It was 90 degrees outside and over 100 inside the coffee shop, where I’d been running a weekly storytelling show on Saturday nights.  The coffee shop’s owner hoped the show would bring people in and asked me to organize it.  I agreed on the condition that I could run it as a curated show and not an open mic.  She said yes, but kept pressuring me to give stage time to people who wandered in off the street.  “No,” I’d say, week after week.  “We talked about this.  It’s not an open mic.”  But every week she’d forget because she feared people would never return if I didn’t put them onstage.

“Onstage” was a bit of a stretch.  The coffee house had no stage and no lighting to distinguish the “stage area” from the rest of the space.  The owner had a deep-seated hippie belief that there should be no distinction between performers and audience members.  Some friends who were fantastic flat-out refused to be in the show once they saw the space, presumably because they know the importance of distinguishing between performers and the audience.  But I ignored that because I wanted somewhere to try out new material in front of an audience every week.  And for a while, it worked.  The shows were a great blend of interesting storytellers, playwrights, and poets – all a bit off the beaten path.  I’d fashion lineups based on pure instinct and most nights wound up with unexpectedly poignant throughlines. 

That’s how I got to know Carolyn, who performed on my show a half dozen times and was always great.  Carolyn was deeply strange and brilliant, with a worldview that was warped in the best of ways.  She was clever and funny and still getting carded as she neared 40 because she looked 17.  She taught at a Catholic School a few blocks from the coffee shop, which amused me no end because she was obviously Jewish. Or so I thought. I learned later she was Catholic but adopted the mannerisms and cadences of the Jewish comics she loved as a kid. 

The show was becoming something special and building an audience who’d come back every week.  Then the heat wave hit and the air conditioner broke.  The owner of the coffee shop kept promising to get the A.C. fixed but didn’t.  Regulars stopped coming because no one wants to spend 90 minutes sweating inside. 

I’d booked six performers that night, but two contacted me in the afternoon to say they couldn’t make it, so I reached out to two others I knew would come.  But I wasn’t thrilled with either of them; one was probably a high-functioning meth addict and the other gesticulated wildly like a teenager chewing the scenery in a nightmarish community theater production of Death of a Salesman.

Still, I was happy because Carolyn was on the bill.  Carolyn said she’d written a new piece about being jealous of her friends who got braces.  Teen Carolyn fashioned DIY braces out of chicken wire and badly cut up her cheeks wearing the contraption overnight.  Like most of her work, it was bizarre, mesmerizing, and funny as hell. 

Carolyn was late that night.  Other performers wandered in and complained about the heat and their positions in the lineup.  Carolyn finally arrived, sat down, and started scribbling on her printed pages.  The coffee shop owner pulled me aside to browbeat me about booking Jeff, someone she thought was amazing (but whose work I disliked).  Jeff ostensibly had a huge following, but few people ever came out to see him perform.  He’d been diagnosed with cancer and chose not to pursue standard treatments, but instead started a GoFundMe to buy himself a week in a luxury spa in Mexico that claimed to cure cancer with proprietary smoothies. 

I excused myself to talk to Carolyn.  “I need to be on third or fourth,” she said immediately.  “Not first or second and definitely not last.”

“Okay,” I said.  She kept writing, filling the pages with handwritten notes.  I remembered arguing with her the last few times she’d performed.  She’d sit in front, not paying attention, revising even as she approached the microphone to perform.  Sitting there, I remembered that Carolyn, in addition to being effortlessly funny and compelling, was a neurotic mess.

“Hey, Carolyn,” I said.  “Remember last time we talked about you not revising your pieces once you get here?”

“That’s why I was late,” she said.

“Okay, but you’re still revising.”

She looked up at me.  Stared for a few seconds, then looked down and started writing again.  “I’ll stop when the show starts,” she promised.  But she’d promised that last time and scribbled glibly through the first four performers.

“Carolyn, stop.  Why do you always do this to yourself?”

“Because by the time Gilda Radner was my age, she was already dying.  You don’t understand how far behind I am.”

“Remember how we talked about you finishing a day or two before so you can be in the moment when you’re here, learn from how people react, and then revise your work later?”

“No,” she said.  “That doesn’t sound like me.”

I sighed.  Loudly.  She needed to get her shit together, stop judging herself so harshly, and knock off the self-sabotage.  Most importantly, she needed to stop trying to be Gilda Radner and figure out how to be herself.  But she wouldn’t do any of those things. 

So I did something.  Maybe it was the heat.  Maybe it was my anger at the owner of the coffee shop.  Or maybe I saw too much of Carolyn in myself and couldn’t stand to watch her squander her talents.  I wondered if I was wasting my own time and talent lugging a music stand four or five blocks every Saturday night because there was no parking.  Was it self-sabotage that I wasn’t spending more time writing and instead showed up early every week because there was a table in the middle of the stage area and the coffee shop owner wouldn’t let me ask anyone sitting there to move because (again) she feared they’d be offended and never return.

Whatever the reason, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  So, I reached out and grabbed the pages from Carolyn’s hand.  “No more revising,” I commanded. 

“You’re an asshole,” she said, wiping away a tear.

I sighed and slid the pages back to her.  She grabbed them and resumed making notes in the margins.

Another performer came to me with some minor crisis, so I left Carolyn alone.

She kept revising after the show began.  And because she was in the front row in a space with zero division between performers and audience, everyone present could see Carolyn wasn’t paying attention.  I could feel her draining energy from the room.

