Tracklist:
Run To You – Bryan Adams
King of the Road – Roger Miller
Cleveland Rocks – Ian Hunter
20
The Charleston Civic Center sat on the tree-lined bank of the Kanawha River like a smug white-and-blue pillbox, if pillboxes were giant conference centers surrounded by hotels and parking garages. Luckily it was an hour from Huntington and right off I-64.
Dean parked at a street meter, searched his pockets for change, then realized that paying for parking was rather silly in a car stolen from a murderous Italian fifteen minutes before a speech at the National Motivational Speaker’s Conference.
He ran with Emerson through the crowds of waiting fans and under security tape toward the Civic Center. Dean pushed through glass doors marked “Conference Speakers Only.” Staff in dark blue suits with clipboards in their hands ran pell-mell through the lobby on various missions. Near the front of the lobby a lady in gray suit sat behind a table with a banner labeled “Registration.”
The lady looked up as Dean entered the lobby.
“Can I help you?”
“Sir! Stop right there,” said a deep voice behind Dean. “Return to the line with the other guests.”
A security guard approached, his arms stretched out like he was shoving an impossibly fat and invisible lady.
Dean waved down at his outfit. “Do I look like one of the rabble?”
“I know you guys are half off today, but that doesn’t mean free,” said the guard.
Dean followed his pointed finger to a crowd of bearded men pressed against the glass of the entrance doors. All wore dark suits and black, wide-brimmed hats.
“I’m not Amish! I’m a conference speaker.”
“Whew,” said the registration lady, and wiped imaginary sweat from her forehead. “Thought we’d have to Tase you for a second. What’s your name, Sugah?”
“Dean Cook.”
“Yes, we’ve got you on the schedule, Mr. Cook. You speak at eight o’clock tonight, on the topic of––gracious me––’Osama Bin Swallowed.’ ”
Dean sighed. “Not Dane Cook––Dean Cook: d-e-a-n.”
“Oh! Sorry for the mix-up, Mr. Cook.” She rechecked the schedule papers. “For a second my heart was all a-flutter at meeting the amazingly talented comedian. Dear me, the things that come out of that man’s mouth! Between you and me and the wall, I’d do the marryin’ if he was doing the askin’. Have you met him?”
“Could we move this along? I’m in kind of a hurry.”
“Certainly, sir. I see you’re scheduled to speak in the main auditorium in––oh dear Lord of Hosts––twelve minutes. Could I see some identification?”
The security guard crossed his beefy arms. “Yeah, Mr. Cook. Show us some I.D.”
“Here’s the thing––my girlfriend destroyed my passport. Not this girl with me, she’s my wife. Well, not really, but it’s a long story. I don’t have a driver’s license, but I had one of those Matricula Consular cards from Tijuana, for reasons that are neither here nor there. Suffice it to say, I was using that for I.D. The actual card, however, is somewhere between the Great Salt Lake and the Merciful Sisters of Saint Patrick. I might have dropped it in Nebraska. I definitely did not have it with me when we parachuted out of the plane over Kentucky, when the Amish took us captive, or when we jumped off that bridge into a barge of flour. I’m not saying it could be anywhere, because it couldn’t be on the Moon, obviously, since I’m not a fascist, but it’s not ... here.”
“All right, bud, come with me,” said the guard.
“Get your hands off me! Call the people at the main auditorium and ask them if Dean Cook is there yet. He won’t be, because Dean Cook is talking to you right now and feeling a little strange using his own name so much!”
“Just a moment, sir,” said the registration lady.
After speaking into a handheld radio and confirming with auditorium staff who were, in fact, frantically chewing their fingernails while waiting for Dean Cook to arrive, she commandeered an electric cart and the security guard and drove all four of them through the halls of the Civic Center at dangerous speed, exactly like a frantic conference registration lady at the controls of an electric cart. Dean had only a minute left before his speech as she careened to a squealing halt behind the main stage. The cart hissed and vomited black, evil-smelling fumes from every surface.
“Code Red,” she screamed. “Code Red!”
Two muscular men in “Back Stage” T-shirts threw Dean and Emerson over their shoulders like sacks of grain and ran at top speed. These brawny Mercuries wove through boxes of electronics, leapt over audio cables, dodged racks of microphones, and at last set Dean and Emerson down at a sign labeled “Main Aud. Stage Right.”
Dean heard the rumble of a huge crowd and constant applause. A skinny young man with a headset and microphone appeared from behind a curtain and yelled into his ear.
“Are you Dean Cook? You’ve got thirty seconds.”
Dean nodded and took a few deep breaths. He looked at Emerson, and she squeezed his hand.
“You’ll do fine.”
“I might, if I could remember what I was supposed to say.”
“You forgot your speech?!!”
“I thought I was going to have a few days in Charleston to memorize it. As it happens, my birthday got in the way. One disaster piled onto another disaster and I just didn’t have time to prepare.”
