The Joker and the Thief

The key, to creating good comedy, Terry discovered, was to take something very common, that everyone is familiar with, and to introduce a fantastic element. It usually, creates a situation that is laughable. If you’re very good, the situation is hilarious. If you're the very very good, you make people shoot the drink they bought to keep them fresh during the whole show right out their noses. Any better than that and you start making people do things that will embarrass them.

The chief difference between him and most comics was that Terry was his own audience. The secondary difference was that his shows were of the unorthodox variety. In fact, the shows were of the never before seen variety.

He had tried the daunting standup comedy. He tried making people embarrass themselves, or at least shoot milk out of their noses, by telling that the week prior; he was in the garden with his daughter raking the leaves. After he'd finished his pile, his daughter jump into the pile only to step on the rake and make the handle shoot up into his crotch. It didn't work. He didn't have the talent for it. When he told that joke, for instance, he actually said crotch instead of opting one of the funnier substitutes like balls, nuts or the baby twins. Another problem with his routine was that he had a uncommon sense of humor. What made him laugh was other people's pain. The rake to the baby twins being one example. Being robbed being another example. Hearing about people being robbed, did not generally make people laugh. Terry, at the expense of his stand up career, did not realize that what made him laugh did not make others laugh. So, he had to find another way to make a living.

He did. Other than having a morbid sense of humor, and a crippling lack of showmanship talents, what set Terry apart, was that he had a rather fantastic ability. He could, at will, erase memories from his mind. He had first manifested it in his early teen years. His parents, having stayed married despite not wanting to be, for the sake of their son, had built up so much resentment in thirteen years that they could no longer be discreet. They would yell in the house and he would naturally, find it unbearable. He would then dream of it. That would be worse. But, he found that if he focused, he could suppress his dreams. It was hardly a stretch from their to suppress memories. He could never explain his secret, but he knew how to control the ability. He got better and better and eventually, he could erase more precisely. He could forget details. He could forget faces if he wanted to.

With the formula in mind, that adding a fantastic element to a common situation equaled success, he set out to make a living. He was his own common situation; a young man, plain, unfunny, with no particular talents, living in Montreal in a pitiful situation. His ability was the fantastic element. The next thing was how to put the two together to create a punch line. According to Terry, what stops most people from stealing, is their conscience. They cannot live knowing that they hurt this person or another. His ability was a loophole. He didn't have to know who he robbed from after he robbed them. He figured then, that he could pose as a common person, who no one would suspect. He would earn a living. And the best park, the true punch line, was that the idea he could do this, tickled his sense of humor like the most delicate touch of a feather. It made him, really, embarrass himself.