The Road to Mars: A Post-Modem Novel (1999) (8 page)

“Ars est celare artem,” said Carlton, watching in enjoyment from the wings.

“You what?” said a gum-chewing chorus girl.

“The art is in concealing the art,” said Carlton. “It’s Latin.”

“You from Latin America?” she asked.

“Did I ever tell you about my theory of comedy?” he said.

She stopped chewing for a moment.

“Carlton, you’re a tin man. You’re built like a hunk, but you can be switched off. If they’d remembered to attach a vibrator, you’d be perfect.”

“Don’t say that,” said Carlton, offended.

The audience applauded as Alex was finally chased back onto the stage to face a very stern Lewis. He reverted to the ten-year-old and was told to apologize to the audience, and then to the band, which to much mirth he refused. Lewis, playing the stern, reproving father, insisted he shake the hand of the bandleader. He reluctantly reached for it and shook it. Then he snatched the entire arm off the bandleader and ran triumphantly round the stage with it. There was a gasp of horror. The audience was for a moment genuinely shocked, but as Alex continued to play with the arm, they soon realized it was animatronic, controlled from the wings by Carlton, and laughed at their own shock. Alex began to improvise with the severed arm, doing strange and nasty things with it before Lewis seemed to get bored and chased him offstage. The applause as they ran off was good. But Lewis was furious.

“What the hell did you do that for?”

“Why’d you stop me? It was going well.”

“You had to say something, didn’t you. What’s with the Einstein bit?”

“I saw you panic. I thought you’d dried. I just said the first thing that came into my head.”

“It went very well,” said Carlton.

“Muscroft and Ashby,” yelled the MC, and they ran on again and took another bow. The applause was quite warm.

“You know, I think we might have done it,” ventured Alex, seeking a way back to Lewis.

“Yeah, right.” He stomped off towards the dressing room.

“Why’s he so pissed?” asked Carlton.

“He’s a perfectionist,” said Alex. “He’s just mad at himself for losing control there.”

“But you did great,” said Carlton. “They loved you.”

“Yeah. They did.” He didn’t sound all that convinced. He frowned and stared at his shoes. When he looked up, Katy Wallace was making her way towards him, looking fabulous in a simple tight black dress. She was smiling broadly.

“That was great,” said Katy, “really great. I haven’t laughed like that in months.”

“Really?” said Alex.

“Great job,” she said. “I thought it went really well and so did Emil.” She was joined by the white-haired man he had glimpsed in the box. He was very tall and thin, with a trim white naval beard. His white hair rose firmly out of his scalp like the bristles in a hairbrush. He looked like someone from the past, an old Edwardian naval officer, polite, formal, and stiff.

“That was very funny indeed,” he said without smiling.

“Alex, this is Mr. Keppler.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Alex.

“Really very funny,” he repeated.

“Oh, we had fun out there,” said Alex. “I just wanted to play with them, prod them, and wake them up. I had to mess with their heads after the opening.”

“After the what?” asked Keppler.

“Well, you know, it is the Brenda Woolley show after all.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow you. What exactly do you mean?”

“Well,
she
could pass through a talent detector without registering a blip.”

Something in his head was warning him. Something was screaming, No, no, go back.

“You think she is untalented?” asked Keppler politely.

“I think her talent is like antimatter. No one can see it, no one can measure it, who knows if it’s really there?”

“Interesting,” said Keppler. There was a slight pause. Katy seemed to be examining her shoes. Carlton was looking at him, bug-eyed in disbelief.

“Excuse me,” said Keppler after a moment, “I must go and check on something.” He gave a brief formal nod and headed backstage.

Katy looked at Alex, gave a half smile, shrugged, and then turned after Keppler.

“Emil,” he heard her call after him.

Carlton was still staring at him.

“What? What is it?” said Alex.

“You do know about Brenda Woolley?”

“What?”

“She’s his wife.”

Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.

—
De Rerum Comoedia, Chapter XI
, “
Salman Rushdie: The Man In The Iron Mosque
”

Comedians often go too far. It’s the fatal insult syndrome, the inability to leave well enough alone, to simply shut up and drink your champagne. Carlton has a whole chapter on it in which he examines the self-loathing of the comedian. I suppose we all go too far occasionally. I myself said something to Molly the other day which made her so mad at me she stormed out and hasn’t come back since. It was just a joke. Women, eh?

