I was there. She was there. We were there. They were there. It doesn't really matter, though, because they really have nothing to do with the story. It was a simple afternoon of sipping tea and joking about things that meant nothing to the outside world or even ourselves. We laughed anyway, though. We sat in my backyard at the little bistro table and baked under the hot, July sun. This was all very odd considering it was only May.

We reminisced about times with Bob from down the street, although we had never met Bob from down the street, not to mention the fact that Bob from down the street had been dead for 6 years. Though we remembered all those good times like they were yesterday.

Hell, it could have been yesterday for all that I cared, I wasn't exactly sure of anything anymore. Yesterday was but a dreary dream within what makes what today is. Yesterday was merely a thought and nothing more. Yesterday is left behind us like a season past or a sun that has set once again. Did it matter that I had killed that hooker on west 70th in a hit and run? I think not.

The tea sipping became more than a subtle sip and grew into a slurping gulp. Coupled with the fact that in was being done quite messily, all over her sundress and down my new Brooks Brothers suit. Was it really a Brooks Brother's? I don't know, I never saw a Brooks Brother's tag, but people will believe anything you tell them. Even that bit about me not liking Titanic because it was too long and somehow I wasn't able to relate to it because I can't stand bullshit pieces of work that go nowhere and rely on sentimental garbage. Actually they should believe that, it's true.

I leaned toward the person I sipped/gulped tea with, "You know," I stated calmly, matter-of-factly, "if there were ever a person that knew comedy, that understood it so completely as an artistic skill, it would have to be that little Jimmy Flaherty from three houses down."

"What do you mean?" asked my guest as if she never heard such a statement stated so elegantly before.

"I mean, that child knows how to do physical comedy like he was born with some kind of gift, as if he knows there is no such thing as pain, but rather bodily sacrifice to receive a laugh." I replied sipping my tea. "That child can walk into a wall, fall down a flight of stairs, open a door clumsily into his nose, knock over any object, and it's all very funny. I can watch him all day and he'll pull one joke after another." I smiled thinking of all the times that kid took it roughly in the name of comedy. If only I could have that kind of discipline, that kind of love for comedy, then I would be well on my way to be making a name for myself.

"But, you don't understand," my guest exclaimed.

"What's that?" my eyebrows raised as I was brought back from my daydreaming of such great comedic performances from a boy named Jimmy.

"You don't understand," my guest explained, "Jimmy's not doing all those acts in the name of comedy. He's mentally retarded!"

Then we laughed like two people have never laughed before. Oh, how funny it was, thinking that all this time, years and years being neighbors with Jimmy Flaherty, I never realized his handicap. I always wondered why Mrs. Flaherty looked at me with such despise in her frown when I laughed at the boy. Yes, we still laughed. We laughed for hours about the fact that I had been so ignorant all this time.

Finally we finished laughing. We wiped our eyes free of the joyous tears. Then? Why then we went down to little Jimmy Flaherty's house and watched the little guy. We laughed even harder.