Here’s how I pictured it happening:
I’m sitting on the aisle and David Letterman comes down to do one of his audience-participation bits--maybe it’s Know Your Cuts Of Meat or Stump The Band. He selects me, saying, “How about you, sir? What’s your name?”
I stand up in the glare of national media exposure. “Walter Greatshell,” I say coolly.
“Greatshell?” he asks, unsure if he heard it right.
“Greatshell. Like great and shell.”
“Greatshell--Greatshell, is it? Now that’s an unusual name. I like that. And what do you do for a living, Mr. Greatshell?”
“I’m an author.”
“An author! Is that right? That--that’s wonderful. Uh--have you actually been published?” The studio audience giggles. “I mean, might I have heard of anything you’ve written?”
This is exactly what I was hoping for. “I’m not sure,” I say. “I’m the author of a horror novel--a horror satire, really--called Xombies.
That’s Xombies spelled with an X, not a Z.” And then the magic moment: “Actually, I have a copy right here.” I deftly produce the book, flashing it before the TV cameras.
“Xombies,” Dave says. “Good heavens. May I see that?”
“It’s published by Berkley, Penguin.”
I hand him the paperback and he holds it up in the air, waving it at the band. “You see this, Paul?” he says. “This is why I stopped reading.” The audience roars with laughter. I go along with it, modestly chuckling, and we proceed with the sketch. My wife and I leave the show with a box of Explode-O-Pop popcorn, a canned ham, and a voucher for dinner at Victor’s Cuban Grill. The next morning my Amazon ranking has gone from 330,000 to two, and I am on the New York Times Bestseller List.
That was the dream. But it didn’t happen like that. It didn’t happen like that at all.
For one thing, I didn’t go to New York to be an audience member on David Letterman; it was just supposed to be a family vacation, an extended weekend in the Big Apple. My wife and son were both on school break, and I was between writing projects, anxiously awaiting word from my agent as to whether Berkley would buy my next novel. Since they had already passed on two book proposals since Xombies, my mood wavered between terror and resignation. Was I going to have to get a job?
My original plan for going to Manhattan included a meeting with my elusive agent, but when I e-mailed him about it he begged off, explaining that he would be in Liberia during my four-day visit. Liberia? I thought. That’s a new one. Actually it was a bit of a relief--I didn’t relish the prospect of an awkward lunch meeting cluttering up my family vacation…or so I told myself. I had never met my agent in person, and was beginning to think I never would. The sporadic e-mails were difficult enough, never mind calling him on the phone (would it kill him to call once in a while?). But Liberia? That was the farthest anyone had ever gone to avoid seeing me.
Arriving at Penn Station, we schlepped our bags uptown to the Holiday Inn on West 57th, a hotel we had chosen for its rooftop pool--an outdoor pool in midtown Manhattan! Who ever heard of such a thing? For this almost obscene luxury we were paying $200 dollars a night, the most I had ever paid for a room (and I couldn’t even deduct it as a business expense), but certainly a bargain by New York standards. The vacation was off to a good start!
We spent that first evening delving into the whole cosmopolitan scene, eating an exotic Ethiopian dinner (my wife having printed out a list of the best cheap eats, per the online Village Voice) and strolling the family-friendly tourist mecca of Times Square. Not long ago we had been to the Smithsonian and seen a chunk of the original Automat, last sad relic of the pre-Giuliani Times Square--the seedy Times Square of Midnight Cowboy and Jack Kerouac, with its peepshows and beatniks. Was this better? I couldn’t decide. There would be no more mad poetry coming out of this place, no Howl, no epic literature of the street…on the other hand I was glad not to be mugged. Breaking clear of the crowd, we happened to pass under the familiar yellow-and-black marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater: THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN.
“Hey,” I said. “We should check it out and see if we can get tickets to the show. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Come on, dad,” said my son with long-suffering forbearance.
“It looks closed,” my wife agreed.
But I have a stubborn streak that occasionally pays off, like a slot-machine--I might look stupid ninety-nine times, but one hundred will hit the jackpot--so I tried the door and it opened. The place did look closed, the lobby nearly empty except for a couple of young people manning a folding banquet table, who looked like survey-takers about to call it a day. But no--they were interns for the Letterman show! They quickly signed us up (only my wife and I--the show didn’t admit minors, which was a brief disappointment to my son…until I reminded him that it meant he would be alone in the hotel room with pizza and uncensored cable). Asked if we were fans of the program, I replied, “Oh yeah. We watch it all the time.”
