Disappearing Acts (2 page)

Meat wished now that they were back outside. Her eyes were too gray, too piercing. He felt she could see through to his brain.

“Well, you've heard about Funny Bonz?” he began.

“The comedy club? On the corner of Wright and Peachtree?”

“It used to be there. It's moved. It's right up the street now, in the basement of the old hotel.”

“I just passed the hotel. I didn't notice any signs.”

“Maybe you were too busy looking for dead squirrels. Anyway, they just opened. The club's under new management—a guy named Mike Howard.”

“Actually, I'm not that interested in comedy, Meat. I'm not a very funny person.”

“Well, nobody's perfect,” Meat said generously.

“I come pretty close though, don't I?” She grinned at him.

The silence that followed was broken by the sound of popping corn. Meat's mouth began to water. Herculeah said, “And you're going to the club?”

“Better than that—much better. I'm going to be on the stage of the club! I'm going to perform! I'm going to be a stand-up comic!”

“Meat, you can't.” She stared at him in amazement. “You're not any funnier than I am.”

“I wouldn't say that.” He was obviously offended. “Just because I don't run around playing stupid April Fool jokes on people.”

“Meat,” she interrupted. “Sometimes you are funny, but it just pops out. It's not planned—like when you were little you wanted someone to write books about the Unhardy Boys.”

“I didn't mean that to be funny.” Now he was really offended.

“Meat, start over. Please.”

“All right. Well, there was this article in the newspaper about the club. It was about how taking lessons in comedy can help people accept themselves. Being funny about yourself is therapeutic.”

“I never felt I needed therapy. I do accept myself.”

“Well, I don't exactly need therapy either.”

The conversation was going downhill from an already low beginning. Fortunately the popcorn was ready, and Meat took a handful.

“You take lessons ...” Herculeah prompted.

Meat nodded, chewing.

“So there's a class,” she went on.

“Yes,” he admitted, “there's a class.”

“How many students?”

“I don't know. I haven't been there yet. You know, I was all excited about this until you started picking at it. There's even a graduation night when everyone performs. I was going to invite you, but ...”

“Meat, I have to come!”

He took another handful of popcorn. “No, you'll laugh.”

“Meat, that's what I'm supposed to do—laugh!”

“Well, maybe you can come. All we have to do for tonight—it's like an assignment—is make up a joke about ourselves.”

“What's yours?”

Meat said, “I don't know. I'd like to do something about not having a father.”

“But that's not funny, Meat.”

“I know that! But if I could turn it into something funny, well, then maybe it wouldn't hurt so much.”

Meat went over the possibilities of all the highlights of his life that his dad missed out on—like what? Like getting an A in spelling in Miss Richard's room?

He paused. What really hurt was that his dad had hardly missed out on anything.

“If that fails, there's always my size,” he said glumly. The many possible jokes about that were not appealing. He went over a few to himself.

He had gotten these from a book of fat jokes at the newsstand. He had spent so long leafing through the book, reading the insults without smiling, that the clerk had come over and asked him if he wanted to buy it.

“This? No, this is a terrible book.” He had returned it at once to the humor shelf where, in his opinion, it definitely did not belong.

Well, he might have to stop by and refresh his memory if he decided to go that way. Ah, yes, the jokes were coming back to him. Meat had good recall, especially of things he did not want to recall.

He broke off his thoughts and turned to Herculeah. “Well, whatever I do, nobody will die laughing.”

Later, that was the remark that Herculeah was to remember.

A remark that would cause her hair to frizzle every-time she heard it.

“Nobody will die laughing.”

“My hair started doing this when I bought the camera,” Herculeah told her mother. She fluffed out her hair. “And it won't quit.”

Herculeah was sitting at the kitchen table. A slice of pizza lay untouched on her plate.

Herculeah's mother glanced at her. “You're probably just having a bad hair day.”

“No, when my hair frizzles, it's because of danger. I know you don't believe it.”

“I never said I didn't believe it,” her mother answered carefully. “In fact, I sometimes find myself thinking, ‘If I were Herculeah, my hair would be reaching for the sky right now.'”

“Well, Meat knows it's true. He's seen proof. He's seen it work.”

She hesitated.

Her mother watched her, knowing there was more.

“Remember when the Moloch nailed me up in the basement of Dead Oaks? My hair frizzled. Remember when Madame Rosa's murderer was after me? My hair frizzled. And remember—”

Her mother cut her off. “You've made your point.”

Herculeah slumped in her chair.

“Maybe it's your imagination this time,” her mother suggested.

“How?”

“Well, maybe you expect the things you get at Hidden Treasures to cause you trouble—like Amanda Cole's coat.”

Herculeah's expression was serious. “Yes! Mom, you're right! I was drawn to the ‘As Is' table in the exact same way I was drawn to that coat. And I just stood there because something about the things on that table bothered me.”

“What?”

“I'd seem them before.”

“Where?”

“That's what bothered me. I don't know. Anyway, I picked up the camera, and it had been marked down to one dollar—the exact amount I had. I was meant to buy this camera. For some reason that I don't know, I was meant to buy this camera!”

Herculeah turned it over in her hands.

“I wonder,” she said thoughtfully, “if it has anything to do with the pictures on the film.”

“What pictures?”

“Somebody took nineteen pictures of something—or somebody—and they're still in the camera. Maybe when I see those nineteen pictures, I'll know why I was drawn to the camera. I just wish my hair would stop frizzling.”

“Look,” her mother said in her sensible voice, “you are sitting in your own kitchen, eating a pizza you made yourself. Where's the danger?”

“I don't know.”

