The names and identifying characteristics of certain individuals have been changed.
Copyright © 2017 by Zack McDermott
Cover design and illustration by Chris Silas Neal
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ISBN 978-0-316-31511-1
E3-20170823-DA-NF
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Newsletters
For Granny, the Bird’s Bird
Author’s Note
This is a true story, and I have done my best to ensure accuracy in its telling. As my memory is sometimes fallible, dialogue is approximate. In cases where the events described took place when I was too young to understand what was happening around me, I have relied on my mother, the Bird, to fill in the gaps. The names and identifying details of some individuals have been changed.
Prologue
Granny hates the pigs to this day. If she’s in a friendly mood, she’ll call them “the fuzz,” but never just “the police” or even “cops.” Most often, it’s “the pigs.” “Zachariah, look out the window. Is that the pigs?” She’ll say that in the same voice she uses when she says “Look, there’s a cardinal in my bird feeder”—nonchalant, lacking any malice. It’s purely observational: There’s a bird. There’s the pigs. One night in 1978 the pigs beat her son Edward senseless on her front lawn while she watched.
My uncle was sitting in the cab of Pa’s truck, stoned out of his mind on PCP, when the cops showed up. First two cars, then three, then six. When they started pounding on the driver’s side window, Pa told them they didn’t need to do that. “Let me talk to my son and I’ll get him out of the truck.” He was told to “stay on the porch, sir.” Then to “stay on the fucking porch, sir.” Soon he realized he should not have told the cops that Edward was strong, that he didn’t know for sure what he’d taken, and that his son wasn’t in his right mind. They interpreted that as Please beat my son’s ass because he is definitely going to try to beat yours.
Edward came out swinging once they got the door open, so high on dust that he didn’t know he didn’t have a chance. They beat him and kept beating him with their billy clubs while he flailed and resisted. Then they beat him after he quit flailing. Then they beat him after they cuffed him. Then they maced him. Then they kept beating him.
My mother, the Bird, knew why her parents’ house was lit up in blue and red before she got close enough to see the cop cars covering the front lawn. Edward. It couldn’t be anything but Edward. Pa was on the porch, three cops forming a moat around him. He was howling, crying so loud she heard him before she got out of the car. Edward was in the backseat of one of the cruisers. The blood matted his hair down and caked his cheeks. His face was starting to swell, but he’d look much worse in the morning. He was smiling.
Granny couldn’t talk for several hours, and what she saw that day would haunt her forever. Edward, shackled and maced and bathed in police lights, getting bludgeoned by six men with wooden batons. Her husband screaming and cussing and crying and begging. Sirens ringing in her ears. Black baton hitting skull with the same pop as bat hitting baseball. The beating was brutal enough to have killed him, for sure. At what point could she be certain that it hadn’t? Never. And if the beating hadn’t finished him off, the PCP might still have had something to say.
The Sunday after Thanksgiving 1982, a few months before I was born, my schizophrenic uncle Eddie suffered his last overdose on angel dust. He was airlifted to Kansas City with a heart aneurysm. The procedure they used on him was new enough that his case was later chronicled in medical textbooks. The doctors gave him less than a 30 percent chance of making it through the surgery.
His body survived, but in many ways, that was the end of his life. After the airlift, Granny and Pa stayed with Edward in the Kansas City ICU until just before Christmas. Granny prayed the rosary; Pa drank whiskey.
This last overdose, combined with his already severe and untreated mental illness, erased any lingering hope that he might someday be able to live anything approximating a “normal” life. The schiz and the addiction—proverbial chicken and egg—had swallowed the man. He was twenty-six years old.
Granny and Pa didn’t want him institutionalized, but he couldn’t live on his own either. He could barely control his own body. Given his age, Granny and Pa couldn’t just tell him he had to live at home. In an attempt to regain guardianship, they went to court. Things didn’t go according to plan. The judge lifted their burden of care entirely—they were denied guardianship. Edward was ordered to enter a state mental institution in Topeka.
On the day the men from the mental hospital came to pick up Edward, my mom went into labor with me. His last day on the outside was my first.
Chapter 1
I walked out of my apartment on the corner of St. Marks and Avenue A that afternoon and I knew we were rolling. I knew the people on the sidewalk were actors. They resembled the normal East Village lot, but they were archetypes: the skaters were all wearing DC Shoes and expensive skinny Levi’s; the construction workers’ boots were too worn, their accents too Brooklyn thick; and what kind of girl wears Louboutins in this neighborhood? Even the homeless people were a little too attractive, and when I looked closely, I could tell their face tattoos were actually professional makeup jobs.
