The Last Black Unicorn - Tiffany Haddish Page 0,7

I made him, and then I booty popped him . . . and now he’s dead! I just felt like a booty assassin.

Then, I got a letter from his daughter. She tipped me—she sent me a big tip and told me thank you. She said they’d never seen him that happy, they hadn’t seen him smile like that or that happy in a long time. And she said that they knew this was coming, he was in his late eighties, and they had been waiting for him to pass. And they appreciated everything that I did, and I should not blame myself.

She made some good points. And you know, she did tell me to dance with everybody. She specifically said to get all the older people up. So maybe she wanted me to kill him? I don’t know.

After that letter, I went back to doing Bar Mitzvahs. At that point, they were paying me $400 a party. The money was too good.

Laugh Factory Comedy Camp

I started doing comedy at fifteen. I was getting in trouble in school, that’s what got me into it. It was all because of this one teacher.

I was talking too much in class, and my teacher was always sending me to the principal’s office. The social worker was getting tired of coming up to the school, and the principal was tired of calling the social worker.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t just talking. This teacher kept saying I was racist, but I didn’t think I was being racist. I thought I was being funny.

My whole thing was just to make everybody laugh. If I could do that, then they’d let me copy their homework and they’d help me on tests.

One of the ways I made everyone laugh was to make up these imaginary friends. I had a female imaginary friend that I called Carmelita and a little bird that I called Cracker. I would talk to them in the hallways and during class, and if somebody sat down next to me, I’d be like:

Tiffany: “Wait, watch out. You’re sitting on Carmelita’s lap. She likes that, though. Wiggle on her.”

And they would jump up and be like, “What are you talking about?” And then, eventually, they would become my friends. People would be like, “You crazy. You silly. I like you.” It worked really well for me. It’s basically how I made it through school.

Every time we would take a test, I would turn my head toward my shoulder, and I would be like, “Cracker want a Polly?” I had some crackers, and I would crumble them up on my shoulder for my imaginary bird, and people would be laughing. Then they’d let me cheat off of them.

The teacher didn’t know I was cheating though, that’s not why she was always sending me to the principal’s office. During one test, I said:

Tiffany: “What’s the answer to number seven, Cracker?”

You know, because that was my imaginary bird’s name. But my teacher thought I was being racist against her.

Teacher: “You go straight to the principal’s office. You can’t be racist in here.”

This happened a few times, and everybody would laugh. I would just tell the principal the same thing each time.

Tiffany: “I was talking to my friend, my imaginary bird.”

Principal: “Oh, God, again with the imaginary friends?”

After like the fifth time, my social worker couldn’t take it anymore.

Social Worker: “Tiffany, you got two choices this summer coming up. You can go to the Laugh Factory Comedy Camp, or you can go to psychiatric therapy. Which one do you want to do, ’cause something is wrong with you.”

Tiffany: “Which one got drugs?”

Social Worker: “Therapy.”

I didn’t want no drugs, I had seen how those fuck people up. So I went to the comedy camp.

Laugh Factory Comedy Camp was kinda perfect, except how long it took to get there. I’d have to catch the bus up there from 54th and Western, and I would ride all the way up to the Laugh Factory camp. Riding that bus, you would see the demographics of the people change, as you went from South Central through Hollywood. I remember getting on the bus feeling poor. But as we would get to Hollywood, I would see a little bit higher class of people boarding the bus. I felt like I was literally moving up in the world.

I would go up there every week, and I got to meet a lot of different comedians. A lot of mentors would come in. Dane Cook showed up. Chris