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�CBalzac: Contes Drolatiques, Prologue

It was the one Uncle Lyman told in the su up the path when he heard the punch line: ’ "My God!" cried the actress, "I thought you said sarsaparilla!" ’

Guffaws exploded in the little house Talbert stood uests Inside his contour sandals his toes flexed ruht

Later he took a walk around Lake Bean and watched the crystal surf fold over and observed the gliding swans and stared at the goldfish and thought

’I’ve been thinking,’ he said that night

’No,’ said Uncle Lyman, haplessly He did not commit himself further He waited for the blow

Which fell

’Dirty jokes,’ said Talbert Bean III

’I beg your pardon?’ said Uncle Ly the nation,’

’I fail,’ said Uncle Lyripped his voice

’I find the subject fraught itchery,’ said Talbert

’With-?’

’Consider,’ said Talbert ’Every day, all through our land, ames; in theatre lobbies and at places of business; on street corners and in locker rooe of jokes’

Talbert paused fully

’Who makes them up?’ he asked

Uncle Lyman stared at his nepheith the look of a fisherman who has just hooked a sea serpent �C half awe, half revulsion

I’an

’I want to know the source of these jokes,’ said Talbert ’Their genesis; their fountainhead,’

’Why?’ asked Uncle Lyman Weakly

’Because it is relevant,’ said Talbert ’Because these jokes are a part of a culture heretofore unplumbed Because they are an anomaly; a phenomenon ubiquitous yet unknown’

Uncle Lyman did not speak His pallid hands curled limply on his half-read Wall Street Journal Behind the polished octagons of his glasses his eyes were suspended berries

At last he sighed

’And what part,’ he inquired sadly, ’ain,’ said Talbert, ’with the joke you told in the summer house this afternoon Where did you hear it?’

’Kulpritt,’ Uncle Lyman said Andrew Kulpritt was one of the battery of lawyers employed by Bean Enterprises

’Capital,’ said Talbert ’Call him up and ask him where he heard it

Uncle Lyman drew the silver watch froht, Talbert,’ he announced

Talbert waved away chronology

’Now,’ he said ’This is ier Then, with a capitulating sigh, he reached for one of Bean Mansion’s thirty-five telephones

Talbert stood toe-flexed on a bearskin rug while Uncle Lyman dialled, waited and spoke

’Kulpritt?’ said Uncle Lyman ’Lyman Bean Sorry to wake you up but Talbert wants to knohere you heard the joke about the actress who thought the director said sarsaparilla’

Uncle Lyain

A minute later he cradled the receiver heavily

Prentiss,’ he said

’Call him up,’ said Talbert

’Talbert; Uncle Ly breath exuded between Uncle Lyman’s lips Carefully, he folded his Wall Street Journal He reached across thea weary hand beneath his s jacket, he withdrew his tooled leather address book

Prentiss heard it froe Sharper, CPA Sharper heard it from Abner Ackerman, MD Ackerman heard it from William Cozener, Prune Products Cozener heard it fror, Cyprian Club Tassell heard it from O Winterbottom

Winterbottom heard it from H Alberts Alberts heard it from D Silver, Silver from B Phryne, Phryne from E Kennelly

By an odd twist Kennelly said he heard it from Uncle Lyman

There is a coenerative’

It was four am Uncle Lyman slumped, inert and dead-eyed, on his chair

There has to be a source,’ said Talbert

Uncle Lyman remained motionless

’You’re not interested,’ said Talbert incredulously

Uncle Lyman made a noise

’I don’t understand,’ said Talbert ’Here is a situation pregnant with divers fascinations Is there a man or woman who has never heard an off-colour joke? I say not Yet, is there a ain I say not’

Talbert strode forcefully to his place ofin

’I may be a millionaire,’ he said, ’but I am sensitive’ He turned ’And this phenomenon excitesthe face of a man awake

’I have always had more money than I needed,’ said Talbert ’Capital invest the other asset my father left �C ht shook loose

’What ever happened,’ he asked, ’to that society of yours, the SPCSPCA?’

