The Funny Man

by John Warner

  “Also you shot someone. Six times. In alleged self-defense. They look at your life and think, ‘I would never do that.’ They say, ‘I have more self-respect than to build an entire career around a silly gimmick.’ They think, ‘I couldn’t possibly do to my child what he did to his.’ They cannot imagine pulling the trigger and ending another human life, all of which, I don’t need to remind you, are things you’ve done. In order to put your actions in context, we are going to make your defense a veritable This Is Your Life.

  “We are going to tell your story in the present tense to give it a sense of urgency, to put them in your shoes. We are going to give them all of the context. With context, not only will we cause the jury to understand why you have done things, why you snuffed out a life, why you were a bad husband and father, why and how you have reaped huge monetary rewards doing something trivial, we will have them believing that under the same circumstances they would have done the exact same things. Maybe even that you should be celebrated for having done these things. Perhaps, just possibly, if we really nail this thing, if we tie this bitch up in a bow, that you should be emulated in doing these things.” Barry knocks his knuckles against the table, emphasizing the final part of the sentence. “We want to make them recognize that we are all the sum total of our traumas and our triumphs. It doesn’t matter if they like you. They just have to understand you, why you are what you are—and not to get too ‘Kumbaya’ on you—that you and they are the same. You are they, we are us, us is them. Do you see the what I’m saying?”

  I do, but I don’t want to.

  “Once we tell your story, the jury may not like you, but they will understand you. You may not have their sympathy, but you will have their empathy. They will walk several miles in your shoes and then we will put them in that alley that rainy evening, face-to-face with that man with the gun, which then somehow winds up in your hands, and we will ask them, ‘given what you know, given what you’ve experienced, what would you have done?’ and their answer will be, ‘the exact same thing.’ ‘I would have shot that man, disarmed, on his knees, allegedly begging for his life, six times, allegedly.’ In the abstract, people think they would never do that. We want to make them feel like they’d definitely do that.

  “If I recall correctly,” he said, continuing, “Mr. Prosecutor said early on that he ‘wants to make an example of you,’ so that’s what we’re going to do. It’s just not going to be the example he’s looking for.”

  I am deflated, one of those Mylar balloon animals sunken from ceiling to floor. I cannot see the path from here to there. It is an impossible task. If I had this life to do over again I’d be hardpressed to think of anything I would do the same way. Untalented, bad husband and father, successful. These things are undeniably true and yet also not. I have done horrible things, but I also have done wonderful things. I have loved with all that a person is capable of. I have tried my best; there are countless poor choices littering the path behind me, but is this so different from anyone else? The thought of getting total strangers to feel what Barry proposes is out of the question at this point. I am not deserving of empathy or sympathy. I have been branded. Everyone knows me. The focus group said so.

  The phrase mercy of the court pops into my head and I have a vision of getting up, leaving the room, walking down the corridor to the judge’s chambers, knocking softly, entering and saying, “I throw myself at the mercy of the court,” and I will crawl on my hands and knees to the judge until I am at her feet, her beautiful feet with the stylish pumps …

  “It’ll never work,” I say. “I’m a monster, aren’t I?”

  Barry perches a single buttock on the table and looks both ways even though we both know we are alone and no one can hear us before he leans toward me, so close that our noses almost touch. I can smell his lunch, egg salad. “Let me tell you a secret,” he says.

  “What?”

  “We’re all monsters.”

  6

  THERE ARE QUALMS, for sure. Backstage at the club the funny man has heard all the “jokes”:

  Knock-knock.

  Who’s there?

  Impressionist.

  Go fuck a llama, impressionists are hacks.

  Or:

  Why did the prop comic cross the road?

  I don’t know, why did the prop comic cross the road?

  Because he was hoping to get killed in traffic because he knew he was a hack and couldn’t live with himself. Fuck a llama that has your grandmother’s face, so it’s like you’re fucking your grandmother, but she’s also a llama.

  The funny man had shared these opinions, had joined in the bitter laughter dismissing those who had risen out of the backstage holding area to greater heights with impressions or trunks full of junk or ventriloquism. (Don’t even mention ventriloquism. Show up at the club with a dummy in a case and get ready for an ass beating followed by an invitation to fuck a semitruck full of grandma-faced llamas.) One of the most respected of the backstage hopeful funny men, the one everyone swears is a genius that the audience simply doesn’t “get,” once said it in a way the funny man would never forget. “You know where I carry my jokes?” he said. “Here,” he said, pointing to his head. “Here,” he said, pointing to his heart, “and here,” he said, cupping his balls. The funny man laughed as hard as anyone. It was funny because it was true. This was the code and the funny man believed in it.

  But no one ever laughs at this guy. At least no one who isn’t one of the other hopeful funny men who often line up in the back to watch the unappreciated genius’s sets, so impressed by his ability to tell hilarious jokes that ricochet around the room above the audience’s heads. The guy’s clothes that never get replaced or refreshed, his sour smell, his deteriorating teeth, the dandruff that flickers in the stage lights as it falls from his head after running his hand through his hair following yet another silence, all add up to one word for all the hopeful funny men: Integrity.

