I, Funny Read online

  “Of course.”

  She rocks her wrist and hits the start button on her stopwatch.

  Yeah, we do the five-minute funny-free deal every now and then. It’s a little like truth or dare, only we don’t ask each other stuff like “If you woke up one day and you were invisible, what is the first thing you would do?”

  “Okay,” she says. “I have to ask you a serious question.”

  “I know. I heard the stopwatch beep.”

  “Jamie?”

  “I wasn’t being funny. I was just stating the facts.”

  “But with a tone. A funny tone.”

  “Fine,” I say. “No more tone.”

  “Okay. So.” She braces both her hands on her knees. Hesitates. “I’m kind of curious….”

  “Okay.”

  She hesitates some more.

  I get the feeling that this is a tough question for her to ask. Which probably means it’ll be even tougher for me to answer.

  “How do you take a whiz?”

  “What?”

  “Can you, you know, pee?”

  “No,” I say sarcastically. “I’ve been holding it in for two years. That’s why I make that sloshing sound. My bladder is one gigantic water balloon. Stand back—I’m about to blow.”

  Totally embarrassed, I make a hasty retreat.

  I mean, it’s just too weird. “How do you take a whiz?” “Can you pee?” Who asks questions like that?

  But once my face goes from code purple to somewhere closer to my normal skin tone, and my ears stop burning, I realize: That’s exactly why I like Cool Girl so much.

  She says whatever is on her mind whenever it happens to be there.

  With her, there are no soft or squishy words. No special treatment for the kid in the chair.

  And absolutely, positively no editing.

  Chapter 48

  NEW YUKS FOR NEW YORK

  That night, tucked into my bedroom in the Smileys’ garage, I’m straining my brain trying to come up with some new material.

  The New York State finals at Gotham are coming at me like a speeding freight train. The kind without brakes. Or headlights.

  And, get this: Gotham runs a summer camp for kids who want to be comics when they grow up. I’ve seen the brochure. They spend six weeks over the summer taking comedy classes from pros and doing campfire stand-up routines for one another. I’ll be going up against kids who’ve spent most of their lives training for this one event—for them, it’s the Funny People Olympics.

  Thinking about the New York State round of the competition has me scared. Not a little scared… horror movie scared. Get-out-of-the-house-NOW-because-he’s-calling-you-from-downstairs-and-has-a-chainsaw scared.

  Maybe I should just quit while I’m ahead. I won the first round. That should be enough.

  But if I do that, everybody (except my loyal, small, and somewhat geeky fan club) will always say I won the Long Island competition because the judges felt sorry for me.

  So I need to press on. Show everybody that I’m not a one-hit wonder.

  I also need some new material. Most of the people who’ll be in the audience in New York City have already seen my Ronkonkoma act on YouTube. They know all the punch lines. They’ll probably remember the setups before I do, too.

  So I’m mapping out a new routine. New jokes. Take some risks. Break new ground. Control my fear.

  I have this idea about the local mall being an obstacle course or maybe a racetrack for me and my chair. It’s like an indoor demolition derby. Because for me to get from Cinnabon up in the food court down to Wicks ’n’ Sticks on the first floor, I have to roll past two cell phone kiosks, avoid the kid throwing a tantrum outside Things R Us, maneuver around the horde of senior citizens doing a mall walk, find an elevator that isn’t stuffed with shopping bags, avoid the perfume spritzers fogging the air outside every department store, sample some smoked sausage on toothpicks at Hickory Farms, get chased by Paul Blart, mall cop, on his Segway, and…

  And this stinks.

  It isn’t funny!

  So I scratch the whole thing and look up from my notebook. Because…

  Stevie Kosgrov is in the driveway, leering at me through the garage door window.

  “Good luck in round two, bro,” he says with a smirk. “You poor, dumb loser!”

  Chapter 49

  DYING IN THE LIVING ROOM

  Okay. It’s time for the torture test. A return engagement in the room where I bombed, big-time. Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!

  To get my confidence back, I’m going to do the unthinkable: I’m going to gather up all the Smileys in the living room and do exactly the same routine for them that was such a big hit with the audience and judges in Ronkonkoma.

  If I can finally get through to them, if they laugh at just one of my jokes, then I’ll be one hundred percent certain that winning the contest wasn’t a fluke.

  So on Friday night I give the Kosgrovs a special, one-night-only encore performance.

  Except for Stevie. He’s “out” with his friends. I think he has a date to punch another goldfish. Maybe a dolphin.

  The Smileys are on the couch. I’m in front of the TV, which, for the first time ever, is actually switched off so they can watch me re-create my Ronkonkoma magic!

  I jump right in.

  I do my quick intro—the Mrs. Darth Vader substitute-teacher bit.

  The Smileys stare at me. Blankly. Very, very blankly.

  I move on to the joke about how I got a ticket for parking in the handicap parking space.

  Uncle Smiley actually raises his hand.

  “Yes, sir?” I say because I don’t know what else to do. No one has ever raised a hand during my act before.

  “How could you get a parking ticket?” he asks. “You don’t have a car.”

  “Or a driver’s license, honey,” adds Aunt Smiley.

  “Don’t you have to be sixteen to get one of those?” asks their extremely logical youngest son. “I think you do. I’m pretty sure you do, Jamie.”

  I could explain that their questions are what make the joke funny, but, well, if you have to explain ’em, they’re not really jokes, are they?

  So, sweating profusely and wondering why the Smileys decided to set the thermostat at ninety-nine point nine degrees tonight, I forge ahead to the zombie bit.

  “The school crossing guard is a zombie?” screams the youngest Smiley. Then she starts crying. “I hugged her once, Mommy! Am I gonna turn into a zombie, too?”

  “Take it easy, dear,” says Aunt Smiley. “It’s just a joke. I think. Right, Jamie?”

  “Yeah,” I say, blinking like crazy. There’s a lot of sweat dribbling down my brow and into my eyes right now.

  I do my Statue of Liberty bit. I pretend I’m holding up her torch and flash everybody my armpit, which is now so damp it resembles Lake Michigan.

  I do some jokes about chicken nuggets, boogers, and appearing on Dancing with the Stars.

  The Smileys just keep staring at me. Their eyes are glazing over. Their jaws are hanging open. They’re not laughing or even smiling. The dog? He yawns, rolls over, and takes a nap. In the middle of a joke.

  I skip the whole anti-PC bit, wave my hand over my head, and say, “Thank you. I’m Jamie Grimm. You’ve been a great crowd. Be sure to tip your waiters.”

  Uncle Smiley raises his hand again.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “We don’t have any waiters.”

  I nod. “Yes, sir. I know.”

  And then, as a group, they give me their full critique:

  Chapter 50

  THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!

  So I quit.

  Bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you?

  I don’t want to be the punch line to somebody else’s (Stevie Kosgrov’s) joke. I just don’t have what it takes to take this thing to the next level.

  Saturday, at Frankie’ s diner, I stop telling jokes behind the cash register.

  “Here’s your change, sir,” I s
ay glumly to my George Carlin–loving customer.

  “And?” he says with a big grin on his face, expecting his usual something extra.

  “Have a nice day?”

  “That’s it? No Carlin? Not even a little Hippie-Dippie Weatherman?”

  “Sorry. Not today. Probably not tomorrow, either. Probably not ever again.”

  My favorite Russian customer, Mr. Burdzecki, takes note of my attitude adjustment, too.

  “No more Yakov Smirnoff?”

  “Sorry. I’m all out.”

  He shakes his head sadly, like his best friend just died. “You not funny?”

  “Yeah. I not funny.”

  “This is very sad day.”

  Tell me about it. It’s not easy giving up on your dreams. But sometimes you just have to face facts. That thing you wanted to do more than anything in the world? People might be better off if you just didn’t do it.

  “Jamie?” says Uncle Frankie. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing much. I just don’t want to tell jokes anymore.”

  “What? That’s like me saying I don’t want to yo-yo anymore.”

  “Well, maybe you should quit,” I say. “It’s not very safe. Or sanitary. You shouldn’t fling that thing around the food all the time.”

  Yes, I’m being a big baby. I’m trying to make Uncle Frankie feel as bad as I do.

  He shrugs. Keeps smiling. “Yo-yoing makes me happy.”

  “Well, it makes me nervous. The customers, too.”

  “Hey, kiddo, why don’t you take a five-minute break?” he says, placing a gentle hand on my shoulder. “A friend of yours just came in.”

  He gestures toward a table with a big stack of books sitting on it.

  Cool Girl is in the house.

  Chapter 51

  I’M OFFICIALLY OFF THE CLOCK

  Why so glum, Grimm?” she asks.

  I tell her what’s going on. How I bombed again in the living room. How I know I’ll bomb if I go on to the next round of the competition.

  “Tell me a joke, Jamie,” she says, folding her hands in her lap.

  “You don’t like it when I crack jokes.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What about that bit with the stopwatch?”

  “I like you when you’re not funny, too. But today I’m in the mood for some laughs. So, please, tell me a joke.”

  I rack my brain. Remember a quick Steven Wright one-liner. “Cross-country skiing is great—if you live in a small country.”

  Cool Girl laughs.

  All right, it’s a half laugh.

  “I guess that wasn’t a very good joke,” I say.

  “No, I liked it. Tell me another one.”

  And I do. George Carlin this time. “Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?”

  Now she’s really laughing.

  So I tell her two or three more—mostly my own jokes. Now everybody in the diner, including Uncle Frankie and Mr. Burdzecki, wants to know what’s so funny.

  I push back from the table a little and start telling jokes to everybody in the diner.

  They’re laughing, and people out on the street want in on the action, too. So I roll out to the sidewalk and tell everybody in Long Beach a dozen or more jokes. Even the zombies are cracking up. They’re laughing so hard, body parts are flying everywhere.

  I’ve got my mojo back.

  I funny.

  I hope.

  Because the New York State finals?

  They’re tomorrow. It’s showtime!

  Chapter 52

  THE BIG (AND EXTREMELY CROWDED) DAY!

  You know how heroes always rise up undaunted, never giving in to their fears or giving up on their courageous quests?

  Well, I’m daunted. Seriously daunted.

  In fact, I’m approaching “terrified” and well on my way to “scared silly.”

  I’m crammed inside the Smileys’ SUV, stuck in the backseat, between Stevie and his younger brother. The smallest Smiley, their sister, is riding in the way-back with my folded-up chair.

  We’re going on a family outing to New York City to watch me die onstage in front of several hundred strangers.

  Stevie couldn’t be happier.

  When we pull up in front of Gotham, I see Mrs. Kanai, my ELA teacher. Wow. She came into the city on a weekend to see me. How awesome is that?

  As I’m swinging into my chair, I also see the vice principal. Mr. Sour Patch. He came, too? He gives me another nod. This is major. I hope he gets a good seat. Maybe he can hang with the Smileys in the Frowning Section.

  I enter the club and am completely blown away.

  Just about everybody I know is here to cheer me on. Uncle Frankie. The waitresses and busboys from the diner. Mr. Burdzecki and his whole Russian family. Two cousins I didn’t even know I had.

  Yes, this time I’ve got my whole entourage.

  And the nine other contestants hoping to win the title of New York State’s Funniest Kid Comic?

  They’ve brought everybody they’ve ever known, plus assorted unknown cousins, too.

  There must be four, maybe five, hundred people crammed inside the club. They’re hanging from the rafters. It’s the only way to see the stage from the back of the room.

  I’ve never done my act in front of this many people. It’s at least triple the size of the audience in Ronkonkoma.

  With this many eyeballs staring at me, choke warnings are in full effect for the Tri-State area.

  I nervous.

  I extremely nervous.

  Okay, I petrified.

  Chapter 53

  MEETING THE PEOPLE I’M GOING TO LOSE TO

  And then I get even more petrified. Because backstage, in the holding room, I meet my competition.

  As I listen to them talk, it sounds like all the other comics have been doing stand-up routines since they were in preschool. One sounds like he even did diaper jokes at his day care center.

  Half of them have been to Komedy Kamp. Two have professional joke tutors. One of the girls, Judy from Manhattan, has what she calls a “development deal” with Disney to become the next Hannah Montana.

  “Of course, it doesn’t mean anything unless they, you know, actually ‘develop’ something,” she adds.

  I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I know she’s had way more experience than me.

  We’ve just drawn numbers out of a hat to see what order we’ll take the stage. I picked number ten. That means I’ll be the last act up.

  “Closing is good,” says one of the other comics. “Unless you stink. Then it’s stinky.”

  “I’d rather open,” says this cocky comic from Buffalo, who drew the first slot. “Why make ’em wait to hear the best material? You want to set the bar high, which I plan to do.”

  “Second from last is the primo position,” says the guy who, coincidentally, will be going on second to last, right before me. His name is Shecky, and he comes from Schenectady, a town in upstate New York.

  “Shecky’s not my real name,” he tells me later, when I’m sort of stuck in a corner between him and the couch. “I changed it because it sounds funny. ‘Shecky from Schenectady.’ Get it? Funny, no?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “All words with K sounds in them are funny. Pickles. Cupcakes. Kazoos. Kumquats. All hilarious. You’re Jamie Grimm, right?”

  “Right. From Long Beach. Out on Long Island.”

  “You sure that’s not Wrong Beach on Wrong Island?” He does an arm pump. “Ba-boom. See? I’m always riffing, always working on new material. Hey, seeing you in that wheelchair reminds me of a joke….”

  “Um, maybe you should save it for when you’re onstage,” I suggest.

  “Nah. That’s okay. I got a million of ’em. Anyway, this doctor on Wrong Island gives a guy in a wheelchair six months to live. The wheelchair dude says he can’t pay his bill, so the doctor gives him another six months. Ba-boom!”

  I chuckle—no
t because Shecky’s hilariously funny, but because, like I said, I’m sort of trapped. Besides, I already know most of his jokes. They’re all straight out of the Henny Youngman joke book.

  “This other doctor says to an old lady, ‘Relax. You’ll live to be eighty!’ She says, ‘I am eighty!’ ‘See?’ says the doctor. ‘I was right!’ ” Shecky does another arm chug. “Ba-boom. Nailed it.”

  “Erm, is that in your act?”

  “Yep,” he says, bouncing up on his heels and taking a deep breath because he’s so sure he’s going to win. “Those are but a few of the comedic morsels the audience will be savoring right before you go on. So don’t be surprised if they’re all laughed out when you roll onstage, Jamie baby.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” I say.

  “By the way…”

  Shecky moves even closer so he can lean down and get in my face.

  “If you were counting on getting sympathy votes from the judges, like you did out on Long Island, fuhgeddaboudit, bubelah.”

  “What? I didn’t…”

  Shecky from Schenectady holds up his hand to shush me.

  Now I really wish my legs worked. So I could kick him.

  “I read the blogs, babe. Trust me—that kind of pity play won’t work in the Big Apple. These judges aren’t softies, like the ones out on Wrong Island. So if you were thinking about racking up some more ‘poor little cripple kid’ points—sorry, babe. It’s not gonna happen. Not today. You’re goin’ home with nothin’ but a broken heart, which is perfect, because it’ll match your broken body. Ba-boom. Nailed it!”

  Chapter 54