Chapter 13
McGuinn’s is more packed than I’ve ever seen. There’s a long table of women in the back and a loud table of men in the front. Two servers are working. Most shocking of all, it doesn’t smell like urine.
Tony and I are sitting in the opposite corner of the room as Sal. I have been about to introduce myself to him for twenty minutes.
“Walk over and say, ‘Good evening. I’m Sean O’Brien.’?”
“You want me to say, ‘Good evening’?”
“It’s the appropriate greeting after six p.m.”
“Why don’t you introduce us? You’re the manager.”
“That’s a good point.” He keeps nodding. “I’m too scared, though.”
“Ugh.”
I zigzag between the tables, my giant shirt and tie flowing around me. Sal is grandparent-age with a fake tan and long white hair brushed back over the top of his balding head. Half his face droops a little and the other half is a non-smile.
I raise a hand as I approach. “Good—”
Bobby Bingo, without noticing me at all, drops into the seat across from Sal and says, “I will not put Sean O’Brien on that stage.”
I turn around.
And walk into Mrs.?Farmer.
“Sean O’Brien!”
Her purple-brown hair is meticulously shaped the same as at school but she’s wearing a bright green dress that shows a significant amount of cleavage. She has freckles on her breasts. I’ve never thought about freckles on breasts before.
“Oh my gosh,” she says. “Are you performing?”
Sal turns around in the booth. A crucifix hangs out of his white button-down.
I wave. “Good morning!”
I break into a sweat.
Mrs.?Farmer turns to Sal. “I am Sean’s biggest fan.”
Bobby Bingo laughs. “Why?”
This shirt has no breathability. It’s like it’s made of old carpets.
“He does the morning announcements at our school,” Mrs.?Farmer says. “He is hysterical.”
Sal looks at me. “How old are you?”
I’m so overheated I can’t think straight. “Old enough to die for this country.”
“Eighteen?”
“Seventeen,” I say. “Anyone old enough to go to school in America is old enough to get shot.”
Mrs.?Farmer gasps. “Sean.”
Sal’s face is made of stone. “Why would you say that?”
I rub at my forehead. My skin is so itchy it burns. Maybe I really don’t know how to wash my face.
“Because it’s true,” I say, and it quiets my brain.
“And the crowd goes wild,” Bobby Bingo deadpans.
“That was disturbing.” Sal holds his hand to his chest and coughs. “Don’t say that onstage.”
I talk without thinking. “You like comics to be edgy but only a certain kind of edgy?”
Sal doesn’t blink. “I like comics to be funny.”
Christy waves from the front door. Her lips are very red. I attempt to give a smile but she looks unnerved, so I must have done it wrong.
The overhead lights flash.
Bobby Bingo laughs and shakes his head. “You ready, O’Brien?”
“Don’t make him go first, Bob,” Sal groans. “Give the kid a chance.”
“This is his chance.”
The lights go down and Mrs.?Farmer pumps her fist at me.
She wants me to be cute and silly. Tony adjusts his mini-tripod on the table and gives a thumbs-up.
He wants me to be everyone’s funny little brother.
Christy takes a seat at the bar and makes a heart with her hands.
I don’t know who she wants me to be. A silly nice guy who can converse seriously and have gentle almost-intercourse?
I check my phone. Nothing from Andi. They would’ve had time by now to glance at it, and if they’d had anything positive to say they would’ve said it. I stick my phone in my back pocket so I’ll stop looking at it.
Bobby Bingo stomps onto the stage and the crowd applauds.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to McGuinn’s, eastern Long Island’s best and only comedy club.”
He talks about the length of his hose and spices things up with some lines about the strength of his ladder. I open a message to Mom but I don’t know what to say.
Behind the bar, a sad-looking person locks eyes with me. It takes a second to realize it’s me in the mirror.
Bobby adjusts the mic. “Our first comic’s previous credits include singing at his grandma’s birthday party and getting an A in penmanship.”