  Everyone does impressions, but no one wants to be known as an impressionist. Impressionists have nothing funny of their own to say. Impressionists often get good laughs and rarely bomb, but impressionists are lame, lame, lame. Prop comics, though, are the worst. While there were plenty of successful prop comics, there had never been a great prop comic. Pryor did not use props, Carlin did not need props, Bruce occasionally pretended to be leafing through a newspaper, but he was no prop comic. Gallagher used props. Gallagher’s brother, who performed as Gallagher Too, used props, Gallagher’s props. Carrot Top. Ugh.

  Steve Martin used props, but for some reason no one called him a prop comic. Why wasn’t Martin a prop comic? It is because Martin was a genius, a postmodern surrealist comic, a creator then breaker of molds? Martin’s props winked at the audience. They all agreed, props are stupid, but nonetheless, take a look at this rubber chicken. Martin was the prop. The funny man tries to take solace in the Martin example. Even if it was not possible to be a great prop comic, it was possible to be a great comic who used props. Martin’s arrow through the head is in the Smithsonian.

  The funny man buoys himself with these thoughts as he prepares for his first post-thing discovery performance at the club. His new talent agent has insisted on it as a test. “My instincts are unfailing,” the agent said, “but still, you never know, you know?” The other hopeful funny men look at him as he drags his small trunk into the room to wait his turn.

  “You having a garage sale?” one of them cracks.

  “What’s in the box?” another says, but before he can strike, the funny man delivers the punch line: “Your act: I’m giving it a proper burial.” The joke is good enough to shut down the inquiries, everyone recognizing that it’s unlikely to be topped. And anyway, they are distracted when they realize one of them has fallen asleep, which provides an opportunity for one of them to drop trou and drape his testicles and penis across the unfortunate slumberer’s face in what is known as a “Roman helmet.”

  As usual, backstage is saturated with smoke and littered with emp
ty beer bottles with spent cigarettes jammed down the necks. The funny man is one of the few who doesn’t smoke (bad for the child), but the funny man is thirsty and nervous and would like a beer. However, he is afraid to leave his trunk unattended because he is certain that they will fuck with it because that is what he would do to them under the same circumstances. The atmosphere backstage is very all for one, one for all, us versus the audience, at least until you’re suspected of having the kind of success that will allow you to escape backstage, after which you are a goddamn sellout who should fuck a llama with your grandmother’s face, in a room with your parents, who are doing each other, so you’re fucking your llama grandmother while watching your parents have sex.

  They all saw the funny man talking to the talent agent after his last time and now he shows up with a mysterious trunk. Very, very suspicious. He looks at them now, snapping cell phone photos of their sleeping comrade, now wearing the genitalia on his face, and realizes that for them, this may be as good as it gets, these stories about backstage at the club, hanging out with so-and-so, who everyone knows, and this is what they call a brush with fame.

  But the funny man senses he is about to be more than brushed, he is being slathered in fame, dipped in fame, cannonballing into the fame pool, which may be dangerous because he cannot swim.

  Or this may be hindsight talking. It’s hard to know for sure.

  The funny man was third in line by the time he’d arrived. His agent has arranged for a better slot than usual, before the patrons are drunk and wrung-out and tired. The funny man considers asking someone to help him haul the trunk onto the stage, but knows he is unlikely to get any takers. Fortunately, he has been practicing carrying it without looking awkward or at least tripping onto his face, though that could be funny now that he thinks of it.

  To the side of the stage a neon star illuminates, signaling that it’s time for the current performer to wrap things up. He now has between thirty and sixty seconds to finish or he is unlikely to be invited back ever again. The schedule at the club is not to be fucked with unless a famous alumnus of the club—someone who has achieved a sitcom or movie career—decides to show up unannounced to work some kinks out of their new material, in which case the schedule is torched. The neon star is also the signal for the next performer to move into position, ready to be announced by the finishing person. At the club, backstage is not actually backstage, but is behind the audience, past a curtain and down the stairs, so the funny man carefully eases the case to the ground at the top of the stairs so as not to draw attention to himself too soon.

  The man on the stage hoods his eyes with his hand and squints through the stage lights peering to the back and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a truly talented professional coming next and it looks to me like he’s got something special planned that I’m sure you’ll enjoy. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome …”

  WHEN THE NEON star comes on, the funny man has just enough time for the finale. It has been going extremely well. A guy in the front row did an actual spit take when the funny man first turned around with his fist in his mouth and the funny man ad-libbed jumping off stage to mop up the mess with the sleeve of his Jimmy Cagney trench coat. By the end, just about the whole audience was convulsing with laughter and he knew that the Captain Hook twist was going to surprise and delight them. They’d never seen this before, and yet they acted like they’ve been waiting all their lives for it.

