RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
The next morning, I head off to school, eager to share my kids’ comedy contest idea with Pierce, Gaynor, and especially Gilda.
But I have to be careful. Zombies shuffle down the sidewalks of Long Beach every morning.
They lurch along, dragging their feet. These guys are dropping body parts all over the place.
“Hey, kid!” one of the zombies groans at me. “Did you hear about the zombie who was expelled from school?”
“Um, no. What’d he do wrong?”
“He kept buttering up his teacher!”
Do the undead really swarm the streets outside Smileyville?
Well, that’s what I see, in my imagination.
Mostly, the people I roll past are just sleepy-eyed commuters dragging their feet as they trudge off to work. They usually come back to life after a second cup of coffee and a doughnut. First thing in the morning, I guess they’re just dead tired.
I cruise up to the middle school and I’m struck with a couple of surprises:
First, Stevie Kosgrov isn’t in the parking lot, shaking down kids for their lunch money.
Second, Uncle Frankie is there, waiting for me.
Uncle Frankie looks extremely serious.
It’s funny how, sometimes, this whole comedy thing will do that to people.
Chapter 8
HOLLYWOOD CALLING. AGAIN.
I just got off the phone with the bigwigs at BNC-TV,” Uncle Frankie tells me. “Remember that producer, Joe Amodio?”
“Sure,” I say. “He was the brains behind the whole kid-comedian show.”
“Well,” says Uncle Frankie, “Mr. Amodio is flying in from Hollywood. He says he wants to talk to you about the prize. Today.”
Uncle Frankie is, more or less, my business manager these days. He handles whatever show-business stuff bubbles up so I can concentrate on my schoolwork.
“Uh-oh. Do they want their million dollars back?” I ask. “Because we spent a lot of it…”
Uncle Frankie shakes his head. “Mr. Amodio wants to talk to you about the other prize—starring in your own sitcom. Remember?”
Wow! To be honest, I was starting to think that the “chance” to star in my own television pilot for the BNC network was like the Free Parking space on a Monopoly board. I might never land on it.
A pilot is what people in Hollywood call the first episode of a TV show. If the pilot is a big hit, then the network might want a whole season of the show. That means you’d need to film about twenty-two more episodes. You’d also need a bigger piggy bank to put all your money.
“But we haven’t heard from Mr. Amodio in weeks,” I say. “I thought he’d forgotten about me.”
Uncle Frankie grins. “Forget about Jamie Grimm? Not possible, kiddo.”
I hear a THUMP-THUMP-THUMP overhead. Uncle Frankie and I both look up at the sky.
A ginormous BNC news chopper is hovering over Long Beach Middle School.
It kicks up a swirl of dust and clumps of grass as it lands on the recently mowed baseball field.
Joe Amodio comes bounding over to shake my hand.
“There he is,” he says as he pumps my hand. “Funniest kid on the planet. Thanks for taking this meeting, Jamie baby.”
This is a meeting?
In a school parking lot?
Where’s everybody else going to sit?
Chapter 9
FUNNY BUSINESS AS USUAL
Allow me to make a few introductions,” says Mr. Amodio as all the Hollywood types cluster around me and Uncle Frankie. “This is Brad Grody, our director.”
Up steps a hipster guy with a long beard. He’s dressed in work boots, jeans, a plaid flannel shirt, nerd glasses, and a thick headband. I guess when he’s not directing TV shows, he’s a nearsighted lumberjack.
“Full disclosure,” the director tells me. “I voted for Chatty Patty in the comedy contest. Totes awk. Whatevs. But, YOLO, am I right?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
“And this funmeister,” says Mr. Amodio, pointing to a skinny guy in even thicker glasses, “is Stewart Johnson. Best gag writer in all of Hollywood.”
“Hiya, kid. As the bacon said to the tomato, ‘Lettuce work together.’ This your school?” “Yes, sir.”
“Hey, speaking of school, do you know why math books are so sad?”
