A Carlin Home Companion (41 page)

I then took a handful of ashes and slowly released them in a circle around the tree, and asked that life honor me with the privilege to be a part of a community of artists where I could express all that wants to be expressed to the world.
Let me be of service to others through my work
.

Then slowly each person—Pat, Taylor, Dennis, Logan, Belzer, Jessica, Carey, Timbo, Bob—all took ashes and communed with the moment. After Belzer spread his, he became emotional and disappeared around the corner. Pat joined him. I stayed present at the tree until everyone had their turn. When I came around the corner, Pat and some of the others were smoking a jay and laughing with tears in their eyes—the perfect ending to a perfect day.

And yet what I had in store for Dad the next day was even better.

The next day Bob and I rented a car and headed up to Lake Spofford, New Hampshire. We were joining Pat and Dennis there to find the site of Camp Notre Dame, the place where my dad had gone to camp as a kid. Camp Notre Dame held a special place in my dad's heart. It was the first place in his life where he was recognized by his peers as an entertainer—every summer he was there he'd won their drama award. One year the award had come in the form of a necklace bearing the comedy-tragedy masks. My dad cherished that necklace and wore it often, including the day he died. I knew, that if Dad was watching from “above,” he was knocked out to see that I had figured out that this spot at Lake Spofford should be included in the “Farewell to Dad: Ashes Spreading Tour.”

The skies threatened to storm as we circled around the lake looking for some sign of the camp. We stopped some locals, and they told us that the camp was long gone. We found a public beach that had access to the shore, and made our way to the edge of the water. It was quiet. All you could hear was the meditative rhythm of the water lapping up against the shore. After the din and dance of the city the last few days, I felt myself land back in my body. There was no one to host or wrangle, and no audience of loved ones to hold. It was now just family. I took a large handful of ashes and leaned down, letting the water take them from my hand. The pulsing of the water slowly expanded the ashes into a large ghost-shaped swirl.

I finally let myself really cry.

Once we were done Bob and I followed Pat and Dennis back to the house in Woodstock. Dad had bought his brother this house on eleven acres of land right after my mom had died. It would be mine someday. I loved that land. We spent the evening in the easy space that our family always had. I was so lucky to have a family where I could fully relax and be myself, knowing we all love each other unconditionally and could make each other laugh all day long.

In the morning I knew that this land was the last place in New York I needed to put my dad's ashes. I knew that this was his final resting place. And I also knew it was time to let my mom go, too. Before Bob and I had left for this trip, I had spontaneously grabbed the last jar of Mom's ashes and put them in my suitcase. I stood in the dry creek bed that wound itself through the property, with both my mom and dad in my hands. Marlene, my aunt, came bounding out of the house calling, “I have Moe, too!” Moe was my mom and dad's last dog, a Maltese (the one who loved to hump Vern the cat). When he got elderly, Dad sent him to be loved and cared for by Marlene and Pat. I smiled as I looked up at her running toward me with the bag of ashes. It was so perfect—Mom, Dad, and Moe together in the end. All of us took handfuls of ashes and began to spread them around the meadow and small thicket of trees surrounding the house. Patrick spread a bunch around his favorite oak. In the months to come, Pat would tell me that he'd go out to the oak every morning and have a conversation with my dad.

I then went back into the dry creek bed. There was a storm coming later in the day, and I knew that this creek would fill with water and then head toward the Hudson River. I also knew that the water that leaves the Hudson River is picked up by the Gulf Stream and makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland. I knew that the ashes of my father that I was leaving in this creek would take him to our ancestral home—the west coast of Ireland.

As we were finishing up, Dennis said, “I know you want to be done here, but can I have this last little bit to take back into the city? Being a musician, and knowing how much your dad was influenced by the jazz players of his youth, can I take them to the original Birdland tonight and leave some there?”

“Yes, of course. I think that is wonderful.”

