In a daze, I didn't answer the door immediately.

The knocking returned, however, even more vigorously and impatiently. This time I mustered the strength to get up. When I opened the door, I was face-to-face with an exceptionally large, bald head (or rather, clavicle-to-face, for this head was significantly shorter than I). "Pinky Bugstasher." The head spoke bluntly. "The name's Potts. Brian Potts. I got a proposition for ya." My ears perked up.

"Come on in, Mr. Potts," I said, opening the door a bit wider to let him through.

"Thank you. Nice digs," he said as he peered around the edge of the door and ambled in. "Listen, Bugstasher. Here's what I propose. You and me. A comedy team. Pinky and the Brain. See, I'm 'the Brain' on account of my big head. 'Brain' for 'Brian,' that's our first joke there."

"I don't know, Mr. Potts," I interrupted him. This was not the sort of proposition I was expecting. "I'm not really what you'd call funny."

"You give the jokes, I'm the straight man," he continued on, functionally if not actually ignoring me. "Like Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, Bush and Quayle. C'mon, Bugstasher, whaddaya say? 'Pinky and the Brain.'" He made a grand gesture to accompany this last sentence.

"I really don't know, Mr. Potts..." I said, as he was already dragging me into my own kitchen.

"Just sign here, Bugstasher." A pen appeared in my hand. "That's it, that's it." I hardly looked at the papers he was handing me. "C'mon Bugstasher, what have you got to lose?" My willpower was failing.

I signed.

"Brilliant," he said over my shoulder, greedily grabbing the papers before I had a chance to reconsider. When I turned around, he was gone.

For several hours I couldn't be sure whether my meeting with Brian "the Brain" Potts had really taken place, or whether I hadn't just dreamed the whole thing up. Later that night, though, the phone rang.

"Hello?" I answered it.

"Bugstasher. This is the Brain. We're on in twenty minutes at the Hot 28. I'll pick you up in 5."

It was real.

Let me clarify a few points before continuing. I had not been lying to Potts. I do not have any proclivities towards comedy that I or anyone else has noticed. To add to this, he and I went on stage without any rehearsal. I do not know whether "the Brain" had a plan for our performance that evening, but I would like to say that I improvised, except that it was more like I was reading a script out of some subconscious dream world. As best I can remember our set went as follows:

The audience couldn't get enough of this the first night. They were rolling in the aisles. And they kept coming night after night. Soon Pinky and the Brain were appearing all around the country, entertaining crowds of all ages. One special night I remember in particular. An elderly gentleman came up to us after the show and thanked us for the jokes. "I didn't even mind that you left me out, because the punchline at the end had me laughing so hard. It's such a nice night, won't you do it again?" It was the great Cubs shortstop Ernie Banks.

But night after night of the same routine, over and over, word for word, joke for joke, laugh for laugh... It got a bit tiresome for me, and I started to pine for my days as a professional funeral attender once more. Finally one day I approached my partner in his dressing room after our performance. "Mr. Potts," I said as confidently as I could, "this has been a great opportunity for me, and I'm grateful for all you've done, but... You see, I think I want out of Pinky and the Brain."

"WHAT?!" the head thundered. "Do you have any idea what you're saying?!"

"Well, uhh, yes, Mr. Potts," I stammered. "But I have to move on with my life. I don't think..."

"So it's final, then?" he interrupted me. "You know what this means, of course."

"I'm not sure I follow you," I said.

"The contract. The contract you signed. You must remember the contract."

"Yes, but..."

"There were clear instructions," he interrupted my hesitating speech again. "I will refresh your memory as you've clearly forgotten. In the event of your leaving Pinky and the Brain you are to permanently dispose of my mortal enemy."

My mouth, though open, was unable to form any words in reply, so Potts continued. "For this reason, I must ask you to kill 'Sideburns' Mickey McCoy before three days have passed. If for some reason you prove unfit for the task, I will be forced to terminate your own life."

And with that he slammed the door to his dressing room. Stunned, I walked all the way home, completely oblivious to the great distance I covered. That night I had difficulty sleeping, and at 3 am I was jolted to full consciousness with a sudden question: What does a lifetime cost? And I wasn't thinking in a metaphysical sense--no, I was thinking in a purely monetary sense. As in, how many dollars and cents does a lifetime cost? It's got to be a lot, I reasoned. When you add up the various costs of food, shelter, clothing, transportation, not to mention luxuries--well, it's got to add up to a lot.

 When at last I emerged from my restless semi-conscious state the next morning, I vowed to incur a few more costs in my life before I paid the bill, so to speak. "Sideburns" Mickey McCoy was going down...