Funny Ha, Ha

by Paul Merton

  The air in the shop, which had been thick when I first entered, was fresh compared to the poisonous fug of Cooper’s room. ‘Look around,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a very good deal.’

  I paced around the shop, sidestepping to get through the tight spaces between display shelves, and looked at the eyes of cockatoos and kittens and rabbits and snakes. Nothing made an impression on me. My mind was blank. I couldn’t shake the image from my head of Cooper beneath the water, his hands pressed against the glass sides of the tank.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You’re the expert. What do you think my girlfriend would like?’

  At this, the muscular plates of his face slid around an expression of pure delight. ‘Yes. Yes!’ He said, jabbing a triumphant finger into the air. ‘I have it.’ And he went through a beaded curtain into a back room, coming back moments later with a small cage covered in a thick, dark cloth.

  The man lifted up the corner of the cloth and urged me to peer inside. I could see nothing in there at first, but as I pressed my nose against the metal bars, my eyes adjusted and I could see, sat on a smooth branch, a small possum-like creature. Its long tail was wrapped around the branch, and as I inhaled, it turned its enormous eyes to me.

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘She is a Madagascan nightingale lemur. Very rare. At dusk, she sings a song that would send lions to sleep.’

  ‘That’s perfect,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  We were discussing the price, when the man put one palm up in the air, and the index finger of his other hand to his lips. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Do you hear that? She is about to start singing.’

  LA BAMBA HOT LINE

  Bobbie Ann Mason

  Bobbie Ann Mason (1940–) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her first short stories were published in The New Yorker in the 1980s and she has published two novels, In Country and The Girl in the Blue Beret. Her memoir, Clear Springs, about an American farm family throughout the twentieth century, was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize.

  “Hello. La Bamba Hot Line.”

  “Is it true that ‘La Bamba’ is derived from the Icelandic Younger Edda, set to music by Spanish sailors and transported via the Caribbean to America in 1665?”

  “No, not even close. La Bamba Hot Line. Go ahead, please.”

  “When is the next Louie Louie Parade scheduled?”

  “You want the Louie Louie Hot Line. This is the La Bamba Hot Line.”

  “Oh.”

  “La Bamba Hot Line.”

  “This is Senator Sethspeaks in Washington, on the Committee for the Investigation of Obscene Rock Lyrics.”

  “State your business, please.”

  “Uh—I was wondering, just what are the words to ‘La Bamba’?”

  “Do you have the record?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, listen to it.”

  “But I can’t tell if the words are obscene or not.”

  “That’s your problem. La Bamba Hot Line.”

  “My teen-age daughter has been acting funny lately. She refuses to eat, and she has frown lines on her face. She’s become aggressive with her parrot and when you talk to her she just says everything is geeky. The doctor can’t find anything wrong with her. What should I do?”

  “I’m glad you asked. The La Bamba Hot Line has a special pamphlet dealing with problems of teen-agers. Just send a self-addressed stamped envelope to La Bamba Hot Line, P.O. Box 4700. But first, I’d have a heart-to-heart with that parrot.”

  “Much obliged.”

  “Likewise, I’m sure. La Bamba Hot Line.”

  “This is Phil Donahue. Is it true that the La Bamba Hot Line is having a lip-sync contest?”

  “Absolutely. October the ninth.”

  “What do I have to do to win?”

  “What do you think? Perform ‘La Bamba’ till your eyes bug out, do it like a rockin’ fool, blow the house down.”

  “Do you think I’ve got a chance?”

  “Everybody has a chance in life, Mr. Donahue.”

  *

  You wouldn’t believe the stuff I get on the La Bamba Hot Line. I work twelve to four. It’s an intensive job and can burn you out quick. Two short breaks, while all the calls stack up. They get a message, “All the La Bamba Hot Lines are temporarily busy. Please try again.” It’s unfair that people have to keep calling and calling, dialling till their nails split in order to get the La Bamba Hot Line. We need help! We need somebody to handle the genuine emergencies, weed out the crazies. The things people want to know; they want to know are they going to get cancer, will the plane they have a ticket on for tomorrow crash, which stores are giving double coupons this week? We try to answer what we can, but I mean we’re not God. I tell them play “La Bamba” thirty-two times in a dark room, then improvise thirty-two versions, then listen to it standing on their head. I tell them to walk down the street muttering “Yo no soy marinero/Soy capitán.” Count the number of people who recognize the lines and multiply by four, and whatever number that is, that’s Ollie North’s secret Swiss bank account. I mean, some things are so simple you wonder why anybody would bother calling up. We deal with a lot of that. Little kids call just to be funny, try to catch us off guard. Is your refrigerator running, that kind of thing. I’m on to them. I start screaming a wild, cacophonous sort of schizo “La Bamba.” Blows them right out of the water.

