Chapter 35

FATE STINKS

Finally, the alarm goes off.

Six AM.

“Up and at ’em, guys,” says Uncle Frankie, flicking on the lights in the spare bedroom, which Gaynor and I are still sharing. “Today’s the big day! Boston, here we come!”

“Mr. Frankie?” says Gaynor. “Is it okay if I stay here today and bus tables?”

“You don’t want to come with us to the comedy club?”

“Nah. Jamie’s going to lose. It’s his destiny.”

And that’s right about where I have to cut this part of the story short.

Because even though Gaynor’s comment crushes me, he’s so right.

I totally tank in Boston.

I’m so bad, I half expect the audience to throw me into Boston Harbor with a bunch of tea bags. If Paul Revere were here, he’d be riding his horse up and down the streets, warning people: “Jamie Grimm stinks! Jamie Grimm stinks!”

Even Uncle Frankie deserts me.

He leaves halfway through my fifth knock-knock joke. I hear him saying, “Jamie Grimm? Never met the kid. He’s not my nephew, that’s for sure. And he’s definitely not staying in my spare bedroom. No, sir. Never again.”

I come in eleventh out of twelve.

The kid in tenth place told his jokes in Farsi. Without a translator.

The only act I beat is a scruffy monkey from Maine who bugged out his eyes, clanged two cymbals together, and screeched, “You want some of me? You want some of me?”

When comedians flop, they call it dying onstage.

Right now, I just wish I could.