Well, I thought old Beano and Gray and Lucy were about ready to wee themselves, they’d laughed so much. Maybe it was partly because of the six empty Guinness bottles sitting on the sink, but I was almost sure it was also because it actually made a pretty funny story when you heard it all together like that.

When everyone stopped laughing Gray slapped the table and said I sure knew how to have an adventure. Which made me think, wow, I can’t believe I’ve actually had a real-life adventure. Then Beano said, aye, and I sure did know how to tell a story, and I just thought, wow full stop. Then they started talking about the good old days when comedians were properly funny and didn’t just swear and tell dirty jokes, like they do today. And then that’s when the best thing of all happened, because Lucy said that the way I told my story, he could see a lot of those old-style comedians in me. And that I reminded him of a slow-burn type of funny guy like Dave Allen. Dave Allen! Can you believe it?

I was thinking to myself that I wish I knew exactly what about me reminded Lucy of Dave Allen as I could do with some more of it when Beano said, oh yeah, and you know why, don’t you? Well, I didn’t and I said so, and Beano went, it’s because you’re a natural born rack-on-terr, boyo. Which wasn’t much of a help to me, because I didn’t know what that meant, but before I could ask if he might please be able to explain James said, enough with the big words, Beano, like you said, Norman can tell a bloody good story.

Then Lucy piped up and said that not everybody knows it but being a stand-up comedian is one of the hardest jobs in the world. Because basically you’re getting up there in front of a crowd of people and saying you’re the funniest guy in the room. So you better have the chops to back it up or they’ll eat you for dinner. But then he said there are the slow-burn ones like me and Dave Allen (which I still can’t believe I’m saying) that can reel in the laughs by holding a microscope up to life. An observational monologue is what Lucy said it was called, and when he said that everybody else went quiet and kind of thoughtful. And so did I.

So maybe I figured it out by myself and maybe I didn’t, but when Lucy said that I suddenly realized I’d been doing everything wrong. Because even though Jax was gone, I was acting like he was still there. I was still shooting the jokes out into space like the funniest guy in the room was still there to catch them and finish the job. Like I was still the straight man part of a pretty cool comedy duo instead of the guy that’s got to reel in the laughs all by himself.