Based on a True Story Page 12

  I don’t much like hospitals, and I said as much when I met the boy’s physician. “You may as well know, Doc, I’m no fan of diseases, and I’ll never understand filling a whole building with them.”

  “What are you, an idiot?” said the doctor.

  “Yeah, I’m an idiot, all right. An idiot just like Alfred Einstein. I’ll have you know that I’m Norm Macdonald and I work on the Saturday Night Live TV show, and I am a bigshot.”

  “Saturday Night Live? That show hasn’t been funny since Bill Murray left.”

  A crowd was beginning to form, which was perfect for me since I was a stand-up comedian. I decided I would put this doctor in his place.

  “If you think it’s so easy being funny, Doc, then why don’t you tell us all a joke?”

  So he did.

  And it was one of the funniest jokes I’d ever heard. I’ll never forget it. His timing was flawless.

  A moth goes into a podiatrist’s office. The podiatrist says, “What’s the problem?”

  The moth says, “Where do I begin with my problems? Every day I go to work for Gregory Vassilievich, and all day long I toil. But what is my work? I am a bureaucrat, and so every day I joylessly move papers from one place to another and then back again. I no longer know what it is that I actually do, and I don’t even know if Gregory Vassilievich knows. He only knows that he has power over me, and this seems to bring him much happiness. And where is my happiness? It is when I awake in the morning and I do not know who I am. In that single moment I am happy. In that single moment, before the memory of who I am strikes me like a cane. And I take to the streets and walk, in a malaise, here and then there and then here again. And then it is time for work. Others stopped asking me what I do for a living long ago, for they know I will have no answer and will fix my empty eyes upon them, and they fear my melancholia might prove so deep as to be contagious. Sometimes, Doc, in the deepest dark of night, I awake in my bed and I turn to my right, and with horror I see some old lady lying on my arm. An old lady that I once loved, Doc, in whose flesh I once found splendor and now see only decay, an old lady who insults me by her very existence.

  “Once, Doc, when I was young, I flew into a spiderweb and was trapped. In my panic, I smashed my wings till the dust flew from them, but it did not free me and only alerted the spider. The spider moved toward me and I became still, and the spider stopped. I had heard many stories from my elders about spiders, about how they would sink their fangs into your cephalothorax and you would be paralyzed but aware as the spider slowly devoured you. So I remained as still as possible, but when the spider again began moving toward me, I smashed my wing again into my cage of silk, and this time it worked. I cut into the web and freed myself and flew skyward. I was free and filled with joy, but this joy soon turned to horror: I looked down and saw that in my escape I had taken with me a single strand of silk, and at the end of the strand was the spider, who was scrambling upward toward me. Was I to die high in the sky, where no spider should be? I flew this way, then that, and finally I freed myself from the strand and watched as it floated earthward with the spider. But days later a strange feeling descended upon my soul, Doc. I began to feel that my life was that single strand of silk, with a deadly spider racing up it and toward me. And I felt that I had already been bitten by his venomous fangs and that I was living in a state of paralysis, as life devoured me whole.

  “My daughter, Alexandria, fell to the cold of last winter. The cold took her, as it did many of us. And so my family mourned. And I placed on my countenance the look of grief, Doc, but it was a masquerade. I felt no grief for my dead daughter but only envy. And so I have one child now, a boy, whose name is Stephan Mikhailovitch Smokovnikov, and I tell you now, Doc, with great and deep shame, the terrible truth. I no longer love him. When I look into his eyes, all I see is the same cowardice that I see when I catch a glimpse of my own eyes in a mirror. It is this cowardice that keeps me living, Doc, that keeps me moving from place to place, saying hello and goodbye, eating though hunger has long left me, walking without destination, and, at night, lying beside the strange old lady in this burlesque of a life I endure. If only the cowardice would abate for the time needed to reach over and pick up the cocked and loaded pistol that lies on my bedside table, then I might finally end this façade once and for all. But, alas, the cowardice takes no breaks; it is what defines me, it is what frames my life, it is what I am. And yet I cannot resign myself to my own life. Instead, despair is my constant companion as I walk here and then there, without dreams, without hope, and without love.”

