Day Twenty-Six #3
“No,” Unicorn disagreed. “He didn’t want their last image of their beloved pet to be one filled with violence.
He wanted them to picture their guinea pig gently drifting off to sleep.
I was able to laugh precisely because the story was not mean, it was just a boy in over his head trying to do his best.”
Jesse had to sit on the edge of his desk to catch his breath.
He was still that little boy, nearly a half century on, now deeply in over his head and yet still trying his best. Jesse’s field of vision started to narrow and he felt pinpricks on the back of his neck.
“Yes, I think that’s an important observation. Humor can be kind and still funny.”
“Mr. Doctor, are you okay?” Headphones was already taking a few steps toward him; he must look like he was going to fall. Jesse grabbed the desk with both hands.
“Yeah, yeah, no,” he said, which meant absolutely nothing, so he took a few deep breaths before adding, “I’m fine.
” Mountain Dew poured him a few sips and pushed her glass in his direction and for once he accepted, thinking maybe his blood sugar was off.
He was loath to think she had a valid reason for drinking such slop, but he did feel better soon after he swallowed.
“Wow, did you know this was actually good?” Mountain Dew beamed like she’d been given an A.
Jesse gathered his thoughts and continued.
“Further to Unicorn’s point. Many, often straight male, comedians think comedy needs to be mean, or that it’s impossible to be funny in politically correct times.
” Headphones and Snickers worked up a slight protest, but Jesse was thinking as much about himself and Lally’s allegation that he had become mean.
“But comedy can be gentle, or directed inward like I did with my story. But even then, I wanted to tread carefully, as I was writing about the emotional boy I was and not the empty shell of a man that stands before you today. See? That was directed inward. After we share all of our stories, we’ll discuss some more examples. ”
Headphones kicked the party off with a rousing tale of feeling abandoned in a doctor’s office restroom and his utter humiliation when he realized he’d spent his time in there producing the wrong specimen.
This had the class both groaning in discomfort and squealing with delight as Headphones leaned into the awkwardness of the situation (and let’s face it, without much in the way of privacy or inspiration, a feat of great derring-do) without ever crossing a line into something too vulgar, and Jesse made a mental note afterward to see what had actually been committed to paper and what had been embellished in the room; Headphones was a natural performer and maybe even belonged on the stage, but that was a different class.
“It was the first time I had health insurance!” Headphones protested when he finished his story, as if that were a reasonable excuse for jerking off in a public space.
The others didn’t buy it and thought even if it was his first time seeing a doctor, he should have known the difference between what was requested from a fertility clinic versus a yearly physical.
Snickers and Backpack likewise acquitted themselves nicely, although Jesse knew instantly neither was in danger of becoming a world-class humorist; their stories were convivial more than comical. (That was fine, as they were easy and generous with a laugh—every comedian needs an audience.)
Mountain Dew wrote about a friend of hers from high school who had died of cancer.
A few days after the friend passed, Mountain Dew received a package from the deceased, something she had arranged to be delivered after she was gone.
Inside was a Ouija board along with a note that read LET’S KEEP IN TOUCH!
; Mountain Dew hated that her friend got the last laugh.
Unicorn’s story was about being dropped off at summer camp by a single mother who was clearly at the end of her rope.
While it did not elicit the heartiest laughs from the group, it did most exemplify what humor could say about the human condition, and therefore Unicorn kept her title.
But it was Non-Trad who pulled the biggest surprise out of his briefcase.
Jesse had expected a sad story of divorce, or being stood up at the altar; men who feel awkward around women often find themselves gravitating to comedy.
His story took place in the wake of a breakup, yes, but it centered on something unexpected.
Jesse could see that his story was handwritten, double-spaced on a legal pad, handwriting neat enough for a ransom note as penned by some meticulous thug.
“A what?” Jesse asked early in the story when Non-Trad uttered a word with which he was not familiar.
“I’m sorry?” Non-Trad asked in return, unsure why he was asked to stop; indeed, he was just picking up steam.
“What word are you saying?”
