The Wangs vs. the World(55)
Barbra cringed. What was wrong with Andrew? He’d bragged about how much laughter he’d gotten from doing stand-up at his school, but if this was any indication of his abilities, those classmates must have laughed out of pity or embarrassment.
“I mean, it’s either going to turn into shit and come out their ass, or it’s going to turn into fat and stick to their ass!”
Probably the latter.
“The next time a chick asks me to take her out to dinner, I’m just going to tell her to sit on her ass and listen to this poem—I mean, what’s not romantic about poetry?—Roses are red, violets are blue, let’s go to bed, because I want to f*ck you! Yeah!”
Andrew paused, waiting as the trickle of polite laughs failed to become a roar. Barbra considered being offended, but found that really she was rather amused. At least the excruciating awkwardness had resulted in something unexpected.
Someone near the front of the stage called out: “He said, ‘Don’t suck’?!” She craned to see who it was, but the heckler was hidden by his friends. Andrew flinched and continued.
“So . . . I’ve totally disappointed my dad. I know what you’re thinking—I’m Asian, so this must be some joke about how he’s disappointed that I’m not a brain surgeon or not a lawyer or how I took a whole month to learn how to play Vivaldi or something. But, no, no, my dad is cool about that kind of shit. He actually wants me to play the guitar and get laid. No, honestly, he does.” This apt description of Charles did make Barbra laugh, a sudden yelp of it, but she was embarrassed to be the only one.
“So, the thing is, my dad, the immigrant, is really, really disappointed that I have an allergy. A peanut allergy. Because immigrants do not believe in allergies. I swear to God, ask any brown person with an accent that you see and they’ll tell you that allergies are some New World shit.” Well, that was true, thought Barbra, remembering her own surprise when the mother of one of Grace’s young friends refused to allow her daughter to play at the Wangs’ because their housekeeper didn’t use nonallergenic cleaning products.
And then, without warning, Andrew launched into a cross-eyed accent that made her cringe. “My dad was, like, ‘I sail here under cover of night! I fight pirates! I hide out in American sewage system and work as busboy for twenty year, and you cannot defend yourself against peanut? One peanut? Peanut that so teeny tiny and de-ricious?’”
Across the room, maybe even from the heckler, there was a single shout of laughter. Besides that, silence. The tables around her fidgeted with their cell phones and drinks, waiting for Andrew’s turn to be over. Not for the first time, Barbra was glad that she’d never wanted to be a performer.
“By the way,” continued Andrew, valiantly, “I know that the only thing that white people love more than jokes about white people is when black people make jokes about white people. Right, guys, right? But you know what white people really, really, really love? When Asian comedians make fun of their parents. Yep, because you guys just want an excuse to laugh at Asian accents. Black people, no offense, but in this joke you basically count as white people. Admit it, as soon as I came up, you thought to yourselves, ‘Oh man, I hope he says lots of r words, just tons of them, I hope this whole night is brought to you by the letter r.’”
All that scribbling in the backseat and this was what he came up with? It wasn’t going very well—Barbra saw a black girl roll her eyes at her friend. Andrew must have rehearsed his pauses, because he again stared out into the audience, expectant, uncertain, waiting for the laughs she knew were never going to come. Finally, he went on.
“Here’s what I don’t understand: British people do not say the letter h. They just drop it entirely. Like, don’t even try it, but we don’t laugh at that. French people are not on speaking terms with zee ths, isn’t zat true? But none of that turns y’all on like an Asian person messing up the letter r. The only thing that comes vaguely close is a Canadian oo: aboot, hoose. Just close your eyes for a minute and imagine an Asian immigrant who learned to speak English in Canada saying the word roustabout—oh, what does that mean? It’s an unskilled laborer, you roustabouts! Seriously, though, what does that even sound like? Here, let’s try it, let’s say it out loud. You know you want to. It’s okay. I’m telling you, on behalf of Asians everywhere, it’s okay. Here, I’ll say it with you, we can do it together, okay? On three. One, two, three—loostaboot!”
Only a couple of game audience members played along, dutiful. Someone else said something that sounded like “Loser dude,” and several people headed towards the bathroom, but Andrew went on, his good cheer starting to sound a little desperate.
“You racist motherf*ckers! No, no, I’m just kidding. Really, I’m kidding, I know all of your best friends are colored. Ha! Aw, I feel kinda guilty. I tricked you into it, and now you feel like douchebags.” Andrew flapped his hands in a gesture that would have been meant to quiet down the crowd if they’d been making any noise at all. “Okay, okay, to make up for it I’ll give you what you really want, okay?” He stood up straight and looked off into the distance. Raising an arm, he said, in a Laurence Olivier voice, “An elderly Chinese man, perhaps my father, perhaps not, just saying words. Words with the letter r.” And then, again, that embarrassing accent. “Lobots. Logaine. Lome. Lotaly Crub—good one, right? Corrabolate. Collobolate—that was two different words, by the way. Well, thanks for helping me undo the last fifty years of the Civil Rights Movement. Y’all are *s. Good night!”