Vulture Club
It was every comedian’s dream to get the vultures to laugh.
No one remembers how the challenge came to fashion. One person, maybe two, maybe more, and an idea, and sometimes that idea is lightning or virus or exponential and spreads. There are some basic facts that don’t need to be agreed upon, because they just are. Fact: the vultures were in Quad City now, via the same logic that would create the comedic challenge, a slow migration of one or two or full-on flock that plague ran the people populace out. Whatever the cause, the effect was that the vultures lived in the center, a former famous college campus now Ground Zero. Fact: yes, some humans still lived within city limits, but Quad City was close-to-ghost town status. Some areas of neighboring St Backfill had also been sympathetically abandoned. Think bullseye effect. Fact: they, the vultures i.e., treated all humans with indifference. With the exception of the freshly dead ones, of course. But back to the original idea, easily seen to have been conceived under some sort of substantial influence. I bet you can’t make the vultures laugh. Seemed like a good idea, because it seemed impossible, and yet within normal human expectations of something that possibly could be accomplished. Tons tried, all failed, including some professional comedians. Everyone recorded their efforts; how else could you say that you were the first? Many data banks became devoted to the cause, until it lost luster. But there was always the occasional renaissance.
The Cynicomic had been prepping his material for months, trying out lines in his Saturday night stand-up, half-heartedly though, even he would admit. Because he felt there was a truism in his life which would win the day for him, and that was that his best moments always came from last-minute inspiration. He thrived on the challenge of improv. So when he found enough stuff in the garage to make a last minute lion costume, he held no doubt that it’d have awesome effect. My Muse is strong with the Farce. An old-fashioned mop head made out of ropy strands as a beard? A winter jacket with fur-lined hood for his mane? Even the tail was a gift from the comedy gods, one of those invisible dog leashes, malleable enough to bend into tail shape and long enough to fasten around his waist. All from one garage. Nothing more original than a makeshift eye patch wearing lion. He felt ready. Serendipitous even.
So yeah, I decided to give it a shot, you know, while the novelty’s still there, I mean, why not? I live here in St. Backfill, a slight pause for the expected applause, and after a few obligatory claps, he said, Quad City is literally a ten minute walk from where I live. It’s practically my home town, so for a local to win the thing, well, that’s the way it should be. Plus it’s Quad City, too, right? Lots of history there. One of the oldest cities in the country, right? He took a sip of water, put the bottle back on the stool. Ben Fucking Franklin was there, right? I mean, the original BFF. A slight titter from the audience. That’s something at least. To stand on the ground where Ben Franklin stood, flew his kite and a hand shot up in the audience. Yes? A question, sure. You. The audience member stood, hidden in shadow by the spotlight. Technically, the audience member said, the ground Ben Franklin stood on is buried by three hundred years’ worth of dust and debris attracted by the earth’s gravity, and technically most of that dust is made up of once-living things that have died and decomposed and dispersed about the earth’s surface, so technically the ground you’d be standing on would be dead people’s dandruff.
The Cynicomic pressed the button. The garage door trundled down behind him. He looked both ways out of habit before turning right.
His goal as a comedian was originality. He wanted to be unique, not some variant of what already existed to exhaustion. Which is why he still wore the eye patch over his prosthetic eye. Character. His stage name. He wanted it to become an adjective, used by other comedians as an homage allusion. Cynicomedic. But the challenge lately: how to respond to hecklers, in this case a nerd heckler, without resorting to direct or vague insinuations towards the heckler’s mother / father / sister / cellmate / etc? How to do it in original fashion. Easy enough to make some pat response about cornholing the heckler’s father in the shower, or stumble through some lewd response with regards to the heckler’s mother’s skills at the blumpkin, but that was tired. Not original. For the umpteenth time he second-guessed his choice to choose cynicism as his schtick. Maybe he should’ve chosen self-deprecation instead. Retorts of that style rolled right out of his head.
Don’t mind me, Mr / Mrs Heckler, I’ll just be over here in the corner while you fingerbang my mom.
