IF IT’S POSSIBLE to actually recognize someone you’ve never seen before, Oliver certainly did. Wendy looked just like she sounded over the phone—earthy and uneventfully pretty, the girl you wished lived next door. She wore threadbare jeans, a faded Wilco T-shirt, and thick braids that bounced in rhythm with the slap of her Birkenstocks.
He’d gotten her name off a corkboard during a reconnaissance mission at Vanderbilt University. Sneaking into a classroom at Vandy was the holy grail of Oliver’s educational larceny, but so far he hadn’t worked up the nerve. So he’d sipped lukewarm coffee from a recycled cup, tried to blend in with chatty coeds, and pretended to study a nearby bulletin board. His mind had been busy fantasizing about adding pre-med from such a prestigious institution to his fake transcript when he spotted her pink construction-paper note:
Need money for textbooks, Xmas gifts, cat food. Will do most anything if it’s legal. Call Wendy.
A series of perforations dangled along the bottom of the ad. Oliver had peeled off one of the strips with Wendy’s phone number and dialed as soon as he got home.
“Yeah, my name is Oliver Miles and I’m calling about your ad.”
“If it’s about the futon I sold it already.” Her voice was stilted, preoccupied. Probably with the game show blaring in the background.
“Actually, I was wanting to hire you.”
“You need a Spanish tutor or clarinet lessons?”
“Sorry, I place a lot of ads. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“It was the ‘will work for cat food’ one.”
“Oh yeah, my desperation ad. What kind of work are we talking about?”
“Good question.” Oliver realized he should have rehearsed this part. “I guess you’d call it performance art.”
“Not sure I like the sound of that.”
“Don’t worry. It’s totally legal.”
“And we’ll be in public, right? With plenty of witnesses?”
Oliver faked a laugh, hoping it sounded more casual than he felt. “You’ll be totally safe. I promise.”
“I wasn’t worried about my safety.” A buzzer went off in the background, followed by strange synthesizer noises and raucous applause. “I’m a black belt.”
“Oh, good to know.”
“I give karate lessons too, if you’re interested.”
A little late, Oliver thought as he remembered Mattie having to rescue him from the drugged-out she-man. They spent another ten minutes swapping particulars and negotiating terms. Once Wendy Tatlinger bullied Oliver into paying her twenty dollars more than he intended, she said, “Just so you know, I’m a terrible actress. I don’t sing. Or dance. And microphones make me nauseous.”
“Perfect.”
Now here she was, less than twenty-four hours later, scanning the room for her mystery employer. The longer she searched, the more her second thoughts seemed to multiply. Which was okay with Oliver. This was only going to work if she were sufficiently nervous. Just when it looked like she was ready to give up and go home, he waved her over. She responded with a severe frown and a wary glance at the entrance.
“Are you Wendy?” Oliver said.
She hugged her hemp purse, nodded once, then extended her hand in greeting. “Oliver, right?”
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“Sixty. Just like we agreed.”
“And what exactly am I supposed to do?”
“Just repeat after me. And try to speak clearly.”
Wendy motioned toward the stage with her chin. “From up there?”
“Yep. Right up there.”
“And where will you be?”
“Right behind you. Feeding you lines.”
“I don’t know about this.”
“Trust me, the more nervous you are the better.”
“Maybe you’d better pay me half up front.”
“You mind if I ask why?”
“In case I vomit onstage.”
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “Trust me.”
Wendy sat at a table near the stage, nursing some colorful cocktail while Oliver scribbled additional notes on the cheat sheet he’d prepared.
The format was open mic, and Simon Childress, a self-pronounced “redneck humorist” in the vein of Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy, was the emcee. He was predictable but funny enough to warm up the overly cool crowd.
The first two comics were painfully amateurish. The first was so nervous he kept losing track of his punch lines. As his five-minute set ground forward, his mouth became increasingly dry and his voice quavered to the point of actual vibrato. The gaggle of friends he brought along applauded their support, but the entire room seemed to sigh in relief when he climbed down. It would take a good twenty minutes and several drinks before his face stopped glowing and he lost that just-survived-a-plane-crash expression. The second comic was hilarious, but not on purpose. He was a chubby college kid, affable, unoriginal, and mostly drunk. The crowd laughed at his expense, not at his jokes.
