This is Kill Tony: Part Two

The Return to Vulcan

I. Love and 4th Chances

As a broke loser without a car, there is a flipside.

The trials I endured made me better at comedy, and it groomed me into a ladies man. When your life slowly caves in around you, the fear of rejection becomes a joke. Sure a girl can say no, laugh at me, or scream, or whatever. But can they get you fired, total your car, and drain your bank account?

Well, yes, but usually not from one bad date.

I fooled around with a lot of broads that year, but I would’ve traded them all for a single woman. Her name was Cristal.

Short and petite, Mexican. Cristal made these cute little noises when she snuggled all comfy in my bed: “Meep, meep.” Like the Road Runner from Looney Tunes.

I liked her curly black hair. I’d nestle my face into it when we slept and ran my fingers through it when I woke. I liked her little dimples when she smiled and when she laughed. I liked her soft skin, holding her soft hands, melting into her. I liked sleeping next to her. We slumbered like two bears in a cave, so quick to rest, up the next day, refreshed.

Cristal liked to do improv and other artsy things, and she liked to write and she liked to draw. She liked my stupid jokes (except the black homeless cat one) and she liked my other writing, my more serious writing.

She asked me once, “Why don’t you do this more often? I think it’s pretty good.”

I just shrugged and, strangely, withered a little inside. I don’t know why, but when people like my jokes, I can take a compliment, even though I’m mediocre at best. When they compliment my writing, something I know I’m good at, I cringe. Of all my passions, writing is one that I’m comfortable to let die.

Looking back on that as I type this, it’s ironic. If she were still here, she’d be proud of me for writing something that wasn’t another joke.

We hung out almost every single day. Coffee, walks, bars, karaoke. We Snuggled (“shnuggled’” she called it in a funny voice). We made love. Deep, passionate, no condom.

I didn’t say it, neither did she, but I loved her. I still do, but I used to, too.

We fought a lot though. Stupid things. The kind of things a guy usually waved off as girls being nitpicky. The kind of things where, in hindsight, you wish you had paid more attention to. We broke up, got back together, broke up, and so on.

The funny thing is, we always seemed to break up, or get back together, right before, and right after I had a big gig.

I kill it at the Creek & The Cave one night, two nights later we fight and break up. A week or so after, I have another gig. Got on the Vulcan. As I’m driving home, she texts me: “Hey, wanna grab a drink?” So it went, round and round in circles.

It made me think of something another comic friend had told me, a real sharpshooter by the name of Alex Olinger.

He said, “Stand-up is so weird. You can get lucky, get invited to Secret Show or whatever, and have the perfect set. Then when all is said and done, you leave the club, and the door just locks behind you. Doesn’t matter if you murdered that set. Nobody gives a fuck…until they do. Door unlocks, swings open, everybody’s your friend again.” He dragged on his cigarette and shook his head. “So fucking gay.”

That’s how I felt sometimes with Cristal. Everything would be perfect, we’re having a great time, but then the temperature shifts and I’m locked out of her good graces. Same with my stand-up bookings. If I did well on a show, people clapped, lauded me for the best set of the night, but when it came to follow up bookings, suddenly I became a stranger.

I understood. There’s a lot of comics in Austin, gotta rotate the line up, but even so, it left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt dishonest, even. If I really did have the best set of the night, why wouldn’t I be invited back? Of course I know the answer. I didn’t hang out or mingle enough before or after the show.

I’m not bitter, only confused. Blame my awkward nature, my limited social battery, or my relative inexperience. Yet what’s better for comedy? Booking someone only once because they earned it, or booking them forever because they followed you like a dog?

I digress. In the midst of all my jokes and romance, the seasons changed. December of 2024 came around. I got on Kill Tony again.

Same as last time, they had me wait in the hall off stage inside the Mothership, while Tony finished up with the guy before me. The producer asked if I had been on before. “Yep, this will be my fourth time.”

“Oh cool, so you know what to expect.”

“Yeah. So, how was this guy doing?”

The producer shrugged. “Eh.”