But again back to the sex jokes. The exact thing he was trying to avoid. Fingerbanging? Please. That wasn’t wit. Un(x3)original. And what was he thinking making that stoopid BFF joke? Lame, lame, lame. But that was past. He was ready for the vultures. Weeks of honing new material, of struggling to put his ego aside and learn from his setbacks, all of it added to his resolve. Knockout in the first round on deck. His backpack was stacked with all his props. Phone. Spray can. Deck of cards? Notebooks with written routines. Extra eye patch. Extra eye. Definitely drop the BFF bit. What do vultures know about pop culture anyway? And no jokes that are too sophisticated. He adjusted his leonine hood, walking down the middle of the three-lane street. Six blocks, then a right, then the Filthy River Bridge, straight on through to . . . Buzzardtown? Buzzbridge? Not bad, but he had time to make it better.
The Cynicomic kicked up trash as he walked. Even after months of no traffic, it was still eerie to hear a section of the city so silent. Not a good quiet, not like the muted softness of a golf course. There were trees on the streets, lined up and down the median, a grassy patch as wide as the street itself. But there were echoes. With angles. He found a decent-sized rock, tossed it up and caught it, tossed it up and caught it. Empty brownstone after empty brownstone, nine figure millions in real estate abandoned because of the vultures. What did he care about living so close to the buzzards? He’d found a door that was unlocked and moved in. Power still worked, water too. So he had to walk everywhere. So what. So it smelled a little. He shifted his backpack to the right shoulder. Three brownstones later he threw the rock at an unbroken window, aimed for the third floor but still counted it a win when he hit one on the second story, the shattering sound almost pleasant. Birds perched on the house flew off in concern. Seagulls mostly.
Ben Franklin died from syphilis! someone shouted from the audience. He looked out into the crowd. Excuse me? he said. Yeah, the voice said, and so should you! The crowd ooohed in anticipation. Funny, he said, your mom’s name is Phyllis, so what does that say about you, that you were born with the disease?
Disease. That was, what, the second time he’d tried the joke? If only he’d had more trial of error. And another heckler where self-deprecation might have also served better. The road dipped, scuttering under the bridge of a cross street. With streets like this, it was easy to see how the city had germinated from horse-drawn cart paths, how some avenues went every way but straight, how they continued in name after making a full left or right. How does the city function with all those cars and delivery trucks and buses and moving vans and pedestrians without some major catastrophe every thirty minutes? But where was the funny in that? You couldn’t write comedy about transportation. Bus jokes? Hackney humor? He pictured a mother sucking on a tailpipe and smacked his head. It was just a constant. Battle. Against such urges, to reduce every talking point or thought to where he didn’t want it to go. Unoriginality. Dis ease. The road sloped up now, bending right slightly towards the river, traffic lights still cycling for block after block where the unfocused eye could pick up any combination of green, yellow, and red. Best thing he ever did was stop listening to Tina G. Best thing. A C-bomb if ever there was one. That syphilis comeback, though, that could be better.
Up ahead at the foot of the bridge, some sort of blockade. He was still too far off to make it out with any definition, but it was anything but stagnant. Had the authorities finally barricaded the bridge off? Quad City quarantine? The mass undulated, side-to-side, no, round-and-round more accurate, even a little carousel up-and-down. Did he know any jokes about carnivals? You don’t suck, Tina G said, don’t say that, you just haven’t found your specialty yet. When closer, he saw a pack of dogs. Picketing. A circlish pattern, each holding a sign, each sign exactly the same: blank. No dog made a sound.
“Hey there,” the Cynicomic said once close enough. “Paws for a Cause, am I right? What’s the claws celebre, if you don’t mind me asking?” One or two dogs looked up at him, then back to their front. “Mind if I pass on by? I don’t see any donation receptacle where I can contribute to your worthy efforts. Maybe I can—” piss on a fire hydrant in solidarity? Crap on a neighbor’s lawn? Lick my own scrotum to show how I sympathize with your kind? “—just keep on walking I guess. This isn’t my business, and it’s none of my business.” The dogs rotated on. A trio of seagulls hovered above, their shrill cries spurring the Cynicomic to progress. He walked around the circle. “Bet you’ve all been circumcised, right? That’s why you’re shooting blanks. See y’all later, Marmamute.”
