"He was so black that when I clicked his picture, my phone said 'It's night. You should go to sleep.' My phone thought I clicked a pic of the sky at night. Haha… ha.. ha.. h."
No laugh? Fine. How about this one..
"I went to swim in an ocean the other day, I saw an island floating. I went towards it and it turned out, it was not an island. It was…"
A little pause, then look in the eye of an audience member and now here comes the punch line :
"Your mom!"
Hmm? Why is he angry? It's just a joke. Is his mother really that fat? Alright. I should focus on the member next to him.
This man looks friendly. Alright, here goes :
"I have a laptop. Its storage capacity is 5 terabytes. But it got filled instantly just by one item. Do you know what that item was?"
Pause for a second, then look at the man and here comes the punch line :
"One photo of your mom!"
Hmm? He doesn't look friendly anymore. It's just a joke. Laugh. Why is he glaring at me? Is his mother the same as that guy before?
Angh. This audience is trash. This club is trash. All they know is inking themselves and riding bikes. They don't understand comedy.
I wish I could get myself a nice venue other than this run down club. I am doing this for free, you know? Not that I have a choice. No high class venue took me in as they only wanted famous comedians and comedians who could actually make people laugh.
Not that, I never performed in high class places but I was always thrown out. If lucky, I would not get beaten black and blue. The people there couldn't seem to understand my jokes.
I came to believe that my jokes weren't made for porsche people, so I chose this run down club to test my talent.
It is called 'Biker's Sanctuary' and only people who come here are either obsessed with bikes or are professional riders. They are big and are really menacing with their tattoos and bandannas.
I live in Mexico, by the way.
Anyway, I have been performing at this club for five days daily. Today is the sixth day. I had begged the owner of this club to give me some stage time and only after I told him that I would do it for free, did the owner agree to give me the chance.
But for the previous five days, not even one person laughed. Everyday the same audience comes, they drink their beer and they listen to me very carefully as well. But they never laugh. They glare at me often though.
On the first day, one of these men threw a beer bottle at me. I caught it but since I had no money to buy such a drink, I returned the bottle to the man. But it seemed the man wasn't expecting that return as he didn't catch it and it crashed on his head.
After that, chaos erupted and I had to leave from the back door. Later, I realized that the man hadn't thrown the beer bottle at me to drink it, instead he wanted it to bash my head. He must be jealous of my stage presence.
After that first day, the beer bottles kept coming but I didn't catch them this time. I dodged them and continued telling jokes. They would at least laugh at one of them. One of them would definitely land. And the landing did happen… The landing of a bottle that is.
Blood spewed from my head and when I saw the audience, I finally saw their laughing faces. They were finally laughing. But that wasn't what I wanted.. They weren't laughing by me, they were laughing at me.
I went home that day again with no progress but on the third day I was vigilant. No bottles touched me and I relayed my jokes for the whole twenty minutes. That was the time limit allotted to me by the owner of the club. If I stayed on the stage even for one more minute after the time limit, the owner threatened that he would screw my grandmother.
My grandmother is dead though. But by looking at the owner's face I am afraid that he won't mind sullying the ashes. Everyone had their fetishes after all.
So after the third day, the fourth day also went with no blood, and the fifth day also went on with no bloodshed.
Today is the sixth day and like always, no one is laughing. But today is something different, no bottles are coming my way. They all are actually looki..er..glaring at me. I have their attention this time.
Alright. I will make this moment count. I will surely make them laugh with this next joke.
Look in the crowd, find a good subject and there it is. I found one.
A woman clad in black jacket, sitting on two chairs. Two chairs because she was overweight. If she used only one chair to sit then that chair would need a hospital bed to recover from the damage.
But was this Woman also a rider? What does she ride on? Cheese slices?
Anyway, an audience is an audience. They all are bikers and they look like they have strong hearts. They won't mind my joke.
Here it goes…
"What is your name, lady?" I asked the woman. Audience interaction is important.
The Woman had the same glare as the other audience members but I was sure that I would get rid of their glares.
With that glare, she answered :
"My name is Optimus Prime."
I found it. Her voice.
"Woah. Do you eat mixer grinders while they are on? Cuz you sound like motors whirring!"
I laughed first to make it easy for the audience to laugh but their glare intensified. And that woman was even trying to stand up. Well, I'll have plenty of time to run before she'll be on her feet.
"You think that's funny?" One audience member stood up.
He was sitting beside the Woman and he was also a rider. He had a Mohawk for his hairstyle and he was black.
"Is it not?" I asked in return.
"Like hell it is. And what's with your name? You are screaming bad news."
My name? Oh. Yeah, I get it.
"I am Racis T. There is a space after Racis."
"I don't care! Forget your name, how dare you make fun of my baby girl?"
"Sorry, who?"
"My baby girl right here." The Mohawk pointed at Optimus Prime.
"She is your baby girl? Your girlfriend?"
"Yes!"
"Brother, it's been five years since Corona ended, your taste should have returned by now."
"How dare you?!" The Mohawk fumed.
"I am just saying. Other people buy beds to sleep on, meanwhile you sleep with a bed itself."
I am also a little angry though. Even this girl has a partner. And then there is me with no girlfriend for all my twenty years. I had to use my grandma's life savings to get down with a hooker. The experience was so bad I didn't even try it again. Not that I was left with any money to try again anyway.
But forget that, the Mohawk was furious now. The audience were too. But I need just one joke. Just one. Come on, argue with me more. I will say something that would make them laugh.
"Apologise to her right now. Or I will kill you." The Mohawk said.
His baby girl was still trying to stand up.
"Why are you fighting for her? Can't she 'stand up' for herself?" I said with a smile, I looked at the audience and their eyes were wide open.
Why aren't they laughing? Can't they understand what I am saying?
"Enough! You crossed all limits, clown. I will choke you to death."
Thanks.
"Talking about choking, when she tells you, 'choke me daddy' how do you find her neck?"
If I were in the audience, I would have been drowned laughing. But this audience was cruel.
I had thought the bikers were cool and they live their life without worry but they weren't laughing and they were angry at me.
The angriest one was of course the Mohawk.
"That's it. You are dead!"
The Mohawk raised his t-shirt and from his belt around the waist, he took out a revolver.
Is it real?
SHOT!
It was real.
He shot me right in the middle of my brows and I fell down.
My soul left my body and I watched the next scenes through my soul.
After the gunshot, all the audience members jolted up. They stood up from their seats, except the Optimus Prime. She was still trying.
They all stared at my dead body with the same glare and then they turned their heads at the Mohawk.
Yes. Beat him. He murdered me!
I expected they would do something as a murder had taken place but the next second, they all flashed the brightest smile.
They began laughing.
"Well done!"
"I would have done it myself if you were a little late."
"Nice shot."
All of them praised the Mohawk for killing me.
They even lifted him in the air, celebrating my death.
Hah! There are people who die laughing and then there is me, who died while trying to make them laugh.
Well, I had nothing in this world anyway. My mother had cancer, she died right after my birth. My father had a car accident on the same day.
My grandma raised me since then and after I finished my college she died as well. Not because I spent her entire life savings on a hooker. I did that after her death. She only had five hundred Mexican peso anyway. But she was also the one who pushed me into comedy. It was her dream to become a successful comedian but since she couldn't do it, she pinned her hopes on me and I also like this profession so I followed it.
I wanted to make a career out of it but it is what it is.
The bikers were finally laughing, again, not by me but at me, and my soul began to drift away to who knows where.
But before disappearing, I caught the glimpse of Optimus Prime. She was still trying to stand up. I shook my head and these will be the last words of my soul dedicated to her…
Just sit down, bitch.