by Bobbie Brown
“I can’t believe this,” I said. “And I’m so confused. I’ve only been with one person in the last five years. This isn’t possible!”
“Well, you might want to have a conversation with that person, Bobbie,” the doctor said. “We’re very sorry.”
I went home and told Josh.
“They must have made a mistake,” he said, coolly.
“It’s a medical show, fucker. How could they make a mistake? Who have you been sleeping with, Josh?”
He paced the room, his eyes flashing. “I’ve done a lot of messed up things, Bobbie, but I’ve never had sex with anyone else. Which begs the question—how did you get it, huh?”
“I never cheated on you!” I screamed. “You know I haven’t!”
My STD diagnosis prompted the biggest, ugliest fight we’d ever had. The mistrust that had been simmering since I discovered he had sent women naked pictures had erupted into full-blown hatred. One of us was lying, that much was clear. That night, Josh finally moved out of my condo and onto the floor of his recording studio, where he’s been ever since.
The next day, I lay in bed, my face tear streaked, scrolling on an iPad, looking at Wikipedia. Damn. Abraham Lincoln had syphilis? Al Capone died from it? Oscar Wilde, Baudelaire, and now…Bobbie Brown? I made the mistake of doing a Google Images search, and FUUUUCK. I gasped in horror at the bodies covered with reddish nodules. Facial deformations. Pustules colonizing people’s crotches. This was my nightmare come true. The first stage of syphilis lasts one month. So does the second stage, and by the time you hit stage three, it’s supposedly incurable. Blindness. Delirium. Then it eats your nose.
Josh called, delighted to report that he’d just gotten his test results back and they were negative. “I knew it, you’re a whore, Bobbie Brown,” he yelled.
I didn’t believe him. He’d lied to me so many times over the years—about his porn addiction, the dick pics—and now I was supposed to believe that I’d magically contracted this disease from thin air? I was so distressed that week I suffered not one but two panic attacks so intense I was convinced they were heart attacks and that landed me in the emergency room. But there were no heart attacks. I was just freaking the fuck out, cursing the universe for playing yet another cruel joke on my ass.
My doctor sent me to a specialist who took further blood tests. Because I didn’t have health insurance, I had to borrow the money to pay for my treatment, putting me further in the hole. Upon receiving the results, the doctor called me into his office. I panicked about what was coming: “Sorry, Bobbie, you’re stage four. In a few weeks you’ll have a mushroom for a vagina.”
“Well, I must say, you’ve certainly been through the mill for somebody who’s never had syphilis,” the specialist said, looking up from his papers.
I choked a little. “Excuse me?”
“Yes, Bobbie. Whoever gave you the original test result got it wrong. You’ve never had syphilis.”
I called those bastards at Botched and gave them a piece of my mind. Their response was along the lines of “oops, sorry!” I felt so guilty for what I had said to Josh, how I had accused him of lying to me. Somehow in my deluded, needy mind, I thought we’d be able to start over, to put all of this bad luck behind us. But Josh didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be glued to the arm of It Girl on Crutches, Bobbie Jean Brown. He wanted to move on, and in some ways, I was jealous. I wished I could figure out how to do the same.
Why do the Children Play?
It’s a giddy feeling, waking up one morning and realizing you don’t hate yourself. At least, not as much as you did yesterday. But that’s how I felt when I found comedy, which brought with it a whole new way to view the chaos, the mistakes, and the heartbreaks of my life. Finally, they served a purpose. I no longer judged myself with cruel, ageist eyes—now, I saw my life’s wobbly missteps as necessary calamities along the road to funny. All that baggage had turned into material, and the most disappointing aspects of my life story were now primo fodder for my newly minted stage persona: Miss Bobbie Jean Brown, oldest new kid on the Comedy Strip.
Now, I just had to figure out how to pay for the classes with Jimmy. So I did what all starving artists do best and I called Mom. I pitched her my plan to study with Jimmy until I was the sharpest, sassiest, most hilarious blonde this side of the Mississippi. No more watching some guy noodle his Fender from the side of the stage. This time, the spotlight was mine. As a consummate stage mom who’d sent me to etiquette and modeling classes from the age of seven to my teenage years, my mom needed very little persuading. She gave me her credit card information, and her blessing.
