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Good evening, Radio City, and welcome to Chapter 2: What’s That Name! My name is Richie Tozier, and I am so glad to be here! Especially because, if any of you saw my last special, I nearly wasn’t!
That’s right, for all of you weird assholes who showed up to a comedy special called Chapter 2 without watching the first one, Serial Killers, Gay Awakenings, and Other Things Richie Tozier Forgot was not a joke! Most of the things in it were said in a joke-like fashion, but to be clear, the content was not a joke! I know it was discussed heavily in the reviews and on the internet, but no, really, if you look up my hometown of Derry, Maine, which I would not advise because it is horrific, I really was nearly the victim of a crazed serial killing spree twice, by the same serial killer, thirty years apart, because that is the kind of town that I am from. I have no idea why I went back in the first place.
Only I do know why! I totally know why, and so would you if you saw my first show, you fake fan, it’s because a friend of mine from childhood called me out of the blue and asked if I would come back to the child murder capital of the country for a quick reunion tour, and I said sure, you know, like an idiot, because I’m no longer a child and therefore not going to be child-murdered, right? Wrong, I’ve been called a child my entire adult life and Derry proved all those critics completely correct when it attempted to kill me for the second time at the tender age of 40.
None of that is actually important, though, because you can hear all about it in my first comedy special, which you should watch immediately after exiting this theater, you epic procrastinator. What I’m going to talk about today are the six best friends I reconnected with back in Derry.
You see, while I was getting all me-me-me in the first special— it was my coming out show, plus it was basically a thirty year therapy backlog that I just unloaded on my audience because that is what comedy is for actually— I left out the most important parts of the story. I left out my friends.
Oh, I name-dropped them, you all know them, they’re here tonight, I don’t think I could have told the story at all if I left them out completely, but I didn’t tell you their whole life stories in that show, because it was my time for my whole life story. That changes tonight.
Before we get into that, though, I need to tell you two things to set the scene.
First, I have a brief tangent. I want to take you all on a journey back ten years ago to when I was a moderately successful SNL cast member. You remember? Before I left because I wanted to spread my wings and fly and then immediately crashed and burned spectacularly and sold my soul to the most misogynistic ghostwriters money can buy because I was terrified of writing my own shit and accidentally toppling out of the nice safe repressed closet I’d been hiding in all my life. You with me? Great.
I was on SNL for a couple years, and while I was there I had a couple of minor hits, some recurring characters, my sketches were picked often enough to keep me on payroll, but the best thing I ever created was a game show called What’s That Name. It was hosted by a man named Vince Blight, played by me, who was an absolute psychopath, by the way, that was 100% on purpose, who would ask contestants about the names of various people in their lives— their wife’s bridesmaids, their summer interns, their housekeepers— and they would fail to guess them, and then I would humiliate them on camera until they cried. It was a great idea, and I had a lot of fun with it.
Tangent over, journey done, we’re back, and here is the second scene-setter that you are not going to believe, but I swear it’s true. You can look it up when you get home. There were articles written about it. I’ve given interviews, other people have given interviews, it’s a thing.
For thirty years of my life, up until almost exactly two summers ago, I had dissociative amnesia.
It’s true! The shit that happened to me in Derry— that happened to all of us, this was something that all of my friends experienced— was so god awful that I had a complete psychotic break and forgot most of my childhood for thirty years.
Oh, yes, yes, that sucks, it’s sad, moan moan, but it’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, it was bad, but we’ve worked a whole lot of shit out in the last few years, and I have a great therapist, and all of the memories that I was missing are back where they’re meant to be. The good, and the bad.
But that’s not the important part. You didn’t come here for a lecture on PTSD, you came here to laugh, people! So let’s laugh. Here’s the important part of my long-term amnesia: I forgot their names. My best friends, all six of them, from my childhood, I forgot all of their names, and I forgot that I knew them, and then I went to SNL and pitched a sketch where I repeatedly bullied people for forgetting names.
God, I am a genius.
Thank you, thank you, I know.
So here’s the thing. I want to talk to you about my best friends. They’re the best people I know, and they are also chock full of comedic potential. The thing is, every time I talk about them I get all choked up and emotional and it’s a whole thing. I wrote this entire show three times and every time I tried to perform it for an audience of, like, my writers’ room of comedy friends and also my agent, I would have a complete meltdown and someone would have to drive me home and put me to bed with a fuzzy blanket and some hot milk. I want to tell you about them! I want you to hear about these people! But I can’t talk about them, because otherwise you’ll have paid to watch a grown man cry on stage for an hour, and I don’t think you want that. If you do, may I recommend the YouTube video Richie Tozier Breakdown Comedy Club 2016. It’s a riot, if you are a very fucked up person.
