Based on a True Story Page 18

  “Well, it’s nice to know you liked the jokes, sir.”

  “Well, there’s the rub, son,” said Don. “Ever since he’s been acquitted, he and I golf over at Brentwood. We have a standing tee time every Monday at six A.M. Problem is, you’ve decided to stop doing jokes about him and I don’t have anything to zing him with. Do you follow?”

  “Sir, I hope you’re not asking me to do what I think you are.”

  “If you want to save your job, Norm, get back to the O.J. jokes. You promise me that and I promise that you can have Update as long as you like.”

  “I don’t think I could do that, sir. What about the jury system and fair play and all that?”

  “Oh, c’mon, Norm, O.J. can take a joke. They’re all meant in good fun. And I’m just a guy who works hard trying to make the TV viewers happy. Heck, the only kicks I get are when I can give my friend O. J. Simpson the business. Now, you wouldn’t want to take that away from me, would you?”

  “I’ll have to think about it, sir.”

  But there wasn’t a lot to think about. I flew back to New York and talked with Lori Jo, Downey, Frank, and Ross. We all agreed that what we had done to O.J. had been unconscionable. We had been mostly fueled by my lifelong institutionalized racism. Now that we’d woken up to that fact, to continue to make O.J. jokes while the real killers were at large was out of the question. And for what? So Don Ohlmeyer could get under his pal’s skin at the Brentwood Country Club?

  The only thing O. J. Simpson was guilty of was being the best running back in history. And while O. J. Simpson had proven himself to be the greatest rusher, I had proven myself to be the greatest rusher to judgment.

  39

  A DEBT INCURRED

  It happened the night I was fired from Update. I wasn’t a compulsive gambler at the time, but within twenty-four hours I would be. I was feeling low after the program ended. While my friends waved at the studio audience and held up little pictures for people they knew were watching TV, Adam Eget and I raced down the New Jersey Turnpike, and it was black except for the stars in the sky and the eyes of the deer on the highway side. We hit Atlantic City at dawn. The casinos sat square in the center of the squalid streets, streets lined with boarded-up houses and stores with signs that read WE PAY CASH FOR GOLD FILLINGS and the dangerous poor with nothing to lose but their lousy, stinking, hopeless lives and nothing of value but the gold in their teeth. It was Sunday morning, and instead of a church Adam Eget and I were checking in to the Devil’s house: The Tropicana Casino and Resort.

  Gambling addiction is a disease, for sure, but it’s the only disease that can make you very wealthy. Osteoarthritis ain’t gonna make you dime one, friend. Just ask my aunt Gertrude. However, gambling addiction can also be a fatal disease. When a doctor tells you that you have six months to live, he’s making an educated guess. When the fat man with the artificial hair tells you the same, he’s letting you know a fast truth you can mark on a calendar. The only cure for it is cash, and they won’t likely be holding any telethons for you. My friend Sid Youngers once said, “I’ve been very lucky with gambling. I’ve never won,” and anybody with a gambling problem understands that statement, all right. First time I was ever in a casino I was unlucky. I won, and I won big.

  Back in those days Adam Eget drank, and he drank like a man. I don’t know if he drank to remember or to forget, but, boy, could he drink. We ordered two shots of Wild Turkey 101 and told the bartender to leave the bottle be. And the bartender was rightly impressed. After we’d emptied the bottle, I hit the blackjack tables to bet my five dollars a hand, and Adam Eget wandered onto the boardwalk, stumbling and muttering and telling anybody who would listen how he deserved much more than he had. The next time I saw him, my three-hundred-dollar bankroll was down to one eighty.

  “I met a gypsy,” Adam Eget slurred.

  “What?” I asked, eager to get my next bet down.

  “I went to one of those fortune-tellers to get my palm read.”

  “I never figured you for one to believe in that horseshit.”

  “I did it as a lark, as a gag. But here’s the thing. The old woman, the gypsy, she looked at my palm and her face darkened and she looked up at me with her black gypsy eyes, and my laugh got caught in my throat and I wished I’d never had the idea for the lark, for the gag. She told me I was gonna die, Norm. She told me I was gonna die tonight.”