“I’ve got a good feeling about this one, Bob,” she said.
Her investment paid off fast, and within three weeks of starting classes with Jimmy, I had performed two headline shows, both times blacking out and floating away like a birthday balloon. By the time my third show rolled around, I was determined to take back control. I wanted to actually be there, to witness the Bobbie Brown Comeback Experience firsthand instead of hearing about it from my friends and teacher afterward.
Backstage before my third show, I tried to relax my mind, calm my breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Every so often, my inner saboteur would interrupt my meditation. They only want you here because you’re the Cherry Pie Girl. You’re just an extension of Tommy Lee’s dick.
Whenever those negative thoughts came swarming, I swatted them away like flies. Nope. Not tonight. No more of that. People had always put me in a box labeled girlfriend/wife/sex object/whore. And to some degree, I’d been content to remain in that box. But those labels stopped working for me a long time ago—if I wanted the world to see me as more than just the Cherry Pie Girl, I’d have to stand up and show them why.
I strode across the stage, took the mic, and began my set.
So my gynecologist asked me today if I was sexually active. I had to say yes, because life fucks me on the regular. Then she asked me what form of birth control I’ve been using. I said, “My personality.” Truth is, I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ve had to ask myself what the fuck went wrong. ’Cause Prince Charming isn’t coming for me on a white horse. He’s on a turtle somewhere, lost and confused, asking for directions. So the other day I said fuck it. I have the worst luck dating, might as well just go out and have sex with the first man I see.
With the room’s full attention, I launched into a strange, imagined scenario of casual, consensual sex in which, beat by beat, I systematically dismantled the notion of Bobbie Brown as an object of desire.
So I grab this guy and he says, “Give me a blow job.” And because I’m not a quitter, I say, “Okay.” I’m pretty sure I can smell his ass and it’s bad, real bad. Something’s happening though. He’s jerking, he’s twerking, he’s screaming loud as fuck, he’s flailing all over the place. I’m fucking great at this! I’m the fucking best. Somebody should be fucking filming me right now. I should probably get a trophy for this. I need an award! I’m the shit. I’m fucking great. Oh, wait. He’s not enjoying this—he’s having a seizure.
I looked at the audience. They were loving it…loving me, dare I say. It didn’t seem to matter how weird or gross or unsexy I got, they were lapping it up. This fake story was the realest I’d ever been. And I was there. Present. Feeling it, living it, loving it, commanding the stage, raining down joke after joke, making them squirm, making them mine.
This is the most incredible feeling! I thought, understanding my musician exes more than ever before. This is why they ride in freezing tour buses for months on end, playing songs on tiny stages in shitty bars. Being yourself and actually being loved for it is a high better than any other drug.
Right at the end of my set, Jimmy walked on stage holding a cake illuminated by dozens of flickering candles. It was my forty-ninth birthday, and the whole room clapped and cheered as I blew out the candles. This is the best birthday of m
y fucking life, I thought.
Walking into the backstage area, I heard someone calling my name; it was the big star of the night, actor and hot-stuff comedian Jamie Kennedy, who rose to fame in 1996 as Randy Meeks, the horror-movie geek in Scream.
“You were really funny!” Jamie said, warmly. “Really, really good.”
I’d heard that comedians can be competitive and unsupportive, but tonight I felt nothing but love.
“Happy birthday!” he continued. “How old are you, anyway?”
“Forty-nine and feeling fine,” I said.
“Oh, my God, shut up. Do you ever age, Bobbie Brown?”
“Nah, ask my dermatologist. She accepts food stamps, by the way.”
“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” he said. “Bring it in, old lady.”
Then he hugged me. Like, the extra-long type of hug.
“By the way, that blowjob joke was amazing,” he said. “I was totally in that scene with you. I can’t believe he had a seizure!”
“Oh, those jokes aren’t real,” I explained. “There’s no way I would actually pick up a guy off the street and give him a blowjob.”
