Now, you’re probably thinking Frank Speed was the weirdest criminal we ever faced. Pal, you ain’t heard nothin’. Let me tell you a story about Joe Standup.

Joe was actually the first criminal I ever faced. I was a rookie then, just like you are now, runnin’ around, doin’ grunt work, basically being a worthless piece of trash, like you. Man I’m glad I’m not a rookie anymore. No offense. I’d probably jump off a building or something, no offense.

Anyway, I’d just come back in from a coffee run, when the Chief calls me in and says, “Gorman, suit up. We’ve got a bank robbery at First National on Wabash Avenue, and you’re the only free officer I have. I need you to go neutralize the perp. Any questions?”

I said “Yeah, what’s a perp?” He said it was a criminal. That’s my lesson to you, greenhorn. “Perp” means “criminal.” I think it stands for “perple,” which is the color they turn when we put ‘em in jail.

So I suited up. I put on my hat, jacket, gun, walkie-talkie, and my lucky hockey mask. The Chief told me to take off the hockey mask, but I said no. Sometimes you have to learn where to draw the line.

My foot was almost out the door when the Chief said, “Gorman, wait.”

I said, “Yes, sir?”

“We just received new intel. The man robbing that bank is Joe Standup. Real slippery bastard. We’ve tried and failed to apprehend this perp for years.”

I asked him what a “perp” was again and he ignored me.

“Just be careful,” said the Chief. “And for God’s sake, wear these.”

He handed me a pair of earmuffs. I looked down at them, and back up at him, hoping for an explanation.

He said, “Just trust me.”

Well, I didn’t trust the Chief any further than I could throw him. He was always playing pranks on me – hiding my letter opener, taping signs to my back that said “Read me my rights and then arrest me on a false drug trafficking charge,” putting itching powder in my coffee so after I drank it I had to scratch my esophagus every five seconds, stuff like that. One time he gave me a nametag and said, “Wear this, and don’t read it.” So I did, and it turns out that what was written on the nametag was “Hello, my name is Butt Johnson.” I was so embarrassed when I found out. And look, I’m still wearin’ it! I keep forgetting to take it off!

Point I’m trying to make is, screw the Chief. I threw his stupid earmuffs straight in the trash. I trusted the Chief so little that I stopped by my house and threw my own earmuffs in the trash, too, and then I called all the earmuff stores in town and told them not to sell any earmuffs to Robert Gorman, who of course is me.

It turns out, that was not a smart thing to do.

I arrived at the bank, where luckily Joe Standup was still robbing the place, slow guy that he was. I listened through the cracked door and heard people screaming things like “Stop it!” and “You’re killing us!” I knew it was now or never. I sprang into action and ran into the bank… but something about the scene was amiss.

You like that word, “amiss”? Picked it up from a British detective I worked with on a case. Everything was always amiss with that guy. It was like, buddy, if everything is amiss to you, maybe it’s your life that’s amiss.

But, so, here was the problem: all of the hostages in the bank were on the floor, and, get this, they were laughing. Like, hysterically, tears streaming down their faces and everything. I was still a rookie back then, but even I knew people didn’t normally laugh when they were getting robbed. They cried, or begged for their lives. That was on the written test, for crying out loud. I felt like someone was trying to pull a fast one on ol’ Officer Gorman.

Then I saw him: Joe Standup, standing on top of a counter, holding a big bag of cash in one hand, and, in the other, a gun.

Crap, I thought, because I’d left my own gun in the car so it wouldn’t make my belt so heavy. If he planned to shoot me, I was done for. But when I squinted my eyes, I noticed that it wasn’t a firearm he was holding – it was a microphone.

With a grin, I put my hands on my hips. If he thought he was gonna shoot me with a microphone, he had another thing comin’. You know why? Because microphones don’t shoot bullets. There’s another free lesson for you, kid.

Joe Standup finally saw me, standin’ there all cocky-like, and he brought the mic to up his mouth in a flash.

“Looks like the police have arrived,” he said. “Hey, why did the police officer cross the road?”

“Why?” I said.

“To get to the donut shop on the other side!”

The crowd on the floor laughed uproariously, and when I finally got the joke – cops love donuts, you see, and would happily cross a street in order to purchase one – well, doggone it, I laughed too. It was without a doubt the funniest thing I had ever heard in my life. Even funnier than second place on America’s Funniest Home Videos, which is always funnier than first place, if you ask me.

I laughed so hard that tears flooded my eyes and blurred my sight. My gut hurt, and my knees buckled, and pretty soon I was on the ground, rolling back and forth with everyone else. When I looked up, I saw the fuzzy form of Joe Standup climbing off the counter and making his escape to the door behind me.

Between gasps and snorts, I managed to pull my phone out of my pocket and call Earmuffs ‘N’ Stuffs, the only earmuff store that does thirty-second deliveries, and told them I needed their strongest earmuffs, stat. The guy said “Okay. Can I get a name for the order?” I told him it was Robert Gorman, and he hung up on me. Then I remembered, Oh, right.