I look like a used car salesman. I look like Tony’s dad. I look like anyone but myself.
“Please welcome to the stage the kid scientists are studying because he never hit puberty, Sean O’Brien.”
Adrenaline shoots through me as I walk into the bright lights. I take the mic with one hand and with my other I point a finger to the sky. “I hit puberty several years ago, Bobby! It just didn’t have any effect.”
The room laughs.
But it doesn’t feel good.
“I hit puberty and my extremely polite body said, ‘Testosterone? No, thank you.’?”
The room laughs again, but it makes me feel worse.
“Uh…”
Pressure in my head pushes on the back of my eyes and I clench the muscles in my face.
“Oh, God.”
My hand goes to my back pocket to check my phone and something pricks my finger.
The tension in my face releases and I take out the folded piece of paper and open it.
You seem like your own kind of person.
I slip it back into my pocket.
“It’s true,” I say. “I’m a gentle guy who wouldn’t terrify anyone who encounters me in a dark alley. But what’s curious to me is why we think that’s funny.”
I look down at myself.
“We all have an idea of how a man is supposed to be and I am not that. I am at best a cartoon kitten wearing a comically large shirt.”
Some hesitant laughter, but I’ve threatened to make us second-guess the laughter. In the darkness I can barely make out Mrs.?Farmer, who’s trying to smile. I want to tell her I’m sorry I can’t be who she expects me to be.
“I do it to myself, though. I’ve made three jokes so far and they’re all about how I don’t have large muscles or a deep voice.”
Silence.
“My friend gave me these clothes. I think my appearance serves as its own punchline.”
I take off the tie and shirt, fold them up, and place them on the ground.
“A crucifix,” I declare. I put it on the pile.
The T-shirt I’m left wearing is the robot sounding its barbaric yawp.
I move the stand to the side of the stage. “I’m anxious about a lot of things—the dark, the collapse of society, milk on its expiration date—but I’m especially anxious about what people think of me. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words might make me feel bad.”
The silence is interesting. Maybe not terrifying. People aren’t laughing, but they are listening.
I put a hand in my pocket. “So I make fun of how I don’t live up to being a man because I’m scared it’s what everyone is already thinking.
Silently feeling like I’m not enough is the one aspect of masculinity I excel at.
Feeling inadequate is an essential piece of male culture.
That’s why so many guys drive pickup trucks.
Gotta have room for all those insecurities. ”
The room laughs and I hear, distinctly, Christy’s loud snort.
I talk about things I wrote down, like how my mom’s friend’s boyfriend once peed loudly in the bathroom and my mom frowned, and ever since then I’ve peed sitting down.
I talk about things I didn’t write down, like how one time my history teacher wanted to make a point about women in the military so he had me arm wrestle a girl in front of the room, and when I lost, he asked the class, “Who would you want fighting next to you?” I talk about Mr.?Z bringing us to Hooters.
I talk about how I have never in my life seen a man cry.
As my eyes adjust to the lights, I see the group of guys at the table in front. Three are displeased but one is laughing. I walk toward them.
“Jokes are all us guys have,” I say to them.
“The only fancy outfit allowed for guys is a suit. You want to express yourself? You get fun socks!” The one laughing guy laughs again.
“It’s the same with emotions. The only emotion allowed for guys is anger.
You want to express other emotions? You get to make a joke! ”
The rest of the room laughs but I focus on the three guys giving me the same look Bobby Bingo gives. It’s more than dislike. It’s disdain.
“My girlfriend told me yesterday that the rules are changing and men are allowed to cry now. She said, ‘You can cry.’ What a relief! Then she said, ‘Just don’t cry more than me.’?”
Laughter. Though I don’t hear Christy.
“So, gentlemen,” I say to the guys up front, “you are allowed to cry. Just don’t cry like a girl.”
The three who aren’t laughing laugh even less.
“But that will be hard for me because once I allow myself to feel one thing, it opens the floodgates. I tell a girl she’s beautiful and suddenly I’m thinking about how short our lives are.”
