For one thing, we’ve actually kissed. It was 8:43 PM. On the Long Beach boardwalk. A balmy seventy-six degrees. Stars were twinkling overhead. Two seagulls and a hermit crab were witnesses.
Hey—you never forget the details of your first kiss.
Another reason Cool Girl is different? She says whatever is on her mind, whenever it happens to be there. If it’s in her brain, it’s going to come out her mouth. When I’m with Cool Girl, I feel like I can talk about anything and everything.
“Hey,” she says when she sees me.
“Hey.”
“You psyched for the regional competition up in Boston?”
As the winner of New York State’s Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest, I’m supposed to represent the Empire State in the next round of the nationwide competition, which is being held at Boston’s top club: Nick’s Comedy Stop.
I shrug like the regionals are no big deal. “Sort of.”
Cool Girl arches a skeptical eyebrow. “Sort of?”
“Well, it’s not for a month. I need to work up some new material and—”
All of a sudden this guy cruises up the hall.
He looks like he just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, except he’s wearing clothes. He walks like a male model. You know—sort of sideways, with one hand in a pocket. Strut, swish, strut.
With the other hand, he’s carrying a very heavy stack of books.
Cool Girl’s books.
The ones I used to carry for her. (Well, she’d dump ’em in my lap and I’d roll along after her. I was like her personal library cart.)
“Hey, Suzie,” says the buff dude.
Great. He sounds like those breathy guys in the perfume commercials. The hunks who ride the white horses and flick their incredible blond hair all the time.
“Hey, Ethan.”
Double great. He’s got a movie star name.
“Jamie?” says Cool Girl. “Have you met my boyfriend?”
Boyfriend?!?! Cool Girl has a Cool Guy?!?!
Remember how I said I really like the way she just blurts stuff out without thinking about what she’s about to blurt? I’d like to take that back now, please.
“Ethan just moved here like a week ago from Malibu.”
I swallow hard.
“California?” I squeak. At least Cool Girl can’t hear my heart shattering like a souvenir Shrek glass from McDonald’s when it hits the bathroom floor.
“Fer shure,” says Cool Guy. “And you must be Jamie Grimm, the motor-skills-challenged comedian I’ve heard so much about.”
Yeah.
That’s me. The Motor-Skills-Challenged Motormouth.
Or, my new nickname, Fool Guy.
As in, I was a fool to think Cool Girl could ever really like me.
Chapter 8
A BURGER AND FRIES FIXES EVERYTHING
Before the final bell even stops ringing, I’m already out of school and up the boardwalk at my uncle Frankie’s diner.
Yes. I am that fast. (It helps that it’s mostly downhill.)
In case you couldn’t tell by the menu, my uncle Frankie used to be the yo-yo champion of Brooklyn, a borough famous for people who shout “Yo!” and “Yo!” at each other. These days, he “rocks the baby” with one hand and flips burgers with the other.
His restaurant, Frankie’s Good Eats by the Sea, is one of the oldest diners in all of the tristate area. That might be why the jukebox is filled with nothing but doo-wop classics from the 1950s and ’60s.
I love the diner, but I love Uncle Frankie even more.
He’s the one who first encouraged me to enter the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest, because I’d entertain his customers by telling jokes when I helped out behind the cash register.
Now, whenever I have time, I roll behind the counter and start ringing (and cracking) people up. It’s good practice—especially with those regionals in Boston breathing down my neck.
One customer loves anything by George Carlin, so I always have a pile of his brain droppings (that’s what Carlin called one of his books) on hand.
“If the Cincinnati Reds were really the first major-league baseball team, who did they play?”
The customer busts a gut, so I give him one of Carlin’s hippie dippie weather reports.
“The forecast for tonight is dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.”
The next customer up to the register is another regular, Mr. Burdzecki. He’s Russian and always wears a Cossack hat, even when the weather forecast is “hot” instead of “dark.” He loves jokes by Russian comics, but the only Russian funnyman I know is Yakov Smirnoff, who mostly performs at his own theater in Branson, Missouri, these days. Lucky for me, Mr. Burdzecki doesn’t mind a repeat every once in a while.
“You know,” I say, “many people are surprised to hear that there are comedians in Russia, but they are there. They’re dead, but they’re there.”
Mr. Burdzecki laughs like a big ol’ happy bear. “You still funny!”
“Well, you’re still a great audience.”
“No.” He slams his beefy fist on the counter. Coffee cups rattle in their saucers. “You funny. Even funnier than before.”
“Okay,” I say. “I funnier.”
“Da.”
“Jamie?” Uncle Frankie comes out of the kitchen twirling his yo-yo.
“Hey, Uncle Frankie. What’s up?”
“Boston. The regionals. You working on your jokes?”
“A little.”
He makes a “gimme, gimme” gesture with his free hand.
“Um, okay. A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says, ‘Ugh, that’s the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen!’ The woman walks to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her, ‘The driver just insulted me!’ The man says, ‘You go up there and tell him off. Go on, I’ll hold your monkey for you.’ ”
Uncle Frankie nods and fishes a scorecard out from under the counter. He flashes it at me.
“Come on. Hit me again.”
