Ten Dead Comedians

by Fred Van Lente

  “Yeah, I know that, girl. I read it here. You know what else I read? ‘I owe Mr. Walker everything. Much more than my one true chance at a normal life, but my one true chance at my dreams.’ That’s laying it on a bit thick, but it sure sounds pretty. Here’s the part I find interesting, though:

  “ ‘None of you know the true Dustin Walker. The person who wants to help people not just by making them laugh, but by making them live. He’s not the person other comics, other ungrateful comics, make jokes about. I am so sick of them making fun of him, he who gave them all so much laughter and inspiration. And one day, I hope to show them how wrong they are.’ ”

  He turned to glower at Meredith. “You know, under the current circumstances, that sounds a little, I don’t know, damning, don’t you think?”

  Meredith shook her head. “It sounds like you’re being paranoid.”

  Dante shook his head. “Girl, I have just about had it with you lying to me. I truly have.”

  Meredith Ladipo gripped her elbows. “I need my pills; I’m way overdue for them. I would have taken them earlier but you wouldn’t let me into my own room while you were searching it.”

  She reached for the bottle in Dante’s hand but he put it in his breast pocket. Then he stood up. He was almost a full foot taller than she was, and broad shouldered. His eyes seemed to strain in their sockets.

  “You tell me the truth, I give you your pills. Not a second before.”

  “I’ve been telling you the truth. This whole time.”

  “And now that he’s dead, you’re the person to carry on his work, ’cause you feel so indebted to him! To make sure the rest of us end up dead!”

  “No!”

  “How do you know? Sounds like you don’t even know what’s happening half the time when you’re doped up on these things!”

  “It’s not like fugue, I swear.”

  He tore the top sheet off the legal pad and shoved it at her, along with a pen.

  “Now you’re gonna write down everything I want to know,” he said, stepping toward her, “or you and me are gonna have issues.”

  She looked at the pad, then at him, and started backing out of the room. “Why won’t you just abaft me alone?”

  A white kind of rage ignited behind Dante’s eyes.

  He picked up the bottle of shiraz off the desk.

  “Fun fact: You know what makes these bottles different from any others in the house?”

  He smashed the bottle on the side of the desk and it shattered into a thousand shards, leaving a jagged end in Dante’s hand.

  That was enough for Meredith. She ran screaming from the room.

  VII

  In the panic room, Meredith entered and exited one monitor after another in no linear fashion—she appeared in the camera’s view on the right before dashing into a corner, only to reappear in the middle. Dante Dupree did the same thing, bellowing and waving the broken bottle, appearing all over the pattern of screens as if trapped in a constantly flipping channel.

  In TJ’s increasingly rheumy vision, with eyes watering from too many belly laughs and not enough oxygen, Meredith appeared to run out the door with the shotgun and trip over Zoe Schwartz’s grinning corpse, while on the next monitor she was just leaving her bedroom screaming while on the next monitor she was dashing into the kitchen to grab the shotgun where she had left it, leaning against the fridge, while in the next monitor she was standing in the clown lounge, looking around in confusion, clearly trying to remember where the hell she had set down the shotgun.

  He let out a side-splitting, gut-busting, stomach-clutching, gasping-for-air laugh that banged off the walls and echoed throughout the house and grounds, nearly blowing out the speakers. With that involuntary outburst, TJ had managed to expel most of the remaining oxygen in his lungs. Now the world before his eyes became a tunnel and in that tunnel was the bank of monitors.

  In the leftmost screen, Meredith staggered to her feet after tripping over Zoe’s inert ankles. She grabbed the shotgun again, just as Dante Dupree drunkenly lumbered into the frame. She ran off past the fountain, toward the elevator.

  Dante followed close behind, yelling something at her, but TJ couldn’t quite make it out over the hiss of the nitrous oxide filling the room, pushing out all the breathable air.