  After his thank-yous and good nights, the funny man quickly tosses the final props into his trunk and kicks the lid closed with his foot while introducing the next performer, a good friend of his, a guy he used to drink with until he was stupid as they debated who was and who was not the greatest and laid odds on which of their current colleagues would make it out of the club. They’d bonded, these two. They were bros. Fellow warriors, foxhole mates. The funny man gives his good friend his best introduction, slathering the praise. At his name the funny man’s good friend charges the stage, making it up before the funny man can even stoop to lift his trunk. He grips the funny man’s hand with his right hand and clamps the left on the funny man’s shoulder and menaces into his ear, “Thanks for draining the room with that weak shit. Look at these assholes, there’s nothing left.” His good friend lets go of the funny man’s hand and shoulder and as the funny man picks up his trunk he glances at the audience and sees his good friend is right. The crowd looks wrung-out, exhausted, postcoital even. He has done that to them. Him.

  The funny man doesn’t even bother going backstage. He carries his trunk out the front door into the night air and normally he takes the subway, but tonight, he sticks his arm out for a cab. He isn’t coming back because he doesn’t need to.

  OUTSIDE THE HOUSE, two production assistants roll up in the big, white rented van, and double-checking the address, note that there is no oak tree in the funny man’s yard as location scouting had promised. Location scouting is almost always fucking up. It’s like, why bother scouting if it’s wrong? However, there is a nice, shady oak tree, with one swooping, low-hanging branch that makes its residence in the neighboring yard.

  “Always something,” production assistant two says to production assistant one.

  “Waivers?” production assistant one asks production assistant two. “Got ‘em right here.”

  At the neighbor’s door, PA one adjusts the slightly crooked mailbox as PA two rings the bell. The funny man’s neighbor answers.

  “Yes?” Seeing the two handsome young men, she pats at her frazzled hair and cinches her housecoat a touch tighter at her throat.

  “Ma’am,” PA two says, smiling big. “How would you like that nice, shady oak tree of yours to be nationally famous.” PA one extends the waiver form with one hand, a pen with the other.

  The neighbor wonders if she might still be dreaming as she signs the paper in front of her.

  THE FUNNY MAN looks at his hair in the mirror. A cowlick towards the rear refuses taming. He snips it, badly, with his wife’s cuticle scissors. The funny man would like to say that the recent months have been like a dream except that a dream is easier to remember and understand than what has been happening to the funny man. Following signing the contract with his agent, a series of very strange and wonderful events have carried him to this morning when his picture is to be taken for the nationally distributed magazine with a circulation of five million.

  This is how his agent said it to him: “Five million circulation,” emphasis on the million, but the funny man was most interested in the circulation word. His picture, accompanied by a three-hundred-word article, would soon be circulating through five million people. Circulating is a good word, going round and coming back again. He will be among them, part of them, circulating. If nothing else good happens for the funny man, with the picture he will achieve a level of permanence that he could only have imagined a short time ago. From his new bathroom in his new house he hears the guttural rumble of cargo trucks. They’ve come for him. In the end, it wasn’t so tough to leave the city they both loved so dearly, the crucible in which his act was forged. The new house has three bathrooms and really, the city is a stone’s throw away, provided you can throw a stone like Superman.

  THE DAY AFTER his successful appearance at the club, the funny man’s new agent called him and said he’d booked him for a gig that weekend, an opening slot for another comedian, but a good show, good money.

  “How much money?” the funny man asked. His agent told him the figure.

  “How much?” His agent told him the figure again.

  “Say it again,” the funny man said and his agent did so. The gig was out of town, his first gig that he would travel to on a plane instead of the subway. When he told his wife how much he was earning for approximately twenty minutes of work, she looked at the ceiling and moved her lips, doing the math in her head. “That’s ten percent of what I earned all of last year,” she said.

  When the funny man received his boarding pass from the ticket agent he thought there m
ust be a typo. 2A. He’d never seen a row number that small. He had spent his life up to that point confined to 24F, 37D. He had a choice of personal videos at his seat and the food was tolerable. He did not anticipate any food poisoning. At his destination, when he descended the escalator to the baggage claim area, he saw a man in a black suit wearing a driver’s cap holding a dry erase board with the funny man’s name on it.

  At the hotel they did not ask for a credit card imprint, which was good because he didn’t have one untethered to his bank account, which would not have contained nearly enough to pay for even a couple of hours in this particular hotel. His room was bigger than their apartment and a basket of consumer goods worth hundreds of dollars waited for him on the dining room table, thanking him for something he hadn’t done yet. His hotel room had a dining room table. His apartment did not.

  With shaky hands he dialed the phone home and when his wife answered he told her all about the trip thus far. “It’s like another world,” he said.

  “I could get used to this,” he said.

  A YOUNG BOY wobbles down the street on his bike, tossing morning papers onto lawns. (It really was that kind of neighborhood.) The production assistants bounce the tractor tire out of the back of the van and roll it to the neighbor’s oak tree. They throw loops of hemp over the low-hanging branch and lash the hemp to the tire so it dangles several feet off the ground. PA one climbs on.

  “Push me,” says PA one to PA two.

  PA two grabs the tire and walks backward. “Underdog,” he says, running forward as fast as he can, pushing PA one skyward.

  The tree limb groans under the weight.

  “Wheeeee,” PA one says.

  Soon, the production trucks roll up and disgorge barricades for the street, banks of lights, folding chairs, a live llama, and finally a long table of pastries and crullers.