Tony called my name. Producer wished me good luck. Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the curtain. Sober, full of Red Bull, barely any pot in my system. The lights were still bright, the audience’s gaze heavy.

To my left sat Lemaire Lee and Matt McCusker, Shane Gillis’ cohosts on their podcast together, and of course Tony and Redban. All the big comics at one table, ready to judge. Pressure was on. But I had a good bit and I was ready. No homeless jokes.

“Here we go,” Tony announced as I took the mic. “Nick James, everybody.”

“My name is Nick James, but that’s just a stage name. My real name is French, its hard to pronounce ‘cause of the way its spelled. So my real last name is spelled, P. H. A. G. G...O. T.”

A few chuckles rippled as people started to pick up on it. “It’s pronounced ‘Pa-go.’ But to everyone else I’m just a faggot.”

Big pop, here we go. Hit ‘em with the tag.

“If you think that’s bad, wait until you hear my first name. It’s not even ‘Nick.’ It’s actually, ‘Cocksucker.’ Let me tell you, you can’t make it very far in this business if you’re just some run of the mill cocksucker faggot.” Laughs, laughs, by God! I’m doing it!

“The funny thing is, people called me that before I told them my name!”

More laughs, oh yeah. Big poppa’s coming to town. I almost launched into a new joke, but then Redban triggered the kitten meow, my cue to wrap it up. I ended my set there and thus began the interview.

After complimenting my set, the first thing everyone on the panel did was talk shit about my jacket. I sported a silly camouflage jacket that I bought at a convenience store down the street. It was cold and I forgot my coat at home. Fair, I did look ridiculous.

The conversation soon turned to what I did for work. I told them I write parking tickets. Instantly, all the goodwill I built with the audience died as everyone delivered a collective “Booooo!”

It was good fun, it gave the comics some material to roast me with which was hilarious, but I still wished I’d lied. Memories of my nightmares burning on stage rippled through my mind, but I pushed them down.

The big moment came towards the end of the interview. Tony asked if I already had a little joke book. I told him “I have several.” He laughed.

“What, why?”

“I don’t know man, you just keep throwing them at me.” The crowd chuckled.

Redban remarked, “You’re torturing him with these little books, Tony.”

“Why do you think you keep getting little joke books?” Tony asked.

“Uh, well I wasn’t good enough, I was weird, and I bombed.”

Tony looked down at the big books on the table and smiled.

“Well, I got some good news for you. I have here…”

He reached for the big book. My heart skipped. Then he pivoted to a small plastic bag. “Zipix Toothpicks. Nicotine toothpicks, good for quitting smoke without the withdrawals. Here ya go!”

I caught the bag, shrugged, gave Lemaire a fistbump, and returned to the outside.

It was cold that night. I popped a toothpick in my mouth. It was mango flavored. Oh well, not what I hoped for, but more than I expected. I failed again, but I failed better.

That episode wasn’t my redemption arc. It brought me a few more shows here and there, a lot of likes on Instagram, but nothing to really write home about. Still, it was good for something.

As I strolled down the alley towards the street, my phone vibrated. Cristal. I answered.

“Hey!” She greeted me, full of cheer and excitement. “How are you?”

Part of me just wanted to hang up. We broke up three times already in the span of five months. How many times was I gonna ride this merry-go-round? But, like the silly little man that I was, I was in love. I thought, Maybe this time will be different. Fail again. Fail better. Fail no more.

“Good! I’m good. Hey, I just caught on Kill Tony again. You wanna grab a drink?”

* * * * *

II. Heartbreak

A few months passed, it was February. Things with Cristal went great most of January, but more and more I felt this undercurrent of tension building.

The stupid fights started happening again, sparse at first, now more frequent. “You’re not paying attention,” “Well you’re not talking to me enough,” kind of arguments. Certain days she’d go radio silent all day after talking to me nonstop.

Sure a girl needed her space, but it was odd. Worrying, even. It felt like there was gas in the room leaking from a faulty valve. I could almost hear it, almost smell it, and if a sufficient flame was lit, it could go. I wasn’t sure how to talk to Cristal about this, God forbid it was nothing and all just in my own head.