“Any favorite bits?”
This seemed to be a loaded question, checking to make sure we weren’t clueless hicks just out for a freebie. Drawing a blank, I fumbled, “Uh…just Dave himself, you know…”
My wife stepped in. “Will It Float,” she said. Yes! Yes! You could feel the tension lift.
There was no guarantee that we would get on the show--audience-members were selected by a lottery process--but the interns seemed to think we were naturals. If we were among those chosen, they would call us the following day. Hey, what did we have to lose? This was a free shot at witnessing a cultural icon, an American institution--I already felt privileged even to be considered. We were cool enough for Dave! Now we could die.
Not really expecting the show to call, we spent the next day roaming the city, and were startled when my wife’s cell went off outside the famous Strand bookstore. It was the Letterman Show--we were to show up at the theater the following afternoon, Monday, where they would issue us tickets for that night’s taping. The intern on the line told us to mention that we were on “Kerri’s Gold List.”
Gold List! Breathless with surprise and excitement, we felt like recipients of one of Wonka’s Golden Tickets. We had done it! We were going to be on The Late Show With David Letterman!
That’s when it hit me that I had a golden opportunity. A chance few authors ever get: to promote my book to the whole country, an audience of millions. And not just any audience, but a youthful, savvy, irony-loving Letterman audience. My book was a savvy, ironic, youthful horror novel--that’s what made it such a hard sell in the insipidly straightlaced genre marketplace, or so I had rationalized. If I could so much as flash my book on Letterman, it would increase my sales a thousand-fold. Oh my God--this was too perfect.
We spent the next day wandering the south border of Central Park--Holden Caulfield’s duck pond, where he almost froze to death--and exploring the glamorous boutiques on Fifth Avenue. We did not actually shop, but joined the throngs of sleek Japanese and European shoppers surging past FAO Schwartz, Saks, and Bloomingdale’s. At times like this I wondered if my wife secretly hated me for not being rich. In front of the gilded portal of Trump Tower, the crowd parted for a kerchief-headed old crone begging for change, her large, watery eyes meeting mine for a split second before we were swept into the cathedral of Trump. Wow--we stared like rubes at the towering indoor waterfall, the golden heights of the lobby looming before us like the palace chamber of the Wizard of Oz., rebuking us for our poverty, for the fact that we couldn’t afford to buy anything here. To Trump, we were chumps, we were the tramps. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!--it’s the rallying cry for our age.
Finally it was time. We dropped our son off at the room, laden with goodies, and splurged on a taxi to the theater. As we expected, there was already a long line to the corner. Not to worry, I thought, we’re on Kerri’s Gold List. I awaited the moment when we would be plucked out of the rabble and ushered to some exclusive sanctum--perhaps backstage with a select few who would be participating in Dave’s skits, or at least be seated in the front row where we would be on camera, visible to the home audience. I had my book in my pocket; I was ready. I felt like a suicide-bomber.
The line crept forward along Broadway, the passing tourists eyeing us with curiosity and envy. That’s right, we bad. My wife noticed that the Hello Deli was open, site of so many classic Letterman shenanigans. The inscrutable face of Rupert could be seen behind the counter. We didn’t try to go in--there were too many people in there, and what would we do, anyway? Get Rupert’s autograph? Get our picture taken? Tell him how much we loved him, how funny he was? He probably wanted to kill the idiots who crammed into his little shop every minute of the day just to tell him that. I would. I felt great compassion for Rupert, a hapless child of immigrants like myself, innocently chasing the American dream and stumbling into a never-ending television nightmare. This Letterman gig was a blessing and a curse, you could tell just from looking at Rupert’s bemused face. He looked like a man who had made a deal with the devil, a gap-toothed American Mephistopheles wringing out souls as if in revenge for having been squeezed dry himself--whose heart had literally been broken.
As we neared the theater door, another couple tried to brashly cut in front of us. “Back of the line,” the jaded gatekeeper told them.
“But we’re--”
“On Kerri’s Gold List, right? Everybody’s on Kerri’s Gold List. Go to the back of the line.”
