Crash and Burn Read Free

wasn’t sure if she wanted to kill me or kiss me. But everyone was happy to see her in that way that fans of the Stern Show are always happy to see anyone that they’ve gotten to know over the air. Dana is not a ham in any way, so this degree of attention, right up there in her face, got her blushing redder than a whore in church. It got much worse when I instructed all three thousand in attendance to sing her “Happy Birthday.” You can call me corny, you can call me Al; I don’t give a fuck. I was trying to win some points with her, and it seemed like the best way to show her I cared. She was past her last straw with me, which demanded agiant gesture on my part, and as humble as she is, she loved it; I saw it in her eyes as we left the stage to a standing ovation. But that was the end of us; that very night was all she wrote.
    Even if it had all worked out, it still would have been a sham, because I did the whole show with two bags of heroin in my pocket, despite the fact that I’d sworn to her I was clean at the time. I don’t think the hall’s patron, Andrew Carnegie, would have approved of me performing while “holding smack” as they used to say on Starsky and Hutch . I gotta say, it’s pretty pathetic, because I didn’t even need the heroin to get through the show. I wasn’t even close to being that far gone (I still had all of that to look forward to); I just had those bags to celebrate, because at that point in my life I still enjoyed it and I still thought heroin was cool. Well, there was more to it than that; I fucking loved the escape and the long good night that it brought. I had disrespected Dana by lying about my use, and I disrespected the hall. I could have stashed it offstage in my bag or something. I didn’t need to have the drugs in my pocket while I was performing, but I did, because at the time I thought doing that was cool too.
    The heroin was a time bomb in my pocket, or an exotic animal I couldn’t afford to feed forever. It was a fever I had to tend to but continued to ignore. At that point in my life, playing Carnegie Hall was the most significant thing I’d ever done, but as soon as the lights went down, all I could think about was the heroin. After the show I rushed through greeting my friends, family, and peers with the same enthusiasm I muster up ordering a Whopper at Burger King. They were all in my way, because all I wanted was to get to my hotel and sniff a few lines of heroin. It was great when I did—I hoovered up those lines at the speed of snort. I didn’t have a problem; I was only extending the high of the show all night long. After that pit stop, I continued to the after-party, which was at the legendary Caroline’s, about eight blocks away. They had a car reserved for me, but since it was a beautiful and unseasonably warm night, and because I wasnow high on heroin, I led a pack of my friends there on foot. It was a fun party, and it seemed like Dana was having fun. I hoped so, because I was intent on getting her back for good, which was why I had booked a room at the Ritz-Carlton overlooking Central Park that night but nothing was going to save us, because Dana knew I was high. She always knew when I was high, because she knew me better than anyone. But even strangers with a rudimentary knowledge of heroin behavior would have known I was high that night. I was all over the place. This next sentence would make no sense outside of the comedy world, but in context, it’s further proof of just how high I was: Howie Mandel showed up and I shook his hand. Howie Mandel is a great guy, but anyone in the business, and most of his fans, know that he is the world’s biggest germaphobe. He doesn’t shake hands—ever—and that’s the most normal, socially acceptable custom of his. So I did that, went in for the shake, and completely shat on his parade: the guy looked like he’d seen a ghost, and I’ve wondered just how long he boiled that limb to get my cooties off when