The diarrhea joke splatters.
The bit was a gamble; I knew this, as most comedians do. Sometimes you are absolutely certain a bit is going to kill, and instead it dies a slow, lackluster death: the equivalent of a whoopee cushion blowing around the room. And then there are some bits that you think are just fillers, setups for some epic callback to come later, and those are the ones that deliver. I have learned this from experience, but I still falter at the crowd's response, just slightly, before pressing on.
I suppose drawing an insightful comparison between the fruits of a misguided dairy binge and the works of Jackson Pollock was quite possibly Too Much. The only laughs I get are generally uncomfortable ones. This is why I've prepared another self-deprecating piece to segue into, this one a little more "Oh, that poor funny girl, that's just sad. But look! She's joking about it, so it's okay for me to laugh. Yes, I'm laughing because I can laugh at her. This is what I paid for." It is also one of those bits that's based very closely on my personal truth, so yeah, those bits tend to murder.
The shitty (haha) joke is quickly forgotten, and I'm back to being a conductor in my masterpiece. It's a symphony of laughter that I stir and tickle and prod. I work one side of the room with my sad, weird awkwardness. I spin a tale about some delightfully aloof (nonexistent) men I've dated and the ill-begotten adventures of my sex life before my yarn gives way to an impression that has me lemur-walking to the other side of the stage, coaxing the room into a legato of laughter.
It's beautiful, glorious, overwhelming; it's warm and it fills me, fuels me. I feel like a spark that's been begging for tinder, and this room is one of those old-timey blowers that puffs and fans me until I'm ablaze.
With each crescendo I think, I might really make it, I am f-u-n-n-y.
The applause is magnanimous. And then it’s over.
It crashes.
I fizzle out.
Each step I take toward the side stage has me sliding down from an adrenaline mountain, and it’s jarring and dreadful.
The only thing that helps—my emergency pickax into the side of that mountain—is Meyer’s face. Everything around him is in disarray. The sound techs are wiping tears from their eyes. The MC is bent over with her legs crossed tightly around each other, presumably so she doesn’t piddle. Meyer, however, is as solid and stoic as ever. His arms are crossed, hands tucked into his armpits with his thumbs out. He manages to lift those thumbs toward me in salute—roaring adulation coming from him. His mouth is an underscore across his face, his brow as furrowed as always.
Meyer’s steadfast grumpiness is my tether. It lassos me, pulls me back into my own body and into the present rather than in my head where I’m always formulating a comeback or measuring and feeding a crowd. He’s not my rock, he’s my hammock. He holds and cocoons me in the shade on a summer day. Not that he’s actually aware of this.
He’s also my manager. My manager, who, incidentally, has also become my closest friend since he came into my life three years ago. Though he’s been a figure in my life for a bit longer. Not sure if he’s entirely aware of that, either, or how much he even truly likes me back, but that’s neither here nor there.
He likes to pretend that I annoy him endlessly, but I’ve caught the corners of those lips turning up on occasion. I get him every single time I do the bit about that guy back in college.