Parlor Games

Practical Joker Mort McNulty hosts his own wake so that he can hear what people will say about him after he’s dead, before he’s dead. Mort’s wife, Tricia, gets unwillingly drawn into the action and apologetically tries to convince everyone that Mort is playing another joke. We meet a variety of wakegoers—some there on purpose, some not—who eventually, with the right amount of suggestion and imagination, convince themselves that Mort is dead and Tricia is in denial. The mistaken identities, chases, and jokes within jokes within jokes culminate in Tricia turning Mort’s wake into a suprise party as she tries to teach her husband a lesson about practical jokes.

By James C. Wall