“Oh, so I shouldn’t believe what you say?” he said.
“Not all of it.”
“Good! ’Cause I was starting to worry about your safety.”
“You’re not the first, honey,” I said. “You’re not the first.”
When Jamie took the stage, he talked about me for five minutes straight. “Bobbie was great, wasn’t she? She and I grew up in the same era. Back then, Bobbie Brown was the hottest thing in Hollywood. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t look that good in a Warrant video.” Listening to him, a lightbulb lit up. I should date a comedian! I pictured a lifetime of funny where loading the dishwasher would be totally hilarious, going to the DMV would be a giggle-fest, every day a series of side-splitting LOLs and pranks. Yes, wouldn’t it be cool to live Funnily Ever After with someone? How had I never thought of this before?
With Jamie Kennedy still singing my praises onstage, I walked up to Jimmy and whispered loudly in his ear. “Do you think he’s trying to…you know?”
Jimmy looked at me. “Do I think he’s trying to fuck you? Who cares, Bobbie? So long as he wants to work with you again, that’s all that matters.”
“Right. Got it,” I said. “But do you think—”
“Bobbie, just keep it professional.”
Of course, the second I got home, I looked up Jamie on social media. I wanted to know more about my future comedy husband. A quick Google search revealed a string of beautiful, famous, and troublingly brunette ex-girlfriends, including Jennifer Love Hewitt, all of whom boasted thigh gaps far more substantial than mine. Shit. Next stop: Instagram. There he was. One hundred and sixteen thousand followers. I wondered if he’d notice me among the dozens of follow requests he no doubt got every day. I looked for the “Follow” button and instead saw “Follow Back”. Ah. He’d already added me. Excellent. Immediately, I slid into his DMs.
“Hey, thanks so much for having me open for you. It was only my third time on stage.” Little bubbles danced on my phone screen as he wrote his response.
“Third time ever? That’s crazy, Bobbie. You’re ahead of the game.”
We both knew that my “Cherry Pie” legacy had fast-tracked me onto that stage. But, like Jimmy, Jamie seemed to think I might actually have enough talent to stay up there.
A couple of days later, I got a message from a radio host in Philly I’ve known for some time. It was a photo of him and Jamie Kennedy waving. “Do you know Jamie? He says he knows you,” read the message.
I typed back, excited. “Don’t tell him, but I totally have a high school crush on him right now…”
“Do you want me to give him your number?” wrote my friend.
“Only if he asks for it.”
The next day, Jamie sent me a text. “You got me now. Save my number.”
Southern Harmony
It was seven, the morning after my wonderful birthday show. My phone buzzed insistently on the bedside table. It had to be my mom. Only moms call at this hour.
“So, Bobbie how did it go last night?” she asked.
“I’m trying to sleep, Mom, gah.”
Doesn’t matter how old I get, I’m still 100 percent teenager whenever I talk to my mother. Bleary-eyed, I sent her some video clips from the show. I wasn’t worried about how she’d react to the crude content—by now, she’s well used to my potty mouth—but I did hope that she’d at least find me a little bit funny. I desperately needed her to believe in what I was doing. After all the years she’d spent worrying about me—what with Josh, the near-fatal car accident, the fall down the stairs—I owed her something that felt like hope.
She watched the videos and called me back. “You look very beautiful,” she said. I waited, wondering if she’d enjoyed anything beside my looks.
“And you’re very, very funny,” she said.
My heart leapt with joy.
“Bobbie, my sweet baby,” she continued. “Do you know how hard it is to reinvent yourself? Well, you’ve made it look easy. You know why? Because you’re good.” She was gushing, and it caught me off-guard, how proud she sounded.
This was a new development in our relationship, my mom approving of my life choices. I thanked her for believing in me—it had been a really long time since I’d given her a reason to. And I told her I owed it all to her.
“Oh, don’t give me too much credit,” she said. “You’re pretty much self-taught.”
I was starting to tear up; it was way too early for this much emotion. I had to hang up the phone.