It made sense. I’d spent the whole summer doing stand-up and writing a TV pilot with The Producer, a new friend with major connections whom I’d met at an open mic. He’d assured me that he had access to anyone we wanted to work with in Hollywood, and earlier in the week we’d met with an MTV producer who’d expressed interest. Now, a few days later, I found myself in a real-life audition. The Producer’
s approach was genius: just let me do what I do, interact with the common folk, and get it all on film. It was up to me to make the show work. All the production assistants were doubling as extras, their foot traffic directing me from one scene to the next.
The herd steered me toward Tompkins Square Park at the end of my block. I couldn’t believe how well they’d cast Generic Old Man on Park Bench. In comedy, it’s the little details and cameos that separate good from great, after all. I knew the old man should be my first mark, so I approached him immediately. I said hello. He looked nervous but returned the greeting. I grabbed his bike with the intention of taking it for a few laps. “No!” he shouted as he yanked it away. The old man had some chops. Figuring our scene was up, I sprinted east toward the dog park and hurdled the fence. Before popping back out at the end of the dog run, I dropped down on all fours to gallop with the pack.
Any minor doubts that we were shooting were eliminated when Daniel Day-Lewis power-walked across the basketball court. He was dressed in full Gangs of New York regalia: top hat, coat, and long waxed moustache. The Producer knew he was my favorite actor and must have convinced him to make a cameo just for the hell of it. Day-Lewis, a legendary practical joker, must have done it for free because we certainly couldn’t afford him. This little inside joke was The Producer’s way of telling me “Yes, this is happening. Trust your instincts. Make comedy gold.”
On the corner of Houston and First Avenue, knowing the streets had been closed for me and the cars were piloted by professional drivers, I sprinted across the intersection, narrowly avoiding several taxis as they braked and swerved. The ratio of yellow cabs to regular commuters was about 70/30, closely approximating the real split in New York but slightly inflated on the taxi end since it made for a good visual.
I trespassed into one of the Lower East Side’s public housing buildings. Like many of the places I’d been that day, the inside of the projects looked so authentic that it had to be artificial, a caricature of itself. Do people really leave the doors to their apartments open while their shitty televisions blare into the hall? Is Mami really cooking up some Puerto Rican food on that two-burner hot plate? What’s next, a guy in a dirty wifebeater drinking malt liquor and screaming on the fire escape? These must be establishing shots, designed to show the audience that, yes, we were actually shooting in New York, the non-Friends version. I walked out an emergency exit and set off the alarm.
Down the block from the projects was a park with a mini AstroTurf soccer field. Rec league players passed the ball around; their game was about to kick off. Perfect! I had played soccer in college. I sprinted onto the field, ushered the keeper aside, and started yelling at the players.
“Have one, ya wee pisser!” I shouted in a Scottish accent.
The forwards obliged and started shooting. No one could beat me. My movements were effortless. I could read the trajectory of the ball and anticipate its dips and arcs as soon as it left the shooter’s foot—like a Major League Baseball hitter who can spot a curveball as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. I batted eight or nine shots away before relinquishing the goal back to the team’s keeper. He looked too impressed to be pissed.
“That’s how it’s done, son.” I sauntered out of the box.
“Get the fuck off the field!”
I looked around, trying to figure out who they were yelling at.
“Get the fuck off the field!”
“Me?”
“Yes, you!”
Jealous. With your goddamn shin guards on like you’re playing in the World Cup. I pulled my shorts down past my butt and started jogging laps around the field, bare-assed. Occasionally I’d turn at midfield and sprint across the centerline. I could run for days.
“Get the fuck off the field!”
I continued to run, both on and around the soccer field, throughout the entire first half before noticing that many of the players were facsimiles of guys I’d played with in high school and college. Not only that but the girls on the sidelines looked like Bailey, Quinn, and Molly—my first middle school crushes. The assistant producers must have talked to my mom. She must have sent them pictures, and we must have one hell of a casting agency.
A helicopter hovered over the field, and I waited to see if it was going to land on the center circle. It didn’t touch down straightaway, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t coming for me. Maybe they needed to take some aerial shots first, or maybe they were waiting for me to signal when I was done, or maybe it was just a preview of what was to come later. I was giddy thinking about who was in the helicopter with The Producer—Jay Z? Jermaine Dupri? Missy Elliott? Dave Chappelle? Jimmy Fallon? He knew all of them, and he’d promised to introduce me when the time was right.
I figured I’d better keep moving—we didn’t need three hours of footage at the soccer field. I quickly spotted my next mark: a group of black guys standing in a circle on the corner and shooting the shit. A rap battle felt appropriate, so I came in and started spitting. My words spilled out of me as if I was reciting memorized verses, as familiar as the Pledge of Allegiance but faster and fiercer than Eminem. “Hot like the kettle when the pedal hit the metal, Pinocchio you know son of Geppetto, hello!”