  “Moth,” says the podiatrist, “your tale has moved me and it is clear you need help, but it is help I cannot provide. You must see a psychiatrist and tell him of your troubles. Why on earth did you come to my office?”

  The moth says, “Because the light was on.”

  By the end of the joke, everyone around was laughing hard, and I started to laugh too in spite of myself. But then I got angry because I realized that he was making me look small. So I took a swing at him, but I missed by a good foot or so and ended up knocking over an old man who was pushing some futuristic contraption that rolled on wheels and was attached to his right arm by a thin tube. I bent down to apologize, because I felt that the accident was partially my fault, and that’s when the doctor kicked me heavy in the ribs.

  “I can mend them, but I can bust them up too,” he said, and that got another big laugh. Everybody thinks they’re a comedian. Especially in my line of work.

  I lay there gasping as the doctor recounted a few hilarious anecdotes, and once the laughing crowd dispersed, he started telling me about the boy I was visiting and his illness. He used a lot of big words; he was still clearly determined to make me look small, so I interrupted him. “Okay, okay, I get the idea, Doc. You went to school. I only got one question for you. This thing he’s got, is it contagious?”

  “No, it’s not contagious,” he said softly. He looked me in the eye and shook his head at me, all sad and weary. “He’s just a poor brave child who hasn’t got much time.” I noticed a tear as it made its way down his cheek. He wasn’t such a tough guy anymore or so funny either. That’s what separates professional funnymen like me from bums like that doctor.

  I crashed into the boy’s room with a big smile on my face. Around his bed, nurses and orderlies and a couple of doctors gathered, and they all held clipboards and looked solemn. Death is a funny thing. Not funny haha, like a Woody Allen movie, but funny strange, like a Woody Allen marriage. When it’s unexpected, death comes fast like a ravenous wolf and tears open your throat with a merciful fury. But when it’s expected, it comes slow and patient like a snake, and the doctor tells you how far away it is and when, exactly, it will be at your door. And when it will be at the foot of your bed. And when it will be on your flesh. It’s all right there on their clipboards.

  The room was filled with all kinds of whirring and beeping and dinging. “Would somebody turn that doggone noise down?!” I shouted. Of course, I knew that those noises were coming from machines they were using to keep the boy alive, but I also knew I had to make a big entrance, and I didn’t want to disappoint. Only the boy laughed, which was fine with me, because he was the most important one there. Besides me.

  I told everybody to scram so I could have a word with the boy alone.

  “How you feeling, son?”

  “How do you think I’m feeling, Einstein?”

  I was genuinely touched that the boy knew I was considered a genius at Saturday Night Live. He had clearly done his research. But his comment also reminded me I had to get back to Rockefeller Center and convince Lorne to put my Answering Machine sketch on the air that week. “Well, see you later, kid. Just wanted to let you know I’m happy to make your wish come true before you…before you…before you…”

  “Do you swear to God you’ll make my wish come true, Norm?”

  “Oh, I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”

  “Look at me, Norm.”


  I couldn’t help but comply, and as I looked at the boy a curious tenderness overtook me. “I swear to God.”

  “Good,” the boy said, “because I have a very different wish.”

  “Please don’t tell me I have to take you to the show for two days.”

  “I don’t want to go to the show at all. It hasn’t been funny since Bill Murray left.”

  “Well, why did you choose me, then?”

  “Because you are a Canadian citizen.”

  I was confused. “Son, I do not understand. What’s your wish and what does anything have to do with me being Canadian?”

  The boy looked at me directly and I could see the tears fill his eyes. He spoke softly, his voice quavering and unsteady. “I want to kill a baby seal.”

  24

  HEADING NORTH

  “This sketch is gonna be big, Lorne, real big. Comedy is about what people relate to, and everybody has an answering machine. My God, did you even read it?”

