Uncle Always Says the Wrong Thing

“You two think you’re funny. I’ll show you what funny is.”

He decided to hit the open mic at the Ha Ha Hut in Brooklyn, which packs the house on Christmas night. People come to laugh away the memory of being trapped in a room with their families all day. It made the drive from Jersey out to his brother’s house on Long Island for Christmas dinner feel worth the trouble. He could make his appearance and then stop at the club on the way home, put his name on the list, and get a slot for a tight five. At this point, he can do five minutes on stage with one testicle tied behind his back, right? And it would be good to rub elbows with those Brooklyn assholes, not to mention the after-hours club hijinks with the other comics and the inevitability of cocaine in toilet stalls.

When he gets to his brother’s house, he says the hellos down in the basement first, where an enormous flat-screen TV is blasting a football game, and then works his way back up into the kitchen, where his sister-in-law toils between sips of rosé, and finally to the living room, where the nieces are sitting on the floor by the Christmas tree.

“Uncle Always Says the Wrong Thing says Simon Says,” says the younger of the sisters, who is the meaner of the two and therefore the funniest.

“That’s not even funny is it?” says the elder sister. “I mean, like, what’s the joke?”

“I mean, like, what’s the joke? Nyeh nyeh nyeh” the younger girl says. “Doo-doo brain.”

“You’re a doo-doo brain!” Their mother pokes her head in from the kitchen and they both shut up.

“Uncle Always Says the Wrong Thing says daddy’s a fatty,” says the younger. Both of them crack up.

“Mocking nickname humor,” he says. “Pretty weak.” Neither of the girls has any idea what he’s talking about, but they are used to it.

“You two think you’re funny. I’ll show you what funny is.”

He sits on the floor in front of the older girl. “Okay, Sue, I’ll teach you a new joke.”

“Okay.”

“And what is a joke made of?”

“Setup and punchline,” says Sue.

“Okay the setup is this: I say, Hi, Sue. Then you say, Hi Uncle Always Says the Wrong Thing. Ready?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hi, Sue!”

“Hi Uncle Always Says the Wrong Thing!”

“Go fuck yourself, Sue.”

Her mouth gapes. It’s that horrified guppy face she learned from SpongeBob SquarePants.

“Hey! You can’t say that.”

“Say what? Say the punchline? I can’t say the punchline?”

“You said the F word to me.” She starts tearing up. Oh, yeah, she’s the sensitive one, isn’t she? The younger one starts laughing.

“Shut up, Maria.”

“Shut up, Maria,” Maria says. “Nyeh nyeh nyeh.”

“Sue, that’s the point,” Jerry says. “I’m not supposed to say the F word. You say, Hi Uncle Always Says the Wrong Thing and I say the wrong thing. That’s the joke, right? Oh, c’mon, don’t cry, I’m just kidding. We’re good right? You know I’m just kidding, right?”

“Yeah,” and she turns away from him, wipes away a tear, and starts tapping a spiky glass ornament on the Home Depot fake tree back and forth. The younger one folds into a cat pose and purrs convincingly.

“Oh, jeez, whatever,” Jerry says. He goes out on the deck to smoke. Sue goes into the kitchen and tells his sister-in-law, who goes into the basement and tells his brother, who says, Jesus Christ he said what?

At dinner, his brother doesn’t say a word. What’s up his ass now? Jerry thinks. Then enough time passes so he can say, “Hey, I gotta hit the road, traffic to Brooklyn’s a freakin’ nightmare, show’s at ten, I gotta get my name in that bucket on time or it’s no dice, but you know how it is, yeah, you too, thanks, hey, sis, thanks for dinner, it was incredible.”

###

Down at the Ha Ha, Jerry waits just inside the front door watching as hot Coney Island Marina, not chubby shy Marina the Owner’s Daughter Who Works the Door, checks her puffy winter coat. Jerry and the other boys down at the Ha Ha desperately want to bang her, but Jesus Christ himself will come down from heaven and pay off their maxed-out Discover cards before any of them gets near her perfect Russian ass.

Jerry bullshits with her in the hallway for a minute. “My God, Jerry, niece is 10 years old. In Moscow we wait until girl has the first tampon before telling her to fuck herself.”

“Right, you just tell her to get on street and find Russian mobster cock to be sucking?” She flips him off and adjusts her skirt and hair.

Coney Island Marina is beautiful in an entitled oligarch’s daughter way, not a mobster’s whore at a downtown club with the $500 table minimum way. Worse, she has an anal sex bit that kills every time, no matter what. She’s known for this routine, which she’s turned into a whole new killer bit, which makes him simmer with jealousy.

“C’mon Marina, it was funny, and besides, you only know what’s funny about anal.”

“Nothing is funny about anal. Only funny thing is men like Jerry who want anal with Marina but will never get it,” she says. “Now is time for Jerry to fuck himself. Did you bring the niece to make joke with on stage tonight?”