So I decided, you know what, I can’t talk about this shit. Richie Tozier is not going to talk about this, because he can’t.
But you know who can?
[The lights go out, completely, for a solid thirty seconds, long enough for the crowd to start whispering. The lights come up on a completely new set. The backdrop is now a huge white screen, surrounded by old-fashioned bulb lights, with a sign at the top in red, green, and blue respectively, proclaiming WHAT’S THAT NAME? There is a podium in the middle of the stage.
Music starts, a manic sort of game-show soundtrack, and a voice proclaims, HELLO, AND WELCOME TO WHAT’S THAT NAME as Richie Tozier jogs out from backstage, in a… completely different suit? This one is maroon, with a cream colored shirt and an orange spotted tie. It’s hideous. His hair is now a honey brown, combed almost upsettingly flat, with an aggressive side part. He gets to the podium and shuffles a stack of cue cards in his hand as he grins maniacally at the audience. His eyes are completely flat and unmoving, almost dead, while his mouth makes exaggerated motions as he speaks.]
HELLO! And welcome to What’s That Name! I’m your host, Vince Blight. The rules are simple! We show you a person, you tell us their name. Our contestant today is Richie Tozier, who unfortunately is a pussy ass bitch who can’t be here right now, so you’ll have to stand in for him. Audience, it’s time to play What’s That Name!
For our first question, we’ll start with an easy one.
[The screen blinks, and a photograph appears, taken straight from a dust-jacket, with the beginning of an author’s biography blurred out at the bottom. The man in it is leaning on a porch railing with a vacant expression in his eyes as he gazes out at something beyond the camera’s sight. The house behind him is a large old stone building, and just beyond the edge of the porch where he stands are dark woods. He’s wearing a soft gray sweater and holding a book, with one hand tucked between the pages to save his place. The smile on his face is small, but seems peaceful.]
This is a world-renowned horror, supernatural fiction, science fiction, and fantasy author. He’s published thirty-two novels, and his books have sold over 100 million copies. He has helped write and produce four movie adaptations, and he has two more in the works.
Richie Tozier, when you were seven years old, you went to the playground and found a nerdy kid playing alone in the sandbox, and you got him to push you on the swing hard enough that you fell off, because you wanted to lose both of your front teeth at the same time like the kids in cartoons. He followed through, all the way, and then when you were on the ground bleeding and full of regrets instead of teeth, he told you that it would have been easier if you’d just used a thread and slammed a door, and then he swore up and down to your parents that it was all his fault. You decided that day to follow him around for the rest of your life, and you did!
When you were thirteen he punched you in the face, even though you were a scrawny little asshole with the biggest coke bottle glasses known to man, and you apologized to him. This motherfucker was a foot taller than you and gave you a black eye, and you told him sorry! And you were right to! You deserved it!
You literally jumped off of a cliff because he said it was a good idea. There was water at the bottom of that cliff, but you would have jumped even if there wasn’t.
He got you trapped in the same house as a serial killer, three times. The first time, someone broke their arm and you punched him in the face for it. The second time, you got waterboarded by a clown. The third time was thirty years later and you got a knife in your arm. But you still went back! Three times you went! And you know what? You’d do it again! Fuck that guy, fuck that clown, fuck that knife, but if he asked, you’d still go!
He had a stutter for twelve years so you made a million jokes about the size of his dick. If you were to be believed, he was packing anywhere between a thumbtack and a baseball bat at any given moment, and it often changed by the second.
He was definitely your gay awakening at the tender age of seven, which is glaringly obvious in hindsight, and also probably in sight-sight, for anyone other than a closeted moron with a blind spot a mile wide. You were obsessed. You used to watch his face during movies and try to put together what was going on based on the expressions he made, and you thought that was a normal thing to do.
You got to read the first story he ever wrote. He was seven and a half and you made fun of the way he spelled the whole time, lisping like a jackass through your missing front teeth, and he said that one day he’d show you, and BY GOD HE DID.
Audience! What’s That Name!
[The audience cheers, and a resounding William Denbrough! can be heard throughout the theater.]
Wrong! This is Big Bill or Billiam, no Williams allowed. Who the fuck is William Denbrough?
That’s right, Richie, you called your best friend Big Bill for thirteen years, and you still didn’t figure out you were gay until your forties! What the fuck! How lame are you!
[The image on the screen changes. A tiny Richie Tozier, nine or ten at most, and recognizable more because of his glasses and his eye-searingly orange shirt than any defining facial features, hangs off of the arm of a tall blond boy with extremely neat combed hair and a white button up. Bill is making eye contact with the camera, rolling his eyes with a fond smile, shoving at Richie with the hand that hasn’t been trapped in Richie’s aggressive embrace. Behind them the path ends with a steep drop, and the sky is open and a brilliant blue. Richie is staring up at Bill with an expression that, for the audience of hindsight, is completely besotted.]