  VIII

  Meredith reached the elevator and punched the button. When the doors opened, she nearly rushed inside, but at the last second before setting foot into empty air she pulled back from the open shaft. The elevator was far below, on dock level: another trap.

  Dante reached her, panting, the jagged bottle in one limp hand. He dragged her away from the elevator, keeping one eye on the camera mounted on the lamppost. It did not move to follow them, but he made sure to pull her out of its range anyway.

  She managed to squirrel away from his grasp and point the shotgun at him. At last he was the spitting image of the violent drunk people had described in whispers behind his back, a person she could never quite imagine, yet now he appeared before her.

  “Cat the bird!” she cried.

  “Put down that dumbass thing,” he said. “We both know it’s not loaded.”

  “You’re wrong,” Meredith said. “It is. I found shells in Janet’s room when we were searching. She had a whole box of them. Back off. I’m serious. This thing carries two shells, so the only way I can prove it’s loaded is if I shoot you in the chest. It’s better in this instance for you to trust me, yeah?”

  At least that’s what she wanted to say, inside her head.

  What she actually said a loud was:

  “Aright wrong. Kalpeen. Tither the dole in mudpie heyday when gramercy hawk earlier. Jardyloo max a whole razy chiosk. Pare off! I’m gilet. This areen only parcels two rubber, so the only skewerite ticket can athwart it’s erewhile is if I gadzook you in the birdsong. So it’s better in this caper for once for somebody on this bloody parfay to just masticate me, yeah?”

  Dante started rubbing his eyes mid-gibberish and didn’t stop until she did.

  “I’ve just about had it with your foolishness.”

  He lunged forward and grabbed the barrel.

  IX

  The resulting shotgun blast was audible on the speakers in the panic room, along with argument that led up to it.

  These sounds were audible but not heard, for TJ Martinez had been asphyxiated seconds before they began.

  In his final death spasms, he flipped to one side of the bench, his pelvic bone pressing onto the edge, causing a white fluid that squirted out of his penis to dribble down one pant leg and drip out the cuff and drop onto his shoe. This residue was not semen but rather seepage from his prostate gland, now that all of his muscles had relaxed post-death. Common enough upon the expiration of the human male, the whitish splotches looked like the other thing on his brown loafer.

  Sadly, the irony of this moment would not be known to humanity at large or the weirder annals of show business history, for none who knew of TJ’s secret identity as the Shoe Jizzer would ever see the loafer, and no one who saw the loafer would know of TJ’s secret identity as the Shoe Jizzer.

  So this joke had been told, like so many infinite others, solely for the private amusement of the universe.

  X

  Steve Gordon heard the shotgun fire when he was halfway to the cabana. It sounded exactly like the rolling, ringing blast that had felled Janet Kahn.

  He thought momentarily about investigating, but the sound had come from the darkness in the direction of the dock. It felt more prudent to keep heading toward the light.

  The light with his name on it.

  The club was fully lit when he stepped inside, the plastic votives on the tables glowing, the disco ball spinning. An easel bearing a blowup of his headshot from the gallery stood on the stage. Outlined arrows on the faux-brick backdrop lit up a spot where the mic stood; the spotlight cycled through reds and greens at its base. Hip-hop throbbed from the ceiling to bury the hubbub of an audience gathering and settli
ng.

  Except there was no audience that he could see.

  He got up on stage, and the music faded into silence. The lights narrowed into a spot on just him. The plastic-brick backdrop ceased its pulses.

  He could see little more than the first few rows of tables beyond the glare of stage lights, but when he placed his hand over his eyes he thought he could see a figure standing inside the sound booth over the bar.

  He stepped in that direction, but an electronically distorted voice spoke to him over the speakers:

  “I wouldn’t do that, Gordo.”

  He stopped moving.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” the voice said. “I’ll start with the bad news: look down.”

  He did.

