I'll Be Here All Week (22 page)

“We have a contract.”

“Tell Rodney about it.”

“To hell with Rodney,” Spence says. “You're going to pay me my money.”

“Good luck with that.”

It all happens so fast that Dustin has no hope of defending himself. It's not the force of the attack so much as the surprise. An entire body flies across the desk, hands reaching and feet kicking. Dustin is knocked out of his chair and to the floor so fast that he swallows the wad of tobacco that was in the cup.

Spence grabs Dustin by the shirt and hoists him up off the ground. He wants so much to punch Dustin in the face, to take his foot and bring it up as swiftly and as hard as possible into Dustin's crotch. Instead, he grabs him around the throat and pushes him hard against the filing cabinet. Still gagging from swallowing his tobacco, Dustin only gets up as far as his knees, flailing his arms around, trying to make contact.

“Gimme my money, asshole.” Spence growls and slaps Dustin's hands down as if he's playing with a doll. He reaches into Dustin's shirt pocket and digs. He hits pay dirt and takes the wad of bills and stuffs them into the pocket of his new suit. He should just let Dustin go right here where he's got him. Instead he squeezes harder for just a second longer and shoves him back against the filing cabinet again. “How does it feel?” he screams into Dustin's ear as he tightens the grip around his neck. “You feel in charge now, asshole?”

After a few more seconds, he releases Dustin and backs away. Dustin drops to his knees and fumbles around on the floor, gasping for air and still choking on tobacco spit.

“Not so tough without your bartender here, are you?” Spence says, and starts to walk out of the office. “You shouldn't have waited so long to pay me. You might've had someone here to back you up.”

“You son of a bitch,” Dustin yells after him. “You're dead! You hear me? You're dead!”

Spence turns and looks back at Dustin. He straightens his tie and catches his breath. He'd probably laugh at the sight of himself if he weren't so angry. Dusting himself off like he's getting ready for a boardroom meeting.

“I'm going to ruin you, cocksucker!” Dustin yells, sliding around on papers that fell off the desk. If it had been as clean as Emma's desk, he would have been on his feet already. “You're finished!”

“Who the hell are you?” Spence says, even surprised himself at how calm he sounds. Dustin pulls back and almost falls down again as Spence steps toward him. “You're some nobody who took out a loan and opened a bar. You're nothing. You're not a comic. You're not even a good comedy club manager.”

He lunges forward again with his fist cocked back, but stops short. Dustin flinches and puts his hands up in front of his face.

“Pussy,” Spence says. He reaches down on the desk, takes the cup full of tobacco juice, and throws it across the room. It covers Dustin, running down his face and the top of his shirt. The sweet smell of spit and spearmint fills the room. Dustin curses in a voice even higher than his usual one and almost gags from the filth covering him.

“Son of a—” Dustin says as several days' worth of spit and old tobacco drips down his neck and chest.

“When you go trying to ruin me,” Spence says, “remember what a little bitch you were just now. Make sure you don't leave that part out.”

He knocks over a chair on his way out of the office and slams the door so hard it sounds as if it might come off the hinges. He's out the door and in his car seconds later. He half expects Dustin to come running outside with a shotgun. He doesn't wait to see what happens next. He peels out of the parking lot and drives as fast as he can in whatever direction he was pointed when he started the car. He doesn't even know if he's going toward his hotel. He's not looking at the road so much as looking at the distant horizon ahead.

The car accelerates, and he rolls down his windows. The breeze feels cold for this time of year. He likes it. He just keeps driving and puts his foot harder on the pedal. He's doing sixty, then seventy, then eighty. The car keeps going faster, the wind blowing up the sleeve of his new suit. He listens for sirens that never come. He looks for lights from other cars, but he's the only person on this stretch. He's going faster. How many miles has he gone?

Faster now, barreling into the darkness and down this long country road. He feels the wheel vibrate and the road coming up through the car and into the gas pedal. He can feel the asphalt underneath his shoe as if he is running and not just pushing the pedal to the floor. He punches the steering wheel once, then again. Then he punches the roof above his head. Then the wheel again. He wants to scream and curse, but instead just glares silently at the road ahead of him. The darkness gets lighter as he accelerates.

Up ahead, he sees lights coming from a tiny gas station. He's doing over ninety now. His car is just a ball of light that comes barreling up to a Shell station in the middle of the night. He doesn't brake; he just takes his foot off the gas pedal and listens to the engine get quiet as the car slows down. He steers into the parking lot faster than he should and looks around. No one is there; the station is closed. He opens the door to the car and steps out. The air isn't as cool now, and he can feel sweat soaking through the back of his shirt. He stands in the tiny parking lot and looks back down the country road he was just on. How far did he drive?

