Away with Words

by Joe Berkowitz

  Jerzy’s face collapses into a crybaby pout. “‘What’s an animal? I can’t think of a topic.’” he says, in a tantrum-like snit, “Quit stallion.”

  Jordan smiles and turns to face the crowd, a clump of hair in his eyes.

  “The reason he started doing Punderdome was for pussy!” he says, yelling the last word. The entire room bursts into applause, especially the other champions, many of whom have gotten hit on at one point or another in this very room.

  “Jerzy, must ’tang drive every one of your ambitions?”

  Time is up. Everybody in Littlefield is shrieking.

  “Can you imagine these guys at the dinner table?” Fred says, as the brothers hug.

  Jordan is up first for the clap-o-meter. While he’s mugging at the audience, Jerzy sits down on the edge of the stage, looks up at his younger brother, and starts clapping. Despite his encouragement, the audience is holding back just slightly. Jordan resurged spectacularly from a hard deficit, but it wasn’t enough. Jerzy takes his seventeenth Punderdome.

  It was possible that this group of punsters wouldn’t all be together again for a while, so some of them confirm standing plans to go out for drinks afterward. The four female champions run onstage and take a picture in front of the glittering birthday banner that spells out “Punderdome.” A lot of people threaten to hug Jo, who is an avowed nonhugger. Slowly, Littlefield empties, expelling its punsters out into the night, the words that made the crowd bay like wolves receding into the void.

  Finals

  11

  Mutually Assured Pun Destruction

  The giant ornamental guitars at the airport are standing right where I remember them, doing their best to keep Austin weird. I walk past them, pick up my rental car, and head out.

  It’s Thursday afternoon and the O. Henry is in two days. At last check, I was number eight on the wait list for Punniest in Show and number thirty-two for Punslingers. I have more than a rough idea of how my carnivorous veggie routine will go if I get in, but it’s nowhere near finished, let alone memorized. The plan is to work on it more tonight and tomorrow, if there’s time. I’ve begun to accept the possibility that I won’t be competing, though.

  Our airbnb has been dubbed the Real World House, due to a miscommunication that made it seem as though the cast of The Real World stayed there one season. When I go to park my car, though, I see that the building itself is named Littlefield Lofts. We somehow picked the most Punderdome-friendly building in the heart of downtown Austin.

  Max and Sam are already inside our space when I get there, eating the complimentary tortilla chips and salsa the tenant left for us. The floor looks like mottled red clay dirt buffed to a shine. Its texture feels cool on my bare feet, which is a relief in the heat that comes with ditching New York for Texas in May. There are twin beds everywhere—two downstairs and three upstairs—along with a pullout couch Max has claimed for himself. In the middle of the living room is a painting that looks like a cartoon Johnny Depp in a fedora, with headphones the size of plump bagels and little ropy legs. I hate this painting.

  Ally arrives next, followed by Nikolai, rounding out the Real World House early birds. Ariel and Isaac will arrive tomorrow, just before the annual pre–O. Henry banquet.

  Immediately outside the apartment is a pizzeria with a sandwich board in its doorway that reads, “This is a sign you need pizza.” In the search for a dinner spot, we pass a bar called Handlebar, with a black-and-white mural of O. Henry on its side. A Mazda 3 drives by with (.14) tacked on its logo, so it becomes the number for pi. A sign designed to look like the Jamaican flag announces Shangri-La’s first annual Jerk Off, for fans of cooking with jerk seasoning. There’s a laser tag place called Blazer Tag, catering either to stoners or perhaps just big fans of professorial outerwear. Puns are lurking everywhere we go. Everything is something else, the brown bag of a pun sneaking in the malt liquor of another meaning.

  Together our shambling group roves through downtown, nearly getting run over by a flock of night bikers. In any group traveling together, there are always conflicting opinions on where to eat. Since we are in a town famous for Mexican food, though, and it happens to be Cinco de Mayo, everyone is in agreement. Soon enough, we’re lounging in an art-filled cocina called Curra’s, toasting with avocado margaritas.

  “Here’s to the puns that bring people together,” Max says, a splat of salsa already in his tiny bird’s nest beard.

  “And the puns that drive everybody the fuck away,” I add.

