“Hell, at this point I’d settle for some lukewarm old pussy if I could get it. Something is better than nothing. That’s what my father used to say.” Manny paused for a moment, as if lost in reverie. “He used to say some strange things. Imagine sit-tin’ at the dinner table when you’re eight years old, mixin’ the lima beans with your mashed potatoes so you could choke that crap down quicker and get right to the strawberry shortcake, when suddenly your dad looks up at you and says, ‘Son, if you only learn one thing in life let it be this: It’s not the face you’re fuckin’.’ I’m not really sure what he intended me to do with that information. I think my dad might’ve been slightly retarded. Who else but a tardo would tell an eight-year-old something like that? I blame my dad’s advice for my three marriages. I mean, hell, it’s true it’s not the face you’re fuckin’, but it is the first thing you gotta see when you wake up in the god damn morning.”
Though I suppose I should’ve been annoyed by the man’s endless monologue, I had become intrigued the second he mentioned his “jokes.” What the hell jokes were those? “Excuse me,” I said, interrupting him before he could continue his tirade against his father, “did you used to be a standup comedian?”
“Sure was.” He sighed, staring at the view through the windshield twelve seats away, watching the brightly colored North Hollywood storefronts whizzing by. “I spent thirty-nine years on the stage. I started out when I was sixteen and built myself up from nothing, less than nothing. I played my first shows at a little club in New Jersey doing fart jokes and impersonations of Hirohito. This was during the war, mind you.” He saw the blank expression on my face. “Hirohito was the emperor of Japan.” He rolled his eyes and mumbled something about kids today not knowing anything about history. “Anyway, I’ve spent the majority of my career living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck. Most of the time I was opening for more famous comedians, always the bridesmaid etc. etc. I worked with Milton Berle and Jack Benny and even Bob Hope on radio. I don’t have to tell you who they are, do I? What about radio? You’ve heard of radio, haven’t you?” I laughed and nodded. “Okay, just checkin’. You never know these days. Sheesh. Anyway, the best gig I ever had was at the Sunset, and I blew that one big time.”
“How did you blow it?”
He spread his hands in the air as if the answer was obvious. “By not being funny, of course! I was tapped out at that point. This was back in … oh, let’s see, ’84 I think? My wife had left me, I was stuck with alimony payments, I was popping four different kinds of anti-depressants mixed with alcohol. Need I go on? I’m not exactly describing a recipe for nirvana here. The booking agent had to let me go. He felt bad about it, but what can you do? That’s show business.”
“What did you do after that?”
“I moved down here. Calling Vegas a cesspool would be too kind. I’d had it up to here with that hole. Los Angeles is different. It’s got character … and hot chicks. Heh! Yeah, hot chicks with big hooters!” He cackled up a storm, peering through the window at a trio of scantily clad teenage girls roller skating down the sidewalk.
I laughed and said, “You get a lot of girls down here?”
“From time to time. You’d be surprised at what a young girl likes, as long as you talk to ’em right.”
From the way he said this I almost believed him. “Did you ever do any more standup after Vegas?”
His smile vanished. He grew morose and sighed. Still fondling the golden lighter he said, “No, can’t say that I did. I settled down here and got a job as a PBX operator. I was lucky to get anything at all. I mean, I’d done nothing but tell jokes for thirty-nine years. Such skills aren’t easily transferable from one occupation to another, in case you didn’t know. During the first few weeks I was scared, real scared. I felt like I was … I don’t know, disappearing.” I must have had a strange look on my face. He had no way of knowing he was echoing Heather. He said immediately, “I know it sounds odd, but it’s true. My entire reason for living had been taken away, which isn’t the easiest thing to adjust to, you know. Some people don’t survive a change like that at all, particularly at the age I was then. But as the weeks wore on I got used to it. Pretty soon I was just content to have a roof over my head and some food in my belly and a job to go to every morning. You learn to appreciate things like that when you get to be my age. Not because you grow any wiser; you just don’t have any choice in the matter.”
“Do you still make up jokes, for yourself at least?”
“Oh, you can’t help not to. How about this? Pick-up line for the twenty-first century: ‘So, uh … what medication are you on?’” There was an awkward moment of silence. I chuckled politely. “You can use that one if you like.”
“Use it where?”
“The next time you’re on stage.”
“How … how do you know I—?”
“Just from the way you handle yourself, the way you walk.”
“I’ve been sitting down the entire time!”
Manny smiled and nodded. “Trust me, an old man just knows things.”
I didn’t trust him. I assumed he must have seen me around town, or perhaps on a local cable talk show. I didn’t really care how he knew me. I had more important things on my mind. “Why do you think you ran out of ideas in Vegas? Was it just the stress in your life or … ?”