“This tendency to go too far, to shoot yourself in the foot, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and bring destruction on yourself when all is going well is a form of self-hatred which is the hallmark of the comedian.”

Carlton’s got oodles of stuff like this. The trendy magazines are going to just gobble up this psychobabble. They love all that pithy pop cross-cultural kind of crap. I think I can make almost as much from the magazine rights as I can from his book. I see a nice brown cover with, I think, my name on it too. In gold. I’ll do a chapter of introduction, maybe even a description of how I came across his work. People like that sort of thing. It’s interesting, don’t you think?

Having abandoned both the linguistic and the biological approach to comedy for the moment, Carlton is currently making an anthropological attempt to understand the origin of comedy. He even wonders if the bipedal moment in the evolution of the ape is the origin of stand-up. But of course he’s found it’s like searching for the discovery of fire—there can be no single observable initial moment. So he begins searching for evidence of humor in the great apes. Is it really only the human that has developed humor? The baring of teeth, the barking sound, the bonding of the group, all seem to him essentially animal behavior. In all other creatures the laugh is a form of aggression. How come this extremely offensive signaling was utilized by our species in this peculiar way? Is it defensive? To explain it Carlton comes up with a rather brilliant scenario. He postulates the Basic Chimp Theory.

The Basic Chimp Theory is based on the idea of a primal chimp. The genetic father of all comedians, if you like. The chimpanzee has a small but effective language base, which obviously includes sign language. Chimps have a word for “snake.” When a chimp says “snake,” they run away. Not all chimps run, however; some continue to play, tempting fate. Carlton posed the idea of a basic comic chimp, an ape who yelled “snake”
when there was no snake
. The others run away and maintain their fear signals at a safe distance (teeth chattering, barking, laughs), but they have been conned. This, Carlton argues, is exactly what happens to an audience.

So
why
would the basic chimp do that? The answer, according to Carlton, is (a) food (he can eat while they run), (b) power (he has caused their flight), and (c) sex (with power and food comes the reward of the female, with all the advantages for the personal survival of his own DNA). He also notices that the word “aping” means mimicking or imitating. And he recognizes the danger for the comedian, who, if he makes a mistake, can get eaten. He also risks raising the envy of the physically more powerful in the tribe, which is why this particular moment with Alex so fascinates him. Insulting the powerful fits right in with his general thesis.

“I don’t think you should have said that,” said Carlton as he walked back with Alex towards the dressing room. “No.”

“What are we going to tell Lewis?”

“Why tell him anything?” said Alex.

“He’s bound to find out.” He frowned as he accessed a distant database. “‘Emil Keppler,’” he read. “‘Silesian. Built the Keppler empire, an entertainment circuit, based on Rhea. Began with container vessels and switched to cruisers after the
Bronia
disaster. Virtually invented the three-year retirement cruise. Combined tourism for the elderly with entertainment, golf, and travel on smooth and efficient hospital ships.’ No, I definitely think that was a mistake.” Alex kicked the wall.

“Oh wait,” said Carlton as his central region gave a slight ping. “There’s something more in here. It’s a gossip file. Unreliable.”

“What?”

“It’s just a rumor. Unsubstantiated. About Miss Wallace.”

“What about her.”

“It says she is his mistress.”

Alex winced. “Thank you, Carlton,” he said eventually, “that was really great. You just iced the cake on a perfect day for me.”

“You’re welcome,” said Carlton.

When they entered the brightly lit glare of the dressing room, Lewis was whistling loudly, toweling off from a shower. He seemed to have regained his spirits.

“Hey, what’s up,” he said as Alex came in, “you find that lovely lady and ask her out?”

“Nah. Not really my type.”

“Don’t shit me,” said Lewis, “you salivate each time you see her.”

“She’s occupied,” said Alex, his jaw tightening.

“Oh, sorry. Listen, I’m sorry I was so ratty out there. Nerves, I guess. You did a great job. I guess I just wanted this.”

