Hullabaloo

“What can a lesbian and someone who wears a fanny pack both say?”

Silence from the crowd.

“Just give me a second, I have to strap-on.”

No laughs resounded in the crowded room.

In New Blork City, the basement of the Krowne Blaza Hotel on 2nd street holds events from 5:00 PM until 1:00 AM, Monday through Sunday, excluding Thursday for no reason in particular other than the owner of the Krowne Blaza Hotel on 2nd Street hating Thursday on basic principle that need not be elaborated upon. Jazz bands played on Tuesday, but only if they were from New Blorleans. One time, a white jazz band from Blennessee played, and they were insufferable, so it became that only black jazz bands from New Blorleans were allowed on stage, but they declined to drive up from New Blorleans every week, so, in the occasional absence of lustrous jazz music that is almost like sex to the ears, there was often performed a stand-up comedy sketch, similar to masturbation in the absence of sex.

Only one comedian willingly did a set in the basement of the Krowne Blaza Hotel on 2nd Street, and it was because all of the other comedians had better opportunities presented to them. But, Hullabaloo did not have those opportunities, because he sucked. He was really, really, really bad, almost like a nightmare you can’t wake up from. And so he was the only comedian in all of New Blork City who had the “privilege” of performing in the basement of the Krowne Blaza Hotel on 2nd Street on Tuesdays when the black jazz band from New Blorleans refused to come perform.

Hullabaloo always stopped at the same spot before entering the New Blork Hotel. He would stare at himself in the reflection of a hotel window. He was an ugly Fleshling. His nose protruded a full ten inches from his face. The flesh follicles on his head stretched forward the same distance as his nose, ending in a three-pronged shape, like a fork. His eyes were narrow and sideways, positioned on either side of his prodigious nose. But the image that always struck him most in the reflection of that window was his belly. A Fleshling, basically being a blob of flesh, has very little in the way of complex anatomy, their arms and legs being little more than shaft-like protrusions emerging from their body and ending in pointed tips. But Hullabaloo also had a belly. A big belly. It filled out like a second torso. He did not like it. It became very noticeable when sitting down, and so Hullabaloo did not sit down in front of people. Ever. He absolutely refused. He claimed sitting was for the weak, but that is not a funny joke, so no one laughed at it ever.

Looking at his reflection in that window, Hullabaloo thought about how other Fleshlings only had six inch noses, or a belly much less prodigious, or flesh follicles that pointed upward instead of forward.

Hullabaloo observed all of this about himself, felt ashamed, then winked at his reflection and shimmied his hips. People loved it when women shimmied their hips; people longed after their thick Fleshling skin that rippled with overflowing sex appeal. So Hullabaloo hip shimmied until all male Fleshlings would have felt shame upon the sight, and female Fleshlings certainly would have longed to have what Hullabaloo had. Then, full of confidence, he would walk into the basement of the Krowne Blaza Hotel on 2nd Street, and he believed, every single time, that he would kill the crowd with laughter.

“Two ducks were flying over Belfast.”

Not a sound sounded from the soundless crowd of Fleshlings.

“One goes ‘quack’, the other one goes ‘I’m going as quack as I can!’”

The sound of the crowd’s laughter must have been soundless, undetectable to the Fleshling ear, because there was indeed no laughter to be heard at all.

Hullabaloo liked comedy. He liked to do it and he liked to listen to it. His favorite comedian was not on Belevision or Bletflix or BlooTube. No, his favorite comedian, the one whose jokes he remembered in quiet moments on the couch and repeated quietly to himself before bed—that comedian was a homeless bum in Central Blark. He wore a cardboard sign around his fat shaft of a neck, and written on the cardboard: Fricklifraniggan.

Hullabaloo did not know if Fricklifraniggan meant anything, but he liked to imagine it was simply the name of the comedian. Though, to be fair, Fricklifraniggan was not a comedian in the traditional sense of the word. He was more of a comedian in the way that a street racer is a Nascar racer, as in not at all.

Fricklifraniggan did not wear clothes. His blobby Fleshling body was always exposed for the world to see. Fricklifraniggan also did not tell jokes. He talked, and yelled, but his brain was addled from lots and lots of crack cocaine, so his severe ramblings, very serious and imminent in intention, just sounded funny to sober ears. Also, he had a lisp. No one with a lisp can be taken seriously, much less have an intelligent thought. Because people with lisps sound stupid. So people with lisps are stupid. If Hullabaloo was president, people with lisps would not have Fleshling rights. Except for Fricklifraniggan. He would make an exception for that naked homeless Fleshling, because he thought Fricklifraniggan was funny.

“One time, a man saw his twin brother, and he said to him ‘Where have you been since the morning has ruined your appearance?’ The twin brother said this: ‘My mother made me take a shower twice.’”

