Skip This One
“I couldn’t make this up if I tried,” he said with a smile that concealed the truth, miles away, in the fog-engulfed fields of a dilapidated farm home that the locals no longer speak of.
Fabricated out of a stunning collection of facial cues, a charming smile, flirtatious winks, all of which conjured up with use of levers and pulleys in the brain, the clown rarely reveals the lifeless drama draped over the unremarkable skin beneath all of the bold makeup.
Consider myself as a prime, and noteworthy example. In a broad sense, I am a professional performer, an actor, a mimic champion, a joke slinger, a fake. If performing is the one good thing I’m good at, I’m going to take every opportunity to make the ground beneath my tired feet a stage. A more detailed examination will show that I am a Skipper on The World Famous Jungle Cruise.
I am a Skipper on The World Famous Jungle Cruise. If you’re not familiar with this classic Disney attraction, allow me to pour Amazon river water over your ignorance to wash away the grime from whatever road has brought you to this story. The Jungle Cruise is a facsimile of an exotic adventure on some of the world’s most famous rivers, all home to a collection of zany, humorous, and groan-inducing situations involving animals and nature. The key to the entire experience is your Skipper, your “witty and experienced” guide to the operation, armed with enough dad jokes to kill a small gorilla, if that gorilla had exquisite taste in wordplay and an overactive asthma condition.
It’s tongue-cemented-in-cheek, it’s an escape, it’s a Disney institution.
It’s a lie.
I consider myself rather good at what I do. One part Indiana Jones, two parts Robin Williams, with a dash of Eddie Izzard on top, I attempt to get people to forget whatever brought them to this fantasyland, and even forget the hour they waited in line in a claustrophobic, khaki induced coffin of a queue to get to me. I try to make it worth it. Ten minutes at a time, 3 to 5 times and hour, six to fourteen hours of every shift, I am on that bote sacrificing my mind and body in exchange for the opportunity to make my guests buy into the lie.
I AM Skipper Brian, there’s no doubt about it. He’s fun, and quick, and giving, and really, really quick kid, so you better be ready if you’re going to heckle me, and adventurous, and hopeful that we’ll laugh about it now, and just maybe survive the journey. The mastery of being a Skip is taking ten minutes to try and convince people you have no idea what you’re doing while driving a bote backwards, timing 50 year old dad jokes just right, based on scenes that may or not be functioning from one trip to the next. It takes a lot of talent to look like an imbecile who never crashes a bote or gets the guests drenched by a rogue elephant named Steve who is probably just in the college program and is overworked and barely paid and who can really blame him for….well, you get the picture.
On dock, in the bote, I feel like I am both loved and despised by my peers. It’s something that I wrestle with, every hour of every day.
I AM NOT Skipper Brian, there’s no other way to say it. For the good of the smile, or the recklessness of a brazen glance, you fell for it. It’s what I do. Brian is injured, he’s hurting. He loves people but has no idea how to let them in. His reserved side is seen as arrogance, and his mental illness takes that perception and turns into self-loathing.
That’s not a joke.
It’s hard, of course, being real. Why even put on an act if you’re actually content with who you are originally? Do I do it for others? It’s likely all for me, I suppose.
“Look at how great and clever I am!,” I say, hoping a new mark has arrived ready to purchase my lie. Then we do the play, the cyclical dance of love me then hate me as the real adventure of dealing with me unfolds.
Will I figure it all out one day, or will I keep going in circles telling the same old jokes just to be alone at the dock again? At this point it doesn’t even feel like I simply want to perform, it’s that it’s all I’ve got and I have no other choice than to put on a show.
So, welcome to my farmhouse, I believe you’ll find it has character, though it’s clearly falling apart. If you’ve made it through the fog, you must really have wanted to see me, to really see me. I hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.
“If I can, I’ll make it up to you if I can,” he said, with a tear rolling down a bare, but smiling face.