The Funny Man (34 page)
Closure
I
HAD NOTHING
dark, my wardrobe being limited to my canary yellow tracksuit and appropriate undergarments. Chet had whisked away my party duds following our one social gathering, but for some reason, that evening as I went to prepare and dress, I wasn’t surprised to see an outfit of dark jeans, black turtleneck and windbreaker in my wardrobe. Everything fit perfectly, of course, and inside the windbreaker was a black stocking cap. I left it in the pocket as I went outside to wait for Bonnie.
As the sun dipped far enough to put the island into dusk, the walkway lights turned on, the halogen humming as it warmed. Before the lamps even reached full strength, Bonnie appeared, dressed in black stretch pants that clung to her lower half in an undeniably alluring way, and a black sweatshirt. She had her hair up in a ponytail that was thrust through the back of a black baseball cap.
“Twins,” she said, by way of greeting, then, “We better hurry, or we’re going to be late.”
I almost had to skip to keep up with her stride as we wove our way down the paths until, with a quick glance both ways, she hopped from the path and started in a light jog.
“I didn’t know we could do that,” I whispered, but she didn’t break stride. The pace was nothing for her, I’m sure, but I had to work hard to keep up. The hikes were coming in handy. We were moving toward a line of unbroken trees, but as we approached I could see a small, single-file path open up that we plunged into. We jogged for another five or so minutes, barely enough light to illuminate the ground. I trusted my footfalls would strike true and I wouldn’t roll my bad ankle. Low-hanging branches brushed at my clothing, and I resisted the urge to ask her to slow down because I was worried that she wouldn’t. Finally, we reached a clearing and she stopped suddenly and said, “We’re here.”
The clearing was relatively small and circular. Unlike the WHC grounds the grass was long and wild with weeds and wildflowers shooting up. A little bit of light was thrown into it from our right and looking over I realized that it came from the southwest compound that couldn’t have been too far in the distance.
“What?” I said.
“Just wait,” she replied. So I waited. My eyes adjusted to the increasing dark. The lights from the southwest compound put a soft, gray cast over the darkness and that’s when they appeared, rabbits, everywhere.
“Do you see?” she said.
I did. It was like one moment, bare ground, and then hundreds of rabbits gathered together, sitting back on their haunches, eating grains gripped in their forepaws. Rabbit couples consummated their love left and right and it became apparent why their numbers were so great. Their two great needs, food and sex, were more than abundant. We sat Indian-style on the edge of the clearing. The grass was tamped down here and I imagined she’d been coming alone for some time. We watched together for probably thirty minutes before it ended as quickly as it started, the rabbits disappearing en masse into the grasses so quickly that I began to wonder if it was an illusion.
“You did see that, right?” she said.
“Yeah, it was cool.”
“I wanted someone else to see it, to make sure,” she said.
“And you chose me?”
“I did.”
She laid flat on the ground and looked up at the sky, so I joined her. The nighttime jungle sounds intensified and mingled with what sounded like music from the southwest compound just barely loud enough to reach us.
“We’re out past curfew,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” she replied, “nothing happens.”
“Good to know.” I felt like I should have been frightened, but I wasn’t. I was right where I wanted to be.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell someone for awhile,” she said, “and I think I want to tell it to you now.”
“Okay.”
“It’s totally fucked-up, I mean totally. Like I can’t believe how fucked-up it is, but I can’t not talk about it anymore.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, it’s like, you’ll-never-look-at-me-the-same fucked-up.”
“I hear you,” I said.
She took a deep breath and started speaking quickly. “When I was ten, my parents decided for the sake of my tennis that I needed to go to ‘the academy.’ I was beating the crap out of all the girls my age and even older in the region, but that wasn’t good enough, so they took me to see Mr. Popov and I remember him sitting behind a desk with his hands tepeed under his chin as my mom rattled off my accomplishments and then he stood up and walked around and told me to stand. He had on those like old-school tennis shorts, stretchy and super-tight and too short, and he had a big belly, but also an outie for some reason that you could see through his shirt. He pinched and grabbed me, the backs of my arms, my knees, elsewhere, and he said, ‘Yes, I think we can work with her.’ He smelled like sausage.”
The words sounded simultaneously spontaneous and rehearsed, like they’d been rolling around in her head forever without ever getting fully polished.
