IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Damon Wayans a storyteller, too

Renowned for his Hollywood films, his run on a groundbreaking sketch comedy show and later as the executive producer of a hit sitcom, Damon Wayans is a world-class comedian and actor. His debut novel shows he is a gifted storyteller, too.  An excerpt.
/ Source: TODAY books

Renowned for his Hollywood films, his run on a groundbreaking sketch comedy show and later as the executive producer of a hit sitcom, Damon Wayans is a world-class comedian and actor. His debut novel shows he is a gifted storyteller, too. Here's an excerpt:

Chapter One
The Boeing 767 began to shake like a carnival ride as the red seat-belt light flashed on. The captain put on his official intercom voice and told Alma what she already knew as a result of the water in her lap.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats and fasten your seat belts,” the captain droned with authority. “I’ve been informed there’s a severe weather system up ahead, and it may get a bit bumpy for a while.”

“A bit?” Alma muttered as she fought to keep her stomach in the place God intended it to be. Right this minute, it was in her throat.

She peered out the tiny window to see a tar-black sky, blotted with angry, bruised clouds. Massive, blinding flashes of lightning, from beneath the rocking plane, convinced her they were doomed. Alma reached for Harold’s hand. He was engrossed in the New York Times sports section and didn’t even notice her trembling appendage.

“Harold!” she yelled.

“What, woman?” Harold fumed.

“We’re goin’ to crash,” Alma started to weep.

“Woman, these things were made to withstand turbulence. Shut up and enjoy the ride.” He laughed and went back to reading his paper.

Alma squinted her eyes, shooting tiny poisoned darts at him, knowing Harold would never take this tone with her had his feet been firmly on the ground. In a petulant fit, she grabbed the miniature bottle of whiskey he was sipping and sloshed the liquid at his face.

After twenty-seven years of marriage to this unpredictable woman, Harold has developed quick reflexes. The brown liquid splashed against the window as a flash of lightning lit the sky. The sticky liquor wandered slowly down the glass.

“What’s wrong with you, Alma? Why do you always have to show out?” Harold demanded. “You can’t just say, ‘I’m scared’? You can’t ask me nicely to hold your hand?”

“Why do I have to ask?” Alma tossed back.

Before it could get a firm hold, the coming argument was interrupted by a violent explosion in the rear of the plane. Alma joined the chorus of screams ripping through the now descending tube of death.

A bolt of lightning had hit the plane. The cabin began to fill with smoke. The plane jerked and sputtered. Alma could hear the engines shut off and they began their stomach-clenching drop from the sky. Shortly, I will return to these heavens. This time though, I won’t need to check no bags. Alma prided herself on always being able to find some good in any situation.

The captain’s breathless voice was heard again. He wasn’t as cocky now. She could hear the tight knot in his throat as he warned them to assume crash position, which amounted to leaning forward as far as you are able so that, Alma joked with Harold, “you can kiss your own ass good-bye!”

Harold smiled at her as the plane broke in half.

“’Bye Alma,” he called faintly as a deadly gust of wind and torrential rain jerked him from his seat, tossing him like an empty, worthless husk into the darkness below.

“No! Harold, don’t leave me!” she begged. Alma attempted to loosen her seatbelt to give a free-fall chase, but the latch wouldn’t unlock. She pushed the call button for a stewardess — ping ping ping. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was falling, too. Alma gazed above to the somber sky as it distanced itself from her. She asked God to watch over Harold —

ping ping ping.

Five twenty-seven A.M. Alma’s eyes popped open. A strong will allowed her to force herself to wake up from the recurring nightmare, which included the two things she feared most in this world.

First, she dreamed she was flying in a plane, something she’d vowed she’d never do after witnessing firsthand the disaster of Flight 101 at Kennedy Airport. The plane was struck by lightning, fell from the sky, and burst into a fireball of death and lifelong pain for the families of the victims, some thirty years ago.

In her dream, sitting in the seat next to her was clueless Harold, her worthless husband.

She had no idea where they were going because money was scarce, always had been. Besides, there was absolutely no way in hell she’d willingly straddle that death cylinder. Not on her own, anyway. She shuddered, recalling the familiar climax to the nightmare.

With a violent, soaking thud, she slammed into the ocean waters, only to wish she had suffered a fatal heart attack and died, because in her sixty-four years, she’d never learned to swim — fear number two. She fought the giant waves as they crashed over her time and again.

Alma thought she’d never swallowed so much water in her entire life. She petitioned God either to help her or to take her life, because she couldn’t breathe for another instant or drink another drop of this damn salty water.

Hallelujah! God was alive. The waters calmed. Alma used what little energy she had to roll over. She drifted weightlessly on her back as the blinding sun ordered the clouds away. Alma floated the distance to dry land but couldn’t move. She lay in the hot sand, exhausted, allowing the even flow of the waves to rock her lovingly. Her eyelids became droopy.

