Tasteful Nudes: ...and Other Misguided Attempts at Personal Growth and Validation (28 page)

“So, did you always want to live on the East Coast?” I asked. “Or did it just work out that way?”

I thought I had hit it out of the park with that line, but instead of convulsing with laughter the inmates just groaned in unison while slumping in their chairs.

“I guess even violent felons have feelings,” I thought. “All right, noted.”

Despite that momentary bump in the road, I was having a really nice time in prison and decided to hand over the mic to Carl and Laura. Carl did a short set about his fictional workout regimen and the inmates ate it up, particularly after he decided to remove his shirt and blind them with his pasty flab.

Then it was Laura’s turn.

Being an entertainer and all, Laura decided to wear a lovely red dress to prison to enhance her already striking beauty, something the inmates seemed to appreciate a little more than she had anticipated. Her set was going well, but at some point she started to feel like one of those characters in a Bugs Bunny cartoon who turns into a giant lamb chop or turkey leg in front of some other character who hasn’t eaten in a really long time. Only she felt that way times three hundred.

“Thank you and good night!” Laura said, ending her set early as Big House vibes won out.

As Laura took shelter backstage where the inmates could no longer drool over her, a gargantuan corrections officer who had been assigned to prevent anyone from doing anything really prisony to us during our visit walked over to her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Laura shrugged. “I guess I just got a little scared out there.”

“You know why you got scared, don’t you?” the officer asked.

“No. Why?” Laura asked hopefully, thinking the officer might perhaps offer her a little insight into the human psyche.

“See those guys out there?” the officer said, gesturing to my new buddies. “Those guys are all murderers and rapists.”

Laura didn’t appreciate his answer too much, but—having the emotional maturity of a fifteen-year-old and all—I sure got a kick out of it. Things were getting better by the second in prison as far as I was concerned. So, with Laura on close watch, I took the stage to wrap things up.

“Thanks for coming, guys,” I said. “And I just want you to know I think Sing Sing is the best prison ever!”

“You’re a fucking moron!” one of the inmates yelled in response.

“Is that you, Dad?” I shot back and immediately said good night. Go out on a high note, I figured.

To my sheer and unbridled delight, the inmates gave me a standing ovation before the officers began urging them back to their cells. And as we passed the cell blocks on our way back to the outside world, the sweet adulation continued.

“Dave! Dave! Dave!” they chanted in unison.

I’ll be the first to admit I sometimes seek approval in the wrong places, but it was still awesome. I felt like the lord of the fucking underworld.

Before we passed through the final set of prison doors, the warden handed me a copy of the poster used to advertise my show. It looked pretty much like a typical comedy show poster with the exception of one bold block of text in the corner that read “Must have one year clean disciplinary to attend.”

“Next time let’s make it one month clean disciplinary!” I told him. “I wanna pack the place!”

He just looked at me after that, so I decided to focus back on all that clapping and cheering in the distance as we headed back to our car. I couldn’t get enough of it, so I made sure to keep a leisurely pace.

“Would you come on?” Laura groaned at me. “I wanna get out of here.”

“Look, just because you’re not having a good time in prison doesn’t mean I have to be miserable, too!” I scolded her before basking in the adoration of my Big House buddies some more. I felt like Tim Robbins in
The Shawshank Redemption
only I couldn’t wait to come back.

“See you next year, Dave!” one of the inmates called out to me from his cell window, waving between the bars.

“Yup, see you next year,” I thought, waving back. “I guess I’ll just go do whatever the fuck I want now.”

It was hard not to consider how wildly the inmates’ lives and mine were about to diverge after all the good times we had just had together.

As we drove back to New York City, I was beaming. I had not only come out of that prison alive and unviolated but had actually managed to put on a show that everyone in attendance (other than Laura) seemed to really enjoy. But what was even more striking to me were the aftereffects of my visit to Sing Sing in the weeks that followed. My day-to-day anxiety seemed to be cut in half and I felt almost calm in situations that might have otherwise sent me into a panic. I didn’t suddenly fancy myself some sort of tough guy or doer of good deeds or anything like that. It was more like the anticipation of performing in front of a few hundred violent felons had built up so much pressure inside me that I busted some sort of emotional gasket by actually going through with it. And with that pressure gone, I could suddenly breathe easy, walk with a more confident stride, and not freak out about everyday life so much. All of a sudden someone’s overly loud headphones on the subway weren’t quite so grating and those televisions some asshole chose to install in the back of every New York City cab weren’t as annoying. I even found I could accept McDonald’s completely unpredictable and seemingly arbitrary removal of the McRib from their menu as just a part of life.

I was almost embarrassed to bring up this newfound state of well-being to my therapist when I saw him the week after the show.

“They say prison changes you, but could four or five hours behind bars really count?” I wondered.

“You took a trip to the underworld,” he said after squinting at me for a couple of minutes. “And it sounds like you had a really nice time.”

It seemed so simple, but I had to agree with the guy. I
did
have a really nice time. And if I can have a really nice time in a room full of murderers, rapists, and other negative types, well, I reasoned, I can probably have a really nice time just about anywhere. In fact, part of me keeps wondering if spending even more time in prison, like maybe a few weeks or months, might have an even more positive effect on me.

Here’s to never, ever finding out for sure.

