It had been a busy three months since the Riff Randell Comedy Festival. Loyal was backstage listening to a relatively new comic named Chanda having a great set featuring for him. He worried about following her, but he also knew from experience that worrying about being able to follow the feature was usually a sign that he was about to have a killer set with a primed and ready audience.
Joe approached with a clipboard in her hand. “How you doing, Loyal? You need anything? You got your soda water and lime?”
“I’m good, thanks. Great crowd tonight.”
“Yeah, I knew the opening would be packed. Now lets see if we can keep it going. Oh, did you hear Andi Quiim is here?”
“What!? Really?” he asked, surprised. “Does she want a guest set?”
“No. I offered her one. She just asked for a seat in the back where she wouldn’t be noticed. She said she’s here to see you.”
Loyal was still processing this information when he heard Chanda close strong. The host rushed onto stage, and introduced him, “Please welcome, our hometown boy, the hilarious Loyal Mead!”
He walked onto stage, and instinct took over. His opening jokes hit the way they were supposed to and he settled into a set heavy on storytelling, including some new bits he’d been workshopping at the mics about his recent touring. He felt good as he transitioned into his closer, a well worn bit that he knew would blow the roof off, and it did.
Loyal had a bad habit of getting uncomfortable with applause and interrupting him, something Sidney and Kiry had been encouraging to work on. With his usual tendency to overcorrect, he spread his arms wide, tilted his head back toward the ceiling and let them clap, and clap, and clap. It was a move he’d seen Andi use to open her set that was barely a set in Eriksville and he was conscious of doing it in front of her, and none to subtle tribute to a comic who was all presence, and whose presence was strong enough to allow for that.
After the show Loyal stood in the lobby, shaking hands, encouraging people to follow him on NoKillEye a new writing app he was using to share his fiction and memoir pieces. He watched eagerly for Andi, wondering if she’d managed to sneak out before he got to the lobby. Then at last, he saw her, a hoodie pulled up over her hair which she’d recently dyed an almost fluorescent bright orange. “Good job, comedian.” she said, holding out her hand. “Is there somewhere we can grab a drink?”
Loyal was self conscious, wanting to be cool, wanting to be like Sidney who managed to strike up instant meaningful friendships with every headliner he worked with. He suggested a few popular bars in the area, but explained that as a non-drinker he really wasn’t an authority. “I drink soda water and lime.” he said, lifting the pint glass he’d been nursing throughout the show.
“I’d love to go somewhere quiet where we can relax and talk.” she said back, in her voice that managed to be a crystal clear whisper at exactly the right frequency to cut through the noise in the room.
“I can grab us a couple of drinks from the bar here, and we can sit on the roof of the theater. I often go chill up there after shows.”
“That sound lovely.”
“What are you drinking?”
“How about a soda and lime? Is that called a Loyal?”
“My friend Caitlin calls it a pussy, or else she was calling me a pussy. I wasn’t sure if I was ‘drinking a pussy’ or ‘a drinking pussy’.
“Let’s have a couple of pussies and check out this roof.” she replied with a tight smile.
Loyal asked Gray at the bar to refill his pint glass and pour one more. She gave him an odd wink that he frowned at. If she thought he was making a move on Andi, maybe Andi would think so too. Was Andi hitting on him, he wondered for just a minute before pushing the thought out of his head.
Handing Andi her drink, Loyal motioned toward the area behind the bar where a metal ladder lead up to the roof. “Right this way.”
Having a seat, their face lit by the colorful neon sign of The Festival, the original name of the movie theater that had been reconned into The Riff Randell Sacramento, Loyal asked Andi what brought her to town.
“I had a few shows in San Francisco last weekend and then I took a week off to be by myself. I visited a few caverns, went to a ghost town, but I was most excited about coming to see you open the new club. You were great tonight, by the way.”
“Really? Thanks. That means a lot. I stole that closing move from you, you know.”
“Did you now?”
“Yeah, you opened your set that way at the Sunday show in Eriksville.”
“Ah, I barely remember that weekend, a blur.”
“The last time I saw you, you were walking out of the theatre naked with Bud in tow.”
“Ha. Sweet little, Bud. I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings. We went back to my room and I dressed him fabulously in my clothes which aren’t quite his fit. He looked delightful. And then I sent him on his way. He is so sweet and sincere, and didn’t seem to know where the show stopped and reality began.”
“Well, you do blur that line.”
“Yeah, that’s become my brand. It’s exhausting. I think I want to transition into my elder storyteller phase now. Loyal, I want to tell you, I really like what you do.”
“Oh, thanks. I like what you do. The way you control an audience, almost like a hypnotist. It’s delightful. Do you want to work on some writing together?”
“I’d love to send you some audio recordings and hear your thoughts, if that’d be okay.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Loyal tried to be cool, but still take his shot. “Maybe we can collaborate on something, or mount a tour or something.” he said, trying not to sound to eager.
“I don’t want to talk such business. I just want to have a friend, and be a friend, and also a fan. Can I just be your friend fan?”
