Read Online The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel and Rick Moody - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Amy Hempel and Rick Moody
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Three popes walk into a bar.
A guy in the airport Clipper Club recognized Wesley and bet him he couldn’t get a punchline out of it. They boarded a plane in Honolulu; Wesley had the five hours to San Francisco to make it a joke. Three popes walk into a bar. He lost money on this, but I didn’t ask how much. Coming off a tour he is sick with foreign germs. I met him at the gate and drove him straight to the club. It’s what Eve usually did, but she delegated to me. Eve Grant is Wesley Grant’s future former wife.
“Eve cabled the hotel that she’s coming tonight,” Wesley said. “But she won’t laugh.”
“You won’t hear her not laughing over the six hundred other people,” I said. “You’re sold out.”
“But I always know. You know. She wants me to buy a boat, is all. After, of course, I have stopped performing.”
“What’s it to her?” I said. “She’s leaving you.”
“Or not,” Wesley said. “Maybe she’s not leaving if I buy the boat.”
“That doesn’t put you on the spot or anything.”
“You talk to her tonight,” he said.
About Eve Grant, Wesley has said that he married the most beautiful woman he ever saw and learned the irrelevance of beauty.
He met her at a club where she danced topless. She told him that Wesley was the name of the first monkey in space. She told him how NASA used that Wesley up and then abandoned him to an animal shelter for destruction. Then a group of women kidnapped that Wesley and took him to a zoo, where he lived out his life in comfort.
Wesley knew the monkey’s name was Steve, but thought it was sweet of her to say otherwise.
With Wesley’s encouragement, Eve stopped dancing and pursued a career in journalism. She thought she would be a natural at it because people always wanted to talk to her. She wrote an article on spec for the Sunday paper and had it returned six weeks later. Wesley asked the editor what was wrong with it, wasn’t it boring enough? Then he cashed a favor with a publicist and got Eve a job at a fanzine doing a monthly column on vanished TV actors. The column was called “Where Are They Now?” but we all called it “Why Aren’t They Dead?”
Wesley signaled the waitress and placed a special order. In a moment, she returned with a bowl of canned peach halves. Wesley took a bottle of Romilar cough suppressant from his coat pocket and poured most of it into the bowl.
“I really admire you,” I told him. “I couldn’t go out there and make people laugh if I were sick.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “You couldn’t do it if you were well.”
He forced down the reddened peaches.
“But I’ll tell you what you can do. You can tickle me,” he said.
Eve usually did that, too. His grandmother started it when he was a boy. She used to tickle Wesley beyond fun, he said, until he felt trapped and helpless and would have cried except that he learned to give in to it, and at that moment felt relief and calm move in.
It is this tickling and giving in that makes him funny, he thinks. Like every kind of recovery, comedy demands surrender.
Wesley cleared away the chairs and squared off in front of me. At the signal I dove at his belt.
I get something out of this, too.
The club manager’s office was open and empty, so we took a couple of drinks in and closed the door. Wesley scanned the shelves of videocassettes, pulled one out, and popped it into the deck. He joined me on the couch.
It was a tape of every low-budget commercial he had made for local affiliate stations. This, Wesley said, is comedy.
The tape kicked in and there he was in suit and tie for the Cherry Hills Shopping Mall over in the East Bay.
“Tell me when it’s safe,” he said, and covered his eyes with a hand.
On screen, he said, “That’s Cherry Hills, between the MacArthur and the Nimitz. MacArthur and Nimitz—both fine men, both fine freeways.”
“Oh, I hate myself,” he moaned.
The
Three popes walk into a bar.
A guy in the airport Clipper Club recognized Wesley and bet him he couldn’t get a punchline out of it. They boarded a plane in Honolulu; Wesley had the five hours to San Francisco to make it a joke. Three popes walk into a bar. He lost money on this, but I didn’t ask how much. Coming off a tour he is sick with foreign germs. I met him at the gate and drove him straight to the club. It’s what Eve usually did, but she delegated to me. Eve Grant is Wesley Grant’s future former wife.
“Eve cabled the hotel that she’s coming tonight,” Wesley said. “But she won’t laugh.”
“You won’t hear her not laughing over the six hundred other people,” I said. “You’re sold out.”
“But I always know. You know. She wants me to buy a boat, is all. After, of course, I have stopped performing.”
“What’s it to her?” I said. “She’s leaving you.”
“Or not,” Wesley said. “Maybe she’s not leaving if I buy the boat.”
“That doesn’t put you on the spot or anything.”
“You talk to her tonight,” he said.
About Eve Grant, Wesley has said that he married the most beautiful woman he ever saw and learned the irrelevance of beauty.
He met her at a club where she danced topless. She told him that Wesley was the name of the first monkey in space. She told him how NASA used that Wesley up and then abandoned him to an animal shelter for destruction. Then a group of women kidnapped that Wesley and took him to a zoo, where he lived out his life in comfort.
Wesley knew the monkey’s name was Steve, but thought it was sweet of her to say otherwise.
With Wesley’s encouragement, Eve stopped dancing and pursued a career in journalism. She thought she would be a natural at it because people always wanted to talk to her. She wrote an article on spec for the Sunday paper and had it returned six weeks later. Wesley asked the editor what was wrong with it, wasn’t it boring enough? Then he cashed a favor with a publicist and got Eve a job at a fanzine doing a monthly column on vanished TV actors. The column was called “Where Are They Now?” but we all called it “Why Aren’t They Dead?”
Wesley signaled the waitress and placed a special order. In a moment, she returned with a bowl of canned peach halves. Wesley took a bottle of Romilar cough suppressant from his coat pocket and poured most of it into the bowl.
“I really admire you,” I told him. “I couldn’t go out there and make people laugh if I were sick.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “You couldn’t do it if you were well.”
He forced down the reddened peaches.
“But I’ll tell you what you can do. You can tickle me,” he said.
Eve usually did that, too. His grandmother started it when he was a boy. She used to tickle Wesley beyond fun, he said, until he felt trapped and helpless and would have cried except that he learned to give in to it, and at that moment felt relief and calm move in.
It is this tickling and giving in that makes him funny, he thinks. Like every kind of recovery, comedy demands surrender.
Wesley cleared away the chairs and squared off in front of me. At the signal I dove at his belt.
I get something out of this, too.
The club manager’s office was open and empty, so we took a couple of drinks in and closed the door. Wesley scanned the shelves of videocassettes, pulled one out, and popped it into the deck. He joined me on the couch.
It was a tape of every low-budget commercial he had made for local affiliate stations. This, Wesley said, is comedy.
The tape kicked in and there he was in suit and tie for the Cherry Hills Shopping Mall over in the East Bay.
“Tell me when it’s safe,” he said, and covered his eyes with a hand.
On screen, he said, “That’s Cherry Hills, between the MacArthur and the Nimitz. MacArthur and Nimitz—both fine men, both fine freeways.”
“Oh, I hate myself,” he moaned.
The
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