a punch.

  This is when I snapped back to my reality: I was definitely on PCP.

  I quickly stood up, looked at Tony, who was trying to break up the fight, and walked directly out of the bar. I passed people who were just now realizing that a fight was going down, but I knew there was a tsunami coming and I was headed for high ground.

  I quickly made my way up the stairs two at a time and as I stood on Houston, pacing, I kept thinking to myself, This isn’t happening. None of this.

  After two minutes of waiting, I turned west to head home, when Tony exited the club. “Damn, Sugar Bear, shit going off!”

  “Really? Is he winning or losing?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Should we wait?”

  “I say we give him a minute.”

  We stood there for what couldn’t have been more than forty-five seconds, when the doors of the club were burst open—by Tracy’s head. The bouncers held him limp, shirtless, parallel to the ground, and threw him up the short flight of steps. He landed on the sidewalk, his body lying at Tony’s and my feet as the doors shut behind them.

  “Shit, shortie,” Tony said. “What are we gonna do with a dead Tracy Morgan?”

  A second later, the doors flew back open, and a shirt came flying out, just like in a cartoon, landing directly on Tracy’s back.

  In moments like this—in intense situations or when you’re possibly on PCP—time slows down so much that you can see a hummingbird fart. I looked over to my mentor, who was dumbfounded. In all the time I had known Tony, I had never seen him nervous or fazed. But looking at him that night, with a near-dead SNL star at our feet, I could tell we were up shit creek. Was this how the world would know me, as the last person to get high with the famed SNL star? I’m sure they would do a toxicology report, find the PCP, and blame it on me, the hanger-on, the starfucker who was a bad influence on this vulnerable man. There laid my comedy career dead at my feet. I’d be like the stripper partying with Farley or that chick who killed Belushi.

  Then, just like that, Tracy was on his feet. He took his shirt, snapped it clean, looked at us, and smiled.

  “Now that is how you get out of paying a check.”

  Crazy as a fucking fox, he walked east toward Broadway. “That’s how I know you didn’t smoke PCP,” Tony said. Tony joined Tracy, looking back at me. “You coming?”

  I shook my head no, and smiled. “I’m heading back to my apartment.”

  “You okay?” Tony asked before they disappeared.

  “I’m fine,” I told him. I headed west toward home.

  I walked home and passed the Comedy Cellar, praying to see someone hanging out outside who I could share this amazing story with, but no one was there. I made the rest of the walk home feeling oddly sober—not high at all, not even drunk, but happy.

  In fourteen years of doing comedy, my path has crossed with countless comics, many of them repeatedly. But never again have I met Tracy Morgan. I’m sure he wouldn’t remember me at all. Guys like Tracy formed my constitution as a stand-up comedian, not the other way around, so really, why should he remember? Sometimes that’s how it’s meant to happen. Your paths begin in very different places, cross for one crazy moment, and then continue on.

  10.

  CP

  I was twenty-seven years old and boarding a flight from LAX to JFK, returning home to New York. I was buzzed from drinking at the airport bar, and as all single young men do, I was hoping for a seat next to a drop-dead gorgeous model. Looking down at my ticket as I moved past first class, I quietly seethed as it occurred to me that all the models were probably behind me. I had an aisle seat, on the two-seat side of a 767, and my odds were as good now as a power hitter’s piss test.

  Ahead I saw what could only be described as a hotter, more unique-looking Sarah Michelle Gellar. I quickly tried to do the math, simultaneously praying that the open seat next to hers was mine. As I got closer, I saw that—somehow, miraculously, like a hole in one—it was.

  I slowly approached the row and put on my most casual voice as I murmured the obvious, “21B, 22B … This must be me!” I put my stuff in the overhead as I strategized my pimp game, but as I sat down next to her she jumped into conversation before I had the chance to start.