Manny shrugged. “It was a combination of things. I think a man has only a certain amount of ideas in his life. Some people use up all their good ideas in their first twenty years, then spend the rest of their life coasting. Some people spread their ideas out over a long period of time, coming up with a new one every other year or so. With someone like that, it’s a big occasion when they come up with a new idea. It’s like a holiday. They invite friends over and cater in food just to celebrate it. It’s like giving birth to a baby. Unfortunately, I think most people have all their really good ideas before they’re five. Me, I happened to tap out at fifty-five.” He shrugged. “That’s a good long run, compared to some.”
“That’s a scary thought. That you could just … run dry like that, without warning.”
Manny shrugged again.
Following a moment of silence I said, “You know, there’s been talk going around lately of this humor virus—”
Before I could say anything more the old man erupted into laughter, which soon segued into a horrible coughing fit. For a second there I thought I might have to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on him, but then he began to calm down. Everyone else on the bus was looking at him warily, as if he might have a contagious disease.
“Are you all right?” I said.
“’Course I’m all right. I was just laughing at that humor virus remark. Everyone knows there’s no humor virus. That’s a load of crap.”
“How do you explain what’s happening then?”
“It’s like I told you. When a person’s born he’s only got a certain amount of ideas available to him. The human race only has a fixed supply of ideas and we’re just now hitting the bottom of the well. The first to go is always humor, next it’ll be sex, then cooking, then fashion, then electrical engineering, who knows? Why do you think plagiarism’s almost become its own art form? Why do you think Hollywood can only remake or re-release movies that first came out fifty years ago? Nobody has any ideas. There aren’t any to have.”
“That’s horrifying. It’s like the Apocalypse.”
“It’s not like the Apocalypse, it is the Apocalypse. I’ve always suspected that when the world finally ended no one would notice. Looks like I was right.” While I was still thinking about that line Manny said, “Ah, here’s my stop coming up. Got to go to the grocery store and pick up a few things. I’m gonna buy some of that cream … y’know that cream that numbs your penis so you don’t ejaculate too soon when you’re fuckin’ some young chick wearing roller skates? I’m thinking of rubbing it over my whole body to numb everything, then I’ll stroll into a bank and try to rob the place. If the guards shoot at me it won’t matter ’cau
se I’ll be impervious to pain. That’s a pretty ingenious plan, right?”
I stared at him.
Manny burst into laughter again. “Aw, I’m just kidding with you. That’s a pretty funny image though, don’t you think? You can use that in your act too if you want. I’ve got a million of ’em, or at least I used to. Well, nice meeting you.” As the bus pulled up to the curb Manny rose from his seat and held out his hand. I shook it. It felt coarse and dry like desert sand. “You know, you never told me your name,” he said.
“Elliot Greeley.”
“Fine, fine name. I’ll look for it. I think you’re going to be very successful.”
“Not if I don’t come up with some new ideas.”
The old man smiled. “There’s more to life than just trying to impress people, on or off stage. You’re going to be successful. Trust me, an old man knows things. Don’t give up. Keep tellin’ them jokes until the last dog dies. You might as well. The Apocalypse is right around the corner.”
With that he hobbled down the aisle at a sprightly pace and descended the stairs. He gave me one last wave before the doors closed behind him. I watched him dwindle into nothing as the bus drove farther and farther away.
CHAPTER 18
Holy City Asylum
(March 29, 2015)
I found irony in the fact that my first booking outside Los Angeles was San Francisco’s Holy City Asylum, the very club that had so devastated Heather several months before. I was scheduled to play there for a week. The first two nights went fine. The reaction wasn’t spectacular, not like the one I received at The Brink that night early in October, but it wasn’t traumatic either. The atmosphere was mellow, with no hint of the Apocalypse to come.
On the third night I strode out onto stage, planted my feet on the boards, grabbed the microphone, stared out into the audience, opened my big fat mouth as I had done a million times before … and my brain locked. Not a single sound emerged from my throat. Even if I could have made a sound, I don’t know what I would’ve said. My mind was blank.
At first the audience wasn’t aware that anything was wrong. As I’ve already mentioned, I usually begin my act with silence; I then try to accentuate my fear: stuttering a bit, dropping in a few “ers” and “uhs” here and there, maintaining an open-eyed stare like a little kid caught in the headlights. Hell, I didn’t know what fear was until that moment. All of a sudden I felt as if I were floating in an endless void that was empty except for me, a void that would consume what little there was of my consciousness if I remained silent even a second longer. I don’t think I ever felt more alone. I could feel my body becoming numb, disappearing. After a lifetime I collapsed onto my knees and began crying. I felt as if I was crying for the entire world and every creature that walked or crawled or swam upon it. Once the tears began to flow nothing could stop them. At first I think the audience actually thought I was kidding. Some of them even laughed, hooted and hollered as if it were the funniest damn thing they’d ever seen. This made me cry even more. This caused some shock among the audience, I could tell. I didn’t care. What I wanted most of all at that moment was to hold Heather in my arms again and never let her go. Never, never let her go.
They dropped me in a little dressing room somewhere backstage and asked me if I needed a doctor. I told them just to go away. They left me there in total darkness. I liked it that way; somehow the darkness in that room was nowhere near as frightening as the void I’d experienced out there on the stage. All I remember is the owner himself entering the room some time later and ordering me to get the hell out.
