The Comedian

     Hey there Teddy, sorry, I know your mum doesn’t like it when I call you that. But I’m just so excited to see my grandson, it’s been what, three years?

    In your letters, even the other residents here can’t believe I still get letters, they just get emails and texts and face calls, but I like it that you send me letters. There’s something great about being able to hold a physical letter and always going back to read it again when you want, of course, unless it gets thrown out or ruined or something.

    Sorry, I tend to ramble a little bit these days. I’m sure it’s the meds, and not my age. In your letters, you said you were interested in any interesting stories of “weird or strange people or events” from my time growing up. Said you was collecting them to write a book or something?

    I tell you what, I’ve got a lot. Enough that you could write a whole book on just the stories I could give ya. I’m so glad you’re here, this will be so much easier to tell in person than in letters. Too many words to get down on paper.

    And I’m glad its on a Saturday too. Saturdays are really boring around here. Relatives and friends of most the other folk here are too busy to come round on a Saturday, so we have to rely on whatever asinine activities they’ve got cooked up for us.

    Oh sure, on Saturdays, they may get some coordinator types to have more fancy activities then what we get during the week, but I tell you what, its all the same shit.

    If you can pass me my coffee over there, yes, I know it’s cold, but that’s the way I like it, soothes the throat. Here, I’ve got one of them stories to tell ya that you’ve been asking me about.

    Now in my time growing up and even going through my years, I witnessed many strange things. I don’t know why, but I reckon I saw more than what the average person has seen in their lifetime. Maybe enough for three lifetimes! Ooh boy, let me tell you, I’ve seen a lot. I don’t know if maybe there was just some big universal force out there that wanted me to witness these things, but I was drawn to them like, a magnet, I suppose.

    The one I want to tell you today, may not be very long, but it’s one that has stuck with me well. Just like all my stories though, I haven’t forgotten a single detail. I think.

    Grab yourself a seat Ted- I mean Theodore, and make yourself as comfortable as you can. I’m sorry they aren’t the best, but as you can see, I’ve got the best seat in the room. To support my old bones and all.

    The story! Well, this one takes me back. Was about this young fella I knew, that wanted to become a comedian. His name was Michael Drysdale.

    Oh, this fella, he was a funny man he was. His jokes and subject matter could vary widely within a single ten minute routine. This was back when ten maybe fifteen minutes was considered prime. None of this sixty to ninety minute stuff, no sir.

    His succinct way with words, and painting a picture, and even doing voices. He was great at observational humour too. He was great at noticing interesting things from the most mundane of crap. I remember he did a bit on a bottle of shampoo, and did that get the room roaring with laughter.

    Every time I saw him and got to have a chat, I’d bring up my favourite jokes and bits of his. I know I must’ve repeated myself, and probably said what so many other people said to him, but he was always so polite and would let me talk and say my bit. Always bringing up that kind laughter, the one where later you realise, they was just being polite to get you to be quiet. But he was always polite.

    Anyway, there was this one time I even offered him one of my jokes and said he could use it. And ya know what? The bastard did. Sure, he did a little spin on it, used a little creative licence as it were, but I knew it was my joke, I could see its bones were there.

    One time, a few of us went out to dinner with him. He was real good friends with one of my good friends. His name was Gary Shorthalt. Pity he’s passed away, he’d be able to add more to this story. Give some deeper insight. Anecdotes, ya know?

    So, there we were, out to dinner. It wasn’t the ritz, where the real rich people go, but it was fancy enough. Michael knew most of us didn’t have wallets as deep as our dreams, so he picked somewhere that wasn’t out of our depth.

    It had a mean pork knuckle that place.

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    At the table, we all had our meals and a few drinks, and we all got Michael talking about himself. This guy was the closest we’d ever come to a celebrity; he was doing bits on the radio and television. And I remember, Gary asked him why he chose to be a comedian.

    “Simply to make people laugh.” He said those exact words, I remember it. “The world has gone to shit, and it’ll only get worse. So why not spread a little cheer?” That how he responded. It was so simple; we couldn’t believe it. And like I said, the guy was good. We don’t know how, but the guy was making a full time living from it.

    We think a lot of money came from a few advertisements he did. And he did say that other big-time celebrities, I’m talking actors and directors, would pay him to perform routines at their parties.