Herculeah looked down at the camera beside her plate. “Do you suppose it could be someone else who's in danger
^?
”

“Such as?”

“Oh, I don't know.” She smiled. “Well, at least I know it's not Meat.”

“Where is Meat?”

“He's at Funny Bonz.”

“What's that? A new barbecued ribs place?”

“Oh, Mom. It's a comedy club. Meat's learning to be funny. He's going to take stand-up comic lessons, and I get to go to the graduation.”

Her mother smiled. “I hope I can come. I could use a good laugh.”

“Me too.”

Herculeah tried to smile, but she didn't succeed.

“I know there's more,” her mother said. “What else is on your mind?”

“Remember when Meat and I went over to Death's Door to reshelve the books? Remember, after that sniper tipped over the shelves trying to get to me?”

“I remember.”

“Well, when we were shelving the books, I picked one up, and you know what the name of it was?”

“I can't imagine.”

“Funny Bones
—like the comedy club—and I got one of my premonitions.”

“And I've got one of my premonitions. Your pizza's getting cold.”

Herculeah picked up the slice of pizza. “Oh, I wonder what they're doing right now. I wish I could see Meat.”

“I thought you weren't worried about Meat.”

“I'm not. I just wish I could see him.”

“Meat's conservative. He doesn't take chances—not like you do. Meat's always safe.”

“Nobody—” Herculeah looked at her mother. Her gray eyes were dark with concern.
“Nobody
is always safe.”

“We're supposed to have a joke about ourselves,” a white-haired woman at the table with Meat told him. They sat side by side at one of the tables at Funny Bonz. “Did you know that?”

“Yes, I heard.”

“I asked her,” she nodded to the girl across the table, “what hers was. Want to know what she said?”

“I guess.”

“She said that everybody tells her she looks like Barbie, then she added, ‘Well, I do buy my clothes at Toys ”“ Us.'”

Meat smiled.

“I'm worried. I don't think mine's any good. Can I try it on you?”

“Sure.”

“Well, everybody tells me I look like Mrs. Santa Claus, so that's what my joke's about. Here goes.” She took a breath. “It's hard living with elves. It's not like Snow White's Dopey and Sneezy. Our elves are Gropey and Sleazy.” She gave him a hopeful look. “What do you think?”

Meat was spared having to answer by the arrival of the teacher, a lanky man who was smiling and rubbing his hands together as if he were drying them.

All the students broke into smiles—not because the teacher had said or done anything funny, but in anticipation of the funny things they would all be saying and doing before the night was over.

The teacher, Mike Howard, counted heads and glanced at his watch. “Hey, we're missing one.” He glanced around the room. “We'll wait. This is one funny person—just about ready to try the circuit—wanted to sharpen things up a bit.”

Meat glanced at the girl across the table. She did have a lot of hair like Barbie. And her clothes did look like they might have some from Toys “” Us.

“So what did you think?” Mrs. Santa Claus asked. “About my joke.”

While Meat was working up a lie, someone at another table said, “While we're sweating out the absentee, Mike, tell us how you got started.”

“I thought you'd never ask.” He sat on the edge of one of the tables. “I got my start in fourth grade. I had never done one funny thing before, and then one day when the teacher, Miss Parotti, left the room, I was on my way to the pencil sharpener and I stopped at her desk and surprised myself by doing an imitation. ‘Boys and girls—' Her nickname, incidentally, was Mush Mouth. ‘Boys and girls, will the person who made the bad smell please identify yourself by making another bad smell so that I can send you to the rest room.'”

His imitation of Mush Mouth brought smiles, and Barbie let out a delighted yell: “I think I had her for home-room. ”

“So this huge, huge success—the first of my life—led to greater things. Mr. Ledbetter—he was the principal: ‘Now boys and girls, I am just getting over my hook-worm treatment and ...'”

Everyone—including Meat—laughed this time, and Mike shook his head at the memory.

“It was instant fame. I mean, kids I'd never seen before would come up to me in the lunch line and say, ‘Do my teacher. Please!' I'd go, ‘Who is your teacher?' ‘Miss Prunty.' ‘Right. Boys and girls, will whoever borrowed my book
Laxatives of the Rich and Famous
please return it immediately. I need it before the end of the school day.'”

Mike gave a shrug of apology. Then he added, “They loved it. What can I tell you.”

All this bathroom humor made Meat decide to go to one. He didn't really have to go, but when he got up to do a routine—or didn't they do that this early in the lessons? Anyway, he would certainly have to go then.

“Rest rooms?” he asked Barbie.

“I never go,” she said.

“I thought you just did,” Mrs. Santa Claus said. “You went somewhere.”

She shrugged. The man at the next table jabbed his finger toward a dark hall beside the stage.

Meat proceeded slowly toward the unappealing hall, skirting the tables as he went.

Behind him, Mike warmed to his story. “My comedy career lasted about two weeks. Then Mr. Ledbetter called me into his office and asked me to do my impersonation of him. Talk about your hostile audience. Then he asked if I had any other impressions. I did the entire staff, even the cafeteria workers, and he did not crack one smile. Not even at Mrs. Richards—‘Will whoever took my Gas-Away tablets please return them, or you will be very, very sorry.'”

Meat had moved out of voice range. The building was old and the hall smelled of disinfectant and urine, as if someone hadn't quite made it to the rest room.

There was graffiti on the walls. Meat paused to read the messages as he walked slowly toward the two doors at the end. “D.J. wanted to call 911; he got the nine right but couldn't find the eleven.” “Call Betty for real laughs.” Maybe he would dial. He needed a laugh more than he needed a rest room.