Cancer on Five Dollars a Day* *(chemo not included): How Humor Got Me through the Toughest Journey of My Life (2 page)

“It’s okay, man,” Robert whispered.

Two beefy security guards approached, prepared to step in between Robert and Jesse. Robert waved them away. They retreated, pressed themselves against the wall, a few feet away, just in case. Robert gently rubbed Jesse’s back.

“I got you,” he said.

To a stranger walking into the lobby at that moment, the tableau they made would appear ludicrous: an enormous man-child, his body towering above and folded over fivefoot-six-inch Schimmel who, through the sheer strength of his heart, was holding up three-hundred-pound Jesse Gonzalez. Standing there, I knew that Robert Schimmel wouldn’t let him go, that he would hold on to Jesse until he was strong enough to stand alone.

Robert had told me that at every show, people with cancer, friends and family of people with cancer, people who had lost loved ones to cancer, and cancer survivors would come up to him afterwards and tell him their stories. Sometimes they would just say thank-you—for his courage, his inspiration, and for making them laugh. And after each show, Robert would end up hugging strangers in the lobbies of comedy clubs across the country because even though they were strangers, they shared the same bond, they belonged to the same exclusive club.

Even though I’d heard about these moments, these instantaneous connections and spontaneous outbursts, I was unprepared for how emotional it felt. I saw how important Robert Schimmel, the man, was to someone like Jesse Gonzalez. I saw how approachable Robert was, how real, and how responsibly he reacted to Jesse’s feelings. Other comedians I’ve known would have brushed him off. Seeing Robert hug Jesse and refuse to let him go, I knew that I was watching an act of extraordinary compassion, something that bordered on the
spiritual,
not the first word that comes to mind after a knockout comedy performance rooted in sex. I know now that in every Robert Schimmel audience there is always at least one Jesse Gonzalez and that Robert will always hold him up.

You can say that cancer gave Robert Schimmel more material. That would be true. But it also gave him more heart. The disease made him see the world through wider, wiser eyes. He became more patient, more resolute, and more conscious of the power of the moment. Cancer stirred him up and awakened him. And cancer taught him how to love what he
has
—his wife, children, parents, brother, sister, friends, and his gift, making people laugh; to love every day he’s alive. His cancer story is a love story.

“My dad died of cancer,” Jesse Gonzalez told me. “That destroyed me. I really thought I couldn’t go on. When I heard that Robert was coming to the Improv, I had to see him. I had to talk to him. So I e-mailed him. He answered me. I couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t too good for me, you know? And when I saw him after the show, he hugged me and held me and told me that I had to live my life, but that I could talk to him or e-mail him anytime. I know that if he can get through cancer, then I can make it, too. He’s a walking miracle. He saved my life. I love the guy.”

That’s why I’m writing this love story with Robert.

For Jesse. And Jesse’s dad.

And for everyone who has been tapped on the shoulder by the Big C and told they were
it.

So I’m sitting in a chair in my room at the Mayo Clinic waiting for the results.

I yawn and scratch my beard. I feel so spacey and hung over from the anesthetic they gave me. I think the guy went a little crazy on me. He was squeezing that IV in my arm like he was pumping up a tire. I check the room. There’s my mom, sitting across from me, her legs folded at the ankles as if she’s waiting for a bus. There’s my dad, staring out the window, hands clasped behind his back. Contemplating the desert. Or wondering if my insurance is picking up the tab for the private room. And there’s Vicki, my wife, sitting on the bed, flipping through a magazine. She’s actually my ex. Well. Sort of. Kind of. It’s complicated. I’ll explain later because thinking about it now is starting to give me a migraine, which would really be the cherry on top of this sundae.

Nobody says a word. The room smells like ammonia with a hint of pine. And it’s as cold as an igloo. At least it feels that way to me. You couldn’t tell by my dad, who’s wearing a short-sleeve shirt. I’m
freezing.
My teeth start chattering. A whole mountain range of goose bumps appears up and down my legs.

