Page 62 of Make Me Laugh

I’m close to memorizing every tattoo on her body by now, counting the seconds before I get a glimpse of the snake on her thigh.

Joey takes a seat in a plush chair too big for her and drapes her arms on the armrests. The video is already halfway over.

Her face is concealed by the shadows until she crosses one leg over the other and the lighting changes along with the music’s tempo. Staring into the camera with her sea foam eyes, maskless, is Joey, not Hex, and her expression is sharp, deadly—capable of world domination.

God, she’s so fucking hot.

I’d join a cult if Joey was their recruiter, for sure! I never fell for the fraternity thing in college, but I’m close to converting to whatever it is Joey believes in.

She mouths the words to one of Frankie’s edgier songs, edited into the perfect sound-clip for what will certainly be the most viral video yet.

But we were just getting started.

Joey snaps her fingers on beat, and my favorite Hex mask appears in her hand.

It covers the upper half of her face, made from a shiny black material that reminds me of Venom’s stringy, parasitic goo. Held in place by the tendrils is a large, very real set of deer antlers decorated with moss, smears of dirt, and fake blood. Jewels hang from them, sprinkling the edge of the room with dancing sparkles.

I’ve done a deep dive into Hex’s lore, as told by her fans, and they believe she’s not a witch or a demon, but something in between. It makes me believe the theory that Hex stepped out of the woods in a mask made from the remains of her last sacrifice.

Joey has built a brand and community no one can duplicate.

The video skips through three stills of her in the chair raising the mask to her face.

When her hand returns to the armrest, she’s masked, and the words, Long Live Hex, appear on the screen, followed by all the dates, including the newest stops through the end of The Mid-West: Because You Could Do Better Tour.

The video restarts, returning to a shot of the empty chair. She posted thirty minutes ago, and it’s already got over 500,000 views—the world has been waiting to hear from Hex, but she took the time she needed before letting the world back in.

Joey texted me Tuesday night before she made the first post to my WestParkerComedy pages.

Joey baby

Hey, here’s the first video going up tonight! Let me know what you think or if you wanna go in a different direction. I think highlighting the stuff people don’t get to see at a show is probably the best place to start… I’m giving you permission to start interacting on posts again, but please, for the love of our wallets, don’t say anything too stupid, okay?

Oh, and can you not respond to anything about Hex yet? We can leave them guessing about our next move for a couple more days. I’d like to get my post up before we start fueling any rumors further.

Me

I’m following your lead. You tell me what you want from me.

But saying stupid shit is kinda par for the course with me. I can’t make any promises that I won’t say ANYTHING stupid, but I promise not to get Hex involved yet

She gave the text a thumb’s up, and we haven’t talked since.

But she did repost the Long Live Hex video from my accounts, since she has access to basically everything I have a password to. When my parents told me not to trust random strangers from the internet, they surely weren’t talking about Joey, right?

She asked for some time to get her life in order before we head out on Friday, so I hadn’t expected to hear from her at all, but Enzo’s been chatting about fancy business stuff with her all week.

It’s never bothered me until recently that I don’t have much of a clue as to what’s going on around me. I sometimes feel like I’m orbiting in my own life aimlessly.

No one faults me for letting the admin stuff take a backseat, especially not when they know the full story of why I’m standing on a stage with a mic and not geared up on a rink with a hockey stick. Everyone who’s close to me is just happy to see me getting out of bed, let alone doing all that I’m doing now.

I talk about how I played hockey through college, not what ended my athletic career. All it would take is one Google search to connect the dots between West Parker the stand-up comedian and West Isakson the could-have-been hockey star who’s lucky to be alive.

The first video she posted on my account is a montage of footage from our weekend in Portland. A video of Kell at the merch table. Me and Enzo post-show laughing about who knows what. Clips of me she’d gotten while we filmed content. I wish she would have left the sound of her laugh in the background of the video she got of me attempting a dance trend, but Joey nor her laugh were in a single shot.

Wednesday morning the video had over two million views, pushing the club in New Haven, Connecticut to add another show on Sunday night.

But now it’s Thursday afternoon, she posted her first video since last Friday, I haven’t talked to her in days, and we leave tomorrow for two months where we’ll be living together—mainly out of a camper.