“Okay,” I say, thinking I’m on a roll. “I went to buy some camouflage pants the other day, but I couldn’t find any.”
Uncle Frankie groans. Winces a little. He holds up another scorecard.
He turns to one of the counter workers.
“J.J.? Take over the register. Me and Jamie need to hit the kitchen. We have some serious funny business to attend to.”
Chapter 9
IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT…
Once we’re in the kitchen, Uncle Frankie starts working me like he’s a drill sergeant. Or a football coach. Maybe a child psychologist.
Actually, he’s a little bit of all three, with a pinch of street-corner preacher and Jedi Master tossed in for good measure. He’s pushing me to make my dreams of being crowned the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic come true.
“Remember, Jamie, no dream comes true unless you wake up and go to work.”
I nod. “That’s great advice, Uncle Frankie. Thanks.”
Uncle Frankie smiles and twirls his yo-yo. “Well, I can’t take full credit for that pithy little ditty. Anonymous said it first.”
“That Anonymous. What a busy guy. He must’ve written a new saying every day.”
“So, have you written any new material for Boston?”
“A couple of things.”
“Hit me with your best shot,” says Frankie, taking a seat on a pickle bucket.
I launch into my rendition of what the Internet tells me is one of the funniest jokes in the world. It’s based on a Goon Show sketch by the late, great Spike Milligan (yes, they had his old records in the rehab hospital library, too):
“Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed over. The other hunter whips out his cell phone and calls 9-1-1. ‘My friend is dead!’ he gasps. ‘What should I do?’ The operator says, ‘Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.’ Th
ere’s a silence. Then a gunshot. Back on the phone, the guy says, ‘Okay, now what?’ ”
Uncle Frankie laughs.
Politely.
I was, you know, hoping for a little bit more. Like a guffaw, maybe even a chortle or a whoop.
“So, Jamie, tell me something. You ever been hunting?”
“No. Except once when I was like six.”
“You went on a hunt when you were six?”
“Yeah. For Easter eggs.”
Now, for whatever reason, Uncle Frankie cracks up. “Okay. More like that. Be you. Make it your own. I tell you, kiddo, your jokes are always a lot funnier when they come from who you are and what you’ve seen.”
“Just stuff from my life?”
“That’s right. The more real, the better.”
I think about that for a second.
“Okay. Well, lately, I’ve realized I’m living my life like the guy who wrote that book Under the Bleachers.”
“Really?” says Frankie, totally hooked. “Who’s he?”
“I. Seymour Butts.”
Uncle Frankie chuckles. So I keep going.
“I mean, look at me. I’m sitting here all day, living my life at belt-buckle-and-belly-button level. Unless I’m waiting in line. Then I’m staring at a sea of butts.”
I shrug. “Seriously. Wherever I go, I have fannies in my face. And you can imagine my delight when it’s Beanie Weenie day at the school cafeteria. There I am, cruising along, wishing my wheelchair was equipped with an optional gas mask…”
Uncle Frankie loses his yo-yo because he’s laughing so hard he has to hold his sides. I think he might roll off his pickle perch.
“Okay, okay. Enough! That’s the stuff. Give me a dozen more bits like that, and I guarantee you’ll cream ’em in Boston, kiddo!”
Wow.
I feel absolutely great. Uncle Frankie will do that to you.
Now the only thing I have to worry about is Nick’s Comedy Stop serving those Boston baked beans I’ve heard so much about.
Chapter 10
LIFE IS FUNNY—AT LEAST, MINE IS
Coming home from the diner, I’m totally pumped about the upcoming competition.
Uncle Frankie is right. I’ll just take stuff from my real life and turn it into comic bits.
For instance, Godzilla the Garbageman.
Or a school bully who calls himself an insult comedian.
I could talk about that tiny pink pill called Spinulax and then switch to my fast-talking announcer voice: “Those actually breathing should not take Spinulax without first consulting a physician or a priest or an undertaker. Stop taking Spinulax if you develop bunny ears or moose antlers.”
Or how when some people see that I’m “handicapped”—a word that makes me feel like I should either be a horse or be playing golf—they start talking LOUDER.
Do these people think that after the car wreck, my ears ended up in my butt? That I’m sitting on ’em?
Then there’s Cool Guy. The middle school male model. What’s up with all those good-looking dudes like him in clothing catalogs? How come they’re always pouting and looking bored? If I looked that good and had girls swooning over me, I’d smile. A lot.
And then, of course, there’s school. What a concept. Think about it. It’s an extremely strange way to spend the day—unless, of course, you grew up in a prison.
When you’re older, if you don’t like people or they don’t like you, you can just avoid each other. Adults have cubicles, gated communities, and country clubs, and they can screen their calls. If someone gives you a wedgie or a swirly at the office, you can call security. You can have the cops charge them with assault.
But kids my age? We have to go to school and spend all day, every day with bullies who want to insult us or stuff us into lockers or both. And if we don’t show up, that’s when the cops get called.
Uncle Frankie is so right. Forget all those joke books. My life is giving me all the material I need.
I’m all set to go into the garage and start writing this stuff down when Aunt Smiley calls to me from the front porch.
