It was a full house, and Cora was slammed. An ass held down every stool and the long side of the main bar was already three people deep. She was running around slinging drinks flitting from one end to the other like a bumblebee in the fall.
“What in the world?” I wondered out loud as I headed to the comedian’s lounge to get my head right for the stage. Paulie made a beeline for me with a huge smile on his face. I was puzzled, trying to decipher an expression that could only be interpreted as overjoyed to see me. An expression I had never seen on his face before.
“My man!” He clapped me hard on the back, and my shoulders tensed up, edging closer to my ears. I quickly glanced over my shoulder, trying to figure out who he was speaking to. “I’m talking to you, you old rascal.” He jostled my shoulders playfully like men do who weren’t hugged enough as children, but then grow up starved for physical touch. “We haven’t had a crowd like this since… God, I don’t know… since forever.”
“Are you giving away free beer? Let me guess… did you install complimentary glory holes in the bathrooms?”
“No, you big sicko!” He smiled widely, and it bordered on bizarre. “They are here to see you, Freddie Angel the Funologist!”
“Really?” I asked incredulously looking around the room in shock and disbelief.
“Can you perform a longer set?” he asked. “I’m going to bump Phil. He’s been bombing lately.”
I felt a stab of empathy for Phil. I had been bumped before and knew firsthand it made you feel shitty. “Yeah, I’ve been working on some new material.”
“You’re the headliner, baby!” He buttered me up, suddenly becoming my best friend. “I bet you never thought you’d hear me say that after the stunt you pulled last time.”
“True,” I agreed and then said, “I’ve got to get ready for my set.” I couldn’t wait to get away from Paulie. His complete one-eighty personality shift was difficult to digest.
“Do you need some quiet?” he offered. “You can use my office. Hell, I’ll even send Cora in with your favorite libation. I know you’re sweet on her.”
My face reddened. I hated that I was so transparent. “Oh, okay,” I answered, not wanting to sound too excited about the prospect of having Cora to myself.
“But don’t keep her too long,” he warned.
Keep her? Did he forget she’s her own woman? You don’t ‘keep’ a woman like Cora, she keeps you.
“Of course,” I answered anyway, knowing that was what he wanted to hear.
Paulie settled me into the chair in his office and rubbed my shoulders like a boxer’s manager does for his prize winner before a big fight. The act made my skin crawl, and I had to fight the urge to physically recoil from the contact.
“I’ve got to focus,” I said, desperate to get him out of there. “Can you send Cora in with a screwdriver?”
“Of course. Whatever the Funologist wants, the Funologist gets,” he agreed with a wink and then left, pulling the door shut behind him quietly.
Cora came through the door with my drink next. She set it down on his desk and pulled up a rickety chair next to me. “Can you believe this? I’m exhausted, but the tips are amazing. I’ll make more tonight than I have the entire last month. All because of you!”
Her praise leveled me and made my heart accelerate. I was fidgety, so I stood and started pacing the small office in circles.
“What if I bomb?”
“What if you don’t?” she reasoned and walked up to me, grabbing my forearms. “You have nothing to worry about. They love you already! I’ll go out there and keep plying them with booze, and by the time you take the stage, you will be able to do no wrong.” She pulled me in for a hug, and I wrapped my arms around her, keeping them high on her waist. Respectable. I pulled back and looked down at her, and she surprised me by brushing her lips across mine quickly before she left.
Forty minutes later, a low rumbling started and began to swell louder and louder. Thundering applause punctuated by indiscernible chanting. I pressed my ear to the door to try to make it out, the sound forcing the cracked walls to vibrate and come alive.
“Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!”
“Die! Fred! Die! Fred!” a voice hissed deep within that barely registered, and I forced myself to ignore it.
The chanting intensified, and I heard Paulie’s voice next, muffled through the wood. Opening the door a crack, I caught the tail end of his introduction and was swept onto the stage to thunderous applause. For the first time ever, The Punch Line was standing room only. Packed to the gills. I took a deep breath, letting the crowd’s energy rev me up. It was intense and electric and spun me up like a top.