And this stupid hospital gown is riding up my ass. I try to pull it down and it snaps right back up like a window shade. I cross my legs and suddenly I’m Sharon Stone. Vicki sees this and rolls her eyes. Yeah, right. Like I’m flashing her in front of my parents.

“You’re hanging out all over,” Vicki says.

“What, you don’t think my mom has seen me naked?”

“At fifty?” Vicki says.

She has a point. I cover myself as best as I can. Then I yawn, close my eyes, and shiver.

And suddenly, impossibly, I’m
above
them. Looking down on them. Hovering overhead like a bird. This is nuts. I must be dreaming. I’m either dreaming or I’m dead. Can they hear me? Wait a minute. There I am. Still sitting in that chair. I
am
dead.

They really can’t hear me. My mom uncrosses her ankles and sighs. My dad keeps staring out the window, then looks at his watch. Vicki tosses the magazine onto the bed.

I can’t be dead. Okay, I wasn’t feeling great so I went in for some tests and . . .
I died?
How did that happen? A thousand questions slam into my head, one after another, machine-gunned through my brain—

When did I die? Where is my spirit gonna go? Do I even have a spirit? Is there a God? What about Jesus? How does he fit in? I didn’t believe in him on earth so is he gonna be pissed at me now? Maybe not because, after all, he is Jesus. What about my kids? Where are they gonna go? Did I ever finish my will? Who’s gonna talk at my funeral? I’m not really close with any rabbis. I probably should’ve gotten close with some rabbi so I don’t get the generic funeral eulogy. I hate those. You know he never knows the dead guy. He could be talking about anyone.
Robert was so special, such a good son, he will be missed. That’ll be twelve hundred dollars.

Below me, my mom looks past Vicki at a large basket of muffins, untouched, a bouquet of ribbons attached to the handle, the contents still encased in plastic. “Who sent these?”

“Fox,” Vicki says.

“Mrs. Beasley’s muffins,” my mom says. She nods in approval. “Very classy.”

“I love the lemon poppy seed ones,” Vicki says.

“The minis?”

“Yeah.”

“The best,” my mom says. “Take a couple.”

“Really? You think Robert would mind?”

“He’s in a coma. You think he’s gonna wake up and say, ‘Hey, two of my lemon poppy seed muffins are missing. I go into a coma for a couple of hours and you steal my muffins?’ Vicki, please, take a muffin.”

Vicki shrugs and rips into the plastic muffin wrap.

“We never had a catch,” my dad suddenly says, his eyes still peering out the window.

“What?” my mom says. “What are you mumbling?”

“Me, Robert. We never played ball.”

“Sure, you did. Plenty of times.”

“That was Jeff. Robert was too busy tinkering with his trains. Playing pretend games. Looking at girlie magazines.” He grunts, eyes still focused on something far away. “I have regrets. We never went fishing, hunting, none of those things.”

My mom stares at him. “What hunting and fishing? We’re Jewish.”

Vicki, cheeks wide as a chipmunk’s, stares at me propped up in the chair. “Look at him,” she says, through a mouthful of muffins. “So pathetic. So sad. You know, Robert told me many times he didn’t want to go like this.”

My mother squints at her. “What do you mean?”

“Like this. A vegetable.” Vicki swallows the last of her muffin, then with her pinky pokes at a poppy seed jammed between her teeth. “I think we should pull the plug.”

No!
I scream, still aloft, fluttering above them, desperate, helpless.
I’m right up here! Look! Help!

“Otto, what do you think?” my mother says. “Should we unplug him? It’s getting late. We leave now, we beat the traffic.”

“We never restored a car together,” my father says. “Never went camping. Built a doghouse—”

“If we pull the plug, we have to divvy up the muffins. I insist,” says Vicki.

“I only like the lemon poppy seed and you ate all of those,” my mother says.

STOP!
I scream.

