Stand-up
An excerpt from a short story submitted to a magazine. The author’s name is lost, but we are assured that they got the appropriate exposure for doing it.
MOONLOOMING
We got off the tram only about three hundred yards from the pub we were going to. Good enough. We’d just been to see a film about the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was like a spy film or something like that. I think it was based on a novel. What happened in it was: it was set in a society under the dictatorship of the proletariat. There was a referendum coming up and there was a rich one who was really invested in the outcome being a certain way. I think it was a vote on whether to invade the neghbouring land or something. In this society, people weren’t allowed to vote if they had a certain amount of wealth. There was a poor one who was invested in not invading the country, I’m fairly sure. I think they had family there or something. I can’t remember exactly what the referendum was about but the rich one wanted it one way and the poor one wanted it the other. Anyway, in the end, the rich one donated all their money to the poor one, meaning that the former could now vote and the latter couldn’t. Then the referendum came around and the formerly poor one couldn’t give away all the money for whatever reason. The results came out and the referendum was split by two votes in favour of invasion or whatever it was. The real twist was at the end when the newly rich one became persuaded in favour of invasion or whatever it was and it was supposed to be something to do with the wealth. I suppose the whole thing was an allegory or whatever. It was a good film on balance.
There was an openmicnight on at the pub. I think the pub had a nautical name. The Reel in the Loon or something. I can’t remember too well. We approached the bar and I asked if they had any juice. The barone held up two bottles: one labelled “mango exotic juice drink” and one labelled “tropical juice flavoured drink”. I asked for a mango exotic juice drink and the barone started pouring it. My friend to my right began interrogating me about my choice:
“How come you’re drinking [mango exotic] juice [drink]?”
“Because,” I replied expressionlessly, “it tastes nice and I’m thirsty.”
“How come you’re not drinking alcohol?” They asked.
“Do I need a reason?” I answered.
They scoffed. “Well, it’s just a bit weird, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” I jutted my lower lip and narrowed my eyes. “How come you’re drinking alcohol then?”
They scoffed again. “To get pissed.”
I pulled in my lip but kept my eyes narrowed. “Getting pissed is part and parcel of drinking alcohol, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“You’d even say “let’s get pissed” instead of “let’s drink alcohol,” wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
“So you’re drinking alcohol to drink alcohol?”
We both hesitated. The barone broke the tension by coming back with my mango exotic juice drink. “Forty quid, comrade,” they said in the old singsong way.
“Actually, comrade,” I responded, “can I have a rum chaser too? Please.”
The drinks came to 59 quid, so I thought I’d round it up to 60 quid as a little tip. I accidentally wrote a nine instead of a zero with my special paying pen. I’ll probably get it in the neck when I get home.
Sometimes it’s nice to stop and smell the roses, as they say, and our eyes went from yorkwhite to damaskpink as the sunset went the opposite and gave way to the moonlight. Most of the people who got up on stage did so to do a song on the guitar, as you’d expect, but one person got up and did a bit of standupcomedy.
They did a few jokes about politics and stuff. Obviously, everything is political, but it was stuff like, “it’s cold in here. Carmel Shalaki must’ve become prime minister and I must’ve taken a wrong turn and stepped into Hell.” Not much to write home about but the delivery wasn’t bad. “Speaking of hell, how about that moonlooming? These worldending catastrophes are like buses: first climatechange, now moonlooming; what’s next? Laissez-faire-style capitalism?” The audience laughed. “Thatcher’s and Trump’s corpses rising again to give taxbreaks to the rich undead.” They shuddered exaggeratedly. “Arseholes.” A pause. “I was thinking about how dogs smell eachothers’ arseholes to greet, and you hold your hand out for a dog to smell before you stroke it, and I wonder if the dogs think our hands are our arseholes. That said, the way my partner acts, my hand may as well be my arsehole.” Audience titter. “Because I wash it regularly, of course.” Another titter. They waited a moment before making a masturbating motion, and the tittering continued. “I think buttplugs should be called bumbungs. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue but it comes out your mouth without pulling any punches. Much like buttplugs. Sorry, bumbungs.” They paused to allow the laughter to finish. “Bumbungs!” they pleaded. Someone at the back of the house pealed uproariously. The comedian thanked them, for the irony. “I was in a sexshop the other day,” audience titter, “as you do.” They laughed into the microphone and the rush of breath made a horrible noise. “I saw moonlooming-themed bumbungs for sale. At first, I didn’t get the connection, but then I realised,” they tapped their temple twice, “then you can moon people with this big bloody bumbung hanging out, and,” they gestured with open palms to the gradually cottoning-on audience and nodded. “And obviously all the pockmarks on your arse are meant to be the craters or whatever.” They paused for a sip of tropical juice flavoured drink probably mixed with gin or something. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how we’ve all just kowtowed to calling it moonlooming? It’s not the most accurate name. It’s not like it’s coming down here of its own volition.” A pause for reflection. “”Coming down here”, like it’s coming for a straightener. Ha.” Small laughter. “We’ll all breathe a sigh of relief when it gets here and The Villain just writes “I wish my wife was this dirty” on it and sends it back.” A lot of people inhouse laughed, but there was a definite nervousness to the laughter. At any rate, I could say with some certainty that bringing up the moonlooming was going to earn a lot for the bar. The comedian continued but I think fewer people were listening. “The Villain’s another funny one. Who gave him that name? Himself? Can you just do that? I’ve always wanted to get a blue plaque made and put on the front of my house; can I just go and do it and people’ll accept it?” My meandering eyes had been resting on various bits of decor around the room while they were speaking but at that point I was staring, not breaking what little focus I kept, at the floorboards in the centre of the room. I caught the comedian continuing the joke: “Here lives the creator of bumbungs, not the things themselves, but the word.”