Your Joke Makes Me Sick
Jessica looked around with wide eyes, her mouth agape as she scanned the grand theater. Adults shuffled up and down the aisles, looking from their tickets to the numbers on the seats. Enormous red velvet curtains draping the walls gave the light from the curving lamps a red tinge. The stage had a curtain obfuscating the full breadth of it, with a banner at the top that read, “Richard Grey: The Funniest Man in the World''. Paired with the message on the banner was an image of a man who looked like someone from her dad’s work. He wore a long-sleeve white button-down shirt and a red tie. With a smile on his face, he held a silver microphone to his mouth as if about to speak. Whispered voices carried up to the high ceilings and behind Jessica to the second-story seats that hung over the bottom floor like a severe under-bite. Below the man’s image was smaller text that read, “Opening Night!” and “Fun for the Whole Family.”
Sitting between her mother and father, Jessica entertained herself by swinging her legs like pendulums, pumping them back and forth as quickly as she could. Her tongue hung out of her mouth in concentration. “Stop that.”, her mom said, looking over at her with scolding eyes. “You’re kicking the chair in front of you.” A young boy sitting in the chair in front of her looked back at her, annoyed, and then turned back to face the stage.
The lights flashed and then dimmed before the curtain on stage rolled back. Speakers rose from the floor of the stage all the way to the ceiling. A set of towering pillars loomed ominously in the red light. Between the speakers in the middle of the stage was a mic on a stand and a wooden stool. A man strolled into view from stage left, plucked the mic from the stand, and said, “Welcome ladies and gentlemen!” Pausing for a moment while the audience cheered, he squinted into the crowd, trying to see past the spotlight. “And let’s give a warm welcome to the boys and girls who are joining us today.” Small voices screamed. Jessica clapped her hands furiously and looked over at her mother smiling. Jessica’s delighted face said, “Look mom, he’s talking to me!” Her mother smiled back with a purposeful nod that reflected Jessica’s excitement. A look that said, “I know honey! That’s so cool.”
The term “family-friendly” comedy show in this context only meant that the harsh words people didn’t like wouldn't be around. So when Dustin told his opening joke about the time he fucked a hooker in Vegas, he used words like “slept with” and “escort”. The content remained the same, but the way he said it changed, and boom, safe for children. “... and my tool was black and blue for a week!”
He hit the punchline of his first joke and the crowd laughed. Jessica knew “tool” meant penis and “slept with” meant something for adults that had to do with the penis, but she wasn’t sure. She felt like she almost understood, but her mother and father were laughing and that made her laugh a little so it didn’t matter as much what the joke actually meant.
Dustin told a few more jokes that Jessica didn’t quite understand, but she still laughed right along with her parents. “Ok, thank you.” Dustin concluded, “Are you ready to meet the funniest man in the world?”. The crowd cheered with Jessica and she swung her legs fast, the tips of her sneakers hitting the seat in front of her again.
“Then without further delay please welcome my buddy, Richard Grey!” Dustin hit the words “delay” and “Grey” to emphasize the rhyme as if he were a beat poet. The cheering soared as the man from the poster, wearing precisely the same clothes, walked out from backstage. The two men exchanged a handshake and a smile. Richard swapped places with Dustin at the center of the stage, pulling the mic off the stand. “Hi, everybody,” Richard said with a wavering voice. The two men were completely different on stage. Where Dustin had been confident, relaxed, and clear, Richard seemed nervous. Jessica felt bad for him. The man on stage reminded her of how she had felt once when she’d had to read a story she’d written to the class. Jessica had been scared just like Richard seemed now. Her voice had shaken and stuttered just like his. The crowd responded to his greeting in different ways. Some of the audience cheered and clapped and some actually said “hello” in response. “Well, um, I guess let's get started,” he continued, almost as a question.
An enormous banner dropped behind him to reveal an image. It took Jessica a long time to take in the scene. The detail was disturbing and complex. Two knights ten feet tall are locked in eternal conflict. A knight in black armor had his sword buried in another knight's shoulder. Blood poured from the wound, the color of the theater’s velvet curtains. A desolate battlefield stretched behind the armored men. Fires smoldered in the distance. Maimed bodies had been piled up next to the pyres of flame as if someone was about to use them as fuel. In the distance a saddled horse galloped, searching for its owner.
Silence fell over the clamoring audience. The banner was so large that Jessica could see the faces of the two knights. The bleeding knight looked up at his attacker with questioning eyes. She could even see shimmers of moisture pooling in the corner of his eyes. The black knight had a face of the stone. He struck the final blow with his sword and his arms and his eyes and his heart. Drops of his enemies' blood peppered his face like crimson freckles. She could see the determination to kill in every part of him. Every part of these men were laid bare as if Jessica could see their thoughts. It was as if the knights between the red pillars were real actors on the stage and for a brief moment, there was no sound.
The funniest man in the world slipped his free hand into the pocket of his khaki slacks and said, “A fox and a chicken meet at the intersection of a dirt path…”
Jessica had eaten a hot dog with ketchup for dinner about an hour ago. She didn’t like mustard and she had never dared to try onions, not with the way they smelled. The hot dog bun was an enriched flour standard white roll. When Richard said the word “dirt”, Jessica’s hot dog from earlier that evening was suddenly all over the seat in front of her, in little Jessica-sized bites.
An end piece of the hot dog that must have been her first or last bite rolled down the slight incline of the theater floor. Her stomach heaved again and more vomit erupted from her mouth. This time it was mostly water and burning stomach acid. She blinked away tears. As she threw up again there was no mistaking the sound that was drowning out the sound of her retching. Laughter. The laughter rumbled in her chest. Her stomach spasmed and the bile burned when it came up and out all over the floor.
With nothing left in her stomach, Jessica started dry heaving. Tears ran down her face in streaks. Desperate, she looked to her mother for help, but her mother was doubled over in laughter. Another stomach spasm and Jessica was back in the fetal position staring at the floor. That is when she noticed it. Vomit came from behind her chair. Kernels of corn in viscous orange fluid flowed down to the front of the theater along with her vomit, like a babbling brook of Jessica’s nightmares.
It’s not just me, she thought, in a brief flash of clarity between her retching and snot and tears came again. She wanted her parents to see, but there was too much noise. The laughter drowned out everything else. Her parents were like those people you have to put in those places crazy people go. The smiles on their faces while Jessica was in pain. Jessica thought that she might die from the pain and her parents thought it was the funniest thing in the world.
After a time that could have been forever as far as Jessica was concerned, the laughter slowed and her heaving stopped. Jessica's father wiped tears from his eyes. She was panting with exhaustion. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. Snot and tears and spittle dripped from her chin onto her soaking wet lap, but it seemed to be over. Whatever had happened had passed. “Mommy,” she said with a hoarse voice in almost a whisper. Her mother looked over at her daughter and Jessica could see her mom’s face change as she saw the state Jessica was in and as she opened her mouth to respond, but Richard interjected from the stage. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes were staring at the floor. Jessica could hear him say, “I think I’m going to be fine.”
Jessica and her mom looked at each other for a brief moment. Jessica's eyes screamed for help. Her eyes begged for her mother to comfort her and then her mom burst into laughter. She was looking right at Jessica. A young girl, out of breath and crying. A pool of her own stomach fluid pooled in the lap of her sunflower dress. Vomit dripped from her little white sneakers onto the marble floor of the Vegas theater. Jessica’s mommy was looking at her little girl and laughing right in her face. Flecks of spittle flew from her mother's open mouth.