  But mostly it’s scholars. Academic stuff. People wanting to know about roots, symbolism, the double-entendre of the marinero/capitán lines, etc. Idea stuff. I spend my mornings at the library just to stay even with these people. Man, they’re sharp. One guy had a beaut—a positive beaut. The way he traced the Paul-is-dead hoax back to the lost Shakespearean sonnets, twisting it around and back through “Poor Ritchie’s Almanac” straight up to the chord progressions of “La Bamba”—it was breathtaking. The switchboard was lit up like the stars in the open desert sky on a clear night while I listened and kept all those calls on hold. I was humbled right to my knees. Unfortunately, his spiel didn’t get recorded and I didn’t get the guy’s name. But he’ll call again. I’m sure he will.

  Some of the ideas that come in are just junk, of course. Did Idi Amin record “La Bamba”? Of course not. But former President Jimmy Carter did. Some stuff you hear is so unbelievable. No, the Voyager is not carrying “La Bamba” out to the end of the universe. Don’t I wish. That’s sort of my job really, to carry “La Bamba” to the end of the universe.

  *

  My boyfriend is giving me a hard time. He says I take my work too seriously. We’ll be watching “Washington Week in Review” and I’ll say, “Look at those guys. Talk about serious. Don’t they ever get down?” He says, “All day it’s your La Bamba duties, your La Bamba research, your La Bamba outfits. You go off in the morning with your La Bamba briefcase. When are we ever going to talk about us?”

  He says, “This La Bamba thing is going to blow over any minute. It may be blown over by Friday. Things are that fast these days.”

  “Don’t say that!” I cry. “Buddy Holly. ‘American Pie.’ The Big Bopper. Elvis. Things last longer than you think.”

  We’re going through crisis time, I guess. But we’ll work it out. I have faith in that. Right now, my work is at a critical juncture. I’m talking demographics. Market potentializing. La Bamba aerobics, theme weddings, instructional software. We were represented at the harmonic convergence. We met on the boardwalk at Atlantic City, an overflow crowd of La Bamba regulars. We played the song over and over and concentrated on fibre optics, sending our vibes out all over the universe.

  The special thing is, my boyfriend can sing “La Bamba.” He’s not allowed to enter the lip-sync contest because it would be sort of a conflict of interest. He doesn’t just lip-sync. He sings it a cappella. He sounds so sincere when he sings it. He makes up the words—he’s not a purist—but they sound right; he has the right tune. That is the secret of “La Bamba,” inventing it as you go along. That is
the true soul of La Bamba. La Bamba lives.

  THE VERGER

  W. Somerset Maugham

  William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) trained and qualified as a physician but, following the success of his first novel in 1897, he gave up medicine to write full time. One of the most successful writers of the twentieth century, his novels include Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence and The Painted Veil, and he also wrote a number of short story collections and plays. In 1947 he founded a prize in his name awarded to the best British writer under thirty-five.

  There had been a christening that afternoon at St Peter’s, Neville Square, and Albert Edward Foreman still wore his verger’s gown. He kept his new one, its folds as full and stiff as though it were made not of alpaca but of perennial bronze, for funerals and weddings (St Peter’s, Neville Square, was a church much favoured by the fashionable for these ceremonies) and now he wore only his second-best. He wore it with complacence, for it was the dignified symbol of his office, and without it (when he took it off to go home) he had the disconcerting sensation of being somewhat insufficiently clad. He took pains with it; he pressed it and ironed it himself. During the sixteen years he had been verger of this church he had had a succession of such gowns, but he had never been able to throw them away when they were worn out and the complete series, neatly wrapped up in brown paper, lay in the bottom drawers of the wardrobe in his bedroom.