He stepped onto the bridge. Any sounds of the river were drowned out by the wind. The gulls followed overhead. Rain? no, not rain, something, some small things rattled down on him from above. He threw his arms overhead and ran. Pebbles. The gulls flew off with triumphant squawk. There’d been no warning about pebble-wielding sniper seagulls in any of the online literature. Maybe now was a good time to start recording? Yes. A panoramic opening shot! Quad City to one side, St. Backfill to the other, him mid-bridge. Spin and shoot river and city and river and city and river and city. What about his opening monologue? Still in his backpack. Stop and restart the shot? No, don’t waste the battery. He’d ad lib, and ooh that adrenaline hit, the thrill of decision.
He held the phone as steady as possible and rotated slow. “Quad City, or should I say Squat City, where the vulture has claimed ownership by default, where every homeless person who once lived here now has twenty houses to their name. Squat City, once the epicenter of art and technology, now reduced to a buzzard bidet. Culture to vulture. Nothing worthwhile here, except to witness the first person ever to beat the buzzard!” He spun the camera to face him. Too late for fake fangs! Shadows skid by from above, and more pebbles rained down. “Shiiiit!” He ran towards the Quad City end of the bridge. Squawk! Looked up. Gone. Good. Pause. He could only presume they were going to reload. Keep moving then.
Cracked pavement rendered uneven by vegetative growth unchecked, roots undermining the abandoned used road. Good. Squat City, that had been quick off-the-cuff. We Care As Long As It Doesn’t Inconvenience Us. Good motto. Had potential for future routines. He typed it into his phone notes. The road he was on ran end-to-end city, the Ground Zero campus right in the center. He’d be there in about half an hour. Glittering and gleaming windowed and chromed corporate headquarters dwarfed ramshackle-looking dull and dirty clapboard houses and brick buildings. If he had the time, hell yeah, he’d break into one of these biotechs just to poke around. No stay focused. Was that a museum over there? No thanks. But the biotech curiosity grabbed again, a morbid pull into something that likely held certain death. Was that part of the appeal? Visions of vials and mutant bird armies. Where did such a desire come from? Were his ancestors warriors, explorers? Or was it just from all that TV and movies? Real life, what did he know about it? Or even his own life?
The irony is, Quad City had always claimed to be green, but it wasn’t until it became abandoned that it literally happened. I mean, who knew, right? When Mother Nature was left to do its own thing, plants and animals went everywhere. The elements just battered away at humanity’s mark on the planet. Though to be more truthful, once the vultures took over, it actually became more of a white city. Like there’s not a speck of surface anywhere that isn’t spackled with bird crap. Did you know that vultures have actually evolved to the point where their legs are resistant to the uric acid contained in their excretions, meaning they can literally shit down their legs and not worry about any ill effects from the endeavor.
Eat that shit, dandruff nerd heckler.
What about the Enviromedian? No no no, no flow to that name. Too much climate backlash exposure. He made a decision at that moment: that after this expedition, he would retire the Cynicomic persona. Persona non haha. He wanted—needed—something better. What next he knew not yet, but he knew that at least. And with that decision, he felt—
A smell, this dennish molting fecal feral kind of smell carried to him by the wind. He gagged and pinched his nose. He pulled the mop beard up over his lower face. Also not a great smell, but better than. Keep moving.
It’s crazy to think that a building registered as a historic site is now home to a fast food chain. Imagine, I ate a burger in the same building that BFF died from syphilis. He pulled out his phone and typed: BFF venereal burger.
On the left, a red brick building, the sign above the doorway in Russian. Still here, huh? He’d been there with, who? Karen Thetical? Told her it translated to Kremlins, that it was a bar dedicated to horror movies and all things muscovite. He could go in now; there was no door anymore, only shadow protecting inside from outside. Karen Thetical. Should’ve asked for her opinion instead of Tina G. The den stench intensified. He sucked on a couple mop strands to nullify the smell, realized what he was doing, and spit them out. Halfway there.
You shouldn’t try to make stuff up on stage, Tina G said. Improv’s not your game.