“Like I said, the school was basically a joke, maybe an hour after morning practice. It was tennis and conditioning, weights, psychological games to make us mentally strong. It was boys and girls and the girls all lived together in a big dorm room with bunk beds and the wall by everyone’s bed was decorated with personal stuff. One guess what mine had.”
“Bunnies,” I replied.
“Duh. Bunnies. I didn’t like them even back then, but it was my nickname already, so like everyone gave me bunny shit for my birthday, Christmas, whatever, and I think I was probably a pretty polite kid, so I’d put up the cards or stack the stuffed animals on my bed, but I didn’t feel a damn thing toward any of it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“All the girls were friendly, but we weren’t friends, you know? There was always that rivalry thing underneath. They had these poster boards where they ranked us on everything, even like making our beds fastest and shit like that, so you could never let your guard down. I mean, at the time I didn’t realize it, this is all afterwards, more recently, if that makes sense.”
“Sure,” I said. We were lying so close that I could sense her there, and I wanted to reach and touch her somewhere, but I didn’t.
“Mr. Popov would come in at night and make a big show of tucking us in, telling us to always get good rest, and to dream of being champions and once a week, after we were all under the covers, he would take one of us from the room. He’d pull the covers back and whoever it was would stand up and he’d hold out his hand and he’d lead her from the room and it didn’t take long to figure out what he was doing.”
“Shit,” I said. “Motherfucker.” I felt something inside me start to boil. I could tell that she was crying, but her voice was steady. “But wait,” she said, “that’s not the fucked-up part. Here’s the fucked-up part. The thing that made me the most mad was that he never chose me. Holy shit, is that twisted? But it’s the goddamn truth. When some of the girls got older they would, like, brag about who was the best and they’d look at me like I deserved pity or something. I took it out on the others on the court. I beat their goddamn brains in because he never chose me.”
I had nothing to say, so I didn’t say anything.
“Pretty fucked-up, eh?”
“Yeah, no doubt about that.”
“I’m probably even attracted to you because of the age thing, quasi—father figure and all that.”
“Hey,” I said, “I’m not that old.”
She reached over and patted my leg. “I know that.”
She sat up again and brushed nonexistent debris from the front of her sweatshirt. “I thought I’d feel better after saying all of that, but I don’t.”
“We’re damaged goods,” I said, joining her in the sitting position. “The sum of our triumphs and tragedies.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“I think I made it up.”
“It doesn’t sound like that. It sounds like the kind of thing someone might say.”
“I guess I’m that someone this time,” I said.
For a moment the music from the southwest compound stopped and I could hear light clapping and laughter before it started up again, someone singing a familiar song in what sounded like a familiar voice.
“So,” she said, looking at me, one side of her face partially lighted as she turned my way. “What’s your story?”
I laughed. “Oh, no,” I said. “It’s more like a novel, an epic, a saga. I wouldn’t know where to begin. Just trust that it’s long and sad and stupid.”
She patted my leg again. “Tut-tut. I’m sure it’s a good one,” she said.
“Don’t be so sure,” I replied, but I told her. You’ve heard most of it already.
“M
INE’S BETTER,” SHE
said.
“Yeah. I’m not that special.”
She stood upright, this time offering me a hand in help. “So,” she said. “Our little pity party is over and the night is still young. What shall we do with the rest of it?”
My legs were stiff and I tried to shake them out. The music from the southwest compound swelled and I now felt positive I recognized the voice of the singer, but of course, who I was thinking of was impossible. I thought of what Chet had said to me at the top of the island about the difference between “may” and “will.”
“Come on,” I said to her. “There’s something I have to see.”
T
HE DEPUTY SHERIFF’S
testimony over, I am all that is left on the schedule and then of course the closing statements. We are bumping up against the Fourth of July holiday so the judge has sent us home for the rest of the week. Barry tells me my time on the stand is to be minimal, his inquiries limited to the night when I allegedly shot an armed robber six times in self-defense. He doesn’t want to muddy the waters of the rest of my life with any personal testimony. It’s all there, plain as day for people to make of it what they will. I am ready for my testimony, but mostly because it’s not going to happen.
