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Richie takes a deep breath and walks on stage, smiling wide and waving at the cheering audience.
“Hey guys, it’s so great to be here! Thank you so much for coming!”
As the cheers die down, he takes a sip of water and begins. “So, my girlfriend caught me masturbating to her friend’s facebook page, and uh, so now I’m in masturbators anonymous…” He trails off and grins at the crowds perplexed faces.
“Nah I’m just kidding,” he grins, “I think that joke is retired for good.” As the crowd lets out a few scattered chuckles, he looks down for a moment, takes a steadying breath, then raises his eyes to meet the audience.
“If you guys don’t mind, I’m actually gonna start the show off on a more serious note… I’m sure you all remember my little breakdown last year where I forgot my name and ran off stage…” There’s a murmur from the crowd, and Richie pushes on.
“Yeah, that wasn’t really a highlight of my career,” he grimaces, “But I’d like to explain, I think all you lovely fans who have continued to support me after that incident deserve that. So, the truth is, a year ago I’d been in a bit of a rut for a while. I’d lost my passion for life, and I was still doing comedy because I felt stuck in it. I was hiring ghost writers to write crude jokes about girlfriends I didn’t have, because I thought that’s what you guys wanted to hear.” Richie peers into the crowd nervously. The audience looks attentive, they weren’t expecting to get a vulnerable performance tonight.
“So that day,” Richie went on, “Immediately before I went on stage, I got a call…”, he takes another deep breath, “That one of my childhood friends had killed himself.” A few people in the crowd let out gasps, and Richie can feel the tension in the room.
“I know, pretty horrific news, right? So, I get this call, I go puke over the side of the balcony, I come inside and take a shot of whisky, then I walk out on stage, and my mind is blank,” he explains.
“Well, it’s not exactly blank but, it’s not filled with my set, it’s filled with…” he pauses for a moment before finishing decidedly, “Childhood memories and overwhelming sadness.”
He purses his lips before continuing, “So, I consequently bomb the set and take the next flight out to Maine, anybody else here from Maine?” A couple of cheers ring out from near the back row, but the majority of the room is silent.
“Only a couple, as I expected, terrible place to grow up really, nothing to do other than run away from bullies,” he sighs. “Nonetheless, growing up I had this great group of friends, the seven of us called ourselves the ‘Losers Club’, with a capital L.” He lets out a grin, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, you know?” The audience laughs, and so he continues.
“Last year the six of us remaining Losers met up in Maine to mourn the death of our good friend Stan. And when I tell you it was an awful and terrifying week, I’m not kidding. Seriously guys, I know this is a comedy show, but this is about to take an even darker turn than it already has.” Richie pauses and looks out to the crowd. They look scared, so Richie begins on a lighter tone.
“To set the scene though, one of these Losers, the one that would have been considered my ‘best friend’ growing up, I had a massive, heart-wrenching crush on, right from the day we met.” He smiles sweetly as he says it, and he can see some faces in the crowd smiling too. Richie talked constantly about relationships in his sets, but mentioning feelings was new territory.
“It was honestly love at first sight, eight-year-old Richie went yep, that one right there, that’s the one for me!” He mimes a pointing motion and the crowd chuckles, “So, I did what any immature boy with a crush would do, I annoyed the shit out of my best friend.” The crowd erupts into laughter and he relishes the reaction before continuing.
“Constantly, every day, I just needed to be the focus of attention, you know? God, I don’t even know how the others put up with me.” He feigns exasperation then shakes his head.
“And as much as I tried, I could never ever get over this crush. Nope, not until we finished high school and I moved out of Maine. We eventually fell out of touch over the years, and my best friend even got married to somebody else.” There are some somber aww’s from the audience.
Richie nods and agrees, “Yes it’s all very sad. But lo and behold, when I walk into the reunion room last year and set eyes on my best friend, you better believe that all the feelings came rushing back. I was a lovesick teenager all over again”. He grins at the audience, then takes a moment to let out a deep sigh before he continues towards heavier content.
“I didn’t have a chance to focus too much on it though,” he explains, “Not only because of our friend’s recent death, but also because coincidentally just hours before we arrived back home, our old school bully who turned out to be a psycho murderer had broken out of a nearby prison.”
Richie doesn’t look at the crowd, who had now become deadly quiet, as he emphatically states, “Yes, he attacked us, and yes, my best friend got stabbed in the face… right through the fucking cheek!”
He lifts his eyes and smirks, “Didn’t expect that story from a comedy show huh? But wait! There’s more!” He can see the horror in the crowd’s eyes, but he pushes on with his explanation.
“Also that week, we got into a horrific accident, and my best friend gets impaled, full on impaled, right through the fucking torso… some fucking week, eh?” He sighs again, before returning to the story.
“Of course, we were all rushed to the hospital, but our poor impaled friend was pronounced dead.” There are several gasps from the crowd, and Richie can tell that somebody in the front row is crying.
“As you can imagine,” he proceeds in a hollow voice, “I was very broken up… I had just lost the love of my life after fighting a killer and losing a childhood friend. Honestly, I kind of blacked out for a few hours.” He closes his eyes for a second, and it’s clear he’s trying to hold back tears. He lets out a small sniffle and smiles.
“Luckily, I woke up to some surgeon informing us that our friend had somehow been saved in surgery, and had since been transferred to the ICU.” The crowd begins to clap as Richie’s smile grows.
