the eight-dollar joke

This is a true story.

This past Sunday, Amanda and I were sitting on a bench in our neighborhood park. I was reading the New York Times, and Amanda was slogging through cover letter rewrites. I was shuffling through the Arts section, and I made some comment about how I liked Caravaggio (there was an article about one of his paintings or something). A guy walking by the bench, stopped, and looked at us, and said "Y'all must be REALLY EDUCATED." We both sort of smiled awkwardly and made "aw shucks" noises, but the guy wasn't done yet. "You guys, seriously. Seriously. Somebody told me to give you THIS"-- and he handed Amanda a little yellow crockery teapot that he was carrying in one hand. We made dubious noises of thanks. "Now hang on, hang on, I'm not finished yet. SOMEbody told me to give you THIS"--and he handed me what he was carrying in the other hand. It was a tarnished and fingerprinty metal cup, engraved with "KY DERBY, 2001." This, he said, was the real deal, and was worth an awful lot of money. Again, we murmured our thanks.

 "Now I want to tell you something, you guys, now listen. Last night I saw two stars in the sky, and tonight imma look up in the sky and I won't see those two stars, because they sittin' right here in front of me."

More "aw shucks" noises.

"Now you guys, listen. Do you think you can help me out? (here we go) I'm for real, I don't do no crack, I got HIV, and I'm just tryn'a get a hoagie and a Gatorade, so do you think you can help me out? Now listen (as we reached for our wallets) I'm for real, I'm for real. You ready? Imma tell you two jokes." He did a little backwards jig-step and prepared himself for his performance. His joke was as follows:

Ok so last night I was up on twenty-third and locust, because I paint, you know, too, I'm a painter, and you know, I seen this guy drive up into the gas station in a cham-PAGNE-colored BENTLEY, you know? And I went up to him and I said, excuse me sir, can I please wash your rims? And he said...but it's raining! And I said, well, can I wash your rims? And he said man, I got a ring on my little finger that's worth more than some people's houses, you know? And I said...but can I wash your rims for you? And he said where's your bucket at? And so I said sir, when you come back out the gas station, your rims will be clean, I promise you, I'm for real.


So he went up into the gas station...and I pissed on all his rims.


That got an involuntary laugh from both of us, and he did another little hop-step, and repeated his piece about wanting to buy a hoagie and a Gatorade, except now it was a hoagie for him and one for his wife, and a Gatorade. So we gave him the cash we happened to have on us--a five and three ones. When he had these in his hands, he looked down at them and started to whine. He literally made a whining moaning noise that usually comes from the mouths of tired four-year olds.

"awwwwnuuuuuhhhhh. muuuuuuhhh....that's it?" He screwed up his face and performed some laborious mental calcuations. "But it's $12.50" We told him that he'd taken all the cash we had (I almost offered to take it back from him, if he didn't like what he'd been given, and he could try to find his $12.50 somewhere else), so he grabbed the Kentucky Derby cup with a muttered "imma sell this off then, this the real thing, worth a lotta money..." and loped off through the park. We kept the yellow teapot.

 But we paid eight dollars for TWO JOKES, dammit, and we only got one. I'm still bitter.