Jake the Fake Goes for Laughs

by Craig Robinson

  I guess that was supposed to be an honor or something. Although most honors don’t involve the risk of accidentally touching snake poop.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Azure hopped over to me. It took her three hops. “You were so good,” she said. “I can’t wait till next week.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Why are you hopping?”

  “It’s an art project,” she said. Which was the explanation for most weird behavior around here: Azure hopping, Whitman referring to himself in third person, Bin-Bin doing tai chi for an entire day and recording herself with a camera strapped to her wrist. I’d learned to take it in stride.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “What do you mean, next week? What happens next week?”

  She looked puzzled and jumped in place a couple of times. “You. At the Yuk-Yuk. Again.”

  My mouth fell open but nothing came out. I could feel my ears burning, and the pancake gloop in my stomach suddenly seemed to be expanding at a rapid rate.

  “Next week?” I managed at last.

  “Yeah, dude. And the week after that, and the week after that.” And Azure hopped away, only to turn and hop back a second later. “You’re still coming to my dance recital this afternoon, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” I muttered. But I was busy realizing the problem with being a star.

  Because what do stars do? They fall.

  Staying up there in the sky requires a ton of energy. And this particular star had burned through ninety percent of his material last night.

  I couldn’t get up there next week and tell the same jokes.

  And I couldn’t not get up there next week. I had fans now.

  This was probably why comedians went on tour. Switching audiences is easier than switching jokes.

  Which, in turn, was probably why so few comedians were in middle school.

  “Hey,” said Forrest, breaking me out of my panic attack. “You were funny last night. For a human being, anyway.”

  The panic was still racing around inside me, like some kind of deranged ferret. I couldn’t let the ferret get the best of me, so I turned to Forrest and said, “Of course I was. I’m Jake Liston, man. The funniest dude alive.”

  I felt more like Jake Liston, totally incapable of ever being funny again, but when I said it, the ferret stopped clawing at my small intestine for a moment.

  You know what they say: Fake it till you make it. Maybe if I acted like the world’s greatest and most successful comic, the jokes would come and the panic ferret would go to sleep. It was worth a try.

  I cleared my throat and cupped my hands around my mouth like a bullhorn.

  “People!” I shouted. “Could I have your attention, please?” They all turned away from their instruments and books and whatever else they were fiddling with. Even Mr. Allen put down his didgeridoo and cocked his head at me.

  “I’d just like to thank you all for coming out to support me last night,” I said, and everybody started to smile. “I couldn’t do it without the fans. The little people. I’ll never forget you, no matter how rich and famous I become.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Klaus started applauding madly. Everybody looked at him. He didn’t notice, or maybe he didn’t care. He kept on clapping for a full minute, even after everybody else had gone back to what they were doing.

  “Uh, thanks,” I said when he finally stopped. Nobody responded. I sensed a chill in the room. Which was unusual, since the room was a tropical rain forest.

  Maybe it was Fake it till you break it.

  “Time for English,” Mr. Allen announced, interrupting my thoughts. “Get out your notebooks or write on your arms. Today we’re looking at the epic poem in world literature.”

  Lucky for me, that was so boring that the ferret stayed asleep the whole rest of the morning.

  * * *

  •••

  Lunch that day was chanterelle mushroom fettuccine and spinach-walnut-gorgonzola salad. But when I got my tray and went to sit down, Zenobia and Bin-Bin scooted into the empty space at the table.

  “Sorry, Jake,” Zenobia said. “This table is just for the little people.”

  “We wouldn’t want to disturb your genius comedy brain,” Bin-Bin added. “Not when you have jokes to think up.”

  “Plus,” added Whitman, “it can be such a burden to always have to deal with fans.”

  “Okaaaay,” I said slowly. “I guess I’ll just…sit over here, then.” I walked over to an empty table.

  I was pretty sure they were being sarcastic, but the truth was, some alone time sounded good. I did have to think of some jokes. Especially since a good portion of my week was now going to be spent writing the epic rhyming poem Mr. Allen had just assigned us.

  I sat there all period, racking my brain and shoveling food into my face. Soon my stomach was full, but my notebook was still empty. And the ferret of panic had woken up from his nap and was drinking a triple espresso and kicking me behind the eyeballs with his spiky little clawed feet. He was a real jerk.

