The Rejection Letter

My heart stopped cold until it was reminded to beat like Rocky Balboa beating his meat. There it was laying on the floor. My potential fate for the next 4 years… or 2 years… or none at all to a school I might call home. 

I picked up my fate, 

Turned it over, 

Slid my finger *correction* sliced my finger, 

Said “ow,” 

Cursed at the envelope, 

Cursed at my fate, 

Resumed to open my fate, 

Stained it with blood, 

Winced in pain, 

Finally read the first five words: “We regret to inform you…”

And I winced some more.

***

When I was a kid, I looked up to Robin Williams. He made me laugh. He made me laugh a lot. He also made my whole family laugh. I would soon find out that a bunch of my friends at school  knew of him too. At first I thought I was the only weirdo who liked this funny man with a wacky voice. I soon came to realize the second anyone mentioned his name or a movie he was in, they would or would smile. How could anyone not like the real Popeye, the blue Genie, or that bat in FernGully? Everyone did!

I used to like to say his face was like Silly Putty. One day, I grabbed some Silly Putty from my sister’s room and pressed it hard on a newspaper ad for his movie, Mrs. Doubtfire. I then stretched it to make it look like some sort of skin mask. It looked pretty diabolical, in retrospect, but I didn’t mean to use it to scare my sister. I wanted to make her laugh by dipping my face in whipped cream and saying “Hello” like in the commercials for the movie.

I took my opportunity when she went to grab a Juicy Juice. I prepped a plate of whipped cream, opened the refrigerator door and delivered my line. She delivered a shriek that propelled her right into a chair causing her to trip.  My sister is screaming in pain, rolling around like an apple on the table, yelling “I can’t feel my legs” when my mom catches me with ooey gooey cream running down the Silly Putty mask that’s still on my face. She asked if I thought it was funny and I responded, without hesitation and with all seriousness, “well, blow me down.”  She didn’t think it was funny and my mom grounded me for a week. My dad, on the other hand, thought it was hilarious. Even after being tired from a full day at the auto shop, he promised me he’d take me to see Mrs. Doubtfire after my punishment was over. We never went. It was probably for the best.

My next icon was Jim Carrey. He was on a whole different level of funny. My mom really didn’t like him. She found his mannerisms odd and his face scary. I would do my best to restrain myself from saying “Allllllllrighty then” and calling my sister a “La-who-sa-her” but it would always make my dad laugh. Every once in a while, he would request for me to do his “do not go in there” line after using the bathroom complete with arm whiffing away the smell. Me and my friends would get together and quote Ace Ventura word for word for hours and laugh all day. We would even take our act on the road and entertain my dad and his coworkers at the auto shop just to get some laughs by having full long conversations talking from our butts that would send everyone rolling with laughter. 

With Jim Carrey, I learned about using more body movements and extreme facial expressions. I was starting to feel something different inside. I got the bug. I wanted to entertain. I wanted to bring people laughter. Secretly, I was doing this so that my dad could see more of me, or I more of him. I wasn’t sure why he would come home so late and leave so early. I didn’t see much of him around the house anymore. I even caught him sleeping on the sofa on Saturday mornings.  His reasoning was that he didn’t want to wake up my mom. He would then put on cartoons for us to watch. 

As I got older, I realized that there was a lot more to comedy than people with stretchy faces. You had to be witty. You had to deliver lines a certain way. You had to think ahead with your punchline. I would act out and practice the timing and delivery of many other comics and began to study the greats with a wide array of results. Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock got me in trouble. Steve Martin did not. Rodney Dangerfield got me sent to the principal’s office. Sinbad was safe. So I learned to pick and choose who to mimic and, more importantly, I learned that audience was everything. 

By now, my dad had moved and I no longer saw him that much anymore. Whenever I did, though, he loved all my Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock jokes. He could have seen my skit dozens of times, but he always laughed like it was the first time. My mom and teachers loved hearing Steve Martin jokes. My principal actually laughed at the joke that got me sent to him (it had something to do with sex, or in Dangerfield’s case, not getting any). And my sister had a crush on Sinbad, so she liked that I was able to tell his jokes spot on. I started to get a sense of this being my calling. I did my research and decided that after I graduated high school, I was going to go to the Comedic Arts program at Emerson College in Boston. 

I must have recorded myself hundreds of times and spent more than a good dime on cassettes to rehearse and mail to admissions. As I struggled with choosing which material to put in my tape, I started to plan the next chapter in my life. I would follow in the footsteps of my great comedy heroes (minus their tragic deaths), become famous (minus getting hooked on cocaine), make a few movies (minus the dollar bin type movies), and … OK, maybe not exactly in their footsteps, but still. 

***

It’s March and acceptance letters have been rolling in for high school seniors around town. A lot of my friends have received notices from their first and second choice schools. I did not have a second choice school; not even a back up plan. I put it all on the line on Emerson. So when I found that letter on the floor when I got home from school, my heart stopped dead in its tracks. It was thin. I feared the worst.

Comedy has been in my life for as long as I remember. I used the gift of laughter to bring people together and to help me build and keep this bond with my dad. It wasn’t just for me, though. I knew that comedy helped heal people who were hurt internally; helped them fight off demons into lightness. Little did I know, or was aware, that comedy does not take a break and it comes in many different shapes, forms, and sizes. Today, it came in this letter: 

“We regret to inform you that you might not appreciate this joke, but I bet you thought you didn’t get in. Well, put on some assless chaps and show us what you got this September at our Comedic Arts program at Emerson College in Boston!” 

I couldn’t believe they joked around with my acceptance letter. That was when I learned my first actual lesson in comedy - comedy is bravery.