  “Well, then, how come I booked two rooms?” I asked, and I laughed hard at my fine joke and so did the dealer, but Adam Eget did not. He continued with a straight face: “She wants one hundred dollars, and she’ll give me a packet with some powder in it that I’m supposed to put under my pillow. If I do that, I won’t die tonight.”

  “Well, can’t you see she’s making the whole thing up, Adam Eget? You’ll be fine.”

  “That’s what I thought. But when I went to bed I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the old gypsy’s face and heard her words. I’m scared, Norm. You have to lend me a hundred dollars.”

  “I’m losing money at this blackjack table, Adam Eget, and I won’t indulge your silly superstitions. If you want a hundred dollars, why don’t you just jerk off seven punks?”

  “I told you about that in confidence,” he said.

  “You did?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Oh, I thought everybody knew you jerked off punks underneath the Queensboro Bridge for fifteen dollars a man.”

  “Don’t say that anymore.”

  “Okay, sorry. I didn’t know you told me in confidence.”

  “Don’t you remember I was crying when I told you?”

  “Sure I do, but I thought that’s what you fellows do.”

  “What do you mean, ‘you fellows’? I’m not gay,” he said.

  I stood corrected.

  “I’ll give you twelve dollars for one,” said the dealer, “but not a penny more.”

  Adam Eget looked at the dealer, and he appeared hurt. “Look, fellow, I don’t do that stuff anymore. That was before and this is now. And now I’m Norm’s assistant. That’s my job. And I need an advance. One hundred dollars’ advance.”

  As I was talking to Adam Eget, I’d lost another thirty-five dollars, and I got angry. “Get away from me. It’s still early, and if I end up winning I’ll give you a hundred dollars so you can pay the old gypsy. But until then get out of here.”

  With that, Adam Eget slunk away, whimpering. It put me in mind of a hyena.

  I changed tables and had a run of good luck. My bankroll was up to two fifty now and I was approaching even. This went on and on and time passed, as it always does since it knows no other way. One minute I was up and the next I was down. When I only had a hundred-dollar chip left, I took a break and walked around the casino. As I passed a craps table, a patron recognized me.

  “Hey, you’re somebody, aren’t you?” a man holding two dice said.

  “Sure I am,” I said. “I’m Norm Macdonald and I’m on the TV.”

  This got everybody very excited, because they were just a bunch of nobodies who had TVs but were never on them. They insisted I play craps with them, but the problem was I’d never played the game and didn’t know any of the rules. But I couldn’t let these nobodies know that. “Sure I’ll play, and I’ll win too!” The whole table of nobodies cheered, which made me feel good. The truth was that, deep down, I felt like I was a nobody too, just like them.

  Behind the craps table stood the pit boss, a handsome man dressed in the most beautiful suit of clothes I’d ever seen. He was looking the picture of style and class, but I got the feeling that he was a dangerous man and his beautiful clothes were designed to hide that fact, the way a shiny new violin case can conceal a machine gun.

  If you don’t know the game of craps, here’s how it works. As long as the fellow rolling the dice doesn’t roll a seven, you stay alive. And when they hit your number, you win. And you can have as many as six different numbers. The minimum at the table was twenty-five dollars, so I
put down my hundred-dollar chip to get change, but the man behind the table placed it on the pass line and I was too embarrassed to correct him. It was all the money I had left. An Asian player rolled five or six times and a six came up, and the pit boss gave me one hundred twenty dollars. “Press?” the man behind the table said. I didn’t want to look like a know-nothing, so I said, “What do you think?” as if the answer was self-evident. I use that line a lot when I don’t know what’s going on. The man smiled, and now I had two hundred twenty down. From there on in, every one of my wins was automatically pressed. He only asked me that first time. Within twenty minutes I had money on every number on the board, and within forty minutes I had a lot of money on every number. This Asian player, he didn’t seem to know how to roll a seven, and my chip denominations had climbed from the original five-dollar chip to a thousand-dollar chip, and finally, at about the hour mark, I was playing with the maximum five-thousand-dollar chip. The funny thing is, the five-dollar chip was the very same size as the five-thousand-dollar chip. Probably cost the same to make. But it was worth a thousand times more.