That bitch thought that shit was completely platonic! Look at him! What the fuck, Richie? What is wrong with you? Your first love, your best friend, your gay awakening, and you couldn’t even remember his name! Pathetic!
Bill, buddy, I may not be in love with you anymore, but I’m so proud of you, dude, and it’s not just because I’m taller than you are now.
Moving on! NEXT NAME!
[The next image has clearly been taken from a magazine spread. There’s a photo credit in the corner that’s been blurred out. The woman at the center of the photo stands in front of a white background, against which the smooth, deep red waves of her hair shine. Her jumpsuit is white, with roses as red as her hair, and she is holding onto the heel of one of her red stilettos like she’s planning to pull it off and hurl it at the photographer. Her face is a calculated moue of disdain. She is instantly recognizable to anyone who is even slightly invested in fashion, or has glanced at a tabloid in the grocery store at any point over the last year.]
This is an internationally recognized fashion designer. She’s shown on runways in Paris, Milan, and New York, and been a stand-out guest at the Met Gala ten years running. She’s designed for movie stars, politicians, and nerdy, giraffe-sized comedians who never grew into their faces or bodies like all of their annoyingly hot friends and wear glasses so terrible that no one but an actual genius could possibly come up with an outfit to match.
She dressed you tonight, Richie, she is personally responsible for your clothes, Richie, she put the shirt that you are wearing on for you, Richie, because she is a goddamn professional who does not care that you were seconds away from puking on her lovely dress, she had a job to do and by god she did it, even if you haven’t done nearly enough to make her work shine, because you are a weird looking man who’s a six on his very best day.
You bummed your first cigarette off of her when you were both twelve, hiding behind the bleachers to get out of gym, and you only knew her by reputation at that point, but she was the coolest person you had ever seen, leaning on the support bars and smoking, and she didn’t say anything to you that day, but she nodded like a cool person nods and gave you a cigarette like you belonged there with her and you smoked together and you tried to play it cool, and then she left and you coughed so hard you thought you might actually vomit up your lungs, and your best friend— Bill, you remember Bill, Richie— had to come scrape you off of the ground and carry you home and your other best friend— we’ll get to him later— had to cuss you out for being so stupid, but you went back the next week, and again every time afterwards, until you stopped having gym together in the new year, because the cigarettes sucked a lot but she was everything you wanted to be when you grew up.
Your shitty fucking town told her that she should act more like a girl, so she cut her hair off and joined your gang of dumbass thirteen year old boys, and she had the biggest balls of any of you.
You made a joke about her time of the month once, and she dragged you by the hair over to the rest of the group and made you all sit through an hour of explanation about periods and menstrual products, and then she punched you in the stomach so that you would know what cramps felt like. You would die for her.
Once she took off all her clothes to go swimming with you and no one knew where to look and she called you all pussies and pushed you in the water first. You thought she might have known, even then, that you weren’t thinking the same thing as everyone else, and you are forever grateful that she didn’t point it out, because you had no idea how to deal with that on your own, let alone with other people.
She taught you to play poker, and then she took you for all you were worth— three dollars and fifty nine cents and your favorite Spider-Man comic— and then she took you to play against all of the rest of your friends, and you won it back with interest. They wouldn’t speak to you for a week, but the two of you bought ice cream and went to the movies every day that week without ever sneaking in the back, and you felt like a god.
This is the girl who you would fall in love with first, worst, and most ardently, if you could ever be in love with a girl. In fact, you fooled yourself into thinking that you were in love with her for so long because you loved her so much you couldn’t imagine that being in love could feel different. Sometimes you still can’t tell, and sometimes you can, but we’ll get to that later too.
AUDIENCE! WHAT’S! THAT! NAME!
[The audience is getting it now, and Beverly Marsh! is clearer than the William Denborough that came before.]
Beverly Marsh? Who the fuck is Beverly Marsh? Not Richie’s friend, that’s for damn sure. He is not famous enough to be friends with Beverly Marsh. That Name is Bev, and Bev is a mess, and a monster, and the coolest person alive, and has never once in her life willingly gone by Beverly, so get that shit straight.
[The image changes, leaving behind the polished, perfect magazine spread for an old smudged polaroid. There are grubby fingerprints on the edges, and the corners are ragged, as if it has been pinned and repinned over and over again by someone with no regard for the longevity of their things. Little Richie, still in the terrible glasses, but several years older, is pressed cheek to cheek with a girl who looks nothing like the Beverly Marsh from the magazine. Her hair is cut short and curling haphazardly in every direction, made rusty orange by the light and the lens quality, and her face is flecked with either freckles, dirt, or both. They both have scrunched noses and bared teeth, grinning and scowling in equal measure. His arm is draped across her shoulder, and her hand is clenched in his hair, and they are wild things, together in the sun.]