  That night, I locked myself in my room to work on my routine. It went something like this:

  Stare at blank page. (5 minutes)

  Have thought: “Bears are funny.” (3 seconds)

  Try to think of joke about bears. (3 minutes)

  Type “bears funny” into YouTube. (4 seconds)

  Watch YouTube videos of bears paddling around in aboveground swimming pools, eating barbecue, destroying campgrounds, wearing sombreros, and being chased by cats. (47 minutes)

  Wonder why Winnie-the-Pooh, and for that matter so many other cartoon characters, always wears a shirt but no pants. Why is this acceptable fashion? (1 minute)

  Write joke about Winnie-the-Pooh and Donald Duck going pants shopping and thinking all the pants make them look fat and not buying anything. (3 minutes)

  Triumphant cookie break (11 minutes)

  Try and fail to write any other bear jokes. Consider placing plate of cookies outside so bears will come eat cookies and maybe do something funny I can write joke about. (1 minute)

  Remember I live in non-bear-infested area. (30 seconds)

  Decide bears are maybe not that funny after all. (10 seconds)

  Decide only things less funny than bears are a) death by piranha and b) Jake Liston. (15 seconds)

  Decide weasels are funny. (1 minute)

  Write joke about weasels secretly controlling U.S. government. (4 minutes)

  Erase stupid U.S. government weasel joke. (4 seconds)

  Sad cookie break #2 (9 minutes)

  Call Evan to ask if weasels are funny. Find out from Evan’s older brother that Evan is at the championship game of his indoor soccer league. Remember that I promised to attend. (2 minutes)

  Remember that I also promised to go to Azure’s dance performance, which is also right now. (1 minute)

  Self-hating lasagna break (12 minutes)

  Depressed cookie break #3 (6 minutes)

  Feel sick. (21 minutes)

  Bathroom break (7 minutes)

  Jot down single decent joke that came to me in bathroom, about how every time I enter a public restroom I am in deadly fear that there is already someone in there who has neglected to lock the door, even though this has never actually happened. (2 minutes)

  Pass out fully clothed. (8 hours)

  It was not exactly a productive evening. But it wasn’t until the next morning that I realized just how badly I had used my time.

  I was having a dream about super-intelligent bear-riding weasels stealing all the toilet paper in the world and handing it over to their ferret overlords, when the phone rang.

  I ignored it, since I never get calls early in
the morning, but the next thing I heard was Mom yelling, “Jake! Phone!” I wish people in my family took the time to actually walk into the same room as the people they want to talk to, but that almost never happens. We’ll have family conversations from four different rooms sometimes, and I’m just as bad about it as anybody.

  I picked up the phone and said, “Jake Liston is asleep. Please leave a message.”

  “Where were you yesterday?” Evan asked. His voice sounded tight, like a coiled-up snake.

  “Sorry, dude,” I said, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. “I got caught up trying to write some new jokes. I’m really stressed out about performing next week, and I—”

  “I came to see you do your thing,” Evan interrupted. “And you were supposed to come see me do mine.”

  He was right, and I knew I probably should have been apologizing, but something about the way he sounded rubbed me wrong. Like I was supposed to drop everything just to watch him kick a ball around. Didn’t he understand how seriously I was trying to take this comedy thing?

  “I said I was sorry,” I answered, knowing my voice was as tight as his now, and that I sounded extremely not sorry. “But I had urgent stuff to do. I need to have all-new material by next Thursday.”

  All I heard over the line was quiet. But it was a very loud, angry kind of quiet, if you know what I mean.

  “Hello?” I said after a while. I knew he was there, but I was sick of waiting.

  “You think you’re hot stuff now, huh, Jake?” Evan said. “A few weeks ago, you were afraid of getting discovered as a fake and kicked out of school, and now you’re too important to come to my game.”

  I could feel the heat coming off my body, the tightness spreading from my voice down into my chest.

  “I don’t think I’m hot stuff,” I said. “I know I’m hot stuff.”

  And I hung up.

  It wasn’t true at all. I was cold stuff. Lukewarm stuff at best.

  If I’d really felt like hot stuff, I wouldn’t have been acting so high and mighty. There are a lot of ways to be a fake, I guess. When I got into Music and Art Academy, I’d been faking that I deserved to be there, pretending I had talent.

  Now I’d found something I was actually good at, something that was true to who I really was, and here I was faking being a stuck-up jerk. It was like I was watching myself act like a total punk, but I was powerless to stop it. As if aliens from outer space had taken over my body and were controlling it with some kind of video game joystick.

  Alien #1: Hey, now that we have taken total control of this sixth-grade loser, how about we ruin his life for no reason whatsoever?

  Alien #2: Ha ha! Yeah! Let’s do it! How?

  Alien #1: What if we make him kick his teacher in a very sensitive region of his body? Or force him to eat an entire giganto bag of Tootsie Rolls until he starts puking up sticky dark brown puke?

  Alien #2: Too obvious. I have a better idea. Let’s make him say a bunch of arrogant, jerky stuff he doesn’t mean and tick off all his friends.

  Alien #1: I like it! But can we also have him write a bunch of stupid jokes about pantsless cartoon characters and public restrooms that no one will find the least bit funny?

  Alien #2: I don’t see why not. Ha ha ha!

  By the time I got to school, the aliens had perfected their technique. As soon as I walked into the homeroom rain forest, Azure hopped up to me with a sad look on her face and said, “Where were you? I looked all over.”

