{"id":1327,"date":"2019-12-03T08:29:19","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T14:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thespectaclstg.wpengine.com\/?p=1327"},"modified":"2019-12-15T08:27:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T14:27:05","slug":"laughter-a-triptych-by-julie-marie-wade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/?p=1327","title":{"rendered":"“Laughter: A Triptych” by Julie Marie Wade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Of all the well-loved episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, <\/em>\u201cChuckles Bites the Dust\u201d looms largest in most recollections of the show. \u201cIt\u2019s the one,\u201d fans will tell you, the corners of their mouths turning up, \u201cthe one where the clown dies.\u201d Their eyes are laughing already, and a giggle may slip between their parted lips. \u201cThe one where Mary cracks up at the funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This episode first aired in 1975, four years before I was born. My parents remember watching with friends in someone\u2019s living room\u2014shag carpet, gold sofa, ashtray on the coffee table, mixed nuts. They remember knee-slapping, doubled-over, can\u2019t-catch-your-breath laughter. They remember side-splitting, belly-ache-after, tears-streaming-down-your-cheeks laughter. I like to imagine them this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 1990s, when Mary<\/em> returns to Nick at Nite, my father insists I watch. \u201cThey took a big risk with that script,\u201d he says, \u201ca risk that paid off.\u201d I sit in a room of muted colors, bangs curled high off my forehead, eyes glued to the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We learn early in the episode from stoic newsman Lou Grant: \u201cThere was a freak accident. [Chuckles] went to the parade dressed as Peter Peanut, and a rogue elephant tried to shell him.\u201d Listen. You can hear the audience begin to titter. They\u2019re a little embarrassed, perhaps cupping their mouths with their hands, not sure if it\u2019s permissible to respond this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary, our moral compass, says it isn\u2019t. She shakes her head and scrunches her face at Murray\u2019s spate of death-themed one-liners. Even Ted, unreliable Ted, dismisses the dark humor: \u201cThat\u2019s funny, Murray, but it\u2019s in bad taste.\u201d Producers worried the audience might agree, but by this point, they\u2019ve surrendered to howls and guffaws, and the longest laugh in sitcom history will soon be recorded during the scene at the funeral home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t my favorite scene, though, that iconic moment where perpetually appropriate Mary can\u2019t squelch her snickers during Chuckles\u2019 eulogy. Who hasn\u2019t had the giggles before?<\/em> I get them all the time, in the most unreasonable places\u2014church, during the sermon; school, during a math test. The fact that it\u2019s inopportune only heightens the hilarity of the occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, we don\u2019t love Mary because she\u2019s perfect<\/em>, I reason. We love Mary because she\u2019s human.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, my favorite scene is this exchange between the men in the newsroom. Murray asks why Lou thinks he can\u2019t stop cracking jokes. After all, Murray liked Chuckles. They all did. Nobody wanted him to die. Lou hikes up his coffee-brown slacks, leans against his desk, and sighs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a release, a kind of defense mechanism, like whistling in a graveyard. You laugh at something that scares you.\u201d I mull this over. Was I scared during sermons, scared about Heaven and the Admit One ticket I thought I might not receive? Was I scared during math tests, knowing that numbers were not my strongest subject, yet recalling what my mother said: \u201cThere are no weak subjects, only weak students\u201d? <\/em>Had fear of failure\u2014its own kind of death\u2014always been there, dangling above my head, like the chandelier that swayed, ever so slightly, above our dining room table?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s when Lou says it, like it\u2019s the most obvious thing in the world: \u201cWe laugh at death because we know that death will have the last laugh on us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I write these words in my common book. They strike me as stirring and wise, and I appreciate the lovely symmetry of the sentence. Yet sometimes, as I re-read them, these words also make me cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

My college roommate wrote in pretty cursive and pinned to our door a gender-neutral version of the Yiddish proverb, \u201cMann Tacht, Un Gott Lacht\u201d: People Plan, and God Laughs. <\/em>I chuckled, shook my head like I knew something about uprooted lives, U-turns at the eleventh hour. On my desk, Grace Paley\u2019s Enormous Changes at the Last Minute <\/em>dared me to read past the cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact was I wanted to like the proverb, with its nod toward chance or destiny or even divine intervention. The boy who had been coming around more often was soon to teach me about entropy, which seemed like a kind of god: \u201cthe state of randomness in a system,\u201d he called it, \u201cthe way all things, unimpeded, proceed toward chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive me an example,\u201d I said, challenging him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben\u2019s eyes played tricks. Sometimes they were brown as a canyon, sometimes green as an echo. Always, they caught a scrap of the light. \u201cLike if you clean your dorm before you leave for a long weekend. No one\u2019s there, touching things, making a mess, but when you come back, there\u2019s a fine layer of dust on the floor. A certain, inexplicable grit has settled over everything.\u201d Then, he grinned at me, feeling poetic and pleased with himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friend who favored astrology over religion once pronounced that Virgos are especially vexed because they want to settle down without ever settling. \u201cYour desire for order is bound to clash with your desire for things that, in and of themselves, lead to disorder.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive me an example,\u201d I said, like the Virgo I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her eyes were blue as a stream, but her voice had no ripples in it. \u201cLove.<\/em>\u201d And then, with a little laugh and a wave of her hand: \u201cLove wreaks havoc on everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had planned my life so diligently. I researched PhD programs in Psychology while I was still a sophomore undergrad. This was the compromise major, talked down from a doctor of pediatrics or cardiology. My parents had decided to see the \u201cscience\u201d in it, while I had decided to see the \u201csocial.\u201d No deviating now, only finding the grindstone and tipping my nose right down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would need a husband, too, in not so long, if I planned to succeed in that Noah\u2019s Ark world of gendered pairs. I didn\u2019t dream him, though. I drafted him on paper with a protractor and ruler. I told a girl I worked with at the department store: \u201cI\u2019m not picky, but I do have standards. I\u2019d like a tall man with a boyish face, brown eyes, curly hair, preferably left-handed\u2014because southpaws tend to be more artistic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She sputtered at first. I thought she was coughing. Then, she laughed the way a volcano erupts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s so funny?