“I’m totally down to die in a mudslide,” I said into the microphone. “Like, as long as it kills me instantaneously, I’m available.”
It was Thursday night, and almost-me was up and running with a darker twist to my East Coasters care more about our weather than we do bit.
“Am I emotionally available for a mudslide? No. But if the mudslide is down for a quickie, I’m in.”
The laughter was decent. Then I heard a “woo” from the audience. The voice was familiar. When I looked out into the lights to try and decipher who the woo-er was, I saw Jace Evans.
“Hey, thanks,” I said, pointing to him. “I’ll be here all week.”
When I got offstage, he followed me through the crowd.
“Hey!” he said.
“Oh, hi. Shouldn’t you be in the dystopic future, wrangling zombies?”
“I do exist off camera.”
“I’m just surprised to see you here, that’s all.”
“My friend Paul from Akron is one of the comics.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “The guy who did the whole set about jerking off into a family heirloom. He thinks my shit is too pedestrian.”
“You were really funny. Definitely funnier than Paul.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He fumbled with the beads on his faux rosaries.
“Fred Segal?” I asked.
“What?”
“I was just wondering where you got those.”
“Oh, my grandma gave them to me for luck. She’s super Catholic. I never take them off.”
I was being pelted with religious people.
“Well,” he said. “Except when my fucking stylist makes me.”
“Did your stylist pick out those?” I asked, pointing to his bracelets.
“No,” he said proudly. “Those are all me.”
I noticed a table of four young women looking at him. They must have been from out of town, because they weren’t trying to hide their staring at all.
I asked myself again if I was attracted to him. The floof, unfortunately, was still floofing. But under the floof he had a pair of very earnest-looking brown eyes, round, like the embarrassed emoji, framed with very long, dark lashes. His voice was soft, something of a murmur, and it made me want to move closer to him. I noticed that I was disproportionately happy when he said I was funny. There were definitely flurries in my stomach. But it wasn’t what I felt when I looked at Miriam, not that lustful trance I had with her at the restaurant. Still, I wanted him to want me. If he didn’t think I was attractive, it negated the fact that he found me funny. I wished it was enough that he found me funny.
“Yo, I’m starving,” he said. “You hungry?”
Of course I was hungry. But that would be taken care of shortly, upon return home to my allotted 150-calorie diet ice cream and 80 calories of cereal.
“Not really,” I said.
“There’s a great hot dog place around here.”
“Hot dogs?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Really good chili dogs and stuff.”
I looked at him, all jaw, so casually trumpeting chili dogs. He was safe from judgment in his body, this naturally skinny, handsome actor. He had an armor to protect him from any consequences to his own hunger. In Miriam, it was different. She wore the fruits of her hunger on her body at all times.
“How good?” I asked.