  We clink glasses and drink up.

  When the punning starts, it quickly becomes an indispensible part of the trip—the metro pass that gets you from place to place, the cruise buffet you return to again and again until you can’t possibly take any more. Max throws out the topic of Weight Loss Movies while Nikolai is checking out the local Tinder situation and Ally and Sam discuss the possibility of going for a swim tomorrow. Suddenly we’re engaged in a Hashtag War that never really goes away.

  “Lean Girls.” “Ferris Bueller’s Cheat Day Off.” “Nutritional Treasure.” “Love Handles, Actually.” “Fasting and Furious.”

  We may be tossing around puns just for practice, but I’ve practiced before and this feels like something else—a video game, a skating half-pipe, or to a lesser extent, a hacky sack. There’s always another pun to do, another direction to take it in, and you want to keep going because maybe you’ll be the one to come up with the best one. Everyone laughs at most of the puns, one or two go completely unacknowledged, but then there is usually one masterpiece that gets the most raucous cheers and shuts down the category. Coming up with the consensus pun feels as good as any amount of cheers from the crowd at Punderdome, as good as any retweet on Twitter. Literally anybody can do what we’re doing, but not everybody can nail it.

  These games follow us to coffee the next morning, when we wake up hungover, some of us wearing pastel sombreros with the brims ripped off. By the time we’re caffeinated and piled into an SUV on the way to Barton Springs, the game has evolved to include mashup movie titles such as The Sixth Sense and Sensibility and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead Poets Society. We spend some of the trip speculating on what these hybrid movies might turn out like, and everyone gets especially excited about the zombie aliens of Independence Day of the Dead.

  At some point, the puns start becoming on-theme. When we hike through the forest at Barton Springs, the dry, cracked dirt resembling the floor of our airbnb loft, the titles turn to hiking: 8 Mile. You’ve Got Trail. Trekfest at Tiffany’s. We list off more and more, laughing as we avoid mud puddles and rogue branches to the face. When we get through the forest to the gorgeous springs, walking across shallow ridges that look like doughy bread loaves, we interrupt another group’s dog party. The game then turns to dogs until the topic is exhausted and we strip down to swim in the water and shut up for a while.

  The water is clear and cool, especially after our hike. Nobody says it out loud, but it’s also a relief to stop making puns. This quiet afternoon reverie is necessary. In a few hours, our weird pun family is going to meet the weird pun family in Austin. If my previous visit was any indication, our mutually assured pun destruction was imminent.

  When we get to the pre–O. Henry banquet, everyone is thoroughly exhausted. Sunbaked, punned out, and caught beneath that extra bit of exhaustion at the trisecting point of a day with too many phases.

  Despite the abundance of Domers in town already, only a handful of us walk into the restaurant together. Neither Jerzy nor Jordan has ever made it to this part of the event and they’re not starting now. Isaac’s flight was delayed. Tim and his girlfriend text to say they’re going to a Flatbush Zombies concert instead, if anybody would like to come. They also ask if the place we’re staying at is really called Littlefield, and how that is possible. Sam decides to take a nap and join Tim afterward. As groggy as the group that stumbles in is, everyone is eager to get a glimpse at who we’re up against tomorrow.

  In the back of
a restaurant called Opal Divine’s is a faded mint green bingo hall with what seems like hundreds of curtains. This is where our evening will unfold. There are anemic goateed dudes with Civil War hats, liver-spotted ladies with frazzled hair, a guy with a kimono over an Apple parody T-shirt that reads iPun, and a general bouillabaisse of southern-fried individuals. The occasional younger man or woman mars the landscape of upper-middle age, like the disparate islands that make up higher double-digit tables at weddings. Indoor sunglasses abound. The pervasive style is Cool Dad, like if Harrison Ford’s earring was in charge of casting a reboot of Cheers. Somebody in this room surely owned multiple Grateful Dead bootlegs from the Dick’s Picks collection.

  “It’s very . . . generational in here,” Max says quietly as we look for a place to sit.

  Half a table is unoccupied in the back corner, and we head for it. There are printouts in front of every seat like placemats, and lots of people are hunched over, examining them.

