Singles and Buttons

         Tomorrow is my birthday; I’ll be thirty years old. I’m sitting at the bar in Cobb’s Comedy Club at the Cannery, going over the routine I just finished. I held the pause before the punch line to my Psycho Grandma bit way too long and missed a segue into an overeager meter maid story. Lynette, my agent and good friend, sits to my right, sipping an Old Fashioned, talking on her cellular phone.
         “All right then,” she says, trading her drink for a drag on her cigarette. “I’ll make sure he’s on a plane, you make sure Dave doesn’t bump him for an extra ten minutes bullshitting with Sharon Stone. Right. Thanks. Bye.” She collapses her cell phone in half, drops it in her purse, and turns to me. “Who’s the best agent in the world?” she asks.
         “I’m on Letterman,” I reply, not looking at her. Looking instead over her shoulder at the line of people filing out of the room where I had just finished my set. Some of them smile and give a little wave when they see me.
         “A five minute filler at the end of Friday’s show,” Lynette says, “but it’ll be national exposure.”
         One couple approaches me timidly, as if I’m a movie star or someone important, and tells me they liked my routine. I smile and tell them to catch me on a better day.
         “Hey,” Lynnette says, giving me a push. “What’s the matter with you?”
         “Nothing’s the matter with me.” I take a quick sip of my water to help swallow the lie. “I’ll be thirty tomorrow.”
         “Oh sweet Jesus, how could I have forgotten the annual commiseration that you survived the year?”
         “It’s a wonder I made it this far,” I say, continuing to watch the crowd, really just a single-file line, leave the building.
         “Listen,” Lynette motions for the bartender, then points to her drink, “You are not at the bottom of the heap, babe.” I wince at the word. “You have a gift to make people laugh.” The bartender’s hands move fast enough for me almost missing the new Old Fashioned for Lynette, where her empty glass had been.
         “Please,” I take a big gulp, almost finish the water, and then pivot toward her. “I tell stories with manipulated pauses designed to extract laughter from an audience. It’s a script, an act, a con game--certainly not a gift.”
         Lynette stops drinking. For the second that she stares at me through the top of her wide-mouthed glass, her eyes bulge. She finishes her drink with one quick upward snap of her head and returns her glass to the wooden counter top. “What a pity you feel that way,” she says.
         Somebody taps my shoulder. It’s the small, thin, wire-haired guy with glasses too big for his face that sat in the third row, off to the left during my routine.
         “I, uh, just wanted to let you know I enjoyed your act,” he says, extending his hand.
         “Thanks,” I nod until he drops it. We all have our weird little habits; mine happens to be refusing to shake hands with strangers. I start thinking about whether or not they’re the type of person that, say, washes their hands after they’ve gone to the bathroom, or pick their ears, or noses, or other body parts.
         But I digress.
         “Perhaps you would let me buy you a beer,” the huge spectacled man says.
         “I don’t drink,” I reply, holding up my water glass, which doesn’t prove a thing because it’s empty.
         “Well,” the stranger says, fidgeting, “if I could have just a word with you.”
         Lynette passes me a felt-tip pen and one of my press release photos. She’s smiling as if she won some great argument.
         “Sure,” I tell the man. “What can I do for you?”
         “My name is Theodore Willmington,” he says, handing me his business card, with ATTORNEY underneath his name. “I’m the executor of your father’s estate. I’m afraid he passed away early this morning.”
         “What a relief,” I tell Theodore. “I thought you were giving me a subpoena for refusing to pay my parking tickets.”

