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The lights dim as the crowd goes quiet. Well, not completely quiet. Richie has learned that it’s almost an instinct to keep talking. The murmurs fill the huge auditorium. He wonders what they’re all talking about. It’s something that’s always intrigued him, what goes on in other people’s worlds.
He’s always worried that they don’t like him. He’s always worried that maybe someday he’ll step out and the theater will be empty. But he’s worried about something else tonight.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage. . .” A drumroll plays over the speakers. “Richie Tozier!”
The crowd erupts in applause, cheering for a man most of them have never met before. Richie steps out onto the stage, taking a seat on the stool set out for him. He waves to the audience, blowing a few kisses.
“Hello, hello!” Richie blows another kiss and sits down, waiting for the audience to be quiet. It takes a few moments, but they eventually realize this is the part where they listen to him speak and not the other way around.
“How’s everyone doing tonight, huh?” Richie asks. The crowd cheers. “Before I start, I’d like to get a thank-you out of the way. First, to. . .” Richie pauses to look at smeared ink on his palm. “Magpie - wait, wait, sorry, Maggie - and Wentworth Tozier.”
The audience shrieks, laughing so hard some of them almost cry. Richie laughs along with them. He never really understood what was so funny about most of his jokes. As far as he was aware, there wasn’t anything funny about forgetting your own mother’s name. Alas, his shows were how he got his money, so he had to do it if the audience liked it.
“Sorry about that, mom!” He joked casually, wiping his hand off on the side of his jeans. “Alright, you all came here for comedy, right?”
The crowd yells in affirmation.
“Okay, well, tonight’s your lucky night! Since it’s my holiday show, I’ve got plenty of stories to tell you.”
Richie pretended to think for a moment, searching for a good story. “Have I ever shared the time when I worked at my town’s pharmacy as a teenager?”
“No!” The crowd shook their heads, eager to hear something novel.
“I haven’t? Geez, you all have to hear this one.
“So in 1994 I worked at the Derry Pharmacy. The main reason for this was that I wanted free,” Richie made air quotes around the word ‘free’, “drugs. The main, main, main reason was that I had the biggest crush on one of the employees. So, naturally, I decided to get a job at the pharmacy. Fast forward a few days, and I was starting to settle in. My main issue was pronouncing the medication names. I mean, who comes up with them? There’s no reason for something as simple as an allergy medication to have nine thousand letters in its name!”
The crowd laughs.
“I’d always have to call in this girl when a customer asked for a refill of para-meca-tocin-whatever. So a customer would walk into the store and ask for a refill and I’d just shout into the back, ‘Greta! Help!’” Richie’s voice cracks on purpose.
“Now, what was the first reason I gave for working at the pharmacy? Drugs! One day, I took way too much of someone’s prescription and forgot that I worked the closing shift. There I was, alone in a dark store, facing all of my worst nightmares. The shadows created monsters in the corners of my eyes; it was terrifying. Then, a door opened.”
The auditorium is filled with silence, waiting to see how this would end up being funny and not just some fucked-up horror story.
“I jumped, brandishing the soggy mop I’d been holding. My heart was racing way faster than humanly possible. This distorted voice, it calls out to me. ‘Richard! Richard! What the hell are you doing?’ You have to remember, I’m high out of my sixteen-year-old mind. So I decided to shriek like a little girl and try to run through the store aisles. I still had my mop with me because I wasn’t about to lose my only weapon. I turned around a corner and. . . Boom! I ran right into the employee who I had a crush on.”
Richie pauses for a few moments to let the audience laugh.
“So I’m just standing there in this dark pharmacy, high as fuck, clinging to my crush with soggy mop water dripping onto our heads. I might’ve had some alcohol earlier in the day, so I don’t really remember what happened next. I woke up the next morning and had to go to school, it was awful. No, really! Everyone always says that Mondays are the worst day but the worst day is actually when you show up late to school smelling like bleach during your class’s final exam.”
The crowd laughs. It’s not as loud as it normally is, and Richie can’t really blame them. Tonight, he’s telling true stories that he keeps close to his heart. They’re very different from his typical jokes that a professional team of writers came up with.
“Okay, are you all ready for another one?”
Enthusiastic shouts come from the audience. Richie knows they’re hoping that he can make a better joke, maybe he just had a rough start.
“So, this all happened when I was in eleventh grade, a long time ago.” Richie drew out the “o” sound in “long” for at least ten seconds. “I had a crush on this one kid in my class. We were practically best friends, y’know? So it’s our grade’s annual secret santa, where everyone draws a name and has to get a gift for that person. Naturally, I drew my crush’s name. I was planning to have my gift be this awesome, big, proposal type thing. Like, I was going to ask to be their boyfriend and it was going to be totally romantic. So, I decided to have my gift be a note asking to meet me at the elementary school playground the night they received the letter. On the day of the gift exchange, my crush walks up to me, saying, ‘Richie, look at what this loser got me!’”
The audience laughs. They can tell they’re getting close to the punchline of the joke.
