Crash and Burn

by Lange, Artie

  I met Stacey in the lobby and she took one look at me and just shook her head because she knew what was up.

  My performance totally sucked, by the way. I was sluggish, out of it, and slurring—just bad. The audience could see that I was wasted, and so could I, but it seemed to me like they were cutting me slack since they knew this gig was a benefit. They were forgiving . . . well, all except for that one guy.

  He weighed about four hundred pounds and he was sitting right up in front wearing a Detroit Tigers jersey that looked like he’d bought it new in 1979. He had a Windbreaker on over that, as if he’d just jogged a few miles to the show, along with some shorts, even though it was winter in Detroit, which isn’t what one might call balmy. The guy had long hair and the kind of face that would look pissed off even when he was happy. I’d bet ten grand he had the same look on his face when Kirk Gibson hit that second home run in game five of the ’84 World Series. Despite being born looking angry, I’m still pretty sure that the guy fucking hated me because from the start of my set he stared me down like a gang member gearing up for a knife fight. He didn’t laugh at anything I said and he didn’t frown at anything either; he didn’t react to anything I did in any way at all. He just sat there, huge, looking like he wanted to fight the world, starting with me—and it drove me crazy.

  Ask any comedian, it only takes one person like that in a crowd to throw them off for the night, and they don’t even have to look like John Wayne Gacy in his clown suit. When you have one of those unwavering lumps in your sight line, they become all you focus on and nothing else matters but them. If you can’t get them to laugh, you’re a failure, and trust me, memories of them stay with you forever. Anyway, as shitty as my performance was that night, I had people laughing, but that meant nothing because I couldn’t get to this guy in any way. I tried everything: jokes that always killed, stupid sight gags, making fun of myself more than I usually did, but it was useless. After a while I gave up trying to get a laugh and just started staring at him because he was a fucking freak show. I figured I’d try to return the favor by freaking him out the way he was freaking me out. Still, nothing.

  About halfway through my set I repeated a joke I’d done ten minutes earlier—like I said, it was not my best night. And there it was, when I least expected it—I got a reaction from the guy. I was looking right at him at the time, so I know this for sure. As I started in on the joke, he began to scowl, and a look of pure disgust came over his face. This didn’t tip me off because in my mind I’d won, so I kept going. Once I was too far into the joke to stop it or change direction, the guy crossed his arms and shouted, real loud, in this deadpan voice, “DID IT!” That’s all: “DID IT!” He barked it out the way someone heckling a baseball player up at bat would yell it: “DID IT!”

  I gotta hand it to him, that was funny—funnier than I was at that point. I stopped dead in my tracks, started laughing, and almost thanked him, because honestly he made my night. I thought he wasn’t paying any attention at all, but apparently he’d been logging in my every word, keeping a box score of my stand-up routine. The guy had the focus that Jerry Sandusky would at a small-town Little League game. Now that I think of it the guy was wearing the same kind of shorts I could see those guys wearing. You know the kind I’m talking about? Those baggy beige cargo shorts worn by every deviant? I think they just pass the same pair around. The phone calls come in at the end of the week: “Hey, Gacy, can I get the shorts this weekend? I’ve got something lined up.”

  “Sorry, Sandusky, can’t do it.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me—really?”

  “Relax, I don’t even have them. Dahmer said he’d FedEx them from Milwaukee, but they’re not here yet. You know what he’s like; he never washes them. I’ll have them to you by Tuesday, okay?”

  That guy being the highlight of the evening, it’s easy to see how this gig was pretty much a disaster, so I got out of there as fast as I could, went back to my room, and passed out. I hadn’t scored pills, so I knew the morning would be terrible. I woke up at seven a.m. feeling like my skin was covered in fire ants. I was sweating, I started scratching uncontrollably, and I would have done anything to just get out of my body. The booze had worn off hours ago and there was no masking my screaming need for opiates. I half crawled my way to the minibar and started drinking the other half of it, trying to numb the pain. I never thought the day would come when I’d be excited to see mini bottles of Drambuie and Kahlúa. I don’t remember much of the flight, but I kept myself pretty boozed up, desperate to keep the nausea at bay.

