Bill was just relieved it was over and that he'd delivered HBO something they could work with. About four in the morning Bill meandered down Thirty-eighth Street to the Doral Hotel; once in his room, he picked up the phone and called Oregon. "Hello?" Dwight whispered groggily. "How do you sleep?" Bill asked. Bill's friends were used to these calls. When he was on the road, all alone and drowning in whiskey, he might call you in the middle of the night and scream into the phone something like, "All women are WHOOOOOORRRES! I can't stand it!" It was just hard to sleep sometimes. Bill told David that once he'd tossed and turned in bed for hours and when he finally found a comfortable position, he realized he was twisted in the shape of a swastika. One day, out of the blue, Bill's father called Sandy with a suggestion. "Sandy," he said, "it's really nice that you're helping Bill get all those club dates but I think he needs to be a gameshow host. When are you going to get him a game show?" *
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"I've got to get out of Houston," Bill told Pamela around Christmas. "This is ridiculous." The Outlaw shows were fun, but he was going nowhere. The UFO experience, the HBO special, hanging out on the comedy scene in New York all week, had woken him up to the possibilities. And recently, Bill had seen a Houston comedian become nearly destitute because of his severe alcoholism. Bill and Wilkes began keeping bowls of fruit around the apartment and together they had a new mantra: Live. It was the beginning of a shift, a realization that he had to make some decisions. And while Bill was still struggling with drinking and experiencing blackouts more frequently, he had a coherent ambition within him. "What do you ultimately want to do?" Farneti asked once when they were taking a walk. "Do you want to make it big like David Brenner? "No!" Bill said, scowling. "I want to make a contribution to comedy. Like Charlie Chaplin." New Year's Day 1988, Bill woke up in a panic. Pamela wasn't on her side of the bed. The night before they'd gone out to dinner with another couple, friends of hers, and then returned to Houston House for a nightcap. Bill had drunk steadily throughout the night and by the time their guests left, he had gone into one of his rages. It wasn't a fight really, just Bill stomping around the apartment ranting incoherently, screaming ugly words until they'd found themselves out on the terrace. He couldn't remember much after that, but he had a hazy awful memory of holding Pamela against the railing, threatening to throw her off the balcony. So she was either on the sidewalk, twenty-two floors below, or she'd gotten away from him. "Thank God," he sobbed when she answered her phone. That's it, he promised. He was disgusted with himself. He would never drink again. That's great, Pamela answered. But they were finished. She had no intention of seeing him again. *
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A little more than a month later, Bill stood onstage at Charlie Goodnight's in Raleigh, dressed in a black leather jacket and sipping Jack Daniel's from a shot glass. He was only about