I grabbed the microphone and took a long, deep breath before looking out into the crowd again. There in the front row, nursing a beer, was Darlene from the bus. She gave me a little wave, and my heart bloomed with joy.
“Helllllooooo!” I shouted into the microphone as I used my hands to hush the crowd. “Holy cow!” I pressed my hand to my heart. “I tell you what, you tell one bus full of people that you’ll buy them a beer…” The crowd chuckled and stomped and clapped.
“Looking back, it probably wasn’t the smartest decision to tell a crowded bus full of strangers I won the lottery, but hey, I never claimed to be a brainiac.”
I turned to the bar. “See that cute little redhead over there?” I pointed at Cora, who quickly bowed. “Freddie Angel is a man of his word. I am going to make good on my promise. Cora! Give these fine people a thick pour of your most mediocre draft beer. And don’t forget to give her...”
I pointed the microphone to the audience, who roared, “Just the tip!” I laughed into the newfound ease, savoring the love.
“You got it, boss!” Cora shouted out.
“Boss?” I asked, pressing my luck on stage. “Let’s remember who’s boss when we get back to my bedroom tonight, sweetheart.” She shook her head at me as the room erupted into applause, and I walked to the other end of the stage.
“Dar-lene, Darlene, Darlene, Darleee-eene,” I sang poorly, a sad imitation of Dolly’s iconic hit Jolene into the microphone as I walked toward her and then giggled. “I promise that is the full extent of my vocal stylings you will be subjected to tonight.” I pointed at her and beckoned her forward with my finger. “Come up here, sweetheart.” She stood and walked up the steps to the stage. Wearing orthopedic shoes and a striped seersucker pantsuit, her fingers were covered in gold rings with colorful gemstones. “Why don’t you tell these beautiful people how we met?”
She smiled and said, “We met on the bus, where you were escorting your giant check home.”
“Escorting—that truly is the most accurate word you could use.” I turned back to the audience. “Let me paint the picture for you. I’d just left the lottery headquarters and got on the bus with the giant check they use for publicity photos. It was a thing of beauty. A true masterpiece. I never thought I would see my name scrawled across one of those. So, I’d be damned if I was going to leave it behind.” I smiled sweetly. “I was stroking it and cuddling it.” I mimed a loving face, pretending to kiss it. “I love you the most.” Then the pantomime quickly morphed into holding the fake check in my hands and dry humping it as the audience lost it. Darlene covered her eyes laughing as I pulled an ugly orgasm face while the crowd’s hysterics egged me on. “Sorry, Mom. I’m done, you can look now.”
Uncovering her eyes, she glanced up at me again, her face glowing with a sweet smile as I continued. “Yes, it’s true. I won the lottery, folks. Fifty thousand dollars!” Then I softly muttered into the microphone, “Thirty-seven-point-five after Uncle Sam rapes you without the Vaseline.” Darlene laughed, her cheeks turning pink. “And what did you say?” I tipped the microphone toward her.
“I asked how you were going to spend it,” she said timidly.
“And how did I answer?”
“Hookers and blow,” she answered matter of factly, as the crowd roared, at the irreverent words coming from the mouth of a sweet little old lady.
“Have you ever been to a comedy show?”
“Why, heavens no.” She shook her head.
“And after being here, be honest, you’re never coming back, are you?” I winked at her as she laughed. “You’ve been a good sport. What can I get you to drink, sweetheart?” I asked.
“A Blue Moon?”
“Absolutely. Cora, can you see that Darlene gets a Blue Moon and add it to my tab?” I turned to the audience. “That’s a little trick I picked up from Bill Cosby.” The crowd went wild, and Darlene shook her finger at me and laughed. “Let’s give Darlene a hand!” She waved at the crowd and then got settled in her seat, and Cora brought her beer over.