\u201d I asked and meant it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, not leaving much room for kismet, are you? Let me guess: you\u2019ve also chosen his name?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCharlie<\/em>,\u201d I said, without missing a beat. \u201cIt\u2019s always been one of my favorites.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe we should change the proverb: Some people plan, and their friends laugh. Strangers try to be polite but still end up chortling.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a couple of years, I\u2019d open a fresh pack of pens, sharpen a neat row of pencils, and sit down at my desk to complete those applications. I loved how pristine they looked, the dark lines on bright paper, the bubbles like open mouths that I would soon, deftly and completely, fill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a couple of years, I\u2019d meet a man named Charlie at that same department store, clock his brown eyes, the curls he tried to comb straight, to no avail. I\u2019d notice, too, the long shadow he cast on the glossy white floor, then wait with breath suspended in my chest as he reached for a pair of scissors with his\u2014I could hardly believe it\u2014left hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there was a God, He must have been busting his cloud-shaped buttons as He watched me feed those applications into the sharp teeth of the paper shredder. So began my enormous changes at the last minute. \u201cIs it too late?\u201d I asked my adviser, banging hard on his half-closed door, upsetting the calendar. \u201cI want to apply to grad school in creative writing instead!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If there was a God, He must have been rolling in the aisles of that out-of-sight sanctuary when, on the day I was supposed to marry Charlie, I pronounced \u201cI don\u2019t\u201d instead; when I gazed across the room at the woman I loved, suddenly and undeniably, then mumbled, \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d into the phone. The best-laid plans, you know? I hadn\u2019t known, but then all at once I did. I was hardly surprised to hear my own voice say: \u201cSomething unexpected has come up.\u201d I was hardly surprised that even through my tears, I was laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the secret to staying together so long?\u201d an old friend asks my partner and me over lunch at our favorite taco shack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angie pours sangria into empty cups. \u201cIt must be different for every couple, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo\u2014I mean for you. If you had to say in one word why you\u2019re still together after fifteen years, what would it be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s when I buzz in, like a star contestant in a quiz bowl. \u201cLaughter!\u201d They laugh when I say it, but I\u2019m serious. \u201cThe answer is laughter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna sips her wine-punch. \u201cWhat do you mean exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, we\u2019ve been broke, and we\u2019ve been sad, and we\u2019ve been stressed, but humor is the constant. I don\u2019t think a day has gone by in all this time that Angie hasn\u2019t made me laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s sentimental. Don\u2019t trust her,\u201d Angie sighs, which only makes me smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, I mean it. If you always laugh with the person you love, I think you\u2019ve got a real shot at long-term happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna reclines in her chair, stirring the fruit in her cup. But Angie leans forward on the table, challenges me. \u201cWhat about the day we went to my Granny Bessie\u2019s funeral? We didn\u2019t laugh that day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as soon as she says it, the memory returns, and our lips start to quiver in unison. We become, for a moment, one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat am I missing?\u201d Anna prods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a small-town, Southern funeral, and in his zeal, the preacher proclaimed, \u2018Bessie, like all good women, was attracted to Jesus!\u2019 Angie and I took one look at each other, and then we couldn\u2019t look again. We were shaking all over, that kind of terrible, silent laughter that seizes your whole body. And yet, how could we have gotten through without it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOK, OK, bad example,\u201d Angie concedes. \u201cThat was shameful<\/em>, but it couldn\u2019t be helped.\u201d More stirring of fruit and sangria-sipping. \u201cWhat about the day we had to put Ollie down?\u201d This is a fresher pain, and her voice is soft. \u201cWe didn\u2019t laugh then. All we could do was sob.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nod my head, somberly now. Oliver\u2014Ollie <\/em>to his familiars\u2014the big, glorious cat we loved for so long, who turned gaunt and blind nearly overnight from a tumor swelling inside his skull. For years, I told Angie there was a face Ollie made that looked exactly like Jack Nicholson\u2019s face at the end of The Shining. <\/em>I\u2019d offer to freeze-frame this image on the DVD, but she called me bonkers<\/em>\u2014a word that made us laugh\u2014and declined to see it every time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact was, even on that most miserable of days, when we crawled back into bed for hours, when we seemed to weep in shifts, passing our surviving cat, bereft without his brother, back and forth between us\u2014even then, I remembered something. Late in the day, Angie turned to me and said, \u201cYou know, when the vet gave him the drug that stopped his heart, I saw what you meant for just a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I patted my eyes with tissue. It hurt by then to blink. \u201cI\u2019m not following.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her nose burned. Her cheeks burned. The rest of her was pale. \u201cWell, at the very end, I do have to admit that Ollie looked a whole lot like Jack Nicholson.\u201d And then, for just a little while, our keening gave way. We folded into each other. Our laughter rocked the rumpled bed like waves.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Julie Marie Wade teaches poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid forms in the creative writing program at Florida International University. She is the author of ten collections of poetry and prose\u2014most recently Same-Sexy Marriage: A Novella in Poems<\/em> and The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose<\/em>, co-authored with Denise Duhamel. A recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir and grants from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Wade makes her home on Hollywood Beach with Angie Griffin and their two cats. In 2020, The Ohio State University Press will publish her book-length lyric essay, Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there was a God, He must have been rolling in the aisles of that out-of-sight sanctuary when, on the day I was supposed to marry Charlie, I pronounced \u201cI don\u2019t\u201d instead. . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[71],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}