’Eh? The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? The past’

’And your interest in world proble

’Slums: a Positive View, you mean?’ Talbert brushed it aside ’Inconsequence’

’And isn’t there anything left of your political party, the Pro-antidisestablishmentarianists?’

’Not a shred Scuttled by reactionaries from within’

’What about Bimetallism?’

’Oh, that!’ Talbert s tooof novels, what about your literary criticis with The Use of the Seer: the Misunderstood Satirist? To say nothing of Was Queen Elizabeth Shakespeare?’

’Was Shakespeare Queen Elizabeth,’ corrected Talbert ’No, Uncle, nothing doing with the more

’I suppose the same holds true for The Shoe Horn: Pro and Con, eh? And those scientific articles �C Relativity Re-Exaone,’ said Talbert, patiently, ’dead and gone These projects needed s

’Like rites dirty jokes,’ said Uncle Lyman

Talbert nodded

’Like that,’ he said

When the butler set the breakfast tray on the bed Talbert said, ’Redfield, do you know any jokes?’

Redfield looked out ilected to animate

’Jokes, sir?’ he inquired

’You know,’ said Talbert ’Jollities’

Redfield stood by the bed like a corpse whose casket had been upended and removed

’Well, sir,’ he said, a full thirty seconds later, ’once, when I was a boy I heard one

’Yes?’ said Talbert eagerly

I believe it went somewhat as follows,’ Redfield said ’When �C uh �C When is a port his head ’I mean dirty jokes’

Redfield’s eyebrows soared The vernacular was like a fish in his face

’You don’t know any?’ said a disappointed Talbert

’Begging your pardon, sir,’ said Redfield ’If I estion May 1 say that the chauffeur is more likely to -’

’You know any dirty jokes, Harrison?’ Talbert asked through the tube as the Rolls Royce purred along Bean Road towards Highway 27

Harrison looked blank for a rin wrinkled his carnal jowls

’Well, sir,’ he began, ’there’s this guy sittin’ by the runway eatin’ an onion, see?’

Talbert undipped his four-colour pencil

Talbert stood in an elevator rising to the tenth floor of the Gault Building

The hour ride to New York had beenNot only had he transcribed seven of the ar jokes he had ever heard in his life but had extracted a promise from Harrison to take him to the various establishments where these jokes had been heard

The hunt was on

Max Axe,’ detective agency read the words on the frosty-glassed door Talbert turned the knob and went in

Announced by the beautiful receptionist, Talbert was ushered into a sparsely furnished office on whose walls were a hunting licence, a ram factory, the St Valentine’s Day Massacre in colour and Herbert J Philbrick who had led three lives

Mr Axe shook Talbert’s hand

’What could I do for ya?’ he asked

’First of all,’ said Talbert, ’do you know any dirty jokes?’

Recovering, Mr Axe told Talbert the one about the monkey and the elephant

Talbert jotted it down Then he hired the agency to investigate thethat wasthe rounds with Harrison He heard a joke the first place they went

There’s this an

It was a day of buoyant discovery Talbert heard the joke about the cross-eyed plumber in the harem, the one about the preacher on an eel at a raffle, the one about the fighter pilot ent down in flames and the one about the two Girl Scouts who lost their cookies in the Laundro others

’I want,’ said Talbert, ’one round-trip aeroplane ticket to San Francisco and a reservation at the Hotel Millard Filmore’

’May I ask,’ asked Uncle Ly the rounds with Harrison today,’ explained Talbert, ’a salesarments told me that a veritable cornucopia of off-colour jokes exists in the person of Harry Shuler, bellboy at the Millard Fil a three-day convention at that hotel, he had heard more new jokes from Shuler than he had heard in the first thirty-nine years of his life’

’And you are going to -?’ Uncle Lyan

’Exactly,’ said Talbert ’We est’

Talbert,’ said Uncle Lys?’