“I can’t even tell you how relieved I was, I think I blacked out again out of pure happiness to be honest…” He lets out a chuckle and then pauses for a moment. The audience is fully attentive, at their edge of their seats for the rest of the story.
“That day, I decided that life is too short. I hadn’t survived that horrible, horrible week to just go back to the life I was living beforehand,” he states. “I started going to therapy religiously, cause what else are you supposed to do after an experience like that…” he rolls his eyes as he says it and a couple people laugh quietly.
“I also fired my ghostwriters, and as you can probably tell, all my material is now written by yours truly.” He gives a wide smile, and the audience claps loudly.
“Yes, thank you!” he says, “And it feels good to be doing this again from the heart, doing it because I want to be, and not because I feel like I have to.” As the audience continues to clap for him, Richie puts on a smirk.
“Now you guys are probably thinking, you survived fighting a psycho killer and watching the love of your life die, and all you decided to do was write your own material? What’s wrong with you?” Laughter fills the room and Richie smiles again, looking content.
“Well don’t worry,” he assures the audience, “I also, very romantically I might add, professed my love to my best friend.” The crowd reacts loudly, and he waits for the cheers to die down before he finishes, “And one year later… we’re married!” The sound in the room is almost deafening, and Richie beams at the crowd.
“Thank you, thank you so much! I’m so happy, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Not to be too sappy but I honestly think we’re soulmates, I’m the luckiest man in the world.” Richie’s smile only widens as the crowd continues to cheer.
“Thank you, thank you! I thought I’d finish off this story with some pictures, if anything just to prove I didn’t make this whole thing up,” he chuckles. A picture appears on the backdrop. It shows seven children, six boys and a girl all around 13 years old, posing with their arms around each other in front of a body of water.
“So, here’s a picture of the seven original losers, we were in middle school at the time, hanging out at the quarry which was our favourite place to be in the summer.” An arm sticks out from the wings to hand Richie a laser pointer, and he points it towards a curly-haired blond boy in the top left corner.
“That cute one right there is Stan. Sadly, as I mentioned already, he’s no longer with us.” The crowd aww’s, and Richie momentarily gives a sad smile, “He was a really great friend, I miss him a lot.” After a deep breath, he moves the pointer over to a gangly-looking boy with dark curls in the bottom right corner. The boy has his arm placed tightly around a smaller boy beside him, and his face is lit up in laughter while the smaller boy wears a pout.
“This dopey looking one here is me, I bet you’re not surprised” he chuckles. The audience laughs along with him, enjoying the transparency.
“As you can see, I’m in my natural habitat…” he continues slowly, his face showing the slightest amount of fear. He again takes a deep breath, then clarifies, “Annoying the shit out of my best friend… little Eddie Kaspbrak.”
It takes a second for the admission to sink in, but then the crowd is cheering and whistling, and Richie looks elated and relieved. He smiles brightly to the audience, then turns to face the screen, which is now showing a picture of five adults posing half-heartedly around the hospital bed of a man looking to be in very bad shape.
“The next picture is the six of us remaining losers at the hospital. Eddie is in the bed covered in bandages post-surgical reincarnation, but as always he’s looking as cute as ever,” Richie says with a grin.
“The last picture I have for you is this one,” he begins, as the screen switches to a close-up picture of Richie Tozier and the man in the hospital bed. They’re dressed in black tuxedos, and both men are beaming as Richie plants a hard kiss on the other man’s cheek. The crowd again begins to cheer, and Richie smiles brightly as he explains, “As you can probably guess, this is us on our wedding day.” The cheers get louder and Richie wipes a tear from his eye.
“Thank you thank you! Happiest day of my life, honestly.” He allows the cheers to die down before continuing with his set. He now looks visibly relaxed, and he dives into his first bit with newfound confidence.
“Now I can guess what you’re all thinking right now,” he starts, smirking as he continues, “That guy… is… gay? Him? The one who always looks homeless?” The audience lets out a large laugh.
“And yeah, I don’t know what to tell you guys, I really got the worst end of the gay stick!” He feigns exasperation before proceeding, “I don’t know how to take care of myself at all. My husband is always getting after me for things I didn’t even know I was supposed to do! ‘Why didn’t you fold your socks Richie? Why don’t we have any Advil in the house Richie? Why haven’t you washed your hair in a week Richie?’ I mean, come on man, I can’t be expected to be a fully functioning adult, I’m only 41!” he declares, grinning at the sustained laughs coming from the crowd.
“It’s certainly a culture shock living with a neat-freak, but you know what,” he beams, “He’s my neat freak now.”
The rest of the set goes as planned. Not all of his content is centered around Eddie, but an awful lot of it is, and of course the show ends with a mention of Richie’s husband.
“Thank you all so much for coming out tonight! I really appreciate you giving me another chance after that fiasco of a show last year,” he says to the crowd, “And thank you for letting me come out tonight as well, fantastic reaction to that by the way!” He laughs as the crowd gives another loud cheer. Richie smiles brightly, “thank you guys for listening to my insane story, and for supporting me throughout my hiatus last year, it means a lot.”
He smirks as he delivers his last line, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go make sweet love to my husband in our hotel room, goodnight everyone!” Richie waves to the crowd and makes his way off-stage amid the deafening cheers.
After exchanging a hug and a high-five with his manager and publicist, he makes a beeline to Eddie, and they end the night the way they end every night. In love, together.