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Second Degree, Involuntary Man's Laughter

I hope Spider Robinson sees this sometime

By Jonathan BlackbowPublished 2 years ago 9 min read
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Spider Robinson: either you know him or you don't. If you don't, as he would say, boy, have you got a lot of great reading ahead of you. Start with Callahan's Crosstime Saloon and go from there.

Several years ago he wrote a story called Involuntary Mans Laughter about a guy who had a very, very bad case of Tourette's. The gang in the book couldn't cure him but they managed to help him find a reason to live.

Several years later, I came along.

Here's the story.

Enjoy.

"Second Degree, Involuntary Man's Laughter"

Now, look. I'm not Jake.

In more ways than one, but let's stick to the one that matters.

I'm not Jake Stonebender. I'm not tall, given to puns, and a god on a guitar.

I'm just tall.

At this point in the story I'm about to tell you, Jake and I had another thing in common; neither of us were all that happy with life. Him, because, well, you know that story. Fixed his own brakes. Saved thirty bucks, easy.

Me, I'm not happy because I have Aspergers Syndrome and society (and Society, but that's another story) consider me a failure because of it. Can't hold a job. Can't get along with society. Don't really want to. Not interested in living because of it. Et cetera, et cetera.

None of that's changed for me. I understand that's changed for Jake over time. Goody for him.

But one thing I DO care about is helping people. So, the Callahan's gang actually lets me in the place. More importantly, they don't try and bullshit me about how it's going to get better. They know that I believe it isn't going to get any better for me, and they also know that their opinion on that is academic. So we get along okay.

I'm not going to fill up your ears with a bunch of backstory about what night it was. Honestly I don't remember. I DO remember that it wasn't in Callahan's. It was in The Place, many years after the Doc's death. I remember that pretty well because...

Well, you'll see.

Jake was tending bar: where else would he be? The rest of the cast was there: the Usual Suspects. Zoey, Mary, Mickey, Slippery Joe, Shorty, Tom, Long-Drink, Fast Eddie, Ralph von Wau Wau; Lady Sally, a bunch of her regulars (cast, crew, and customers; we never did figure out how she managed to put ALL of them in and around The Place but after we tried to figure it out and realized she had some sort of Bag of Holding thing going on, gave it up)... I mean, the place was packed.

Sorry. The Place was packed.

Jake was yarning on about some guy named Billy Walker and how the Gang had managed to find a useful and creative outlet for his Tourette's Syndrome. I'd heard a lot of his bullshit but this one was entertaining, especially the part about how none of them could keep a straight face when listening to the guy try to talk.

I sat back with a Cape Cod (cranberry juice and vodka, because I don't like the taste of alcohol) and thought about it for a bit.

There was something I'd heard awhile back about it, but I couldn't for the life of me remember it. It was medically based. I know I was thinking hard about it; I just didn't realize how hard until the guy sitting next to me turned to me and said, "hey, son, you're going to hurt something trying to remember that. You need medical help?"

Older guy, kind face, smiling. So I started talking to him. And talked. And talked, and talked. He nodded in all the right places.

I talked myself to death. Well, to thirst, anyway. The guy said "hang on, I'll get us something cold." I started to say no thanks but he turned around and a split second later he's holding me out a cold glass of Arizona Fruit Punch.

Damn, that's pretty nifty, especially since they don't sell it by the gallon any more. I didn't even stop to ask him where he got it or how he got it so cold to begin with.

I said, loud enough for Jake to hear me, "Damn, Jake, this guy reminds me of Doc Webster. Where'd you find him?"

Jake turns to look, and I swear his eyes looked like the ones you see in anime shows, about half the size of his face.

He says, "Well, John, I haven't looked for Doc since he died, but, what the hell, you know what they say about The Place; if you sit in it long enough, everybody you know will come by. How ya doin', Doc?"

Doc - yeah, it was Doc, all right - says, "well, John here, I think he's right on the edge of something pretty snazzy. Don't joggle his elbow, son."

A bunch of the regulars moved back to give me air; Isham, Jim, Joe, Susan, Susie, Josie (although Josie didn't need to back up quite so far), Pyotr, Jim and Paul MacDonald; the fact that some of these people had died over the last several years suddenly didn't matter.

Jake said, "sure, Doc. Is there anything you guys need?"

Doc says to Jake, "well, if you could do me a favor and let Mei-Ling know I'm here, but other than that, nope, we're good."