* * *

         My parents never wanted children. My mother had a pin button collection, about seven thousand in all. Small buttons, medium buttons, large buttons; square, circular, rectangular buttons; yellow, blue, pink, and green buttons; buttons that reflect in dizzying geometric shapes, and buttons with holographic images set inside. Buttons that had everything from the peace symbol with no wording, to ones with interesting little catch phrases like, “Hire the left-handed. It’s fun to watch them write,” and even a few downright scary phrases like, “I miss my ex-husband...but my aim is improving.” My father had a monstrous record collection; CDS, LPS, 45s, and even a few 78s; blues records, Motown records, jazz records, rock and roll records, and even a few heavy metal and alternative rock records, as his neighbors angrily informed me. When I walked out on him, on our family, twelve years ago--two years before my mother died of cancer--he had 365 compact disks, 254 albums, 29 78s, and approached nine hundred singles.
         Naturally, they met at a collectibles convention. They hit it off and got married within a year. They both had their reasons for not wanting children, separate and combined: They didn’t want to bring a child into a violent world. They didn’t want to channel their finances into taking care of a child (they had their singles and buttons to buy, after all). One of them had a family history of heart disease, the other a family history of cancer. There were other reasons. I’m unable to recall which parent had originated what reason, like Flintstones Vitamins I had to take at least one a day along with breakfast. They didn’t mean it maliciously, which made it worse.
         My sister was born when I was five, just old enough to understand the offhanded, guilt-tinged comments that continued to come my way but rarely hers. I asked my parents why I was born.
         “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” answered my mother.
         “I didn’t leave enough space in the condom to capture the sperm,” answered my father.

* * *

         “Think about the commercials you’ve seen on television for a minute,” I tell the crowd at Cobb’s. Today is my birthday and I’m finishing the last of a three-night set before meeting with Theodore and my sister tomorrow. “They’re not really commercials, any more, are they?” A small pause. “They’re music videos.” Enough of the crowd laughs to warrant my continuation of this bit. “Microsoft has ‘Start Me Up,’ by the Rolling Stones. Burger King has ‘Still the One,’ by the Orleans.” I start to walk about the stage. “And those companies that don’t adopt a song are actually putting some thought into their jingles.” A short pause. “You watch the Sears commercial and you actually think, my, that’s a catchy little tune.” I get a spatter of laughter from the crowd. “I think the Dr. Pepper jingle made its way into the Billboard Top 40 this week.” More laughter. “Oh, you laugh now, but you don’t realize how close we actually are to that future in Demolition Man, that Sylvester Stallone movie, and the futuristic cops turn on the radio, and it’s nothing but continuous commercial jingles. You don’t realize how close we are to that idiot who sings along with the Oscar Mayer Wiener jingle and then remarks, ‘it’s his favorite oldie’.” The crowd laughs so hard that I can’t hear myself think. Time for a segue. “My old man knew music. He could tell you who sang what in a heartbeat. He could have gone on Jeopardy the night they had ‘Music Trivia That Bores the Shit Out of Everyone’ as a category and came away a millionaire. I learned my knowledge through his school of hard knocks.” Not as many people laugh. My parents are usually good material. Suddenly, my timing’s off and I’m glad to be off stage in five minutes.