At last we were passed through to the lobby and issued tickets, with an hour to kill until the taping. This would actually be the second show taped that day, to be aired the following Friday--the taping for that night’s show had occurred earlier in the afternoon. Before letting us go, we were assembled inside the foyer for a quick bit of coaching: “Remember,” they told us, “Dave’s watching to see if there’s anything he wants to use for the show, and the more enthusiastic you are, the more likely he is to take notice.” I sensed the godlike eye of Dave, pictured him sitting in front of a wall of video monitors, following our every move.
As my wife and I waited at the front of the assembly, an attractive blond intern at the door began ostentatiously sniffing the air. “Do you smell that?” she asked us.
“What?”
“That smell. You smell that? It smells like beer.” She snuffled all around the doorway like a hound on a scent. “Seriously, you don’t smell that?”
We shook our heads no; couldn’t smell a thing.
She called another intern over. “Can you smell that?”
“What?” he asked.
“Can you smell that? Right around here.”
“…No.”
“It smells wicked like beer. It’s the weirdest thing.”
There was a garbage can propping the door open. I ventured, “Maybe it’s coming from the trash.”
She sniffed it, shook her head. “No. That’s the weirdest thing…”
“Maybe it’s a ghost,” offered the other intern, losing interest.
“The ghost of Ed Sullivan,” I said.
The girl didn’t smile, still sniffing absently. I wondered if she was accusing us of being drunk, profiling us in some way, hyper alert to anything that could disrupt the show. We hadn’t been drinking, but I thought perhaps my appearance--big, bristly-chinned guy in shorts, sneakers, and a tropical-print shirt straight out of a Jimmy Buffett concert--might be a red flag: Possible beer-fueled slob. Beware. But then enough of us had gathered so that we could be lined up like a chorus and whipped to a fever pitch of cheering. “Do you wanna be on the show?” “YES!” “Then let Dave know how you feel!” We all bellowed in hope of appeasing Dave, that he would hear and shower his blessing upon us.
Throats sore from screaming, we were loosed to the sweltering mob scene of Times Square, with strict instructions to return in an hour and line up according to our assigned ticket numbers. To kill time my wife and I went to a nearby Chinese joint for appetizers and drinks, where I deliberately had a beer out of spite…and to nurse my disappointment. Kerri, I thought. Why? Returning to the theater, seemingly the last to show up, we had to wedge ourselves back into the tightly-packed line, flashing our ticket numbers to the resentful early-birds and saying, “Sorry…oops, sorry.”
The interns walked up and down the line with more pep-talk, telling us to have questions ready in case Dave wanted to call on us (ransacking my brain, I decided I would ask Dave if he ever missed being a small-time weatherman back in Indiana), then ushered us inside the theater, stopping at the door of the studio for one more cheer:
“Are you ready to see Dave?”
“Woo-hoo!” I shouted.
A stocky girl intern pounced. “No woos,” she said sharply. “We appreciate your enthusiasm, but don’t woo.”
“Sorry.”
They passed us through to the brightly-lit auditorium, and there it was: The Late Show set. Wow, someone said, echoing my feelings. Check it out. It was all so familiar: the bandstand, the stage, the night-city backdrop, Dave’s desk--yet it all seemed oddly compact, much less roomy than it looked on television. There were brusque interns posted in the aisles, performing some kind of last-minute cosmetic triage, making cruel, arbitrary selections like the Nazis in Sophie’s Choice. It all happened so fast there was no chance to appeal: Rather than being whisked down front, or even on an aisle, we were bumped to center seats, landlocked in a sea of non-telegenic heads. Damn. But it was too soon to be sure--there were lights and cameras everywhere; they could still zoom in; we might still be plucked from the mob. Stay alert, I thought, sweat beading my forehead.
“You okay?” my wife said.
“I’m fine.”
The lights went down, and one by one the band members were introduced, running onstage to gales of cheering and applause. It could have been anybody up there (who pays attention to the back-up band?) but we threw ourselves into it like the crazed Beatles fans who had occupied these same seats half a century before. By the time bandleader Paul Shaffer came out, my hands were sore from clapping, and the show hadn’t even begun.
Suddenly Dave himself appeared. It was so abrupt we were all caught off guard--That’s David Letterman! To frenzied applause, he came to the edge of the stage and rattled off some thin material about how everybody hates Mondays, that they should cancel Sundays because you spend the whole day worrying about Monday. It didn’t matter--we hardly heard a word he said, barely able to believe it was really him up there. When he asked for audience questions, a hundred hands shot up and he picked some lady down front.