“Jamie? Can you come into the kitchen for a minute? Your uncle and I need to ask you a huge favor.”
“Sure—” I start to say, until I notice Stevie Kosgrov standing behind her, shaking his head and giving me the stink eye.
Uh-oh.
Why do I think my life is about to hand me some new material?
Chapter 11
DIAGRAMMING MY DEATH SENTENCE
The very funny comedian Mel Brooks once said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer.”
Get ready to laugh.
Here comes my next open sewer.
“Like I said, Jamie,” says Mrs. Smiley, “this is a huge favor.”
“We need you to tutor Stephen,” says Mr. Smiley.
“He’s not doing very well in math or social studies,” says Mr. Smiley. “Or that other one. You know. The one with all the scientific stuff. Science.”
“He’s flunking ELA and health, too,” adds Mrs. Smiley. “But, well, we have to choose our battles.”
“Will you help Stephen, Jamie?” says Mrs. Smiley. “You’re doing so well in school.”
That’s because I do a few things Stevie never does, such as read, go to class, and study.
“You know, when I was Stephen’s age,” she continues, “I was struggling in school, and your mother—my big sister—well, she tutored me.”
Great. Mrs. Smiley just went in for the kill. She mentioned my mom.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll do it.”
“Great!” says Mr. Smiley, practically leaping up from the table.
“We’ll leave you two alone,” says Mrs. Smiley with what amounts to a grin here in Smileyville. “So you boys can hit the books!”
Oh, boy. I really wished she hadn’t mentioned hitting!
Chapter 12
A LEGEND IN HIS OWN MIND
I have never been so happy to go to school.
Being there means I don’t have to try to teach Stevie Kosgrov anything. For nearly eight hours, trained professionals are paid to take over for me.
I wish them luck.
Meanwhile, life decides to toss me another curveball.
My friends and I meet someone very, shall we say, interesting during our lunch period. Actually, meet isn’t the right word. We’re invaded.
The kid’s name is Vincent O’Neil. He always thought he was pretty funny, but he didn’t start messing with me until I won the Long Island’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest.
Vince squeezes in between Gaynor and Pierce so he can tell us all how he’s “one hundred thousand times funnier” than I’ll ever be.
“I was going to enter that comedy contest you won,” he says, “but something came up. I think it was my lunch. Hey, speaking of lunch, did you hear about the kid who drank eight Cokes? He burped seven up! Get it? SevenUp?”
“Got it,” I say. “Thanks.”
“Hey, why do seagulls fly over the ocean?”
Gilda sighs. “Why?”
“Because if they flew over the bay, they’d be bay-gulls. Get it? Bagels?”
“Yeah. Got that one, too,” says Gilda. “Thanks.”
“No problem. We aim to please. So you aim, too, please. I saw that once on a sign. Over a urinal!”
“Oh-kay,” says Pierce. “Well, we only have another fifteen minutes to finish our lunch and—”
“Hey, what do Eskimos get from sitting on icebergs too long?”
Nobody says anything.
Except, of course, Vincent O’Neil. “Polaroids! Get it? Like hemorrhoids but I worked polar into it. Oh, what about this? Do you know why the Pilgrim’s pants kept falling down?”
My turn to sigh. “Because he wore his belt buckle on his hat.”
“Okay. You knew that one. Fine. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Y’know, talking about Pilgrims reminds me of Thanksgiving, turkey, and the turkey trots. Did yo
u know that diarrhea is hereditary? It runs in your jeans.”
And with that, we all push back from the table. None of us are very interested in finishing our food, especially me, the guy who went with the sloppy joes.
Unfortunately, this is something that can happen after you win a couple of comedy competitions.
Somebody comes along who wants to knock you back down to earth.
And I say, let him try!
Chapter 13
HYSTERICAL HISTORY
Bumping into Vincent O’Neil makes me think about what Uncle Frankie said. I need new material for Boston, not Vincent’s stale and stinky fart jokes from The Big Book of Butt Bugles and Blampfs. So I keep my eyes open for new concepts to work out as I go to history class that afternoon.
We’re supposed to give a presentation on our favorite president. I chose Millard Fillmore.
Why? Because nobody else will. Plus, his name is funny. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get a whole bit out of him for Boston.
I roll to the front of the class and prop a portrait of President Fillmore on the flip-chart easel.
“Millard Fillmore was the thirteenth president of the United States. Born in January 1800, he was named after a duck. No, I’m sorry. That was his brother Mallard Fillmore. Millard Fillmore was the last member of the Whig Party to ever hold the office of president. Probably because they all wore wigs.”
Fortunately, our teacher, Mr. Johnson, is cracking up. Quick note for all you would-be class clowns: Make sure your jokes are smart enough to tickle the teacher’s funny bone, too.
“I mean, can you imagine a big political convention with everybody wearing wigs like Lady Gaga? Fillmore started out as Zachary Taylor’s vice president but took over after Taylor died because he drank a ton of cold milk and ate too many cherries at a Fourth of July celebration. All those cherries and milk gave Taylor gas. Really, really bad gas. Oh, by the way, today’s dessert in the cafeteria? Cherry pie. Served with lots and lots of milk.”