* * *

         We are sitting around a conference table: myself, Lynette, Theodore, Melissa--my sister--and her husband Raymond. Melissa drums her fingers on the tabletop.
         “All right, everybody. This shouldn’t take too long.” Theodore shuffles legal size sheets of paper in a manila folder and then deals them to Melissa and me. “What you have there is a copy of your father’s will. It is very specific,” Theodore adjusts his wide-rimmed glasses, pushes them along the bridge of his nose, and reads from his original. “All of the equity and assets that your father had: the house, the station wagon, the money he had acquired through investments--”
         “Excuse me,” I interrupt. “Investments?”
         “Your father sold off his record collection three years ago, took the money and purchased stocks.” Theodore says, removing his glasses.
         “I’ll be damned,” I lean back in my chair, “the old man finally parted with his records.”
         “So he could prepare for our family’s future,” Melissa says, turning to me, about to spring from her chair. “Not that you give a damn about our family, or ever did, but just to satisfy your curiosity, that’s why he parted with his collection.” Raymond, hands on Melissa’s shoulders, whispers into her ear, and she remains in her seat.
         “I think it’s a little late for preparation, don’t you?” I ask her. I feel Lynette’s breath on my ear an instant before I hear her whisper for me to quit it. Quit what? This is how it is with our family; this is how it’s always been.
         “And whose fault is that?” Melissa snaps. “Who argued with Dad, pressed him on every issue, criticized him on every decision he made? He was never a good enough father for you.”
         “That’s right,” I say, standing. “I think I had good reason to argue,” I start to pace around the room. “Theodore, you seem to be an average, well-adjusted individual. Did your parents take you to Disneyland when you were a kid? It’s only a day’s drive away. Go to the movies? Have family picnics? Get that bicycle you wanted for Christmas?”
         Theodore nods.
         “We went to garage sales; Mom and Dad rifling through the junk like insane people while I stood on the sidewalk. I borrowed portions of my friends’ lunches at school because my parents didn’t bother to make me lunch or give me lunch money. I’d get table scraps for dinner; not because we were poor, but because our family income went to my parents’ obsession. They ate, but didn’t buy enough food for three. Our big family outing was to CollectFest each year. For my sixth birthday, I got “Somebody Saved My Life, Tonight,” by Elton John. My parents gave each other huge piles of presents for Christmas; Melissa and I each received a button.”
         Theodore snickers. Raymond joins in, and Melissa whispers and tugs on his arm.
         “Don’t laugh,” I lean over the table and stare at Theodore. “I’m not performing, here. This isn’t an act.”
         Theodore clears his throat, re-seats his glasses, scans the paper he’s holding, and says, “As I was about to state, all of the equity and assets your father had are to be split between you and your sister.”
         “What?” I ask.
         “What!” Melissa screams and jerks so hard that part of her jet-black hair falls loose from her tightly wrapped bun. She looks at her copy of the will, and then slowly crumples it. “I’ll contest it,” she says, facing me. “You deserve exactly what you put into our family: nothing.”
         “What a coincidence,” I remark. “I want nothing from this family.”

* * *

         I am sitting in Lynette’s office, on the fourteenth floor of One Embarcadero Plaza, a few hours later. Whenever I’m in Lynette’s office, I am reminded that she’s a slave to fads. She has a pet rock on her black laminated desktop. A lava lamp sits on her two-shelf bookcase. A mood ring hangs from the mouse cord of her computer.
         “Well that was quite a scene,” she says, tapping her pen on top of what looks to be someone’s contract.
         “It’s been a while since I saw Melissa.” I grab a ginger ale from the small, black refrigerator next to the bookcase.
         “You told me you walked out on your family, what, ten years ago?”
         “Twelve.”
         “And you’ve had no contact with them since? No talking on the phone, no letters?”
         “Do you need a chalkboard or visual aid,” I say, sipping my ginger ale, sitting in the black leather visitor’s chair across from her. “I can ask your secretary to take notes if it’ll help.”
         Lynette’s eyes narrow. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he’s back to his sarcastic self. How do you know there’s nothing in your parents’ house you want?”
         The phone rings, and Lynette picks it up, talking faster than the speed of light. I watch her talk. I’m thirty years old, and she’s my best friend. I have no family by choice, why do I have no friends. Why is Lynette my only friend? She hangs up and notices me watching her.
         “What?” she asks.
         “You’re my best friend,” I tell her.
         “Well, thanks,” she smiles, taking it as a compliment. I decide not to tell her it is, in reality, a depressing realization.

* * *

         I arrive at my parents’ home in San Jose that evening. Raymond is there to meet me in the driveway, studying the concrete. He always laughs at my jokes, but he never looks me in the eye.
         “Melissa is upstairs,” he says, turning, walking to the front door. “She’s resting.”
         “That might be best,” I reply. “This will only take a minute as it is.”
         I hesitate at the front door, only for a moment. Then step inside and look around. The family room with brown carpet that smells like cigarette smoke and fried chicken, the kitchen with faded and cracked wallpaper, it’s all the same. There’s nothing I want here. Why did I think there was?
         “It wasn’t really that bad, was it?” Raymond asks.
         “What?”
         “Family life.” Raymond says.
         “Melissa wasn’t around, or was too young, for most of the reminders that she and I were minor inconveniences; hurdles in the way of our parents’ living.”
         “Yes, but you really don’t believe that, do you? I mean, they obviously loved you enough to raise you. You weren’t abandoned.” Raymond says, staring at me.
         “I found this upstairs, in Dad’s room,” Melissa’s sleepy voice behind me causes me to jump a bit. She’s holding a single in her hand.
         “That weasel in a suit said Dad sold off his record collection,” I say, taking the single. Elton John is on the cover in one of his large, feathery hats. “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” is the A Side.
         “He did,” Melissa reaches for my hand and grabs it.
         “I was never mad at you, Sis,” I say. I hug her so hard I can’t take a breath. I hand her the single. “Just them.”