“I don’t know what fuckin’ drugs you’re on,” he said, “but you blew it, man. You’re never workin’ this club again.”
I said nothing. I didn’t even laugh. I didn’t have to. I rose from the couch and strolled out of that room as casually as I’d strolled out on stage and into the void. I made a conscious decision to leave the club through the front door and not the back. I had to walk past the entire audience. I could feel their eyes on me. For some reason they found me more fascinating than the teenager who was now telling tit jokes on stage. Pain is always more fascinating than comedy. Pain wins respect, comedy takes it away. Tragedy is what wins awards.
I strode through the swinging doors and out onto the sidewalk, breathing in the fog-laden San Francisco air as I headed back to the hotel, knowing I had just delivered my swan song performance. I would never enter a comedy club again. They held no interest for me, not anymore. I don’t think I’d ever felt more content, as if I’d somehow returned to childhood. For the first time since I could remember I felt … I don’t know how to describe it… .
I guess I felt free.
CHAPTER 19
No Jokes, Please
(March 29-30, 2015)
Upon arriving at the hotel I booked myself on the first flight back to Los Angeles. I felt no need to inform Marsha about this, as I would no longer be needing her services. Free people don’t need agents. I called Heather and told her I loved her and that I’d be coming back home tomorrow. I didn’t even need to tell her what had happened. She knew.
The next morning I saw something very odd at the airport. Perhaps such things were at all airports and I had simply never noticed them before. Above the metal detector was a large sign that read “No Jokes, Please.” Perhaps the airport wished to discourage off-hand remarks about thermonuclear warheads tucked away in purses, but I interpreted it very differently. I saw it as a summation of all the craziness that had occurred over the course of the past seven months; I saw it as an encouraging portent, a reminder from the universe that I was at long last on the right track.
CHAPTER 20
How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Rat Race
(March 30-April 18, 2015)
Within the month I landed a job as a stockboy in a bookstore. Heather became a cashier at a little grocery market. We made just enough to pay the rent and buy food and see a movie once in awhile. We were happy.
Our agent continued to call us every other day, pleading with us to go back to work.
We are working, I would tell her over and over again, we are working.
CHAPTER 21
Two Opposing Seas
(April 19, 2015)
Meanwhile, I continued to cut out obscure articles from the paper. Someone hung flyers all over Los Angeles announcing a Ku Klux Klan rally on the steps of the Federal Building at twelve noon on April 19th. Simultaneously, someone else hung flyers announcing a Nation of Islam rally on the steps of the Federal Building at twelve noon on April 19th. Two opposing seas of protestors showed up at the same place, at the same time.
I pasted this into my scrapbook. Perhaps out of pure instinct, like a conditioned muscular reflex.
CHAPTER 22
Not Fit to Survive
(May 27, 2015)
I decided to pay a visit to Danny’s father on his birthday. I had learned through the grapevine that Danny had been given a three-year prison term. The state of California had been doling out tougher and tougher sentences for drug-related crimes and Danny just happened to be caught in the flood of offenders who were going to be held up by the Governor as “examples.” Danny had picked the wrong century to be an addict. It was possible that he wouldn’t be released until the next millennium. I knew his father was probably taking it pretty hard.
When I showed up outside his apartment door I was surprised to hear Bone Thugs-N-Harmony blaring from within.
“Uh, Mr. Oswald?” I said, knocking on the door with one hand while balancing a plate with the other. The plate was wrapped in clear plastic and held only a fraction of the delicious birthday meal Heather had cooked earlier in the day. She thought Danny’s father might appreciate the gesture, since he was no doubt spending the day alone. Or so we assumed.
“C’mon in!” I heard the old man yell.
I pushed open the door to see Mr. Oswald and Karen Griffin dancing in the middle of the room, grinding their hips together to the beat of the mu
sic. Griffin’s clothes were completely rumpled as if she’d rolled around on the carpet one too many times. One of her breasts had popped out of her tube top and was jiggling around with great enthusiasm but no one seemed to care, particularly not Mr. Oswald. His clothes were just as dishevelled as Griffin’s and despite the fact that he was nearing eighty his eyes sparkled like crystals and his grin was as wide as a church door. Sitting cross-legged around the coffee table were the Neo-Gothic Hipster Peanut Gallery accompanied by a gaggle of other strangers. They were all snorting white powdery lines off the table’s glass surface.
“You here for the party?” Mr. Oswald said. He didn’t seem to recognize me, which was hard to believe. At one time I had been visiting Danny almost every day.
“Uh, I just dropped by to say hello. I brought some food.”
“Set it down in the kitchen. Maybe we’ll get to it later.” The old man did a little Irish jig, then reached out for Griffin’s exposed breast. She allowed him to stroke her nipple for a couple of seconds, then danced away to the opposite side of the room. He pursued her, laughing the entire time.
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