COMEDY STYLINGS

     "Stop Laughing!!"

     The disheveled comic, Preston Midnight, stood onstage and held a gun at the audience as he shouted. An odd mixture of laughter and absolute shock went through the crowd, which was moderately packed by Yucks Factory standards. And yet, no matter how much abuse the audience expected from this legendary insult comic, the last thing any of them could’ve dreamed of when they were busy getting dressed earlier in the evening or getting dinner at Vesto’s across the street was that he’d pull his piece on them.

     The spotlight kept on him as he rambled indecipherably into the mic, his gun shaking and wavering as it shifted from one patron to the next.

     "Where you jagoffs from?" he asked a pasty, white couple in the front row.

     Mr. Pasty gave a cold stare at Midnight as the barrel of the Baretta pointed at Mrs. Pasty.

     "Teaneck," Mr. Pasty said as his wife teared up.

     As Preston made an obvious joke about Jersey, the Pasty’s gripped their table and the off-duty cop in the last row who’d always looked forward to seeing Preston Midnight live in-person, who owned all of his comedy albums, who’d watched all seven episodes of his short-lived sitcom, "’Round Midnight," this huge fan of the comedy has-been covertly unbuckled his holster and did what he always did before he planned to take a killshot. His eyes went into 50 yard stare mode, squinting, almost shut, but just wide enough to get see the imaginary crosshairs that dissected the solitary droplet of sweat meandering down the forehead of Midnight.




-SLL