|  "Okay - 'so this guy walks into a club and he' ...oh, wait... 'a guy goes into a bar and he says' ... wait
...hold- h- hold on... 'so this guy goes to this bar and he says' ...w- w-wai...w-wait... 'the guy says' Shoot! Aww...sh...shoot! Wait...ohhhh.. w-wait...!"
Meet Walter. He's your average Joe, in your average town, on your average night. But it's not. I mean he's not. Average. He tries. Oh, he tries. Well, he's not Joe, either. His name is Walter. I said that already. Pay attention.
Well, "it" is not average, either, I suppose. Not your average town, that is. Or average night. Then again, it's not really one night. It's longer. It's nights. But not only nights - days, too, I guess, know-wudd-I-mean? 'Cause, you know, they kinda go in pairs. You can't have one without the other. Okay, you can. But not in a row. You know - like - go from day to day and skip the night, or from night to night and skip the day.
Yeah, I guess it's possible to maybe, say, get on a really fast airplane and head west. Or east? No, west. Hold on... "rises in the east and sets in...". Yeah, okay - west. So, sure - I suppose someone could fly a plane and head west as fast as the earth is spinning and make time stand still. yeah - leave Boston at, say 4pm, fly to Chicago in an hour (sure!) - arriving at 4pm Chicago time. Then fly to Denver in one hour (Hey, let it go. It's hypothetical!), arriving again at 4pm Denver time. Sure, then you fly further to L.A., take an hour, and so on, continuing likewise through Anchorage, then to Honolulu.
Okay, now you can relax. It won't be 4pm in Aukland, New Zealand for another 2 hours. Hell, if ya make good time, you can arrive at your destination a few or several minutes before your previous departure - say 3:56pm. Eureka! The fountain of youth! Do this ... hmm...60minx24hrs/the 4 minutes "refunded".. okay, that's 360 more times - ha!, full "circle"! - and you'll have taken back a day of your life! And it'll only have taken you a collective 4200 hours (175 days) to do it!
Oh, shut up. It seemed like a plan! Let's see YOU invent the time machine, Einstein!
Where was I? Oh, Walter, right. Not your average Joe - blah, blah, blah. So maybe he's not your "average" average - your demographic or statistical "poster child" - your Webster's Unabridged "average" - your "top of the bell" on your standard bell curve. If anything, it seems he sits a little to the left on that last scale.
But that seems a small matter to those who know him. Most of these folks are pretty protective of Walter, or seem so, and Walter reciprocates as best he can by offering up his brand of humor and light-hearted good nature. I suppose he sees himself as sort of the neighborhood comedian, the class clown grown up, the working man's court jester.
Alright, he's no Jerry Seinfeld or Sam Kinisen, or George Carlin, but surely he's as legit as any North Station crooner who's strumming is inevitably accompanied by the crescendoing thunder of train track, the indecipherable P.A. mumble, and, if he's lucky, ther intermittent KERPLONK! of pity or applause into his coffee cup. And, as often as not, said "crooner" is a dedicated artist who works hard honing his craft; a serious player who sees himself as the guy who is true to his art - no sell out is he!, who, as often as not, is taken a little less than seriously.
So, okay. Walter may not exactly be in that same league. He's a little rough around the edges, delivery-wise, but he usually manages to produce a punch-line, one way or the other. His puns and half-jokes get the laughs.
Or he does, anyway.
"That's okay, Walt! You'll get it right. Come on over here and join me an' the guys for a beer. Hey, Pete! Another frosty one over here, huh?"
Walter gave a toothy half-smile as he eagerly made his way past the pool table with cigarette burns and the mystery stain on the cue side. Even though, at three and a half feet by seven feet, this was an undersized table, it was still a tight squeeze. As he maneuvered between the table and the long-broken juke box thingie with selections from Elvis, Cyndi Lauper, Donna Summer, WHAM!, and the Supremes, Walter shot Pete the barkeep a quick, sidelong glance. See, they have sort of an arrangement where Pete serves up an original concoction of apple cider and some carbonated elixir ranging in hue from clear to amber - sometimes club soda, other times tonic water or even ginger ale - and Walter can hang out with his "buddies" and they are none the wiser.
