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To Richie Tozier, fear had always been a feeling that led him around by the fucking nose. His palms were sweaty, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead, the shot glass in his hand that’s already been emptied two, no, three times now, something he was staring into in hopes the liquid courage he’d relied on for the better half of his career would kick in before he got onstage. He cursed himself under his breath, his phone buzzing in his pocket with messages of encouragement from the only people who actually fucking cared about him and were “”coincidentally”” sitting in the front fucking row.
Bile burned at the back of his throat, the whiskey already leaving it feeling raw and tender. He reached into his pocket, desperate to see something, anything that could make him feel like he deserved to be in front of that crowd who was there to see a version of himself he didn’t even know. The Richie Tozier who loved jacking off to porn of women with big tits, the one who had a steady girlfriend but still refused to marry her, probably a playboy who gets a lot of ass on the side. Why did they like someone like that? In so many ways, Richie’s onstage persona disgusted him, but a dark part of him wondered if that mask was all that different from the one he was always wearing.
Richie’s phone lit up his face, forcing a wince as it broke him out of his self deprecation cave.
Bill Denbrough Break a leg, Rich. You deserve this more than anyone I know. Love you, man.
Beverly Marsh We’re here for you, Richie! You’ve got this. Love you!!
Ben Hanscom Richie, I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through this year, but this is your moment and you’ll kill it more than you have any right to.
Mike Hanlon You’ve got this, Richie. If you get scared, just make fun of Bill or me. You get a free pass just this once.
Those fucking losers, now he has to throw up and cry. He shook his head and pocketed his phone, it was now or never. Stan, Eds, this one’s for you.
Knees weak, arms are heavy. There was definitely vomit on his sweater already, Eddie Spaghetti.
“And without further ado, please welcome onto the stage Richiiiie Tozier!” The announcer called his name and Richie had no other choice but to swallow all of the vomit and feelings he was having.
It was now or never.
‘You only get one shot.’ Eminem said in the back of Richie’s mind.
“Hey, hey everyone. Great to be here in uh, where the fuck are we? I have no idea I’ve been lit off my ass for an entire week because I’m so fucking nervous. What’s up?”
His loyal audience cheers for their false king and he can’t help but hate them a little.
“But I swear to fucking God, wherever the hell I am it is seriously great to be here. I got way too many free drinks at the bar last night from some of you, seriously, my new manager thinks I have a problem so uh… we might have to start having some kind of code word he doesn’t understand. Meet me in the bathroom after the show and we can figure something out.” He winked and pointed at the audience who cheered for him because they seriously just fucking loved him, couldn’t get enough of him. Wild.
He loved them so much.
“So you might be wondering… Why the fuck is Richie Tozier nervous? This son of a bitch has gone on stage and done an entire fucking bit about cheating on his girlfriend that she found out about one night while watching shitty Comedy Central standup reruns.” Richie started pacing, “What the fuck could he be nervous about? Well. There’s a couple of things.”
He looked deadpan at the audience. “Global Warming, North Korea, my Aunt Cheryl’s really obvious herpes on her lips every fucking time she kisses my face on Christmas.”
The audience cheered and Richie pretended to hide a pimple on his lip, “Don’t ask about that one, you do NOT want to see my search history. But uh, yeah those are some things that keep me up at night, sure. I’m just like you, a normal guy with a monster shlong, just like any other 12 inch dicked stud with a heart of gold and a full head of hair.”
“There’s uh, other shit though.”
“Shit that keeps me up at night and I have no idea how the fuck to live with myself. You know, that one time some old lady opened the door on me when I was in the middle of a particularly painful shit so my face was all scrunched up like,” he made an ugly face and the audience gasped, “and I didn’t know what to say, right? So I just screamed, “WELL LIGHT MY ASS ON FIRE, DADDY!” to scare her away and let’s just say that worked a little too fucking well and now I’m not allowed back at Chili’s. I’m like Pam from the Office but hotter.”
A couple of people hoot and hollered at him, to which he dismissed with a wave, “Thank you, thank you. I haven’t owned a mirror in ten years just so I could make that joke. But uh, I did wanna talk about something kinda serious.”
“As some of you may have heard this tour is different. I’ve changed management and moved to LA recently. I’ve been working with my pal in the front row there, Bill Denbrough, on some script stuff recently and we have some shitty buddy cop mystery movie coming out next year.” The audience cheered way louder than they had any right to.
“Yeah, yeah, no need to suck my dick just yet, trust me it’s mostly him.” He looked around acting sneaky, “I did all of you a favor and wrote the ending, though.” The audience roared, Bill yelled “Fuck you!”, everything went exactly the way he wanted.