He rounded a bend. Gray pavement transitioned to cobblestone, with words in white painted on them, three letters to a stone. Another thing he’d had no advance knowledge of. He pulled out his phone. Still over seventy percent. This was worth the battery hit, something others had missed out on. He was an explorer, a warrior. He hit record and cleared refuse off the letters, reading aloud as he walked.
So here goes:
end thought and victory
shut the voice down
battle I need only
in order to win that
my internal mother
enemy at this point to be
I find the worst
victim not to be pitied
I am the tragic lead
spirit of fool me once
my poor choice in the
lament
thus I drift and
such as they are lost
may be of use at a time
like so many things that
I can’t find them
somewhere but
there are words
as did the first
the second time
the same exact thing
surprise as
to me imagine my
has happened
twice now this
depths when called
out of the ancient
this is what crawled
Dear Somebody
He felt dizzy, had to sit. He was eight, playing volleyball at a family reunion, feeling like every time he jumped up he could hurdle the net, weightless, he was twelve, bike riding with his brother when his brother tangled with the handlebars and fell, blood skin and asphalt and blood that wouldn’t stop and he had to wrap his t-shirt around his brother’s arm to stop the bleeding while he walked his brother home, he was thirty-five, at the back of his van, looking for something on the floor, thinking about how it would feel if a car sped up from behind and pinned him to his bumper and pinched him at the thighs and would he still be able to feel anything below the knees with all those veins and nerves shut?
He stared at the whitewashed words, fished one hand in his backpack for a spray can, his eyes fixed, his face fever, his head whirlwind. Would there be enough to cover this up? This was all manner of danger. The pull to reread brought more nausea; he knew instinctive to do so would send him something awful, somewhere hell, someone buried. He clenched the can. Something to someone dear, some some some happening no no. If he didn’t walk away now he’d never leave. Dear Somebody.
Distraction. Had there always been cobblestones here? He dug through his attention. Maybe he needed to count the rows. Like if Dorothy had counted the bricks maybe she wouldn’t have had to kill that witch. One, two, three, step, four, five, six, step. Warrior, hero. Comedian. Hackney. His fucking forehead burned like fuck. I can’t find them.
Thirty rows counted, then the fever broke. He put the spray paint can back in his pack, the feel of the can anathema, what it held, the retch it caused. That ambient avian smell though, it roiled all over him, a pasty presence of fecal fog, near tangible. And now bird detritus. Every step sent feathers spinning, every corner everywhere had a collection of used down. He spit, but opening his mouth only invited more taste. If he only had a straw. This time he let the mop strands stay in his mouth. He was close.
And then I thought, he said, pacing on the stage, and he could hear the band warming up behind him, hear his voice echoing back on him, maybe birds don’t need humor. Maybe there’s no such thing as bird comedy. Maybe they’re not built to laugh. Maybe you’re not a bird unless you don’t have a sense of humor. I mean, um, you’re not an avian unless you’re a plumer. You’re not a comedian despite all the rumors! A heckler shouted, and the audience laughed.
A sign ahead indicated the ex-campus lay right around the bend. His heart revved anew, the umpteenth time in the last countless weeks, his doubt gone tidal. His motivations, his actions, and worst, his execution. He’d never been able to watch another video of his performance after the first one. Every flat joke, every unanswered heckle, every patron he saw not clapping, every vague commitment for a return gig. Every neutral platitude from a friend, especially maybe you’re just not meant to do stand-up. Maybe you’ve got to accept fuck Tina G in her condescending cake hole. The resistance, the anger that built each time he took the stage, knowing that this was all he wanted—to make people laugh—to say funny words—to tell a story and make it feel like magic—to be individual—original—and he took another step and thought about turning around going back to the white words and took the next step—he stared at his boots to see if they’d keep moving forward—all his practice was worthless, all those punchlines generic or forced—how comedy was more than words—how his timing and delivery were zero fib—and what had he even planned on doing out here? There was the destination, there was the wall that separated the campus from the city, there were the vultures lined atop the wall, there were all the vultures, vultures, vultures alas, poor Uric acid, I pooped it well he was admit it, he was horrible, yes, he was just not good, not funny no sir not the twingiest taint of humor in him, he flat out sucked—his left foot another step—this new—honest, a boulder rolled from bottom to atop a mountain—opinion now in duel with his worn ideal, that this was all he wanted to be, he was all he wanted, all he remembered wanting, but he could not—could no longer—ignore evidence contrary.