“Dear, sweet husband,” Emerson put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Good luck.”
The applause continued as an extremely tall, older gentleman with white hair and a mustache jogged from the stage. His face dripped with sweat.
“John Cleese,” gasped Dean. “I mean––Sir John Cleese!”
“Bloody disaster out there, mate,” said the exhausted actor as he shook Dean’s hand. “I’ve never been heckled like that since boarding school. If I were you, I’d scamper off to somewhere where they respect British humor. Australia comes to mind.”
A platoon of stage handlers whisked away the tall Briton. The floor vibrated with the deep voice of an announcer.
“Yes ... well. That was a nasty performance. I’d to remind everyone that one horrific comedian does not tar the reputation of an entire people, except perhaps in this case. Our apologies to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth for having to live in a country with such filth. The next rising star of the motivational industry hails from the great city of San Jose, California. For almost a decade, he’s worked from the ground up to supercharge Silicon Valley leadership and motivate highly paid, overfed, and underworked employees. He recently finished a contract with the number-one corporation in social media, where he exhorted everyone to ‘get a life and stop using computers so much.’ Here to stir the pot of your lifelong dreams and drop a few spices of his own is Deeeeeeeeaaan Cook!”
Dean took a deep breath and walked into the lights. The applause changed to laughter: a few scattered hoots at first, then full-blown guffaws.
Dean nodded to the astonished master of ceremonies and stood behind the microphone. Before him sat an audience of at least a thousand, some close by on the floor of the auditorium and others in sloped rows around the edges, every group clustered in sections color-coded to represent a different motivational school. Police wearing armored gear and slapping riot batons against their thighs lined the aisles and the back wall. Rob Timmins and several hundred disciples of his rich and famous philosophy filled the front rows.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” said Dean. “I’d like to talk to you today about three points.”
“Rough Around The Edges,” yelled someone from the back.
“Isolated Incident,” shouted another wag. “Harmful If Swallowed!”
“I’m Dean Cook, not the comedian,” said Dean. “If you want him, you’ll have to come back in nine hours. Probably seven with traffic and parking.”
“Not funny,” yelled another heckler.
“Shouting those hurtful words a
t me, does that really make you feel better?”
“Yes!”
“I think it doesn’t,” said Dean. “Deep inside, you feel like you’re not good enough. You think you’re not a good person.”
“Look at those Moon boots! It’s the Amish spaceman!”
Dean pulled the microphone off the stand and walked across the stage toward the heckler.
“By making fun of my puffy snowboots, my plain clothing with suspenders, and my Spaced hat, you think everyone respects you. For a few seconds after that, you feel good about yourself. They’re laughing at me, right? They’re laughing, and it was all because of you.”
“Yes!”
“But deep inside, you know they should be laughing at you, because you know you’ve failed. The grades in high school that weren’t good enough, the classes that you barely passed in college, the girlfriends that weren’t good-looking enough, the jobs that paid nothing ... What a list of failures. I’m talking about myself now, because standing before you on this stage is the King of Failure.”
The crowd hushed.
“When I was young I failed at every single endeavor that life or my parents threw at me. Name it and I was wretched: baseball, basketball, mathematics, chemistry, personal relationships, shopping, walking on the street without breaking momma’s back, even dressing myself. It was a constant topic of conversation whether or not I had been dropped on my head as a child, or whether or not my parents SHOULD have dropped me on my head as a child. Even today there are few things in my life that do not end in catastrophe, as is obvious by my appearance in this hybrid of Amish and Ohio-boatman clothing. To be fair, if you worked in the fields or on the river like they do, you’d want something this durable. Mending the knees on a pair of Garanimals is hard enough––never mind when you’re river-sick.”
Dean walked toward the center of the stage.
“I said that I had three points to deliver. You’re probably aware of all three but ignore them, just as everyone is aware of combustion engines, but ignores them until your car runs out of gas or the timing belt shreds on the way to Krispy Kreme to buy creamy treats for a very special girl on a very special Friday night. These secrets are not contained in a series of audiobooks, a special tea from Bhutan, or 24-Hour Fitness. I’ll tell you the truth freely and honestly. The first point is this: you’re a failure.”
“You know it, even if you don’t show it. Especially if you don’t show it. We’re all festering bags of offal filled with squirming mealworms–-that’s a scientific fact. We will always come up short in the grand scheme of life simply because we aren’t perfect and never will be. Accept in your heart and mind––totally, not halfway––that you are a complete clown of the first water, a tapeworm in the intestines of a modern society that was built by men and women with more courage, intelligence, and tapeworms than you. Only then can you rebuild your life. The alternative to this process is to go into politics or the theater.”