Non-Trad looked strained, like he was trying to shake off annoyance, like it hadn’t been the very teacher standing in front of him that said comedy was building a rhythm, before smiling and saying, “You’ll see,” and repeating the word again.
Banorah.
A banorah, as it turned out, was a banana menorah, or rather a banana-shaped menorah (and not a menorah that burned bananas like candles, as Jesse first imagined).
Non-Trad had discovered this treasure in the window of one of those paint-your-own-pottery places that were ubiquitous in the 1990s; casts of shows like Friends often used “fun” backdrops like this for their People magazine photo shoots.
Non-Trad was young at the time (more trad than non) and had just initiated a difficult breakup with his high school girlfriend because he didn’t think she understood his unique sense of humor.
He wasn’t sure what inspired him to head to a Color Me Mine, but what one had to remember (or understand if they were too young) is that there were a few years late in that decade where it felt like painting pottery to music by Toad the Wet Sprocket, say, or Third Eye Blind or Counting Crows, and then waiting for it to be glazed, was the cure for what ailed most people.
On the day of Non-Trad’s visit, the banorah was displayed prominently in the store’s window alongside more professional-looking pieces, nine holes drilled along the banana’s top edge.
It was painted a garish yellow, with a bit of green along the neck and the crown.
Was it amateurish? Absolutely. But it was also a stunning example of pop art, as if the ghost of Andy Warhol had donned a smock and glazed it himself.
He inquired within about the surprising piece; someone had come in, painted it, left it to be glazed, and never returned to claim it when dry.
It found a spot in the store window but, alas, was never the draw or conversation starter the store manager had hoped.
People who did inquire replied, “Oh” when told it was a banorah, as if a banorah was a perfectly everyday item one might see, or they simply dismissed it as a banana with holes.
Eventually it was forgotten. But our hero had taken an immediate shine to it, it matched his own sense of whimsy, and, hey—who among us had not lived up to potential?
Then-Trad begged to purchase the banorah.
It was against store policy to sell items once they’d been painted by customers.
Usually, if they were halfway decent they sat in the window until after ninety days they were tossed for a new crop.
He asked when the banorah’s ninety days were up, or where on the calendar it sat, like a hopeful boy wanting to adopt a puppy from the pound.
Eventually the store manager, who was quitting later that week anyway for a job at Virgin Megastore, which paid fifty cents an hour more, took pity on him.
He’d been meaning to clean out the window anyway to let his replacement put her stamp on the display.
He charged the same as a fruit bowl, because it was the only comp he could think of.
Trad prized the banorah and found premium placement for it on a shelf.
Hanukkah came late that year, overlapping with Christmas, and he lit candles on the first night.
Being Jewish was never something he gave much thought to; he was estranged from his parents, and even before that, his identity was always cultural more than religious.
But there was something about the banorah that connected him to the memory of his grandfather, the other person he could think of who would be as charmed by this odd item as he was.
The banorah wasn’t exactly a rabbinic legend, but it ushered in its own season of miracles and lights.
At the outset, Jesse found it was a slight cheat on the assignment.
Initiating his breakup as he did, Non-Trad wasn’t abandoned so much as the banorah.
But he used a banana, a long-standing symbol of, if not comedy, clowning, to tell the story of a man abandoned by family and faith to illustrate how it was never too late to find your way home.
When he finished, Jesse was on the verge of tears, of laughter, yes, but also genuine weeping.
Upon seeing the stricken look on his professor’s face, it seemed Non-Trad’s immediate thought was that he’d misfired. “Sorry, it was meant to elicit laughter.”
Jesse wiped his eyes, wishing momentarily to be invisible; he didn’t want Non-Trad to feel sorry for even one second for having created something as beautiful as that.
“Happy sad,” Jesse explained. He then launched into Dolly Parton’s line from Steel Magnolias.
“Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” No one had seen the film.
Jesse held his composure and complimented Non-Trad again on using humor to captivate his audience and really having something to say.
“My story has something to say!” Headphones protested.
“Yes, it says you have a medical fetish.” Jesse collected the stories from each of them. When class was over, he stayed behind in the cavern of a classroom and read Non-Trad’s story a second time.
It was never too late to find your way home.