“Thank you! I’m Jamie Grimm. And you folks have been very, very special.”
Chapter 40
TIME CRAWLS WHEN YOU’RE DONE HAVING FUN
And then we wait—all the contestants. Together.
Thirteen kid comics take the stage, do five or ten minutes of jokes, and then retreat to the back of the club, where we get to watch everybody do way better than we thought we did ourselves.
It’s sort of like the Red Room on American Idol, only without all the free Coca-Cola.
We wait for days.
Months.
Decades.
I may need to learn how to shave.
How did I do? I don’t know. It was such a rush being onstage, riding the waves of laughter. But I have no idea if I was good enough. Plus, there’s nobody here to pat me on the back and say, “Awesome! Way to go!”
I know. That’s my fault. I didn’t tell anybody how I planned on spending my Saturday this weekend. Now I sort of wish that I had.
The kids who are my competition? Like I said, they’re a tight-lipped bunch when they aren’t telling jokes onstage. They’re all in it to win it. They almost make the Smileys seem warm and fuzzy.
Finally, the last kid comic takes her bows.
The three judges huddle together at their table.
One of them, an adult comic who’s a regular at the club, walks onstage and grabs the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the judges have voted. We’re ready to announce the winner of the Long Island’s Funniest Kid Comic competition.”
He takes a huge pause.
“Right after the break.”
Great. It is just like American Idol.
Chapter 41
MAY I HAVE THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE?
Finally, after what feels like another decade, the countdown begins.
“The third runner-up is… Ronna Applebaum!”
Her family screams. I think she wins a T-shirt and some free jalapeño poppers.
“The second runner-up is… Michael Miller!”
More applause. Michael Miller races up to the stage to grab his trophy and gift certificates.
“The first runner-up…”
Okay—isn’t the first runner-up just the runner-up? Yes, my mind is wandering because I’m positive I don’t have a chance of winning anything, not even a souvenir baseball cap or some free French fries. Hey, I heard the routines of the third and second runners-up. They were both hysterical.
“… Billy Hester!”
Now I’m wondering if I went too far. Maybe I should’ve skipped the anti-PC bit and stuck to my booger jokes.
“And the winner of Long Island’s Funniest Kid Comic competition, the young comic who moves on to the New York State competition… can I get a drum roll… is… the one and only… the irrepressible… the person whose name I’m about to read… because it’s written on this card… JAMIE GRIMM!”
Now I might really have that heart attack.
This is totally un-freakin’-believable. My competitors? They’re all smiling and clapping and cheering for me as I roll up to the stage. “Way to go, Grimm!” “You killed big!” “Awesome set, Jamie!”
I’m so happy I could run all the way home. Seriously!
Unfortunately, I have to haul my wheelchair back to Smileyville. And there are no taxis. Guess I’ll have to schlep back to Long Beach on the bus. Fortunately, there is a bus.
Still, a win is a win!
I just wish…
Well, I wish my mom and dad could’ve seen me win.
That’s all. I just wish they both could’ve been here.
Funny how life works out sometimes, huh?
Yeah. Really, really funny.
PART TWO
The Long, Winding, Twisting, Curving, Sloping, Slippery-When-Wet Road Home
Chapter 42
HERO FOR A DAY!
So I’m guessing that one of the other kids from Long Island’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest tweets on Twitter.
I also think one of the runners-up must have at least six billion Facebook friends.
And I’ll bet somebody in the audience blogs, too.
Because word about what happened at the comedy club in Ronkonkoma on Saturday is all over Long Beach Middle School first thing Monday morning.
Suddenly, I’m the hometown hero! Me. In Long Beach. For the first time since forever, I’m a winner, not a loser.
Kids (including ninth graders) carry me into school on their shoulders like I’m a pharaoh or something.
The marching band puts on a parade, complete with a formation that spells out my name and includes a tuba player running over to dot the i in Jamie. The cafeteria ladies bake me a sheet cake so huge that the janitor has to haul it around on a forklift—after they use a heavy-duty crane to hoist it out of the kitchen. The cheerleaders give me my own personal pep rally.
It is an unbelievably amazing way to start the day.
Okay. You’re right, you’re right. You’re always right. None of that happened.
But a bunch of people in the halls did knock knuckles with me and slap me high fives and say stuff like “Yo, way to go” and “Awesome, dude.” Which was major.
In fact, it felt even better than a pharaoh parade with cheerleaders and free cake.
Chapter 43
OKAY, HALF A DAY
By lunchtime that brief but fantastic triumphant feeling is completely and totally gone. Because by now other people had started tweeting, texting, and blogging. Snarky people who have some pretty strong—okay, nasty—opinions about why I won on Saturday.
“The judges felt sorry for you?” Pierce reports when he checks his phone in the cafeteria.
