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The next day I’m in the computer lab writing an article for the school paper about the aviation club and this guy walks in and he says, “Dave Garson’s looking for you and he’s not happy.” And I’m like, “I don’t even know who Dave Garson is.” This is my situation. I’m the kind of person, who, for fun, writes articles called “Aviation Club Soars into Orbit!” and an unhappy bully I’ve never heard of is sending out envoys.

A detail that made this entirely strange was that during all this violence everyone was wearing a coat and tie. That was the dress code. So these bullies were pretty dressed up. They looked like low-rent child mobsters sent in to threaten people on faulty loans.

Well, I made it through the winter and I decided that I was going to stick it out. Like all great underdogs, I had been knocked down but I was going to make a place for myself. So I ran for class president. And I lost—badly. I came in ninth out of ten. Not ready to throw in the towel, I tried out for the tennis team. And I didn’t make it. St. John’s just didn’t want to participate in my life. And so at the end of the year, I come up with a different plan. Which was to quit.

I ran this by all the adults in my life: parents, teachers, my guidance counselor. And what’s surprising is that not one of them used those clichés they say in afterschool specials: “Don’t do it,” “Stick it out,” “Don’t let ’em get the best of you.” They knew the best of me was off the table. Everyone knew it. Somehow I had become the fall guy for the entire ninth-grade class. I symbolized a certain kind of kid, the kind of kid everyone hates. So I left.

At my new school, we had those first few weeks where everyone’s getting to know each other: “Where you from?” “What was your last school like?” And I decided to omit the fact that at my previous school I had been picked on so badly that I left the school. And you know what? They never found out. Here’s a truth about life that they never tell you in those afterschool specials: running away works—for a while.

Fifteen years later, I’m on stage at the Mohegan Sun Casino. I’m a professional comedian and I’m performing for an audience of professional drunks. It’s actually going pretty well, all things considered. But there is a four-top in the front row that won’t stop talking. It’s two tough-looking guys and their dates. And they’re talking as though there’s no kind of show going on at all. Full volume. Almost distracted by my pesky monologue when trying to make key conversation points. So I politely say, “Hey guys, if you want to talk, maybe go in the other room.” This is my typical strategy for people who don’t understand the etiquette of watching a standup comedy show. I sort of mention it offhandedly as though it’s a misunderstanding.

Well, they didn’t pick up on this social cue and they continued talking. And I tried to continue but every few jokes I’d go to hit a punch line and one of the guys’ voices would peak and the audience would hear some combination of my voice and this guy’s voice, a sort of unintended douche bag duet. So finally I got frustrated and I implied that they might want to leave the show altogether with their dates, who I implied were hookers. By implied, I mean I told them to leave the show with their hookers.

At this point, one of the gentlemen looked me in the eye and said, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

And I’m looking into this guy’s dark, stern eyes and realizing by the seriousness of his tone and the slickness of his outfit that he is possibly in the mob or into some kind of organized crime activity. It takes a certain type of person to threaten your life in a custom-tailored suit. Fortunately, at this point, the doorman intervenes and asks these folks to leave. Crisis averted. I don’t have to respond to this gentleman’s statement regarding my death.

Later that night, I’m with my brother Joe having drinks at the casino bar.

He’s scolding me for what I said onstage. “You can’t just call people’s wives and girlfriends hookers,” he said.

I said,