The boulder crested.
Why keep trying? Why keep writing, practicing, embarrassing himself in public, self-abuse courtesy of his head-strong rejection of anything—anyone—critical—he tried to come up with just one positive moment he could hang his professional performance hat on I don’t know about you, but I really really hate corn, I mean, can you think of a dumber way to eat a vegetable? he slid his backpack to the ground, the vultures lounging in a lazy line along the wall, he fumbled—he was still living, after all—and the spray can—he hoped they were watching—hoped somebody was watching loser loser now was the only time to start recording, where the script; come on Renzetti and the thought froze him. It meant something, this need for surname self-reference. The thought tickled, something in the how he’d said it, something identity, and underneath that, the why, an answer that may actually be someone, someone else, another voice, someone else’s tone inflection using his vocal cords kingdom phylum class order family genus was it specious? If he could figure out at least one—how or why—then he’d answer both. He felt of a snow globe, liquid atmosphere abluster and whirl of all things, all orbiting him, a self-packaged bubble. But was there such a thing as snow globe humor? The polished dome? All things could change now. A bullwhip flick—potential to kinetic—grace relocated. But was there anything funny about the bullwhip other than vague similarity to bullshit? Was he some sort of self-sado don’t mind me in the corner, here’s my sphincter for your troubles Tina G?
No. One hundred percent wrong.
He shook the spray can, flicked the cover off and unleashed, first up his arm, then down, a hazardous orange, up, down, rotate, up, down, the smell may be of use at a time, and the thing was. The thing was go on admit it and after the arms were done he started in on the legs the trouble with cannabis is it’s too close to cannibal for me to enjoy smoking it he was in third grade, blurted stupid to his best friend who laughed like it was the funniest thing ever, the friend of such clutch and bend, and the thing was it was I can’t find them strong, that impression, that sense of power, no no, that wasn’t the admit more well, maybe, at the very least, it was where my internal mother began, this thought that he had natural talent—moving on to paint half his chest, floating fathers—sorry, feathers!—sticking where the paint was still tacky I’ve always had this idea for a website called YouTubeSock, for the athlete and porn enthusiast the thing was, was he funny? No, not it either. He closed his eyes and coated half of his face. The Thing Was. Tina G never, if he was being honest, never once had said that he wasn’t funny. Vultures on the brick wall, lazy stared. The. Thing. Was. Everyone else thinks I’m funny! he said. But not you! Nothing I ever say is funny to you! Thing is, she said, when you don’t hear what you want to hear, you hear what you want to hear. Was he wrong to expect nothing but my poor choice in the support? Had he felt good about anything—at all—since then? Ever? I mean, what do you call a potato working in the ER? Meditater What was he doing here? What had he all along expected?
He walked through an archway in the wall, under bird and through any manner of trash, surveyed the campus proper. Grass grew tall and wild in patches, whitewashed brick buildings older than Ben Franklin’s best friend, small heaps of garbage, walkways still visible dead people dandruff despite the absolute lack of upkeep. Well? What did he want? Thing was, he was admit powerless yes say to be let go anything stop other out of the ancient than this is what crawled what he wanted to be. He clenched his fists, then teeth, then screamed, bellowed, ran his voice to split. What use.
There. He made a decision. He would be what I make myself.
A picnic table nearby slumped into some soft earth. He grabbed it and dragged it over to the vulture perched wall. Stood on the table, knocked a few buzzards off, jumped up onto the wall, squatted in his best vulture pose. The stench was existence. He looked left, right. Some vultures ignored him, others watched. He lowered his head and flung his eye patch off. One whack to the head, two, three, and his prosthetic eye dropped into the mass of bird offal don’t anymore he let himself fall off his perch after his eye feet and hands first he was no fool landed with mute splut. Hands dug until he found the eye. It glistened. He spun his head up, mop beard pasting his face. He was remade rapacious, forged of melted orange vanilla creamsicle shit swirl.
“So,” the Cynicomic said, almost unable to keep himself from laughing, “what would you call my dick when it’s covered in uric acid from your mother’s ass?”