No one laughed. Indeed, some even thought about killing themselves, just so they could forget the joke rather than live to remember it.

When Hullabaloo looked out at the crowd it annoyed him how beautiful they were. Their noses were only six inches long, and the flesh follicles on their heads went up, not forward, and their blobby torsos did not protrude outward with fat. He hated their faces, and their perfect bodies, and he hated that they didn’t laugh at his jokes.

Sometimes Hullabaloo sat on his couch and he watched BlooTube, and he laughed at videos of cops arresting people. He thought it was funny, because the people who were arrested looked so stupid, and, because Hullabaloo was also very stupid, he thought maybe getting arrested could be a funny thing to do. Fricklifraniggan got arrested, and it was very hilarious—probably his magnum opus joke. Though now Fricklifraniggan told no more jokes in the park. Because he was in prison.

“A duck walks into a drugstore. He goes, ‘Doc, I need some viagra and birth control, quick.’ The doc gives it to him and asks if he wants to pay with cash or card. ‘Nevermind that,’  says the duck, ‘just put it on my bill.’ 

One week later the duck walks back into the drugstore. He goes, ‘Doc, I need some condoms.’ The doctor pulls out a condom and asks the same question as before, ‘Cash or card? Where do you want it?’ The duck says this: ‘Aw, just put it on my bill.’”

It was as though time had stilled, and everyone in the room had paused, and most likely everyone outside had also paused, and all of them silently, physically, non-verbally, telepathically agreed that Hullabaloo was not very funny.

After every comedy session, Hullabaloo would go home and sit on his couch and cry. Then he would fall asleep. He would dream that he was on stage, and after every joke he made the microphone talked out loud to him, spitting every unfunny joke back into his face. The malicious microphone would stay silent for the funny jokes, and laugh at the very funny ones, and yell back the punchline of every bad joke, which was most of them, and then the crowd would laugh at the microphone and its punchlines, but they would not laugh when Hullabaloo told the same punchline. So it was that after these dreams, when Hullabaloo woke back up on his couch, he would cry again.

          Then, every Tuesday before he walked down the stairs into the basement of the Krowne Blaza Hotel on 2nd street, he would pause and look at his reflection in the big window, and he would wink, and he would shimmy, and oh my goodness, how good his fat Fleshling belly looked during a shimmy, as though it was wrapped in golden cellophane. The staff behind the windows had to look away or be blinded by his overwhelming whiteness and utter uniqueness that translated into either beauty or repulsiveness depending on what language you spoke. 

“What did the bully Cyclops call the kid with glasses?”

“TWO EYES!”

In the front row sat a woman with an eye patch. She did not think the joke was funny.

“Hey there, ma’am, what’s your name? One Eye?”

That day Hullabaloo would walk out of the basement of the Krowne Blaza Hotel on 2nd street with no job after he insulted the wife of the owner of the Krowne Blaza Hotel on 2nd Street, because his jokes were not funny. And if you are going to insult someone on stage, it has to be funny, or people won’t like it.

Hullabaloo wanted to cry. But then he saw his reflection in the window, and he winked and shimmied, and it made him feel better, until he got back to his house, and his couch, and he cried until the tears put him to sleep. And there, in his dream, was the microphone. Hullabaloo did not speak. Instead, the microphone spoke, but the crowd thought it was Hullabaloo doing the talking.

“Hey! What do ya call a pony with a sore throat? A HOARSE!”

The crowd laughed jolly good.

“Ayo! What did the angry orange with a lisp say to the nosy banana? PITH OFF!”

Raucous cacophonous happy sounds resounded in the room.

“Why do they laugh for Microphone but not for Hullabaloo?”

“Hey! I’ll tell ya in a joke. What does the retard say?”

“I don’t kno—”

“Hurdahardahur!”

And the crowd laughed jolly good.

On Tuesday, Hullabaloo went to Central Blark and, though sitting in public was for the weak, he sat where Fricklifraniggan had once sat, and the people walking by snickered at Hullabaloo’s protruding belly. They actually snickered!

So it was that on every Tuesday thereafter, Hullabaloo would go to Central Blark, and he would take off all of his clothes, exposing his fat Fleshling body, and he would wear a cardboard sign around his neck that had written on it the word Hullabaloo, and he would tell the same jokes that Microphone told in his dreams.

“Hey! I’ll tell ya a joke! What does the retard say? Hurdahardahur!!”

 Then Hullabaloo would wink at the crowd and shimmy his body, and the Fleshings would gather to watch him, and they would cover their mouths and laugh. They would laugh and jeer and point, and their laughter sounded like sex, and the sound of it made Hullabaloo happy.

Hullabaloo was happy.