It wasn’t.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Cristal sat me down and told me she was seeing someone else. For the past three weeks, actually.

Those days Cristal went radio silent were the days she was spending with him. She really cared about me, she said, but time and time again I kept disappointing her. She cited the usual things: like not being attentive enough, not knowing what to do or what to say at the right time. Even this other guy, someone she barely saw or knew, always did the things she wished I would do.

She mentioned this one ring she had her eye on at the store with him in passing, and the next week he bought it for her. I looked down and saw Cristal nervously rubbing this gold ring with tiny fake rubies embedded in it.

I started fantasizing about shoving that ring down this other guy’s throat, but Cristal interrupted them with one final bomb.

“At the end of the day, I’m looking for a partner, Nick. And that…that just isn’t you.”

My voice trembled and cracked. “Oh, but this other guy is? This guy you went on like, three dates with?”

“Well, four.”

“Four? Did you fuck him?”

Cristal hesitated.

“Did you…fuck him?”

“No! …We kissed.”

She looked away, unable to match my eyes.

“I know I fucked up too. I shouldn’t be like this, I shouldn’t be so angry at you for nothing all the time. I shouldn’t be dating other people when I’m with you. But… I know what I want, and I don’t want to keep hurting you. I’m sorry.”

She got up to leave and I grabbed her. Tears ran down my face. My confession came out hoarse, cracking on the final word.

“I love you. I love you. Please, Cristal. Don’t go. Please.”

She sniffed and wiped away her own tears. “I love you too.” Cristal took her hand away from mine. “But love isn’t enough. Goodbye, Nick. I’m so sorry.”

She left. I waited for days, weeks, longer, hoping she’d text back. Surely she’d reconsider, she’d realize that love was enough. But she never did. Cristal was gone. Gone for good.

* * * * *

III. Moving On

I went to the mics, a few shows, but the fun wasn’t there. The crowd could see through the fake smile I put on. I wasn’t a comedian to these people, I was a sad clown who cried off all his make-up. The motivation I had, the internal combustion of my mortal engine, was simply gone. I was dead.

Near poverty and having no car is bad enough, worse if you’re barely getting paid for stand-up. Couple it with heartbreak and it feels like concrete poured into your shoes. It’s a gun in your mouth.

To make matters worse, a month after Cristal dumped me, I got fired from my parking enforcement job. Bosses finally found out I didn’t have a car, plus my ticket counts were down. I told them I was about to buy a car, I had my eye on one, just put $500 down, no credit, my mom just had to co-sign it. Didn’t care, fired my ass anyway.

You know what the awful thing about comedy is? It almost never gives back what you give.

I gave stand-up the rest of my twenties. If you want to be technical, I gave it my childhood. Other kids played sports, learned skills, and studied. I stayed up late taking notes on “Elephant in the Room.”

Since I started this whole venture six years ago in Connecticut, I have wrecked 2 cars, one of them on the way to a gig. The other while writing parking tickets so I could do gigs.

I gave time to awful bar shows that I could have given to my girlfriends, my friends, my family. All that, and the only thing to show was an empty bank account and a cheater. After a certain point, you have to ask yourself, What the fuck am I punishing myself for?

What am I trying to prove, who am I trying to do this for? If the goal was to find respect, that went out the fucking window. Find respect? I could barely find loose change in my couch cushion. If I was doing this for me, then I did it wrong.

Having said all that, there is a silver lining. There’s beauty in suffering for your art.

You fail, over and over again. It hurts every time, yet less so with every repeat injury. Like a cook, you never stop burning yourself on the stove, you just don’t feel it. In the meantime, that souffle you keep cooking comes out a little fluffier, a little sweeter, a little more perfect. In time you realize that the goal wasn’t to make a better dish, or to impress the snobs who consume your food only to shit it out later.

The goal, you’ll find, was simple. To love what you do, even when it hurts. To love yourself, even when no one else will. Especially then.

By degrees, my spirit returned, rigid where it was once frail. Ready and willing to redeem myself, I started signing up for Kill Tony again. This time, it wasn’t merely for fame, clout, or any of that. I did it because I love stand-up and I wanted a proper stage to do it on, consequences be damned.

