The sarcasm was supposed to deflate the Dog but it only exhausted Jimmy, conjuring in his mind the one-thousandth retelling of the Dog's pet Theory of Humor: that all jokes were endless versions of themselves: an eternal rehearsal of absurd characters in a build-up to a punch line that depended on a pun to underscore what everyone knew but no one wanted to believe: the utter difference between words and world. How banal it all was, the Dog would always finish, how like everyday life. And, as if summoned to serve as a visual aid, a group of tourists were gathered at The Strip.

Umbrella hats and mismatched plaid. Most of them carried quarters in those plastic cups that they now lugged from casino to casino and would later take home to San Diego and Indianapolis and drink slurpees out of or grow petunias in till the casino's slogan--Where YOU are King!--wore off and no longer reminded them of what a wonderful time they'd had in Vegas. Laughing, they jostled for position as a shuttle bus approached. An air-conditioned bus. The fare was less than the dollar Jimmy had in his pocket and it took the remainder of his will to not leave the Dog in the street. What sweet release it would be to pretend he had never heard the Dog, to get on the bus and ride back to Stardust, the hotel/casino where he was staying.

The Dog walked in silence until they were past the tourists. Then it said sullenly, "You used to appreciate my humor." Jimmy kept walking. "You used to appreciate my comedic genius."

"You're not a comedic genius," Jimmy said. "Your jokes suck."

"Then why do you keep nagging me to tell one at those auditions?"

When Jimmy didn't answer, the Dog continued. "I'll tell you why, because all jokes suck, that's what makes them jokes." Jimmy cursed himself for opening a door for the inevitable and here it came: the only dif between a joke and ordinary talk, the Dog lectured, was that jokes made their double meanings obvious while the doubleness or giga-gazillioness of stuff like grocery lists or weather reports passed unnoticed by everyone but some of the mad.

Jimmy clapped his hands over his ears to keep out the babble that through exhaustion, through some perverse brainwashing by repetition, had begun to make sense.