  When we landed in Newark, I wasn’t home free, because Stacey and I were meeting my mother, my uncles, and Adrienne at a birthday dinner for me. I insisted we stop by my apartment first because I had a stash of heroin there, but at that point I was too far gone into the withdrawals to straighten up and fly right. Withdrawals aren’t some puddle you can clean up with the right-sized paper towel. What happens when you slip into them is that the further along you go, meaning the longer you go without opiates, the more incapacitated you get, so by the time I flew home, got to my apartment, and snorted four fat lines of heroin, it was too late. They helped but they weren’t getting me anywhere close to normal; all I could hope for was arriving just outside of “functional,” which hopefully was good enough to get me through dinner. Believe me, food was the last thing on my mind, because another thing that happens with withdrawals is that the physical need doesn’t go away quietly, so even once you get the drugs in you, the sick feeling takes its time. I wasn’t going to feel well, let alone high, that night unless I stayed home doing bag after bag of dope until I was out of my mind.

  I was on the verge of breaking down through the entire meal. I was so uncomfortable I could have screamed and so miserable I wanted to cry. I wasn’t kidding anyone, because I could barely keep up a conversation or enjoy any of the food. I sat there looking nervous and sick, just holding on for dear life until the meal was over. Afterward I went home and did some more dope, but it was too late: by the next morning I was so sick with withdrawals that I had to miss work. I woke up shivering and so nauseous that I couldn’t move. I felt desperate, pinned to my sheets, soaked in sweat, and paralyzed as if I’d been nailed into an invisible coffin. Nothing could take away my chills or stop the sweats, and there was no way I’d be able to fake it through five hours on the air. I had no choice but to call in sick. Adrienne had stayed at my place that night, but as she usually did when I started snoring real bad, she went to sleep on the couch. When she woke up around seven and realized I was still in bed, she came running in telling me I was late—and saw what kind of shape I was in.

  A few hours later my agent called and told me that the folks at Stern were being lenient, but they knew I’d been out of town doing stand-up and if I were going to book weekend gigs, I couldn’t miss work. It wasn’t cool and I knew it, but I had painted myself into a corner that weekend.

  “Listen,” I said to him. “I promise I’ll stop traveling for live gigs next month after I do the last few I’m committed to.” I’d been saying this for over a year.

  I don’t know why I kept doing it, I really don’t. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I know the greed had a lot to do with it—the greed for the money, the greed for the attention. And so did the drugs, but the upsides weren’t greater than the hell I faced every Monday morning trying to resurrect myself to get to Stern on time. Those mornings were literally a living hell for me because of my withdrawals and exhaustion. When we were still living together, Adrienne would sleep on the couch when I went to work because she didn’t want me waking her up at four thirty, and on those Sunday nights she knew I’d be even worse than usual by the time I got home from the road. She didn’t know how to help me by this point, so she was just going crazy.

  One of the last gigs I had on my list was playing the Beacon Theater in November, sold out, as part of the New York Comedy Festival. Once again, this was a big fucking achievement for me—one of the biggest.
I remember Adrienne taking a picture of the marquee: ARTIE LANGE, SOLD OUT. I wanted that show to be special, so I hired two guys to play acoustic guitar as I sang the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider” as a tribute to the many years that band has done weeklong stands at the Beacon. My act was whatever at best—I know this because I was completely lit and don’t remember it—so the only consolation I have when I think of this milestone is the fact that I got to sing that song on that stage no matter how good or bad my version was. My uncles were there and I had great openers—Nick DiPaolo, Joe Matarese, and Pete Dominick—so even if I sucked, I know the show was quality thanks to them. Like so many other things I wish I could go back and cherish, I couldn’t even enjoy the after-party; I went home right afterward and passed out.

