Ten Dead Comedians

by Fred Van Lente

  “Well?” Zoe said.

  “It tastes like pisswater,” William said, “by which I mean it tastes like what one pisses out after real beer is drunk—an IPA or a true Belgian ale—but I can see why a certain class of drinkers nnggllk gllllrk gaaaaaaaa.”

  Blood gurgled between his lips as he spoke. He spit it all over Zoe, the nearest person, and she started screaming.

  William staggered toward her, reaching out as if she was a buoy, but Zoe instinctually shoved him backward, into Dante Dupree. He managed to turn Griffith around just as red spray exploded out of his mouth, cascading down his shirt and soaking his blazer. Dante yelled and quickly pushed William away.

  The once and forevermore Billy the Contractor tripped on the edge of the carpet and crashed face-first to the floor.

  He did not get up again.

  VI

  No one moved, or breathed, for ten full seconds.

  Steve bent down and took William’s pulse at the neck.

  Steve stood again.

  “He’s just sleeping,” he said.

  “Really?” Ollie said.

  “No, he’s clearly dead, fuckwit!”

  Ollie pouted. “No need for names.”

  TJ pointed at Janet. “You gave him the beer!”

  She held up her hands. “And you saw me open it in front of him! You all did! I couldn’t do anything to it!” She pointed at the highball sitting on the marble bar. “How do you know the whiskey wasn’t poisoned?”

  Dante, who had been holding a highball of his own, dropped the glass on the floor with a curse.

  Out of nowhere, Zoe looked at Meredith and started screaming.

  Meredith started screaming, too, and tried to run away, but Zoe tackled her and both of them crashed to the floor.

  “You bitch you fucking bitch if you have anything to do with this I will claw your fucking eyes out!” Zoe grabbed the other woman’s head and screamed in her face while Meredith tried to slap her hands away.

  Dante managed to pull Zoe off Meredith. “Whoa, whoa, that’s enough now, girl. That ain’t helping nothing!”

  Meredith, on her ass, scootched over to lean against the nearest wall, breathing in huge gulps of air:

  “I swear, I swear, on my mother, I am in the jammy doxy as much as any of you. I’ve only had this job a couple of months! Dustin said—Dustin said he’d help me become a stand-up!” She burst into tears.

  “Yeah, and I’m sure he helped you become a lie-down too,” Zoe said, back on her feet and putting her hair back in order. “There’s something not right about this chick! I mean, jammy doxy? Who says that? I did a semester abroad in London and I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing.”

  “Yeah?” Meredith sniffled. “You spend a lot of time in council estates with your sorority sisters?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying a white person can’t fully appreciate the black experience?”

  “Well—yeah!”

  “Okay, that’s probably true!” Zoe pushed her bra strap back under her blouse.

  “Hey! People!” Janet pointed at William’s body. “Dead guy here! Focus, huh? What do we want to do with him?”

  TJ had just bent down to take William’s pulse for himself. He rose to his full height and fell quiet.

  “I…I don’t have any experience with this,” Steve said.

  “Don’t worry, the rest of us are undertakers in our day jobs,” Ruby deadpanned.

  Dante said, “Maybe we should, I don’t know, roll him up in the carpet? He’s ruined it anyway. And we’ll put him in the writers’ room. C’mon, who’s going to give me a hand?”

  “I can help,” Steve said.

  “Me, too,” TJ said.

  Together, the three men rolled the carpet around the body and lifted it out of the room.

  VII

  “Can we be sure it was really murder?” Ollie said when the men were gone.

  Zoe’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “As opposed to what, man? Maybe it was a kumquat?”

  “No, I mean—just hear me out—what if nobody poisoned anything, and Mr. Griffith was really sick, like he was going to die anyway? And he agreed with Mr. Walker to help him out with this mean trick he’s playing on us, his big hidden-camera comeback special, and so he poisoned his drink himself? I mean, so he wouldn’t go through a long decline and all the pain and suffering he’d put his family through. So he killed himself.”

  Ruby said, “That’s no more insane than this big-shot bringing us here to kill us because he thought our acts sucked.”

