I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas - Lewis Black [35]
Jenny was the associate producer for nine years at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts and has since moved on to be a producer at the Public Theater in New York City. She was one of the main producers behind the hugely successful Broadway revival of Hair. And as I type, she has just become the first woman to be named the artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
The reason I have given you my friends’ résumés is to help you understand how extraordinary it is to me that two people in the same business—show business, no less—could have not only very successful careers, but also a very successful marriage and raise two lovely children. They not only have done this but they are generous enough to expand their family circle to include somebody like me.
As many people who do it know, it’s tough when both members of a couple are pursuing full-time careers. You have your shit, and they have their shit, and now you have all the shit that a marriage can bring to the table. It’s a lot of shit, and if you have kids, then you’ve added their shit on top of your shit. You have to keep reminding yourself that the kids’ shit is just as important as yours, and then you have to remind yourself that your shit is as important as theirs. I imagine it’s like living in the emotional equivalent of an Escher drawing.
And he’s a Catholic and she’s a Jew. That can open a whole other can of worms, but it hasn’t for them.
Yet, in spite of all of this, Willie and Jenny have a “traditional” marriage.
I have enough trouble just dealing with myself and my career without being half insane most of the time. How the fuck do people do it? How the fuck do they make such a deep commitment to each other without going completely batshit.
I stand in awe of them. Well, maybe not in awe. I’ll save that for something truly beyond the realm of my belief system. But . . . this is close to that.
And every Christmas Day I have spent with them, I envy the life they have fashioned together. And wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.
CHRISTMAS DAY, 2:00 P.M.
6,500 Calories, Not Counting the Three Bottles of Wine
Ispend the first hour after my arrival catching up with everyone. Since I spend most of my life traveling from city to city, performing, it’s nice to hear about the accomplishments and the bullshit and the nonsense. It’s soothing to know that life—real, normal human life—goes on. That over the last year the kids have been doing well and have gone on to the next grade and that school is good. That someone—not me—got a raise. That someone else—again, not me—has found a better job. It’s nice to notice that the marriages seem to get stronger with the years. Maybe it’s just a front they put up for the holidays, and deep down they are all eating their insides out. That after the party, they go home and return to their lives of shared bitterness, oppressive claustrophobia and boredom. They all go to bed that night thinking about how wonderful it must be to be me. “Oh, if I were only Lewis. Single. Fancy free. Devastatingly handsome. No one to answer to. He must be living a wonderful life.”
What a life, huh?
Somehow I doubt anybody thinks any of that. I can see that my friends are happy with their lives, their children, and what they are building together. It’s always very comfortable as I sink into a very cushy chair and toast their accomplishments with a very nice glass of red wine.
At this moment, as I sip my wine and am surrounded by friends, I always think of my brother, Ron. He has long since left the planet, but I still miss him terribly, especially at times like this. He is the one who truly introduced me to the splendors of red wine when he was living in France. I visited him there—yes, when I was broke and he had to pay for my plane ticket—and we spent some time in the vineyards and over numerous glasses of the grape. He was passionate about wine and food years before the concept hit our shores. He would have loved this moment when the glasses were being filled. He and Willie would