His heart is racing. The thumping in his chest is so loud it's the only thing he can hear. He takes several deep breaths and waits for the pounding in his ears to settle down. Across the street is a big open field. He looks both ways, even though he's the only person around for miles. There is nothing but darkness and the after-hours lights coming from the Shell station.

What just happened?
he thinks
. What did I just do?

Silence. The only thing he hears is the sound of his car beeping to let him know the driver door is open. He hears it less the farther he walks into the big field. It's nothing but grass. This is Iowa. There should be corn.

What do they grow here if there's nothing but grass?
he thinks. He looks around but still can't see any corn.

He reaches into his pocket and takes out his money. He didn't rob Dustin; he only took what he was owed. He reaches into his other pocket and takes out his cell phone. He never responded to Sam's text message. He doesn't know if she has forgiven him. He doesn't know if she'll even answer or if she'll be angry when she does.

“Hello?” Sam answers the phone, sounding as if she's been sleeping.

“Did I wake you?” he asks. He hates it when he wakes her.

“No,” she says. He hopes she's not lying. “No, I was just reading.”

“I hope you don't mind me calling.”

“No,” she says quietly, then clears her throat. “No, I wanted you to.”

“I'm glad you're there,” he says. Then, after a second, “I mean, I wish you were here. But I'm glad you're there when I call. Do you know what I mean?”

She actually chuckles slightly, and he can hear her smile a little bit through the phone.

“Yeah, I know. Did you have a show tonight?”

“Yeah, I did. That's why I'm calling so late. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” she says. “Was it good?”

“It really was, yeah,” he says. He can still feel his heart thumping in his chest. It's getting slower now. Everything is clearing up, and the pounding in his head isn't hurting as much. The cell phone is rubbing against the leftover scrapes on his face, but he doesn't feel them. He feels oddly warm and comfortable. He wonders if it's the suit that brings it out of him.

“You still there?” she says, and he realizes that he's just been breathing heavily into the phone like a pervert.

“I screwed up tonight,” he says.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“The job,” he says. “I think I really did it this time. I think I really . . . I really did it this time.”

“What happened?” she asks. He imagines her sitting up on her bed, dropping her book to her side, and wondering if he's back in the hospital or—worse—in jail. “Is everything alright? Are you okay?”

“What?” he asks and looks around. His car door is ajar. The beeping sound drones on in the night.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice quieter than before.

He stands there for a minute and looks around. No lights; no other sounds. He's breathing okay now. His heart feels steady. Sam is listening.

He smiles.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I feel great.”

The air is cool in Toronto. Spence likes that about this city more than anything. He sweats easily and has always hated summer for that reason. This time last year he was in Arkansas and thought he was going to drown. Sitting in Sam's apartment with the window open, he is pleased with how nice it feels to just sit and let the wind hit him. It was worth the fourteen-hour drive from Iowa to get here.

Sitting on a barstool with his feet propped up on the window ledge, he hears a familiar buzzing noise and knows it's his cell phone vibrating on the end table next to the sofa. Sam is sitting there reading another chick lit novel. She doesn't look up but raises one eyebrow when the phone goes off. He's been ignoring it for the past couple of days because he knows who is calling. He has no interest in listening to Rodney scream at him. He hasn't even listened to any of his voice messages.

“That's five times today,” Sam says without looking up.

“Yep,” he says.

“He might be worried about you,” she says. He looks at her and raises his eyebrows. “Probably not,” she concedes.

He drove straight through the night, thinking about what he would say when Rodney called. The first call came mid-Sunday afternoon when he was trying to sleep off the drive. He thought he would eventually regret what he did in Iowa, but the regret never came. Over the next twenty-four hours, he simply let it ring every time that familiar number popped up on the screen. He's been too content just being with Sam to bother with Rodney. He still has no idea what he wants to say, but he picks up the phone anyway.

“Here goes nothing,” he says to Sam, who closes her book and gets up off the sofa. With a quick kiss to the cheek, she leaves the room. It's for the best. She has never met Rodney but already hates him. Besides Spence's onstage performance, she hasn't seen much about the business that she has ever found appealing. And that was before the Syracuse hospital debacle even happened.

“What?” Spence says as he puts the phone to his ear. He thinks that Rodney is going to scream at him the second he gets the chance, but he's surprised at how quiet Rodney is when he finally speaks.

“There you are,” Rodney says. “Jesus, I've been trying to reach you for the past two days.”

“I know,” Spence says. “I was avoiding you.”

“For God's sake,” Rodney says, “I was worried. For all I knew you were wrapped around a telephone pole in Idaho.”

“Iowa.”

“Wherever,” Rodney says. “I didn't know if you were dead or alive. You could've eaten a shotgun for all I knew, you idiot. I'm sitting here wondering if I should call a morgue or something.”

“I'm fine.”