* * * * *

IV. Redemption

It was May 28th. Kill Tony announced two pop-up tapings at the Vulcan Gas Company.

The rain was biblical. The bar nearly flooded. The second show got delayed an hour when the sound system blew. Inside, it was swampy with heat and body odor. I waited outside on the curb.

Then the Vulcan’s front door burst open.

“Nick James, you’re on Kill Tony! Nick James, where are you?”

I sprinted to the producer, Colt. “Here! I’m right here!”

He led me inside. It was like time travel: the damp air, the sticky floors, the caged comics in the corner. My nerves buzzed. Another producer had me dump my pockets and drop my backpack into a plastic bin.

“You been on before?” The guy asked.

“Yeah.”

“Cool, so you remember the drill?”

“Yeah, go way over time, insult the crowd, tell Tony you met him at a very specific place he likes to go to, whip my dick out. Am I missing anything?”

He chuckled.“Sure. Just make sure we get a clean walk-up shot. Slow down near the bar, look up, smile. Careful on the steps.”

Just then, Tony finished up with the comic before me. He began to prepare the crowd for my arrival. The producer clapped me on the back. “Get ready.”

“Make some noise for your next bucket pull. Nick James, everyone. Here he comes.”

I walked as instructed. Big steps. Then a slow strut past the bar. I smiled at a couple audience members. The camera light caught me. On stage were Tony, Redban, Ari Matti, and Joe Derosa.

My heart, always racing during these moments, did something new—it calmed. The noise cleared. Nick the civilian faded. Nick James the comic stepped forward.

Mic in hand. Stand behind me. Here it goes…

“Um, I don’t know how to say this. I’m not sexy. At all. I can’t even dirty talk right either, I just sound way too polite and dorky. I had this girlfriend and she’d say things like, ‘Nick, I want you eat my pussy from the back!’ But me being me, I’m just like, ‘Well, okay.”

Chuckles. I let it soak for a quick second, made a funny face.

“You betcha!”

Big pop.

“Then she was like, ‘Take the condom off, I don’t care anymore. Just fuck me raw!’ And I’m just like, “Well! Splendid! I’ll happily oblige, thank you!”

More laughs, one beat left.

“After that, she was like, ‘Okay, Nick. I want you to do something special.’” As I spoke, I reached behind me and grabbed the mic stand and placed it in front of me, replacing the mic back in its holster. Right then, Redban triggered the meow! to signal me to wrap it up. Gripping the mic and the stand tightly, I continued:

“‘I want you to choke me, demean me, say mean, wild shit!’ I do all that, but even then, I’m still like… I hope this isn’t too tight around your neck, you bitch.” Laughs. Pause, breathe, next:

“Are you okay? You fucking whore?” More laughs, better than the last. I end with my final tag.

“...I love you!”

Big laugh! but right then I went just a hair over time. The Angry West Hollywood Bear roared off the soundboard, cutting me and the audience off. With that, my set was at an end. I took the mic back into my hand, the crowd cheered and clapped, and the interview began in earnest.

Skipping ahead a few minutes, Tony found out I just bought a Chevy Malibu. He scoffed and asked in a mocking tone, “So what’s it like swimming in bitches?”

I smirked. “Well, I’ve been through a bit of a dry spell these last couple months. But…”

Tony tried to interject. “No way,” he said sarcastically. I powered through, cutting him off.

“Buuut… I did get some pussy the other night.”

“Whoahhhh!” The crowd clapped. Redban played an airhorn sound effect.

Tony asked me to take everybody through it, to spare no detail. So I gave them a play by play. I matched with a nice girl on Hinge, met up with her at a bar called Fraziers, and sat us both in a cozy booth so I’d have an excuse to be close to her.

“One thing led to another. I ate her pussy in her car.”

Tony was taken aback. “Wow! Here I was making a joke about your car, but now the joke’s on me!” Tony pressed for more. I had his full attention now. “So, how did it get to that?”

“We were already flirting pretty heavily over text, so it gave me some confidence to start off with.”

