Chapter 41

Maddy’s standing offstage behind the black curtain, waiting for Pete, the emcee, to introduce her. He’s still warming up the crowd. He’ll probably go a minute or two more.

She’s headlining at Little City Comedy in suburban Connecticut, the sister club to Big City Comedy in New York. Like any younger sibling, Little City knows her place. It’s much smaller than Big City and doesn’t attract the same level of talent or the audiences New York gets, but that’s okay with Maddy. She prefers the intimacy of Little City. She can usually spot the regulars, even in the dark.

She auditioned and was passed a couple of months ago and performs regularly on Thursday nights. She also does Tuesday nights at the local VFW hall. She doesn’t draw as many people as bingo does on Mondays, but she’s got a good crew who always come out to see her as long as it’s not raining. She also performs at Willow Valley Assisted Living Center on Wednesday afternoons. Half her audience is asleep before she even starts, but the ladies who stay conscious love her. She lives for making eighty-one-year-old Mary laugh at her dick jokes.

“Everyone, give it up for Maddy Banks!” says Pete.

Maddy walks onto the stage amid sparse but exuberant applause. Pete did a great job. She pulls the microphone from the stand, plants her feet, and looks out over the crowd. There are a lot of empty tables tonight. That’s okay.

“Hello! How’s everyone doing this evening?”

A few people yell out Good! Some clap.

“I’m doing good, too. I feel like we’re close, especially you.”

She stands before and smiles at a middle-aged man sitting at a front-row table with his wife. They’re both smiling back. It feels so good to make people feel good.

“Maybe not emotionally close, not yet, it’s only been a few seconds, but we’re close in terms of physical distance.

“So I want to share something with you that I haven’t told a lot of people. I have bipolar disorder. Some people would say I am bipolar instead of I have bipolar. And that’s all good. You do you, but for me, it would feel weird to say I am something that I have.

“Like, I had a mushroom pizza last night, but that doesn’t mean I was a mushroom pizza last night. And I have HPV, but I am not HPV.

“Men, you have a dick. But we don’t say you are a dick…”

She pauses, her eyebrows lifted, a smile curling on her lips.

“Unless, of course, you’re being one.”

A smattering of amused laughter plays out in the dark. They’re already with her. Relaxed, Maddy starts walking the modest stage.

“When I was first diagnosed, everyone in my family, my mom especially, was worried for me. ‘Will she get to live a normal life?’ That was the big, scary, snaggletoothed question. As a woman, a normal life basically means you get married, have babies, and live in a nice house in the suburbs. But I’ve never wanted any of those things. For starters, I don’t want to have kids.

“?‘Oh, just wait, you will!’ everyone says, just before handing me a pamphlet and a glass of Kool-Aid.”

Maddy mimes holding the glass in her left hand, her face terrified. The audience laughs.

“Here’s how I know babies aren’t a good fit for me. I have a new phone. Now this doesn’t mean that I am a new phone. I’d waited almost a year for this upgrade. So, I’m excited, I love my new phone, and still, within the first twenty-four hours of owning my beloved new phone, I dropped it. Thirteen times. My brand-new screen is totally shattered.

“So imagine me with a baby ?”

Maddy mimes cradling a baby in her arms, then dropping it, her flat-palmed hands held high in the air, Whoops written all over her face.

“Unless the baby’s head comes encased in an OtterBox, that soft little newborn skull wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Maddy strolls to the other side of the stage, taking a moment.

“It’s true I am clumsy to begin with, but you might’ve also noticed that I have this very attractive hand tremor.”

Maddy holds her left hand out for everyone to observe her exaggerated resting tremor.

“This is not actually a symptom of bipolar disorder. It’s one of the many delightful side effects of the medications deployed to treat it. I used to try to hide my baby-dropping tremor until I realized that it’s actually a superpower.

“My hand tremor… repels men!”

She stands with her legs wide, her shaky left arm extended forward, palm flexed, fingers spread wide, her version of a superhero pose.

“Ask him.”

She lowers her outstretched left arm and points to the middle-aged husband at the front table.

“He’s so wishing he chose a seat in the back right now. It’s true. Dudes get one look at my hand tremor, can’t figure out what the fuck that’s about, and they give me plenty of space, which is great as a woman because ninety-nine percent of the time, that’s exactly what we want .

“If I’m alone at night in a dark parking lot, I don’t need to hold my keys between my fingers like a ninja racoon ready to claw your face off. No one fucks with the hand tremor.”

She walks to the other side of the stage, taking her time, waiting for the roll of laughter to subside.

“When I tell people I have bipolar, the reactions I get are now very predictable. The first is a weird kind of empathy. It goes something like ‘Oh yeah, my dad had bipolar. He killed himself.’?”

She stops walking, lowers her microphone, and widens her eyes.

“Whaaat? Who says that? A lot of people. A lot of people offer up their father’s, niece’s, wife’s, cousin’s suicide upon hearing that I have bipolar.