"H-hey, Art! J-jim. How's it...how's it going? How's it going?"
"Wally, boy! Pull up a chair. Ya workin' hard? Stayin' outta trouble? You still workin' in that nursing home kitchen? Still got your sights on Cali? Gonna make the big time, are ya?"
"Yeahhh, wor-workin' h-hard."
"Whatsamatta, buddy? You don't seem your carefree self. C'mon and tell your pal, Arty, all about it."
"Well...w-well... Awww geez! My billfold came up missing again, an I'm - I'm supposed to be real careful... c-careful with it."
"That's a shame, pal. You hard up or something? Need a little o' the dough-re-mi to tide you over? Ya don't even hafta ask! C'mon, guys! Chip in, will ya! Geez, Wally - ya can't seem ta catch a break, can ya? Don't you worry about a thing. Come on, cheer up! Take a load off! I gotcha a cold one right here. Why don'tcha tell us another one o' your jokes?"
"Sure. S-sure, Art. Hmmm...okay. Okay - yup. Ummm... 'there's this priest, a rabbi, and' ...no, that's not right, no... 'a pilot...and'"
So these guys indulge Walter as he stammers through a series of these jokes, or, to put it more accurately, a mutation smorgasbord of hybrid set-ups and mis-remembered or mismatched punchlines, and treat him to his second, then third "beer". And even though his, er, jokes aren't exactly working (alright, they're incoherent, anti-climactic drivel!), you'd think old Wally was bringing the house down. These guys were in stitches! But something, *something* in their eyes, or the tone of their laughter suggested that the joke didn't really matter. That they'd be laughing anyway. That they were not laughing at the jokes. They were laughing at Walter. HE was the joke.
"Eh, Wally! You're really pourin' down them brews! Heh heh! Ya like 'em, don'tcha?"
"Hey, Pete!", Art said as he gave a wink to his pals, "Don't be stingy, huh?! Give Wally here another mug o' suds!"
Art and his chums delighted a little while longer as Wally played his role. As the alcohol apparently made his antics that much funnier, the gang egged him on and made him feel on top of the world. Like one of the guys. But, hey - what's a coupla twenties and a little lost dignity between friends?
"Well, it's about closing time, folks!", Pete hollered from behind the bar. "Finish 'em up!"
"Hey, Wally! You take it easy now. You'll make it to Hollywood someday!"
"Y-yeah. Bye. Bye, Arty."
"You gonna make it home okay?"
"Yeah-", Pete chimed in from his sink. "I got 'im."
As the rest of the gang cleared out and Pete wiped down the counter, Walter inquired. "What the hell 'dja put in my drinks tonight, man!? I could barely choke 'em down!"
"Hey, c'mahhn, Charlie! How am I gonna make any cash if you're drinkin' down the real stuff? Besides, you know I'll cut you in."
"Yeah, yeah - okay. Well, g'night."
"Back tomorrow?"
"C'mahhn!"
"Okay, see ya then."
And as "Wally" made his way to his car, a new sporty little number that he bought only a month ago, he flipped open his phone and said "Home".
Then, as Charlie, aka "Wally", stuck the key into the ignition, he was the one laughing. No need to go to 'Cali'. His gig is right here. In an average town, on an average night, with some average Joes.
And the joke's on them.
***
"H-h-hi, b-babe. yeah, I just - I just got off work... got off work. W-well, I dropped a couple... cropped a few... a few... ohhhh!!!... the boss got mad! Made me clean, c-clean it all up. Said he's gonna deduc...deduc... gonna take it outta my paycheck! Okay - okay, yeah, you can come and get me. Okay, yeah...me too."
Then he pulled into the lot behind the McBeef restaurant and smiled. He threw on his ratty old t-shirt, mussed his hair a bit, and smeared on some fresh ketchup. And as he began walking toward Senior Comfort Estates next door to wait for his free ride, he chuckled to himself, just a little.
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