She strides away on ten foot legs toward the stage to drop her name in the bucket with the others. Jerry follows. Names are pulled: He’s second-to-last, and she closes. Fuck me, he says, not enough under his breath to hide it. He’ll do okay but she’ll kill, and he’ll be the cuck with the target on his back at the after-hours club. It’ll be Jersey jokes until sunrise.

“It was funny, but I’m the asshole?” Jerry says to her back as she walks back up the hallway toward the club bar for her free ice-cold beluga in a rocks glass. “Are you coming out with us tonight? We’ve got some blow and a bunch of killer jokes you could probably write down when everyone else is in a blackout. And speaking of blowing, I’ll round up your fee from $29.95 to an even thirty if you throw in a shoeshine.”

The coat check Latina smiles at him uncomprehendingly.

“Finally someone gets the fucking joke.”

###

So he does the Jersey girls bit. He does the Tony Soprano fucks your mother bit. He does the I know a guy who doesn’t know your guy anecdotal thing. The usual. But in the final 30 seconds of his five, he hits them with the new go fuck yourself Sue bit.

It kills. It slays. Go fuck yourself, Marina! Watch and learn!

Then he screws up. Instead of stopping on the button, he reaches for a tag, desperate to double his money on the last punchline.

“Yeah, there’s nothing worse than a grade schooler with no sense of humor. But at least she’s not a slut like her little sister.”

Silence, like drowning in an icy river in deepest Siberia. The emcee leaps out of the shadows. “Hey, Jerry, don’t quit your crossing guard job just yet, brother, put your hands together for Jersey Jerry, folks…”

Coney Island Marina kills it again, the fucking bitch, and then she and he are at the bar with the other comics and the friends-of-comics for the last free drink. Club Owner’s Daughter Marina is on the stool next to Jerry. She wants him and all the other douchebags at the club know it. He decides she’s fuckable but who is he kidding? Like if she weren’t, he wouldn’t?

Club Owner’s Daughter Marina polishes off her second beer and starts grabbing his forearm gently every time she honks at his endless stream of wisecracks. She starts grilling him about the nieces. What do they like to do? Does he take them places? Does he have a favorite? Do they play sports?

“Jesus, Marina, you want me to get one of them on my cell phone right now? I love them dearly, the little twats.”

That silences her but not for long. He feels the temperature drop, and she leans against the backrest of her stool and locks on his eyes. “Not for nothin’, Jerry, but can I ask you something? I mean it’s no big deal or nothin’, but did you tell your niece to go fuck herself? It was just a bit for the show, right, you didn’t actually?“

“Yeah, I did actually for fuck’s sake tell her to go fuck herself. Jesus, can’t anyone take a joke anymore? It was just a joke. Okay, fine, Uncle Always Says The Wrong Thing said the wrong thing. I’m the asshole, okay? Are you happy?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” says Marina. “I was just asking. Hey, rain check on the after-hours club tonight, okay? I got an early morning dental appointment in Newark.”

As Jerry and the Brooklyn assholes group up and call for Ubers, it starts, continuing into the after-hours club. Relentless ball busting about his on-stage death. About his nieces. About the joke about the nieces. Then pedo jokes about the nieces. Child hooker jokes. Jokes about his sister-in-law’s Latina pussy.

They grind into him without end, to the point where strangers at the club are saying, Jesus Christ, enough already. Coney Island Marina leans against the bar the whole time, saying nothing, which makes him suspect he’s getting set up. And he is. What is that look? Pity? Disgust? Sympathy? She takes the stool next to him.

“Jerry walks into a bar,” she says. “Bartender points to this door in the wall, with top part that swings out. What you call this?”

“I don’t know, Marina, door with top part that swings out? I get it, I get it. Make the horse laugh, make the horse cry. You’re smoking crack if you think I don’t know this joke.”

“Shut up for joke, Jerry. This is not the old make-horse-laugh, make-horse-cry joke. This is new make-horse-laugh, make-horse-cry joke just for Jerry.”

“So like I say, horse is sticking head out of top part of door. Sign above horse says, ‘Jerry: Make Horse Laugh, Win Big Money.’”

“The sign says Jerry? As in me?”

“Yes, sign says Jerry make horse laugh. Cancel hearing test. Jerry hears very well. Bartender says to Jerry, put money in jar, go to horse, tell joke, and if horse laughs, Jerry takes money. So Jerry puts money in, goes to horse, tells joke.

Here is joke: ‘What did Uncle Jerry Who Always Says Wrong Thing say to ten-year-old niece?’”

“‘I don’t know,’ says horse. ‘What he say?’”

“‘Go fuck yourself,’ says Jerry.”

“Horse laughs harder than bartender ever saw. Jerry takes money. Bartender says, new bet now. You make horse cry, keep money and also drink free all night. If horse does not cry, I keep money, you get nothing.

“Horse shakes his head. Says, ‘Wait minute, Jerry. First please tell me. Did you say “Go fuck yourself” to actual ten-year-old niece?’”

Marina grabs her purse and stands up to leave. He glitches for a few seconds like an overheated cell phone.

“Wait, wait, that’s it? What’s the punchline?”

“Punchline is Jerry make horse cry.”