“It’s seriously fucked-up, but I’ve seen mothers do a similar thing to my sister when she was pregnant. They’d see her bump and take this as an invitation to launch into their most horrific pregnancy stories. One woman, a stranger at the grocery store, unsolicited, told my very pregnant sister that with her first baby, she labored for seventy-two hours before her baby’s giant head tore her vagina straight through to her anus.”

Maddy cringes, her hand over her mouth in horror.

“Those are two highways that should never, ever merge.”

The audience laughs.

“People are nice. I also get folks who think they have the inside track to my cure. These are the ‘have you tried’ people. There’s cold plunging, drinking apple cider vinegar, bathing in apple cider vinegar. I’m sure someone out there wants me to douche with it. There’s ayahuasca. Staying up all night. That one actually can pull you out of a depression, but it’s only temporary and carries the big fat hairy risk of slingshotting you straight into mania.

“But here’s the most common reaction I get from people.

“?‘Like Kanye?’

“Yes, like Kanye.

“Then we share a long moment of silence, usually with our heads bowed, followed by them mumbling something that equates to ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

“I get it. It’s an uncomfortable topic, but mostly because people don’t know much about it. The last manic episode I had was six months ago in Las Vegas. I don’t know how much you know about mania, but if you’re going to buy a ticket for that ride, Vegas is the perfect place for it. You can walk into the lobby of the Palazzo wearing nothing but a pink sequin thong and gold tassels on your titties at three a.m. singing ‘Shake It Off’ into an empty Senor Frog’s yard cup, and no one will blink twice.”

She stands before the middle-aged husband in the front and squats down, as if talking to only him.

“Hypothetically. I’m just giving you a colorful, completely made-up example to illustrate my point.”

He and his wife smile, and the audience behind them laughs. She stands and resumes her spot center stage.

“Vegas is like Where’s Waldo? for mental illness. Everywhere you look, you’ll find a person who is most definitely diagnosed with something. Or on a lot of drugs. Or both. So mania blends right in. Mania totally passes for normal in Vegas.

“The manic episode I had before Vegas was here in suburban Connecticut.”

She lowers her mic, takes a beat before lifting it again.

“I did not blend.”

The audience laughs.

“Which got me thinking about my family’s biggest concern. ‘Will she get to live a normal life?’ But normal is totally subjective and made up. Normal is all about the environment you’re in and what it expects of you. If I were on a beach in Spain, it would be totally normal for me to sunbathe topless. But if I went for a little titty tan here on Long Island Sound, I would get arrested.

“Maybe I wouldn’t even need any meds if I just always lived in the right place for the mood I’m in. So I could live in Vegas whenever I’m manic, and whenever I’m depressed, I could move to Florida.”

Someone in the back claps.

“Manic episodes are rough, though. I’m reckless with money and my body. I believe I’m a much bigger deal than I am. Bigger than being the headliner at Little City Comedy Club on a Thursday, if you can imagine. I ruin relationships, my reputation.

“But even worse are the depressions. One in five people with bipolar die by suicide. I find it fascinating that they put people with such a high risk for suicide on a cocktail of serious meds and totally trust us not to overdose. It’s like handing us a loaded gun and saying, ‘Just don’t point it at your head, okay?’

“And they don’t even know how most of these drugs work. Truly. Some research has shown that antidepressants are no more effective than placebos in treating depression. Same as taking sugar pills.”

She waits as there’s some conversation in the audience, probably along the lines of I didn’t know that. Did you know that?

“But there’s an interesting twist. The placebo has to be what they call ‘active,’ which means it’s a sugar pill that also makes you just a little bit sick, like it gives you a headache or a touch of diarrhea. So as long as the placebo pill you’re swallowing makes you feel crappy, then your brain assumes that must be a side effect, and then it believes it must be getting the real drug, and this belief alone is powerful enough to produce the full antidepressant effect.”

She takes a big, unhurried breath.

“I feel like I’ve dated a lot of active placebos.”

The audience chuckles.

“If I’m in love, I also have to feel nauseous and constipated, or it’s just not going to work. He has to be hot and make me want to eat all the ice cream in the freezer while crying before bed. I mean, if he’s hot and nice , my brain would see straight through that bullshit.

“?‘He’s not real! Get rid of him! Show him your hand tremor!’?”

She holds out her shaky hand as if it were Captain America’s shield. Then she walks the stage as the audience laughs.

“Thankfully, what happened in Vegas has stayed in Vegas, and I haven’t been manic since, and the only episodes I experience now are from season four of Succession. Today, I’m living somewhere mostly in the middle, back at home with my mom and stepfather, and the goal is to stay stable for a year before I try it out there again on my own.

“So on the downside, I’m no longer a comedian living in New York. But on the upside, living at home with my mom here in Connecticut generates a lot of material.

“For example, yesterday my mom and I had lunch at Pine Meadows. She pulled out her phone to check her messages, and I happened to notice that my mom’s phone screen… is totally shattered. ”

Maddy’s eyes bug out as she pretends to rock a baby in her arms. Then she mimes dropping it, points to her head, and nods through the wave of laughter.

