I'll Be Here All Week (10 page)

“No.” Sam rolls her eyes and smirks at him. “I mean us. What's next?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I want this”—her eyes run up and down his body and back to his eyes—“but not if you're just going to kick me out afterward.”

It hits Spence what felt odd this entire time, why he couldn't quite relax. Everything with Sam tonight
has
been amazing and perfect. It's also been typical. It's been what he has done so many times before. As much fun as she's having, even Sam can tell it's been his routine.

“I'm not going to kick you out,” he says. “I want you to stay.”

“Me too.”

Spence kisses her again, softly, then puts his arms around her and squeezes her tightly against him. He loves the way she smells and the way her hair feels when it tickles his bare shoulder. She pulls her head sideways and kisses his neck. He rolls over onto his back and holds her against him.

Isn't everything different here?

Spence leans in for one more kiss, this time looking in her eyes. He runs a hand through her hair and smiles. “So tell me what movie you want to watch.”

 

Sam kisses him on the cheek and wakes him from whatever he was dreaming. He turns over in the bed and sees that she's already dressed and fully made-up. She looks beautiful. How did he manage to sleep through her getting ready?

“You talk in your sleep,” Sam says.

“Really?” Spence says. He's been known to sleepwalk in the past, but he didn't realize that he yammers when he snoozes.

“Yeah,” she says. “You talk onstage. You talk in your sleep. It seems that you never shut up.”

He chuckles and wipes his eyes. He hopes he didn't say anything incriminating. The last thing he wants is to call her by the wrong name while he's in Sandman Land.

“What was I saying?”

“Mostly gibberish,” she says. “You were going on about how the motions need to be filed and how the account executives were falling behind.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Like in an office?”

“Something like that.”

“Damn.” He stretches his hands and looks around the hotel room. “Other people dream they can fly, and I dream I actually have a job.”

“Could be worse,” she says and shows him her Gap name tag.

He rolls over and sits up in the bed. Putting his arms around her waist, he looks into her eyes. She really is beautiful. It's a different feeling for him to wake up and have this conversation. He's used to trying to kick women out of his hotel room as soon as possible. Looking at Sam on the edge of the bed, he just wants to sit here for a while longer. He doesn't want her to leave.

“I don't want to leave,” Sam says. How appropriate. “But I've got to go to work.”

“Those pants aren't going to fold themselves,” he says.

“Don't I know it?”

“I have to leave town today,” he says with a painful grimace.

“I know,” she says. Her mood suddenly changes. She's still smiling, but her voice gets quiet. “Send me a text message before you head out, okay?”

“Sure will. You want me to stop by the Gap and see you?”

“You cruising for a new sweater?”

“Of course.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” she says and kisses him. He gets out of the bed and puts his arms around her. She could probably call in sick, right? A Gap store doesn't need a manager to operate on a Sunday, does it? He wonders if begging her to stay would cause him to lose his cool exterior.

“You were great last night,” she says.

“And what about my stand-up?” he jokes. She bites his shoulder, and he howls. He laughs and massages it as he puts on his clothes so he can walk her out.

He holds her again and stands there for a minute enjoying the silence. This was not at all what he expected. He figured a week in Canada would be about snow and starchy foods and people saying “eh.” He thought maybe he'd get laid like he sometimes does and that maybe he'd enjoy entertaining some different audiences for a while. What he didn't expect was to wind up holding some woman from Montreal and hoping she could stick around for a few more days or decades.

“You've got my number, guy,” Sam says after what feels like a year and yet not long enough.

“Yes, I do,” he says.

“So”—she tosses her purse over her shoulder—“use it.”

“I promise,” he says and for the first time thinks it's quite possible that he isn't lying.

“Pinkie swear,” she says and holds out her littlest finger for him to grab. When he does, he figures that now he actually has to call her. Breaking a pinkie swear is tantamount to blasphemy in the Vatican.

“Don't walk me out,” she says. “I kind of like ending it here.”

“It doesn't have to end here,” he says before he realizes what is coming out of his mouth. “I'll call.”

“Use the number, guy. Montreal ain't that far away.”

She's nuts. It might as well be China.