“No. I never really—”
“They’ve got nothing but problems! Yeah, I can’t even count how many times I’ve failed math.”
“He’s hysterical,” says Mr. Amodio. “Am I right?”
“Well…”
“After months of brainstorming,” he continues, “we’ve come up with the Big Idea for your sitcom, Jamie. We’re calling it…”
He makes a frame with his hands like he’s reading a billboard. I half-expect to hear a trumpet fanfare.
“Are you ready? Jamie Funnie. We spell funny with an ie, just like your name. You, Jamie, play the title character, who’s also named Jamie. Because, face it, kid—any way you spell it, you funny!”
“And if you’re not,” adds Johnson, the writer, “we’ll make everyone think you are by writing you some new gags.”
Great. Because so far, that’s what all this guy’s jokes make me want to do.
Gag.
Chapter 10
HOLLYWOOD INVADES MY MIDDLE SCHOOL
Mr. Amodio and the Hollywood types march into school and basically take over the faculty lounge, a room I’ve always wanted to see, by the way.
Did you know the teachers have their own soda machine and a refrigerator? There’s also a coffeepot that smells like wet-gym-sock soup. On the plus side, someone brought in a chocolate cake.
Suddenly, I want to become a teacher!
“We were just having some cake,” Mrs. Kanai, one of my favorite teachers, says to the gaggle of Hollywood geese. “It’s Mrs. Kressin’s birthday.”
“She’s in charge of our drama club,” I say. Then I tell Mrs. Kressin, “These guys are from Hollywood. They’re thinking about putting me in a TV show.”
“Oh, my,” says Mrs. Kressin, sounding kind of giddy. “That certainly is exciting. Every young performer’s dream come true! Are you currently casting any supporting roles?”
“Yeah,” says Joe Amodio as he shows Mrs. Kressin the door. “We might need a few teachers. But only if they know how to take direction.”
“Certainly,” flutters Mrs. Kressin. “What is my direction for this scene?”
“Exit stage right,” says Brad Grody. “Immediately.”
The teachers take away their cake while the suits fill the table with briefcases, laptops, and file folders.
“Please,” says Joe Amodio, “everyone, grab a seat.”
“Except Jamie,” cracks Stewart the joke machine. “He brought his own!”
Everybody laughs. But while they’re laughing, they’re watching me to see if I’m going to laugh, too.
I give them a tiny “ha-ha” because I don’t want to be rude.
They take the hint and immediately stop chuckling.
“Jamie,” says a very tall lady. Her nerd glasses have purple frames. “I’m Rose Skye Wilder, executive producer on the show. Let me put this out on the stoop and see if the cat licks it up.”
“Huh?” I say.
“Let’s put it on a train and see if it reaches Milwaukee.”
“Whaa?”
“She’s going to run something up the flagpole and see if you salute,” says Uncle Frankie. “Right?”
“Exactly.”
I’m still confused.
“She’s going to tell you their idea for the sitcom pilot and see if you like it,” Uncle Frankie explains. Then he leans back in his chair a little. “I’ve been in show business a little longer than Jamie. I’m more familiar with the lingo.”
Ms. Wilder lays out the basic premise behind Jamie Funnie.
“It’s fresh. It’s out there. It’s never been done before. Jamie Grimm will s
tar as Jamie Grimm in a show about Jamie Grimm’s daily life and how it feeds him material for his comedy routines.”
It’s true. My life is a comedic gold mine. Hey, it’s middle school.
“At the beginning and end of each episode,” she explains, “we’ll see Jamie onstage in a comedy club doing jokes based on what’s going to happen in that night’s episode. He goes up against the school bully, he does jokes about bullies. He eats oatmeal, he does jokes about oatmeal. He buys a pack of bubble gum, we pack in the bubble-gum jokes. So, what do you think, Jamie? It’s boffo, am I right?”
Oh, boy.
Rose Skye Wilder seems like a nice lady. I don’t want to burst her bubble-gum bubble. But I’ve studied all the great comics. Practically memorized their TV shows.