  I was winning big time now. I began to feel an extraordinary transformation taking place deep within me, one that mirrored my chip’s transformation, for I felt myself double in value and then redouble and press to the maximum. I was the same exact size physically, and yet I was worth much more, a thousand times more, and that lingering suspicion that I might be a nobody was long gone. The Asian player rolled for twenty more minutes, and finally he rolled a seven and the run was over. Everyone cheered and I had a hundred eighteen thousand dollars in chips. I colored up, threw a fifty-dollar tip on the table, and left in perfect calm and elation, big as God inside, blessed on this Sunday in the unlikeliest of places.

  I walked onto the boardwalk, my heart and pockets full. The people around me all looked small, and I knew that I was once like them but now I was different—same on the outside maybe, but a thousand times as bright, a thousand times as powerful, a thousand times what they were. I saw the blackjack dealer I had first sat with and lost one hundred twenty dollars to. “Remember me?” I asked.

  “Sure I remember you,” the dealer said, and I noticed he was zipping up his trousers. “Your friend’s over there, and he’s twelve dollars richer.” I walked over and saw Adam Eget and he was on a bench, weeping. When he saw me he fell to the ground and clutched at my ankles.

  “Norm, please, I need you to punch me in the face,” he said.

  “Don’t be ashamed, Adam Eget,” I said. “A man must do what he can to make a living in this world. And sometimes life can be a hard, hard coin.”

  “No, I need you to punch me in the face so I can sell my gold fillings. It is nearly midnight and I am very afraid.”

  “Don’t worry,” I laughed. “I am blessed by God Himself this Sabbath, and you will not die tonight.” And as I said that, I carefully counted out eighty-eight dollars’ worth of chips and tossed them down on the boardwalk, and Adam Eget got on his hands and knees as they clattered around, searching them all out in the dark, and then he kissed my feet and ran to find the old gypsy.

  I awoke with a plan. I hesitate to call it my own plan, since it did not exist when I fell asleep the previous evening. It was as if another man had spent months conniving and creating the plan and then had come to me as I slept and staged it whole in my mind.

  For three weeks now, an enfeebling depression has fastened me to my bed. The House Painter has been rejected by every publishing house in the city. I’d expected a bidding war, but I hadn’t even received an opening salvo. When the rejection letters first began appearing in my mailbox, I was amused and I felt sorry for each poor chap who had passed on my masterpiece and would certainly one day lose his job over the decision. But as the rejection letters kept coming, despondency fell upon me. Was it possible that the years of transcribing lame anecdotes of marginal celebrities had atrophied my skills to the point where my real writing was unpublishable? My first anxiety came with the silence of Julie Grau. I thought perhaps she hadn’t received the manuscript, so I put another in the mail and, a week later, sat in shock over a cup of coffee while I read an unsigned form letter from Random House. I rang Julie up.

  “Oh, Terence, how lovely of you to call.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Your novel? Well, to tell you the truth, I simply haven’t had the time to read it. I just got back from…”

  “What’s wrong with it?” A long silence followed.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it, Terence. It is really quite charming. Have you considered self-publishing?”

  A much longer silence followed.

  “Terence, how is the Norm Macdonald book coming along?”

  I threw the phone through my window.

  And that is what put me in my bed and kept me there, eating Häagen-Dazs and Kit Kats, Milky Ways and Twix, drinking Mexican Cokes, watching Bewitched, and falling asleep, and waking up, and falling asleep again. But this morning I awoke with the plan; I bounced to the floor, showered, shaved, and put on my best shirt. I carefully read my novel as if I had never written it. I had to be sure, absolutely sure. I have just finished the last line and I am as certain as ever. It is pitch-perfect.

  And now I put a fresh page in the old Underwood and begin composing another work. Although the task of writing has always been a laborious process for me, there is no tedium this time. The words come easy, and very fast. Perhaps I have found a genre perfectly suited to my skills: the suicide note.