Slowly Alma stood, searching the area, calling for Harold, who was nowhere to be found. How much time has passed? She noticed a long row of footprints in the sand heading in the direction of a gathering of lazy, bending palms in the distance. She struggled to follow the footprints as they disappear, one after another, beneath the zombielike shuffle of her sluggish walk. By the time Alma reached the trees, the clouds that had terrorized the dreary sky were gone.

The warmth of the sun calmed her nerves. As she passed the trees, Alma saw what looked like a paradise of exotic blossoms — gorgeous pinks and violets, yellows, purples and bright reds, a magnificent rainbow of colors — rising from a meticulously manicured island of lush green grass, giving over to reed and towering brown and tan cattails.

“Isn’t this the living end, Harold?” she asked, searching for his hand. It took her a moment to remember he wasn’t with her any longer.

“Alma, help me!” Harold’s voice shouted, seemingly from nowhere. She turned to see him in the distance, fighting to stay above the same waves she had battled, to escape the powerful pull of the ocean’s hungry maw.

Alma pumped her arms side to side to propel herself to Harold’s aid. But her legs didn’t move. She looked down to see she was covered to the knees in quicksand. As she attempted to break free of its wet grip, the loose sand swallowed her further downward.

“God, please help me! I can’t go through this hell again!” Alma cried. “Not another time!” The sand recognized her attempt to escape and pulled her further into its gritty embrace. God was not listening this time.

Up to her neck and sure to smother, Alma looked at the ocean for a final glimpse of Harold before he surrendered to his own demise. Alma closed her bloodshot eyes and whispered a hollow I’m sorry to Harold, to God, then to herself. She took one long breath and disappeared into the deep.

Waking was the last thing Alma expected, and breathing never felt sweeter. Having the nightmare for the third time that week put her in a sour mood. She nudged Harold, who was lying next to her in the bed, to make certain he wasn’t truly dead. It was more like a little kick, but it worked. Harold rolled over.

“Harold, are you all right?” Alma asked.

“Yeah I’m all right! What’s wrong with you, woman? I’m trying to sleep here,” he whined.

Alma lay still, pretending to be asleep. She must have overnudged him. Harold sucked his teeth greedily and went back to sleep. When he began snoring, Alma reached for her Zoloft on the night table next to her half-glass of room-temperature water that helped the nasty-tasting pills get past her gag reflex.

Mumbling her disdain at the only thing that kept her from being labeled everything from a classic nut job to a psycho slasher, she got up to begin her day. Getting out of bed had become a chore of late, as she’d put on a few extra pounds — sixteen extra, to be exact. Alma’s physician said weight gain was a side effect of the drugs he prescribed to combat the “change.” Other side effects included dry mouth, headache, dizziness, drowsiness, nausea, vomiting, constipation, fainting, blurred vision, and the possibility of an irregular heartbeat. Alma told pudgy Dr. Know-it-all Simms the drugs will do her in quicker than the menopause. He laughed. She didn’t.

Alma gazed into the mirror but didn’t like what she saw. Her change of life was truly life changing. Hah! Steel grey hairs were beginning to show again at the roots. It hadn’t been two weeks since her last coloring. What’s happening to me?

Alma splashed cool water on her face and washed the crusty sleep from the corners of her eyes, her most expressive feature. It seemed only yesterday she was staring at the red circle on the calendar marking her twenty-first birthday. Now that same red mark was a cold reminder that sixty-five was charging like a freight train and would arrive in three short weeks. Alma wasn’t looking forward to being a government-certified senior citizen.

She turned on the digital radio, the one Harold recently bought her, to the oldies station, made a pot of Folger’s and toasted four pieces of white bread — two light and two dark. She’d eat the two light slices, and Harold would have the others. Alma had stopped cooking a real and healthy breakfast for him ages ago, because he’d stopped saying thank you after every meal. Even worse, he never asked why she’d stopped. In fact, Alma couldn’t remember the last time she’d done anything nice for the man. She often referred to him as her has-been rather than husband. She thought it was funny. Harold said it was cruel but absolutely refused to admit it hurt his feelings, knowing that was exactly what she meant to do.

To make matters worse, Alma didn’t read the morning paper because she was interested in anything it offered, she did it simply to piss Harold off. He hated anybody to read the paper before he did. It was a pet peeve. Alma accidentally dropped a bit of strawberry jelly on the front page of the sports section and wiped it across the headline in an attempt to clean it off. She folded the paper neatly, and positioned it face down in front of Harold’s place setting.

The smell of Folgers never failed to wake Harold up. It made his mouth water and got him to drag his lazy butt downstairs. Once he smelled it, he had to have some.

Their eyes locked as he strolled into the kitchen, fully dressed.

“Good morning,” he offered without conviction.