“Thank you, thank you, yeah Bill fuck you, too. Bill is really something, did you know he and I grew up together? It’s fucked up. I actually repressed a ton of that shit until semi-recently but now that I remember it all it made me realize, I had some really amazing fucking friends growing up and I just… forgot.”
The audience was obedient, knowing Richie was going to talk to them for once, something they weren’t used to but they were willing to give him a chance.
“I’m surprised I have any friends at all considering you’re looking at a post,” he turns to look at the back of the audience and deadpan says “The Piss Incident” he resumes his casual stance. “Richie. You might be wondering, Richie, what’s…” He turns to the back of the audience and deadpan says, “The Piss Incident” again. “Well, I’m glad you asked. Remember good old Aunt Cheryl? Well I fucking knew she had herpes, right? So I’m googling how the fuck to deal with herpes and I end up on this crazy conspiracy website and of course it’s 2 in the fucking morning and I’m a little lit at this point because of fucking course I am, who wouldn’t be after reading every Web MD article about herpes, cancer, and the bubonic plague for some reason and this conspiracy website, the only thing giving me hope at this fucking point in the night, is telling me that I need piss. And not just any piss, I need the perfect PISS from a healthy person who eats plants and shit and when their piss comes out it’s not that shitty dark yellow that screams, this guy’s just fucking aching to piss out a kidney stone through his larger than average urethra.”
Richie adjusted his mic, his audience did everything he wanted them to. It was just him and them and they were just getting warmed up.
“So, in my hour of desperation, I open up my fucking facebook being the fucking genius I am make this stupid ass post because I’m one desperate motherfucker. It went something like this.”
The screen behind him lit up with an awkward headshot of Richie, the post behind him reading: “I NEED YOUR PISS! Hey guys, I think my aunt with the fucking herpes kissed me on the mouth after drinking one too many margarita mixes from costco and now ive contracted herpes. I need someone with piss that comes out at exactly 69 degrees (nice) to come piss NEAR my mouth but not in. Read more…” and the whole audience clapped, cheered, someone even yelled “NICE!”
“So I’d like to follow that up by saying, I’m no longer looking for piss, but thank you.”
People whistled, a guy still offered him some. Richie shook his head and even joined in on the laughter for a moment, until he regained his bearings. The audience followed his lead, quieting down when he put his arm up.
“Now, this is the only website my mom knows how to use.”
The audience howled for that relatable content.
“So you know the first thing I have all over my phone in the morning are a thousand messages saying shit like,” his eyes bugged out and he clearly started doing his mom,
“RICHARD!!!! CALL ME!!!”
“Richard, I’m not mad. CALL ME.”
“RICHARD, YOU MADE YOUR AUNT CHERYL CRY, SHE DOES NOT HAVE HERPES!! IT’S JUST A PIMPLE!!”
“RICHARD! WHY?? WHY WOULD YOU POST THAT ON FACEBOOK??”
He stopped doing the bit, changing his expression.
“And I get one single text message from my dad. It just says.
“Do you need my pee, son?”
He finished the bit, the audience cheered, everyone seemed to be in good spirits.
“Thank you, thank you. I can’t tell you how awkward that made Christmas morning when I saw a bottle shaped wrapped gift under the tree.” He smiled and held the mic up, “Is it… is it piss, dad??” He waved his hand and ended the bit, “So yeah, basically, I’m locked out of my Facebook account for a while and it’s about fucking time I have to pay for my many, many piss related crimes. Enough about piss, enough about piss. My mom begged me not to tell that story,” he laughed and shook his head. Richie moved his mic over, took a good look at his audience and relaxed his shoulders.
“But yeah, I’m really fortunate to still have friends after everyone in my fucking personal life had to witness the piss incident. These guys would give me their piss in a heartbeat, too.” Bev screamed, “Beep beep, Richie!” “Bev, please, I’m onstage I can’t take that kind of abuse right now.” He laughed at a joke only the seven of them… five of them understood and remembered why he was standing right here with his friends in the front row.
“Back when I was a kid, I was such a piece of shit, you know. I just rode my bike around and made jokes about my friend’s moms, sometimes about how they were all virgins and I, the hottest of them all, obviously wasn’t.” The screen behind him lit up with a really horrible photo of him as a kid with his thick glasses, buck teeth, and very embarrassing Teenage Mutant NNinja Turtles pajamas and a bucket on his head.
“Does that look like a virgin to you?” He pointed and the audience joined in, laughing at young Richie. Richie looked at his younger self fondly for the first time in his life. “Yes, I’ve always looked just like Tom Cruise, and yes, I’ve always been a total ladykiller.”
Some women in the audience cheered at him, his heart rate quickened but not for the reason they expected.