“And where are you from, Ma’am?” he asked.
“Wisconsin,” she said.
“Oh really?” he said, sounding genuinely interested. “And what do you--”
But just then there was an urgent signal from the control room and Dave was hustled offstage. The woman sat down. Rows of overhead TV monitors came on and the band kicked into high gear as the brassy opening credits played. It was loud. We all clapped like fiends and the voiceover guy did his big introduction: “It’s The Late Show, with Daviiiid Letterman! Tonight, David’s guests are Ricky Gervais--”
“Oh my God,” my wife and I said in tandem. Ricky Gervais! Both of us being huge fans of the British sitcom The Office, it was an incredible stroke of luck--I had been expecting the usual tedious jock or supermodel. Ouch--the palms of my hands were really starting to smart. I had never clapped so much in my life.
Then the introduction was over and Dave appeared, buttoning his coat as the giant camera rig swooped in to meet him. His monologue was as perfunctory as his greeting to us had been, but like before we deliriously cheered every limp bon mot, every snarky aside, to the point that our bludgeoning applause seemed like a prank in itself, a boobish shoggoth trampling Dave’s barely-there lines. Was the show always like this? I couldn’t remember the applause ever seeming so intrusive. Furthermore, it was almost impossible to even see Dave--the big camera apparatus was always planted squarely between him and the audience. Only people in the wings could really look at him, the rest of us had to watch on the ceiling monitors. I had to keep reminding myself that I was not watching TV, that I was actually at the show.
They played Will It Float? and Dave read the Top Ten List, but he never came down into the audience. Instead we got a bad lounge act: some guy purporting to be the “oldest Late Show intern,” who did a set of sub-Jackie Mason material (describing a dead woman: “Tits up!”) that would all have to be bleeped later. It made no sense, it wasn’t funny, but our rollicking applause barely faltered. The band played through the commercials, the audience clapping to the beat, so that there was no relief even then from the pain. My palms were on fire, my arms and shoulders ached, my ears were ringing from the blaring music. It was becoming like the sadistic dance marathon in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? But I had to keep clapping, grinning, guffawing. They could be scanning us, unseen men at consoles seeking the perfect face to put on TV. The bulge in my pocket--my book, that is--reminded me not to drop my guard: That big jolly guy in the middle--he’s the one.
Dave himself fidgeted during the breaks, unable to keep still, so that my wife, a schoolteacher, wondered if he had ADHD. My guess is that he was bored, bored and tired and gut-wrenchingly sick of the whole rotten business. He was dead on his feet, a zombie going through the motions. Yes, that’s part of Dave’s charm, but I never caught the whiff of death before, the horror, like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness. He just couldn’t wait to get out of there--it was the second show of the night, the blow-off show that no one would even be watching on Friday, and he had had enough. And Dave wasn’t the only one; you could feel the weariness pervading the whole crew, all of them zombies, the sick monotony trickling down to the lowest intern: the terrible, endless grind of putting on that show, of cranking up that rusty calliope night after night, every day, year after year. By the time Ricky Gervais came out I was just as shagged, and dying to see someone still alive.
We couldn’t see him except on the monitors. Still and all he was funny, though I think my wife and I were the only people in that theater who knew who David Brent was, or cared, and there was distinct confusion at Ricky’s British-filtered anecdotes. Letterman seemed reserved and grumpy. Gervais had lost no time selling out, was promoting a terrible-sounding CG movie about heroic messenger pigeons during World War Two, and made a joke about the difficulty of pinning medals to birds, which fell flat because Dave and Paul had made the same joke during their earlier banter. Hadn’t he been watching the show in the Green Room? A couple of times he dropped the F-bomb, triggering whispers of What’d he say? But everyone dutifully laughed and applauded, if with slightly less force than before. Energy was flagging all over, you could feel it.
At long last the Knitters played, a serviceable hillbilly-rock band busting our eardrums in the close space, and then the show was over. Half-dead, half-deaf, hands numb, we filed out into the steamy August murk. My book had never left my pocket. We hadn’t been on the show; we had barely even seen the show. We had just been a human laugh track, clapping on cue like an army of trained seals. Only then did it occur to me:
David Letterman played me. I was played, not him. I was a Late Show zombie.