It was straight out of a nineties music video, the whole squad dressed in Timberlands, baggy hoodies, and puffy coats; one of them even sucked on a dry blunt stick à la Method Man. “Yo, man. You gotta chill. You’re gonna get squashed.” I wasn’t sure if he meant by him or the traffic.
“Nothing can touch me. This is my day,” I said and threw my fitted Yankees cap on the ground—a demonstration of victory and a generous offering, since it would soon be a valuable souvenir. Everyone has a Bill Murray story. If that guy was smart and kept my hat, he’d have proof that he’d once battled Myles McDermott (my stage name).
“You’re crazy, dude. You should roll. Be careful.”
I sprinted back across Houston, to show the hip-hop crew that the city really was shut down for me. The drivers once again swerved to avoid me and each other while honking and yelling a realistic variety of obscenities. I considered popping into Katz’s, the iconic deli where Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal shot their famous scene in When Harry Met Sally, but it seemed too obvious.
I ran through the city for the next ten hours, following my marks. At some point it occurred to me that eight million people lived in New York; even if we had Scorsese’s budget, we couldn’t afford to shut down the entire city. There had to be some real people mingling in and out of our production. But how was I supposed to keep the thread if no one told me what to do or gave me any direction?
I didn’t have much time to think on it because the late, great “Macho Man” Randy Savage was leading a gang of bikers north on First Avenue. It’s a straight shot to Yankee Stadium, that’s why. And where was I three nights ago? Yankee Stadium. What happened when I walked in in the middle of the second inning? Jay Z, The Producer’s crown jewel connection, was on the jumbotron. And what was the song they played when he popped up on-screen? “Brooklyn We Go Hard.” So where to go? Brooklyn. And go hard.
But hold up. What if I was supposed to follow the bikers to Yankee Stadium? They didn’t really expect me to walk to the Bronx, did they? I sat on the sidewalk and paused to think it over. I saw an upscale salon—that’d be the perfect way to touch up hair and makeup without halting the shooting. The motherfucking Producer thought of everything.
I walked into the salon and asked, “How much for a touch-up?”
“What’s a touch-up?”
“You know…” I winked at her and made exaggerated air quotes. “Just the ‘usual,’ whatever that is.”
She looked confused and said, “Well, trims start at two hundred.”
Fuck that. Or maybe not—maybe The Producer was telling me that I would soon be able to afford $200 touch-ups. Or maybe he was giving a cost-prohibitive number. The character Myles McDermott couldn’t afford a $200 touch-up; he’s a public defender and a struggling comic, after all. I figured it meant I
should get the fuck out of there and back on the streets—we don’t need no damn haircut. Then the phone rang. She stayed on for way too long—Time is money, woman—and then told me, “I’m sorry, sir, but we just booked our final slot for tonight. Would you like me to make an appointment for you tomorrow?” Genius. Genius. Genius.
“Yes, indeed. Tomorrow it is, madam.”
I walked out of the salon and made an important realization: The Bowery Hotel was two blocks away. I’d been in there a few weeks prior and seen either Mary-Kate or Ashley Olsen—don’t know which one, doesn’t matter. The Producer had built in a break for me because of course I’d be tired by hour nine. I could go take a load off, get a drink, even. Plus, that’s where deals get made, and maybe I was there to make a deal.
I walked through the lobby—the only guy in soccer shorts, swag on another level. I didn’t wait to be seated; I just walked past all the suits and socialites to the back patio. A waitress came over and asked me if I needed anything. “I was thinking about having a little champagne,” I said, assuming she’d probably bring me a bottle of their finest. The execs around me spoke into their BlackBerrys in hushed tones. He’s here, what do you want me to do? Maybe they were just checking out the goods today—the endorsement negotiations would happen on a future date. I didn’t feel like talking business anyway, so I just started barking toward the microphones in the trees. “Just my mom. My mom and The Producer, if you want to come out. Those are the only people I want to see—no business right now. Art before money.” The waitress was taking too long and I was losing steam, so I bailed.
I resumed following the flow of foot traffic through the East Village, still certain that the producers watching on monitors were using the pedestrians to guide me, still trying to solve the enigma of where the producers had set up their remote control room. Where is the camera? iPhones can’t be capturing all of this. I ended up on a Brooklyn-bound L train headed to Williamsburg. I peeled off my shirt, grabbed the overhead bar, and started doing pull-ups on the train. We could use that for promos or B roll.
Gorilla and the Bird Page 1