“My uh… first girlfriend. Her name was Sonia K.” The losers all shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. “Mrs. K had it going on. She loved hot dogs and hot dogs loved her, she loved locking her son in his room and not letting him come outside to play, I loved breaking him out of the house and returning him home before she noticed. It was like a game of cat and mouse she didn’t know we were playing.” Richie paced a little, adjusted his glasses and continued.
“She was a real piece of work and uh… I felt really bad for her kid. Her kid’s name was Eddie. He was my best friend and uh the first person I ever actually had a crush on.”
The audience went completely silent, the weight in the room tangible.
“He was always really fucking brave and owned multiple fanny packs. I’ll never forget the way he yelled at me to get him his bifocals when he was 14 fucking years old like he was some kind of 80 year old man in a kid’s body.” The audience was still looking around awkwardly.
“You know, I knew him my whole life and I never once told him I liked him. I just carved our initials on a bridge after he fucking died in my arms very dramatically and I’m still sorting all of that out in therapy, but, don’t worry about me, I have more things to worry about now. Like… Coming out in front of a live audience and not puking my guts out on the entire front row.”
Silence.
“Does anyone remember Shamu? Get ready first row, welcome to Seaworld.”
The Losers all held up hearts with their hands, slowly raising them to Richie. He looked sideways at them, their presence giving him strength.
“I was kind of hoping that coming out would be a lot easier but then I remembered that you have to be hot or good at fashion to be a gay comedian, or both. I’m just… hairy and sometimes I still wear hawaiian shirts.”
The audience was uncomfortable and they didn’t try to hide it.
“I think my old manager didn’t want me talking about being gay because I talk about my dick too much and people don’t wanna hear about gay dicks unless you’re watching Game of Thrones and you don’t have to really look at them, meanwhile there’s not a single day goes by you can unsee Hodor’s dick. Do you ever think about that? The whole world has seen that man’s dick and fuck, it was almost as big as mine.”
The audience offered a bit more of a reaction than they had for the past few minutes but nowhere near as before.
“I actually ran into him at a party and he…”
Richie trailed off, reading the audience’s reaction and changing his stance.
“About a year ago, I was doing one of my most successful shows. It aired on Comedy Central and my whole family watched it and asked why they hadn’t met my girlfriend that I had been somehow hiding from them for ten years and I told them she lived in a bubble and even had a friend photoshop some shutterstock model into a bubble. At the beginning of that show which, you wouldn’t know unless you were there, I forgot one of the jokes and this guy yelled “You suck!” and I couldn’t fucking agree more. I really did fucking suck. Who the fuck was I?”
He paced to the other side of the stage, “I’ve never had a girlfriend, I’ve never fucking wanted one. She was all made up by some writer I’ve never met who, I thought was just okay but my manager said “hey, sex sells.” Being gay was too political, he said, I couldn’t politicize my sexuality or I’d have a smaller audience pool and my mainstream appeal would shoot the fuck down like the president’s approval ratings one month in.” He smirked, getting political because he didn’t give a single shit anymore.
“But you know what?”
“This is me. I’m Richie Tozier, and this is really who I fucking am. Sorry it took so damn long for me to stop being such a fucking coward, Eddie. This one’s for you. You, too Stan, you were the fucking best, both of you.” He looked like he was about to cry.
He kissed his fingers and held them up, the losers applauded and stood up immediately. They all did the same thing, kissing their fingers and holding them up to Eddie, to Stan. The audience watched them do this, some of them rising to do the same as the entire auditorium filled with clapping, the audience slowly joining until the entire room was giving him a standing ovation.
Tears were rolling down his face, the acceptance melting the pain that had been forming around his heart since the first time he noticed how much he liked seeing Eddie in short shorts and the shame had welled up in the pit of his stomach. It was burning down now, the institution of shame that had been built by none other than himself.
“Thank you, everyone! Fucking, thank you! I fucking love all of you! Even you, Bill.”
He could hear it in his voice now, loud and clear.
“That’s all you had to fucking say, asshole. This whole time. You’re such an idiot, dickweed. Now stop making fun of my mom and kiss me.”
Okay, maybe Eddie wouldn’t have said that part, but a guy could dream. Richie looked up at the lights, the cheers all around him turning into a voice he couldn’t drown out.
I’ve lived my whole life afraid. Afraid of what would come next.
Afraid of what I might leave behind.
Don’t be.
Be who you want to be.
Be proud.
And if you find someone worth holding on to, never, ever, let them go.
Follow your own path, wherever that takes you.
Think of this letter as a promise.
A promise I’m asking you to make.
To me.
To each other.
An oath.
Just like the scars on their hands, the scars on Richie’s heart felt like they could finally begin to heal.