The Funny Man

by John Warner

  During the show, before doing the thing, which absolutely must close the show each and every night, the funny man has installed an eight-minute bit on why it’s dumb to apologize, which, in hindsight, will seem hackish in a Dane Cookian way, but at the time feels like it belongs on the comedy shelf right next to Carlin’s “seven dirty words.” It is nothing like his earlier material, which is mostly gentle and observational with a light absurdity. He’s sure it’s the best thing he’s ever done now that he’s tapped into his true, primal self.

  I’ve got one message for all of you, and it’s this: No matter what, DON’T APOLOGIZE! I don’t care what you’ve done, I don’t want to see any apologies … ever. I don’t care if you unleash a deadly plague of monkey herpes that wipes out three-quarters of Earth’s population. DO NOT APOLOGIZE! I don’t care if you’ve like kidnapped a third-grader and chopped her up and put in the freezer for snacks later, when the cops come for you and you’re tried and convicted and you’re about to be fried in the chair, you should not apologize. DO NOT APOLOGIZE! Seriously, no apologies, man. What good does it do to apologize? The second you apologize, you’ve given them the upper hand. You’re the loser, you’ve LOST, man. It’s like here, I’m a bitch, slap me, I apologize … shit. What if you were right? Once you’ve apologized, no one’s ever going to apologize back. I’m sorry, I made you say you’re sorry? Yeah, right. It’s total surrender. It’s bend over and grab the ankles and let’s play hide-the-kielbasa-in-my-asshole time.

  And even if you apologize it’s not like you get any credit for it. When’s the last time someone just said “thank you,” when you apologized. DOES NOT HAPPEN, PEOPLE! Like, you know what I hate, when you say, “I’m sorry,” and then they come back with, “I should hope so!” What the fuck is that? “I should hope so?” You should hope I don’t jam my foot up your ass I should hope so!

  Look at the word, even. Break it down to its roots. First part is “apo,” which means “from” or “away,” as in “go the fuck away, I’m not apologizing.” Middle part, “logo,” which means “the study of”—yeah, that’s right, “the study of.” Last part is “ize,” which actually means, get this, “pussy.” Put it together, and “apologize” means the study of being a pussy. Well, fuck that!

  JUST A WEEK into the tour he realizes that a significant portion of the crowd is delivering some of the no-apologies material with him, shouting out the punch lines. He starts holding the microphone out toward them rather than speaking the lines himself and the noise of fifteen thousand people (forty-five thousand when he’s playing a football stadium), yelling, “Well, fuck that!” threatens to lift him off the stage.

  The separation papers arrive mid-tour. His wife asks for a truly absurd amount in monthly support for her and the child (and Pilar), and the funny man’s first instinct is to say, “well, fuck that,” but instead he instructs his manager to instruct his lawyer to instruct his accountant to provide whatever she asks for. She has primary custody, but he will have visitation rights, not that it matters while he’s on tour, but when this is done, he’s right there with both his money and his love. He will not be the kind of father who denies his child’s needs, one of which is a father who is brave enough to tell him the way the world works.

  Liberated by his anger, he has sex widely and indiscriminately, and he loves it. He effing loves it and he’s not going to apologize for it, no way. Most of them aren’t remotely in his wife’s league looks-wise, but he doesn’t care. Fat, thin, hair on their faces, hanging earlobes, unfortunate posture, untreated goiters; he does not care because he is a giving person and they want him so badly.

  The tour is a phenomenon. He does press in his off hours, appearing any- and everywhere even though the shows are long sold out. He is impossible to get away from. Flip on the television, he is there. Check Facebook, and it is funny man time. He is a trending hashtag, a comedy virus penetrating everyone everywhere. There are discussions of a South American swing so they can take advantage of the capacity at the giant soccer stadiums. For the first time he begins to understand how mighty he really is.