To make a long story short, Joe Standup just casually walked out with the bag of cash. I reached for his ankle as he went by, and I was almost able to pull him down, but he quickly said into his microphone, “Two police officers walk into a bar,” and I was done for. I didn’t even wait for the punchline. I just heard that it was about police officers again and I just lost it.

“You see, this is why I told you to wear the earmuffs,” the Chief said half an hour later, when I returned to HQ. “Speaking of, where the hell are they?”

“I threw them in the trash.”

The Chief stared at me.

“And also,” I said, “No one in town will sell me earmuffs, now, because I told them not to.”

The Chief stared at me so hard, man. “I won’t ask why you did what you did. I’ll assume you had a good reason.”

“Yes.”

“So, here are your options, Gorman. Joe Standup is robbing another bank as we speak. You can either pay me five dollars for another pair of earmuffs, or you can drive to the next town over and buy some there. It’s up to you.”

Well, you already know my answer: no and no. I just drove over to the bank, where, same scene, everyone’s on the floor laughing, and Standup is just gathering up the cash unopposed. I’d remembered to bring my gun with me this time, and I unholstered it now.

But Joe was too quick on the draw. With lightning speed he brought up the microphone and said, “How do you know a police officer is Irish?”

Bam. I went straight to the floor, laughing my guts out. He said the punchline, but good thing I was laughing too hard to hear him, or else I probably woulda died. As it was, I tore six tendons, got two hernias, and my appendix burst and I had to go to the ER.

I grappled with Joe Standup fifty-eight more times that day, and each time, I got my behind handed to me like movie ticket stubs. As you know, this city is the Bank Capital of the World, and we have 103 banks, so this showdown could have gone on well into Tuesday. Honestly the Chief should have just sent someone else after bank number five, but what are you gonna do.

I smarted up, though. I went into the Chief’s office after that fifty-eighth embarrassment, tossed 500 pennies onto his desk, and said, “I’ll be taking those earmuffs.”

The Chief made me clean up all those pennies, but after that I headed straight to the Fifty-Ninth National Bank. I walked in like a wild west cowboy into a saloon, my gun drawn, my earmuffs on, and “Butt Johnson” emblazoned proudly on my chest like a sheriff’s badge. I was deaf to the world, glarin’ at Joe Standup as he stuffed fistfuls of cash into his bag. He looked up, grinned when he saw me, and started telling his joke.

Now, I can’t read lips any better than I can write about quantum mechanics, and the last time I tried doing that, my paper was so stupid that those science eggheads thought I had come up with some brilliant satire of the whole field. They even named a theorem after me – Gorman’s Pancake Theorem, because I spilled syrup all over the pages. What a “theorem” is, I’ll never know, but the point is I can’t read lips. Joe’s masterful comedy was useless. Game, checkmate, point, match.

What I didn’t expect was the cue cards. When Standup noticed my earmuffs rendering his words powerless, he immediately held up a big card that said, “Knock knock.”

Apparently this is a type of joke. Had I known that at the time, I probably wouldn’t have said, “Who’s there?” and he wouldn’t have held up that next card that said “A police officer,” and, well… You know the rest by now. Surely you ain’t that dumb.

We never, ever caught him. We were ill-equipped to fight what was clearly some kind of supervillain, and he robbed all 103 banks and skipped town. And that’s the end of the story. Sigh.

Well, almost the end. The other day I was talkin’ to a retired ex-cop and buddy of mine, Ansel.

“Say, Gorman,” said Ansel.

“Yeah?” I said.

“You remember Joe Standup?”

I frowned. “Don’t remind me. What’s he done this time? Cleared out Fort Knox using sassy observations?”

Ansel shook his head. “He ain’t done nothing. He’s gone straight. He got himself a proper job and everything.”

This took me aback, and I spit hot coffee all over his face. He didn’t appreciate that none, but hey, when I’m drinking coffee is about the worst time to take me aback, so that one’s on him. I said, “A proper job? Doing what?”

“Think, Gorman,” he said, face dripping. “His last name is ‘Standup.’ He’s an insanely funny individual. He always carried a microphone with him. What kinda job might he get?”

I thought. I thought and thought and thought, until well after midnight. And then I gasped. I woke Ansel up and said, “You don’t mean…”

“That’s right,” yawned Ansel. “He’s an accountant.”

Of course he was an accountant. That’s the funniest job there is, after all. And yet, somethin’ about that surprised me. I was on philosophizing duty that week, so I made sure to say something real wise and sagelike. I said, “Well don’t that beat all.” And you know what? I was right.

I’ll pick up the tab, rookie. Payment for listenin’ to a veteran cop ramblin’ on. And if you take anything away from this story, let it be this: always keep some earmuffs in your glove box. Trust me.