Chapter 4 #2
This is something I do from time to time for select loved ones in need of a boost. It involves shaking my bottom half while waving my arms and, if the moment calls for it, meowing. Whatever it takes to elicit a laugh.
Tony gives a single head shake. “No, thank you.”
“All right, but…” I wiggle my eyebrows and add in a surprise nostril flare.
He smiles and sticks out his tongue.
“So!” I crush the bag of chips and shake the broken pieces into my mouth. “We’re going to a different club,” I growl. “A better club.”
He carefully arranges Pokémon cards in neat rows for our game. “What club?”
“Dunno yet.” I open my phone and search the map for “comedy club.” McGuinn’s is the only one that pops up.
I move my map around to check for others, but nothing appears.
Long Island has never made sense to me. The North and South Shores are gorgeous and expensive.
Out east the island splits into the North and South Forks and those are even more gorgeous and expensive.
And then there’s here. The middle. Miles and miles of strip malls and identical houses.
The only indication of a different town is a sign on the expressway.
We have blow-up lawn decorations. Fancy sweet sixteens.
Giant trucks waving giant American flags, and hand-painted signs supporting the president.
Last year in history we learned Long Island is one of the most racially segregated suburbs in the country, with parkways and zoning laws deliberately developed to keep it that way, and then the teacher led a debate about whether that was good or bad.
It’s the kind of thing that makes me laugh in an angry way or a sad way, but not a way I know how to make funny onstage.
I take a sip of chip crumbs as my eyes unfocus.
“Your crumbs are imperializing my Snorlax.” Tony wipes off the card. “What’s with this new method of chip-eating?”
“The broken ones on the bottom are the best because you can pour them right into your mouth.” I proudly display the inside of the bag. “But here’s the trick: You can crush the whole bag and eat them all that way.” I could be silly with Tony through nuclear war.
“Genius.”
“I’m the Henry Ford of potato chips.” I take another sip of crumbs.
Tony flips over a Surfing Pikachu. “Not just potato chips, Sean O’Brien. This could revolutionize all eating. Everything can be poured into people’s mouths in crumb form. Cookie crumbs. Apple crumbs. Steak crumbs.”
“Who has time to chew anymore? Chewing is un-American.”
“I refuse to be colonized into using a fork and knife.” Tony bangs his fist on the table. “Also, sorry bro.”
“Wha?”
He flips over a Shadow Lugia and ends the game. It’s kind of cheating because he bought it for a hundred bucks, but he gives me tons of his old cards, so I can’t complain.
I open my phone and search the map again. A new result appears. It’s in the next county over, so far from us it’s almost in New York City.
I sit up. “We’re going west.”
“I love manifest destiny.”
I laugh, though I don’t know if there’s anything funny about the U.S. expanding west when Native Americans were already living there. I assume Tony feels the same way and is just being dopey, but why be dopey about this—and why did I laugh?
I click on the new place. “Captain’s Comedy Club. Yikes.”
Tony finds the site on his phone. “It’s in Levittown!”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“The first mass-produced suburb. White houses, white fences, white people.”
“Double yikes.”
“Green lawns, though.” He scrolls. “This club gets real comedians.”
He’s right. All the upcoming performers have professional headshots and bios with credits. Some shows are even sold out.
“But it doesn’t have an open mic,” Tony says.
I keep scrolling. “It has to.”
It doesn’t. But I stop at a listing with Joe Johnson’s face.
After Joe Johnson put out three incredible specials, he announced he’d sold a TV pilot and disappeared off social media.
The TV show never appeared and he hasn’t released anything in years.
His headshot here is the same one he’s always used: His short blonde hair is parted neatly to the side, his pale face is shaved, and his T-shirt is bright blue. A sweet everyman.
Tony’s voice cracks. “Do you see—”
“I’m trying to load the event page, but my phone is too slow.” I tap the screen over and over. “What is it?”
Tony slips his inhaler out of his jacket’s inner pocket and takes a puff. “Just announced. A competition. The best amateur Long Island comics compete. The winner opens for Johnson’s first big show in years.”
“What.”
Tony frantically searches on his phone while muttering, “This is all happening in the next week. The competition is at Captain’s Comedy Club and the big show with Joe Johnson is a few nights later at the Vanderbilt.”
“What,” I say again.
Tony holds up a seating chart on his phone. “The Vanderbilt can fit a thousand people. If you opened for Joe Johnson you’d get to perform in front of a thousand people.”
“If I opened for Joe Johnson I’d get to meet Joe Johnson.”
“You’d skip the line of performers who’ve been churning out content since their seventh birthday. You’d go straight to having an actual career.”
“I have to get on this show.” I try again to reload the page, but my phone is frozen.
“It specifies that competing comics aren’t allowed to have previously headlined or toured,” Tony says. “Joe must know tons of people. Why would he want a newbie as an opener?”
“He always does weird things. His first special was released on VHS.”
“Whyever he’s doing it, it’s working.” Tony holds up the headlines of all the articles that have already been written about the competition. How did I miss this?
His mouth drops open.
“Yes?”
“It says, ‘Performers for the competition are chosen from monthly showcases of up-and-coming comics here and at our little sister club…McGuinn’s.’?”
Like a punch in the chest. If I had gotten into the showcase at McGuinn’s, I would be eligible for this show. And I would’ve gotten in if I’d been like the other guys.
“We should still get tickets,” Tony says. “It’s gonna be a great show.”