As usual, Carolyn’s performance was great.  People laughed for most of her eight minutes.  There were only two minor jokes that didn’t land – and that was probably because she couldn’t follow her own scribbles and mucked up the delivery.

Afterward, I sat down with her.  She kept harping on the two failed jokes.  Her lip quivered like she might cry again.  “Didn’t you hear people laughing?” I asked.  “Do you really not know that you killed?” 

She shook her head.  “I don’t think so.  It felt like I bombed.”

Carolyn had great ideas and instincts but was paralyzed by pathological blindness to her own talent.  She’d complain endlessly to me about June, a local who appeared on many storytelling shows where she’d recycle the same two stories (that both revolved around the size of her ass).  “Don’t worry about June,” I told Carolyn.  “June would kill to have your talent.” 

“Then why do people book her instead of me?” Carolyn asked. 

“Because,” I thought, “she doesn’t sit in the front and revise pieces while other people are performing.”  But I didn’t say that.  I didn’t say anything.  Honestly, I was annoyed that she refused to take my suggestions and make a few simple changes that absolutely would have improved her life. 

I thought I could save her.  Back then, I thought I could save everyone.  Even though that’s not how these things work.

***

Carolyn performed often in a show called Mortified, which is built around people reading their teenage diaries and pretentious middle-school essays.  Mortified would fly Carolyn to different cities to perform, and she loved that.  In 2013, she got a rescue dog and rented a room in a big house in the Hollywood Hills.  Although the house was gorgeous, Carolyn was afraid of her landlady and spent much of her time there afraid to leave her bedroom.  In 2014, I urged her to stop doing Mortified.  “It keeps you stuck seeing yourself as awkward and ineffective,” I told her.  “You need to do things that make you feel triumphant instead of powerless.”  Soon after, I stopped running the show at the coffee shop because it made me miserable to have the same arguments with the owner week after week.

***

In 2015, I was looking for a smoke detector in Lowe’s when Carolyn called me.  “I’m still mad at you because of what you said about Mortified,” she told me.  “I’m sure you noticed I haven’t been talking to you.”  I hadn’t noticed.  But before I could say that (or anything else), she blurted out: “I have breast cancer.  They just diagnosed it.”

“Look,” I said, “I’m sorry I upset you about Mortified.  We can talk about that later.  But that’s not important.  All that’s important now is for you to get better.” 

She told me that the strain of cancer she had was rare and very aggressive.  She’d had a falling out with the coffee shop owner, but they’d been close friends so Carolyn called her.  The coffee shop owner wanted to rehash their most recent arguments and wouldn’t even wish Carolyn well.  Carolyn started to give me a blow-by-blow account, but I stopped her.  “Don’t waste time or energy on her or anyone else who’s not on your side,” I said.  “You’re going to need every bit of your strength.  Anyone who drains your energy doesn’t deserve your time or focus right now.”

Something about Carolyn’s description of her cancer sounded familiar.  When I hung up, I remembered that my friend Cat had the same rare cancer.  I twirled the smoke detector package between my fingers while I called Cat and asked if she’d talk to Carolyn.  I thought it would help to have “inside information” from someone who’d literally just won the fight she was starting.  Cat was happy to talk to Carolyn, so I called Carolyn back with Cat’s number before paying for the smoke detector.

I didn’t originally remember this, but looking at old text messages I see that I went with Carolyn to an early oncology appointment just after her diagnosis.  She was afraid of hospitals and I hope it helped that I was there. 

Due to insurance issues, Carolyn ordinarily wouldn’t be eligible for treatment at Cedar Sinai (where Cat had been treated).  But Carolyn’s oncologist pulled strings to get her into a program there.  Carolyn turned it down.  Maybe she didn’t feel she deserved special treatment or maybe she was spooked because Gilda Radner died at Cedars.

I ran into Cat two months later.  She said Carolyn never called.  I told her Carolyn opted for treatment at a clinic in Culver City.  Cat, who knew firsthand how aggressive and dangerous this type of cancer is, shook her head.  Cat rarely beat around the bush even before her cancer.  Still, it chilled me when she looked me directly in the eye and said, “Your friend’s going to die, then.”

I kept reaching out to Carolyn throughout her treatment, but she stopped returning my calls as she got sicker.  I circled back to our mutual friends; they hadn’t heard from her either.  It seemed that Carolyn cut people off so she wouldn’t be a burden to anyone. 

Unfortunately, Cat was right.  Carolyn died in 2017, almost exactly five years ago. 

***

Looking back, here’s what I know for sure:

Carolyn had a medium-sized dog and a huge heart and I miss her.

Like Gilda Radner, her cancer went into remission and then came roaring back just when it seemed she was out of the woods.

I’m sorry for everyone she didn’t get to inspire.  She left a big hole in the whole world, which she certainly would have filled with her talent. 

I’m embarrassed now I thought it was my job to save her, but I’m not sorry I tried. 

I’m still angry she wouldn’t accept treatment at a place that would have saved her, but I remind myself that people make choices for their own reasons and sometimes choose not to save themselves. 

Mostly I hope that, wherever she is, Carolyn’s found the happiness that eluded her here.  I hope she understands how much joy she brought to those who knew her.  And although she wouldn’t listen to me, I hope Carolyn caught up with Gilda somewhere so Gilda could set her straight and convince her to stop obsessing over those two jokes that didn’t land. 

– Alex M. Stein