’I a,’ said Talbert simply

For what, da,’ said Talbert

Uncle Lye of yourof her,’ charged Talbert ’She was the finest woot trampled to death at the funeral of Rudolph Valentino?’ Uncle Lyed back

That is a base canard,’ said Talbert, ’and you know it Mother just happened to be passing the church on her way to bringing food to the Orphans of the Dissolute Seamen �C one of her ht up in the waves of hysterical wonant silence bellied the vast roo down the hill at Lake Bean which his father had had poured in 1923

Think of it,’ he said after a moment’s reflection The nation alive with off-colour jokes �C the world alive! And the sae means do these jokes o’erleap oceans, span continents? By what incredible ated over mountain and dale?’

He turned and met Uncle Lyman’s mesmeric stare

’I ht Talbert boarded the plane for San Francisco and took a seat by theFifteen minutes later the plane roared down the runway and nosed up into the black sky

Talbert turned to the man beside him

’Do you know any dirty jokes, sir?’ he inquired, pencil poised

The ulped

’Oh, I am sorry,’ he said, ’Reverend’

When they reached the rooave the bellboy a crisp five dollar bill and asked to hear a joke

Shuler told hi an onion, see? Talbert listened, toes kneading inquisitively in his shoes The joke concluded, he asked Shuler where this and siht be overheard Shuler said at a wharf spot known as Davy Jones’ Locker Roo with one of the West Coast representatives of Bean Enterprises, Talbert took a taxi to Davy Jones’ Locker Rooed interior, he took a place at the bar, ordered a Screwdriver and began to listen

Within an hour’s tiht her nose in the bathtub faucet, the one about the three travelling saleshter, the one about the nurse who thought they were Spanish olives and the one about the et in the frankfurter suit Talbert wrote this last joke under his original transcription of it, underlining changes in context attributable to regional influence

At 1016, a man who had just told Talbert the one about the hillbilly twins and their two-headed sister said that Tony, the bartender, was a virtual faucet of off-colour, jokes, lirams and proverbs

Talbert went over to the bar and asked Tony for thethe limerick about the sex of the asteroid vermin, the bartender referred Talbert to a Mr Frank Bruin, salesht

Talbert at once retired to a telephone directory where he discovered five Frank Bruins in Oakland Entering a booth with a coat pocket sagging change, Talbert began dialling them

Two of the five Frank Bruins were salesmen One of them, however, was in Alcatraz at the an’s Alleys in Oakland where his wife said that, as usual on Thursday nights, her husband was bowling with the Moonlight Mattress Co the bar, Talbert chartered a taxi and started across the bay to Oakland, toes in ferment

Veni, vidi, vici?

Bruin was not a needle in a haystack

The ht by a football huddle of , Talbert was just in time to hear the punch line followed by an explosion of coued

’ "My God!" cried the actress,’ Mr Bruin had uttered, ’ "I thought you said a banana split!" ’

This variation much excited Talbert who saw in it a verification of a new eleroup had broken up and drifted, Talbert accosted Mr Bruin and, introducing himself, asked where Mr Bruin had heard that joke

’Why d’ya ask, boy?’ asked Mr Bruin

’No reason,’ said the crafty Talbert

’I don’t remember where 1 heard it, boy,’ said Mr Bruin finally ’Excuse me, will ya?’

Talbert trailed after him but received no satisfaction -unless it was in the

Later, riding back to the Millard Filency on Mr Bruin’s trail to see what could be seen

When Talbert reached the hotel there was a telegra for him at the desk

MR RODNEY TASSEL RECEIVED LONG DISTANCE CALL FROM MR GEORGE BULLOCK, CARTHAGE HOTEL, CHICAGO WAS TOLD JOKE ABOUT MIDGET IN SALAMI SUIT MEANINGFUL? �C AXE

Talbert’s eyes ignited