THE FUNNY MAN realizes too late that he has been operating under a mistaken notion of the nature and purpose of marital counseling. At first, he figured it a kind of straightforward penance. His wife was angry, justifiably so, just not about the right things. If he could prove his remorse for causing this anger, eventually he would be forgiven. As the clock ticked down toward the start of his tour he dedicated himself to his twice-weekly sessions, one individual and one in tandem with his wife.
The marriage counselor had been recommended by his therapist. She was an older woman with gray hair kept in a long braid that looked like a llama’s tail, and she seemed nice and friendly enough. Her couch, with its big, overstuffed pillows, was far more comfortable than the angular art-deco model favored by his therapist. The first joint session she laid out her three secrets to successful marriage repair:
1. Always tell the truth, even if it hurts.
2. Anger is the most human of emotions.
3. First thought, best thought. If it comes to mind, blurt it out.
Her theory, as she explained it, was that most marriages, particularly after the first several years, suffer from over-calculation, each partner being too conscious of the other. A desire to keep order overrules and suppresses honest and open communication, which will naturally sometimes involve conflict. Patterns of sublimation and subterfuge have been established for seemingly noble reasons—a desire to prevent hurt, or avoid strife, to keep harmony—but in reality these are a slow-growing cancer ready to devour the marriage from within. Everything seems fine, up until the moment the cancer is exposed and by that time, there’s no healthy tissue left.
“I should know what I’m talking about,” the marriage counselor said with a rueful smile. “It’s happened to me three times.”
In both the individual and joint sessions the funny man initially stuck with dictum one and insisted at every turn that he had not slept with his movie love interest. While admitting to her obvious beauty and general desirability, he listed dozens of reasons why he could not imagine sleeping with her. He detailed her stupidity and vapidity and expressed his indifference, nay, his loathing for her stupid, vapid self. His story about the night of the proposition was consistent each and every time and each and every time when he was finished telling it, the marriage counselor was frowning at him.
“What’s rule one?” she said.
“Always tell the truth, even if it hurts,” he replied.
“So why aren’t you?”
“Why aren’t I what?”
“Why aren’t you telling the truth?”
“But I am.”
The marriage counselor looked at him, the skepticism etched in her forehead and at the corners of her mouth. “I know you’re lying for two reasons. Number one, when you list all of those reasons why you wouldn’t have slept with her, not one of them starts with ‘because I’m in love with my wife and would never do that to her.’”
“I thought that was a given,” the funny man protested.
“And number two,” the therapist continued. “Look at that girl. She’s incredibly hot. I’m the furthest thing from gay and I would do her. You’re not secretly gay, are you? Because if you are, we’ve got a whole different approach for that.”
“No.”
“Then don’t expect me to believe you didn’t sleep with her, and don’t expect your wife to believe it either because I’m not going to let her.”
It’s not that the funny man thought it was a conspiracy, exactly. It was not a setup. Everyone was acting out of good intentions, it’s just that he had been cast in a role in which he did not belong. Yes, he was lost and distant, uncommunicative, and above all, flaky, but he was not a cheat.
Still, to move things along, particularly because the start of the tour was pending, at the next joint session he decides to confess. “Okay,” he says, “I admit it, I slept with her.”
“I knew it!” his wife shouts.
“Me too!” the marriage counselor chimes in.
He and his wife sit next to each other on the couch. She crosses her arms over each other and begins to cry.
“What are you thinking?” the marriage counselor says to her. “I don’t want to get into it,” she replies.
“First thought, best thought.”
“I don’t want to say something I’ll regret later.”
“Anger is the most human of emotions.”
His wife rubs the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I love him. I want to cut his balls off.”
“Good, excellent,” the marriage counselor says.
“Good?” this from the funny man.
“Yes, good,” she replies with an edge to her voice. “Honesty is the only path to healing.”
For the remainder of the session they explore far more of the cutting off the balls feeling than the love feeling, and the funny man spends many of his words on sincere apologies for the myriad ways he has failed in the past. He comes to understand that it is indeed good that his wife wants to cut his balls off, that this is actually an expression of her desire to possess him, to have him always, and he is glad to have made this small metaphoric sacrifice, especially considering he gets to keep the real ones. At the end, there are hugs all around and as the marriage counselor grips him close she whispers in his ear, “I’m proud of you, you filthy pig.”
IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE session it seems as though his false confession has stirred some progress. On the way home his wife holds his hand across the center divider of the car and that night they make love. It is better than average lovemaking, like his wife wants to prove that it is something the funny man would miss, but this is totally unnecessary because for the duration of their relationship he has missed it the moment the lovemaking is over. Afterwards his wife snuggles close and things feel so right, the funny man feels that he must tell the truth.
“Actually,” he says, stroking his wife’s hair. “I never did sleep with her.”
She sighs into his bare chest. “Let’s put it behind us, okay.”
“But it’s true. I really didn’t sleep with her. I just said so because it seemed like it would help move things along.”
“Honestly, don’t do this.”
The funny man sits up, back against the headboard. “Do what? I’m just trying to set the record straight.”
“You can’t have it both ways. You don’t get to be the good guy here. I’m forgiving you, which I think you know is very hard for me, so let’s just drop it.”
This is one of those crossroads the funny man does not recognize at the moment, which perhaps explains why he takes the wrong path in deciding now that he is the victim. He feels heat rush to his extremities and it feels kind of good, actually. He feels alive. Where for most of the previous months he has felt powerless, battered by forces beyond his control, suddenly he feels powerful. Anger is the most human of emotions and he is feeling it bigtime, feeling it toward everyone: his agent, his manager, the love interest, Pilar, his therapist, the marriage counselor, the airline industry, all the people who he would like to unleash his fury on, but because they are not there, he will do what is natural and easy and common. He will turn on his wife.
“Maybe I don’t want to drop it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I never slept with her and I want some credit for it.”
“Credit?”
“Yes, credit. I could have slept with her. I bet I could’ve slept with a lot of people, but you know what? I didn’t and I don’t.” He is not even sure where the words are coming from. He retains some part of his brain that recognizes them as ridiculous, but they feel so good, even if they are hitting the wrong target. Shooting a gun up in the air is pretty cool too. “I’m pretty goddamn important in this world, mind you. People know who I am. They love me. I bring them great pleasure. There’s a lot of fortunes tied up in me, and for once I’d like just a little recognition that overall, I’m not such a bad guy. I could be a lot worse.”
His wife’s eyes change from furious to devastatingly sad as her face caves in for a moment, but before she speaks, the fury is back, a low rumble.
“You, get the fuck out of here.”
And he does, not because she said so, no way, because he wanted to.
HIS ANGER IS so liberating he is not sure why it took him so long to embrace it. He unleashes it on everybody, his agent, his manager, even his therapist, and for the first time things start getting done his way, and it’s effing great. Following a session-long rant the day before the tour started, at the funny man’s insistence the therapist added a prescription for cylindrical white ones to the mix to help the funny man sleep because he’s so charged up all day it’s hard to power down at night.
The tour has been renamed “No Apologies for A-Holes” and the concert T-shirt features a close-up of the funny man’s multimillion-dollar hand not in his mouth, but delivering a big middle-finger fuck you.
The shows themselves are amazing. It is theater-in-the-round in places more accustomed to tractor pulls and motocross, fifteen thousand capacity minimum, and the funny man stalks the stage like an animal on a chain. It is crazy to do comedy in such an atmosphere, nonsensical; the connection between performer and audience nonexistent. And yet it works. Because of the lighting he cannot make out a single person, but he knows they’re there because of the cheering.
During the show, before doing the thing, which absolutely must close the show each and every night, the funny man has installed an eight-minute bit on why it’s dumb to apologize, which, in hindsight, will seem hackish in a Dane Cookian way, but at the time feels like it belongs on the comedy shelf right next to Carlin’s “seven dirty words.” It is nothing like his earlier material, which is mostly gentle and observational with a light absurdity. He’s sure it’s the best thing he’s ever done now that he’s tapped into his true, primal self.