  A small panel snapped open beneath his soles, staggering him a bit, but he straightened when he realized a covering had been retracted above a strip of Plexiglas upon which his feet still stood. Beneath the strip were three thick mud-colored discs with black-button centers, almost like the removable weights on barbells. The buttons had been depressed all the way to the level of the discs.

  “Those are three American-made antipersonnel landmines, manufactured in beautiful Janesville, Wisconsin,” the voice said. “Extremely illegal now—thank you, Princess Di—but still readily available at your local gun show. The entire stage is a pressure plate that has measured and set your weight, thereby arming the devices. If you get off the stage for any reason—or if anyone gets on the stage to help you—either addition or subtraction of weight will set them off. Any one of those mines by itself would blow your foot and most of your leg off, but all three of them detonating simultaneously will…Well, the best description I can come up with is that you will be instantly transformed into a substance not entirely unlike red finger paint.”

  Steve swallowed. A void roared through him. His movements became deliberate and restrained. He looked up again at the sound booth window. He couldn’t see anyone there anymore. Was this a recording? A remote broadcast?

  “But here’s the good news,” the voice continued. “Your fate is still technically in your hands.

  “The stage is also on a timer. Your voice activates the timer. You may be headlining, but you’re going to get the same length as an opener. You need to get through ten minutes of actual material, Gordo. Not stolen jokes. Real ones. Ones you wrote.

  “If you stop talking for longer than ten seconds, the mines will go off.

  “If you try to get off the stage for any reason, the mines will go off.

  “If anyone tries to get on the stage with you, the pressure plate will register the difference in weight and the mines will go off.

  “If I catch you using anybody else’s material, the mines will go off.

  “If any circumstances unforeseen by these guidelines occur, the mines will go off.

  “Oh, I can also detonate the mines remotely. Did I not mention that? Sorry. I can detonate the mines remotely, too.

  “So you’d better make me laugh. You’d better be funny. Your own act better be funny. Not a stolen one.

  “Or you’re going to…

  “Do I have to say it?

  “Screw it, I will anyway:

  “Or you’re gonna bomb, Gordo. You’re gonna bomb.

  “Ten solid minutes, do you understand me, Gordo? At the end of the intro.”

  Steve Gordon was preternaturally calm. He just stared ahead with his mouth set straight. He didn’t sweat. He didn’t tremble. He didn’t cry.

  “I said, do you understand me, Gordo?” the ceiling demanded.

  Steve nodded:

  “Let’s do this.”

  The only response he got was a sudden shift in music—a whiplash segue from generic club hip-hop to the rhythmic vocal moan opening of Gin Wigmore’s “Black Sheep”—and the speakers said:

  “All right, Walker Island Comedy Club, put your hands together for a man so amazing he’s his own opener, his own middle, your headliner, and quite possibly his own finisher—we’ll see how he does—but you know him from a series so old it’s not even in syndication anymore, What Just Happened? And…and…oh, who am I kidding, you don’t know him from anything else at all!”

  During his intro, Steve turned away from the mic stand and walked toward the faux-brick backdrop, taking care not to depart from the edges of the pressure plate, of course, which, now that he knew to look for them, self-evidently delineated the perimeter of the stage maybe ten centimeters from the edge, all the way around.

  “Give it up for…Steve ‘Gordo’ Gooor­rrrrr­rrdoo­ooonn­nn!”

  Gin Wigmore’s voice rose then faded, replaced by canned applause and cheers. Steve bounded downstage from the brick wall, waving and grinning, blew a kiss or two.

  The clapping and the whistling subsided as he wrestled the mic off the top of the stand.

  He looked out over the empty chairs and tables visible beyond the spotlights and breathed deep.

  And he said:

  Ten Solid

  Thank you, thank you so much for that incredibly meta introduction. Really. It’s so, so great to be here on Murder Island, half-starved, in near-constant fear for my life, seeing friends and colleagues killed in front of me.

  I did get laid here, though, so it hasn’t been all bad, you know?

