"As it turned out, there's a reason thirty-year-olds sleep with nineteen-year-olds."
Like in Every Young Girl's Dream, My Delicate Flower Is Taken by a Gruff Thirty-Year-Old Comic from Queens Who Is Emotionally Indifferent to Me
Kevin Brennan was the emcee on open-mic nights, Mondays, at the Boston Comedy Club on West 3rd Street in the West Village of Manhattan. I had a job passing out flyers for the club every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 4:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., and besides my ten-dollars-an-hour payment, I could go up on open-mic night without bringing two friends (a prerequisite for open-micers was that they had to bring two paying customers).
Kevin was tall with dark brown hair and a white-and-red blotchy Irish face. He wore a long army-green trench coat and carried a briefcase, which, at nineteen, I found very impressive. And he was thirty — a grown man. He stood outside the club smoking a Merit Light. I went outside and bummed one.
kevin: So, you go to school?
me: Yeah. NYU.
kevin: What — are you a freshman?
me: Mm-hm.
kevin: What — are you, like, in a sorority?
me: Yeah, but you can only be in it if you're really cool.
kevin: Yeah? Who else is in it?
me: Just me.
He laughs.
Let me take a moment to describe myself here: big curly perm, black polyester shirt with long shear sleeves, black miniskirt, and Doc Martens with thick black socks. It was 1990.
I did my five minutes and stayed for the rest of the night until the show was over and Kevin was going home.
"You wanna see my apartment?" He chuckled, I assume at his paper-thinly veiled offer. "It's in Queens."
"Sure. Yeah."
And off we cabbed to Astoria, Queens. We walked up a stairwell and through a hallway to his apartment. It smelled good to me. It smelled like first grade for some reason. Something industrial but sweet, like old paint and licorice. Inside there was a small living room, a bathroom, and two bedrooms — one his and one his roommate's. On the coffee table was a Best of Chicago tape. He also had a stack of records, with the Go-Go's Vacation on top.
"Wanna see my bedroom?"
"Okay."
He led me to his bedroom — a bed, a dresser, and an ashtray. He kissed me while he laid me back in his bed.
"Have you ever had sex before?"
"Yes, I've had sex before," I said, insulted.
Here's the thing. I thought I had had sex. My senior year of high school I visited my sister Laura at Boston University, and she fixed me up with a friend who was from all accounts very good-looking. I knew he was the kind of guy girls in my school would think was really hot. He was in college; he was tall and lean and had long hair and a long beard — like a sexy Jesus. We sat on my sister's tiny living-room couch and watched Dead Ringers, a creepy Jeremy-Irons-as-twin-gynecologists thriller and fell asleep before anything really serious happened. The next morning my sister and her roommate left early for the AIDS Walk, and this guy and I — yipes, I can't remember his name, maybe Brooks or something like that — moved into my sister's bedroom. He put on a condom and pushed against me, but there was honestly no hole there. I figured that was it. The guy just pokes hard between your legs for a while. Sex. When he finally gave up, he said, "It's not like it is in the movies, Sarah. Is that what you thought?" Which was a weird thing to say right after watching Dead Ringers.
"No," I said defensively.
So when Kevin asked me if I was a virgin, I answered honestly: no. Somehow I think he knew better than me, because he pretty much instructed me through the whole process. He talked me through my first blowjob (that, I admitted I had never done before), what to do with my tongue, what not to do with my teeth, and so on. And then, slowly at first, he pushed inside me. All the way inside. And all I could think was,
Holy shit, THIS is sex, Dummy.
He sat up on the side of the bed to smoke another Merit Light, carefully ridding the end of any excess ash, molding the red tip of it into a constant point. He put out his cigarette and pulled back the sheets to get up, revealing a Rorschach-like pattern of blood. Like a red butterfly stamp, getting lighter and lighter with each imprint.
There was a long moment of silence before I worked up the moxie to say,
"That came out of you."
"Um. No it didn't."
Another long pause, broken by him,
"It's okay. Just buy me new sheets."
I Make the Highly Original Choice of Falling for a Guy Who Treats Me Poorly
Kevin didn't have much time for me, but I took whatever I could get. I couldn't wait to have sex again and again and again. It was awesome. I was in love.
The feeling wasn't mutual. As it turned out, there's a reason thirty-year-olds sleep with nineteen-year-olds, and it's not because they're looking for something real. I beautified myself in my dorm room, checking the time and myself alternately all night for a date with him that never happened, and when I saw him next and accused him of sleeping with someone else that night, he just said, "It wasn't my fault, she tricked me," with an I don't give a fuck half-smile.
After six months of being his if-he-couldn't-find-anyone-
Not long after that my friend Kerry came to visit from Washington. Her hair now dreaded and multicolored, she told me all about Howard University and her life in D.C., i.e.,
"Crackheads are the best because you can get your whole lawn mowed for, like, two dollars."
She asked me how I was and I told her that I lost my virginity but the guy dumped me and I was devastated.
"Fuck that shit. I'm a female chauvinist."
"Um . . . huh?"
"I'm a female chauvinist. I tell a guy, ‘When I'm with you I'm with you, and when I'm not with you, you don't worry about where I am.' "
I was inspired. Kerry changed my perspective — changed the way I saw men and changed the way I saw myself, transforming me from prey to predator in one weekend visit. For the next two years I was on a rampage. I was a monkey swinging from vine to vine. I kept Noxzema in my bag because I never knew where I'd end up sleeping or whom with. (Book of Kerry: Never go to sleep with a dirty face.)
The following is a conversation between Kevin and me while I was writing this. I got in touch to make sure it was okay with him and to find out what he remembered.
—– Original Message —–
From: Sarah Silverman
To: Kevin Brennan
Sent: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 9:00 pm
Subject: Sarah Silverman
Alright, Kevin. Tell me about that night as well as you remember it. Unless you don't want to. Do you want to? Do you even remember? Whatever you can recall I'd appreciate. I'm Jewish, S
—– Original Message —–
From: Kevin Brennan
To: Sarah Silverman
Sent: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 3:38 pm
Subject: Got your message
Yes, I remember that night because when you became famous people would ask me about it so I would reminisce. The best part was after I asked you if you were a virgin because there was blood on the sheets and your response was "maybe it's your blood." Then I knew you were a virgin because guys don't bleed after sex (unless you're Mario Cantone, etc) and you would have known that if you had gotten laid before.
From: Sarah Silverman
To: Kevin Brennan
Sent: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 6:08 pm
Subject: Re: Got your message
I don't think you told me to buy you new sheets, but it seemed like a good ending, and though this is nonfiction, I decided it was completely in your character to do so. You did, after all, jump behind me to protect yourself. Remember? I got hit by a van that just barely stopped in time. Why is that "Wind Beneath My Wings" song suddenly in my head? xo sarah
From: Kevin Brennan
To: Sarah Silverman
Sent: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:14 pm
Subject: Re: Got your message
Your version makes me sound cool and pathetic at the same time like that guy who scalps tickets in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Whatever happened to him? Also, the van didn't hit you, it only came close. And I only did it because I was taping MTV 1/2 Hour comedy hour that week so my life was more valuable than yours.
From: Sarah Silverman
To: Kevin Brennan
Sent: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:28 pm
Subject: Re: Got your message
Touche. Xo s
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From the book The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman. Excerpted by arrangement with Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. Copyright © 2010 |