Ari Matti mocked my nasally voice, “We were flirting pretty heavily!”

Unfazed, Tony dug deeper. “Can you give us an example of what some heavy flirtation from you over text sounds like?”

Ari giggled like a girl. “You fucking psycho!” He bellowed at Tony.

At this point, I drew a blank. I had a pretty good idea of what I said, but me and that girl had texted so much it was hard to pick out a specific moment that stood out as poignant or funny.

“It’s a little hard to remember without my phone in front of me, but, umm…”

As I frantically rifled through file cabinets in my head, I thought, Man, I wish I had my phone.

At that exact moment, as if reading my thoughts, Tony went, “Y’know what, let’s unlock his phone real quick. I want the real shit.”

The crowd went insane. They were up for it. My heart skipped. Was I up for it?

Tony asked if that was okay. For a quarter second I thought, Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. Remember the last time we got this personal on here?

Then I thought, I’m already unemployed. What’s the worst that could happen?

“As a matter of fact, do you mind if I read it?” Tony asked, bringing me back to reality.

Immediately I replied, “Go for it!”

Kristi, the lead producer of the show, handed me my phone. I unlock it and pass it to Tony. “You might have to scroll up a bit, the flirting started on Sunday or Monday.

While scrolling, Tony asked again, “So, you said Sunday or Monday?”

“Yeah, it started on Sunday I think. I jerked off a lot that day.”

“So you guys went out, what, Monday night?”

“We went out on Monday. So, sorry I missed you at Kill Tony, but I had things to do.”

Tony broke into laughter and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we were really wondering where you were. ‘Where’s Nick James?’”

Now, this whole interview was twenty two minutes long, including the set. Tony spent fifteen minutes reading through my texts from that Sunday and Monday leading up to getting my dick wet.

If you want the highlights, find my instagram or look up “Kill Tony #724 - Nick James” on Youtube. Trust me, well worth your time.

But I will say, overall, the bit was a resounding success.

Long as hell, though. Tony just kept reading, much to everyone’s delight. People were cheering, laughing, clapping. At one point, Tony and Redban got up to salute me together. For the fifteen minutes which that text reading session lasted, I felt like a sexual god.

As the interview came to a close, Joe Derosa piped in. “I feel a little swindled! You’re killing it here. You came up with this Owen Wilson routine. ‘Oh shuck, your pussy is good.’ Now you’re in these messages like a fucking vampire!”

A few texts later, Ari added, “There’s a saying in Estonia. ‘The guy who fucks the girl, always comes from the corner. That’s you! You got game!”

My ego swelled. I felt hot and cold. My hands wanted to shake with glee, but I was too tired and still a little too drunk to do much more than smile and say thank you. After a quick, and failed, attempt to call my girl and interview her on stage, they sent me off. But not without two final parting gifts.

First, Redban invited me to the secret show. My jaw dropped.

Then, finally, Tony gripped the big joke book in his hand.

“Do you have one of these already?”

“No, I do not.” I salivated. Jesus Christ, sweet baby Jesus on the cross, it was happening. Everything I moved here and suffered for. Now all I had to do is catch it and not miss and it’ll be perfect. Tony winded his arm back, then let loose. I shot both hands out in front of me, ready to make the catch.

You got it, you got, you–

Thud, bounces right off my head and flops to the ground behind Ari. I quickly snatch the book up, wave good bye, and exit stage left.

Everyone clapped me on the back on my way out. Dozens of people whispered, “Good job!” “Hell yeah!” “You killed it!” It was unreal. Tony Hinchcliffe fucking saluted me on stage. They invited me to a real show at a real club. A full crowd at a sold out venue cheered me on like I was the new Messiah.

I barely registered when the same producer who prepped me beforehand took down my contact info and snapped a picture of me. Outside, people swarmed me, asking how I did. Each time, I just whipped out my big book, spat on the ground like a cowboy, and went, “How do you think?”

As one of my friends shared a congratulatory puff of her joint with me, my head swarmed with a million feelings and possibilities. But one question weighed on my mind.

What happens now?