•••
My mom’s full name is Judy Ann Brown, and she’s a Priscilla Presley lookalike who was born into a Catholic family in Church Point, Louisiana, the Cajun Music Capital of the World. It was a poor town; nearly one third of the families there lived below the poverty line. Mom used to talk about how horse-drawn carriages clip-clopped around town right up until the 1950s. She was the sixth of eight kids and had six brothers and a sister. She was sickly and all but bald for the first five years of her life. She was such a weird-looking kid that my grandma Isabelle made her wear a necklace dipped in holy water so Jesus would help her get prettier. Heaven must have listened because my mother grew up to be one fine-looking teenager.
But still, life was hard. My grandpa had walked out on the family when they were small, so my grandma had to raise the eight of them by herself. With such a large family, the children had to grow up fast. My mom was working long before she was legally old enough. There was simply no other way for them to make ends meet. Then, when she was seventeen, along came my dad: Bobby Gene Brown, a blue-eyed, Johnny Cash–type from the wrong side of the tracks. He always showed up at the house with groceries for the refrigerator, and my grandma liked that.
Bobby Gene played guitar, smelled of aftershave and Winstons, and wanted to be a country singer. He was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina, a picturesque small town founded by French fur trappers. Think apple orchards, sleepy church spires, and men who express their feelings with their fists. His dad beat his wife—Bobby Gene’s mom—badly, and one day, as a result, she suffered a brain hemorrhage and died. My dad, then a teenager, came home from school and found her. Ill-equipped to handle the tragedy, Bobby Gene ran away from his feelings by joining the military straight out of school and serving in Vietnam. When he came back, he moved down to Baton Rouge, became a car salesman, and drank away his dark memories from the war and the images of his father beating his mother to a pulp. Yet somehow, he managed to talk a good Catholic girl named Judy into marrying him. She was twenty years old when she gave birth to me, on October 7, 1969, and my dad insisted on calling me Bobbie Jean Brown, after himself.
I can’t remember the first time I saw them fight, but I do have memories of my dad kicking my
mom as she lay on the floor, and me screaming and screaming until he stopped. That’s when I figured it out—that if I made enough noise, danced and sang and laughed loud enough to distract him, he’d snap out of his rage. So I’d do things like pour ketchup on my stomach and play dead—over here, daddy!—just to make it stop.
The older I got, the more I talked back, cursed, and got involved in the fights. Daddy would pick out a belt from the closet or a switch from a tree in the backyard and spank me. I’d bite my lip, fight back the tears, and smile bitterly through the stinging pain just to show him he couldn’t hurt me. Just to have the last word. If I didn’t cry, that meant I had won.
When I was in ninth grade, my mom finally decided to leave. It was over. No more fights. No more yelling. No more nights spent driving around the local bars, where we’d find my dad talking to some other woman. All that was behind us. I watched my mom reinvent herself, rebuild her whole life from scratch. My mother showed me that it’s never too late to change your life completely. To lift yourself from the depths. For my mom, marriage had been a violent, degrading shit show, so everything from that point on would be the opposite. She would be the perfectly poised Southern Belle mother to her perfectly poised Southern Belle daughter.
At least, that was the plan.
She put my hair in curlers at night and drove me to New Orleans for white gloves, party manners classes, ballet, pageants, and dance competitions. Etiquette brought structure, status, and grace to our lives. External appearances were things we could polish and refine until they outshone the tatty, uncouth truths about our past. So nobody ever suspected we were broke because my mom managed to dress me beautifully with what little we had.
“You’re a real pretty girl,” Mom told me over and over, and I’d shrug, not quite believing her, not quite understanding why she needed everything to be so perfect, beautiful, and serene.
When one day she entered me into a pageant, I went along with it for her. I thought it was silly how competitive the other girls were, how bent out of shape they’d get about being pretty, being perfect. And then when I won, I remember feeling mildly surprised; I was mainly glad that Mom was finally happy. It seemed to inject her with new life. She said I should become a model, and I thought maybe that would be cool, especially if it helped me meet cute boys who wore makeup. That was my passion. I was crazy for the hair metal guys. Posters of Tommy Lee, my first crush and future love, were plastered all over my bedroom walls when I was a teenager.