Page 106 of Nathan
“That’s embarrassing, since I lived here for years as a child and a teen,” I admitted before pointing down the street. “There. A pizza shop.”
He ordered two slices, but they were so large that I went with only one.
“This way.” Nathan nudged me down a side street where a fenced basketball court was empty. “We can sit on that bench while we eat.”
Sitting astride a scratched-up bench inside the fenced area, Nathan and I munched on our pizza and drank our drinks.
“Pretty fancy, huh?” Nathan winked at me.
“You sure know how to impress a woman.”
“I got us this whole place to ourselves, what more do you want?” he teased and bumped his Sprite against my Fanta. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
“Besides,” he said and gave me another of his playful smiles. “This may not be gourmet food, but any man can get you that. Not everyone could make you sit so funny or walk like a cowboy.”
I chuckled. “You try having a whole day of marathon sex and then walk and sit normally. My body is sore.”
“But sated and satisfied?”
I angled my head and smiled wide. “Extremely satisfied. You?”
“Couldn’t be happier.” Nathan finished his last slice and offered to take my trash before we moved on.
“Have you ever seen stand-up comedy?”
“Only on TV. I was too young to get into the clubs when I worked on Broadway.”
“Then you’re in for a treat. It’s always better live, and New York has some of the best clubs in the country.” Leading me around like he’d been born in New York, Nathan held my hand and took me to a place ten blocks from our hotel.
We were lucky enough to arrive only a few minutes before the show started, which meant we were rushed in by a hostess who didn’t have time to look at us much. She gave us seats in the back of the room.
“I’m warning you, comedy in this place can be pretty crude,” Nathan whispered to me as I looked around and took in the room. Between us and the brightly lit stage, there were about a hundred and fifty audience members seated at long tables with drinks in front of them. They cheered when a presenter introduced the first performer, a black woman with a large afro who came on stage and waved her hand. She started out by joking about her new life as a single woman after fifteen years of being married.
“Did you know young men lust for mature women?” Her face was serious as she held the microphone and pushed her hips to one side. “I’ll go out with my girlfriends, and these twenty-something hunks will come up to me and whisper all the dirty things they want to do to me.”
The audience whistled, and Nathan and I smiled.
“I don’t have time for that.” She waved her hand dismissively when someone called out to her, and added, “No, you people don’t understand my situation. These men are millennials… I’m pushing forty. Back in my day, a woman could be a woman, but millennials… um-u-um…” She pouted and pushed her hip to the other side resembling a younger version of my sassy agent Denise. “I’m telling you, they’re used to shaved pussies, and my situation down there is exactly like up here.” She pointed to her huge afro and had the audience laughing out loud. “I’m a single mom now. I don’t have time to clear those bushes on a regular basis, and it gets to a point where the garden is so overgrown, I can’t do nothing but open a bottle of wine and say, fuck it!”
“I’d shave you,” one cheeky young man shouted over the laughter.
“Why? Did the court sentence you to community service or some shit? You think I’m some charity case? Single mom who needs help trimming her bushes. Oh, please.” She smacked her tongue and carried on with her comedy show.
A massively obese man with an infectious laugh came on stage as the second performer and made jokes about people’s reactions to his looks and his love for food. Nathan and I were grinning and smiling the entire time. The last comedian of the night was a skinny black man with dreadlocks, gold chains, and pants hanging halfway down his hips. I heard the presenter introduce him as Tyrell, but his last name was drowned out by the loud ovation he got before he even started. Clearly, Tyrell was the main attraction tonight.
Nathan and I laughed at his jokes about life in New York and his failed attempts to make it onto Broadway. The man had perfect comic timing and he was very animated, using facial expressions and gestures to underline his points.
“He’s like Eddie Murphy with dreadlocks,” I whispered in Nathan’s ear.
He smiled at me and nodded.
“Yo, my granny always says you can’t let anything stop ya. That’s why for the last two months, I’ve been going to every fucking audition there is on Broadway. I show up when the description says German, Spanish, feminine, masculine, old, or young… I meaneverything!I even went to an audition to be a ghost.
“I can’t tell you how tired I am of casting directors telling me I’m not the right fit, so imagine my excitement when somethingamaaazinghappened. Yo, an audition turned up for a role described as a New York gangsta. I was like,finally!This ismyrole!” Tyrell smacked his chest. “I fucking knew this part was written for me and I wasn’t gonna blow my chance to finally be on Broadway, so, yesterday I showed up at the casting. It was a beautiful location, right here on Broadway. I brought my gangsta attitude as I walked in there... ya know, to scare off the competition.” Tyrell pushed out his chest and crossed his arms like someone in a rap video. “I talked street and told the motherfuckers their star was in the house, you get me?”
The audience was with him and shouted their approval.
