The Funny Man (36 page)
It said:
WELCOME TO OUR RETIREMENT HOME
Twice as Much Husband, Half as Much Pay
I tried to laugh.
“We’re going to live and die here,” she said. “It’s just that the dying part’s a long time from now.” She kissed me with the boy pressed between us, forgiving me for my faulty sense of humor.
We moved to the bigger house six months later. We brought the welcome mat with us, but it wasn’t the same. Some jokes work only once. Some never work at all.
I twist the lid off the Scotch, its vapors reaching up to my nose, calling me closer. I’m taking it easy, though, just a finger and a half in a tumbler, one ice cube, one pill, two pills, fizzing angrily as they dissolve in the glass, like they’re upset at being drowned.
I take the photos to the sink and burn them slowly, dousing the embers when the smoke threatens to trigger the alarm. So long, farewell,
auf wiedersehen
, good-bye.
S
O, CLOSURE.
As I turned the corner, I saw the guy dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and I could see the gun as he said, “Give me your wallet, no funny business.”
I was shocked by the gun. I could suddenly taste the fillings in my mouth. I stammered and he grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me down an empty side street and pushed me to the ground and my hood came off and he said, “Hey, I know you.”
I stood slowly, my hands held out in front of me. I kept my eyes on the gun the whole time. “I don’t carry a wallet,” I said. I turned my pockets inside out to show him.
He got angry, agitated. “Fuck you,” he said. “Fuck you, you don’t have a wallet. You are a rich motherfucker and got tons of money and you’re telling me you don’t have any on you? If that doesn’t beat the band.” He massaged his forehead with his free hand. His left leg twitched a little and his eyes were rimmed red. The thought formed in my mind, a thought I’d had once before: “I want that gun.” And the next thing I knew I had it in my hands and the thief was kneeling in front of me, an angry red welt below his eye.
“Aw, fuck,” he said, sounding more sad than angry. “You’re going to call the cops, aren’t you? Are you going to call the cops?”
I hadn’t thought that far, but it sounded right to me. “Yeah, I’m calling the cops.” I reached for my cell in my jacket pocket and flipped it open.
“Please, please, please don’t, man, don’t. Just let me go. Keep the gun, let me go.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” I said, still holding the phone open. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit,” he said, pressing his forehead to the ground like he was praying. “I’m a two-time loser, man. This is going to be three strikes, and on a famous dude, no less. They’re going to throw the book at me. I can’t go back to jail. Do you know what happens in jail? I … can’t … go … back … to … jail.”
We had a standoff, and he looked at me closely. “You don’t look so good, man.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you look like shit.”
“I’m in love,” I said.
He kept looking at me and then frowned. “Okay, maybe that’s it. If you say so.” He sank further to his haunches and hunched over, like he might be praying.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what else to do.” I squinted at the numbers on the phone, but the rain pounded down hard.
“I’m just so tired, so so tired,” he said, rising slightly. His shoulders shook as he began sobbing and then lifted his head up and looked straight at me.
“Shoot me,” he said.
“What?”
“Shoot me. Kill me. When you shoot me, just make sure you kill me. I don’t want to be no veggie or cripple. I want it over.”
“I can’t do that,” I said.
“But you have to,” he pleaded. “I need you to. This is it for me, I know it. It was it for me a long time ago. You’d be doing me a favor.”
“But then I’ll get in trouble,” I said.
“No you won’t. Look, no one’s around. You shoot me, you wipe the prints, you take off, it’s done. It’s my gun. No one will ever know it was you.”
“I’ll know.”
“Honestly, man, it’s the kindest thing you could do. I’d do it to myself, but I’m a Catholic and I can’t do that shit. It’ll be like an act of mercy. I’m telling you, it’s what I want.”
He looked up at me and I could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t lying. There was no White Hot Center for this guy.
He smiled. “Thanks, dude,” he said. “Oh, and hey, that thing you used to do, with your hand in your mouth, that shit was hilarious.”
I don’t know why the earwitnesses say he begged for his life. The man knelt quietly and made no sound as I emptied the gun into him.
Who could’ve anticipated the cops driving by that very moment? I don’t blame the thief, whose name was Daniel O’Dell. Daniel got what he wanted. We all should. It’s the American way.
I
RECOGNIZE THAT,
unlike Bonnie, they will not be welcoming me to the island. I’m not delusional. The southwest compound is for legends who choose to leave on top and I am much closer to a career valley than any peak, but I am sure that running the place is not cheap and among my sailing provisions I have a hefty sum of cash stashed and ready to go. Beth and the boy will have plenty, and anything my legacy earns following my disappearance will go to them. Maybe there will be some sort of D.B. Cooper movie about my flight from the law for them and Gord and Frazier. There may be Elvis-like sightings of me across the country, which could turn into additional profits. I have some guilt about leaving the boy, but the sad, sorry truth is that for a long time he has been better off without me. I will be reported as yet another casualty of fame, and maybe I am, at least from their perspective, but here is the full story, the true story.
Maybe a storm will sink my boat, or my calculations on the island’s location are off, or I’ll get pulled over for a minor traffic violation on my way to the coast and they’ll recognize me and I’ll get hauled back. Maybe the White Hot Center’s vaunted defense system, if it really exists, will terminate me before my boat gets within a mile of the place, or if and when I arrive Chet will snap my neck and shove my carcass into the ocean, but maybe instead he will be a little glad to see me and I will be an exception to the rules. It is the exceptions that make the rules.
Perhaps if I get there safely, I will write that play I’ve been thinking about.
I open the curtains to my favorite view and switch on the music and I start to dance. I take just one or two additional pills and a final swig of the Scotch. I feel good. I really really do. I do.
I shake each limb in turn until it is the leg with the monitoring bracelet’s turn. I shake and shake until it looks like my ligaments and tendons have become detached at the ankle. It looks like they have become detached because they are. The bracelet slips off rather easily and I leave it behind in the middle of the room, my final legacy.
Curtain down, lights up. I exit stage right, limping.
Depending on how you feel about the book, all of the following share some of the credit, or the blame for what you’re holding in your hands. I’d like to thank them.
The families Warner and Sennello, Kevin Guilfoile, Benjamin Cohen, Howard Stern, Philip Graham, Ian Huebert, Robert Olen Butler, Steve Martin, John Wood, Dave Eggers, Annelise Robey, Artie Lange, PJ Mark, Nick Johnson, Mark Doten.