  No, seriously, I had sex here for the first time in…about fifteen months, I’d say? Now if I had known that fear for their lives would get women to go to bed with me, I would have spent a lot more time in war zones and sites of ethnic cleansing. I need to update my OkCupid profile:

  “Looking for single female, any race…in regions controlled by genocidal warlord…must like…dogs. No…fatties.” There. Now I just have to sit back and watch the emails roll in.

  (00:42.21)

  My day job for the past few years has been as an improv teacher in Chicago, which, I know this is hard to believe, is not really conducive to making it with the ladies.

  The main problem, when you come right down to it, is that in improv you’re supposed to begin every response with “Yes, and.” You’re supposed to both embrace what the other person is feeding you, then build on that with something of your own.

  But in dating, that doesn’t really work so well. You can come across as super needy. Or psychotic.

  Girl says, “I had a really fun time tonight. I’d really like to see you again.”

  You say, “Yes, and our next date will be on a blimp.”

  “Well…I mean, maybe? But I was thinking dinner and a movie again?”

  “Yes, and we will save the queen of England from ninjas.”

  “Is that…is that really something we can plan for?”

  “Yes, and we will become like unto immortal gods who secure our place in legend with our amazing feats of strength and genius.”

  “You know what…never mind, I think this whole thing has gotten way too weird for me. Goodnight, have a good life, and…go get some help, okay?”

  (Pause: second and a half)

  “Yes, and I will now leap into a volcano.”

  See?

  It’s just not practical.

  So I would like to thank my old bud Dustin Walker for inviting me here, if only for improving my love life. After all, he is responsible both for my being gone so long and for my standing before you now.

  You see, Dustin and I go way back. We starred with another winner named TJ Martinez on a comedic television program called What Just Happened?, which both describes my feeling when I learned I got the gig, and also exactly describes the rest of my career after I lost it.

  (02:21.35)

  I never really understood why I got the job, I think I had just an exceptionally good night when the producers visited Second City to see me perform, looking for a bland white guy to round out the cast of an improv show.

  Plus I am Canadian, which was even better. Blandness is to Canada what guns are for the U.S. It’s what makes our fine nation simultaneously unique and horrifying.

  I had a lot o
f fun making that show, I’m not going to lie. I felt like I was walking on clouds for four years.

  Later, I found out those weren’t clouds, those were my castmates’ egos, but at the time I was just happy for the nice view of Studio City.

  And I gotta tell you, I worshipped Dustin Walker. I mean, Can’t Help Myself was only two or three years old by the time they started holding auditions for What Just Happened? and I had it memorized. I thought Dustin Walker was given to us by the comedy gods to save us from lame bits about dating and airplane food.

  Then I made the mistake of meeting him.

  I don’t know about never meeting your heroes, but definitely, definitely never meet Dustin Walker.

  Nonexistent ladies and gentlemen, Dustin Walker was a control freak, a moody S.O.B., mad at the world, and burning through interns and PAs like toilet paper, firing them or terrorizing them until they quit week after week. We started calling them goldfish because they’d be like the ones you won at the state fair. You’d never know when you’d walk in some morning and find them bobbing upside down in the tank.

  (03:46.30)

  Eventually, the show ended, and I don’t care what anyone tells you, there is only one reason TV shows get canceled, and that is money. It’s not creative differences, it’s not the stars wanting to go pursue feature film work, it’s money. Ninety-nine out of a hundred times the show ends because it’s not making enough money.

  Or, in Seinfeld’s case, it’s making so much money they canceled it because the cast was running out of room to put the money in their house.

  “Here’s another hundred million, Jerry! Where do you want it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, pile it in the corner there. Money! Do you ever wonder what the deal is with money, I mean, really?”

  So the show was ending, TJ had already lined up the 2nite gig, he was well on his way to sexually harassing his way to the top, and Dusty was bragging about all the big movie roles he had lined up, leaving the artistic kindergarten of television behind. He was going to do Shakespeare with Kenneth Branagh!