You’re worthless

“So there was this guy once - tall, beefy, you know the type. Anyways so he was walking down the hallway swaggering ‘cause he thought he was all that you know. Swagger Jagger he called himself, and he just thought that he was the bomb with his leather and chains, swaggering up and down the hall.

I think his name was Leslie.”

The crowd laughs and laughs on cue, just like they should be. I readjust the microphone a little as I toss back the last caricature, written on a sheet of crumpled paper, pulling out another that’s guaranteed to make me a star.

You think that you’re so big

“Then, when I grew up a little, there was another one. A little runt of a guy with a pinched up face - he resembled a pit bull I once owned, you know the type. He would blink and stare, and for the life of me I wouldn’t be able to understand a thing he said unless it was directed at me.

He barely came up to my shoulder, but when he would start - Lord save the man who thought he was a larger man than Patrick Small”

As if in a trance, the glazed eyes blink as the guffaws and chortles mix with the chuckles and giggles in the dark, dank room we sit in. It’s eerie sitting in the room, night after night telling strangers tales of my childhood, revealing the monsters of my past for their amusement, but it pays the bills. Every night they come inside, meekly filing one by one as they grab a drink and settle down for an hour to forget about their own miserable lives to listen to my mine. I tap the microphone once for good luck before beginning again. They quieten as I pull out the next story, the next teenage tragedy from my pocket, the silence rushing through the hallway as the words tumble from my lips.

Like magic, they write in the papers sometimes.

You think you’re so smart

“When I was in college there was another one - medium in height and weight with a clump of brown hair on top of his thick skull - you know the type. He was a major in some obscure field that connected the universe somehow, one of those degrees that people like to display on their mantle to hide the fact they have no jobs. Anyways I was just starting with the jokes, telling ‘em for a dollar here and there, and let me tell you, he wasn’t impressed. Maybe because his girl was a regular, maybe because I had actual cash to spend on a girl of my own. But either way he would come up to me, every night, and tell me just how horrible my stories were.

He still came - every single night. Paid the five bucks too.”

There again, the laugh track starts as the glasses fill up in the silence. Condensation rolling down as the inhabitants try to mask the smell of a thousand perfumes covering the footprints of former patrons. They clink their glasses and swivel back to the podium where I’m sitting on a stool, my legs hanging as we rinse, swish and repeat. I check the watch, move my microphone once more and start for the last time tonight.

So you think you can.....

“There was this. Um...” I’ve never stopped before - the eyes of my willing audience are growing, the haze they slip in when my voice starts, fading as they focus on my mouth.

“So yeah the girl was....” Its not working. I look for the notes in my palms, only to find skin. Sweaty and pale, I realize a truth I had never considered.

Looking frantically, I try to think of new material. My life has been miserable enough - surely I’m capable of finding at least one more instance of hatred. I conjure up a fake girlfriend - with a blooming bust and legs six feet long, only to be rebuffed as the room starts to mutter.

The spell broken, I gaze across the aisles, taking in what might be my last glimpse at success.

Shaking, sweating, I knock over the microphone, running out of the room as it starts to rumble.