“Um,” I finally say, “isn’t this ‘never been done before’ show a lot like Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld’s old sitcom?”
“No way,” says Joe Amodio.
“Seinfeld was fifteen, twenty years older than you,” adds Brad Grody.
“His first name was Jerry, not Jamie,” says another one of the suits.
“And,” says Ms. Wilder, “Seinfeld didn’t have an Uncle Frankie or a kid in a wheelchair.”
I nod.
They’re right.
It’s one hundred percent completely different.
Except for where it’s not.
Chapter 11
SIGN ON THE DOTTED LINE
We’d shoot on a soundstage here in New York,” Ms. Wilder continues. “Keep you close to your friends and family.”
“We’d like that,” says Uncle Frankie. “Jamie has a lot of fans at my diner.”
“A diner that, by the way, will pick up oodles of free publicity from the show,” says Joe Amodio. “Because it will be one of our main sets.”
Uncle Frankie is thrilled. “Fantastic! If you want, I can teach you how to flip a burger backward. People love it. Unless, you know, I miss.”
“Terrific, Frankie baby. But before we can flip burgers behind our backs or do anything else, we need to know that Jamie is officially on board.”
All of a sudden, it sounds like we’re going to film my sitcom on a boat.
Mr. Amodio stands up and holds out his hand. One of the suits sitting next to him pops open her briefcase, pulls out a thick legal document, and slaps it into his open palm.
“What’s that?” asks Uncle Frankie.
“Jamie’s new contract. It’s for the pilot. Just one episode. But if that single episode is the hit I know it will be, we’ll be back with an even thicker contract. For twenty-two more episodes and twenty-two times more money.”
The suit sitting closest to me opens his briefcase and hands me a very nice pen. The gold kind you’d get as a gift when you graduate from college.
“You can keep it after you sign,” Suit Man says when he sees me admiring the shiny pen. I’m used to Bics.
Joe Amodio slides the very important-looking stack of paper across the table to me.
“We just need you to sign everywhere you see the little stickies that say sign,” says the lawyer, twisting the sparkling pen to life.
“Unfortunately,” says Brad Grody, glancing at his very sparkly watch, “I have another meeting in New York City. I’d like to get there… sometime today.”
In other words, he wants me to hurry up and sign the contract.
But, for some reason, I can’t. My hand is frozen.
Yep. I’m choking again.
Chapter 12
CHOKING ON THE DOTTED LINE
I just sit there, staring at the contract.
I’m squeezing the lawyer’s fancy pen so hard, my knuckles turn pinkish white. They sort of look like boiled shrimp.
“Take your time, Jamie,” says Joe Amodio. “But I only have the helicopter till noon. Then it has to go do traffic reports.”
I nod. And stare. And choke some more.
Do I really want to do this?
Do I want to take my life and turn it into a half hour’s worth of lame jokes every week?
What if they want me to say or do things I don’t want to say or do?
What if they want to do a sappy show about how I ended up in my wheelchair, which is something I don’t want to talk about on national TV?
“Well, Jamie?” says Mr. Amodio, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“We’re ready and raring to go,” adds Ms. Wilder.
“Just need you to sign on the dotted line,” says the lawyer who handed me the pen. He has another pen (this one’s silver) up and ready to go, just in case I don’t like the gold one clutched in my hand.
“Um,” I say, “if it’s okay with you guys, I’d like to think this over.”
“Think?” says Joe Amodio. “We’re from Hollywood. We don’t do that.”
“Well,” says Uncle Frankie, pushing the stack of papers back across the table toward Mr. Amodio, “here in Long Beach, we don’t rush into anything, except the Atlantic Ocean on Super Bowl Sunday.”
That makes me smile. Uncle Frankie is a member of the Long Beach Polar Bear Club. Every year, they go for a frigid swim to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Joe Amodio sits down. Snaps his fingers.
Another lawyerly looking guy pops open another briefcase. He hands Mr. Amodio another stack of papers.