“Oh, yeah, of course, I mean, that’s very flattering. Thank you. I’ve very much like to be mutual fans of each other and friends. I just…” Loyal felt embarrassed and tried to smooth it over.
“You want to move up, to take your career to the next place. I get it, and it’s respectable, but what you have, it’s lovely. I hope you appreciate it. You might be the only comic I know with a happy family life, and now with this club, I think you are in a great place to be the subtly odd experienced older story teller. I almost picture your audience sitting around you criss cross apple sauce, listening intently to your tales. It’s very charming.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Loyal said, pushing himself to take the compliment without saying something self deprecating.
“And keep writing short stories. I have loved reading your short stories of the last couple of months on NoKillEye.”
“Are you serious about transitioning to a different style?” Loyal asked, eager to change the focus away from himself.
“Yes. It’s been fun being this ball of electricity that is Andi Quiim. I see so many other comics planning, and being strategic, and it’s fun to spin, to bumble and stumble and somehow never fall over the ledge.”
“Our experience is different. You have means.” Loyal said, and immediately regretted saying.
Andi replied before he could take it back. “Ah, you are so right. Most people of my means don’t know that you are right, or maybe they do in their hearts but they deny it. I know that being born to a great fortune has allowed me the great privilege of being bored.”
“You’re bored?”
“I was bored. I was a teenage model you know? It was too easy. I look like this. It isn’t a great accomplishment of mine. My ratios are all what humans like, and so they took my picture and told me I was brilliant at it, and I wasn’t doing anything but being bored. I’d make silly faces at them, to sabotage photo shoots and they liked this even more. So I tried acting. I got a small role in a major film immediately, some director deciding I was his muse.” the distate in her voice as she said ‘muse’ was clear. “He lined up another bigger role for me, fast tracking me. Again, too easy. I enjoyed going to my first premier. I dropped acid with the woman working the box office and we watched the movie in reverse from behind the screen, and then I declined the other role and spent a year trying other things. I was a poet, I was a dancer with a rock and roll band, The Broken Bodies, I can be heard laughing on one of the tracks on their album. The singer was a woman named Larissa, and she was married to a comedian named Joe.”
“Joe Trek, I know Joe and Larissa.”
“I went with her to one of Joe’s shows and on a lark I tried comedy and you comedians, you cut me no grace. Bookers tried to sleep with me for stage time, I was heckled, I was given the light. I’m not saying I didn’t have advantages over other comics, but I was knocked around more than in any other scene I’d touristed in.”
“Yeah, we’re assholes.”
“You’re assholes! Yes! I fell in love with you assholes! It took years to reliably make an audience laugh, and then I spent years making them laugh at what I wanted them to laugh at.”
“You were one of my favorites.”
“Were?”
Loyal realized his mouth had outpaced his brain again. “Well, I mean, to be honest, I enjoy watching you sew chaos but, like, do you even perform stand up anymore?”
“This is fair, and true. I guess I got bored again. People decided I was good at this, and the fun went out of it so now I’m trying to see how hard I can abuse this privilege before they take it away from me and make me work again, or until I invent a new kind of performance art. The hacks at TMZ are my instrument now, and I’m making them make a screeching noise, a cacophonous symphony of rumor and outrage.”
“Ha, that’s great. So that brings us to tonight?”
“Loyal, let me ask you, why are you here? It seems like LA or New York, or even Austin would have been a smart career move for you.”
“I love it here.”
“I like that. You’re doing this already impossible thing on your terms.”
“Yeah, and getting nowhere. I mean, that’s why I was eager to try to, well to be honest, to grab a ride on our coat tails if I could. I mean, I keep hoping someone who has made it will want to work on something with me? To collaborate. Tour. Make a movie.”
“Ha ha, you’re so eager.”
Loyal felt like mentioning collaborating again was too much, like he’d again failing to seize an opportunity, and also souring a potential friendship. Why is this so easy for Sidney? “Yeah, well, I’m getting old. Maybe I blew it. Maybe I should have moved to LA twenty years ago.”
“And maybe you did right. Maybe you just keep being a good comedian. That’s also a wonderful thing to be. A thing that the world is better for having in it. You don’t need me to enrich you with my craziness. In fact, how about you help me in my journey. I’m gonna tell stories, and chase this art form’s challenges instead of torching it because success came too easy. I’m going to embrace being boring. Goodnight, Loyal. I’m glad we’re friends.”
Andi stood walked to the edge of the roof, and stepped off. Loyal jumped, running to toward her. She seemed to float. As he got closer he realized she was now standing on a flat spot on the building’s marquis. She stepped onto the scissor lift that was being used to change the coming attractions. The operator lowered her down to street level without any words being exchanged, as if it was all choreographed in advance. Andi Quiim glided down the street leaving Loyal to smile to himself. He hoped he would see her again.
Wow. That’s it. Thanks so much for reading. I really enjoyed writing this. It was amazing self indulgent, I hope in a good way. What will I share next Wednesday? Check back and find out (That’s Fuck Around and Find Out’s less sexy cousin).
If you wan to get back Chapter 1 where it all started, here ya go:
