The Funny Man (22 page)

The funny man recognized this other funny man as himself, but deep down, he knew he was not him and that he would need to work hard to fulfill this image. Langley was his first effort on that front. He called his manager and said, “I should probably have an assistant, right?”

“Do you want an assistant?” his manager asked.

“I have no idea.”

The funny man could hear the manager humming softly on the other end. The humming was new and the funny man recognized it as the manager’s verbal tic as his brain calculated the “proper” thing to say. Not the “right” thing, as in the thing that would be the best possible advice and counsel for the funny man’s wellbeing, but the proper thing, the thing that greased the wheels of his relationship with the funny man.

“You know what I always say,” the manager said, “better to be safe than sorry.”

The funny man had never heard his manager say this, but never mind, six assistant candidates were waiting on his doorstep the next morning. The funny man had never had occasion to hire anyone (his agent had chosen him and the manager simply seemed to appear one day), so he had no idea how to go about such things. In the end, he selected the candidate that most looked like Morgan Freeman in
Driving Miss Daisy
, Langley.

Langley was installed in one of the guest rooms and became a lingering, frankly creepy presence about the house. But Langley already had a month’s worth of pay in his account and there was that Funny Man 2.0 in the television that he was supposed to head toward, and so the funny man simply started having Langley do anything the funny man didn’t want to.

Mornings, Langley was tasked with things like spraying deodorizing powder inside the funny man’s shoes just before the funny man slid them on to his feet. When the phone rang, Langley started bringing it to him. If the funny man could think of nothing to do, he would tell Langley to polish something and he would, the never-used fireplace tools, the convection oven, the mini-cotton candy—maker the funny man had once ordered midair from an in-flight catalog. The funny man told him to stop doing this one day when he saw that Langley had turned to a box of the child’s toys, removing the boy’s fingerprints from his little toy people and the plastic dragon and the tiny shopping cart that he liked to push around, and the wooden duck that had wheels and leatherette wings that flapped when you rolled it along the ground and the train engine that the child had given a name, “Trainy,” and the funny man snapped and told Langley to cut that shit out.

The funny man apologized soon after, but from Langley’s demeanor he sensed that he didn’t have to, that this was not something that was expected of him. This was sort of fascinating, this casual, unchecked abuse and he began to experiment with it until one day, Langley was bent over, picking up the funny man’s clothes discarded carelessly the night before and the funny man decided to boot him in the ass.

L
ANGLEY STRAIGHTENS, DROPPING
the clothes, but otherwise registers nothing and merely stoops again to gather the clothes and places them in a hamper that he then picks up and carries toward the laundry area. The funny man follows and watches as Langley shifts a load from washer to dryer and again as Langley stoops, the funny man boots him in the ass. This time Langley topples halfway into the dryer, clanging his elbow against the metal drum, but still he says nothing.

“This is so terribly wrong,” the funny man thinks as he stalks behind Langley toward the kitchen, booting him in the ass every few strides. As Langley pulls eggs from the refrigerator to start the funny man’s omelet, the funny man slaps them out of Langley’s hands and then retrieves the only one not broken and smashes it on Langley’s head. Each escalation is more thrilling than the last, the realization that no one should get away with this, and yet here he is, and as Langley turns to face him, the funny man can feel his own body surge with power.

Langley looks at the funny man, his face unbothered. Strings of yolk stretch between his upper and lower lashes. It is a look of infinite patience, of waiting.

“How do you do that?” the funny man asks.

“Do what, sir?” The yolk runs down Langley’s handsome face and collects at his chin and drips to the floor.

“Take it. Stand this. How come you’re not beating this shit out of me?”

At last, Langley swipes his hand over his face, collecting the egg remnants and flinging them into the sink. “My last employer concussed me with a phone. This, as they say, is nothing.”

The funny man realized he had to get rid of Langley, that he could not stand the shame of having him around, but he already felt too guilty to fire him. He thought about and then dismissed the idea of allowing Langley to boot
him
in the ass and smash eggs over the funny man’s head, but the funny man knew that he owed this man something, and the first of his sold-gold ideas sprung into his head.

The funny man calls his manager again. “I’ve got an idea for a television show, a game show,” he says.

“Great,” the manager replies, “we’ll start filming next week.”

“Don’t you want to hear what it is?”

“Can we put your name on it as in:
(The Funny Man)
Presents
…?”

“Sure.”

“Then no, it doesn’t really matter what it is.”

With that,
(The Funny Man) Presents Kick in the A$$ featuring
Langley
was born. The concept was simple. Langley would travel about the country and walk up to random people and boot them in the ass. For each kick the person would receive $1000. Once Langley warmed to the task, he was a natural. During his employment with the funny man he had never seen it, but Langley had a gorgeous, disarming smile and when people would turn around, shocked that someone had just kicked them in the ass and saw Langley there, grinning with a fan of hundred-dollar bills in front of his face they too would smile and wave into the camera and on cue say the show’s catchphrase, “That’s asstastic!”

Langley developed a knack for picking the juiciest targets for maximum physical comedy (cruelty), sneaking up behind a mom in the baking aisle at the grocery store and delivering the kick just as she bent to retrieve a bag of flour, sending her tumbling in a white cloud, or pausing at the top of an escalator and waiting for some unsuspecting business-type to bend to tie a shoe so Langley could boot him to the bottom. Once the show gained popularity, they planned sweeps-week stunts, like arranging for Langley to be let onto the field of a Major League Baseball game so he could kick an umpire in the ass.

T-shirts with
Kick Me
and an arrow pointing down on the back and Langley’s face on the front sold by the millions. The funny man, simply by lending his name, was entitled to a slice from every ancillary pie, but more pleasing was seeing Langley thrive. He considered it an example of doing well by doing good.

Langley began having to wear disguises to keep people from chasing
him
, offering their backsides up for a boot. He posed for pictures with heads of state, in those cases only pretending he was going to deliver a blow. At the show’s peak, Langley had endorsements for shoes and padded “Langley-proof” adult diapers. Whenever a traditional piece of televised entertainment failed, they filled the gap with another half hour of
Kick in the A$$
until Langley had a portion of just about every night of the television week.

And then just as quickly, it ended. The competition came, it upped the ante, and it conquered.
$uckerPunch
, it was called, and this was not about a boot to the ass, but a coldcocking to the jaw.
$uckerPunch
starred a former NFL linebacker (Ronald “the Rage” Rangini) who had been tossed from the league for chronic steroid abuse. And the prize was not a thousand dollars, but one hundred thousand dollars plus any associated medical or dental costs. Once the contestants woke up from their sudden nap, no one complained. A kick to the ass wasn’t so interesting anymore.

There is a special sweeps-week
$uckerPunch
episode, a half-a-million-dollar giveaway involving a very elaborate setup at a wedding. The bride and groom are told that their planned minister has taken ill and there is to be a replacement. The at-home audience is privy to scenes of Ronald “the Rage” Rangini being disguised with makeup and clothed in vestments, but the wedding attendees seem to take no special note of the hulking man up on the altar. This must be because all eyes are on the bride, who is catalogmodel pretty in a tasteful, off the shoulder gown that showcases a well-turned back. The groom waiting on the altar a step just below “the Rage” Rangini beams down toward her. Does this remind the funny man of his own wedding day? How could it not? He has not become stone and he misses his wife and the boy deeply. (At this time there are still some glimmers of hopes for reconciliation.)

As the bride joins the groom, they hold hands and the groom bends in for a kiss, but the bride playfully swats his hand and says, “not yet!” and all the attendees have a good, genuine laugh at the groom’s expense.

The Rage begins the ceremony, conducting the rituals, a hymn, a lighting of candles, etc. He’s not bad, having developed some performing chops during the show’s run. When it comes time for the vows, the bride and groom face each other, and the bride does her “I dos” and accepts her ring over a trembling finger.

The groom’s turn; he repeats the words: love, honor, cherish, but when it comes time for the part where the minister is supposed to say, “And do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” and the groom is to respond with “I do,” the Rage says, “Are you ready to go to sleep now?”

The grin disappears from the groom’s face just before the Rage snaps off a short right to the head that drops the groom like he’s been shot. It reminds the funny man of a toy he had as a child, a toy which was actually his father’s toy, found in the attic one day and passed on to him. It was a small wooden horse figure standing on a platform and beneath the platform was a button that when pushed, caused the horse to collapse, its joints suddenly unhinged. When the button was released, the horse snapped back upright, held in tension by the filament that ran through its doweled limbs. The funny man sometimes would lay in his bed, pushing and releasing the button, appreciating how the ruined horse could so quickly be resurrected. As he thinks of this toy, he wonders if he is that toy, unhinged, if there is something that could possibly snap him back to life.

The groom doesn’t look like he’s bouncing back up anytime soon. He looks kind of dead. The bride’s hands shoot to her mouth as she screams, horrified, and she steps on her own train as she kneels to tend to him, her hands fluttering over his body. The groom is moaning, so he’s not dead, yet. The attendees stand in the pews, craning to see what has happened. In the meantime, the Rage peels off the fake beard and prosthetics, and strips off the vestments to show the
$uckerPunch
tattoo on his bicep. He taps the bride on her shoulder and she whirls around and starts to jump up and down with excitement. Balloons drop from the church ceiling and confetti cannons fire across the pews. The young people can be seen explaining what’s happening to the old people. The bride weeps and shakes as the Rage hands her a briefcase with
$500,000
stamped on the side in gold. By the time the credits roll, the groom has begun to come around. His bride, not quite his wife yet, holds the briefcase in front of him and you can see the effort it takes him to focus on her face.

The funny man can’t imagine what kind of barbarian would conceive such a thing as this
$uckerPunch
. He watches it every time it’s on.

22

A
FTER MAKING THE
call to the number on the mysterious glowing card, I awoke in the middle of the night to a gloved hand held over my mouth and a face encased in a neoprene ski mask looming over me. The leather was soft on my skin. I felt more alert than I had in weeks. I thought I must be dreaming.

“Shhh,” a man said. “Do not panic. Give me your PIN number.” He lifted his hand free so I could speak.

“My what?” My voice was rough, croaking, but the words came with no trouble. I felt my face and the skin was bare and tight. Somehow I’d hacked off my beard, but had no memory of it.

“PIN number, bank authorization number,” the man said.

“I don’t know what it is,” I replied. “I haven’t used anything like that for years.” It was true. All the money is taken care of for me behind the scenes by others. I am sent account statements that I promptly feed into the shredder without even looking at them. It is one of my favorite things to do. I was not panicking because all emotions had been drained from me. If they wanted to kidnap me and sell me into prostitution, or harvest my organs, what did I care?

“Come on, you know it. It probably hasn’t changed. Most people pick one and stick with it.”

“Oh-eight-two-six, my wedding anniversary,” I said to the masked man. He nodded to someone behind me and I could hear the keystrokes on a palmtop. “Check,” the other guy said.

The masked man took off his mask and de-gloved and held out his hand. “My name is Chet and I’m from the White Hot Center.” Chet was the best-looking human I’d ever seen. He looked like the love child of Jim Morrison and Marilyn Monroe: high cheekbones, penetrating blue eyes, and even a little beauty mark above his dimple. He had impeccable manners as well, since he wasn’t flinching from my smell, or the biosphere that was my palm.

Chet continued. “I will be your center liaison as well as your personal majordomo from this point forward. This is Darrell. He is my assistant. If you ever cannot reach me, which is pretty much inconceivable, Darrell will be available. If neither of us is available, an asteroid has destroyed humanity. We have just made a significant withdrawal from your monetary holdings that we will gladly refund at the end of your stay if you find anything about your experience less than completely satisfactory.”

Darrell stepped forward, holding the surface of the palmtop out to me. His mask was pulled up and perched on top of his head like a cap. He looked a little like James Dean. I was being abducted by male models. Was it a dream? It may as well have been. I shook my head and Chet and Darrell bobbled in my vision before settling right in front of me just as before. I reached out and touched the lapel of Chet’s jacket, the leather every bit as soft as the glove.