I’ve got one message for all of you, and it’s this: No matter what, DON’T APOLOGIZE! I don’t care what you’ve done, I don’t want to see any apologies … ever. I don’t care if you unleash a deadly plague of monkey herpes that wipes out three-quarters of Earth’s population. DO NOT APOLOGIZE! I don’t care if you’ve like kidnapped a third-grader and chopped her up and put in the freezer for snacks later, when the cops come for you and you’re tried and convicted and you’re about to be fried in the chair, you should not apologize. DO NOT APOLOGIZE! Seriously, no apologies, man. What good does it do to apologize? The second you apologize, you’ve given them the upper hand. You’re the loser, you’ve LOST, man. It’s like here, I’m a bitch, slap me, I apologize … shit. What if you were right? Once you’ve apologized, no one’s ever going to apologize back. I’m sorry, I made you say you’re sorry? Yeah, right. It’s total surrender. It’s bend over and grab the ankles and let’s play hide-the-kielbasa-in-my-asshole time.
And even if you apologize it’s not like you get any credit for it. When’s the last time someone just said “thank you,” when you apologized. DOES NOT HAPPEN, PEOPLE! Like, you know what I hate, when you say, “I’m sorry,” and then they come back with, “I should hope so!” What the fuck is that? “I should hope so?” You should hope I don’t jam my foot up your ass I should hope so!
Look at the word, even. Break it down to its roots. First part is “apo,” which means “from” or “away,” as in “go the fuck away, I’m not apologizing.” Middle part, “logo,” which means “the study of”—yeah, that’s right, “the study of.” Last part is “ize,” which actually means, get this, “pussy.” Put it together, and “apologize” means the study of being a pussy. Well, fuck that!
JUST A WEEK into the tour he realizes that a significant portion of the crowd is delivering some of the no-apologies material with him, shouting out the punch lines. He starts holding the microphone out toward them rather than speaking the lines himself and the noise of fifteen thousand people (forty-five thousand when he’s playing a football stadium), yelling, “Well, fuck that!” threatens to lift him off the stage.
The separation papers arrive mid-tour. His wife asks for a truly absurd amount in monthly support for her and the child (and Pilar), and the funny man’s first instinct is to say, “well, fuck that,” but instead he instructs his manager to instruct his lawyer to instruct his accountant to provide whatever she asks for. She has primary custody, but he will have visitation rights, not that it matters while he’s on tour, but when this is done, he’s right there with both his money and his love. He will not be the kind of father who denies his child’s needs, one of which is a father who is brave enough to tell him the way the world works.
Liberated by his anger, he has sex widely and indiscriminately, and he loves it. He effing loves it and he’s not going to apologize for it, no way. Most of them aren’t remotely in his wife’s league looks-wise, but he doesn’t care. Fat, thin, hair on their faces, hanging earlobes, unfortunate posture, untreated goiters; he does not care because he is a giving person and they want him so badly.
The tour is a phenomenon. He does press in his off hours, appearing any- and everywhere even though the shows are long sold out. He is impossible to get away from. Flip on the television, he is there. Check Facebook, and it is funny man time. He is a trending hashtag, a comedy virus penetrating everyone everywhere. There are discussions of a South American swing so they can take advantage of the capacity at the giant soccer stadiums. For the first time he begins to understand how mighty he really is.
Think about it: The funny man has his own economy, like he is a nation unto himself. There are not just direct employees like his agent and manager and accountant and brand manager and tour director and the lighting crew, but there are people whom he does not pay directly that are thriving because of him. For example, the zit-faced gomer who rolls his pack of smokes in his sleeve and wears cowboy boots in order to look taller, even though he’s never even touched a horse, whose job it is to hawk the concert T-shirts and CDs in the arenas and stadiums for a half-percent commission per item. What could that yokel possibly do if not for the funny man? That guy is unemployable. He’d be gnawing on a block of government cheese and sucking on generic smokes if not for the funny man and his record-breaking comedy tour. But thanks to the funny man he probably has an apartment and is saving for a flat-screen television and could maybe even get laid. And what about the tabloid photographers who follow him everywhere and get paid for the pictures of him spewing pink barf into the gutter just before climbing into a limo following a little postconcert relaxation at a local watering hole? Without him, they’d have nothing to do.