  As we take our seats, I spot Gary in a T-shirt version of the American flag button-up he wears to the Pun-Off every year, chatting with a guy dressed in full Elizabethan garb, including a purple jellyfish-shaped cap with a feather in it. There is probably a story behind this outfit, but it’s not immediately obvious. Nearby, a freshly shorn Ben Ziek is holding court.

  “That’s the guy who wins basically every year,” I tell Nikolai. “Jerzy’s nemesis.”

  Nikolai looks Ben Ziek up and down. “We can take him,” he concludes.

  The printouts contain a series of pun riddles about entertainers: blank spaces for the number of letters and a clue to the person’s identity. We all dig in right away. One by one, though, everyone’s brows bunch up as it becomes clear that these clues were written in possibly 1986, with an eye toward the Golden Age of Hollywood. Many of the entertainers are dead, and there are references to Madonna and John Candy as hot new kids on the scene. Many of the clues make allusions to people none of us have ever heard of. Is it possible that the committee behind this dinner has been handing out the same game sheet for thirty years?

  “I have a feeling it’s not that we’re stupid, but that this is,” the chipmunk-cheeked brunette sitting next to me says, cheerfully, a southern twang in her voice.

  Her name is Gracie Deegan, and this is not her first O. Henry. Not only has she been here before, she’s won Punniest in Show before. This year, she’s actually going to be a judge. It’s her first time attending the banquet, though. So far, her review is that she ordered a margarita twenty minutes ago and it still hasn’t arrived.

  “Are y’all ready for tomorrow?” she asks.

  “This guy’s been practicing nonstop,” Max says, pointing to me.

  I want to explain that he’s just joking, that I wish I’d practiced more or at the very least finished my routine by now, but I realize that’s too much information.

  “I’m just gonna go off the top of my head if I make it in,” Nikolai says. I believe he could pull it off. Aside from winning at Punderdome, he’s a compulsive storyteller who once finished a ninety-page feature screenplay in two days. He also founded improv clubs in middle school, high school, and college. If anyone can freestyle a Punniest of Show off the dome, it’s Nikolai.

  We fill Gracie in on our situation with the lottery, and she’s surprised at how many people in our group didn’t make it in. Her face lights up when we mention Jerzy, though. He’s a friend of hers. Not only have they hung out at Pun-Offs past, but when she was visiting Brooklyn once, Jerzy invited her to Punderdome. Although she ended up getting shockingly snockered that night, she still managed to scrape a second-place finish, losing out to—who else?—Jerzy.

  A clean-cut blond guy leans over from the other side of Gracie, introduces himself as Michael, and asks how we’re feeling about tomorrow. Instead of repeating everything we just said, I say we’re feeling pretty good and return the question.

  “I’m feeling pretty good about it, too,” he says with a slippery smile like maybe he feels really, really good about it. Before I can say anything back, Gary blows a whistle and bangs his keys against a bowling-ball-size bell like a gong.

  “Welcome to the 2016 O. Henry Warm-Up and Punster of the Year dinner,” Gary says. The reverb coming out of his microphone will not stop, but he continues talking, while a server fiddles with an amp nearby.

  A young couple walks in and halts just beyond the threshold, taking the scene in. Their eyes convey a deep sense of alarm, the possibility that they’ve made an epic miscalculation. It’s too late, though. Gary sees them and publicly directs them to the open seats near our table. They sit down and nod at us uncomfortably, like distant coworkers trapped in an elevator.

  Gary goes on to give the history of this dinner. It’s a tradition that started years ago as a hybrid of two other traditions. Every Friday, a month and a half before the Pun-Off, the Punsters United Nearly Yearly organization Gary founded would gather together to do weekly warm-up games, leading up to the big warm-up dinner the night before the O. Henry. Meanwhile, there used to be a dinner in Chicago honoring the Punster of the Year. These separate dinners eventually fused together into a gustatory hybrid.

  “You all can try to figure out who the honoree is this year,” Gary says, gesturing to the guy who is dressed like a high school Shakespeare play, “and the rest of us will remain ornery not honorary.” His pun gets absolutely zero reaction.

  In the background, the documentary Pun-Smoke is playing. Every now and then it syncs up so that a thirteen-years-younger Gary appears to be trapped in the wall, trying to send a message that present-day Gary is too busy punning to hear.