“Once you’ve admitted your failures, find part of your life that gives you the most reward and focus on that. Perhaps you’ve lost a bid for the Nobel Prize in Physics and disappointed your parents. Focus on the happiness you gained while researching those physics things. Don’t worry, your parents will eventually call again––they should have had more kids but didn’t, so you’re sitting in the catbird seat. Perhaps you haven’t been the best father. Spend time with your children if it makes you happy. If not, there’s always Alaska, and having other children. I’m not saying to do whatever you want because that would lead to chaos––no one wants a hippie at the controls of a 747––but if flying a large cylinder filled with screaming babies and peanuts and no parachutes through the air gives you joy, then let it give you joy. I won’t judge that. The people inside that plane may judge you, and rightfully so, but not me.”
Dean waved Emerson onto the stage.
“Finally, we’ve arrived at the third point of my three-point plan for turning around your life, business, company, or family reunion––once you’ve found something you love, don’t ever give up.”
Emerson stepped meekly across the stage and held Dean’s hand.
“During the last few days I had many opportunities to quit. My girlfriend left me, I was chased by a murderous Kamchatkan mobster, and my parents tried to throw me a birthday party. If I’d given up at any one of those stages, I wouldn’t have married this beautiful woman with a heart of gold. Okay, so we’re not really married, and she doesn’t have a real heart of gold because that’s ridiculous and she’d be dead in seconds, but I hope you see my point. If you’re as lucky as I’ve been and find a guiding light for your life like her––not specifically her, because as soon as we leave here we’re getting married for real––then hold on tight, because it’s not worth it to let go.”
Dean and Emerson bowed together. Everyone in the crowd jumped to their feet with furious applause, including Robert Timmins. Bundles of roses landed at the feet of the smiling couple, and they waved at the unending cheers.
Two familiar figures ran down the aisle, dodging the hands of police and too-friendly Timminites. Four security guards tackled the largest and most round of the pair, but she flung the burly men to the side like empty bags of onion-flavored snacks. The two women climbed onto the stage, and with tears in his eyes Dean hugged Lin and Fanta.
The applause faded and the audience settled into quiet murmurs. Dean walked with his three companions toward stage right.
“Bastardo!”
At a nearby fire exit, the massive, hairy Ludovico Ariosto held up a small black box.
“You are stupid weasel,” yelled the large Italian. “I have LoJack!”
Dean pointed at him. “Sponsored by Ken Shimabara!”
Screams of outrage erupted from a third of the audience. A human wave of Armani-suited Timminites rolled forward and covered the Italian in a mass of fists and Gucci loafers. Ironic, thought Dean, that fine Italian fashions would be used to beat an Italian in such a fine fashion.
Backstage, Dean took a handkerchief from Lin and wiped sweat from his forehead.
“It’s good to see a familiar face, Lin. How did you find us?”
She shrugged. “After the riots all the speakers were rescheduled. I guessed that you’d figure it out and show up today.”
“Good guess,” said Dean. “That was exactly my plan.”
“Fanta and I drove from Nebraska in a rental car. How did you get here from Cincinnati?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Promise me I don’t have to drive across the country again, that’s all.”
“It’s very hard to predict the future, Lin, as many times as I’ve tried, but believe me, I have no desire to repeat the trip.”
Someone gripped Dean’s shoulder firmly. He turned and shook the hand of Robert Timmins.
“Congratulations, son,” said Robert. “I haven’t heard a speech with that kind of energy since Phil Donahue drank a whole bottle of Tony’s Red Indian Juice.”
“Thank you. I didn’t have much time to prepare.”
“I know, I know,” said Robert. “But that leads to electric performances, just like Phil and that juice. Would you like to join my speaking tour next month?”
“Sir, I’d like nothing better.”
“Great. See my assistant for details. Also, I love the hat! Spaced is one of my favorite shows––that Nick Frost is an absolute riot. Speaking of which, I need to get back to the fighting.”
Dean watched him leave and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.
Emerson jumped up and down and clapped. “You got a job! It’s so wonderful!”
Lin shook her head. “Cheer up, Dean. You always said Robert Timmins was your hero.”
“I know what’s wrong,” said a familiar voice. “I bet he wishes his parents were here.”
Frank Cook squeezed by a pile of boxes, followed closely by Billie and Chip. Dean’s parents both gave him a hug.
“Son, don’t ever jump off a bridge
again,” said Billie.
Dean nodded. “I promise. What happened with the Duke?”
“What do you think happened? I’m a very good shot,” said Billie.
“You didn’t kill them, did you?”
Frank laughed. “Worse. We left them with that muscular Amish Adonis. We gave him the impression that the Duke and his lackey were the ones shooting all his farmer friends. Those two will be milking cows and smelling the wrong end of a barn for a long, long time.”
Dean collapsed to his knees, his face as white as barge flour.
“You don’t look so good,” said Lin. “Maybe you should lie down.”
Emerson knelt beside him. “Dean! What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” Dean whispered hoarsely. “It’s just that ... I forgot about Nick Frost and that other guy.”