  Normally, knowing I had let her down would have felt like getting stabbed right in the gut. But not today, because the aliens had placed a reinforced steel plate in my gut so I wouldn’t feel a thing.

  “I got busy,” I said. “I had to write my set.”

  Her face fell. “But it was my big recital,” she said, and her lower lip quivered like she was going to cry.

  Alien #1: Yes! Here come the tears! He’s being such a tool! High five!

  Alien #2: Now let’s make him rip a humongous fart.

  Alien #1: What a fantastic idea.

  But the aliens were wrong. Azure’s lip stopped quivering, and suddenly her face looked like it was made of granite.

  “Friendship is a two-way street, Jake,” she said. And before I could say anything back, she turned on her heel and hopped away. She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

  Neither, come to think of it, did anybody else.

  On Monday, it was the same thing. Except more so. Like, if their not talking to me had been a lasagna, on day one the layer of cheese on top would have been soft and melty. By Tuesday, the cheese was all hard and crusty, and you couldn’t cut through it without a knife.

  By Wednesday, you would have needed a chainsaw, and I walked around all day feeling like I might burst into tears at any moment.

  I couldn’t take much more of this. I needed help to climb my way out of the hole I’d dug, and I could think of only one person who might understand what I was going through.

  So after school I rode my bike straight to Willow Greens Retirement Home and banged on Maury Kovalski’s door.

  “Whaddaya want?” I heard a muffled voice shout.

  “Advice!” I shouted back.

  “Here’s some advice!” he shouted. “If you have a bad taste in your mouth, eat some orange peel. Also, never buy gemstones online! And don’t play cards with anybody named after a city—or worse, a state!”

  He paused for a moment, then said, “Who is this, anyway?”

  “Jake Liston!” I shouted back.

  “Oh. Hey, kiddo. I was thinking about you earlier. I was watching a TV program about coal miners in the Appalachians in the 1920s.”

  “Why did that make you think about me?” I shouted.

  “Because it was boring!” he shouted. “Kind of like you.”

  “Real nice talk!” I shouted. “Hey, here’s a crazy idea. How about we keep talking, only not on opposite sides of this door? It might be easier on our vocal cords.”

  The door opened, and Maury peered down at me. He was wearing the same bathrobe as before, and holding a jar with a fork sticking out of it.

  “Come on in, buddy boy,” he said. “I was just eating some gefilte fish. The absolute worst food on earth. You gotta drown it in horseradish, or you’ll choke on the miserable stuff.”

  He waved the jar at me, and I peered inside and saw these beige chunks suspended in what looked like translucent slime. I squinted at the list of ingredients. Apparently gefilte fish wasn’t a fish, but a kind of fish log made of carp, pike, and a bunch of other ingredients.

  “So why do you eat it?” I asked.

  Maury shook his head in exasperation. “Why do I eat it, he asks. Boy, you really are a schlemiel. I eat it because my father ate it, and his father before him, all the way back to the beginning of time. Tradition, boy-o. Tradition.” He set the jar down. “So. What kind of advice are you looking for, or did I pretty much cover it already?”

  I cleared some space on Maury’s couch by pushing aside a stack of record albums, books, and magazines, and sat down.

  “Ever since my gig…,” I started, and then sighed. “I don’t know, Maury. I haven’t been myself.”

  “Let me guess,” he said, stabbing a piece of gefilte fish with the fork. With his other hand, he reached into his bathrobe pocket, where he had a jar of horseradish, and smeared some on the gefilte fish with a spoon. Then he shoveled the whole thing in his mouth, and winced. “Wow, that’s bad. I’m glad I only do this once a year.”

  I waited while he chewed and swallowed.

  “Let me guess,” he said again.

  “Who’s stopping you?”

  He wagged a finger at me. “You let it go to your head and started acting like some kinda big shot, didn’t you?”

  “How’d you know?” I asked, genuinely surprised.
>
  “Because, kid. It happens to the best of us. Well, maybe not the best. But it happened to me. Have a seat, and I’ll tell you a story.”

  “I am sitting,” I pointed out.

  “Then stand,” he said. I ignored that.

  “Picture it,” Maury Kovalski went on. “I’m a promising young comedian. Mainly, I’m promising to pay my rent. And my comedy partner and best friend is a guy by the name of Little Abie Mendelson. You know why they called him that?”

  “Because his name was Abie Mendelson and he was little?”

  “You catch on fast. So anyway, me and Little Abie, we had this whole routine. It was called the Spaceman and the Martian. Abie played the spaceman, and the concept was that he discovers me, the Martian, living in a cave on Mars, and interviews me about my life. Mostly, it was improvised. But we had the magic. He knew what I was gonna say before I did, so he knew how to set me up. And I knew how to drop hints, so he’d ask me the right questions. We were like Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, sonny boy.”