A
t two on a Tuesday morning in June of 2002, Harrison Harmeyer, a humorist in Honolulu, a writer rather than a funnyman of the stand-up sort, sits at his desk in his home office and stares at a blank page on a computer screen. Harry Harmeyer turns fifty-three today. He has no plans for celebrating.
Just twelve hours to deadline, and Harry, with no sleep and no clear idea of what he is going to say, sits. And he stares.
Two-oh-five a.m. Maybe, Harmeyer thinks, he should give it up and go to bed. Perhaps he’ll wake with an inspiration.
At fifty-three years of age, Harry Harmeyer still has all his marbles (so far as he’s aware), still has almost all his hair.
Two-fifteen a.m. Harry hasn’t typed a word. Harry wonders if maybe he should call his parents, in a time zone five hours to the east, and thank them for bringing him into being. The screen saver kicks in, with a moon, two planets, and a cast-bronze sundial. In raised lettering, across from the shadow-producing pointer, is someone’s invitation:
GROW OLD
ALONG WITH ME
THE BEST IS YET TO BE
How sweet. The words cause Harry to recall one of his favorite riddles. He touches the shift key, and the blank page blindingly reappears. Q.: What’s the difference, Harry types, between herpes and true love? A.: Herpes is forever.
Ahh, now we’re off and running! But this is not what Harry usually puts in print. He’s a columnist, a story-teller, not a joke writer. However, another one-liner quickly comes to mind, and Harry types that one: Q.: What’s the last thing that goes through a bug’s mind when he hits your windshield? Oh, no, Harry thinks, that one won’t work. Select & Delete—punch line unprintable. Such a shame. It’s another of his favorites. He’d be hard-pressed to explain why he loves it so.
A third joke pops into his head, but it isn’t brief. Harry wants to get to bed. He has little patience for listening to long jokes, but let’s see how fast he can tell this one. His fingers fly:
Some years ago Roy Rogers and Dale Evans came here to Hawaii on vacation. On the last day of their visit they happened to stop in at the Paniolo store in Ala Moana, and Roy saw a pair of snakeskin boots he just had to have! Tried them on, a perfect fit. He paid for them and put his old boots in the box, wore the new ones out of the store.
Roy kept those handsome boots on his feet for the whole plane trip home. When Roy and Dale got back to LAX, they picked up their Cadillac at the airport parking and drove home to the ranch. It was late, way past dark, when they arrived. Roy was driving, and when he pulled up by the house and stepped out of the Caddie, damned if he didn’t put both feet, those beautiful, new, snakeskin boots, directly in a fresh cow flop, there in the yard. Ohh, boy! Well, it was late, and Roy was tired. He says to Dale, he says, “Honey, let’s just hit the hay. I’ll clean my boots in the morning.” He left them on the porch, by the front door, and Roy and Dale went in and went right to bed.
Bright and early next day, Roy comes out, and Good Lord! No boots! Gone! He looks about, and sees, all over the yard, bits of boot, great silvery flakes of snakeskin, scattered like snow. Ohh, is he mad! And Roy sees something else, too—animal tracks, Cougar! Mountain lion!
Well, Roy rushes back into the house, tells Dale what happened, grabs his rifle and some shells, and he runs right out to the barn and saddles up old Trigger. Off they go, hot on the trail of the lion.
Roy’s out all day. Dale watches for him, from time to time, from the window, and just about sunset she finally sees man and horse out there in the distance. But Roy is on foot, and leading the horse. Dale can just make out that there’s something big draped across the saddle. She rushes outside to welcome her husband home, and she sees, sure enough, he got the mountain lion. Dale sings out, pretty as you please, “Pardon-me-Roy! Is-that-the-cat-that-chewed-your-new-shoes?”
Yup, Harry thinks, that might work. It just might work. Never know till you try. The older readers’ll get it. The ones of his mom-and-dad’s generation, they’ll know the song.
Harmeyer runs a word count. Not done yet. Gotta fill the column. He looks at the clock in the corner of the screen. Three a.m. Maybe he’ll make some coffee. Or maybe not. He feels another joke coming on. A story-and-a-joke. This is more his speed.
I was born and raised in the U.S.A., Harmeyer types, but my wife Sharolyn, bless her heart, came to Hawaii from Hong Kong when she was six years old. So English is her second language, and some of the things native speakers take for granted ... well, let me just tell you a story. Oh-oh. Harry hesitates. He has remembered a word, essential to the story, that he won’t dare to put on the page. Hmm. Well, maybe, he thinks, he can dance around it. He resumes his typing: Years ago, when we hadn’t been married very long, and Sharolyn was in grad school in Los Angeles, she came home one day, all excited. She said, “Harrison! Harrison! I heard a really funny joke! A riddle. Do you want to hear it?” “Sure,” I said. “Okay,” said Sharolyn, “do you know, Why doesn’t W.C. Fields like to drink water?” I just stared back at her for a second, and she said, “Harry, you give up?” I said, “Well, nooo, dear, I don’t think I’m quite ready to give up, but, you know, Share, when you tell a W.C. Fields joke, you have to tell it in a W.C. Fields voice.” “What for?” she says. “So it’ll be funny,” I explained. “Not necessary,” Sharolyn said, and she asked me again, “You give up?” “Okay,” I said then, “I give up.” “W.C. Fields didn’t like to drink water because...” and she paused, and with a big, triumphant grin she said (and you readers will have to permit me to paraphrase here), “He didn’t drink water because fish have intimate relations in it.” I stared at her. “Why aren’t you laughing?” she asked. “That joke is hilarious, Harry, so why aren’t you laughing?” “Well...,” I said, “it is pretty funny, Share. But, trust me, you have to use a W.C. Fields voice.” And so I demonstrated. “You gotta talk through your nose,” I explained, “and drawl out the words all in one smooth muttering: ‘I never drink wawwter, ya wanna know whyyy, I’ll tell ya whyyy, ’cause fish have intimate re-LAY-shuns innit, that’s whyyy!” Sharolyn shook her head, scowled at me, and said, “Harrison. That’s exactly what I just said!” ♦
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