“Christ, what the hell happened?” Rodney says.

“What did you hear?”

“I heard you're lucky you didn't get your ass kicked.”

“You heard wrong,” Spence says, “but I figured that's how he'd spin it.”

“So what the hell happened?”

Spence sighs. In the past couple of days he has managed to calm down. He's even managed to enjoy himself doing absolutely nothing but just being with Sam. It's been a good couple of days of watching TV, making love, and not thinking about Rodney or Dustin or hotels or nightclubs. He knew he'd have to talk about it eventually. Now he's instantly just as annoyed as he was when he left.

“He tried to take half my money,” Spence says, “so I took it back. It's that simple.”

“Simple?” Rodney says. “Jesus, you are out of your mind. You're lucky you got out of town in one piece. You're probably lucky to be alive.”

“I highly doubt that,” Spence says. “When I left him, he was crying like a baby on the floor of his office.”

“That's not the way I heard it.”

“Yeah?” He looks around the corner. Sam is pretending not to listen, but he highly doubts that she has been reading the same page this entire time. She's tapping her foot nervously while lying on the bed. He's never noticed her doing that before. “Well, I got my money, so I don't know what you heard. Seems unlikely that he'd beat me up and then pay me for it.”

“That's not the point,” Rodney says. “You screwed this one up good. He's on a warpath. Guy wants your head on a platter.”

“Tell him he can have my ass on his lips,” Spence says and smiles. Big.

“Stop screwing around. I'm serious.”

“You seem to think I'm kidding,” Spence says. “I'm through with this crap, Rodney. I'm not going to have these idiot club managers throwing their weight around with me and thinking they aren't going to get taken down a few pegs for it. That guy got exactly what he deserved. I could not care less about him. To hell with him and his club. You got that?”

“Say what you want,” Rodney says, “but that's yet another club you can't work. And you know he's got friends, genius. What do you think is going to happen when he tells other club owners about you?”

“I don't want to work for them, either,” Spence says. “I really don't care.”

“Well, you should care,” Rodney says. “How do you expect to make a living as a stand-up comic when you can't get work in comedy clubs? Huh? You aren't cute or clean enough to do cruise ships, and I can't think of how you could possibly do corporate work.”

Rodney is right about that one. Corporate comics are squeaky clean. Way more than the guys on
The Tonight Show
or
Letterman
. They make a ton of money, usually six figures per year. But to do corporate comedy, a guy has to be both clean and lovable. It's real cheerleader stuff, and Spence knows he would never make it. He has no interest in it anyway. At least on cruise ships he could get a tan.

“Like I said, to hell with Dustin,” Spence says. “The guy is strictly C-list at best. Give me a break. He's not booking the Improv. We're talking about a C-room in godforsaken Iowa. I put him on his ass, and I'm glad I did it. He needed to be humbled.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Rodney asks. “You wanna talk about pots and kettles? You've got the biggest goddamned ego I've ever seen! Only person who needs to be taken down a few pegs is you!”

“Oh, please,” Spence says, “I'm sick of hearing that nonsense. Last I checked, the audiences don't come out to see Dustin and they don't come out to see Rodney. I'm sick of pretending like what I do is no big deal. You walk on that stage and do what I do every night, you can scream to me about how I need to act all humble and modest. Until then, let's just remember that there's no comedy business without comedians.”

“And there are plenty of you,” Rodney says without even pausing. “I've got dozens besides you that pay me, you know that?”

“That doesn't have a thing to do with me, and you know it.”

“Not everything is about you.”

Spence fakes a laugh. “Then who is it about, Rodney? Who is my career about if not me? If I don't put me first, who will? You?”

“I do that all the time.”

“Oh, please, Rodney, you have never put me above one of those clubs. Not once. Not ever. If it comes down to the club versus me, you side with the clubs every single time.”

“The clubs are usually right.”

“Aren't you paid to fix this?” Spence ignores Rodney and keeps going. “I know I don't pay you to just set up these low-rent gigs. For Chrissakes, Rodney, do something other than mark my name in a calendar and then collect the checks.”

“Screw you,” Rodney says. He sounds angry now. “Those checks I get for booking you aren't nearly as nice as you think they are.”

“Yeah?” Spence says, setting up the punch. “The check from Doane College was pretty nice, if you ask me.”

“What?” Rodney says, oblivious. “You think that twenty percent from your college gig pays my rent, genius?”

“Seven hundred dollars,” Spence says. There's a silence on the other end of the phone for about ten seconds. “Yeah. I know, Rodney. I know that you were going to make seven hundred bucks on that gig. The school made the full check out to me.”

“What are you talking about?” Rodney dances around it but knows he's caught.

