. . .for my blogging today. Bill posed the following writing prompt: OK, here's something new and fun. All you lit people - feel free to comment. The task was simple: "You are a comedian having a great night on stage, except for a heckler in the audience. You finish your set, and come down only to meet the heckler, and you realize it's (person you know)" Limit 500 words. write the scene.
Bill created a clever and realistic response to the prompt. I decided to do one too.
It was my first night back from what had been a successful trip to Vegas. “Trip” may be the wrong word. Heck, I lived there for over a year, making money by making people laugh. But you need to come home every now and again, and so I was back on the gin and sweat stained stage where I had gotten my start. All my old time audience was there, waiting for that first joke, the one I started every show with. It was part of my schtick. Hey, it was a pretty bad joke, but the hometown audience always shouted back the right response.
Up came the lights. There was applause. Lots of applause. Man, they were glad I was back. I waited for it to wane, then I grinned, stuck out my arms with my hands palms up, and said, “Hey, why’s it so bad if your arms fall off?” And before my loyal audience could shout back, “Because you can’t pick them up!” some moron toward the back of the room called out, and I mean loud, “Not this tired joke again!”
Well, the audience booed the idiot, but I knew he didn’t care, because I knew who the idiot was. It was Timmy Tuberville, heckler extraordinaire, who I had known since we were in 3rd grade together. Timmy heckled everybody. I mean he heckled our Spanish teacher when she was doing the oral part on the regents. When we played basketball together he heckled the coach--our coach! Timmy would heckle at an autopsy. While happily in Vega, I had forgotten about Timmy.
It went on through my entire set. Of course, the crowd was annoyed, but Timmy had no pride. He lived to heckle, and heckle me he did. About halfway through, I decided to get back at Timmy Tuberville, and to do that, I decided not to do one of my routines, one that involved a prop I had in my pocket.
When I finished, I went to Timmy’s table. He was sitting there, dopey grin on his face, waiting for me. “Hey, Timmy,” I said when I got to him.
“Hey, Artie,” Timmy grinned. “I gotcha didn’t I?”
“Yeh, you got me.”
“How about when you were doin’ that friggin’ farmer’s daughter story. and I started to moo. I gotcha, huh!”
I nodded.
“And when you told that lame sailor story, and I did the friggin’ foghorn. Gotcha!”
That’s when I took the starter’s pistol from my pocket. It’s part of a gun control parody I do, and it looks real. I held it right up to Timmy’s chest, and he went all white. “Don’t you know where I been, Timmy?” I asked.
“Vegas!” he squeaked.
“That was my cover. I been in a friggin’ lunatic asylum.” Then I pulled the trigger. I use 38 caliber blanks. Talk about a boom! Timmy wet his pants.
With the entire audience looking at us, I grinned at Timmy. “Gotcha!” I said.
(496 words)
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