Give a standing ovation, folks, for the most beautiful woman on the planet. You were a shining star when we were kids, Bev, and now you’re a supernova.
Moving on! NEXT NAME!
[The new image is also from a professional magazine spread, but instead of a fashion plate it’s clearly some business publication. The background is a high-rise office, walls of windows letting in sunlight, and most of the photograph is taken up with the profile of a man, leaning over a table covered in a three-dimensional model of something that looks, from the corner that can be seen, like a park. He’s dressed in an immaculately tailored navy blue suit that some might recognize from the Beverly Marsh Fall 2018 Collection, and though his eyes are intent on the model before him, the camera has caught the hint of a smile, which transforms the whole photograph from serious to light. He would be handsome at any angle, but here, in his element, he’s almost otherworldly.]
This is a world famous architect, the 2017 winner of the Pritzker Prize— which I had to look up how to say, what the hell, architect people— and runner up for GQ’s Handsomest Man Of The Year three years in a row. He’s made a name for himself in revolutionary corporate architecture that takes the mental health of its occupants into consideration, and his firm was one of the trailblazers in sustainable design.
Richie, you met this man when he was but a boy with big dreams and a bigger New Kids On The Block tape collection. He was the fresh meat in your school, and you thought he looked so shy and scared that he wouldn’t even be worth bullying, but the first time you made a joke about him he looked you right in the eye and said, “That wasn’t even very funny,” and he was right.
He was a pudgy kid with the world’s roundest face and most earnest expression, with the soul of a poet and the comeback speed of a professional comedian. In another world, he would have been your soulmate, Richie, but unfortunately he only ever had eyes for one person, for thirty whole years. Talk about soulmates, honestly. That never stopped you from crushing hard, though. He was so cute you wanted to just eat him up. Audience, if you think he’s hot now, you have no idea. Baby Richie was just surrounded by snacks and too closeted to do anything about it, and that was a crying shame.
You once tried to stitch up a cut on his stomach for him, even though no one in their right minds would trust you with anything medical, and he was with it enough to, very correctly, bitch you out until you stopped making it worse, which was a miracle at that age. Very few people could get you to quit once you’d decided on a path, but by god he managed it.
This boy built you and your friends a clubhouse, like, from scratch. You watched him dig a pit, and you thought he was insane. You watched him enlist everyone into hauling in trees from wherever they fell in the forest, because he was a tiny little environmentalist dictator at heart, even then, and you thought he was the second coming of Stalin. He disappeared for a full week in the summer, and you thought he might be dead, and you got so freaked out you climbed out of your window and broke into his house at two in the morning, and he threw a pillow at your head and made you sleep on the floor, and got you up stupid early to call your parents so they wouldn’t kill you, and then he made you pancakes and took you out to see the pit in the ground that he’d been working on all summer, and it wasn’t a pit, it was a home.
He’d built it in the ground, where it couldn’t be found unless you were looking for it, and he reinforced the walls and the ceiling with all the lumber you’d hauled, and he’d filled it with all of your favorite things— hammocks and comic books and a neat paddle ball that some jackass broke five minutes after he found it— but we’ll get to him later.
This boy, this man, met a motley group of assholes and two months later he’d made them a space that felt safe for the first time in their sorry lives. Every single one of them spent months, and years, running to that pit in the ground, that remarkable little clubhouse, that safe space away from all of the bullshit. It saved them from bullies, it protected them from the wrath of angry parents, it was even a refuge from a serial killer, once upon a time. It looked like shit, but by god, it held up. To this day, it’s still standing, which should be its own architecture award. Built Something At Age Thirteen That Still Held Up To Seven Adults Stomping Around Thirty Years Later Award, or whatever.
Audience! What’s That Name?
[The audience roars Benjamin Hanscom, in near-perfect unison, and then falls into anticipatory silence immediately, to listen to Vince Blight heckle them. He does not disappoint.]
Absolutely not! Get your shit together, audience, you’re playing for Richie here, and he needs this. This is Ben Handsome, or Handsome Ben, if you want to be formal about it. Give him a cheer, audience, it makes him blush.
[As the audience cheers, the picture changes. The photograph is old, but obviously well-cared for, sitting behind a plastic covering in an album. Little Richie is sitting on a wall, swinging his legs, clearly in mid-gesture, with his hands a blur. He’s about the same age as he was in Bev’s photo, with his ever-present thick glasses, and a hideous Hawaiian shirt several sizes too large draped over his skinny frame. Leaning on the wall next to him, making eye contact with the camera with a bright smile, is a young Ben, who has a round, expressive face and looks much happier than he did in the professional photograph. A pair of chunky headphones are draped over his neck, and the knees of his jeans are dirty. He’s got a hand on Richie’s ankle, clearly in an attempt to not be kicked in the head, but despite the present danger he looks completely comfortable.]
