A Comic Revenge

With fingers curled through the fence as if we could squeeze past if we tried hard enough, we watched the scene unfold from the outside looking in. I wondered how much longer I’d have to endure the torture of listening to the pudgy MC introduce “two brand new comics, go easy on ‘em, folks!” I looked over at Daniel. “You ready?”

He nodded his head, shaggy blonde hair falling into his face and covering watery blue eyes. “I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

I heaved a sigh, shook my own dark hair out of my darker blue eyes, and we rounded the fence on the outer edges of the nightclub’s dance floor to move into the room, through the raucous crowd, and up into the spotlight. I stumbled onto the stage, feeling Daniel behind me, and grimaced as I smiled at the whoops and drunken hollers surrounding me.

“How’s it going tonight, everyone? How’s life treating you?” More whooping and hollering deafened me momentarily, and part of me thanked God for alcohol. “You ready to laugh?” The accompanying roar from the crowd told me what I said I wanted to know and while my insides quaked and my heart pumped up the volume thanks to adrenaline, we dived in, Daniel and I.

“So Daniel,” I began with a quaver in my voice, “have you heard about the drug program they have going on over at the hospital? One’s the control group on the drugs, one’s on the placebo?”

“Sure, Kyle.”

“The control group needed more drugs. The placebo group got well.” Crickets chirped.

It was Daniel’s turn. “What do you get when you cross poison ivy with a four leaf clover?”

“A rash of good luck, of course.”

At least there were some groans to that one. I began to sweat, the spot with its relentless light heating me from the inside out. I looked down at the shadowy figures we were trying to impress and wondered what had ever possessed me to do this. I was going to kill Daniel dead for talking me into it.

“I caught my girlfriend and my best friend in bed together last night.”

“What are you gonna do?” Daniel’s response in the silence.

“I’m leaving her.”

“What about your best friend?”

“I told him he’s a bad dog and took him to the shelter.” I heard a smattering of groans and some weak laughter. It was getting better…

But it never got actually good. We left to weak applause and I think someone threw a glass full of something at me. When my heart rate finally slowed down I looked over at Daniel. “Don’t ever ask me to do that, again.”

“But Kyle, buddy, we’re already scheduled for next week,” he protested, brushing the hair out of his face and grinning at me. I stared at him in mute horror.

“It could be a living,” he responded with a shrug. “I mean, hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?”

A week later, Daniel wondered why he was suddenly recieving ten catalogues a day in the mail inviting him to join every "friendship collectable plates" club that existed. You gotta love those mail-in cards that fall out of random magazines.