“The lottery… Man, it changes you,” I commiserated with the crowd. “But I decided to flip the script. I’m going to give it all away.” I stopped and leaned on the mic stand and looked back out to the audience. “Every penny,” I looked out into the crowd, “and I started to do that and you know what happened?” I paused again. “Venmo.” I covered the mic and my mouth with my hand, obscuring it from the audience. “Shameless plug alert, you can be a part of the movement by donating @thefunologist,” I murmured into the mic as the audience laughed. “After the Steak and Shake waitress’s post went viral, someone suggested I set up a Venmo account, so I did, just for shits and giggles… a kind of social experiment if you will.” I rocked the stand back and forth. “And in seconds, money started to flow into the account. I was floored.”
“So, I decided I am going to give that away, too.” I waited. “But here’s the caveat. No charities, no government agencies, I am talking about putting it into the hands of real people who need it.”
The crowd clapped and stomped so loud I had to wait a full minute for it to be quiet enough to continue.
“I’m gonna stretch this fifteen-minutes-of-fame into at least thirty, and as long as there is money in the Venmo account, I will be out there in the wild, spreading the fundamentals of Funology like chlamydia on a Naval base.”
The rest of my set killed. I barely remember it. I said the words, and the audience rolled and roared. After what felt like seconds, but was more like half an hour, I walked off the stage on a high still basking in the afterglow. The adoration you feel on stage is like no other feeling in the entire world. They loved me. I was a comedy god. Freddie Angel was finally somebody.
After the set at The Punch Line, Instagram swelled and the Venmo account ballooned to a massive twenty-seven thousand dollars overnight. It was impossible to sleep. I’d refresh the screen to find twenty more followers by the second, then I’d search the hashtags and scroll through all the posts, reading the comments and responding. Hours would go by and my eyes would get bloodshot and red, and I’d settle down to try and sleep, but then I’d hit refresh or head over to twitter and get sucked right back into the social media love bubble.
They loved me. Actual real people took time out of their days to read my posts and share them on Insta and Tik-Tok. Even Darlene made the cut with her hookers and blow comment; her video post cameo landed over four thousand shares in twenty-four hours. I jumped up and did fifty jumping jacks and then what was going to be fifty pushups, but that only turned into ten feeble attempts with the last two being the modified lady version. I had energy for days. Giving money away invigorated me. I was finally relevant. I did important things that people actually cared about. My star was rising, and I was enjoying the rocket ride into the stratosphere.
At three a.m, I ordered one hundred I Love Porn bumper stickers, a case of whoopee cushions, and an air horn. I had special plans for Paulie’s chair for that one. I bought Ma some new slippers and some Lindt truffles. I ordered some leather pants and two pairs of sunglasses, a diamond pinky ring, and a case of that spray-on hair stuff from Billy Mays from a late-night infomercial I watched to try to calm my mind.
Inside, my brain surged and spun like a superhighway in India. Chaos and horns, screaming and whispering. Reckless drivers speeding and slamming on the brakes headed nowhere. When I was fully immersed in the moment, giving things away or on stage, it quieted. When I was home alone, the insanity symphony raged on. I pulled out my notebook and began to write feverishly, pressing the pen to the paper so hard it left an imprint on the next three pages.
Sweaty and spent, I looked over my handwriting. Cramped and tiny, it filled the pages haphazardly in a manic fashion no one else would be able to interpret. It looked like hieroglyphics and needed a translator. I patted myself on the back.
Good job. That way, no one will be able to steal my jokes.
“Yeah, doofus, they will be a secret, even from you,” a man interrupted. “Great plan, Einstein!”
Shut up.
I wrote another page worth of jokes and laughed my ass off when I read them back out loud, delighted and ready to trot them out at my next performance at The Punch Line. My thoughts ran wild on circular tracks in my mind, solving all the world’s problems eight at a time. I didn’t need to sleep. I needed to get these ideas on paper. I needed to write these jokes down before I lost them. It would be a disservice to the act of comedy itself if they never saw the light of day.