  The verger busied himself quietly, replacing the painted wooden cover on the marble font, taking away a chair that had been brought for an infirm old lady, and waited for the vicar to have finished in the vestry so that he could tidy up in there and go home. Presently he saw him walk across the chancel, genuflect in front of the high altar, and come down the aisle; but he still wore his cassock.

  ‘What’s he ’anging about for?’ the verger said to himself. ‘Don’t’e know I want my tea?’

  The vicar had been but recently appointed, a red-faced energetic man in the early forties, and Albert Edward still regretted his predecessor, a clergyman of the old school who preached leisurely sermons in a silvery voice and dined out a great deal with his more aristocratic parishioners. He liked things in church to be just so, but he never fussed; he was not like this new man who wanted to have his finger in every pie. But Albert Edward was tolerant. St Peter’s was in a very good neighbourhood and the parishioners were a very nice class of people. The new vicar had come from the East End and he couldn’t be expected to fall in all at once with the discreet ways of his fashionable congregation.

  ‘All this ’ustle.’ said Albert Edward. ‘But give ’im time, he’ll learn.’

  When the vicar had walked down the aisle so far that he could address the verger without raising his voice more than was becoming in a place of worship he stopped.

  ‘Foreman, will you come into the vestry for a minute. I have something to say to you.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The vicar waited for him to come up and they walked up the church together.

  ‘A very nice christening, I thought, sir. Funny ’ow the baby stopped cryin’ the moment you took him.’

  ‘I’ve noticed they very often do,’ said the vicar, with a little smile. ‘After all I’ve had a good deal of practice with them.’

  It was a source of subdued pride to him that he could nearly always quiet a whimpering infant by the manner in which he held it and he was not unconscious of the amused admiration with which mothers and nurses watched him settle the baby in the crook of his surpliced arm. The verger knew that it pleased him to be complimented on his talent. The vicar preceded Albert Edward into the vestry. Albert Edward was a trifle surprised to find the two churchwardens there. He had not seen them come in. They gave him pleasant nods.

  ‘Good afternoon, my lord. Good afternoon, sir,’ he said to one after the other.

  They were elderly men, both of them, and they had been churchwardens almost as long as Albert Edward had been verger. They were sitting now at a handsome refectory table that the old vicar had brought many years before from Italy and the vicar sat down in the vacant chair between them. Albert Edward faced them, the table between him and them, and wondered with slight uneasiness what was the matter. He remembered still the occasion on which the organist had got into trouble and the bother they had all had to hush things up. In a church like St Peter’s, Neville Square, they couldn’t afford a scandal. On the vicar’s red face was a look of resolute benignity, but the others bore an expression that was slightly troubled.

  ‘He’s been naggin’ them, he ’as,’ said the verger to himself. ‘He’s jockeyed them into doin’ something, but they don’t ’alf like it. That’s what it is, you mark my words.’

  But his thoughts did not appear on Albert Edward’s clean-cut and distinguished features. He stood in a respectful but not obsequious attitude. He had been in service before he was appointed to his ecclesiastical office, but only in very good houses, and his deportment was irreproachable. Starting as a page-boy in the household of a merchant prince, he had risen by due degrees from the position of fourth to first footman, for a year he had been single-handed butler to a widowed peeress, and, till the vacancy occurred at St Peter’s, butler with two men under him in the house of a retired ambassador. He was tall, spare, grave, and dignified. He looked, if not like a duke, at least like an actor of the old school who specialized in dukes’ parts. He had tact, firmness, and self-assurance. His character was unimpeachable.

  The vicar began briskly.

  ‘Foreman, we’ve got something rather unpleasant to say to you. You’ve been here a great many years and I think his lordship and the general agree with me that you’ve fulfilled the duties of your office to the satisfaction of everybody concerned.’

  The two churchwardens nodded.

  ‘But a most extraordinary circumstance came to my knowledge the other day and I felt it my duty to impart it to the churchwardens. I discovered to my astonishment that you could neither read nor write.’

  The verger’s face betrayed no sign of embarrassment.

  ‘The last vicar knew that, sir,’ he replied. ‘He said it didn’t make no difference. He always said there was a great deal too much education in the world for ’is taste.’

  ‘It’s the most amazing thing I ever heard,’ cried the general. ‘Do you mean to say that you’ve been verger of this church for sixteen years and never learned to read or write.’