  My phone buzzes and it’s a group text from Isaac: “LITTLEFIELD LOFTS???” None of us have fully gotten over this weird coincidence yet either.

  “How many people are on the wait list and came down here on a great act of faith that they’ll get into the Pun-Off?” Gary asks. “How many optimists do we have?”

  Everyone in the Punderdome group’s hands shoot up, except for Max, who never registered. Ally and I look each other in the eyes and share a silent happy-scream. Maybe we’re going to slide into the O. Henry roster after all.

  “Congratulations,” Gary says. “You’re going to play in our first round of pun games tonight.”

  Ally and I now roll our eyes. There’s still a chance we’ll get in, but I would’ve thought we’d know for sure by now.

  Ben Ziek takes the microphone from Gary to MC the night’s first game, which is titled Gyp-Parody, boldly sidestepping political correctness. The screen that was playing the movie abruptly shifts to a MacBook desktop, and then to the familiar stacked rows of blue boxes that make up a Jeopardy! board.

  A punny game show could only be more inside Ben Ziek’s wheelhouse if you could win it with a pile driver. This kind of game is exactly what he provides with his side business, only here he doesn’t just squeeze puns into Alex Trebekian stage patter, but makes them part of the game itself. Ziek still hasn’t heard back from the actual folks at Jeopardy! since passing the online test, but here he gets to play the game his way.

  Up first at Gyp-Parody are me, Nikolai, and a stocky Austin punster named Marty. Although I’ve spoken to Ziek over the phone before, this is my first time meeting him. In person, he is friendly, charming, and a little intimidating.

  “Joe, give me a number between one and Frisbee,” he says.

  “Um, four?”

  “All right, go ahead and pick your topic.”

  I choose Fictional Characters. The clue is a folk hero who cries as he takes from the rich and gives to the poor. I’m almost inappropriately excited to know this one, restraining myself from blurting out celebratory expletives.

  “Who is Sobbin’ Hood?” I say, and Ziek congratulates me.

  After this turn, I get one more correct answer. Then Nikolai jumps in when I don’t realize the clumsy barber of Fleet Street is Sweeney Clod. From this point on, Nikolai just dominates, getting every single answer and completely shutting out poo
r Marty. It is not close at all.

  “Don’t let that goy push you around,” a voice says, despite the fact that Nikolai is standing right next to me, and despite the fact that Texas is the last place I would’ve expected to receive misguided Jewish camaraderie. The voice belongs to a little old man nodding intently in the front row, wearing a baseball cap over some serious Willie Nelson hair. His name is Arlen, and he’s up next, against Ariel and Ally, despite looking frail enough that the weight of the microphone pulling him down seems like a legitimate threat.

  “I’m defending the honor of men!” Arlen says, and his two opponents sort of examine him like a thing in a museum.

  This second round of Gyp-Parody is more abstract, with the players reverse engineering a setup from a phrase to turn it into a pun. Ally and Ariel are fully engaged, and back at the table Nikolai, Max, and I agree that a version of this game should wind up in Punderdome.

  Ariel’s eyes briefly appear to pop out of her head when one of the prompts is Cross Dresser, but punster Ariel prevails over LGBTQ activist Ariel and dings in to say, “What is a church interior decorator?”

  “Any chap’ll tell you that’s a great answer,” Ben Ziek says. He was born to host this game. Stage patter and puns practically drip from his pores as he keeps things moving.

  “Who’s Elmer Fudd’s favorite Batman villain, by the way?” he asks. “The Whittler.”

  Arlen stands by the entire time, grinning as though he either thinks he’s ahead or has no idea what’s going on.

  Back at the table, Gracie begins telling me about her earliest O. Henry experiences.

  “When I first went, there were maybe three women that year,” she says. “It was surprising. I didn’t realize punning was such an old man’s game. But it’s changing. It’s getting younger and it’s getting more female, too.”

  Apparently, Gary and David Gugenheim even pursued Gracie as an MC for Punslingers, which would’ve made her the first-ever female to do the job, but she declined. Being one of the Punniest of Show judges this year seemed like enough of a chance to get booed by the audience for making tough calls.