“Somebody sent me a text,” reports Gilda. “According to this, you won on pity points.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” says Gaynor, reading the screen on his phone. “This blogger, some dude named A. Nonny Mouse, says, ‘The judges felt sorry for Jamie Grimm, a contestant as lame as the jokes he was telling. He didn’t win. His wheelchair did.’ ”
All of a sudden, I feel like someone just socked me in the gut with a shovel. I can barely breathe. I want to hide under the table and never come out again.
“Here’s another blog,” says Gilda with a defeated sigh. “ ‘Jamie Grimm wasn’t funny. He was sad and pathetic. No wonder his name is grim, as in dismal and depressing.’ ”
“Well,” I say, trying to joke through the pain, “at least that one is educational. He taught his readers a new vocabulary word.”
“It sucks the big radish, Jamie,” says Gaynor. I have no idea what the big radish is, either. It’s pure Gaynor, though.
“Whoever wrote this junk is just jealous,” adds Gilda. “Sore losers, but definitely losers.”
“Precisely,” says Pierce. “They can’t diminish your accomplishment by trashing it.”
See? I told you these guys were great friends. Gilda, too.
Unfortunately, there are only three of them.
Word has quickly spread about the “real” reason for my victory, and now the whole cafeteria is laughing at me. Yes, comedians live for laughter, but not this kind. These are more like mean snickers, plus finger-pointing and loud whispers. They’re not laughing because of some joke I just told. They’re laughing because they think I’m the joke.
I need to get out of the cafeteria and hide somewhere nice and quiet.
So I head for the library. Where else would you hide in school?
I see Stevie Kosgrov finger-typing like a maniac on a computer with one hand while thumbing the keypad of his smartphone with the other. He’s so busy clacking keys, he doesn’t hear me when I roll up right behind him and look over his shoulder to see what he’s writing:
JAMIE GRIMM ONLY WON BECAUSE THE SAPPY JUDGES FELT SORRY FOR HIM.
Stevie hits the Send button and finally figures out I’m sitting right behind him.
When he whips around, he’s smiling like somebody just crowned him Long Island’s comed
y king.
Chapter 44
COOL GIRL TO THE RESCUE
Suzie Orolvsky (aka Cool Girl) is also in the library.
After Stevie leaves, she comes over and plops her books in my lap.
The girl studies a lot of heavy subjects, all with textbooks the size of cinder blocks. Plus, she reads whatever she’s in the mood for, and she’s got a lot of different moods. Today it’s Inheritance, another thick book.
“Let’s walk,” she says.
“Actually,” I say, “my doctors tell me that would take a medical miracle.”
Cool Girl doesn’t laugh. She rotates her wrist and presses a button on her sports watch.
“See this?” she says. “It’s a stopwatch. New rules: For the next five minutes, you cannot crack a joke or attempt, in any way, to be funny.”
“Don’t worry. Haven’t you heard? I not funny. I pathetic.”
“You mean those stupid blogs and text messages?”
“Yeah. Them.”
“The way I see it, Jamie, the blogs love you, the blogs hate you. You ever notice that blogger is only two letters away from booger?”
“Hey, you said no jokes.”
“For you. Plus, that wasn’t much of a joke.” She head gestures toward the exit. “Come on.”
We roll and stroll along the hallway.
“You know, Jamie, the way you use comedy is a lot like being politically correct.”
“What?” Now I’m a little confused.
“You use jokes to hide your true feelings the way other people soften their words so they never blurt out the cold, hard truth.”
“Wait a second….”
“Yeah. I stole that last line from you. I caught your act on YouTube.”
“It’s on YouTube?”
She nods. “Not the best camera work. A little shaky. You see a lot of this one doofus’s head. But somebody did, indeed, record you and your act on a cell phone. And you know what?”
“What?”
“You were great. Seriously hysterical.”
“Really?”
“Yep. I heard all those people in the club yukking it up, too. Then, at the end, they gave you a standing ovation.”
“Well, I couldn’t give one to myself.”
“Jamie? Your five minutes aren’t up.”
“Sorry.”
“They didn’t give you that trophy because they felt sorry for you. They gave it to you because you’re funny!”
“Thanks.”
“You’re also funny-looking.”
“What?”
“Lighten up. It’s a joke.”
“So when do I get to put you in the five-minute penalty box?”
She smiles. It’s a wickedly good smile, too. She’s not called Cool Girl for nothing.
“We’ll talk,” she says. “Oh—that bit about chicken nuggets? I used it today in the cafeteria. Cracked everybody up. We’re talking milk-out-the-nostrils laughter. So I have only one question: How come you didn’t ask me to go with you to the big contest?”
“Well, I… I… well, I didn’t know you cared.”
“Who says I care?”
She sashays away, leaving me holding her books. Again.
Girls. Who can understand them? Not me.
I’m just the local bookmobile.
Chapter 45
NOTE TO SELF: TELL UNCLE FRANKIE!
After school I head off to Uncle Frankie’s diner, where nobody knows that I’m a huge celebrity.