  Think about it: The funny man has his own economy, like he is a nation unto himself. There are not just direct employees like his agent and manager and accountant and brand manager and tour director and the lighting crew, but there are people whom he does not pay directly that are thriving because of him. For example, the zit-faced gomer who rolls his pack of smokes in his sleeve and wears cowboy boots in order to look taller, even though he’s never even touched a horse, whose job it is to hawk the concert T-shirts and CDs in the arenas and stadiums for a half-percent commission per item. What could that yokel possibly do if not for the funny man? That guy is unemployable. He’d be gnawing on a block of government cheese and sucking on generic smokes if not for the funny man and his record-breaking comedy tour. But thanks to the funny man he probably has an apartment and is saving for a flat-screen television and could maybe even get laid. And what about the tabloid photographers who follow him everywhere and get paid for the pictures of him spewing pink barf into the gutter just before climbing into a limo following a little postconcert relaxation at a local watering hole? Without him, they’d have nothing to do.

  And let’s not forget every last sorry shit attached to the movie sequel. Look at what he is providing for them. He has saved all of Hollywood. Dozens of thinly premised movies have been greenlit in the wake of his success. Will all of those writers, directors, actors, and key grips be sending him a thank-you? Thank you, Mr. Funny Man, for making America believe in laughter again.

  He goes even deeper than this. The funny man is elemental. He is the cause of additional watching of television or Internet surfing, file downloading, consuming of media, things that take electricity and bandwidth, which is provided only by employing miners digging fuel from the Earth and technicians laying cable and flipping switches and Bengali customer-service representatives being unfailingly polite in the face of complaints. The funny man is worldwide.

  He should commission a study of the GFMP, the Gross Funny Man Product, all of the tangible worldwide wealth that is directly traceable to him. He strongly suspects that the answer, when it comes right down to it, is all of it. He’s not saying he’s a savior, but it’s not an unreasonable word. It’s not out of the realm of discussion.

  LIKE A SAVIOR, he loves being among the people. Check that, he loves being among his people, because that’s what happens whenever he goes out, he is soon surrounded by his people. People who get him instinctively, unquestioningly. At first, he brought a little extra protection, a little muscle with, but soon he realized it wasn’t necessary because everywhere he goes he is welcomed like an old and treasured friend, not because he slaps down his Black Card upon entering the establishment and everyone drinks for free, but because his people know that he is just like them. Grounded. Real.

  After the initial hubbub of his entrance, he likes to sit at the bar because this is where he finds the realist of the real. He buys drinks and they talk about things that matter: interest rates, sports, engine capacity, gas prices, humidity. While this is going on he’s also scoping targets for later, the girls he will bring back to the hotel or tour bus, identifying two or three possibilities in case one or two of them are married or otherwise hooked up. Not that them being married is always an issue. More than once, husbands have offered their wives to him, saying it would be an “honor,” but sometimes those guys want to come with and watch and the funny man is not into that level of kink.

  This night there’s a real honey, young, but not too. She is shooting pool while the funny man throws back boilermakers with his new best friends, Earl and Tony or maybe it’s Denny and Bert. This is in Grand Rapids, or maybe Ft. Worth. Maybe the accents on these guys are southern. The bar is called Lucky’s or maybe Chance’s, he’s not sure, but what he is sure of is how the honey’s shirt lifts up in the back and her jeans stretch deliciously over her ass when she leans over for a shot. He thinks he might see a tattoo there in
the small of her back. They’re very common, the funny man has come to find out in his travels.

  He sends her one drink, then another, and each time she politely salutes him from the tables before turning back to her game. She tosses her head back and laughs at something someone over there says. This is unusual. Usually the second drink brings them toward him like magnetism. Is it possible that she is not aware of who he is? He always dresses incognito, though not too; but no, when he walked in, a cheer went up and his back was slapped dozens of times on the way to the bar. He still feels their imprints on his flesh. He signed hands and breasts and drink coasters on his way to his stool where he could sit and do some serious drinking with Earl/Denny and Tony/Bert.

  Earl/Denny looks back over his shoulder. “That’s Woody’s girl,” he says.

  “Who’s Woody?” the funny man says.

  “Just a guy from around,” Tony/Bert replies.