Bunny
1

I always thought I had a fairly reasonable understanding and acceptance of death. A person gets old and sick, hit by a bus, or accidentally tossed over the side of a boat while tied up inside of a large burlap sack late, late at night and next thing everyone knows he’s dead. Even as a little kid, I somehow got that dying was just another part of life, a sort of victory lap at the end of a (hopefully) nice long stretch of time on earth. When a relative would die, I’d have to put on my little navy blazer and clip-on tie, my family and I would swing by the wake, hit the funeral, and then afterward I’d get to hang out with all my relatives and eat fancy little sandwiches, cakes, and other good stuff my parents didn’t normally keep around the house.

“Your great-grandmother died,” my dad would tell me.

“Oh, cool, a party!” I’d reply. Come to think of it, I might have been a little too accepting of death back then.

When my mother died last year, however, it was a whole other thing. It was as if no one had ever died before in the history of time and the very concept of death had never even existed. Learning that my mother had died sounded about as ridiculous to me as if someone said, “Hey, Dave, did you know your mom used to play for the Knicks? It’s true.”

This is me and my mom. For some reason, I can’t remember where or when this picture was taken, but as best I can tell, we were having a really nice time.

“Huh?” I’d respond.

The idea of my mother being dead just didn’t make any sense to me even though I saw her a few times after she died and she was about as dead as they come. I touched her, I held her hand, I kissed her. No two ways about it—dead, dead, dead. Still, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea, so I decided it was easier to just tell myself she had moved without telling anyone. My mom had lived her entire life in Cleveland, so it seemed well within her rights to just throw a dart at a map and make a new home for herself wherever it landed, be it Paris, Paramus, or wherever.

As crazy as it sounded, the idea of my mother having moved instead of being dead was much easier to swallow. Of course I knew it wasn’t true, but in the deep, dark trenches of my mind, I’d sometimes catch myself wondering how I might steal a few days and track my mother down wherever she had run off to.

“Mom, I’ve been looking all over for you,” I’d say once I found her. “Why Akron?”

The idea that my mom had simply relocated stuck with me for months. Then one day I confronted reality. My mother was a nice lady, in fact, a great lady. She wasn’t the type of person who would just move without telling anyone, leaving all her stuff behind, sticking my dad with all the house chores and making it pretty much impossible for me to borrow money from her anymore. She would have at least left some cash behind for me. It just wasn’t like her at all. So, after mulling it over awhile, I finally decided to give in to the popular opinion that my mother had actually gone ahead and died. The stark truth was something I still couldn’t quite comprehend, but compared to the idea that she’d just skipped town, it required much less detective work on my part. Accepting her death also made my family more comfortable letting me borrow my dad’s car, handle sharp objects, and bathe without supervision.

My mother was a very spiritual and religious person, about as Irish Catholic as they come. I know she believed in an afterlife and, in fact, was pretty much counting on it, not necessarily as some sort of great reward or anything, but so she could at least have somewhere to go after she got done with earth. So, despite the various opinions on the subject, I very much hoped that she was at least enjoying a nice afterlife somewhere out there.

Of course, once I let the concepts of death and the afterlife settle in a bit more, I jumped to the next logical conclusion—that my mother could see me at any given moment. And once I began operating under that notion, I started to realize how much completely disturbing and upsetting stuff I do almost every second of the day—unthinkable, unspeakable things, many of which I should have probably closed the blinds for. At that point I decided I had to lay down some ground rules with the lady.

“Rule number one, Mom,” I sighed under my breath, “stay out of the bathroom, even when I’m not in it.”

To be honest, even I would rather not be around for most of the stuff I get up to in my bathroom, but I’ve got no choice. I was mortified to think that my mother would have to witness any of it—everything from typical, disgusting guy behavior to the application of more skincare products than any straight man should even be allowed to keep in his home. When it gets right down to it, my bathroom is just a house of shame.

Making matters worse is the fact that I live in a studio apartment.
2
My bed takes up about half the place and naturally that had to be off-limits to my mother’s beyond-the-grave eyes, too. I’m not suggesting that I am in a constant state of flagrante delicto or other things requiring me to take my pants off.
3
It’s just that I—like a lot of people, I’m assuming—have this habit of pulling my boxers down to my ankles in my sleep and then just letting all my various parts, both private and otherwise, hang right out there for anyone in the afterlife to see. Call me a prude or overly protective if you want, but I just don’t think my mother should have to look at that sort of thing.

The rest of my apartment is mostly taken up by my desk, which is where my computer sits. And my computer, of course, is what I use to access the Internet. So, needless to say, I had to tell my mother the desk was off limits, too. I just didn’t think she would understand the kind of important research I sometimes have to do.
4

“Mom, I’m taking an online anatomy course,” I’d have to tell her. She was a smart lady—I just don’t think she’d buy it.

With my bathroom, bed, and desk all off-limits, that leaves my mom with just the entryway and kitchen. And, sure, me sitting on the floor tying my shoes or standing at the stove making spaghetti are both really great in their own way, what with all the grunting sounds and the way I check to see if the spaghetti is ready by throwing an entire handful at the ceiling. But I tend to think my mother deserves better.

Aside from my concerns about what exactly my mother can or can’t see from the hereafter, though, I would really just love to be together with her one last time. It’s not like we’d even have to do anything particularly fun or interesting, either. We could just sit in the den together and watch TV. We wouldn’t even have to watch my shows or agree on something we both might like. We could watch all of her programs, even the sucky ones. I’d even let her have the remote. Right now, sitting quietly in a room with my mother watching
Antiques Roadshow
or whatever else might be on PBS seems like just about the greatest thing that could ever happen. Or maybe we could watch
Goodfellas
again—a movie that becomes twice as entertaining when you watch it with my mother as she claims to be repulsed by it while secretly delighting in every bloody, profanity-laced scene.