Day 10 - Only Laugh - Chapter 10 (2261 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

ONLY LAUGH WHEN IT HURTS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 10

“I have been trying to figure out what's funny.”

The audience laughed, they didn't need a joke, they just needed Tony to speak, adjacent to funny was enough.

“I'm not sure I know any more. I mean you'd think I would right? It's kind of my job to know what’s funny.”

Tony is sitting in the spotlight on the edge of the stage holding the microphone casually and speaking to the audience. Behind him instead of the red curtained wall background there is a large flat white surface, paper or material the audience would not be able to tell a difference. A few have noted that the background is different than usual, but there is no interaction with it. Instead Tony walked on the stage, carefully plucked the microphone from the cradle and limped to the edge of the stage, gingerly setting himself down and kicking his legs like a child on a too-big chair before starting to talk.

“I'm a comedian after all, I make people laugh right?” Sheepishly he shrugs his shoulders and the audience laughs.

“Y'see? You laughed! I have no fucking idea why!” Tony appears genuinely amused and confused, which triggers more laughter.

Tony shakes his head. “Bunch of weirdos. No idea.”

“You didn't always laugh at me, I went through my rough patch. I died on stage more than once before I actually almost really died ...” Tony opened his shirt and showed the now healed scar, still red and noticeably there, but unstitched finally and healing properly. He has stopped cutting it after his stage dive had opened a new wound on his head.

The crowd whooped, cheered and clapped for the view of the scar. He stood obligingly and lifted his shirt properly, allowing full access. The man on the spotlight focussed in and showed in it tight brilliance.

“No idea why this gets applause. None. I mean I should not be the one getting the cheers for this, I didn't do this, it was … well the less said about my good friend Roy the better I think. But hey he did it, this is his work of art, not mine.”

“What did I do? I got in the way.”

“There was Roy, casually waving his knife around, a ballet of supple, artful movements like so.” With the affected voice and the effeminate posing of the dance Tony kept the amusement going. Standing on tip toes and delicately waving an imaginary knife, sweeping graceful and over acted arcs, punctuated by sudden stabbing movements and grunts from Tony.

“Very Modern Dance, perhaps even Interpretative Dance?” Tony stopped and rubbed his chin, seemed to remember he had an imaginary knife in his hand and mimed the shock and horror of having a knife in his face. He started away from it, distaste and fear in his eyes. He gingerly held the knife, invisibly between two outstretched fingers and placed it down on the floor and stepped away from the space, where the spotlight stayed. He kept his eyes on the floor, even as the spotlight came back to him, staring at the space where there was no knife.

“Better watch that, can't be too careful with sharp objects.” He rolled his eyes as if to suggest he simply could not be trusted, even with an imaginary blade. Another laugh rolls on.

“Where was I? Oh yeah, Interpretative Dance. There he was minding his own business on the pavement outside, carefully rehearsing his piece of Dance de-constructing the role of the dancer in a post modern connected world and what do I do? Selfishly run in and impale myself on his prop, what a prick! God am I a selfish bastard or what?” He pleads with the audience to take the ludicrous assertion and laugh at it.

“A struggling artist, a peace loving soul, “ The laughter grows knowingly “ gently practising the genteel art of dance with an innocent, peaceful prop.” Tony looks up from under his own downwards gaze and waggles his eyebrows.

The screen behind him shows a nine foot tall picture of the blood-stained blade next to a ruler, from the police investigation.

The biggest laugh he has so far comes back to him and he shakes his head.

“I mean really, the poor, poor man. The artist is once again ignored an persecuted by the system for performing his art. He's in jail now, and me, I'm the one making boatloads of cash and getting all the attention for throwing myself, bodily on to his... innocent prop. And I was not paying much attention at all, I barely slowed myself so self absorbed in my own world I was. I managed to push my self on him, this far!” A red line appeared on the photo, shockingly high on the blade.

There was a mixture of applause, gasps and cackles as people processed the juxtaposition of the joke and the violent reality.

“What a selfish cunt I am. A poor example of humanity.”

Tony was shaking his head.

“No. No dammit, that's not right.” He looks to the crowd again, fire in his eyes. “I can't stand by that, I am not that at all. It's just not true, not in the slightest. It's the wrong word, it's just a vile and horrid word and I should not be using it in this context. It's wrong, it misrepresents and over states and... you know what I should never use that word again.

Tony again shaking his head, a useful visual tic that serves him again and again to be a metaphor for arguments improvised and unrehearsed with himself and the audience.

“It's just .. got … to … go.”

“ I am not a c….” The sentence hangs for a little while while Tony holds up a single finger and clears his throat noisily before lowering it.

“Sorry, where was I? The word. Yes. I am not a … Poor example of humanity in the slightest.”

Now he smiles like a shark.

“I'm a rich example of it. I'm fucking rolling in it!”

Rolling in the adoration of his crowd. The rest of his act can follow now and it no longer matters what he says, he has them in the right spot. They are his for the rest of the night, for the next few performances, he has bought himself some time.

He can make them laugh, it's do-able for a while.

“Considerably rolling in it. What do you do sir?”

