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Back The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman Save as PDF
Contents ( 68)
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  3. Norman
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  66. Norman
  67. Notes for next year’s Fringe
  68. Acknowledgments

23

Norman

FIRST RULE OF COMEDY:
Three is the funniest number.

I DON’T EVEN know who John Keats is, but I bet he’d be really happy that Big Al recited his poem at the Noble Goat. And I know he should have won the open mic really, but Lou was the judge and she said that I won by a tit’s whisker. Which doesn’t sound like much, but Big Al said she had him there, so it was official.

The prize was ten pounds and two packets of pork scratchings, which Big Al ate most of anyhow, so I figured that was fair. He also seemed to be saving quite a few in his beard for later, and when I saw that I made a quick note in my head to try to remember to write it down on an actual Post-it note so I could maybe use it in a joke. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew that if I thought hard enough and tried to imagine Jax helping me, I could probably think of something pretty funny about that.

After we’d finished the pork scratchings Lou said it was closing time, but then she brought us over another tray of drinks and sat down with us at the table. Big Al even gave me a sip of his pint. To celebrate the win he said, but he checked with Mum first. When she said it was okay I felt a little bit bad because everyone thought it was my first time. But it wasn’t, and not even Mum knew that I’d actually drunk beer before. A lot of it.

Last year four cans of lager fell out of Jax’s stepdad’s fridge in the garage and right into the bottom of his schoolbag. Well, that’s his story and I’m sticking to it. They sat in his bag all day, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before Jax’s ideas factory came up with a plan. And I was right because after school Jax said, let’s go over to Mrs. Ackerman’s cow paddock and drink them. As an experiment to see if lager makes you any funnier. Well, I drank one and Jax drank two and we were supposed to share the last one, but I couldn’t drink anymore because the paddock was spinning and the cows were going all fuzzy and Jax couldn’t stop laughing at me hiccuping and trying to make up jokes in case lager actually did make you funnier. Then Mrs. Sorrenson from the post office walked past with her dog and said what did we think we were doing and if we weren’t careful she was going to tell our mothers. And then I fell asleep.

When I woke up I was hugging my one empty can and there were three empty cans beside Jax and he looked so green I almost couldn’t see him in the cow paddock. Although that could also have been my fuzzy lager eyes. Then Jax threw up, which made me throw up, and after that we felt a bit better and did a pinkie swear that we’d never tell anyone about that day if by chance Mrs. Sorrenson didn’t. Even though it was a bit of a shame, because we were pretty sure we’d thought up some really funny material while we were drunk and we didn’t have any Post-its with us. I mean, I suppose we were drunk. I don’t really know how you’re supposed to feel when you’re drunk, but whatever we were felt pretty good until it felt really awful.