  40

  FLIPPING COINS

  I’ve been convalescing in this suite in the Tropicana for about a week now. I got the same one I got almost twenty years ago, for the luck. Most of my purple flesh has turned yellow, and that means I’ll be able to move soon. I relax in my big hotel bed as I reflect on my life and career. This turns out to be a huge mistake. Anxiety begins to crawl across my motionless body like a spider. So, instead, I begin to reflect on the life and career of Adam Sandler. This calms me.

  Adam Eget comes busting into my room.

  “Hey, great news. Sammi is flying out. She’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

  I hate when people say they have good news and then they don’t.

  “Oh, yes. Sammi, the lady who is definitely not a dude. So, she’s flying all the way out here?”

  “Yeah, we’re pretty serious, Norm. I think I’m in love with her. I’m thinking of asking her to move in to my place.”

  “But you don’t even have a place.”

  “Well, yeah. Don’t tell Sammi, though.”

  Our trip has cost Adam Eget his apartment and his job. But it will all soon be over and he’ll be a ranch hand in Montana, and the head ranch hand too. I haven’t told him yet, but I plan on buying him a hat. A cowboy hat.

  Adam Eget is very excited that Sammi is on her way. He grabs a handful of nickels from my video-keno nickel jar and runs from the room like a boy in search of gumballs.

  The next morning I sit in the coffee shop and chat with the two of them. I remind them that the first time they met was in a Las Vegas coffee shop. They find this to be the most hilarious coincidence, and Sammi giggles and Adam Eget hugs her and beams pride.

  “Tell me, Sammi,” I say, “what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a plumber.”

  “Isn’t she the cutest?” Adam Eget asks. “Listen, honey, you want to come watch me play video keno? I’m up eighty-five cents.”

  “Oh my God, video keno is my favorite game,” Sammi says. “What are the chances?”

  I agree the chances are a billion to one. Maybe these two are made for each other after all. The happy couple leave, arm in arm, and I finally have some peace and quiet to consider my betting strategy.

  Here’s the thing about the tables. In order to have the best chance at winning, you should take your entire bankroll and bet it all on a hand of blackjack or a round of craps. The thinking is that the house edge becomes more certain the more hands you play. The less
you play, the less you’re against it. Simple as that. I would have bet the whole million in a heartbeat if it was permitted.

  New Jersey law allows you to count cards, but the casinos continually reshuffle the deck, so it renders card-counting worthless. I would have to wager the maximum five thousand dollars at all times and simply hope to get lucky. Before my first session, I go to the restroom and splash cold water on my face. The sight of Sammi, with her neon-pink lipstick and drum-tight skirt, has unsettled me. I am beginning to feel sorry for my friend. This romance will not end well.

  —

  I’m two hours in now. I began my night with craps and I’ve recently switched over to blackjack, running a good shoe, playing five thousand dollars a hand, three hands at once, and I am up somewhere near two hundred thousand. Suddenly I hear a huge commotion and the dealer says, “Somebody hit it big over by the bar. You ever play the slots?”

  “Oh, all the time. I mean, that’s the smart play,” I say with unconcealed disdain. I’d heard that siren so often over the years, the hoots and the hollers. It’s the sound of dumb luck, and it always made me angry as hell. Where is the justice? Some idiot risks nothing, plays a low-stakes slot machine, and is awarded a fortune, while I risk huge money with no chance at a jackpot.

  A moment later I see Adam Eget and the woman he is in love with running toward me, laughing and clutching a ticket.

  “I didn’t even have to pick any numbers, Norm. As soon as I put my nickel in, there was all this ringing and it seemed to last forever, and then this ticket came out.”

  He shows me the video-keno ticket, and I can’t breathe. It reads 2.6 million dollars. I am saved. I sit at a table betting five thousand dollars a hand, but I am saved by a squid with a nickel. I am holding 1.2 million and Adam Eget holds 2.6. I do the math quickly. We owe two million and we hold 3.8. That’s a profit of 1.8 million smackeroos. The journey is over. It all started on a black, silent stage at The World Famous Comedy Store, and now it ends in the same bright casino where I saved Adam Eget from the spell of an evil gypsy. And now the self-same Adam Eget stands before me. He has paid off his debt; he has saved my life. And then I hear her voice: “Let’s go cash it in, honey bear! We’re rich, we’re rich!”