And let’s not forget every last sorry shit attached to the movie sequel. Look at what he is providing for them. He has saved all of Hollywood. Dozens of thinly premised movies have been greenlit in the wake of his success. Will all of those writers, directors, actors, and key grips be sending him a thank-you? Thank you, Mr. Funny Man, for making America believe in laughter again.
He goes even deeper than this. The funny man is elemental. He is the cause of additional watching of television or Internet surfing, file downloading, consuming of media, things that take electricity and bandwidth, which is provided only by employing miners digging fuel from the Earth and technicians laying cable and flipping switches and Bengali customer-service representatives being unfailingly polite in the face of complaints. The funny man is worldwide.
He should commission a study of the GFMP, the Gross Funny Man Product, all of the tangible worldwide wealth that is directly traceable to him. He strongly suspects that the answer, when it comes right down to it, is all of it. He’s not saying he’s a savior, but it’s not an unreasonable word. It’s not out of the realm of discussion.
LIKE A SAVIOR, he loves being among the people. Check that, he loves being among his people, because that’s what happens whenever he goes out, he is soon surrounded by his people. People who get him instinctively, unquestioningly. At first, he brought a little extra protection, a little muscle with, but soon he realized it wasn’t necessary because everywhere he goes he is welcomed like an old and treasured friend, not because he slaps down his Black Card upon entering the establishment and everyone drinks for free, but because his people know that he is just like them. Grounded. Real.
After the initial hubbub of his entrance, he likes to sit at the bar because this is where he finds the realist of the real. He buys drinks and they talk about things that matter: interest rates, sports, engine capacity, gas prices, humidity. While this is going on he’s also scoping targets for later, the girls he will bring back to the hotel or tour bus, identifying two or three possibilities in case one or two of them are married or otherwise hooked up. Not that them being married is always an issue. More than once, husbands have offered their wives to him, saying it would be an “honor,” but sometimes those guys want to come with and watch and the funny man is not into that level of kink.
This night there’s a real honey, young, but not too. She is shooting pool while the funny man throws back boilermakers with his new best friends, Earl and Tony or maybe it’s Denny and Bert. This is in Grand Rapids, or maybe Ft. Worth. Maybe the accents on these guys are southern. The bar is called Lucky’s or maybe Chance’s, he’s not sure, but what he is sure of is how the honey’s shirt lifts up in the back and her jeans stretch deliciously over her ass when she leans over for a shot. He thinks he might see a tattoo there in the small of her back. They’re very common, the funny man has come to find out in his travels.
He sends her one drink, then another, and each time she politely salutes him from the tables before turning back to her game. She tosses her head back and laughs at something someone over there says. This is unusual. Usually the second drink brings them toward him like magnetism. Is it possible that she is not aware of who he is? He always dresses incognito, though not too; but no, when he walked in, a cheer went up and his back was slapped dozens of times on the way to the bar. He still feels their imprints on his flesh. He signed hands and breasts and drink coasters on his way to his stool where he could sit and do some serious drinking with Earl/Denny and Tony/Bert.
Earl/Denny looks back over his shoulder. “That’s Woody’s girl,” he says.
“Who’s Woody?” the funny man says.
“Just a guy from around,” Tony/Bert replies.
“And where’s Woody?”
“Not here, I guess,” Earl/Denny says, craning his neck around the room.
“How do you know?”
Tony/Bert chuckles softly into his beer. “Oh, you’d know by now.”
“Yeah, well, his loss,” the funny man says, tossing back the last of his beer. He follows it with just one of the circular blue pills. He has become very well-versed in what these different pills do in various combinations and he knows that one, just one, of the circular blue numbers is right for this particular occasion because it will make things blurry at the edges, like a movie in flashback, like you’ve already lived it.