“I didn’t want to bring this up,” says the producer. “But, well, you sort of forced my hand.”
“Bring what up?” says Uncle Frankie.
“The fine print.” Joe Amodio taps several paragraphs thick with tiny type, the kind you agree to every time you download a new version of iTunes. “You signed this when you won the million dollars out in Hollywood, remember, Jamie?”
I nod. Nervously. “I thought it was like a receipt.”
Mr. Amodio grins. Shakes his head. “It was a contract.”
“Legal and binding,” adds the lawyer. “In all fifty states, Puerto Rico, and Guam.”
“What kind of contract?” asks Uncle Frankie.
“For this TV show. That million-dollar prize wasn’t really a ‘prize.’ It was an advance.”
“An advance?” I say. “What does that mean?”
“It means, Mr. Grimm,” says the lawyer, “that Mr. Amodio has already paid you, in advance, to perform in this pilot.”
I gulp.
Because I’ve already spent a lot of Mr. Amodio’s money.
On Smileyville 2 and Uncle Frankie’s diner.
If I have to give Mr. Amodio his money back, we might all have to live in Uncle Frankie’s van. That wouldn’t be much fun. We’d have to cook dinner over the heat vents.
And… I’d have to sleep next to Stevie.
It’s not much of a choice.
Chapter 13
ANYBODY GOT A MILLION BUCKS I CAN BORROW?
So, if that was a contract,” demands Uncle Frankie, “why do you need Jamie to sign this contract, too?”
Joe Amodio shrugs. “Lawyers. What can I say? They love contracts.”
“This one specifically covers Jamie’s appearance in the pilot,” explains one of the guys in a suit.
Whatever it covers, I don’t sign it.
Uncle Frankie won’t let me.
“Jamie’s going to mull it over,” he tells Joe Amodio.
“What’s there to mull?” says Amodio. “Either Jamie Grimm stars in Jamie Funnie, or he has to give me back my one million dollars.”
“Plus interest,” says the lawyer. “Paragraph fourteen. Subsection D.”
“What about the taxes they took out?” asks Uncle Frankie.
“Maybe if you ask nice,” says another lawyer, “the government will give you a refund.”
I’m shaking my head. “I think they already bought a battleship with my money. Maybe an aircraft carrier.”
“Jamie?” says Uncle Frankie, motioning for me to join him over by the door. “Why don’t you go to class? Me and Mr. Amodio need to talk some more.”
“B-b-but…”
“Listen, kiddo. I don’t want you doing anything you don’t want to do.”
“But the diner…”
“If I have to sell it, I’ll sell it. I’ll cook burgers out of the back of my van.”
“You can’t. We’ll be sleeping inside.”
“Come again?”
“Never mind. I just can’t let you lose your diner again, Uncle Frankie.”
“And I can’t let you do something that makes you miserable,” he whispers.
Then he does this thing he does sometimes. He places his hand on my shoulder. It always makes me feel better.
“You ask me, you’ve already had enough misery for a kid your age,” he tells me. “So don’t worry, kiddo. We grown-ups are gonna have a little chat. All about bad publicity and you talking about these fine-print shenanigans with your friends at People magazine and Entertainment Tonight.”
Uncle Frankie cracks his knuckles, the way he does when he’s loosening up his fingers for a yo-yo demonstration.
“Okay, boys and girls,” he says to the Hollywood people. “Let’s talk turkey…”
I roll out of the faculty lounge wondering if turkey is the language they speak in Turkey. Or if talking turkey is just something you should only do around Thanksgiving.
The jokes aren’t making me feel much better.
If I don’t do the show, Uncle Frankie is going to lose his diner. The Smileys might lose their house. My college fund will be back to zero, and if there are any medical treatments that would help me walk again, I wouldn’t be able to afford them.
If I do the show, it might end up being really terrible in the hands of those Hollywood people. It could be the death of my comedy career just when I’m getting started. Most of all, I’d lose any hope of ever being a normal kid.
I mull it over.