  “And where’s Woody?”

  “Not here, I guess,” Earl/Denny says, craning his neck around the room.

  “How do you know?”

  Tony/Bert chuckles softly into his beer. “Oh, you’d know by now.”

  “Yeah, well, his loss,” the funny man says, tossing back the last of his beer. He follows it with just one of the circular blue pills. He has become very well-versed in what these different pills do in various combinations and he knows that one, just one, of the circular blue numbers is right for this particular occasion because it will make things blurry at the edges, like a movie in flashback, like you’ve already lived it.

  The funny man is terrible at pool, but this is unimportant because by making a hash of it, he is allowed to be funny, his stock-in-trade. He whacks balls all the way off the table, even sending one flying into the middle of someone’s back, and when the startled patron wheels around, the funny man shoves his hand in his mouth and everyone in proximity cracks the hell up. When it is the honey’s turn to shoot he leans over her and says, “Here, let me show you,” and nibbles on her earlobe. She is not receptive, exactly, but neither is he getting the total brush-off. This makes it more fun. It’s been awhile since he had a challenge and she seems worth it.

  He is racking the balls for a rematch when someone taps his shoulder. He turns and is face-to-face with a young guy, maybe a year or two younger than the funny man. The guy’s head is shaped like an anvil and his face is etched with deep lines like a cowboy who’s seen more than his share of sun, which probably means this is Ft. Worth and not Grand Rapids after all. The guy wears a denim shirt open a couple of buttons and ropey veins trace up over his clavicles to his neck. The etched face is calm, but the man’s jugular pulses. The face is so ugly it is undeniably handsome. The guy has the deepest blue eyes the funny man has ever seen.

  “I think it’s my turn,” the guy says to the funny man.

  The funny man makes a face and turns his back and keeps racking the balls. No one laughs, so he makes an even more exaggerated face, but still, no one laughs.

  “Winners get to keep the table, and you didn’t win.” The guy’s breath blows the sweet tang of pouch tobacco over the funny man’s shoulder.

  “Woody,” the honey says softly, plaintively.

  “Oh, I’m a winner, pal,” the funny man says to the crowd, but for Woody’s benefit, without turning around. The funny man feels a vice clamp on each shoulder and he is spun so he is now face-to-face with Woody. The funny man holds the wooden pool triangle in his hand. The look on Woody’s face is unchanged, but the carotid arteries on each side now undulate under the skin like worms pushing toward the surface.

  “I’ll admit,” Woody says, “that in the general sense of the word, you are a winner. By every conceivable measurement, you got the world by the balls, no doubt about that.”

  “You know who I am,” the funny man says. Woody hasn’t appeared to be moving, but it is now clear to the funny man that he has been slowly crowding him against the end of the pool table. His ass hits the table edge and he must lean his torso backwards to keep from contacting Woody, which seems like it would be a bad move. He wonders where Earl/Denny and Tony/Bert are. Surely he’s bought some loyalty there.

  “Oh sure,” Woody says. “I know who you are. Everybody knows who you are. The thing is, though, I do not care.”

  This is where the combination of the little blue circular pills and the pink, ovoid ones are a problem. The little blue ones take the edge off everything, making it all seem like a dream. The pink, ovoid ones tamp down anxiety and fear, regardless of whether or not anxiety and fear are natural and helpful emotions in a particular moment. With enough of the pink, ovoid ones in your system, a ravenous bear could be charging at you from out of the woods and you would stand stupid, knowing you are in mortal danger, but not really caring. As the bear rears on its hind legs to strike with one of its sledgehammer paws, you may get the urge to open your arms and try to give it a hug. Even as the bear cracks open your skull using all twelve-hundred pounds per square inch of its biting power, your world is hunky-dory. For sure, the funny man should be doing something, but he does nothing.

  And then the wooden pool triangle is not in the funny man’s hand, but in Woody’s and the funny man is flat on his back on top of the pool table and one edge of the triangle is pressed down on his windpipe.