Isn’t he the cutest thing you ever did see, audience? Don’t you just want to eat him up?
Ben, if you and Bev ever decide that that big beautiful house of yours is too lonely, just know, I am ready to move in at any point. Just say the word, or don’t even say the word, I know it, I’ve got my bags packed already, I’ll be there tonight.
Moving on! NEXT NAME.
[The photograph on the screen changes to a tall, handsome black man with a coconut in one hand, making a peace sign with the other, beaming at the camera so hard his eyes are squeezed almost entirely shut. He has dimples, and it is profoundly unfair. He isn’t wearing a shirt, and he has an improbable number of abs, accentuated by a pair of deep orange trunks, almost exactly the same shade as Vince Blight’s tie, but on him the color looks incredible. His teeth are exactly the same shade of pure white as the beach sand around him, and in the background is an ocean so brilliantly blue it can only be somewhere intensely tropical. It has the feeling of a picture that should be made with a million filters and also perhaps some CGI, but anyone who follows this man on Instagram would know that he would never, which is more unfair than anything else. While his face hasn’t appeared in magazines or book jackets, his account is popular enough that a decent portion of the audience has some familiarity with it.]
Audience, let’s take a moment of silence for this man.
No, he’s not dead, he’s just so perfect that I thought you should get a chance to look at him more, without me yammering in the background.
He’s got one of the most popular travel blogs out there, and an instagram with pictures that would make a dead lesbian nun wake up and take notice. He’s known as the Hot Librarian, and is famous for his in depth approaches to exploring other places, including a staggering amount of background knowledge that he apparently carries around in his back pocket. He was a librarian in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere— Derry, Maine, the Child Murder Capital of the World, audience, you know, you might have heard of it at some point— and then one day he decided enough was enough, and packed up and went on the road, where he shares his experiences and what can only be described as genuine, honest delight at everything he sees with the whole world.
Trashmouth, this is the man who stayed. This is the loyalest motherfucker you’ve got. This is the person you want in your corner when every chip is down, and a serial killer with a vendetta is after you. You met this man during a rock fight, and that has been a hallmark of your relationship ever since. He’s the most violent pacifist in the world. He’s a criminal, he’s a saint, he once secretly drugged you and your friends and made you trip in ways none of the shit you’ve taken in Hollywood has ever managed, and somehow he came out of that the good guy.
The first time you met him, he showed up like an avenging angel and saved everyone you loved from a man who would be arrested for first degree murder in two months. He lived in a town that was as racist as it was homophobic, and he walked with his head high through those streets, and fought the people who dared to say anything about his family, because he knows what is right and good, and he will always defend it to the end. If knights were still a thing, he’d be knighted. He should still be knighted. The Queen can make an exception.
When you were kids, he took you to his family’s sheep farm and you watched him as he butchered an entire lamb, and you felt things you have never felt before. You still haven’t completely unpacked what he awakened in you that day, and you probably never will, but it really came down to crazy amounts of competence, and how nice some people look in leather.
Once, you tripped, and he picked you fully up and put you back on your feet and you couldn’t speak to him without blushing for three days straight.
He used to take the most beautiful pictures of all of you, together and separately. He’s the only reason you still have pictures today, and you are forever in his debt for being more careful and cautious than you have ever been.
He brought all of you back together, for better or worse. He made that first call, and he saved your lives. He was the only one who never forgot, and for that, for living with everything that you let go of, he deserves to eat the world raw, and he is.
Audience, what’s that name?
[The voices are less confident than they were at the beginning of this game. Some people shout Michael Hanlon, because they watched Richie’s first show, or they follow Mike on Instagram. Some people say Hot librarian, because they’ve seen him in Buzzfeed articles and YouTube compilations. Vince Blight shakes his head.]
Shameful, audience, just shameful. You’re all fired.
Just kidding, no one gets to leave. Ever.
This here is Mike for short, or Mikey for long, or Michelangelo for longer, because the man is a work of art, and he is the realest motherfucker ever to grow up in Maine.
[The picture changes. It becomes immediately clear that whoever was taking the pictures before is substantially better than whoever is taking this photograph. There are drops of water obscuring part of the lens, and it’s a stroke of sheer dumb luck that the two people at the center of the photo are relatively untouched. Mike is waist-deep in murky water, and Richie is braced on Mike’s shoulders, in the middle of a victory cheer. Mike is holding on to his legs with one hand, and punching the air with the other. They are both soaked to the bone and beaming in the sun. Richie is clearly seconds away from falling backwards off of his shoulders, and from the firm grip that Mike has on his legs, it seems as though he’ll take Mike down with him. The sky is a brilliant blue behind them.]