“You lied to me,” Spence says. He is calm again, mostly because he's right where he wants to be. He's been thinking about this conversation for two days and finally has it right where he dreamed it would be. “You got greedy, and you lied to me. You told me they didn't agree to pay me twelve hundred. All the while you got the pay up to fifteen hundred so you could keep almost half.”

“That's not how it happened.”

“Oh, please,” Spence says. “How long have you been lying to me, Rodney? Huh? How long have you been ripping me off?”

“Ripping you off?” Rodney says. “I work for my money, Mister Ungrateful. You've been working for years because of me.”

Spence remembers the day he met Rodney. How exciting it was to have an agent who wanted to sign him onto his roster. There were so many promises. He was going to be on TV more, Rodney said. He was going to get some serious auditions, Rodney said. There would be movie offers and television sitcom pilots, Rodney said. He shook Rodney's hand and didn't look back. The future was bright, and he looked forward to years of fancy clubs and four-star hotels. A couple of years later he was performing in the backroom cafeteria of a Days Inn in West Virginia.

“Yeah,” he says, “and look at that work you got me. Old biker bars and cowboy saloons. One-nighters in the middle of Mississippi. Karaoke bars. When I met you I was doing weeklong clubs every week.”

“You still do.”

“Half as much as I used to. And now I don't even know how much money you're skimming off the top.”

“Your money is typical for headliners at your level. If you're happy making your money, why do you care what I make?”

“If I was happy, we wouldn't be having this conversation, Rodney,” he says. “If I was happy, I wouldn't have beaten the snot out of Dustin in his own club.”

“You've got no one but yourself to blame on that one.”

“Wrong,” he says. “I blame you. If you had more respect for me and what I do, maybe these club owners would, too.”

“Do you honestly think you're so damned special?” Rodney asks.

Spence laughs again. Special. That's exactly what Rodney told him he was the first night they met. Spence came offstage at Rascal's Comedy Club in New Jersey and Rodney was there. He gave Spence a business card and told him he was going places. Rodney told Spence he was different than the other comedians he represented. He was special.

“That's just it,” he says. “I don't think I'm special. I think I'm pretty average. But even average deserves to be treated better. Average feels like shit.”

“At least you realize it,” Rodney says.

“What? That I'm average?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember this, Rodney,” Spence says. “Even the most average comedian is far more talented than the most phenomenal agent.”

There is a pause. Spence doesn't know if Rodney is simply listening or trying to multitask as usual. He looks outside and watches people walking down the street in midtown Toronto. A couple walks by holding hands and makes him suddenly wish he could just leave and take a walk somewhere with Sam. It's sunny out. It would be the perfect day for a walk. The song “Sometimes When We Touch” suddenly pops into his head for no reason. Wasn't that by a Canadian guy?

“I've always believed in you,” Rodney says.

“No, you believed you could get me some work.”

“Same difference,” Rodney says.

“You're fired.” Spence hangs up the phone. He looks up and sees Sam standing in the bedroom doorway. “That went well,” he says.

Sam chuckles quietly and crosses the room to where he is. She reaches out to put her arms around him. For the first time, he realizes that he's sweating. He feels fine, but his temples are wet and he can feel his shirt sticking to his back. He just now noticed that his hands are trembling a little bit. When she embraces him, he feels as if he hasn't touched her in weeks.

“Now what?” Sam asks him after he holds her for a couple of minutes.

“Sushi?” he asks.

 

He can't remember the last time he had sushi. He thinks it was two years ago in the middle of Kansas. Some club manager really liked it and recommended he try some place in town. The guy was right and, oddly enough, that place in the middle of the country had some pretty good California rolls. Suggesting it for lunch was a good idea. Spence doesn't know how that popped into his head or why he suddenly recommended it, but here he is shoving raw salmon into his mouth.

Sam smiles at him and tries to deflect the fact that she keeps fumbling with her chopsticks. Spence pretends not to notice when she drops food on her shirt, and she pretends not to notice when he occasionally just picks up the food with his hands. They would never be able to live in Japan. They'd be starving and covered in food within a week.

Spence and Sam,
he thinks. It sounds corny, but he likes it.

He hasn't been unemployed in years. Not since before he started doing stand-up comedy. He's not exactly sure how to handle it. He hasn't even had a vacation in ten years, so the idea of not working is something he can't wrap his head around. He has a couple of gigs coming up next month that he lined up without Rodney, but he knows everything else was canceled the minute he hung up the phone. Six months' worth of work, instantly gone. There might be an e-mail from Rodney confirming the lost work, but probably not. In a week, he'll check club websites to see his photo replaced by some other guy.

“How about Second Cup?” Sam asks as she drops rice in her lap.

“What the hell is that?” he asks.

“It's like Canada's Starbucks.”

“But Canada has Starbucks.” He points across Yonge Street from the little sushi restaurant they are sitting in directly to a Starbucks on the corner.