The sarcasm was supposed to deflate the Dog but it only exhausted
Jimmy, conjuring in his mind the one-thousandth retelling of the Dog's pet Theory of
Humor: that all jokes were endless versions of themselves: an eternal rehearsal of absurd
characters in a build-up to a punch line that depended on a pun to underscore what
everyone knew but no one wanted to believe: the utter difference between words and world.
How banal it all was, the Dog would always finish, how like everyday life. And, as if
summoned to serve as a visual aid, a group of tourists were gathered at The Strip.
Umbrella hats and mismatched plaid. Most of them carried quarters in those
plastic cups that they now lugged from casino to casino and would later take home to San
Diego and Indianapolis and drink slurpees out of or grow petunias in till the casino's
slogan--Where YOU are King!--wore off and no longer reminded them of what a
wonderful time they'd had in Vegas. Laughing, they jostled for position as a shuttle bus
approached. An air-conditioned bus. The fare was less than the dollar Jimmy had in his
pocket and it took the remainder of his will to not leave the Dog in the street. What
sweet release it would be to pretend he had never heard the Dog, to get on the bus and
ride back to Stardust, the hotel/casino where he was staying.
The Dog walked in silence until they were past the tourists. Then it
said sullenly, "You used to appreciate my humor." Jimmy kept walking. "You
used to appreciate my comedic genius."
"You're not a comedic genius," Jimmy said. "Your jokes
suck."
"Then why do you keep nagging me to tell one at
those auditions?"
When Jimmy didn't answer, the Dog continued. "I'll tell you why,
because all jokes suck, that's what makes them jokes." Jimmy cursed himself for
opening a door for the inevitable and here it came: the only dif between a joke and
ordinary talk, the Dog lectured, was that jokes made their double meanings obvious while
the doubleness or giga-gazillioness of stuff like grocery lists or weather reports passed
unnoticed by everyone but some of the mad.
Jimmy clapped his
hands over his ears to keep out the babble that through exhaustion, through some perverse
brainwashing by repetition, had begun to make sense.
The Dog quieted again. They were approaching the next
casino/hotel, The Mirage, and a crowd had gathered outside. People flocked to The Mirage,
Jimmy imagined, the way people had originally come to Vegas: the entire city had been put
in a desert, its lawns kept green by damming a river that spent the previous billion years
sculpting the Grand Canyon. The concept of sparkling swimming pools and lush golf courses
in a desert was one brilliant promo for the lavishness of the place-- Here, Diets Are
Meant to Be Broken! But by the time The Mirage was built, the excess seemed quaint. So
its architects one-upped the other hotels by creating a tropical rain forest on their
patch of sand. Jimmy could smell the moisture of its waterfalls before he even heard their
roar. Palm trees had been transplanted full grown, their lofty crowns lit by spotlights.
Just beyond, the hotel itself was ablaze with lights. But Jimmy hardly noticed. Instead,
his eyes were fixed on the huge stage-board beside the island: it was more of a building
than a sign, the immense full-color image of the magicians it advertised so permanent that
it seemed to be part of nature. Right up there with the magicians was a picture of one of
the white tigers they used in their act. An animal act, Jimmy noted wearily.
The sign twisted his guts with envy but he
stayed anyway. The crowd would keep the Dog quiet and he needed to think. He shouldered
through the people until he got to the guard railing that ran around the hotel's tropical
island. Millions of gallons of water gushed out. Rivers roared down the island, forming
the most powerful waterfall Jimmy had ever seen. Every half hour it all turned into a
volcano: colored lights turned the water red; gas plumes ignited, sending flames shooting
fifty feet into the air. He stayed for three eruptions.