Simon introduced Oliver, peppering his resume with a few friendly cheap shots, then managed to evoke some hearty applause as Oliver ushered Wendy to a barstool in the middle of the stage. He took his time, positioning himself behind Wendy and pretending to study his set list—all in an attempt to make his new assistant feel even more awkward, which was the only way this was going to work, if indeed it worked at all.
In a stage whisper, Oliver said, “Just look at the people out there and repeat after me.”
Wendy nodded, and Oliver imagined her looking wide-eyed and biting her bottom lip. After an uncomfortably long delay, he leaned in close enough to catch the mingled scent of some exotic lotion and nervous perspiration. Then he whispered a line from an old Steve Martin routine about learning to speak French.
Instead of repeating the line, Wendy said, “What?”
This elicited a few nervous laughs from the crowd. Oliver repeated the line, more softly than the first time.
“Look, you’re going to have to speak up, Oliver. I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”
This time the laughter was less timid. Oliver wished he could see Wendy’s expression, then wished he’d thought to videotape this little experiment, then finally delivered the line so Wendy could hear it. Speaking through the monotone voice of Wendy Tatlinger, Oliver set up Martin’s joke one stilted line at a time.
“Oeuf means egg …”
Wendy’s delivery was deadpan, stilted, a soft drone.
“Chapeau means hat … It’s like those French have a different word for everything!”
The response from the audience fell well short of uproarious. But they did laugh a little. So Oliver forged on, providing a guided tour of comedy’s greatest hits, sampling on random bits from Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, George Carlin, Robert Klein, and Jerry Seinfeld. The point—Oliver finally realized midway through the exercise—was not to elicit big laughs, but to provide a novice case study comparing and contrasting the reaction of a comedian’s material when divorced from his particular intangibles. Things like delivery, personality, point of view, timing, facial expression, body language, and strategic pauses. The experiment proved interesting enough, at least for the first few minutes. But Oliver became bored with the whole endeavor almost as quickly as the nice people listening to it. As he was preparing to end with a few of his favorite Steven Wright one-liners, Wendy stood up and turned on him.
“What is this supposed to be anyway?”
Smatterings of laughter rippled through the crowd. But most seemed to sense this was not part of the show.
“Stand-up comedy,” Oliver said.
“But it’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t really supposed to be.”
“So the point was to get up and do comedy … at a comedy club … and for the crowd not to laugh?”
“Yes,” Oliver said. “I mean, no, not really.” When he’d dreamed up this little experiment, it seemed risky and avant-garde and progressive. Now it just seemed desperate, and kind of stupid. “I forget what the point was, actually.”
The crowd found this admission much funnier than Oliver’s recycled jokes. That’s when he finally realized the point of this rather desperate comedic excursion—he didn’t really believe his material was good enough for Downers.
“Well then,” Wendy said, more to the crowd than to Oliver. “I quit.”
This elicited a few inebriated whoops and catcalls from the crowd, even an obligatory You go girl!
“We were pretty much done here anyway,” Oliver said, then stood and made an overly chivalrous gesture toward the steps on stage right. But Wendy planted her feet and crossed her arms. She looked anything but nauseated now. She looked like she was enjoying the attention.
“No way,” she said. “I want my money first.”
“Fine,” Oliver said. “But can we do this over by the bar?”
“I don’t think so.” Wendy looked to the crowd—her crowd now—who began cheering for her. “I want witnesses. In case you try to stiff me.”
Oliver shrugged, retrieved his checkbook from his hip pocket, and began filling in the blanks.
“I said cash.”
“Sorry, I don’t have any cash.”
“Well, just go get your cut from the bartender and pay me out of that.”
“I can’t,” Oliver said.
“Why on earth not?”
“There is no cut.”
“You mean you guys do this for free?”
Oliver shrugged at Wendy, then at the crowd.
“Why am I not surprised?” she said. Oliver had to guess at how to spell her last name as he filled in the blanks. “Anyhow, I thought comedians had rules against stealing jokes and stuff.” She delivered this like a punch line, but it fell flat. Wendy inspected her paycheck before jamming it into her jeans pocket and heading for the exit.
Oliver sensed the crowd turning on her. But then a tipsy guy wearing a dented fez stood, blocked her path, and said, “Will you marry me?”
Wendy paused, seeming to consider his offer, then said, “Maybe next time, sweetie.” But when she tried to get around him, he grabbed her forearm and shouted his question again. An instant later Wendy had swept the man’s legs out from under him and stood over him in a menacing karate pose. The only movement in the room was the pendulum swing of her braids.