“Now, I know it was me who made that note.” Richie laughs. “And I just stand there, awkwardly nodding, like, ‘yeah, what a terrible gift! You totally shouldn’t go to the playground! Anyways, I’ll be there at eight!’”
The crowd can easily tell he’s being sarcastic. That’s the one thing Richie knows he’s been consistent with.
“My crush goes on and on and on about how creepy this is, y’know, does anyone actually do this and not get kidnapped? I kinda knew they were never going to meet me at the playground, but I slept there that night, hoping that they would show up eventually.”
The crowd almost dies from laughing so much. Richie doesn’t really think it’s funny, but it’s the audience’s opinion that matters, right? That’s what his talent agent constantly told him.
“Alright, it’s time for a quick intermission for some other performers, but I’ll be back soon!” Richie waves as he exits to stage right. He inhales deeply once he’s hidden behind the curtains and free from the prying eyes of his fans. His phone dings with a text message notification:
EDWARD (#1 BF): Hey why are both of your stories tonight about me?
Richie smiles and starts to type out a message.
Richie Tozier: dw abt it
idk they’re funny?? like im a comedian its my job
how r u liking the show?
EDWARD (#1 BF): It’s great! Did you finally get them to let you use your own material?
Richie Tozier: yep!! just this once tho :)
EDWARD (#1 BF): That’s awesome! Can’t wait for your second act tonight!
Richie Tozier: haha prepare to be blown away
EDWARD (#1 BF): Very funny, Tozier.
Richie laughed quietly before turning off his phone. Backstage was dark and refreshingly quiet. He could hear some band’s cover of a song he faintly recognized.
Richie turned his phone back on and opened his notes app. He had an unreasonable amount of notes that were mostly gibberish for future comedy routines, but those weren’t what he was looking for. He opened up the first note that appeared and read over it quickly. It was mostly memorized, but Richie didn’t want to mess up.
The crowd applauds as the singer thanks them. Richie takes a deep breath, wiping his sweaty palms off on his jeans.
“Hello, hello, hello! Long time no see, huh?”
The crowd cheers.
“Alright, I’ve got one more tale to tell and then that’s the last you’ll see of me this Christmas Eve! When I was in my. . .” Richie pauses to think. “Freshman - no, wait, sophomore - year of college, I drove all the way back to Derry from New York for Christmas. My parents had not informed me that my grandmother would be there and I showed up at three in the afternoon wearing a t-shirt that said ‘it’s not gay if it’s tsa’. My conservative grandmother did not like this, needless to say.”
The crowd laughs for a few moments before allowing Richie to continue.
“It was an awkward evening, but I knew I was going to probably get some expensive gift from her tomorrow, so I powered through it. The next day, I wake up and realize it’s Christmas. I’m the last one downstairs and I open the gift from my grandmother. It’s pretty heavy, so I think I’ve scored. Wrong! It’s two copies of a bible, an annotated bible, a book with prayers, and a bracelet that says WWJD. Now, I was raised Christian, but it never really stuck with me. So, I decided to get revenge on my grandmother, in a way. I asked my friend, who was also in town for the holidays, to pretend to be my fiance. It worked wonderfully. The whole family, plus my ‘fiance’, went to the Derry Church for a christmas dinner and it was totally worth it to watch my grandmother try to pretend like we were just friends.”
The crowd laughs. The lights are too bright in Richie’s eyes, but he’s sure that quite a few people left.
“Now, I know this is supposed to be the end of the show, but there’s something else I need to do first.”
The crowd is dead silent. Richie’s solemn, serious tone has piqued their curiosity.
Richie closes his eyes and begins to speak. “I’d like to address someone special tonight. We’ve been together for over twenty years and have shared so many experiences together. You’re one of six people who know what happened in ‘89 and I’m so thankful you’ve stuck with me.
“Without you, I wouldn’t be here tonight. You always helped me, whether it was sneaking me pills from your mom’s bathroom cabinet when we were kids or telling me that I deserved better than some shitty gig in a shitty bar. I’m not good at giving long, heartfelt speeches, but I’m going to try for you.
“I love you. I love everything about you. I love the way you’d let me sneak in your window when you were grounded. I love how you talk to yourself when you work at your computer. I love how you smile when you come home every day. I love how you drink so much coffee that the barista knows your order by heart. Love isn’t easily described but I think that ours is the dictionary definition of it.
“I know this is something that we’ve both dreamed about since we were kids.” Richie fished around in his pocket, pulling out a small box and hiding it in his fist. “To the boy who faced literal monsters by my side, to the boy who held my hand in the church closets, to the man who’s sitting in this audience right now, to Edward James Kaspbrak. . .” Richie walks down the steps and into the aisle, where a spotlight is kept on him by a confused lighting technician. “You’ve been in every single one of my stories and I never want that to stop.” Richie kneels by Eddie’s seat, opening the box to reveal a beautiful, silver ring. “Eds, will you marry me?”
Eddie is frozen. He’s aware of everyone’s eyes watching them. “Yes!” He squeaks, leaping up to hug Richie. Their lips meet and the crowd applauds.
“I love you, loser.” Eddie whispers into Richie’s ear, smiling as they embrace once more.