Bill takes me to the Realm of Comedy

It was one gloriously sunshiny afternoon when I bumped into my comedy mentor and friend, Bill, the tramp (I prefer not to use the word bum). I had only met him once before at a streetcar stop in the middle of nowhere on outer fringes of Toronto. I was relaxing on a bench in my local park, watching the kids play football when I saw a dark ragged silhouette approach me from the corner of my vision, 'Like a sandwich would ya?', a flattened jam sandwich with a tyre mark on it presented itself infront of my eyes on a smelly blackened hand. I looked at the fellow, it took me a while to recognise that it was Bill, the once famous standup comedian extraordinaire.

'Hi Bill!!' I said. He looked at me suspiciously, and then appeared to become frozen. 'Hi, I'm the guy that you spoke to at the street car stop about a month ago, you gave me some great standup comedy advice...' Nothing, inanimate as an ice lolly, only he wouldn't have tasted as good. I thought about checking his pulse, but looking at that stinky filthy form of a man, it occurred to me that it would be somewhat of a Fear Factor challenge, only without the prize money and the possibility of contracting some deadly contagion that would eventually turn me into a homeless zombie. I stood up and walked around him, trying to determine if he was still breathing. The jam sarnie was motionless in his hand, it did not quiver or quake; but, I already knew that jam sandwich had died the minute it was hit by a vehicle. I waved my hands in front of his eyes which were locked in that expression of suspicion. Nothing.

There was a stick lying on the ground, so I picked it up and started prodding him with it. I poked his arm, then I poked the jam sandwich. The sandwich was lifeless, flat as a leaf but no where near as nutritious. I prodded the stick onto various parts of his body, yet there was no response. An idea occurred to me as I was doing this, I decided to approach the kids playing football and asked if they would bring themselves and their ball over to the still tramp on the bench. 'Hey kids,' addressed I to the teenagers, 'I'd like to try an elaborate experiment...', and I discussed my dastardly ingenious plan to the group of young impressionables.

Soon, I had the kids lined up and the ball placed about nine feet away from the bench. Each kid was to take their turn kicking the ball and try to hit Bill with it, the logic of the plan was to awaken Bill from his catatonic state by a refreshing blow from a fast travelling projectile. The first child to try was a ghastly underfed child with twig like limbs and hollow eye sockets, he took a few steps back, looked at his target, then ran at the ball with the ferocity of an angry rabbit. Whack! The ball moved a few inches as the wretched child tripped over it. The next kid prepared to take his shot. A large overgrown lump of a child who was unfortunate to be afflicted with a nervous twitch in his left eye. This time, the shot hit Bill straight in the face and we watched the full impact of the missle knock the tramp down. A mushroom cloud of disturbed dirt rose from the impact into the warm summer air. Silence. The dust parted, and I saw Bill rise up shakily.

He stumbled over while smiling at me, 'That is the second lesson of standup comedy, no matter how hard the hecklers are on you, a good standup comedian remains as solid as a rock.' He wiped some blood from his lip, 'My name is Bill, thank you for watching...' He dizzily strode back to the bench to pick up the fallen jam sandwich, and sat down to eat it.