The Last Black Unicorn - Tiffany Haddish Page 0,6

a serious rundown of everything I did wrong. He wrote:

“And here’s your $40. If you think you can do it, give me a call back, and if you don’t think you can handle it, don’t call me.”

As soon as I read that, I called him:

Tiffany: “Man, I can do all of this and then some. Boy please, when is the next party?”

The next party, I was pumped up. Dancing with everybody. Dancing with the old people. Dancing with the young people. Getting all the people to follow me. Doing all my routines and stuff. I was doing stuff that I did on the football field for the games. At the Bar Mitzvahs, I was doing waves and all kind of stuff. I killed it. And that was my weekend work for like, ten years after that.

After two years, I ended up becoming one of the MCs. I started making like $200 a party, $300 a party on the weekends. For a teenager, that’s dope.

• • •

The only downside to the Bar Mitzvahs was that I killed a man once.

I’m not even kidding.

At this point, I was about twenty. I had been doing Bar Mitzvahs for four years, and I was good by then. I would do a Bar Mitzvah right.

This one was up in the Valley. I was dancing, getting the crowd hyped, and I saw an old man over there, just looking mopey. It’s my job to get everyone hyped, so I danced over to him.

Tiffany: “Come on, you want to dance with me?”

Old Man: “No, no, no.”

Tiffany: “Come on, you know you want to dance. You know you want to!”

Old Man: “No, no, I’m old, dance with the young people.”

He was saying no, but I could tell he meant yes, so I grabbed his hand, and he got up with me, and he came to the dance floor. And then I grabbed him by his tie and went all in.

Tiffany: “Yeaaaaaaaah boy, get it done!”

Old Man: “Whooooo!”

And he was into it and enjoying it, and people were cheering, and the party started to jump off.

I let go of his tie, and we started dancing a little simple two-step. And then I turned around on him and gave him a little booty pop, right? Just a little one, right in his old man crotch, like pop-pop. I sprang back up and kept dancing, and then I saw people were staring at me, shocked.

I turned back around, and he was on the ground. On his back, holding his chest.

Tiffany: “Oh shit. Oh shit!”

Everybody was rushing over. There were some doctors in attendance who were working on him, and they called an ambulance. They were doing CPR on him and all of that.

But it was the weirdest thing: he was smiling the whole time. I swear to God that man was smiling.

The ambulance came, and they took him to the hospital. And with the ambulance came the police. So, I just knew I was going to jail. I just figured that since I’m the only black person at this party, the police are there for me. They’re going to say I killed this man. I was fixing to go to jail, that was it. I was trying to figure out who to call, and mentally preparing myself for going to jail.

Police: “Okay, I think that wraps it. If we have any other questions, we’ll let you know.”

And they just left. What’s going on?

That man ended up dying in the hospital. I was home, I’m thinking the police were going to show up to my house any day now to take me to jail.

And I decided I quit. No more dancing, no more Bar Mitzvahs, nothing. I was done. I stopped doing them. DJ Timbo was calling me and calling me, telling me people were requesting me.

Tiffany: “I can’t do it, I can’t. I just can’t right now. This is not a good time. I don’t feel safe.”

DJ Timbo: “Tiffany, they are asking for you specifically. They want you there.”

Tiffany: “I don’t feel like people should be around me. I’m not safe.”

DJ Timbo: “Tiffany, your ass is not deadly.”

Tiffany: “No, my ass is deadly. That man is dead.”

DJ Timbo: “Tiffany, that man was old. It was his time. He was probably happy. It was probably the first time he ever danced with a black girl in his life. It was the happiest moment of his life.”

But Timbo couldn’t talk me into doing them. That man hadn’t wanted to dance at first, and