What To Do When Danny Has To Be Daniel
Or, No One Bakes Casseroles For Ex-Husbands
No one would’ve made me the first of anything for what I did back then. Aside from David Edwards, I was the youngest I knew, and I wonder if he and Chappelle aren’t 65-year-olds, knowing they conned us all. I was the least known and least popular comedian on any circuit who kept it Black American and tried to remain in conversation with Black Americans; a conversation ended mainly by Def Comedy Jam Season 5. It certainly wasn’t supported by ComicView, no disrespect. Only my tight friends from Washington Heights, Woodlawn, the 10-Tray, Morgan Park, Auburn—folks from my Chicago burgh, Provincetown out in CCH—knew how funny I was and the darkness that made me so.
And Lisa knew.
Lisa knew how my knuckles, but not my face, were scarred. She knew how nasty I was behind the calm exterior in the face of hostile competitors. I got passed up for DL Hughley or some out-of-towner for headlining All Jokes Aside. We couldn’t stand DL in Chicago. On stage, with that mouth, his pants always seemed too short for him. After Ray Lambert had paid me $250 just to shut up about it, Lisa expected to see me perform. Instead, she had Mexican with me at that lil spot next to Ricobene’s under the EL down the street from Columbia College, where I dropped out to do Def Comedy Jam following Bernie Mac and whatever reports from the outside world he brought with him, the Sir Walter Raleigh of the Chitlin Circuit.
She thought a beer might calm me down. I crushed the pint glass in my hand while talking about the indignity. Just another thing since the Old Man died that marked me for the bullshit that was beneath me. With beer and blood on my hand and now pooling on my lap, she just grabbed the other hand.
“You gotta be cool, Dan. You’re going to—“
“Going to what?”
Silence.
“Kill myself, like my father did?” I wiped my hands with napkins. “Not for those bourgeoise muthafukas. I’m alright. I’m sorry.”
I wake up this morning checking my statistics across the internet, preparing for the subscription drive to Bronzeville Book Club I hope preserves my business and saves my chances of ever having a career in something other than hardcore business again. My co-parent is gone. My ex-wife is dead. The person who knew and told me so and loved me good enough for me to compete with Bernie ’nem at 19 years old. The girl who snuck me into her house at night when I couldn’t handle fistfighting at home anymore and made sure I got at least one meal per day who shared with me a high school locker filled with escapist dreams.
She’s gone.
My granddaughter Alice was on the PS5 when I had to commandeer the television. Bronzeville needs as much support as it can get now. I’ve taken too many personal hits since Danny Jr. was in hospital in 2021. I gotta take it to the algorithms, which are a lot kinder about my comedy career than my mother and the other Gardners, basically everyone else but Lisa, who raised our daughters when I performed on a sleepy Thursday after-lunch crowd and realized I likely screwed myself in college just to go to NYC and fight a bunch of grown men for nothing but the misappropriation of my intellectual property.
I asked her to switch to Amazon Freevee and search for her Pop-Pop.
Alice says, “Hey, there’s your name.” Her theater-kid nature perked. “Whoa, you’re first.”
“Yeah,” I said. “A new licensed DVD product is showing up in libraries now. I better call Davis Wright Tremaine. I can’t have everyone eating off my content forever.”
“That’s crazy. So when Goodreads and IMDB were merged—”
“My embarrassing getup on stage now sells copies of A Negro and an Ofay. And probably Devil in a Blue Dress, except Walter Mosley doesn’t like me.”
“Later for that guy.”
“Since these entertainment platforms need content, I’m not aging as fast.”
“Wow, Pop-Pop,” Alice said. “Who knew?”
Lisa knew.
I’m not okay, but I’m good how Chicagoans say it.
“You good?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
That way.
If I weren’t, I wouldn’t say anything.
No one bakes casseroles for the first husband.
My little suburban girlfriend who fought for me, alongside me, and with me; who knew just how hard I took things and somehow kept it together; who knew my darkness enough to teach her children how to love me through it. Who gave me a family that sees it and accepts me.
The one who knew before anyone.
She gone.
God is good. Bronzeville lives.
It was built on what Lisa knew. Before her, everyone forgot I existed. After her, no one would ever forget. Everyone should know that.
Mayor