Callahan's Place 07 - Callahan's Legacy (v5.0) Read Free Page A

both hands and hopped in pain.   Then I lost my balance and fell down, for the third time that morning, on my bare ass, banging my head again too.   (For those of you who are connoisseurs of anguish, a hardwood floor is perceptibly harder than either tub or tile.)  
    Zoey, bless her, did the only thing she could: she burst out laughing.
    I did not join her.   Not right away.   I tried a withering glare—but if age cannot wither nor custom stale my Zoey, no glare of mine is going to do the trick.   Then I thought about kicking her, somewhere that wouldn’t endanger Nameless—but now was not a good time to get beat up.   Next I opened my mouth to say something—deeming it safe because I assumed she was still as deafened as me by the vision’s banshee cry.  
    But before I could, I realized that the deafness must have worn off: I could hear Zoey’s hoots of helpless hysteria, now, and the distant and fading sound of that monstrous barking outside.   So I closed my mouth, prepared a slightly less offensive speech, opened my mouth again…and clearly heard the sound of knocking.  
      Distant knocking.   Not here—but at the back door, back in the bedroom…where one of my friends must be waiting to receive the daily beaker of piss.
    Now I joined Zoey in laughing.  
    I just had to.   It was that or go mad.   The louder and more urgent the distant knocking became, the harder we laughed.   Finally I got up, collected the empty stein, and went, still laughing, to answer the knock.
     
    ***
     
    “What the hell was that?” Zoey asked as we walked back toward our quarters, wiping away tears of laughter.
    “I think it was a person,” I said.   “I’m pretty sure it was a life form of some kind, anyway.”
    “If you say so.   I wonder what in God’s name she wanted.   What language was that she was speaking?”
    “I’m not sure she was evolved that far.   Come on, hurry up, or—”
    Needless to say, by the time we got to the back door to answer the knock, the knocker—Noah Gonzalez—had given up and gone round to the front door.   I left Zoey there and retraced my steps through the entire building—for the third time, before coffee—and got to the front door moments after Noah had given up and gone round to the back door again.  
    That’s it, I thought, I quit.   I went as far as the bar, made a second cup of coffee, and vowed not to move another step until I had finished drinking this one.   Zoey and Noah must have connected, and worked out for themselves the awkward business of him waiting in the bedroom while she waddled into the bathroom and refilled the stein for him.   (No problem for a pregnant lady.)   By the time she came out to find me, carrying my bathrobe, I was putting the finishing touches on the lyrics of a new song.  
    It goes like this:
     
God has a sense of humor, but it’s often rather crude
What He thinks is a howler, you or I would say is rude
But cursing Him is not a real productive attitude
Just laugh—you might as well, my friend,  
’cause either way you’re screwed
 
I know: it sounds so simple, and it’s so hard to do
To laugh when the joke’s on you
 
God loved Mort Sahl, Belushi, Lenny Bruce—He likes it sick
Fields, Chaplin, Keaton…anyone in pain will do the trick
’Cause God’s idea of slapstick is to slap you with a stick:
You might as well resign yourself to stepping on your dick
 
It always sounds so simple, but it’s so hard to do
To laugh when the joke’s on you
 
You can laugh at a total stranger
When it isn’t your ass in danger
And your lover can be a riot
—if you learn how to giggle quiet
But if you want the right to giggle, that is what you gotta do
when the person steppin on that old banana-peel is you
 
A chump and a banana peel: the core of every joke
But when it’s you that steps on one, your laughter tends to choke
Try not to take it personal, just have another toke
as long as you ain’t broken, what’s the difference if