  That year, somehow I actually made it to Thanksgiving at my mother’s house for the first time in three years. It wasn’t saying much, because this had been my second time in about six. Considering how close we live to each other, my stats were pathetic. There I sat, smiling, proud, claiming I was better, fitter, and happier than ever. I said I was booking no more stand-up gigs and would stay off the road for six months because I had to get my life in order. My mom and sister had heard this rap from me so many times that they didn’t even react. They had gotten so fed up with it that they said nothing because they didn’t know what to do. My sister was starting to worry about my mother’s health because all of my antics were taking such a toll on her. My sister had started to talk to my mother about the fact that she was being dragged down with me and that maybe I wasn’t capable of being saved. She didn’t like facing that reality, but from her point of view it looked like she might lose both of us. Stacey was preparing herself for the worst and thinking that she could probably save our mom. My mother is made from different stuff: she is a true giver, a true nurturer, and she would attach herself to a sinking ship and go down with it to save one of her kids. When counselors told her to turn her back on me because that’s what would help me the most, it made no sense to her, and she didn’t do it. But she didn’t know what to say either. So that’s where our family was, emotionally, that holiday. To say that it was an awkward family meal is like saying that Vietnam was just a military exercise.

  Adrienne wasn’t with me that day; she was at her parents’ house, and I really missed her. I was starting to fall deeper in love with her, experiencing feelings I’d never had with anyone in my entire life. I’d had a seven-year relationship with Dana, but the way I felt for Adrienne was in a different league altogether. I can’t explain it, but that love began to take over everything else in my life. It was a new relationship and when we met she knew nothing about me, which was something that I really liked about her. She didn’t know me from the Stern Show; she didn’t know me at all. I was just Artie, and that was nice. She also didn’t know anything about my problems with drugs, aside from what I told her. I warned her, but those words didn’t do the reality justice. And when you fall in love, warnings like that are usually dismissed anyway, which I think is how Adrienne entered into things as we got more serious. She had no idea about me or my world and we came from very different backgrounds, and even though I told her that she was walking into a hurricane she went in anyway. I told her that if she ever wanted to drop out, I’d understand. I kept her in the dark about how tragic my life had been in the past when it came to the drugs. I think she saw me as a guy in showbiz who traveled a lot, but we had a lot of fun and it seemed like I had my issues under control. And for a while I did, but that didn’t last, and when it all came apart, she saw the reality. She didn’t know my drug patterns, so it was easy to keep it from her for quite some time. But Adrienne figured it out once we started living together, which began in the fall. There was nowhere to hide in a two-bedroom apartment. She forgave a lot, she excused a lot, until she couldn’t anymore.

  Somehow I stumbled into December, looking down the barrel of my last few gigs. Little did I know they’d be my last gigs for a very long time. I played the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, New Jersey, on December 5, and don’t remember one single detail about it. I really need to start a blackout library of all the gigs and appearances I don’t remember. By my estimate it would be longer than the Twilight series. After the gig I went to dinner with my family at this Italian place in Newark because Montclair is next to Bloomfield and Newark, where I grew up. And that was that: I got the check that night, gave it to my mom to deposit, and told everyone at the table, “That’s it, guys, I’m done with stand-up.”

  I planned to quit the road for at least a year to focus on Stern, on writing the sequel to Too Fat to Fish, and on getting off drugs for good. Stand-up money wasn’t worth it if I was dead, and since I’d come to blame stand-up (and convinced my family of this too) for my drug abuse, this seemed like a huge step forward. The truth was that I was an addict and I’d be doing drugs regardless, but I didn’t need to admit that out loud, did I?

  The holidays were nearly upon me again, which has proven to be a critical time for me when it comes to drug abuse. I can’t help getting caught up in the spirit of the season; I just have a different way of celebrating is all. This year, in honor of my vow to quit the road, I seemed intent to bring the road to me by upping my intake a notch. I was no longer into heroin because I’d become deeply paranoid and thought that it was safer to stick to pills. I worried that the heroin dealers might be talking to the cops and that I’d be the victim of a setup of some kind. I thought that the cops were staking me out and started hearing footsteps in the hallway and voices outside my door. After my DUI I thought I was being framed. Basically I started to act like Ray Liotta in the last half of Goodfellas, thinking every helicopter and every black car I saw was following me.