  “No,” Janet said, “it’s just 98.2 percent as insane.”

  Zoe turned toward Meredith. “What about a boat? Is there a boat?”

  Meredith turned away. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “You’d hope if there was a boat Meredith would’ve mentioned it by now,” Ruby said.

  “We have to tell the police,” Ollie said.

  “With what, smoke signals?” Janet said. “Semaphore? Flashing mirrors?”

  “We have to do something,” Ollie said. “At least I’m trying to think of a solution!”

  They all froze when someone cried out down the hall. Before they could look at one another they heard:

  “Everyone! Come here! Now!”

  VIII

  It was Steve Gordon’s voice. They walked quickly to the front gallery, where he stood, hands on hips, in front of the wall of headshots.

  “Now, this is exactly the kind of thing we just can’t do,” Steve said.

  “What?” Meredith said.

  “Whoever did it, own up right now, and we can forgive it. As long as it doesn’t happen again.”

  “What are you babbling about, Nobody?” TJ asked.

  “Look,” Steve said, pointing at the photo wall. “A picture’s missing. William’s picture is gone.”

  They all looked: so it was.

  “One of you took it,” Steve said. “Fess up, now!”

  “How do we know you didn’t take it?” Ollie said.

  “I know I didn’t take it. TJ and Dante and I were in the writers’ room laying him—William—down and I just noticed it was gone when I stepped out here for a smoke. That means it was one of you.”

  “Or there’s someone else on the island,” TJ said.

  “There isn’t,” Meredith insisted.

  “You really want us to believe that,” Zoe said.

  “Because it’s bloody well true.”

  Steve said, “So…no one’s admitting it, huh?”

  “I can’t confess to something I didn’t do,” Ollie said. “That would be unethical.”

  “I didn’t take it, either,” Ruby said.

  Janet said, “We were all in the same room together, staring at each other. There’s no way any of us could have taken it. It must have been one of you three.”

  “But Steve got here before TJ or me,” Dante said.

  “Besides, why would I want his stupid photo?” TJ said. “Why would anyone?”

  “Then we need to search the island,” Steve said, “and make absolutely sure we’re the only ones here. If we are…”

  “If we are what?”

  “One of us must be helping Dusty try to kill us all,” he said.

  IX

  Everyone returned to the clown lounge.

  “We should split up and search the place as quickly as we can,” Steve said. “No one should go alone, but we should have as many groups as possible, so if there is someone hiding on the island, he can’t get away from one group of searchers without running into another.”

  Ruby raised her hand:

  “Point of order: why are we taking orders from the one guy here I’ve never heard of?”

  TJ pointed at her but looked at Steve:

  “See? It’s not just me.”

  Ruby continued, “I mean, granted, you’re white and male and no gay man would be caught dead in that beard, but still, that doesn’t automatically make you our cis Caucasian overseer, okay?”
/>   Steve sighed. “I’m just making a suggestion.”

  “A highly privileged suggestion,” Ruby said.

  “If anyone thinks they have a better plan, for Christ’s sake don’t keep it to yourself.”

  “The plan is fine,” Dante said with no small irritation.

  Ruby made a scoffing little laugh under her breath. “Of course you’d say that.”

  Dante’s voice rose several octaves. “Bitch, you call me an Uncle Tom to my face and I swear to God you’re gonna find out the primary difference between real life and the internet is my foot up your ass.”

  Ruby backed up six feet. “I refuse to be on the same team as this aggro bro.”

  “And I do not want to be on Social Justice Warrior Woman’s team,” Dante said. “That’s for damn sure.”

  “Maybe we can draw straws for teams?” Ollie said.

  “Absolutely not,” Ruby said. “Relying on chance robs individuals of freedom of choice.”

  “I’ll go with Dupree,” TJ said without prompting.

  Dante looked at him, surprised.

  TJ added, “If that’s cool.”

  Dante shrugged. “Sure, it’s cool, man. It’s cool.”

  “I’ll go with Steve,” Zoe said, and Steve was equally surprised.

  “Okay,” he said. “Sounds good.”

