Jester

So, I want to start off by explaining why I crack jokes to all of yous here.

You see, I had a thing when I was a child when my mother and father would tell me to crack jokes to lighten up the mood. I always thought jokes were the full-stops to decent conversations, and then everyone went home. So, when I didn’t know what to say, and wanted to go home, I’d crack a joke. But then they’d ask me to crack another one, and I’d try to come up with another. There’d be a strange pause, which would make me so uncomfortable I’d want to take my skin off and rinse it, you know what I mean?

I don’t enjoy silences.

So, I’d joke. I’d joke about hating silences, and people would laugh. No more silences. Jokes came to me easy because of my fear of the lack of them. I grew to hate, and even fear conversation. Soon as someone would say something real, I’d crack a joke.

They told me to do stand-up, but I wasn’t too sure, because I thought, hey, that’s not a conversation. That’s just a person standing in front of the mic trying to come up with jokes. But I gave it a try, and got it wrong the first few times. Stand-up is one of those stage-things where you’d rather get laughed off the stage than booed off it.

But I said to myself, imagine the audience is a person trying to talk to you. That’s what I’m doing right now to you too, I’m trying to talk over you, and make you laugh. Hasn’t worked yet, but wait for it.

So, they started knowing me as a funny guy. Some of those low-lifes called me out every once in a while, they’d honk my nose, call me a clown, ask me to crack a joke or two. It was a funny thing they said, a real play on words. They said, ‘crack a joke or I’ll crack your skull.’ I’d laugh, and they’d laugh. It was cool.

After every skit I did, I’d leave, or I’d like to think I left, the audience in splits. I’d rush off stage with a bow, and hope to reach my green-room before I collapsed, shivering. It was hard, but it got me through some hard times.

With a few dozen skits under me, something funny started to happen. I started to forget why I used to joke. I started to think I was actually funny, and not just a runner-runner. Apparently, that’s what happens with practice, but I wouldn’t have believed it if the Divine Mother herself descended down to tell me about it. But yes, I started to think I was funny. And I was. Maybe.

I started sorting through a bunch of my friends. Some of them, I noticed, wore a frown no matter what I said. Something was always up with them. I tried to cheer them up, but it annoyed me to no end that after the punchline joke, they’d laugh a little, customarily, and then go back to their complaining. They were so boring. I resented them.

I hated those angry ones too, and the sad ones: a flat tire, a relative dead, it was all the same. If they were given a raise, they’d be complaining about how they wanted more than they got. I started finding myself not enjoying around them. Perhaps on purpose, perhaps subconsciously, I became aloof from these. A good chunk of my friends changed, and I pursued more livelier conversations, with jokes and laughs all the time.

At one of these lively parties, I rested my eyes on the prettiest man I’d ever seen. He was chatting with one of my new friends, laughing and smiling along.

Naturally, I went up to him, and introduced myself. He told me his name, too, and I promised myself I would remember it.

It began innocently enough, with pleasantries, and me trying to hijack his conversation with my friend. But, I found soon, something peculiar. I cracked a joke or two, I admit, I’m slow, so it took me a second, but I realized, after each joke, only my friend was laughing. Not him.

Not even a smile.

I was confused. I went back to my mental joke book, and tried a variety of genres, and deliveries. But nothing. He just didn’t find me funny.

I suffered through an hour of conversation, and one-sided laughter, and at the end of the night, he shook my hand, and bid me adieu, telling me he had fun.

Well, I hadn’t.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I twisted and turned till midnight, and then switched on my lamp. Sleep was far off, dancing in a corner. I took out my joke book, and thought.

In five hours, I came up with two dozen jokes, which I then refined, polished, and practiced on a mirror. I practiced it again and again, stopping every now and then because I found them funny myself. Then, I eliminated a couple of them, because they weren’t up to the mark, and mixed up the rest of the jokes in a bowl, selecting seven at random, which I practiced a little more.

I called up my friend in the morning, and got the man’s number from her. I called him up, and asked him out to coffee. Surprisingly, he said yes.

I practiced the whole afternoon, and in the car, and on the table before he arrived, and to the waiter, who laughed so hard she nearly dropped her jug. I apologized, but ended up turning it into a joke, which she sniggered at too.