The funny man is terrible at pool, but this is unimportant because by making a hash of it, he is allowed to be funny, his stock-in-trade. He whacks balls all the way off the table, even sending one flying into the middle of someone’s back, and when the startled patron wheels around, the funny man shoves his hand in his mouth and everyone in proximity cracks the hell up. When it is the honey’s turn to shoot he leans over her and says, “Here, let me show you,” and nibbles on her earlobe. She is not receptive, exactly, but neither is he getting the total brush-off. This makes it more fun. It’s been awhile since he had a challenge and she seems worth it.
He is racking the balls for a rematch when someone taps his shoulder. He turns and is face-to-face with a young guy, maybe a year or two younger than the funny man. The guy’s head is shaped like an anvil and his face is etched with deep lines like a cowboy who’s seen more than his share of sun, which probably means this is Ft. Worth and not Grand Rapids after all. The guy wears a denim shirt open a couple of buttons and ropey veins trace up over his clavicles to his neck. The etched face is calm, but the man’s jugular pulses. The face is so ugly it is undeniably handsome. The guy has the deepest blue eyes the funny man has ever seen.
“I think it’s my turn,” the guy says to the funny man.
The funny man makes a face and turns his back and keeps racking the balls. No one laughs, so he makes an even more exaggerated face, but still, no one laughs.
“Winners get to keep the table, and you didn’t win.” The guy’s breath blows the sweet tang of pouch tobacco over the funny man’s shoulder.
“Woody,” the honey says softly, plaintively.
“Oh, I’m a winner, pal,” the funny man says to the crowd, but for Woody’s benefit, without turning around. The funny man feels a vice clamp on each shoulder and he is spun so he is now face-to-face with Woody. The funny man holds the wooden pool triangle in his hand. The look on Woody’s face is unchanged, but the carotid arteries on each side now undulate under the skin like worms pushing toward the surface.
“I’ll admit,” Woody says, “that in the general sense of the word, you are a winner. By every conceivable measurement, you got the world by the balls, no doubt about that.”
“You know who I am,” the funny man says. Woody hasn’t appeared to be moving, but it is now clear to the funny man that he has been slowly crowding him against the end of the pool table. His ass hits the table edge and he must lean his torso backwards to keep from contacting Woody, which seems like it would be a bad move. He wonders where Earl/Denny and Tony/Bert are. Surely he’s bought some loyalty there.
“Oh sure,” Woody says. “I know who you are. Everybody knows who you are. The thing is, though, I do not care.”
This is where the combination of the little blue circular pills and the pink, ovoid ones are a problem. The little blue ones take the edge off everything, making it all seem like a dream. The pink, ovoid ones tamp down anxiety and fear, regardless of whether or not anxiety and fear are natural and helpful emotions in a particular moment. With enough of the pink, ovoid ones in your system, a ravenous bear could be charging at you from out of the woods and you would stand stupid, knowing you are in mortal danger, but not really caring. As the bear rears on its hind legs to strike with one of its sledgehammer paws, you may get the urge to open your arms and try to give it a hug. Even as the bear cracks open your skull using all twelve-hundred pounds per square inch of its biting power, your world is hunky-dory. For sure, the funny man should be doing something, but he does nothing.
And then the wooden pool triangle is not in the funny man’s hand, but in Woody’s and the funny man is flat on his back on top of the pool table and one edge of the triangle is pressed down on his windpipe.
“You got a lot, while I only got one thing,” Woody says, leaning into over the funny man’s face and glancing once over at the honey. “But in about thirty more seconds, if I keep doing this, you’re going to have nothing.”
The funny man’s vision begins to tunnel, closing down until it feels like he’s looking through the end of a paper-towel tube, then a straw, then he doesn’t remember, and then suddenly he can breathe again. He rolls on his side as his hands shoot instinctively to his neck.
Woody stands over him, his arm around the honey. She looks at the funny man with loveless pity. “Turns out, I got everything, huh?” he says. The lines on his face break into something like a smile. “No apologies, right, my man?”
They walk off together, Woody and the honey, his arm at her shoulders, hers fixed in his back pocket. Woody is right. He has everything. The funny man has nothing, not even Earl/Denny or Tony/Bert, who are nowhere to be found. The funny man decides that even with its hard slate surface and the balls bruising his kidneys, the pool table is the most comfortable spot ever, so that’s where he resolves to stay forever.