I Funny: Chapters 42–54

The marching band puts on a parade, complete with a formation that spells out my name and includes a tuba player running over to dot the i in Jamie.

The cafeteria ladies bake me a sheet cake so huge that the janitor has to haul it around on a forklift—after they use a heavy-duty crane to hoist it out of the kitchen.

Snarky people who have some pretty strong—okay, nasty—opinions about why I won on Saturday.

Jamie Grimm wasn’t funny. He was sad and pathetic. No wonder his name is grim, as in dismal and depressing.

“They can’t diminish your accomplishment by trashing it.”

JAMIE GRIMM ONLY WON BECAUSE THE SAPPY JUDGES FELT SORRY FOR HIM.

“It’s a stopwatch. New rules: For the next five minutes, you cannot crack a joke or attempt, in any way, to be funny.”

“You were great. Seriously hysterical.”
“Really?”
“Yep. I heard all those people in the club yukking it up, too. Then, at the end, they gave you a standing ovation.”

He’s reeling his yo-yo up and down, up and down. It helps Uncle Frankie think, or so he tells me.

Apparently, these new recruits liked what they saw of my act on YouTube (even though everybody wishes that doofus blocking the camera had a smaller head).

Totally embarrassed, I make a hasty retreat.

The New York State finals at Gotham are coming at me like a speeding freight train.

I have this idea about the local mall being an obstacle course or maybe a racetrack for me and my chair. It’s like an indoor demolition derby.

Because for me to get from Cinnabon up in the food court down to Wicks ’n’ Sticks on the first floor, I have to roll past two cell phone kiosks, avoid the kid throwing a tantrum outside Things R Us, maneuver around the horde of senior citizens doing a mall walk, find an elevator that isn’t stuffed with shopping bags, avoid the perfume spritzers fogging the air outside every department store, sample some smoked sausage on toothpicks at Hickory Farms...

It’s time for the torture test. A return engagement in the room where I bombed, big-time. Let’s get ready to RUMBLE!

If I can finally get through to them, if they laugh at just one of my jokes, then I’ll be one hundred percent certain that winning the contest wasn’t a fluke.

“How could you get a parking ticket?” he asks. “You don’t have a car.”
“Or a driver’s license, honey,” adds Aunt Smiley.
“Don’t you have to be sixteen to get one of those?” asks their extremely logical youngest son.

So, sweating profusely and wondering why the Smileys decided to set the thermostat at ninety-nine point nine degrees tonight, I forge ahead to the zombie bit.

So, sweating profusely and wondering why the Smileys decided to set the thermostat at ninety-nine point nine degrees tonight, I forge ahead to the zombie bit.

So, sweating profusely and wondering why the Smileys decided to set the thermostat at ninety-nine point nine degrees tonight, I forge ahead to the zombie bit.

And then, as a group, they give me their full critique: We have to be honest with you, Jamie. We don’t get it.

“That’s it? No Carlin? Not even a little Hippie-Dippie Weatherman?”
“Sorry. Not today. Probably not tomorrow, either. Probably not ever again.”
My favorite Russian customer, Mr. Burdzecki, takes note of my attitude adjustment, too.

“Why so glum, Grimm?” she asks.
I tell her what’s going on. How I bombed again in the living room. How I know I’ll bomb if I go on to the next round of the competition.

You know how heroes always rise up undaunted, never giving in to their fears or giving up on their courageous quests?
Well, I’m daunted. Seriously daunted.
In fact, I’m approaching “terrified” and well on my way to “scared silly.”

Just about everybody I know is here to cheer me on. Uncle Frankie. The waitresses and busboys from the diner. Mr. Burdzecki and his whole Russian family. Two cousins I didn’t even know I had.
Yes, this time I’ve got my whole entourage.

They’ve brought everybody they’ve ever known, plus assorted unknown cousins, too.

There must be four, maybe five, hundred people crammed inside the club. They’re hanging from the rafters. It’s the only way to see the stage from the back of the room.

All words with K sounds in them are funny. Pickles. Cupcakes. Kazoos. Kumquats. All hilarious.

“Those are but a few of the comedic morsels the audience will be savoring right before you go on. So don’t be surprised if they’re all laughed out when you roll onstage, Jamie baby.”

Actually, my sweat glands are kind of turning into lawn sprinklers again.