Giddy in anticipation of the trial’s climax, Barry has called me to his office ostensibly to talk strategy. The conference room is decked out in a mini-replica of the courtroom. I recognize a rehearsal space when I see one. Barry stands behind a lectern. “I just thought I’d run some ideas by you,” he says.
I sit down behind what I take to be the judge’s desk and run my hands over the smooth surface. “I’m all ears,” I say. Barry smiles and looks down at his notes, the only time he’ll do so for nearly an hour.
“Ladies and gentleman of the jury,” Barry says, “I want to tell you a story, a story of a man who was like any other, until he wasn’t. Imagine, if you will, getting everything you could ever want, but somehow everything is never enough.”
It’s not that the story is bad, just that it’s awfully familiar. There are times I have an urge to object, but that isn’t the judge’s job. My role here is to listen; composed, impartial. I nod occasionally to keep Barry going, but it isn’t necessary. He’s plenty wound up. My case must be the best thing that ever happened to him, everything he ever wanted, and I feel some pangs of guilt over the fact that he’ll never have a chance to deliver this story to its intended audience. We all want to be heard, but only some of us are pushy or needy or damaged enough to insist that someone else listen.
His telling of the story isn’t the same as my telling, but from the parts I pay attention to, it’s not wrong.
Barry watches me, eyes open and hoping and I realize he’s done. I pound my hands together until they hurt. Barry knuckles a tear from the corner of his eye.
“Really?” he says. “It was good?”
“I couldn’t imagine anything better,” I reply. I go to him and we hug and I thank him for everything, and tell him I’m sorry.
“For what?” he says.
“You’ll see,” I reply.
I
FEEL AS
though we take it for granted, but the Internet really is a miracle, and for my personal purposes, it has developed itself on a just-in-time basis. For example, if my stand-up career got underway once the video-sharing Web sites were ubiquitous, I can’t imagine anyone paying to see the thing. I would have done it once or twice, someone would have captured it on video, and there it would be, instantaneous worldwide distribution. Rather than an international touring sensation, I would’ve been a virtual flash in the pan, next to the guy with the bizarrely deep voice singing about “Chocolate Rain,” whatever the hell that is, or the baby who loves to tear paper into pieces. I got to control the content and people proved they would pay for it. Now, they say, content just wants to be free.
Well, we all want to be free, don’t we?
Conspiracy blogs that posit the existence and location of a special island where the famous and rich go for special treatments, combined with my own experiences and knowledge, and some work with satellite-mapping software allow me to make a better than reasonable guess as to its location. I can also procure a sturdy sailing vessel that is promised to be waiting for me at a certain time and location stocked with all of the necessary supplies. Thanks to the Internet I can learn how to sail without actually doing so. I can even check out a half-dozen sites that promise to offer foolproof steps to disabling a home-confinement monitoring device (though I will not need their advice).
I check Bonnie’s Wimbledon tournament results before they are shown tape-delayed on television, where I will savor every moment. She is in the semifinals without dropping a set. The commentators are calling her performance “inspired,” which is more on the nose than they know. She strikes the ball with a ferocious purpose. Her serves seem laser-guided. It is as close to perfection as possible.
My agent e-mails me to say that he’s successfully sold my book for more than we had figured, which is good news because that money is now spoken for. And now that I’m done with the book I can thank him in a return e-mail and attach the manuscript to the message and wish him Godspeed.
E
VERY STEP TOWARD
the southwest compound, I braced for Bonnie and I to be vaporized like the jelly impacting Mr. Bob’s tracksuit. I put on the dark cap and willed myself to be silent and invisible. The music swelled as we approached, growing more distinct before ending with a round of claps followed by the soft murmur of a crowd moving elsewhere. It reminded me of the times backstage, just before the houselights would go down and my audience would be busy whiling away their anticipation and then the lights dim and there is that moment of silence before the first whoops and cheers cut toward the stage. Barry says celebrity is a disease, but it’s really just like any other addiction, where you chase that brief high to sustain you through the lows. Every time I went up on stage, it was that moment that pulled me out of the wings, that surge of audience desire, even when I felt like I’d rather jam knitting needles into my eyes than my hand into my mouth. As we neared the compound I expected guard towers and walls, but there wasn’t even a fence and not a patrol to be seen, just the forest line up to the edge of open grounds encircled by tiki torches.