A moment later she has kissed him, hugged him, and walked out the door. He stands there staring at the room for a few minutes before deciding it's time to pack up and move on. He looks out the window of the hotel at the people below, scurrying like ants down the sidewalk. They are off to eat French bread and French fries and buying French maid outfits or whatever people in Quebec do on Sunday afternoons. He wonders if he can see Sam down there if he surveys the crowd.

Then he remembers that Barenaked Ladies is a Canadian band.

Spence wakes up, and his head feels like he got into a fight the night before. He can't remember if he did or not, but if it happened, he definitely lost. This is by far the worst hangover he's had in a long time. It takes him a few minutes to realize the ringing in his head is actually the alarm clock on the nightstand. He slaps the top of it a few times before it finally turns off. He switches on the lamp next to the bed and takes a long look around the hotel room to get his bearings.

It looks like most hotel rooms he stays in. His clothes are in the same place as where he pulled them off last night. His laptop is still sitting in the middle of the desk. His suitcase is still where he left it. He's not sure why but, every day when he wakes, he looks around to see if everything is how he left it the night before. As if elves were going to come in while he slept and rearrange the furniture and put his computer in the bathtub.

He's lying in a huge king-sized bed and yet managed to wrap himself in the blankets like a burrito. The bad news is that his head is killing him and he has to actually get up and get dressed. The good news is that there isn't a strange woman lying next to him. He might have had a few too many drinks last night, but at least he went home alone.

It's six a.m. He puts his feet on the floor and sighs. He has to get dressed and drive over to the local radio station for an interview at six thirty. How long did he sleep? Three, maybe four hours? Not enough. When he started touring, three hours was enough sleep for him to drive the entire next day. Now he's going to need an entire pot of coffee just to get through the interview. He gets up and walks into the bathroom and turns on the light.

Fluorescent lights are evil. They offer no mercy. They show every flaw he's ever had on his skin. He even notices scars from pimples he had when he was a kid that he thought disappeared long ago. There is definitely gray on his temples now, and the drinking did not help his eyes look any younger. He thinks he has aged more in the past three years than he did in the previous ten.

He laughs. Two weeks and a thousand miles since he left Canada and he's right back to where he was before. For a brief hiccup, all seemed well in the world. Then he woke up this morning and realized nothing changed. Peoria has been good to him so far, but he still misses the way he was treated in Montreal. His hotel room is just as nice here as anywhere else, but he feels like something is missing. He's had two weeks of great shows and has been traveling to good clubs in good weather. But he doesn't feel right. Something is off, which is probably why he drank too much last night.

He puts on his jeans and the same shirt he wore onstage the night before. He pulls on his corduroy sports jacket, which is standard comedian issue. Then he messes up his already messed-up hair and looks at himself in the full-sized mirror next to the bed. Besides looking exhausted and a bit too old, he looks exactly like every comedian you've ever seen on TV. A quick brush of the teeth and half a bottle of Tylenol and he's ready to baffle the airwaves with his brilliance.

The sun is just barely starting to come up, but he's wearing his sunglasses anyway. Part of it is because even the glow from a cigarette lighter would hurt his eyes at this point and part of it is to hide the fact that he looks like a basset hound after this little sleep. He gets in his car and tunes the radio to the station he's going to be on. He thinks it's always good to know what kind of show he's getting ready to do.

Every morning radio show is pretty much the same. It's usually two or three hosts talking about local news and playing music. One host anchors the show and tends to be the name behind it. The other host is a wacky sidekick named after an animal or body part. The third host is almost always a woman, and her job is technically to tell the weather and traffic updates. More importantly, her job is to laugh at the other two hosts. If it's a two-host format, then the main host doubles as the wacky character and the woman is still on the show groaning at his antics. Easily ninety percent of radio morning shows are coed and just like this.

It doesn't matter that he's a bit hungover. He can do these interviews in his sleep. He often has it planned out and knows exactly what he's going to do. Some comedians simply come in and recite jokes they do onstage or recreate their acts on the air. He sometimes has bits that he does only on radio, but he doesn't really like to use jokes he plans on using that night at the club. Most times he just follows along with the hosts' lead.