And so that night Bob and Dennis and I headed out to our last stop on the “Farewell to Dad: Ashes Spreading Tour” from our friend's apartment near Columbus Circle. The three of us figured out where the original Birdland had been and made our way down to Fifty-Second Street. We found the address, 1678 Broadway. It was a strip club. I laughed. Being exhausted, and having no desire to pay twenty bucks each to go in, Bob and I decided to let Dennis have his night with my dad and Birdland, and the strippers. As Dennis disappeared down into the bowels of the club, I leaned over to the bouncer, a big Irish-looking guy, and said, “If you would, keep an eye on my cousin who just went in. We're on a bit of a mission, you see. My dad was George Carlin, and this was Birdland, a place that he haunted the backstage door of in the forties and fifties so he could get autographs of all the greats.”

The bouncer looked at me with shock in his eyes. “Your dad was George Carlin?”

“Yeah.”

“I used to drive a cab, and I had the great privilege to drive him twice. Once seemed enough for a lifetime, but I got to drive him twice. And he was always cheerful, and talkative, and curious what was going on around him. We had two great conversations. Wow. Wow! I'll keep an eye on your cousin.”

“Thank you. He's emotional, and I worry about him sometimes.”

Bob and I went to sleep around midnight. When Bob got up at 4:00
A
.
M
. to pee, he saw that Dennis wasn't sleeping on the couch. He woke me, “Kel, Dennis isn't back yet.” I sprang out of bed. “Shit.”

I checked my phone. No calls. I had texted him the address, but I also knew that he'd been drinking that night, and now I was really worried. I texted him again, but there was no answer. Bob got dressed and made his way to the club, stopping at a few bars along the way just to make sure he wasn't in those. When he reached “Birdland,” Dennis was coming up the stairs, buzzed but happy. He'd spread Dad's ashes everywhere and managed to get the phone number of one of the dancers. Bob immediately texted me that all was well; they were on their way back.

Now we were done. Absolute. Final. Done.

*   *   *

When we got to JFK the next day, we were told that our plane had been struck by lightning when it landed, and that the good people at Virgin America were trying to get us on a Jet Blue flight—tomorrow. After frantically calling some friends to find a place to crash for the night, I was able to settle into my seat on the train back to the city and contemplate this turn of events. I was befuddled. I couldn't believe we were going back to the city. Our time there had felt so complete. I felt like our mission was done. Why weren't we finished? Why were we still in New York? What was missing? This is when Dennis pulled a Baggie out of his pocket and said, “Oh, by the way, I didn't spread all of the ashes last night. Here's the rest.”

The rest!?! There are ashes left?!?
We weren't done with this tour, after all.

The minute we walked into the hotel room in the Trump Tower on Columbus Circle (my friends had come through, big-time), the sky cracked open with the most violent and spectacular thunderstorm I had ever witnessed. Bob, Dennis, and I sat and watched Central Park light up, and listened to the echoes of the thunder god Thor reverberate off every building around us.

I laughed inside and thought, “Okay, Dad. I get it. I can hear you. We'll get it done.” But even so, I was not sure where.

I woke up just after dawn. Bob and Dennis were still sleeping. I looked out the window and noticed the rain had lightened up. And then it hit me—Central Park! How could I have forgotten? It was the very place that marked most of my childhood memories of this city with my dad—the zoo, the elephant rides, the horse-drawn carriages, the Plaza Hotel, Carnegie Hall, Rumpelmayer's, climbing the outcroppings of schist in the park.

I walked into the park and wandered around. I saw an outcropping of schist rock, took the ashes out, and had my private good-bye with my dad—just him and me, alone in a space of love and sadness. Dad was home.

He was done. I was done. We were done.

*   *   *

Well, almost.

I lied.

I saved a small amount of ashes so that Sally and I could take Dad down to the Pacific Ocean under the Venice Pier, and let him go forever.