The spotlight comes to the seats in the front row, lined with ten or more times the amount of people that usually sit at a table, the floor has been filled in with row upon row of chairs, the door takings have multiplied many times in number, the ticket prices twenty times what they used to be. There were complaints and protests, but they sold out quicker than ever. Hundreds of people where there hand been less than one hundred on a packed, sold out desirable premium entertainment night.

There was a delayed webcast for every performance now. When Tony had cut in line, took over and injured himself on the live cam show an hour before he was scheduled to go on, the watchers knew and would not miss the chance to see it again. Sure it was available later, but the live feed was the business, and even when it was not a night when Tony was going to appear, there was rumours that he might.

The scene in the front row now was being played to the screen behind Tony in 10 feet of stage wall exposure. A line of faces and lit by the stage lights themselves and the roving spot.

The guy in the front row wore a suit and a very expensive jewelled watch on his wrist. He had never been here before but he paid a large sum to get himself in the door and muscled his way with large numbered notes to the front row. He had someone to impress, and it was working, not only had he the dick-swinging power to get the prime position, he got the personal attention of the main attraction. Now he was being projected, ten feet high for hundreds of people, none of whom had what he had now. He was front and centre, and she was hanging on his arm, barely noticed as the light balance put her in the shadows. Whoever she was, her and plenty of others watching were all in his sphere of influence and power. He had cache now. He had always had it in his own mind, but now he had it in theirs. He knew that the interaction would not be designed to flatter him, but any publicity was good publicity. And if you can take a joke well? Bonus.

“I'm a...” Tony cuts him off before he can shout whatever waste of time his career is.

“Doesn't matter. Unless you are fucking Bono, you are not richer than me. Are you Bono?”

The man laughs visibly, enjoying every moment of the spotlight. He pulls the hand of his date to grip his arm tighter still and bring the spotlight to her flawless skin. He cannot answer, because he is roaring his amusement. He will not answer because that was never the plan. He cannot answer so as Tony speaks he keeps his grin wide on the stage/screen behind that man with the microphone.

“You look rich, self absorbed, totally fucking up yourself and self-righteous. You could be Bono?” Then he dismisses the thoughtful observations with the punchline.

“No, I've gone ten seconds talking to you and you haven't said how many fucking kids have died in Africa yet. So. Not. Bono.”

Tony looks him up and down and motions for the spotlight to center on the man, who smiles back at him beaming at the attention but smart enough to say nothing.

“Hmmm, the Pope is richer than me, are you the Pope?”

The spotlight widens and the woman he was succeeding at impressing smiled beautifully into view. Willow thin in expensively casual but stylish clothes and minimal but vastly overpriced diamonds glittered in the light. Tony noted the reflective coruscation and priced it quickly.

“You buy her those?”

The man nodded.

“Jesus, you are loaded!” Tony turned attention to the girlfriend. “Honey?”She smiled demurely, not knowing what to say except calmly and prettily waiting for the question. “For those? He gets Anal.”

The crowd whooped and the girl blushed on queue and then coquettishly blinked at her man who sat up straighter and higher in response.

Tony throws back his head and laughs louder than he had in a long time. This was unintended but sometimes that's the way an audience goes on a night.

“I was going to make a joke about funny hats and say 'You're not the pope'.” He shrugs still laughing bodily. “OR.” He looks about “If your girlfriend was attractive … which she certainly is... then I would have made mention of you not being a pedophile and … “ Tony stopped and looked surprised and worried “OH Fuck. You're not a pedophile are you?” The man stomps his feet in uncontrolled laughter and tries to shake his disagreement back to Tony.

“Oh good, thank fuck for that. Imagine if I had got that wrong? Embarrassing....?”

“Where was I oh yeah, so I was going to make all sorts of cheap jokes about catholics and pedos and then say you're not the Pope and therefore not richer than me. But you know what?”

Tony gets the sole spot back on himself and he fills the wall behind himself as well. He looks back, his ten foot high self now staring out at the audience dwarfing the real him.”Nice.”

The camera suddenly switches to one from the rear of the main room, from up near the spotlights, zoomed in on Tony from behind. He started at the changed image of the back of his own head. He pulls the hair back at the base of his skull, those stitches still showing, the hair slowing the recovery. “Freaky.”

“Anyway” He turns around. “That was what the plan was, make jokes and pick on the audience for a bit. It does not really matter what the people in the front row do or say, well not most of the time it doesn't. But every now and then you get a real gem, one like tonight. Tonight is one of those nights where a comedian's job is so much easier, he gets a chance to make the world a better place.”

Tony looks up to the roof, sniffs back a fake tear or two and feigns emotion overwhelming him. “You just never know what a crowd will give you. Some nights you can't get a laugh to save yourself, some nights you hit every note perfectly. Some nights you get a drunken lout with a sharp knife, some nights you get a man with too much money and a complete whore for a girlfriend. Tonight is one of those nights.”

"Tonight, I helped a fellow man get Anal from his girlfriend.”

The applause erupts like a volcano, whoops, cheers, shouts and laughter all mixed in.

“Makes it all worthwhile you know?”

Tony thumped his fist on his chest and raised it to god.

“Bless.”