  Janet motioned for Ruby to come over. “Why don’t you go with me, honey. I don’t understand any of your buzzwords so you won’t be able to piss me off.”

  “Actually, Janet, I’d be honored,” Ruby deadpanned.

  “You don’t sound like you’d be honored.”

  “That’s just my voice. Think of it as a speech impediment.”

  That left Meredith and Oliver. They looked at each other.

  “I, uh, don’t want to be paired up with her,” Ollie said. “She scares me.”

  Before Meredith could say anything, Ruby said, “Don’t worry about it. Meredith, you can come with us.”

  Meredith walked over, and Ruby took her by the hands, looked into her eyes, and said, “You are clearly the biggest single victim in all of this. I can tell. So I will believe whatever you say.”

  Meredith blinked. “I’m sorry…what?”

  Ollie looked around and screeched like a cartoon housewife surprised by a mouse. “But now I’m by myself!” He couldn’t believe it. The choice was between him and a probable murder accomplice but he was still picked last. This was why he wanted to draw straws in the first place.

  “You can come with me and Zoe,” Steve said. “Three search parties should be fine. It’s not that big of an island.”

  “You just have to promise not to say anything,” Zoe said.

  Ollie sealed his lips with his fingers and threw away the imaginary key.

  “Or mime,” Zoe said.

  X

  Thinking it might not be wise to explore the island unarmed, Dante Dupree went into the kitchen to find some weapons.

  He discovered an empty knife block on the marble counter. He found a couple Billy the Contractor–branded tallboy cans in the fridge but no bottles. The silverware drawer was filled with cheap aluminum sporks. Nothing with a blade on it.

  When he returned to the lounge and reported this, Steve said, “Yeah, all the bottles behind the bar are plastic, too. Not to mention barely full. And Griffith finished off the Jameson. We won’t be able to throw much of a party.”

  Dante threw up his hands. “C’mon, there aren’t even any golf clubs? What rich old white guy doesn’t have at least one bag of clubs?”

  “One who plans to kill us all from beyond the grave and doesn’t want to leave behind anything we could use to defend ourselves with?” Ruby said. “There’s not even a poker in the fireplace. He’s stacked everything in his favor before the word go. In that sense, he’s the oldest, whitest old white man who ever lived.”

  “What’s that funny thing in your hands?” Ollie said.

  Ruby lifted what looked to be some kind of misshapen bronze trophy. “Funny is the word. I thought maybe I could swing this thing, but it’s just too heavy and awkward.”

  “Is that…a smiling brain?” Zoe said.

  “Yeah.” Ruby read the plaque at the bottom: “With gratitude from the Dorothy Walker Clear-Mind Clinic. Five healing years, 2011–2016.”

  “Yeah, he’s proven himself to be a real humanitarian,” Janet said.

  Ruby placed the trophy on the bar top. “I’m just as likely to pull a muscle swinging this thing as hurting anybody else. It’d be like trying to kill somebody with a bowling ball. I’m leaving it behind.”

  “Great,” Dante said. “If we find anyone we’ll have to really lay into their self-esteem.”

  “Super-nasty snaps,” TJ said. “About his mom.”

  “Colorful language that would be bleeped out on basic cable,” Zoe said.

  “Cutting insights into human nature,” Ruby deadpanned.

  “I have some very, very naughty limericks memorized,” Steve said.

  “They Died with Their Jokes On,” Janet said.

  Meredith Ladipo didn’t say anything. She just looked at the floor like she was going to be sick.

  Monday Is Slain

  (Cheers, applause)

  How we doing how we doing how we doing?

  Man, look at my audience. Look at my audience. What did I ever do to deserve such a beautiful audience? I love ya. I love ya. I really do. Mmm-wah.

  Boy, you seem happy tonight! You’re rarin’ to go! I think I know why you’re so excited. Yeah, I think I do.

  Monday is over, it’s done, you slew it, it’s slain. You know that statistically speaking, right now is the longest it will be all week before it’s Monday again?

  (Laughter, cheers, applause)

  I’m not making that up. Yeah. That’s science.