I sat back, this time with a little space around me, and socked some serious effort into thinking.

And eventually said to Doc, "Doc, I can't come up with it. I give up."

"Nonsense, young man," he said. "You just need a little solace."

"But I've had all the time I think I need, and a relatively quiet space to come up with it, and I can't, Doc." I was getting visibly frustrated, not too hard for me to do.

He laughed, and said, "no, son. You Just Need A Little Solace."

This time I caught the capital letters. "But she suicided, didn't she?" Sure, a supercomputer would have helped, but Solace hadn't been heard from in years.

Doc laughed even harder. Fortunately he was dead, but not gross, so nothing fell off him. "Son, I'm dead, too. You'll learn as time goes on that-"

"Death is nothing," chimed a voice. Out of thin air. "Death is nothing, I'm right here, round the corner, all is well."

The patrons that hadn't noticed Doc, well, they noticed that voice. Without being loud, it overpowered every conversation or noise in The Place.

A voice in the back of the bar screamed "SOLACE!!!" and Erin Stonebender-Berkowitz rushed in our direction, tears streaming down her face.

We all waited for about five minutes while they had their tearful reunion, then came back to the main story.

Solace chimed at me, "John, I understand you're trying to remember something about Tourette's."

I nodded. "I remember....something. Years ago. A video of a guy in Germany. Stuttering so bad he couldn't talk."

Solace stopped me. "A moment, John. Searching." Two seconds later she said "is this your video?"

We watched as one wall of The Place became a movie screen. A guy shaking so bad he couldn't talk. Your heart tore just watching it.

And the thing that completely stopped the symptoms of his Tourette's?

Rooba, rooba, rooba, rooba, rooba.

They'd legalized it in Florida a year ago.

I remember, Jake said "we have GOT to find Billy Walker."

Somehow the bar had gotten even more crowded. Noah Gonzalez, Tom Flannery, Arethusa Two,

"Easy," I said. "All you have to do is go find him, on the north end of the Eastern Seaboard, in a densely populated-"

POP.

The air split open, and Mike Callahan stepped out of it. Looking around him innocently, he said "did somebody need a lift?"

"In more ways than one, Mike," I said. "Can you find Billy Walker?"

"Suren I can, son," he said, shifting that cigar masterfully to pronounce the words.

"Second question, can you bring him here?" I knew that was pushing it. Mike couldn't teleport anybody but himself-

POP. (with a slightly different flavor to it.) Nikola Tesla said "I'll get him for you, after Mike finds him."

Thirty seconds later, this guy is standing there in a dirty white outfit. He looks at all of us and tries to say something, but it screws up completely. He already looks miserable.

I said "all right everybody, let me explain. Billy, hi. This is the Callahan's Gang. All two hundred or so of them. You remember them from years ago; they're the ones who helped you figure out a way to be a productive person in spite of your Tourette's."

Billy nodded.

"Well, Billy, now they're going to take the edge off."

He looked confused. I said "give me ten minutes and we'll all explain."

Solace, bless her circuitry, was already producing joints. I didn't ask where she got the stuff, I didn't ask how she did it. They just sparkled into existence as though from a transporter straight out of Star Trek. Hell, maybe that's exactly what it was.

They were handed out and lit up.

And the smoking began.

For a couple of minutes Billy just stood there and looked confused, and shook all over.

Then the shaking started to ease.

Then it stopped.

You've never seen a roomful of people smoking joints, exhaling, saying "holy", inhaling, exhaling, saying "shit" over and over, have you?

I have.

In ten minutes Billy went from being somebody who you would cringe to watch, to standing normally, moving normally, talking normally. Well, except for all the crying. The emotional release of about thirty years, along with all the people who were hurting for him, and helping him get it out of his system.

I looked at Doc and said "so why did all you guys come back? To help?"

He smiled, and said "no, you only really needed Solace to find the answer."

I said "then tell me why the video was out there for so long and none of us put it together?"

He smiled even wider. "Same answer as why we all came back to The Place."

And I got it.

And in stereo, we said,

"Because it's Time."

Many hours later, I came up with a fairly lame pun about how the guy had to be related to Yoda; when everybody looked at me I said "come on, the guy's middle name was Sky, and his last name was Walker, and he had a speech impediment."

Billy's middle name wasn't Sky, but he thought it was so funny he went and had his name legally changed to Luke Sky Walker.

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Jonathan Blackbow

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