It seemed more than fitting. Although Dad's life began in New York, the majority of it unfolded here in Los Angeles. It was where Dad found fame, Mom lost herself, and the Three Musketeers were born. It was where Dad discovered his true north, Mom got a second and a third chance at life, and I got to be one of the luckiest kids in the world. It was where a family—my family—got a front-row seat to the freak show, and survived it by loving each other no matter what.

Like a trail of bread crumbs, there are only traces of my family left in this city. Wispy memories as I drive through Brentwood, Venice, the Palisades, and Beverly Hills, slowly being eaten up by progress and the present. I smile softly as they pass by, and I see in it all that our love endured through this City of Angels.

And there may be hundreds of images and thousands of words created by my dad floating for eternity in the ethers of cyberspace, but there was only one of him, my dad. And he is gone, except for the etchings he left on my heart.

 

Epilogue

S
INCE MY DAD DIED,
strangely, he has become more of a presence in my life than he had ever been when he was alive. From that first day I was on
Larry King
, I was catapulted into a world where I was now the face and voice of my dad's legacy. And his heart, too.

What immediately became clear was that there were tens of thousands of people who mourned his death as deeply as I did. I had lost my dad, but they had lost their uncle George. He had extraordinary talent, but he was everyman on that stage. He was the man who was capable of allowing every person who saw or heard him to feel less alone, or not so crazy in their family growing up. He had awakened people to new ways of seeing, much like a Zen master does for his acolytes. He was a god you could sit down and smoke a joint with.

My dad talked often about how his family was small, but that his extended family was thousands strong. He knew he could go to any city or town in America and there would be someone there whom he'd be able to connect with because of his work. But until he died, I had never felt a part of
that
family.

All of that has changed. Since his death, whenever I meet his fans,
my
new family, I know what my role is now: to be a receptacle for the love people have for my dad. I no longer need to live in my father's shadow, or try to catch up with him, or latch on to the buzz of his fame. All I need to do is listen and receive. One day I was talking to a fan and it hit me: Just by being present, and graciously accepting what was being said, I could be a physical link between this world and the magical other—in this case, George Carlin.

I guess Dad was right—I am the family shaman after all.

The fans, and the dozens of comedians I have met during this time, have given me so much. They are no doubt my family. The amount of love and support
I
have received has been immeasurable. And, after losing the last wing of the Three Musketeers, essential. I am strong. I have survived much. But without my new family's love and light, I'm not sure how well I would have fared. Without them my world would not only be lonelier, but more boring, too.

My father gave me so much—a sense of humor and justice, a passion for language, financial support, a love of peanut-butter foldovers and the music of The Band—but the two biggest things he gave me were curiosity and trust in oneself. I use both daily to help me find my way to a larger and deeper sense of myself. Balancing being “George's daughter” with being me, a separate person, has always been my path to walk, but even more so now. And it has been a dance, for sure. But I move forward. I am filled with curiosity about what life presents me, and I have been emboldened by a deep trust that all that I have seen, lived through, overcome, and received from my life with my father has prepared me for whatever comes next.

Knowing what I know now, my seat belt is buckled, and I'm ready for anything.

 

Postscript

S
IX YEARS LATER,
my dad is still in my phone book. Sorry, Dad. Just can't do it yet.

This
Air Marshal Carlin says, “Go fuck yourself!”

 

Acknowledgments

B
ECAUSE THIS IS MY FIRST
book, I feel like I could thank everyone I've ever come across—friend, enemy, ally, and bystander. I trust in some way, our interaction has led me to this unique moment in my life. But due to the constraints of the space-time continuum, I will keep the list to those who were instrumental in the writing of this book.

I am forever grateful for my editor, Hannah Braaten. There would be no book without her. She has been my champion, taskmaster, cheerleader, and teacher. In the future, I will never write another sentence that is not shaped in some way by her guidance.

Eddie Pietzak, my literary agent—thank you for e-mailing me out of the blue and asking me if I had an agent or a book deal. Your chutzpah changed my life

Jerry Hamza, my friend, father-figure, manager, business partner—thank you for taking care of my parents for over thirty years, and now teaching me how to take care of myself.