I tap my teeth together, thinking.
“Right then I was making fun of myself for having too many feelings.”
I tell myself to keep talking. I don’t know what I’m about to say.
“But I’m starting to think that by jokingly putting myself down, I’ve been actually putting myself down. By joking about how I don’t meet gender norms, I’ve been reaffirming those gender norms.”
The guy who’s been laughing up front says, “Damn.”
I point at him and say, “I agree!”
Everyone laughs the loudest they have yet.
“I’ve never liked men, and now I have to grow up into one?” I look back at the laughing guy and whisper into the mic, “Would you say, ‘Damn,’ again?”
The guy shouts, “Damn!”
I shout back, “I agree!”
Inexplicably, thankfully, everyone laughs. Even the guy’s friends.
I walk to the center of the stage and put the mic in the stand.
“I’m trying to be a good guy for my girlfriend,” I say.
“A guy who sits down to pee but also understands the anatomy of her genitalia. I’m trying to be a nice boy for my mom.
A boy who sits down to pee and doesn’t know anything about anyone’s genitalia.
I’m trying to be a funny kid for everyone at school, for all of you here.
I’m trying to make sure we all hear the word genitalia as many times as possible.
But I’m growing up. I’m becoming a man.”
What is happening?
“I want to be a good man, but I can’t imagine a man I’d like to be.”
My face trembles. Before the tears can start I give a strong point to the laughing guy and he shouts, “Damn!”
The tension breaks and the room laughs.
I wave goodbye and leave the stage. Two of the guys at the table ignore me but the laughing guy smiles and another guy gives an affirmative nod. Tony carefully stops his recording and looks my way. Mrs.?Farmer looks down, touching a finger to the corner of her eye.
Bobby Bingo takes the stage and says something loud. No one laughs.
My skin tingles. I’m dizzy. I go to the bar for the first time ever and I ask for a cold water. The bartender says she likes my new set. I drink the whole glass but I’m still dizzy, so I sit on a stool.
I look at my hands. They’re shaking.
Christy sits beside me. “You were amazing up there.”
I can barely hear anything. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry I said not to cry more than me. I meant it as a joke, but it wasn’t funny.”
“It’s okay. I hope it’s okay that I mentioned it.”
“Totally.”
Her eyes get wide. She’s looking behind me.
Sal leans on the bar, out of breath.
“I don’t know if you’re funny, but you kept the crowd’s attention,” he says. “You said things other comics aren’t brave enough to say, and I respect that. You’re not an opener or a closer, but you could be a change of pace in the middle.”
“The middle?” My voice is low. Slow. The way it was in the bathroom when I met Elijah.
“I can give you five minutes at the Joe Johnson thing. Thursday at Captain’s.”
“Don’t you have to watch the rest of the comics tonight?”
The guy onstage says something about his ex-wife. It doesn’t get a laugh.
Sal shakes his head. “No.”
I’m out of breath. “Thank you. Thanks very much.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Take it easy, kid. Nothing is ever worth the stress.”
He returns to his seat at a booth.
Christy grabs my arm. “Oh my goodness!”
“I know.”
“How do you feel?”
“I think I need some fresh air.” I get up and my legs wobble. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
I keep a hand touching the wall as I walk out.
Outside, the rain taps on my cheeks, waking up my skin.
I walk into the glow of a yellow streetlamp and hold my arms out and turn my face to the sky.
I don’t need to see a mirror to know. I look the same as I did a few hours ago, but something has changed.
I stepped onto that stage one version of myself and, up there, I practiced being someone new.
Someone more true. I’m off the stage now and I might slip back into my old self, but I practiced it tonight.
And I will practice it tomorrow. There’s no going back.
I hear the club door squeak open. I hear the foil from a stick of gum.
I turn.
Andi says, “I read the beginning of your set and immediately found someone to cover my second shift.”
I smile. And in the most surprising sign that something has changed, Andi smiles too.