Mike, buddy, I owe you so much. May the turtle take and hold you, and I hope you always have a quiet plane ride, a comfortable seat, and a great Airbnb waiting for you when you arrive wherever you’re going.
BEFORE we move to the next name, audience, I want you to know something. Here’s where it’s going to get hard, so for any of you who have made the truly terrible mistake of being here without memorizing all of the details on Richie Tozier’s Wikipedia page, you can look in your program for help. Cheaters.
[There is a soft rustling of paper as programs are opened curiously, and then a buzz of delighted surprise— on the blank page inserted into the center of the program, in glow-in-the-dark letters that are only just visible in the dark of the theater, are six names.]
NOW! Moving on. NEXT NAME!
[The picture changes. A man with curly dark hair and a sour expression is glaring up at the camera, mouth half open, caught in the middle of a retort. This is the first image of an adult that isn’t from something commercially available— it’s blurred around the edges, the lighting is dim, and the background is obviously someone’s home. There is a puzzle on the table in front of the man, and two more framed on the wall behind him. His sweater has ducks on it, and even though his face is screwed up in a scowl, the lines around his eyes are clearly from laughter.]
This is the man behind the scenes, the puzzle behind the picture. He’s an accountant who manages the money of four, count ‘em, four high profile celebrities— guess which ones— and has not, at any point, been affiliated with the mob, which is something he made me add, due to the number of times it was insinuated during the last show. He also has a wonderful wife, who gave me express permission to make fun of her, but I would never, because she is a great person who doesn’t deserve it. Shout out to Patty, who puts up with too much shit.
Richard Tozier, this is your oldest friend. You rolled around in the backseat of your mom’s car together, because it was before seat belts were mandatory, and you played together every day after school until you were seven and met other people. Your parents went to the same synagogue, where his dad was your Rabbi.
When he had his bar mitzvah, which you avoided by virtue of being such a goddamn jackass that your parents decided it wasn’t worth the effort, he stood up in front of everybody you knew, and also his dad, and told them to fucking suck it, and you have never seen anybody that brave before, or since. You gave him a standing ovation, and you would again.
This boy was the person who taught you what the word nerd means, in the most affectionate sense. He used to name birds whenever you were pissing him off, because he knew it made you feel dumb, and he wanted you to feel dumb, because he was an asshole and also your closest friend and that was his job.
When you were five years old and he was four, you cried for three days straight because you had to go to kindergarten and he wasn’t old enough yet, and then he came to your house and kicked you in the shins and told you to shut up and leave already.
He waited outside the school every day to pick you up, and let you tell him all the dumb shit you’d done while you walked home, until he got to go to kindergarten too.
He was better than you at math, and you were better than him at English, and you did each other’s work for twelve years straight. He’s probably the reason that you failed out of college, because he wasn’t there to tell you the answers to the things you didn’t care about, but you’d forgotten his name by then, so you don’t get to use that as an excuse.
When you dragged him into that serial killer clown mess when you were kids, he told you he’d kill you, and when he got dragged into it again when he was an adult, he told you the same thing, and then he went ahead and saved your life, or at least the best part of it, anyway, because that’s what best friends do, but more on that later.
Audience? WHAT’S THAT NAME?
[The audience, united by their glow-in-the-dark program cheat sheets, shouts in unison, Stanley Uris, and then waits for Vince Blight’s retort with bated breath.]
ABSOLUTELY NOT, audience, you suck at this! That’s Stan the Man, Stanley Urine, the greatest birdwatcher to ever throw a nest at his best friend’s face!
[The screen changes to a picture of Stanley, much younger, with lighter hair and fewer wrinkles but the exact same expression of exhausted disdain on his face as he looks over at Richie. They’re both in the middle of a forest path, and Stan is standing firmly on the path while Richie, arms spread dramatically outward, is balancing on a fallen log. Stan is neatly dressed in jeans and a button-up shirt, while Richie’s violently orange overshirt is ripped and dirty, evidence of many failed attempts to stay on the log. Stan is holding up eight fingers to the camera, to immortalize exactly how many times Richie has fallen so far. From the looks of it, number nine is swiftly approaching.]
Everyone, give it up for Stanley, who is a normal person with a normal job with clients and a wife and a mortgage, and still gave me permission to talk shit about him to thousands of people. Stan, you’re still the little nerd I didn’t want to leave behind in kindergarten, and if I had a fraction less dignity, I would still cry every time you walked away.
Moving on. NEXT NAME!