I help out behind the cash register, making change and making jokes.
My George Carlin fan comes to the counter with a newspaper tucked under his arm.
I ring him up and give him a choice Carlin one-liner: “Isn’t it kind of scary that doctors call what they do ‘practice’?”
He cracks up and puts down his newspaper to dig in his pockets for cash to cover his check.
That’s when I see the headline over a small article on page thirty-eight, back near the ads for free kittens: LONG BEACH LOCAL JAMIE GRIMM WINS COMEDY CONTEST.
Now I have to tell Uncle Frankie before he hears about it from somebody else or, worse, reads about it when he’s cleaning up the newspapers people leave behind in the booths.
I roll into the kitchen, where Uncle Frankie is yo-yoing with one hand while plunging a basket of fries into the deep fryer with the other. Fortunately, he never gets confused. If he did, we’d be serving our customers deep-fried plastic, and he’d be Walking the Dog with shoestring potatoes.
“Um, Uncle Frankie?”
“Hey, Jamie. What’s up? Howyadoinkid?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“Hey, you can tell me anything. I mean that. Always remember that, kiddo, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So—is this about some girl?”
“No. Not really. It’s about last Saturday.”
He looks a little confused. “Last Saturday? Were we supposed to go fishing?”
“No. Not fishing.”
“Good, ’cause it’s too cold to go fishing.” He’s reeling his yo-yo up and down, up and down. It helps Uncle Frankie think, or so he tells me.
“It’s about that comedy contest you told me about.”
“Oh, yeah. When is that?”
“Last Saturday.”
“And we missed it?”
“No. I mean you did, but I didn’t.”
“You went?”
“Yeah.”
“You told jokes?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you do?”
“Not bad.”
“Good for you, kiddo. Because winning isn’t everything. In fact, in our diner softball league, we like to say, ‘If you had fun, you won.’ ”
“I won.”
Uncle Frankie smiles. “So you had fun?”
“No…”
Now he frowns. “It wasn’t fun?”
“Well, kind of. Yeah. But, I won won.”
“You won won?”
“Yeah. I won!”
“You’re Long Island’s Funniest Kid Comic?”
I shrug. “That’s what they say.”
“Well, they’re right. Because that’s what I say, too! Come here, you!”
He rushes over to give me a big bear hug, which feels so good.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it,” I say. “I was so nervous. I thought I might bomb and…”
“No need to explain, Jamie. I understand completely. My first yo-yo competition? I didn’t tell anybody either. Not my mother, not my father, not my sister, not my little brother…”
“Did you win?”
“Well, let’s just say I had fun.”
And then he hugs me some more, which feels even better than the first hug.
“Jamie, I am so proud of you. You worked hard. You never gave up. That took guts, kiddo. Courage. And you know what?”
“What?”
“When you do stuff like that, you remind me of him.”
“My dad?”
Uncle Frankie nods. “Yeah. My brave little brother.”
Chapter 46
FEELING THE LOVE… AND JUST A LITTLE HATE
Back at school the next day, Mrs. Kanai, my ELA teacher, compliments me on my big win.
She’s actually gushing a little.
“Congratulations, Jamie! All the teachers are talking about your triumph.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ve never had a famous comedian in my class before. So, did you use any of your hilarious ‘climbing Mount Everest’ speech in your routine?”
“No. Not this time.”
“Oh? Is there a next time?”
“Well, I guess I’m supposed to represent Long Island at the New York State competition. Um, actually, I know I am.”
“And when’s that?”
“In a couple of weeks. In Manhattan. A comedy club called Gotham.”
“How exciting! Congratulations again, Jamie. I know you’ll win the next round, too.”
And then there are my buds. Gaynor, Pierce, Gilda, and Cool Girl. They’re all pulling for me, too. Asking me what bits I’m going to do for the next round. Pumping me up. Telling me I’m going to win again.
Yes, I have a very small and mostly nerdy fan club. And much to my amazement, it grows a little larger every day. Apparently, these new recruits liked what they saw of my act on YouTube (even though everybody wishes that doofus blocking the camera had a smaller head).
“That blogger was so wrong,” one after another tells me. “I caught your act. You were good, man!”
Even the vice principal—the school’s head disciplinarian, the man who collects the detention slips and memorizes every name on them, Mr. Sour Patch himself—actually nods at me in the hallway. Just once. But it is an official nod. Pierce is my witness.
As for Stevie Kosgrov?
He’s still giving me the finger. About a thousand times a day.
You gotta love the guy.
Chapter 47
TIME FOR A LITTLE Q&A
Later in the week, on an absolutely awesome afternoon, Cool Girl and I head to the boardwalk.
I’m thinking she needs me to carry her books all the way home for her. But she just wants to sit and talk.
About the future. You know: college, kids, an NFL career, the Boston Marathon.
“I’m also thinking about the Roller Derby,” I say. “After I have a couple of concussions playing football, of course.”
I, Funny Page 6