  I was an addict—a bad one—and in December of 2009, despite my paranoia, I pushed my limits further than I ever had before, which if you’ve read this far you know is saying a lot. I combined everything I could get my hands on: all kinds of prescription pills, booze, even over-the-counter sleep medicine. Some nights I had terrors from these combinations that were beyond anything I’d even thought possible. I had been using drugs for so long that I felt like I could handle anything at anytime, plus I had a high tolerance, so I had to take a lot of whatever I was taking just to feel it. It was a recipe for disaster. I wasn’t bigger and badder than the drugs, just fatter and more arrogant.

  Adrienne didn’t know what to do. She had moved in full-time because she was worried. And she had reason to be: I blacked out a bunch of times that month and I’d wake up in the bathroom or in the middle of the living room floor and she’d tell me that I’d been doing the craziest shit. One time I told her I was going to take the trash out and instead of taking it down the hall I put it in my bathtub, where she found it when she went to take a shower the next morning. That kind of shit became ordinary. I became so freaked out from mixing and matching all these drugs that I started really scaring the hell out of her. She hadn’t asked Santa Claus for a paranoid addict for Christmas that year. She didn’t like being around me, but she was afraid not to be around me. She cared for me and was convinced I’d die if she wasn’t there to make sure I didn’t overdose.

  She tried to curb my abuse by hiding whatever pills or powders she found in the apartment or in my jacket, but I always had more stashed because there was no stopping me. I had regular appointments with various dealers, so I’d leave every morning about seven a.m. then again at seven p.m. for a few days in a row until I was good and stocked up. I’d make some dumb excuse about where I was going that I shouldn’t have bothered with because Adrienne knew exactly what I was up to. One night when I guess she’d had enough she insisted on searching my pockets when I came back. When she found my drugs it didn’t go over so well and we got into a huge fight that ended in a wrestling match over the drugs. It’s embarrassing, but it’s true, because at that point nothing mattered more to me than what was in that bag. I ended up getting the bag from her in the end.

  “Look,” she said, watchin
g me gripping my stash the same way Earl Campbell gripped a football whenever he dove for a first down, “I can’t do this by myself anymore. If I find drugs on you again I’m calling your mother or Helicopter Mike or somebody else and they’re going to come over and you’re going to have to go away.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “I know. But I can’t fucking do that now. I’ll do it in the new year.”

  As I always had, I reacted by procrastinating and getting angry. I’d say I knew what had to be done but people had to let me do it my way and if they didn’t want to they could fuck off. The truth was that “I’ll do it in the new year” had been my excuse for years, and everyone who knew me was getting pretty fucking tired of hearing it.

  CHAPTER 7

  THIS IS THE END

  I can say without any hesitation that December 9, 2009, was and will always be one of the saddest days of my life. I spent the early morning of that day drinking whiskey and snorting twenty painkillers over the course of seven hours before going into work at the Stern Show—and making it there on time. It was yet another instance where the lights were on but no one was home because I was in a full blackout on the air. I’d started making my driver stop at this deli down the street from the studio where I’d buy a few bottles of Smirnoff Ice that I’d put into plastic cups and pass off for soda that I’d drink all through the show. So I’d basically resigned myself to being drunk at work, live on the air, which I’d top off by taking whatever pills I had on me every time I went to the bathroom.

  That’s how I was operating that morning and I was pretty far gone when I got there. But I kept at it, getting progressively sloppier over the first few hours of the show. I spilled drinks and ate an eight-thousand-calorie breakfast burrito and a few cupcakes. I yelled, I interrupted everybody, I acted crazier and with less sense than ever. Benjy Bronk, my friend and Stern Show writer, sat next to me the whole time trying his best to contain the collateral damage. He kept saying, “Art, are you okay, man? You’ve got to calm down and just get through this day. Get through it, get home, and get some sleep.”