* * *

         I’m standing at Gate 16 in San Francisco International Airport, waiting for my Red-Eye flight to New York. I’m going to appear on David Letterman, national television, in less than twenty-four hours and make people laugh. I’ll have to use re-hashed material, but I’ll manage.
         “How are you doing?” Lynette asks, handing me my ticket while I pull my jacket on.
         “I’m having dinner at my sister’s house next week,” I smile.

* * *

         Ten minutes left of the Letterman taping and I am sitting in the Green Room watching the show on a wall-mounted monitor. David makes a smart-ass comment to Burt Reynolds and then jumps up and tosses a canned ham into the audience. If not for the four pea green walls, I might as well be at home watching this.
         “We’re sorry,” the man who ushered me in this room forty minutes ago runs in and tells me, “but we seemed to run out of time. Dave still would like to meet you; maybe we can have you back on another show?”
         Well, now it’s official.
         I smile, tell Dave’s employee it’s no problem, and he walks out the door. For the remaining ten minutes, I run through my routine anyway: a bit about comparing New York cabdrivers to Muni bus drivers, going for the cheap laughs mentioning how bad the Mets have been, some observational humor about lawyers and agents. Not one mention of my parents.

* * *

         The first thing that takes me by surprise is Melissa’s four-year-old daughter opening the door.
         “Hello?”
         “Um, is your mom home?”
         She shuts the door. Melissa opens it a few seconds later.
         “Sorry about that,” she says. “Come on in.”
         Melissa lives in a two-floor house, her carpet does not smell of any food substance, her kitchen wallpaper is not cracked, and her house makes my apartment look very small and very isolated.
         “So do you mind if I move in?” I ask, sitting for dinner. Raymond laughs, of course. “Raymond, look at me,” I tell him, and when he does I add, “You are a lucky man.”
         “I’m a man who has come to terms with what I want my family to be,” he says, and keeps my stare.
         “We’re not the Cleavers,” Melissa says, approaching the dinner table with some sort of chicken casserole. “Mary, turn off the television, it’s time to eat supper.”
         “But you have something,” I start, but Melissa walks away from the table, into the family room.
         “We have to do this just about every night,” Raymond explains. I hear a slapping sound, and then Mary’s melodramatic crying. I hear Melissa’s scolding, low but firm, and I’m only able to hear the end of it.
         “...just because there’s company. You try a stunt like that again and we’ll see how a time out without supper works for your schedule.” She plops Mary in her seat, and then turns to me. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
         That you have something we never had, I thought. But maybe we did. A warped, dysfunctional version of it, but we did have ourselves a family.
         “You never told me you had a daughter.”
         “You never asked,” Melissa smiles, and pushes the casserole toward me.
         “You didn’t bring her to the reading of the will, or to the house. Where was she?”
         “Oh, a concerned uncle,” Melissa says. “We had our neighbors watch Mary; they’re good friends of ours.”
         I take a bite of the casserole, the best food I’ve tasted in a month.
         “I want us to be civil toward one another,” Melissa says. “I’ve--we’ve lost our father. Our parents are deceased. I want a brother again, is that too much to ask?”
         I look at Mary. Mary, my niece for Christsake. I need to be a good uncle to her. A good brother to Melissa. It’s not much, a long-overdue start. Our parents are deceased, why don’t I just leave it at that.
         “It’s probably too little,” I answer her.