  Some stuff happened today and over the weekend you might not know about. Any tennis fans here? Show of hands so I can see your cute little wristbands? Yeah, there you are, I see you. You catch the U.S. Open on Saturday? Yeah. Yeah! History was made. Venus Williams defeated her sister Serena to win the U.S. Open. Yeah. It made history two ways. For one thing, it was the first Grand Slam title match ever pitting one sister against another. Uh-huh. I mean ever.

  (Applause, cheers)

  Yeah. For another, it’s gonna lead to the worst Williams family Thanksgiving ever.

  “Serena, can you pass the mashed potatoes please?”

  “Can I pass what? Can I pass? I’ll show you a pass, Venus! I’m serving a yam to your end of the table with a drumstick! Watch me! See if I don’t! Rematch! Right now!”

  (Laughter)

  I want to be anywhere else but the Williams house for Turkey Day, you know what I’m saying?

  What else, what else?

  Unemployment’s ticked up to 4.9 percent: 4.9 percent, that’s not good, people, no, it’s the opposite of good. The Bush administration swears we are not in a recession, no, no. Definitely not. Nope. The fact that Laura put the Lincoln Bedroom set up on eBay, no, that’s just a coincidence:

  “Slightly used. Previous owner was known to share with intern and cigar, dry-clean thoroughly after purchase.”

  (Laughter)

  Things have gotten so rough, I read that in Bisbee, North Dakota—have you seen this? Jobs are so scarce in Bisbee, the mayor is moving out of town. They’ve lost all their doctors, all their lawyers, all their plumbers, the priest got recalled by the diocese, and—get this—they closed their police station. Yeah.

  In unrelated news, O.J. says he’s moving there to find the real killers. Yeah.

  (Wild laughter, applause)

  Representative Gary Condit says he hasn’t decided whether or not he’s going to run for reelection here in California, but he is seriously looking at relocating to Bisbee. Yeah. That’s his kind of constituency:

  Missing.

  (Laughter, groans)

  What? Check your watches. I waited a whole minute into the monologue before making a Gary Condit joke
. C’mon. That’s personal growth, people. That’s self-restraint.

  This week in what my writers like to call “TJ’s Condit Obsession,” we had a couple interesting developments. Did you see his daughter, Candee, on Larry King? Candee said this whole Chandra Levy scandal has been really tough on her dad. Yeah.

  She said, “I don’t know if he’ll ever get the twinkle in his eye back.”

  To which all the interns in Washington, D.C., said, “Whew!”

  (Laughter)

  Yeah, I also saw that Buy-Costumes.com, yes, Buy-Costumes.com, they reported that their most popular Halloween costume request so far this year has been for Representative Condit.

  (Laughter)

  No, it’s true! They’re rushing those right into production. So if he ever wants to flee the country, you know, now he’s got the perfect date. October 31. Halloween. No one will be able to tell one vacantly grinning blond guy from another that day. Yeah. I mean, he kind of looks like he’s wearing a mask of himself anyway, right?

  (Laughter)

  Buy-Costumes also said they got a lot of requests for Chandra Levy costumes, too, but—

  (Groans)

  I know, right, some people? No class. No class at all for Halloween. But good for Buy-Costumes.com, they stood firm. They said, no, we are not going to produce those Chandra Levy outfits. No sir. No way. Uh-uh.

  The makers of sexy nun and slutty grandma costumes have our dignity to think of! Yes, sir!

  (Wild laughter, applause)

  You know who’s not worried about unemployment? My old pal, funnyman Dustin Walker.

  (Cheers, applause)

  Yeah, he’s great. And I read in the trades, out here in La-La Land, that he just inked a deal with Miramax to write and direct a movie about his life. Yeah, it’s autobiographical. A real serious flick about how hard it is to be a rich, famous comedian, doing all those Help! I Married a Cat movies, I guess, because that’s mostly what he’s been up to these days.

  But I’ve got some free advice for Dusty—Dusty, if you’re watching? Dusty’s had a real tough time breaking free of those cat movies, you know. His other flicks haven’t been so successful.