  “You got a lot, while I only got one thing,” Woody says, leaning into over the funny man’s face and glancing once over at the honey. “But in about thirty more seconds, if I keep doing this, you’re going to have nothing.”

  The funny man’s vision begins to tunnel, closing down until it feels like he’s looking through the end of a paper-towel tube, then a straw, then he doesn’t remember, and then suddenly he can breathe again. He rolls on his side as his hands shoot instinctively to his neck.

  Woody stands over him, his arm around the honey. She looks at the funny man with loveless pity. “Turns out, I got everything, huh?” he says. The lines on his face break into something like a smile. “No apologies, right, my man?”

  They walk off together, Woody and the honey, his arm at her shoulders, hers fixed in his back pocket. Woody is right. He has everything. The funny man has nothing, not even Earl/Denny or Tony/Bert, who are nowhere to be found. The funny man decides that even with its hard slate surface and the balls bruising his kidneys, the pool table is the most comfortable spot ever, so that’s where he resolves to stay forever.

  24

  HER MESSAGES ARRIVE in almost every batch of signing material. They are harder and harder to dig out because the volume of items sent has actually increased, even as the protests gain steam. Since many items associated with me are being destroyed, I suppose new ones are all the more valuable. Supply and demand. Each missive from her lays out more details of the plan, additional angles and eventualities. She is a clever girl, thinking through everything for me, though I’m starting to anticipate the next phase even before it arrives in the mail. It is a marvel how I never miss them no matter how elaborate the disguises, further proof that she and I are bound by forces out of our control.

  Check that. At the Center, what we learn is that no forces are outside of our control, it just appears that way, which is why so many people experience setbacks and unhappiness and the general failures that mark our lives. I was this way before I went there, and again briefly after I shot that man six times, but I have resighted my guns on the target.

  As are hers. She had her own slight bobbles following my arrest, she also forgetting what we learned at the Center and what we shared between us, but now, each match seems easier than the last and I know because I watch them all. During changeovers she stares straight ahead, her long lashes blinking evenly, her gaze going far beyond the parameters of the court. She is, as they say, in the zone.

  DESPITE BARRY NOW working pro bono, money is still an issue because I need as much of it as possible. Fortunately, I have developed my own part of the plan for that.

  My agent is surprised to hear from me. The signature work is the ma
nager’s business, so my agent has not had much to do with me for some time. Nominally, he still works for me, but without a body that he can move to different places, I am not much use to him. In the life of my agent, I am a chess piece on the side of the board.

  “I’m writing a book,” I tell him.

  “Really?” he says.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I just figured you’re busy, and everything.”

  “I’ve got nothing but time,” I say. I feel like I can hear him squirm on the other end of the phone. With me a two-time failure and this close to incarceration, there’s not much to underpin our relationship. Transaction is our fuel, and there’s nothing left to transact.

  “So what’s it about?” he says.

  “It’s about how to seduce and fuck your wife.”

  “Ha!” he says, but as a genuine laugh it is unconvincing. I sort of miss the days when people didn’t feel obligated to laugh at what I’ve said. “Seriously, what is it? I want to know.”

  “It’s the story of my life.”

  I hear the springs of his chair squeak as he leans back. This is his doing-business position. I’ve seen it many times. “Well, big man, I think you know there’s some hurdles there.”

  He is referring to the fact that a person convicted of a crime is, by law, not allowed to profit from those crimes.

  “It’s okay,” I reply. “It’s thinly veiled fiction and I’m not using any names, like when I write about you, rather than calling you Gord, I just refer to you as ‘the agent.’ Frazier is just ‘the manager,’ and Beth is ‘the wife’ until she’s the ‘ex-wife.’ I call myself ‘the funny man.’ I’m the villain. I’m finding it considerably less painful to do it that way. It’s like it’s me, but not and when I can’t remember something, or can’t bear to remember something, or don’t know something, I just make it up. I’m pretty sure that most of it’s true, except for the parts that obviously aren’t. Some stuff I have to make up just so it’s a decent story. I’m calling it ‘An American Saga’.”