And then my legs feel heavy, immense, as if they’re made of iron, and suddenly I plummet downward like a shot and I’m—

In my bed. Blinking. My mom and dad sit across from me. Vicki isn’t here. There are no muffins. I remember now. My dad brought me in. My mom came later. She called Vicki, told her what happened, and said she’d let her know when we had the results.

“Wow,” I say.

“You were out,” my dad says.

“I had some dream.” I sit up slowly, rub my eyes. “Has the doctor been in?”

“Not yet,” my mom says.

“Wow,” I say again, and then I laugh. “That was nuts. This whole thing has been nuts.”

My mother shifts in her chair. My dad dips his head, studies his hands. There is dread etched into their faces. These are two people who have survived the Holocaust and then the loss of their grandson, Vicki’s and my son Derek. They have endured more than their share of bad news and days of horror.

“Am I rich and famous yet?” I say.

My dad cracks a smile. “Not yet.”

“Who’s gonna play me in your show?” my mom asks.

“Meryl Streep,” I say.

“She doesn’t look like me. Plus she chews the scenery.”

“Ma, we talked about this. You might not even be in the show.”

She shrugs. “Fine. So it won’t be any good.”

Now I smile and try to piece together what’s happened over the last couple of weeks, during the shooting of my sitcom pilot, then performing in Vegas, and the events come rushing at me at warp speed with the force of a tornado blowing through a pile of leaves—

I am in Los Angeles. I am separated from Vicki and living with Melissa. More about her in a bit. As soon as the pilot is finished and I get everything straightened out, I’ll settle in L.A. for good, with Melissa.

Vicki and I have had a checkered relationship. We got married, then got the marriage annulled, then got remarried, got divorced, then remarried, then on the way to divorce for the absolute final time, no turning back, no bullshit, Derek got sick. We stayed together for him, for our other kids, fought the good fight, lost, then drifted apart, not uncommon when a couple loses a child. Now, unfortunately but inevitably, it’s over, the final divorce. Bottom line, we tried. But it wasn’t meant to be.

And now Melissa. Finding her, falling in love with her, realizing that I belong with her, being more certain of that than of anything in my life. And then, wham, there’s a light shining on me, as if the spotlight finds me for the first time. I’m asked to do a sitcom. Me? You kidding? I’m fifty, bald, and Jewish. Not exactly the demographic advertisers are trying to reel in. Who cares? It’s my time. After twenty years of stand-up, America has embraced me and my raw, take-no-prisoners, balls-out comedy. I’m gonna be famous. Bizarre.

I go into rehearsal for the pilot. The hours are grueling, the work is intense. I feel fatigued and dazed, and then right before we’re set to shoot the show, I start getting chills, two, three times a night. I’ve got the shakes so bad that I pile on extra blankets. When I wake up, the bed is soaked, totally drenched, as if a pipe has burst beneath the sheets. Melissa is worried, begs me to see a doctor. I don’t know any doctors in L.A. I call my manager, who makes an appointment for me with his doctor. I go in for a checkup, and the doc schedules me for a CAT scan. The scan comes back clean.

“You’re run down,” the doctor says. “We might want to do more tests. You could have Epstein-Barr or mono. That’d be my guess.”

Even though there’s nothing on the scan, something eats at me. I don’t know why, but I feel like there’s something else, something that the scan didn’t see.

About a week after we shoot the pilot, I’m playing the Monte Carlo in Vegas. My parents are staying with me. It’s early June and by noon the temperature is hitting 110, but no problem, it’s a dry heat. One afternoon, my dad and I decide to take a stroll through the forum shops. Suddenly, I’m freezing. My entire body starts to shiver. My lips quiver and my teeth begin to chatter.

“Robert, you’re shaking.”

“I’m freezing. I’m gonna go into the Gap and buy a sweatshirt. I’m really cold.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Yeah. I saw that guy in L.A.”

“You have to get a second opinion. Today.”