The Jerusalem Syndrome by Marc Maron Read Free Book Online

of his pocket and asked, “You ever burned money, Maron?”
    “No,” I said.
    Sam gave me a one-hundred-dollar bill, took one for himself, and said, “Spark them up. This is great.” I set the two bills on fire and Sam and I watched them burn until we couldn’t hold them.
    “Feels great doesn’t it?” he said.
    It did feel great, but that might’ve been because it was
his
money.
    About 4:00 A . M . we ran out of magic powder, and of course we needed more. We got into my car and drove through the Hollywood night. Sam was going in and out of consciousness as he gave me directions. At one point he bolted up in his seat and said, “I don’t even know you, Maron. You could kill me.”
    In retrospect, he was much more likely to do that to himself.
    We arrived at a modern apartment building in Crescent Heights. Sam rang the bell. After a few minutes of ringing, a groggy voice was emitted from the intercom. “What? Who is it?”
    “It’s me,” Sam said. “Let us up.”
    “Who’s us?” the voice asked.
    “Me and this kid Maron,” Sam said. “He’s alright.”
    The door buzzed.
    We took the elevator up and walked down a hall, and Sam knocked on a door. It opened and there was a guy in a bathrobe standing in the doorway. He looked normal, long blond hair, mustache, wiping sleep out of his eyes.
    “What the fuck? It’s four-thirty,” he said.
    Sam barged in through the door and I followed him.
    “Rick, this is Maron,” Sam said. “He’s the new doorman at the Store.”
    “Hey,” Rick said.
    “Hey,” I said apologetically.
    I later found out that Rick was a hairdresser during the day.
    “You got anything?” Sam asked as he started rummaging through the kitchen like an obsessed troll.
    “Yeah,” Rick said. “You guys are insane.”
    “Any booze around?” Sam asked, opening cabinets.
    “Just come into my bedroom. Be cool. I don’t want to wake up my roommate.”
    We went into his bedroom. Sam sat down on the floor and started passing out. I stood. Rick walked into his bathroom and came back out holding two Smirnoff miniatures. He gave them to Sam.
    “Here. This is all I have. I stole them off the plane.”
    Sam poured them, one after the other, into his mouth. He didn’t do it like someone drinking. He shot them down his throat like Orson Welles did in
Touch of Evil
. It was a dull, passive motion, a necessity, fuel for a dying machine. Then Sam went out cold.
    It was an awkward moment, standing there in a stranger’s bedroom over the motionless, still breathing body of the biggest star in comedy, who I barely knew and who Rick knew well and sold drugs to. I assumed he would just crash there.
    “I guess I better split,” I said.
    “Fuck no!” Rick said. “You gotta get him out of here. I don’t want him to pull a Belushi on me.”
    Rick handed me a bindle of magic powder, and we lifted Sam up and into consciousness and walked him out the door. I was holding Sam up in the hallway.
    “He’ll pay me later,” Rick said. “Nice meeting you, Maron.”
    “Yeah, you too,” I said.
    Then Rick shut the door.
    I got Sam back into my car. I didn’t know what to do with him. I didn’t know where he lived. We drove back up to Cresthill. I walked him into the house and he made his way to the den, where he lay facedown on the floor in front of the fireplace and fell immediately asleep.
    I sat down at the table and poured some magic powder onto the Freaks, did a couple of lines, and went into my room. I hung the picture back up over my bed, lay down, and listened to my heart pound. I tried to assess where I was, what had happened, and my new friends as I waited to die.
    Monday nights were “no cover nights” at the club, and they usually lasted until Wednesday morning. It was Sam’s night. The dregs of Hollywood would pack The Comedy Store and wait for Sam to take the stage in the Main Room. He would usually show up at about 11:00, but you could feel him coming at 10:30. The place would become