  “I have my cat at my feet. I hope you don’t mind, or I can trade seats with someone else.” Truth be told, I am deathly allergic to cats, and had she been twenty pounds heavier, I would have gladly swapped her out. But she was so hot—the kind of hot where you don’t realize whether she has big tits until the second date. I told her how much I loved cats, how I couldn’t live without them, how I had no problem with her cat meowing two feet from me, shedding its poisonous fur onto me, for five hours. She beamed at how much we had in common. She rescued cats and this was her latest project. Her name is inconsequential (mostly because I’m now a married man, and I can’t remember any woman’s name but my wife’s; speaking of which: If you are reading this, honey, now would be a great time to stop), but what was important was that she grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, was obsessed with Guns N’ Roses, and within five minutes of meeting me, asked if I wanted to split a Xanax. I obliged, because I’m a gentleman and because the refusal of a casual drug offer is rude. We carried on the most seamless, carefree, hilarious conversation I’ve ever had on an airplane. Turns out, that’s what Xanax and wine will do, and we drank wine freely. I talked a lot about myself, which anyone who knows me can attest is fairly common. The trade-off was that halfway through the flight, she asked if she could take her cat out from under the seat and let it sit on her lap. I gently grinded my teeth as I forced out a yes. The idea of what I knew to be a poisonous animal sitting inches from me, staring its shock-filled eyes into mine, ran panic through my heart, but not enough to overwhelm the Xanax or the effects of her hotness, so I obliged, and it did sit on her lap—for about two minutes. Then it found a nice place to nestle in between us. Thankfully the bag of cocktails circulating through my system kept the inherent, obsessive itchiness of my allergies at bay, but as we landed I could feel myself giving in to the dander.

  We taxied to the gate and said good-byes at our seats as my eyes began to swell. I darted up and grabbed my bag, but before I exited the plane and headed to the bathroom to give myself a sink scrub, I did something very out of the ordinary for me. I asked for her number. I’ve never been a guy who could make himself vulnerable like that. I grew up at a time when placing a phone call to a girl meant something, and that feeling will always stay with me. Asking for a girl’s number always seemed to come with a sly wink, as if you were saying, “I’d like to have sex with you. I understand there are some hoops I gotta jump through and this is one of them, but I’m willing and I’d like to start now.” It must have been the mix of highballs and drugs, but I took it a step further and told her I would like to get together tomorrow night for some more highballs and drugs.

  She smiled and gave me her number, and I skipped to the bathroom to wash myself.

  At baggage claim I saw her name on a placard held by a chauffeur and thought, “Wow, the mystery. I should have let her talk a little bit and learned more about her, as opposed to razzle-dazzling her with the B-Man pitch. Who is she? What does she do, other than rescue cats, eat pills, and drink? Or is that enough?”

  I claimed my bags, got in a taxi, and, as I have done with every woman I have ever longed for, I dreamt of the life we would have together. One time I met, offended, then scared off River Phoenix’s sister while I was working at a Barnes and Noble in New York. I hadn’t recognized her when she walked up to the information desk, so I asked her where she was from. She told me Gaines
ville, and being from Florida, I lit up. She said her last name was Phoenix and I naturally asked if she knew that River Phoenix was also from Gainesville. She said, “Ahhh, no.” I said, in all seriousness, “The famous dead guy—you didn’t know he was from Gainesville? And you guys have the same last name!” She walked away, understandably upset. Some people might have seen the exchange as a sort of BRIDGE OUT sign. I saw it as an in. For days I talked about the possibilities we had as a couple. Because I was real.

  The same tornado was starting all over again, only this time it was way more tangible. The girl from the airplane was all I talked about for the next twenty hours. She had explained on the plane that she had a friend in town and they had already made plans to have drinks in SoHo, but she would love for me to meet up with them. I convinced my two best friends, Huicho and Tony, to accompany me. I suspect they agreed only so they could have proof of how much I exaggerate every aspect of every detail of every story I ever tell. But as we walked into a crowded Mexican bar in SoHo, I saw Tony’s Cuban mouth drop.

  “Holy shit, you weren’t kidding. She’s ten times hotter than Sarah Michelle Gellar.”

  My buddy Huicho kept whispering to me as we got closer to the table. “Is she the hot one or the hotter one?”

  “The hotter one,” I said confidently as we navigated our way through the crowded bar to the table she and her friends had held for us.

  “I’d fuck her in front of my wife,” said Tony (who, coincidentally, is now divorced from said wife).

  We sat down and proceeded to have a picturesque night of cocktails, laughs, and debauchery, as we stumbled our way from one place to the next along the uneven cobblestones of SoHo. We clung to each other in a big St. Elmo’s Fire–esque group, laughing, carousing, and cavorting. At the end of the night, she gave me a quick kiss and an odd little smirk, and slid into a cab with her two friends. As Tony, Huicho, and I walked back to the West Village, Tony revealed in a drunken stammer a detail he had coaxed from her friend.

  “Fuckface. Your girl is a trust-fund kid. Old New York money that isn’t going anywhere.”