[The picture on the screen is of a small man staring the camera down, or rather, up. The photographer is obviously taller than him, from the angle of the picture. He wears a neatly pressed button-up, and his hands are braced on his hips. He’s in the middle of rolling his eyes, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He is, in all respects, unremarkable. The background gives no hints to setting or personality— it’s a plain white wall with no visible features. There is something oddly compelling about the photograph, nonetheless. Something about the look in the man’s eyes, as he watches the person holding the camera, something about his reluctant little smile, that makes the photograph feel intimate, even without any context.]
Audience, I’m thrilled to announce that it’s here. We’ve reached it. It’s Later.
This is a risk analyst from New York who should have been a doctor, but wimped out of medical school.
Richie, this is it. This is the big one. For all the points, audience, you’re going to have to help Richie remember his name.
He was your third best friend, but your first everything else. Richie, you met him when you were seven, two weeks after you met Bill, because his mom had taken him out of school during flu season. He came back, socked you in the stomach, and asked why you were sitting in his seat and stealing his best friend. In hindsight, you were gone from the start.
You were infatuated with Bill, you thought Bev was the coolest person on earth, you thought Ben was adorable, you thought Mike was unfathomably hot, you thought Stan was the smartest person alive, but Richie, this was your firework moment, your supernova. You looked into his gigantic, mean doe eyes, and decided that this was it for you. You were seven years old, and you’d never love again.
He used to scream at you for doing stupid shit like jumping into a quarry just because Bill thought it was a good idea, and then he’d do the stupid shit right along with you, hand in hand. His mom— a Munchausen-by-proxy psychopath— used to take him out of school every couple of weeks, and you would climb into his window and tell him about everything that happened, so that he didn’t feel like he was missing out. Every time you got a cold, he’d make you stand three feet away from him at all times, and then he’d break his own personal space rule to feel your forehead, and give you tissues, and sanitize your hands every five minutes like the maniac that he was.
He wore a fanny pack full of medications and first aid supplies everywhere, and you have been sexually confused by lifeguards and middle aged mothers at Disneyland ever since.
When you were kids and a serial killer chased him through a broken floor and his arm snapped in two, he screamed at you not to touch him and you set his arm anyway, because you would rather that he hated you than that he was in any pain. You punched Bill in the face over that broken arm, you nearly shattered all of your friendships in one go, and it was worth it. He was worth it.
You made jokes about wanting to fuck his mom because you needed him not to wonder why you couldn’t stop staring at him, couldn’t stop coming to his house, couldn’t leave him alone.
You would wrestle him to the floor just for an excuse to touch him. You fought like cats and dogs over the dumbest shit for years, and you never even considered that he was trying to find an excuse to touch you, too, because you couldn’t bring yourself to believe in anything like hope.
When you were thirteen years old, and fresh off of the first of several near-death experiences, you took your gay little life into your own hands and carved your names into the Kissing Bridge, in the full light of day, in the most homophobic child-murdering town in the country, where anyone could have seen you and made that near-death experience a whole lot more immediate, and thirty years later you did it again, when they took him to the hospital and you didn’t know if he would live, and you couldn’t bear the thought of letting him die. You don’t believe in miracles either, Richie, but he made you pray for one anyway.
This man took a bullet for you, Richie. Figuratively, many times over the years, but literally once too. You sat by his bedside for days while they saved him, you wouldn’t let go of his hand until they threatened to sedate you too, you nearly went insane every time the heart monitor spiked. Maybe you did. Maybe that’s why you don’t know his name.
You’ve loved him better than anyone else in the world, even when you didn’t know he existed. He’s the best part of you, he always has been, and he always will be. One day, when they figure out how to decode heartbeats, yours will say his name. You could no more carve it out of you than you could take out your own lungs and eat them. You’ve never believed in soulmates, because you never thought that someone like him deserved someone like you, but he makes you want to put your faith in impossible things, and damn if he isn’t convincing about it.
You went down on one knee for him, Richie, and you’d do it again, even if it hurts like a bitch, because you’d crawl across deserts if it meant you got to spend the rest of your life with him.
Richie. Trashmouth. Richard Wentworth Tozier-Kaspbrak, you married this man. For all the points in the world, for everything, one last time. What is his name?
[The audience is silent, as Vince Blight stares up at the photograph behind him. Then he turns back to them, and speaks.]
Well, audience? Once more, for old time’s sake?
WHAT’S THAT NAME?
[The audience jumps at the volume change, and then recovers enough to yell out the last name on their printed cheat sheet. Edward Kaspbrak is a roar across the theater, and Vince Blight’s smile reaches his eyes as he beams at them for the first time in the show.]
Wrong! That’s Eddie Spaghetti, you heathens, you fools, and he’s a Tozier-Kaspbrak now, thank you very much!