“I think we all did,” said Alex, avoiding looking at Carlton.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” said Lewis cheerfully.

Boo was the last person in the world they expected to see. But it was his freshly dyed blue hair that popped round the door.

“Hey, man, congratulations.”

“Yeah, well thanks. They liked us.”

“Not what I heard.” Boo grinned. “I heard you got fired.”

“Come again?”

“What did you do, fart on the stage?”

“Why would I steal your material?”

“I dunno man. I hear they’re mad at you.”

The bulk of Charles Jay Brown insinuated itself into the room.

“My commiserations, dear sirs. This is sadly a parting of the ways. Had I been your management perhaps I could have used my influence. But as it is…”

He didn’t finish the thought. Lewis was staring at Alex with a strange look.

“What exactly have you heard?” he asked coldly.

“The rumor mill, sir, as usual runneth over. It seems, however, that my client has been called in as a—shall we say—replacement, for the forthcoming cruise. We, the lucky ones, go forth, and you, the unfortunate, return. Life is sometimes strangely written and who knows when our paths shall cross again.”

Lewis was breathing heavily.

“Carlton, what is going on here?” he asked suddenly.

“We’re canned,” said Alex.

“Shit,” said Lewis, slamming his hand violently against a wall. “Goddammit.”

He disappeared into the bathroom, slamming the door. There was an awkward pause.

“Sorry, man,” said Boo eventually. “I thought he knew.”

It’s a sad fuck of a business, show biz. It can lift you up and make you feel like God and then dump you right back in the trash. Carlton is very poignant about their return to the
Ray
. He describes it in great detail. Lewis went straight to the shrinkbot, where he immersed himself in self-torture. Alex entered the gym and attacked the punching bag for half an hour, in hopes of getting Miss Wallace out of his head. He felt somehow betrayed, which wasn’t fair. She’d never said anything to him, she hadn’t come on to him, but still he’d been hoping to see her again, and now they were canned. He’d managed to get them canceled from a gig that would have led them straight to Mars. Brilliant. He ripped the Ganesha security pin off his lapel and hurled it furiously into a corner. Carlton appeared at the door of the gym.

“What?” said Alex irritably. “Do you want something?”

“No.”

“Oh. Sorry. Thought you buzzed me.” Lewis entered looking thoughtful.

“I don’t get it,” said Lewis. “I just don’t get it. We did so good.” The shrinkbot had clearly advised they communicate. “Forget it,” said Alex. “We got plenty of other gigs.” Carlton looked distracted. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said after elaborately clearing his throat, “I hate to say this but something very strange is happening.”

He punched a button and his chest monitor lit up. A list of their forthcoming engagements appeared. It was a long list. Lewis had been busy during their journey and they were booked all round the Jovian Circuit. Something was now rapidly scrolling through these bookings. The single word CANCELED was appearing on the screen alongside every booking. They watched in disbelief as three months’ work went out.

“Who’s doing that?” said Lewis. “Stop it,” said Alex.

“It’s got to be some kind of a mistake,” said Carlton.

“Is it a virus?”

“I don’t believe so,” said Carlton.

“It’s a joke,” said Lewis. “Carlton, please, tell me this is some kind of practical joke.”

“It’s happening,” said Alex. “Goddammit. That vindictive bastard. He’s trying to kill our career.”

“Who is?” said Lewis. “Emil Keppler,” said Alex.

“Why?” said Lewis, puzzled.

Alex said nothing. Carlton looked embarrassed.

“What? Come on. I’m in this too, you know.”

“I did some Brenda Woolley stuff on Keppler.”

“On Keppler?”

“I didn’t know they were married.”

“Nice.”

Lewis stared at the monitor watching their gigs go out one by one.

“Wait a minute,” he said eventually, “that doesn’t make any sense. So you trashed the guy’s wife. They might throw you off the ship, but why go to all this trouble? This is overkill.”

“Well, who else could it be?”

“I dunno.” He thought for a moment. “Something doesn’t smell right here.”

“It was all my fault,” said Alex. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” said Lewis, “there’s something not quite right here. It’s Boo.”

“What about him?”

“How come he was there already?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he was right there in the dressing room.”