“Explains everything.

“Thanks so much, you’ve been a great audience!”

Several people jump to their feet, giving her a standing ovation. She stays, resisting the urge to run offstage, and accepts their approval and celebration. The house lights come up some. She looks over the heads of the middle-aged husband and wife at the front to a table in the center near the back. And there she is, where she always is. Her mother, standing, hands high above her head, clapping, always the last to stop.

Sometimes Gramma and Phil come, too. And Jack’s seen her here a couple of times. Sofia was here last Thursday. She’s home for the summer, working at Starbucks. Maddy rides her bike there most mornings, orders a Frappuccino, and hangs out with Sofia while she takes her break. She’s so grateful for Sofia and their enduring friendship. If it can weather bipolar disorder and Adam before that, they should be friends for life.

Somewhat predictably, Adam texted her at the beginning of summer break.

AW

ADAM WHITE

Hey

His name on her phone jostled her heart and knocked her off-balance at first. She felt surprised, nervous, nauseated, and annoyed. But she did not feel compelled to answer. She deleted the text, took a giant, cleansing breath, recentered herself, and continued with her day.

Emily’s baby, Audrey, is six weeks old. Emily’s breastfeeding all hours of the night and is understandably too tired to go to a comedy show at the moment. She promises she’ll come to one soon. Despite her exhausted overwhelm, she says she’s loving motherhood, and she hasn’t dropped Audrey on her head once.

Regardless of whoever comes to her shows or doesn’t, her mother is always there. She records every set on her phone so Maddy can watch it back later and post some clips to YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. She hasn’t missed a single show at Little City, the VFW, or Willow Valley Assisted Living Center.

She blows her mother a kiss. Her mother smiles, still standing and clapping. Maddy waves and leaves the stage, heading to the greenroom to grab her backpack before meeting her mother in the lobby.

It wasn’t easy getting here, to this place of compromise, this middle path, for either her or her mother. Since the depression and hospitalization that followed her manic episode in Vegas, Maddy has come to fully accept her bipolar diagnosis, that it is something she has, but not who she is. She prioritizes sleep, her medication, journaling, and therapy and is in partnership with her mother and Dr. Weaver, grateful for the extra pairs of eyes and ears to help keep her on track.

She still wishes she didn’t have to take her meds. Her hands shake, they make her cognitively and physically sluggish, and she’s at least twenty pounds heavier on them. And even with taking every dose, she’s still vulnerable to suffering bouts of depression, which is frustrating. But Dr. Weaver says her depressive episodes are likely much milder and shorter in duration than they would be without the meds. And she’d rather stay on the meds every day than endure even one more night at Garrison.

Her mother wanted a normal life for her daughter because she believed that in normalcy, her daughter would be safe. But as they’ve learned, normal isn’t real. What passes for normal in Vegas isn’t normal in Connecticut. And even a culturally approved, traditionally “normal” life doesn’t inoculate anyone from hardship or unhappiness.

Over the past six months, her mother has come to accept and support Maddy’s comedy aspirations as a real career path and not a dangerous delusion born out of mania. Arriving here did not come easily. It helps that Maddy and her mother have lived through many and enough data points now, evidence demonstrating that Maddy can do stand-up and remain stable. Her mother has also started going to therapy, and among other things, it’s been helping her to untangle Maddy’s bipolar disorder from the trauma her mother experienced with Maddy’s father. Her mother still wishes Maddy would wear something “nicer” onstage but has also come to accept her daughter’s fashion choices.

As Maddy collects her backpack in the greenroom, she checks herself out in the full-length mirror propped against the wall. She’s wearing faded jeans, black platform Converse high-tops, and her bold, rosy blazer over a gray Reputation concert T-shirt, the sleeves of the blazer rolled up to her elbows. She only wears two bracelets now—the gold chain with a diamond heart that Gramma gave her on her left wrist and the friendship bracelet from Sofia on her right. She spins the pink and navy-blue beads of the friendship bracelet until the white alphabet beads lie like a watch face on the top of her arm. U 4EVA . She smiles.

Some of the scar marks on the inside of her left forearm have been transformed into a tattooed phoenix feather. Beneath the feather, another tattoo reads (Maddy’s Version) . She had the word WORTHY inked in big and bold letters onto the inside of her right forearm a couple of weeks ago. She texted a photo of it to Simone, who of course loved it. She can’t wait to show it to Simone in person next week when she and Sofia go to see her perform in an off-Broadway musical.

Even with her new tattoos, some of the cutting scars are still visible. That’s okay. She’s not hiding anymore. The scars, phoenix, and words are all reminders of who she is and what she’s survived. And the two bracelets remind her that she is unconditionally loved.

She’s a comedian who has bipolar disorder living a full but not normal life. She’s a breathing miracle of DNA in a body that took 13.8 billion years and an impossibly unique and unbroken chain of events to be here, and this is how she’s choosing to spend the days and nights of this precious existence. She winks at her reflection in the mirror and leaves.