At least he likes doing it. Some comedians hate doing morning radio because they can't hear the laughter on the other side of the radio. Some just think it's phony and forced. As true as that may be, he still enjoys it. The interaction with the DJs is often a lot of fun for him and lets him share the spotlight a bit instead of standing naked and alone onstage.

Sometimes the DJs hate him. It's not his fault; a lot of DJs hate comedians in general. Sometimes the morning host is a local celebrity and sees the comedian as competition. That guy might think that no one sets
him
up to be funny every morning, so why the hell should he do it for some traveling comic? But the radio station is usually paid ad money by the comedy club for that interview, so the DJ in question has no say in the matter. That only pisses them off more.

Spence once did an interview with a host who asked him in advance for the punchlines to the jokes he was planning to tell. That's pretty standard procedure; the DJ wants to know where you're going to take the bit. But this DJ took those punchlines and used them himself.

“That's why I only date Asian women,” the DJ had said as he claimed the joke as his own.

Thanks, jerk,
he remembers thinking to himself,
now I have nothing to say. Glad I could help you be funny this morning.

Spence arrives at the radio station and checks in at the front desk. This is also pretty routine. Morning show hosts have as many death threats as politicians. There's always a ton of security to get past in order to get into the studio, no matter how small the town or how tiny the radio station. A young girl who couldn't be older than nineteen checks his driver's license and a guy who looks like a bouncer comes around the corner and has him sign a waiver about what he's allowed to say on the air. This is also standard procedure. Someone obviously said “fuck” on the air at some point and now the station has to cover its ass with everyone.

It's never as simple as just language usage. It used to be that he simply agreed not to use profanity over the airwaves. Nowadays everyone gets offended too easily, so the list of things he's not allowed to say or do is longer than it has ever been. At this station, he's not allowed to curse, talk about religion, talk about race, talk about politics, insult the local mascot, or say anything overtly sexist. He's essentially allowed to make fun of himself and anyone who looks just like him.

Walking into the studio, an obese man stuck behind a radio console reaches across the desk without standing up and extends his hand. “Hey, I'm Buzz,” he says. This would make him Buzz Barker of “The Buzz Barker in the Morning Show.” Buzz is wearing a baseball cap with the Van Halen logo on it, an enormous black T-shirt that stretches across his enormous belly, and jean shorts. He speaks with that DJ voice that they all seem to have and has a big smile on his face. This is comforting. It means that Buzz likes comedians.

“Spence,” he says as he shakes Buzz's hand and looks around the studio. They are always so much smaller than people think. He remembers that “The Bob and Tom Show” has an enormous studio. So does Howard Stern. Both are exceptions to the rule. Most radio studios look like the inside of a Toyota Yaris.

“Nice to have you,” Buzz says and points to a skinny guy in the corner sitting next to a thirtysomething woman. “That's Monkey-Boy. And that's Sheila.”

Spence waves to both of them. They both nod and go back to reading whatever papers are in front of them. Buzz relaxes back into his seat and offers him a pair of headphones to wear.

“So where do ya live?” Buzz asks him.

“The Toyota Camry outside,” he deadpans.

Buzz laughs. “I'll bet. That's great.”

I wasn't joking,
Spence thinks.

“What'd you wanna talk about today?” Buzz asks.

“Anything is fine with me,” he says. “I usually like to just wing it. I've been listening on the way here, so we can pick up where you guys left off.”

“Cool,” Buzz says, “I like that. We're in the middle of a block of songs. When we come back in four minutes, we'll go right to you.”

“Sounds good.” Spence holds up a thumb and puts the headphones over his head.

“One other thing,” Buzz says.

“Shoot.”

“I know you're supposed to be on the air for thirty minutes, but we're going to have to cut that down to about four.”

“Really?” Spence asks.

“Yeah,” Buzz says, “sorry about that. We have to do some giveaways and won't have time to keep you around.”

Damn it,
Spence thinks,
I'm glad I got up at six a.m. to be on the air for four goddamned minutes. I'll be forgotten before nine.