When she turned to leave again, Wendy added a noticeable sashay to her gait, which caused a groundswell of applause to gather in her wake. Before pushing through the door, Wendy turned to her new admirers and offered a formal bow. Some smart aleck stood up, so several more followed suit, all men of course.
Still, it was the first time Oliver had ever seen a standing ovation on open-mic night.
• • •
“This seat taken?”
Oliver looked up, pleased to see Simon instead of an angry club owner or Wendy coming back to karate chop him for writing a bad check. Without waiting for an invitation, Simon stretched out opposite Oliver in the booth.
“You sulking over the girl?” he said. “Or the lame set?”
“My set wasn’t that bad.”
“It wasn’t that good, either. At least not up to your standards.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“You’re a funny guy, Oliver. But you can be your own worst enemy. When you get up there and tell jokes, it’s good stuff. Sometimes it kills.”
“I think I have a confession to make.” Oliver spun his coffee mug until the handle was on the opposite side, then lifted it and sipped. “I hate my act.”
“Hah, that’s the funniest thing you’ve said all night.”
“Maybe so. But it’s definitely the most honest thing I’ve said all night.”
“You do realize that there’s a dozen other comics in town that’d give their left funny bone for your material? Half of them are sitting out there tonight, waiting their turn.”
“They can have it.”
“Present company included?” Simon said.
“You actually want some of my material?”
“Not all of it. But you have a few bits I’d steal if, you know, I didn’t have such high moral standards. I’m not really crazy about that prayer bit you usually open with.”
“Why not?” Oliver said.
“I don’t know. Fake prayer just seems kinda sacrilegious or something.”
“It’s not fake, Simon.”
“Oh, well … still not interested.”
“Anyway,” Oliver said. “I’m just tired of sitting around and dreaming up some funny observation about some mundane event, then running it through the mill.”
“We’re comics. That’s what we do.”
“All I am is a safe version of the nice-guy comics—Seinfeld or Romano or take your pick.”
“Just a lot less famous,” Simon said. “And not quite as funny.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Look, your problem is that you’ve got the voice of Roscoe talking in your head. You can’t let him get to you like that, man. And speaking of Roscoe, did you get the email?” “I did.”
“So?” Simon said. “I figured you’d be bouncing off the walls.”
“I don’t know. I may not even audition.”
“You mind if I ask why? I mean, that’s all you’ve ever talked about since the first time I met you. Downers this, Roscoe that”
Oliver tried to think of a response that avoided the truth but still wasn’t a lie. It was already a bad night. He wasn’t up to admitting he’d been uninvited to his dream gig. “I probably wouldn’t have a legitimate shot anyway. Heard it was all big names, A-list guys.”
“Yeah? I heard it was all old farts and has-beens. Just like Roscoe. He doesn’t even pay people, unless you count burgers.”
“They’re pretty good burgers,” Oliver said.
“Look, I know you guys have a history, but all that legendary crap is overblown, a figment of your hyperactive imagination. Roscoe’s a footnote, man. Seriously, Oliver, you’re too good to worry about the approval of that old man.”
“Thanks,” Oliver said, choosing to ignore Simon’s comments about his old friend. Besides, if he started defending Roscoe, he might not be able to stop. And he’d already lost one argument tonight. “Anyway, what’s wrong with trying something fresh?”
“Not a thing. So long as it’s actually fresh. And funny.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t laugh once tonight?”
“Yeah, I did. We all did. But just like the chubby kid, we were laughing at you, not the material.”
Simon pushed himself up from the table and said, “Time to get back up there and practice my craft. I, for one, have a big audition at Downers to prepare for.”
“I thought that was beneath you, a bunch of old farts, has-beens, and footnotes.”
“A gig is a gig, man,” Simon said, but his voice sounded distant, distracted. He was craning his neck for a better look at the bottom of Oliver’s set list. “Besides, some of those old farts are still pretty funny.”
“Wait,” Oliver said. “You didn’t come over here to cheer me up at all, did you? You just wanted Wendy’s phone number.”
Simon replied with a guilty shrug.
“What happened to your flight attendant girlfriend?”
“She’s attending to a flight at the moment.”
“I don’t think so, Simon.” Oliver folded the set list and slipped it into his hip pocket. “I refuse to contribute to the delinquency of a serial womanizer.”
“Too late,” Simon said, reciting seven digits as he made his way back to the stage.