[The final flashback picture is of two people asleep in a hammock. The larger one is recognizably Richie, though his glasses have slipped off his face, and can be seen resting precariously close to his elbow. Tucked against him, face half mashed into his chest, hand clutching his t-shirt, is Eddie, who is small and looks almost fragile, pressed so close to Richie, who is all arms and knobbly knees. Their legs are entwined, and one of Richie’s hands is tangled in Eddie’s hair, mussing up the smooth curls. The light is warm as they sleep, caught in a sunbeam and on a camera film, entirely unaware.]
Ed, I know, you’re going to kill me in my sleep because of how sappy that was, but I love you, and I’m not actually afraid to say it. You deserve it, and also you agreed to marry me, so it’s your own goddamn fault.
[The screen goes white as the audience cheers. Vince Blight puts his cue cards back on the podium, and steps around it, facing the audience once more.]
Audience, now, this is my final show on this tour, and this is the Netflix recording, so you’re going to get something special today. I have one final name for you to guess.
[The screen flickers, and the rest of the stage lights go dark, so that the only thing visible is the picture. Vince Blight disappears from view as the audience looks up at the photograph. Seven kids are visible, standing in the middle of a residential street, all pushing bikes and crowding together to fit into the frame. Ben is farthest to the left, a shy smile on his face as he glances at Bev, next to him, who is beaming straight at the camera. Stan is next to her, with a small but genuine smile on his face, with Bill beside him and Mike beside him. Eddie is next to Mike, and Richie is next to Eddie, which is hilarious, height-wise. They’re all grimy and gross, from a day of playing in the sun, but no one, not even Eddie, seems to care. As the audience looks at the picture, a deep, booming voice echoes from all around the theater.]
AUDIENCE? WHAT’S THAT NAME?
[The audience is divided. Some attempt to list the names in order of appearance in the picture, some read from the program, and others just start calling out random names. The noise is cacophonous, but a loud buzzer sound cuts through it all, and the prerecorded voice plays again.]
WRONG.
[The screen stays on the last picture as the stage lights come back. There are now seven people on stage, standing in the order that their childhood counterparts are set. Ben, tall and absurdly handsome in a dark green suit, has a hand on Bev’s waist and a soft look in his eyes as he glances down at her. Bev, wearing a beautiful flowing dress that doesn’t look uncomfortable at all, which is rare for women on any kind of stages, is grinning across the stage at Richie. Stan, in an honest-to-god sweater vest and bow tie, is making a face at Richie, who looks entirely unrepentant. Bill, small and unassuming in a drab gray suit, is smiling widely up at Mike, who is looking exceedingly flustered as he fidgets with his suit cuffs. Richie, whose hair is tousled and a little sweaty from the Vince Blight wig, now back in his Bev-Marsh-approved suit and tie, is meeting Bev’s grin and Stan’s face with an enthusiastic thumbs up, but is quickly sidetracked by Eddie, in a suit nearly as nice as Ben’s, who drags him by the collar down to his level, and evidently begins reading him the riot act.
The rest of the group looks fondly on as Eddie’s gestures get wilder, until he gives up and tugs Richie the rest of the way down to kiss him square on the mouth.
Richie straightens after a moment, looking slightly dazed, and Eddie shoves him towards the single microphone stand on the stage, which has replaced the podium.]
Okay, where was I?
Oh, right, audience, you were getting the last question WRONG.
Now, up here on the stage with me, you can see Ben, Bev, Stan, Bill, Mike, Eddie, and yours truly, Richie Tozier-Kaspbrak, in the flesh— I’m sorry, Eddie, but I can’t stop saying it, it sounds too good, and I won’t give it up— but all together, when we were little babies, we gave ourselves a new name, and it’s still the best name anyone has ever come up with for us.
You guys wanna say it with me?
[The rest of the group crowds around Richie and the microphone, laughing and jostling each other for a good spot.]
Audience, we are, and always will be, the LOSERS.
Thank you, audience, you’ve been wonderful, good night, and good riddance.
[Richie turns to leave, and six people block his way, and push him forward to the front of the stage. He grins, sheepish and unexpectedly shy, for a forty year old man in a very public-facing career, and takes a bow as the other Losers applaud. The audience screams their approval, and the outro music begins to play.
The Losers make their way offstage. Mike and Bill walk together at the front, talking quietly. Bev follows, laughing and making large, expansive gestures as she says something that makes Ben cover his mouth in a shocked smile, and Stan shake his head from where he’s moved firmly out of the way of her hands. He glances behind him as he goes, and looks a thousand times fonder than he had when Richie was looking at him on stage.
Richie and Eddie take up the rear. They’re not talking, just walking together, hands clasped between them as they take in the beauty of the Radio City Music Hall, and the sound of an audience still chanting their names as they leave.]