    Anyways, lets get this story really going hey. Can you make me up another coffee please? Really bitter and strong with no sugar. Thanks, I’ll get to drinking it when it cools down.

    Just before he was meant to go onto a spot on nighttime television, he found out his parents were murdered. There house was broken into, and they were killed.

    Of course, he didn’t take it well. I can’t blame him; nobody would take kindly to that kind of news.

    He stepped on stage, insisting that he had to, but when he was meant to start, he just stood there. Silent like a statue. The host tried talking to him a few times, but nothing happened.

    He was rushed off stage and the newspapers didn’t take kindly to him. They mentioned what happened to his parents, sure, a few days after the fact. They wanted to sell their papers they did.

    Nobody heard from Michael for a few months. No, he’d completely disappeared. Even Gary couldn’t see him.

    A few times he went to visit his lovely mansion, but the butler would turn Gary away at the door.

    After almost six months, Michael finally made a return. And that’s when his humour took a bit of a dark turn. His topics would often touch into the macabre, gallows humour. It was still funny mind you, it really was, but the old fans all noticed the change.

    The last time we went out to dinner with him, we all knew he was different. But of course, he was, his parents had been murdered and he’d been ridiculed nationwide by the papers.

    He kept talking about “finding the perfect joke.” Like it was some kind of single thing he could achieve.

    Now, I don’t think there’s such thing as a singular perfect joke. No one thing can be that good. But Michael insisted it was there, he just had to figure it out.

    “It will finally wash away the emptiness I have inside of me.” The poor fella. He really couldn’t cope with what had happened to him, and I don’t blame him.

    He went silent for another three months or so, then when he made a comeback, it was in a little dive bar. Only about, oh, twenty people? He went through his routine, all fresh material, he was good at always having new stuff, and then he closed it all off with a real zinger.

    It was great. How it tied everything together in a neat little bow. It was funny shit, and well, one person thought it was so good, they died right then and there as they was laughing. I kid you not.

    It took a while for the room to even notice that somebody had just died. We was all too distracted from his joke.

    It started with a woman’s scream. The wife of the guy who had just died. That’s when the panic hit and the atmosphere in the room had changed.

    But I remember a little something from that night. And I reckon I was the only one that saw it, there was a glint of excitement in Michael’s eye. Like he got a kick out of this guy dying of laughter to his joke.

    Michael’s performances were now few and far between. He’d lock himself away in his house for long stretches at a time, always emerging as though he’d never had any sleep.

    His next show was even funnier. This time to a crowd of a hundred people. And this time, four people died in the crowd. It wasn’t all at once, and it wasn’t all at the final punchline either. But again, people didn’t realise until too late, because they was all too distracted by his bit.

    It became a common enough thing, that even the newspapers started to write about it. He was the “killer clown” and the “comedian with the deadly punchline.” But people didn’t stop going to his shows, they were like moths drawn to a flame.

    It wasn’t until his final show that it all finally came to a stop. And I reckon the people were safe coz it was a radio spot and not on television. See, he hadn’t been on the telly since that show where he went silent.

    Gary had told me later that Michael swore he had perfected a joke. That it was a real doozy, and that it was gonna knock a lot of people flat.

    I listened to the show, of course I did. I was a fan, but I reckon I was lucky, coz I missed the punchline.

    See, your mother was a newborn by then, and things can be pretty crazy when a baby is in the house. I was distracted by your mother crying, and I reckon that cry saved my life.

    Reports came out that over two thousand people died that night. All while laughing at his closing punchline.

    Don’t believe me? I’m sure you can check up the old newspaper articles on the computer or something, coz it did happen.

    At first, there wasn’t much they could do with him. How’s it a crime to be so funny that people die of laughter? They banned him from having any performances though. And it would’ve stayed at that, but he admitted he would keep doing it. That he still needed to perfect the joke.

    Course, that didn’t go down real well. And well, they made a real special, one of a kind punishment for him. He had his tongue cut out when he went to prison.

    That’s it. That’s the story. Like I said Teddy, I’ve got a lot. Lots of weird things happen, and I just so happen to have seen a lot of them myself. Come back any time, especially on a Saturday. I’ll give you a enough to fill a whole book.