“No problem,” he lies. He smiles, and Buzz, Monkey-Boy, and Sheila all smile back. They barely speak to each other, and Buzz is the only one who seems actually happy. Spence wonders how long the team has worked together and if they even like each other anymore. Spend several years in a room the size of a closet with your best friend and you might want to push him in front of a train.

“Hey, where's the promo sheet for the Laff Shack?” Buzz asks Sheila.

“How the hell should I know?” Shelia responds, which answers any doubt about whether or not she and Buzz actually like each other.

“You'll have to excuse Sheila,” Buzz says to him. “She's what we in the industry refer to as a ‘bitch.' ” He makes finger quotes in the air as he insults his cohost.

“Dick,” Sheila says and, for a second, almost seems to smile. Buzz comically grabs his crotch and tugs at it in her direction. The entire confrontation is confusing, and it's hard to tell if the two of them are about to come to blows or start kissing.

“I have all the info,” Spence tells Buzz, but both he and Sheila are too busy giving each other the finger to notice.

Someone brings Spence a cup of coffee and the rest of the song block passes quickly. They all put on their headphones, put down whatever they were doing before, and switch into character when it's time to go live. When the music was playing, the three hosts had almost nothing to do with each other besides a few random insults and obscene gestures. Once they go live on the air, they all seem like the best of friends. Spence follows their lead and goes from hungover to enthusiastic in a millisecond. Listeners must think he's always up this early.

“Today's best music on 99.7, The Wave,” Buzz cheers into the microphone. “Just playing a little Green Day for you. Third Eye Blind before that. It's Friday morning, and you know what that means!”

The sounds of wacky music starts playing. Monkey-Boy laughs for no reason, and Sheila groans. The sound of Bugs Bunny saying something blares through Spence's headphones. A recording of Homer Simpson goes, “D'oh!”

“Time for ‘Friday Funnies.' ” Buzz laughs, and it sounds like he's hosting a game show. The sound of a spring going “boing” is played and—again—Monkey-Boy laughs.

Buzz introduces Spence while playing a recording of fake applause. Spence rolls with it and does what he's always known to do: He takes over the show. Whether he has four minutes or forty-five, a comedian has to try and attract as many of the listeners as possible. He does this by taking over the microphone and putting out as much energy as he can. Instead of waiting for Buzz to set him up, he takes charge. He chooses the direction to go and doesn't wait for a cue. It's not what Buzz is used to, but it's obvious that he likes it.

“I'll be honest,” Spence says as Buzz watches on eagerly. “I'm hungover and have barely slept.”

“You seem okay to me,” Buzz says.

“That's because I've had six cups of coffee and half a bottle of aspirin.”

“You should be good for at least a few hours then.”

“A few hours or until my kidneys fail, either way,” Spence says. Buzz laughs. Monkey-Boy laughs. Sheila groans.

“Nice road construction you've got going on here in town,” he says. When in doubt, he always takes a stab at the local road construction. It doesn't matter which city he's in, everyone hates it the same everywhere.

“You like it?” Buzz asks.

“What's your local mascot?”

“The Chiefs.”

“Yeah?” he says. “ 'Cause it should be an orange construction cone.”

Buzz laughs. Monkey-Boy agrees. Sheila groans.

“I like that idea,” Monkey-Boy chimes in.

“You could call him Coney,” Spence says. He imitates the voice of a sportscaster, “Here comes Coney, everybody! Oh, the kids sure do love Coney!”

Buzz laughs and hits a button that makes a rim shot sound over the air waves. “So you're in town all week?”

“Until the warrants catch up with me, sure.” Another rim shot.

“How do you like Peoria?” Sheila chimes in.

“From what I've seen of it, I like it,” Spence says.

“What have you seen so far?” she asks.

“My hotel room,” he says, “and I like it.”

Buzz laughs. Monkey-Boy laughs. Sheila—surprisingly—laughs.

Just like when he's onstage, all is right in the world. Right here, he's not hungover. He's not worried about getting more sleep or what it reads on his bank statement. Right here, he knows that, on the other end of the radio, people are having fun with him. Here he can be friends with strangers. When the DJs laugh, it's real. That tells him that other people are laughing too, and that makes him smile. When he smiles, it's genuine, too.