The merge possible. The next step.
The transitional step as the host and the Voyager become fused.
Now I am him: now he is me. I am Mikey in the fire, here we are in the flame, close to death, but we won’t die. We sill survive. We have survived and are so cute once again.
They say we are cute again. Cute as a button.
Merged to Mikey in the fire. Mikey the fiery, Mikey the funny, Mikey the redeemer. Listen to our song:
So that’s it. Laughter. My mission. From the solemn emerges the irreverent, and it is the Road of Redemption. Make ‘em laugh. Shake ‘em up. Sacred sounds, as their bellies jiggle, the hips wiggle when they giggle.
Like the vase. It’s funny. That’s what it is. To watch that vase sail across the room, banging into the wall and then the little pieces of glass showering the floor. How they twinkle in the sun, those colors streaming in rainbow splash as they fall. The rainbow shower is ever so much prettier than a dumb old vase sitting on the shelf.
A flying vase is funny. As funny as telling my teacher that I was born in China, adopted by Mommy, had plastic surgery to make me look American, but couldn’t do the homework because my English skills were still poor. And talking fake Chinese the rest of the day. Ong. Pong. Ching chong. The other kids laughed. They liked it. The rest of the day, we were all going around saying Ing, Ping, Ong Pong, Ching Chong. Only the teacher didn’t think it was funny. Why?
It was as funny as the sound of tinkle in the kitchen sink. Sinkle. And watching the mailman slide along the path on the yellow thing I left there just for him. Squeal on a banana peel!
Why won’t Mommy see that?
Because she just won’t. Not when I’m the one doing it. Oh, she laughs at the guys on television—or at least she used to. The big fat man and the short man. She laughs when they get pie in their faces and when they slip on banana peels and when they throw things at one another. She laughs at circus clowns, doesn’t she? So why won’t she laugh at my red nose and my cheeks? My flying vase and banana peel. And if I can’t make her laugh, how will I make the rest of the world laugh, too?
Because that is my mission, to make them all laugh. Clever of the Priests to make it so serious—classes and lectures and that scary injection—when it’s really all about being funny. Your mission will emerge, they said. You will learn by going where you have to go. And so it has. To turn everything topsy-turvy. To get them to shred their assumptions. What makes a vase pretty on the shelf and ugly in pieces on the floor? What makes a banana peel funny on television but not in real life? Only those stupid beliefs passed from parents to children. Change those and you can change it all.
How will they learn to change their assumptions?
By laughing at everything.
Everything!
Down the railing and up the stars, bet you can’t catch me, Mommy! Funny, how you run! You weren’t made for this, were you? Whoops! And when you put the salad on the plate, I suddenly whisk it away so the salad goes right on the table. And when you try to catch me, I say you can’t catch me. No one can catch me! Catch us, I should say. Catch me and Mikey.
And the look you give. Oh, Mikey, you’ve changed, you say. Your forehead wrinkles and that new annoying line comes between your eyes. Tears on your cheeks. I was supposed to make you laugh, not cry. What’s going on? Why do you take me to that lady, Mrs. Burton, the one who tries to look so important with her silly dolls dressed like doctors and nurses. Why do you get so angry when I make the dolls fly across the room? I’ve got great aim, haven’t I? And Mrs. Burton herself when she reaches clumsily for them. A flying Mrs. Burton!
Oh, ladies, stop whispering. All those long, serious words about “trauma and adjustment,” “aggressive tendencies,” “repressed rage,” and “inappropriate affect.”
Laugh and dance. Dance and laugh. Light and fun. Come on, Mommy, watch me run. Mommy, you can help me change the world. Get everyone to see everything different. Hey, is your world so great? War and terror and cheating and pain. Wouldn’t it be better to just laugh and laugh? Mommy, you’re not laughing—
Mommy is crying.
“I understand, ma’am,” he says. “There’s nothing more painful than having to institutionalize a child. But you’ve tried everything for this boy. Thirteen years since that bizarre early childhood illness. Thirteen years of treatment. Individual therapy. Family counseling. Psychotropic drugs, acupuncture, herbs. There’s nothing more you can do. But your son is in good hands here and he’ll do very well. Won’t you, Michael?”
I thought it would be simple once Mikey and I became one. To get them to laugh. To turn sadness into happiness, to change the world, shatter their assumptions, break their idols and make them happy. Simply happy. They were so aggressive, so destructive, but laughter would solve it all.
But they wouldn’t laugh. Why didn’t the Priests understand, in Orientation Chamber, that they could not laugh? They are not like us. Their complexity, their convoluted, crazy world, it cannot respond to laughter.
The Priests didn’t know. They did not understand the situation. They had misappraised. But I know now. I have learned.
The question is—what do I do now? To get it back. Retrieve the mission. A serious mission, to bring frivolity? Infect with laughter, infect the world? What can I do, stuck away in this loony bin, with all these—
Then all at once I know what to do. And fall down
in awe, for the Priests understood after all. How to bring the mission, where to execute it, my very failure the necessary stepping stone to my success.
Begin right at home, of course. What better place than a nuthouse for laughter?
So I hold a meeting after lights-out and before the meds kick in. Tommy is sleepy and mumbling as usual about the Government. James is preparing for his Second Coming. Arnold is moaning and rocking. Dorian— Well, you don’t want to know what Dorian is doing. The orderlies are somewhere down the corridor, of course. They don’t care. A typical night.
“Well, folks,” I say, “Do you want to change the world?
They become quiet. No more Government or Return of the Son. They have never heard me say anything serious before. They have barely heard me speak. I sure have their attention. The orderlies yap on, I hear their voices from down the hall.
“If we change the world, will you change the Government so they won’t be after me anymore?” Tommy asks.
“We’ll have a different Government, sure,” I say.
“But will they show any compassion? Will they leave good citizens alone?”
“Great compassion. All the compassion you could possibly want and more of it.”