  ‘I went into service when I was twelve, sir. The cook in the first place tried to teach me once, but I didn’t seem to ’ave the knack for it, and then what with one thing and another I never seemed to ’ave the time. I’ve never really found the want of it. I think a lot of these young fellows waste a rare lot of time readin’ when they might be doin’ something useful.’

  ‘But don’t you want to know the news? said the other churchwarden. ‘Don’t you ever want to write a letter?’

  ‘No, me lord, I seem to manage very well without. And of late years now they’ve all these pictures in the papers I get to know what’s goin’ on pretty well. Me wife’s quite a scholar and if I want to write a letter she writes it for me. It’s not as if I was a bettin’ man.’ The two churchwardens gave the vicar a troubled glance and then looked down at the table.

  ‘Well, Foreman, I’ve talked the matter over with these gentlemen and they quite agree with me that the situation is impossible. At a church like St Peter’s, Neville Square, we cannot have a verger who can neither read nor write.’

  Albert Edward’s thin, sallow face reddened and he moved uneasily on his feet, but he made no reply.

  ‘Understand me, Foreman, I have no complaint to make against you. You do your work quite satisfactorily; I have the highest opinion both of your character and of your capacity; but we haven’t the right to take the risk of some accident that might happen owing to your lamentable ignorance. It’s a matter of prudence as well as of principle.’

  ‘But couldn’t you learn, Foreman? asked the general.

  ‘No, s
ir, I’m afraid I couldn’t, not now. You see, I’m not as young as I was and if I couldn’t seem able to get the letters in me ’ead when I was a nipper I don’t think there’s much chance of it now.’

  ‘We don’t want to be harsh with you, Foreman,’ said the vicar. ‘But the churchwardens and I have quite made up our minds. We’ll give you three months and if at the end of that time you cannot read and write I’m afraid you’ll have to go.’

  Albert Edward had never liked the new vicar. He’d said from the beginning that they’d made a mistake when they gave him St Peter’s. He wasn’t the type of man they wanted with a classy congregation like that. And now he straightened himself a little. He knew his value and he wasn’t going to allow himself to be put upon. ‘I’m very sorry, sir. I’m afraid it’s no good. I’m too old a dog to learn new tricks. I’ve lived a good many years without knowin’ ’ow to read and write, and without wishin’ to praise myself, self praise is no recommendation, I don’t mind sayin’ I’ve done my duty in that state of life in which it ’as pleased a merciful providence to place me, and if I could learn now I don’t know as I’d want to.’

  ‘In that case. Foreman, I’m afraid you must go.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I quite understand. I shall be ’appy to ’and in my resignation as soon as you’ve found somebody to take my place.’

  But when Albert Edward with his usual politeness had closed the church door behind the vicar and the two churchwardens he could not sustain the air of unruffled dignity with which he had borne the blow inflicted upon him and his lips quivered. He walked slowly back to the vestry and hung up on its proper peg his verger’s gown. He sighed as he thought of all the grand funerals and smart weddings it had seen. He tidied everything up, put on his coat, and hat in hand walked down the aisle. He locked the church door behind him. He strolled across the square, but deep in his sad thoughts he did not take the street that led him home, where a nice strong cup of tea awaited him; he took the wrong turning. He walked slowly along. His heart was heavy. He did not know what he should do with himself. He did not fancy the notion of going back to domestic service; after being his own master for so many years, for the vicar and churchwardens could say what they liked, it was he that had run St Peter’s, Neville Square, he could scarcely demean himself by accepting a situation. He had saved a tidy sum, but not enough to live on without doing something, and life seemed to cost more every year. He had never thought to be troubled with such questions. The vergers of St Peter’s, like the popes of Rome, were there for life. He had often thought of the pleasant reference the vicar would make in his sermon at evensong the first Sunday after his death to the long and faithful service, and the exemplary character of their late verger, Albert Edward Foreman. He sighed deeply. Albert Edward was a non-smoker and a total abstainer, but with a certain latitude; that is to say he liked a glass of beer with his dinner and when he was tired he enjoyed a cigarette. It occurred to him now that one would comfort him and since he did not carry them he looked about him for a shop where he could buy a packet of Gold Flake. He did not at once see one and walked on a little. It was a long street, with all sorts of shops in it, but there was not a single one where you could buy cigarettes.