  “Yes, I read it, Norm, but it’s hardly a sketch. First of all, the host is barely in it. Sandler and Farley have no lines at all. As far as I can tell, it’s just you talking about how you don’t answer your phone anymore and how, later, you tell the person who phoned that you never got the message and that they must have left it on someone else’s answering machine. Then Sandler and Farley laugh for an uncomfortably long time.”

  “Right, they laugh for a long time because what I’m saying is really funny.”

  “Well, wouldn’t it be a better idea to let the audience decide whether it’s really funny?”

  “With all due respect, Lorne, I think that would be the worst thing we could possibly do. Believe me, I’ve been down that road before.”

  “The answer is no, Norm.”

  “Look, there’s only a couple of shows left in the season, and if I don’t get a sketch on air, I’m worried for my job.”

  “Well, you should be,” said Lorne.

  And then it hit me. He’d found out. Lorne Michaels was well connected in this town, and someone must have tipped him off.

  “So I’m being punished for making some kid’s final wish come true, is that it? Listen, Lorne, it wasn’t my idea. It was some lady who phoned me. I’ll phone her back right now and tell her it’s not a good week because of the Answering Machine sketch.”

  Lorne’s eyes turned misty, like a woman’s sometimes do. “No, no, no, Norm. I think you should fulfill this boy’s wish, and, don’t worry, I’ll make sure we get your sketch on air. But it needs a massive rewrite. Work on it with Fred Wolf.” Lorne smiled at me and shook my hand. “I’m proud of you, Norm. You’re doing a fine thing,” and, with that, his eyes turned misty again. He was an odd duck, Lorne Michaels, no doubt about it.

  I put Adam Eget on a plane to Gander, Newfoundland, while I hunkered down with Fred Wolf to work on the Answering Machine sketch. Fred was a writer of the highest order whom I had known for years from our stand-up days. I loved Fred’s outright disdain for certain hosts. Many times SNL would have a very handsome dramatic actor on as a host. An actor who was convinced he was funny. Women are attracted to funny men, it is often said. This is not true. It only appears this way because women laugh at everything a very handsome man says. So this gives the very handsome men the idea that they are funny. This phenomenon made Fred angry and he refused to refer to the handsome hosts by name; instead, he would call them “Face.” “Hey, Norm,” he’d say, and point to his script. “You think Face will be able to handle this line?” That would always make me bust a gut. Face. Perfect.

  Fred was a pro and very patient, and he convinced me that we should have a phone and an answering machine on the set to add verisimilitude to the sketch. We almost got to blows over that point, because I was afraid the devices would draw focus away from me and the jokes I’d been perfecting for years. I’d done the bit onstage over five thousand times, to mixed results, without ever using a phone or an answering-machine prop. But Fred and I finally reached a compromise. The phone and answering machine would appear in the sketch and, in return, we wouldn’t come to blows. We both knew Fred Wolf could beat the living bejeezus out of me.

  Cheryl the receptionist stuck her head in the office door. “Phone call from your assistant, Adam Eget.”

  “Say, Cheryl, how come when you say the word ‘assistant’ you use a tone to make it sound as if Adam Eget is not my assistant at all but something different, something unseemly? Why is it when you say the word you make air quotes with your fingers?” I asked.

  “Well, I mean, he is your assistant, isn’t he? I mean, his job is to assist you, so that would make him your assistant, wouldn’t it?”

  “No, Cheryl. Adam Eget is not my assistant at all. He’s my assistant. He assists me all the time. He’s never once assisted me. You can ask Fred.”

  “I thought he was your assistant too, Norm. I think everyone does.”

  “Fred, are you telling me that everybody thinks Adam Eget, my assistant, is actually my assistant and that he doesn’t assist me at all? That what he really does is assist me?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s on line one, Norm.” And, with that, Cheryl left.

  “Adam Eget here, Norm. I found a guy. We can be in and out of here in three days. If it all works out, we’ll have you back Saturday afternoon, just in time for dress rehearsal.”

  “On my way,” I said, and hung up.