“What’s so damn good about it?” Alma shot back. “I couldn’t sleep a gnat of a second because you was snoring again like a damn polar bear. Then you went and took all the covers off me in the middle of the night.”

“Maybe I was trying to get me some of that sweet stuff you keep locked up under all them covers,” he said with a lewd wink. “You know a man’s got needs, Alma.”

“I told you I ain’t giving you nothing ’til you start acting right. You’ve gotta earn this, honey,” she teased, using her best Mae West.

“How can I do that?” Harold said as he walked to where she was sitting and made an attempt to kiss the back of her neck. Alma pushed him away.

“Don’t do that! If I want your lousy kisses, I’ll ask for them.”

Harold sucked his teeth and headed for the stove, angry at himself for allowing her to sucker him, yet another stab to his already ailing heart. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat in his seat at the head of the pale green, rickety table. At least she hadn’t taken this from him. His position at the head of the table was the last bit of power Harold had left in this house. He made a mental note never to tell her how important that station was to him, because she’d surely confiscate his God-given right to a man’s throne.

The silence spoke volumes. Years of resentment had festered to the point of this hurtful, cancerous relationship. Harold avoided conversation with Alma because he knew it always ended in an argument or a fight. He decorated his coffee with four lumps of sugar and a tiny dollop of cream. Drank it dark and sweet, just like his woman used to be.

Harold ate a piece of toast to line his stomach before popping his heart pills. He hated the chalky taste they left in his mouth and took a generous swig of Jack Daniels from the flask his mother gave him for his tenth wedding anniversary.

You’re going to need this to get you through the next ten years of this marriage, son, the card had read. God help you.

Harold kept the card hidden in a battered shoebox in the back of the closet, knowing Alma wouldn’t get his mother’s brand of humor — too much truth to it. She’d only try and retaliate with her own brand. He should’ve lit the card and tossed it in the garbage years ago, because Alma knew every nook and cranny of the apartment.

“God help you too, you old bat,” Alma had said the day she found the card.

Harold lifted the newspaper, immediately reacting to the sticky marmalade on his hand.

“Did you do this to my paper, woman?”

“Do what?” Alma asked sweetly.

Harold sucked his teeth, mad at himself for asking the obvious. One point for her, he thought.

“I had another bad dream last night,” Alma blurted out.

“Oh?” challenged Harold.

“Yeah, we were on a plane and …”

“It crashes, right into the ocean,” Harold spewed, cutting her off. “You told me that one twice already. It’s the medicine that’s giving you them dreams, Alma. Ask the doctor to change your dosage.” She went stiff at his dismissal.

Harold returned to the sports section. The sounds of Marvin Gaye singing “Mercy, Mercy Me” on the radio calmed his nerves. He poured a little more whiskey into his cup then sat, sipped his brew, and avoided Alma’s gaze.

“You keep on drinking that Jack Daniels, and you’re going to burn the liver right out of your side,” she warned.

Harold waved her off again, this time with a heavy sigh. He couldn’t wait for the buzz to kick in and obliterate her piercing stare and harping voice. It gave him the heebie-jeebies.

“What time will you be home?” Alma asked.

“I don’t know,” Harold mumbled sheepishly.

“You can’t answer me?”

“I said I don’t know!” he shouted.

“You say it like a retarded kid on a yellow school bus. If I was that whore Rae Ann across the street, you sure could open your mouth and speak.”

“Don’t start, Alma. It’s too early for this.” Harold winced.

“So, when is a good time, because we need to talk?”

“What’s your schedule like in 2020?”

One point for me. Harold was proud of his response. The alcohol must have kicked in, because he felt warm inside, unafraid of the woman whose squinty eyes shot daggers in his direction. Besides, he loved her too much to run from her. Years of Alma’s verbal abuse had forced Harold to sharpen his wits.

“I hope to be at your God damned funeral way before 2020, you ugly bastard,” Alma spat back at him. Her eyes were now like slits. Once they disappeared under her lids it meant she was mad as hell and sure to be on the attack.

That was Harold’s cue to leave. He had pushed the wrong button now, and bad things were about to happen. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Alma picked up her coffee and threw it in his face. He felt lucky it was cold from sitting.

He wiped his face and headed for the front door. Alma rushed to the door and caught it before it closed. Harold looked up at her from halfway down the first flight of the steep, narrow steps.

“I hate you! I hope you fall down the rest of those stairs and break your neck!” Alma screamed. As if she had all the time in the world, she turned and stepped into the darkness of the apartment.

How could she say such hurtful things? Harold carefully held the railing as he made his way cautiously down the four remaining flights of steps. He didn’t want to give Alma the satisfaction of his falling. That would make it two points for her.  

Excerpted from "Red Hats" by Damon Wayans. Copyright (c) 2010. Reprinted with permission from Simon and Schuster.