It all went to shit as soon as he arrived. We talked. I tried all seven a couple of times each at varying intervals, and he pokerfaced right through them. I couldn’t get it. I thought he was bored as hell, but right before he left, he told me he was “intrigued” by me. I would’ve liked to tell him I was head-over-heels for him, but I held my tongue.

I joked about the intrigue, but he took my joke at face value, whereupon I had to explain to him that I was trying to joke. He was confused.

I explained to him that I was a clown, but he was unconvinced.

That night, I took out a rusty revolver from a corner of a cupboard. I’ll admit I wasn’t looking for it, at least not consciously. I was looking for sleep.

The revolver was my father’s, the bullet were my mother’s. Still there. Still worked. I hoped.

I held it to my temple, and was about to pull the trigger, but I remembered a joke about a comedian trying to off himself with a gun. I remembered it as vividly as I had the first time. It had made me laugh so hard I had peed myself. I laughed again this time. I had to put the gun back down.

I had to laugh at it. No one else would.

I met him a couple of times more: the first time, I tried to rehearse a few jokes again, but it didn’t do anything, and the second time I gave up on rehearsals, and thought maybe an in-the-moment joke would make him laugh. I couldn’t understand why I kept going back to him, and indeed, why he kept coming back to me.

He was just another one of those serious people who took the piss out of everything fun in life.

But was he? He laughed at other people, at other jokes. Just not at me.

So why did he meet me again and again? I couldn’t make him laugh, my jokes had no effects on him. Was it my personality he found clownish? Wasn’t I an unbearable bore to him, just as he should have been to me?

In my confusion, I slipped on a banana peel. Suddenly, I heard him laugh. It happened all too quickly for me to realize, and I, at first, dismissed it as him laughing at somebody else. But no. He was laughing at me.

Exhilarated, I got up, and pretended to slip on a banana peel again. He laughed again.

I had him now. Finally. Like a trout on a hook, only coming to the one who waited enough. Patience, they say, is a virtue. Active patience. I had him. But, much like the trout, he could slip away any second. I couldn’t afford that happening, now, could I? I couldn’t. What could I do? He had stopped to catch his breath after I fell again. I had to do something to keep him laughing. It’s like they say, once they start, it’s easy to keep them going. Once they stop, it is death.

He had almost stopped, and I had nothing. I didn’t want to say anything, in case I broke the spell. In my desperation, I scrambled up, and slapped myself hard.

He giggled slightly. It was working.

 I punched myself. He laughed a little more. He was holding his stomach now.

I looked around for a rock, and found it. I acted the goat, throwing the rock high up in the sky, then standing under it pretending to adjust my tie. It hit me hard. He laughed harder.

‘Stop!’ he howled, doubled over.

I blinked a couple of times, thinking. I saw a ditch a little ahead, and hit upon an idea. I began to dance exaggeratedly, working myself to a slight run; then, I started cartwheeling. Once. Twice. Thrice, into the ditch. I fell hard, and hurt my collarbone.

He laughed.

‘Please! I can’t take it anymore!’ he was on the floor now, with tears of laughter, struggling to catch his breath.

I didn’t stop.

I took a bunch of needles and stuck them in my face, and then stuck my tongue out. I smashed my head with a glass, and then tap-danced on the broken glass after making a routine out of taking out my shoes and socks. Then, I hit myself repeatedly with a wrench.

At this point, he was sobbing uncontrollably. You couldn’t even tell if he was laughing, or in pain. The only indication was his warped, twisted smile, all his teeth visible, with eyes streaming tears.

I was exhausted, and sweating from all the exertion, but he was finally laughing. It made me smile. I wondered what else I could do, and a thought came to mind. I dug my left hand into my pocket, looking for my trusty old gun. I looked him straight in the face, watching his anticipation. I waited just a second to let it build, then I pulled it out. His isHHeyes crinkled, almost daring me to do it, and I knew this final gag would kill him completely. I took a breath, and said, ‘Oh well, all good things have to end.’ It was my “that’s all folks”, and I took a bow. Then, I straightened up.

He kept laughing till the blood reached his feet.