  25

  A WISH FULFILLED

  As per our plan, the boy informed his parents, who then informed me, that the boy had decided he might like to spend the entire week at SNL so he could see how a sketch goes from an idea on paper all the way to a sketch on live television. Yeah, me and him both. I agreed, and two hours later we were both on a prop plane to Gander, Newfoundland.

  —

  Edward McClintock was a cod fisherman from up Labrador way. Edward’s father and his father’s father and his father’s father’s father had all been sealers. Edward was not a sealer, but he killed seals. “The seal and I make our living the same way. Cod. One seal can eat three to four hundred North Atlantic cod a day. And those are cod I can’t catch. Do you follow?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “They sound like gluttonous beasts, these seals. I mean, I like a nice piece of cod as much as the next guy, but three to four hundred? Well, that’s just eating to eat.”

  “Speaking of gluttonous beasts, son, your friend has been eating me out of house and home. And he can’t hold his drink. I have no use for a man who can’t hold his drink,” and he motioned toward Adam Eget, who was inert under a quilt beside the fireplace.

  He handed me his bottle of Iceberg rum, and I took a swig of it and felt nice and warm inside. “He can be trusted, sir,” I said. “He always does what he’s told.”

  “Fair enough. We’ll sit right here and we’ll drink till dawn while I tell you what we have to do to kill a seal. Then, in the morning, we’ll make our way to the floes. But, honestly, I think it’s a mistake. I can see that boy and he looks frail. This is going to be a rugged sojourn, and the boy is pale and his eyes are dim.”

  “The boy is in perfect health!” I said.

  And so, as Adam Eget and the boy slept and dreamt, Edward McClintock and I talked into the night, as men will do, and we were warmed by the fireplace and the Iceberg rum.

  Finally, dawn came and the boy woke up. He was ghastly pale and Edward McClintock remarked upon it, but when the boy spoke, his enthusiasm for what lay ahead made him appear to be of sound body. He wanted to hear all about the coming adventure, and Edward McClintock said he would tell us soon but didn’t want to repeat anything. Then he got up from his chair, walked to the fireplace, and with his heavy boot he kicked Adam Eget awake.

  We sat around the kitchen table as Edward McClintock poured us coffee and warned us about the North Atlantic Ocean. “I first traveled this strip of sea as a child, on a dare, in a small rodney made for jigging squid, and by luck I survived. But in my youthful pride I took my survival as a sign of Pr
ovidence, and instead of kneeling in thanks, I stood tall in vainglory. Well, since then this sea has battered me and froze me. I’ve lost four toes and a finger and I’ve been swept under a dozen times. The North Atlantic Ocean, She don’t care about you and me and whether we live or die. You remember that, boys, and show Her the respect She’s earned.”

  “Are you going to make those flapjacks today, Eddie?” Adam Eget asked.

  “What?” Edward McClintock snapped.

  “Those flapjacks sure are good, Eddie. I could eat those forever.”

  I saw fire in Edward McClintock’s cobalt-blue eyes, and I was afraid for Adam Eget, but Edward held himself still until the fire went out. “Yes,” he said, “we’ll breakfast big this morning; for the next three days we’ll be living on herring and rum.”

  We ate a great large meal, and I felt fat and fine. Then Edward McClintock took us to the boat and we were off to make a young boy’s final wish come true. As I looked at the boy, I noticed he was already shivering under his hides, and Edward McClintock had warned us that it would only get colder. I was scared. If the boy didn’t live, it was going to look bad for me. Real bad.

  Six hours in, the boy developed a fever. Edward McClintock was very concerned and thought we should turn back. But the boy insisted he would be fine.

  “Yes, he’ll be fine,” I said, and gave him his pills. There were so many pills. I let him wash them down with the Iceberg rum.

  As we waited to spot a seal, I played a game with the boy. We would look up at the white clouds above and find figures in them. “That one looks like a bird,” I said.

  “Yeah, it does, and look at that one. It looks like a man rubbing his nose,” he returned.

  “I don’t see it.”