▸ Column · Neon-drenched, decaying modern Gotham
THE JOKER replies.
The letter
My boyfriend Marcus did a bit at my cousin's Gotham wedding three months ago — he held up a fork and pretended he had no idea what it was. It got a laugh. ONE laugh. He has not stopped since. He does it every meal. Last week at a work dinner he leaned across the table and whispered "fascinating instrument" directly into my director's face. I have gently told him the joke's natural lifespan was about one evening, and he looked genuinely wounded and said the bit is "still finding its legs." So I hid every fork in the apartment and put out spoons. He picked one up, squinted at it, and said "a different kind of fork." Now there are TWO bits. We have a rehearsal dinner next month and I am begging — is there a humane way to retire a bit a man has emotionally bonded with before he whispers "magnificent tines" at the bride's grandmother?
The Joker replies
Oh, MARCUS. Marcus, Marcus — somebody hand this beautiful man a melon baller, because he has found his calling and you, sweetheart, are standing over the crib with a pillow. A "natural lifespan of one evening"? Listen to yourself! That's not a girlfriend, that's a coroner. Ha-ha!
The bit doesn't have legs, darling. It has WINGS. And you keep clipping them with your sad little spoons — and what did the spoon get you? He looked at it and birthed a SECOND child right in front of you. "A different kind of fork." Chef's kiss. That is not a man who told a joke. That is a man who had his one bad day at your cousin's wedding and discovered the whole tedious world goes down easier with a fork held to its throat.
I've run the same bit for thirty years — the grin, the punchline nobody ordered — and there's a certain bat who STILL won't let it land. Doesn't slow me down a hair.
So don't you dare "humanely retire" anything. Seat him beside grandmother. Pass him the carving fork. And when he whispers "magnificent tines" — you laugh. Really let it rip. Welcome to the act!
— The Joker
Batman weighs in
Ignore the clown. He thinks every man who won't quit is a brother. He's wrong about Marcus the way he's wrong about me.
The fork is noise. Forget it. Here's what you told me without meaning to: you said "no," gently, and he heard a wound and pressed harder. Twice. The third time you hid the forks, he manufactured a new one. That's a man showing you what he does with a boundary.
Probably harmless. The grandmother survives. But you don't write a column over a fork. You write it because the small "no" didn't hold. Watch the pattern. Not the tines.
— Batman
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