The Comedy is Finished

“Yeah, but will you respect me in the morning?”

The audience roars; they’ve heard the line a hundred times, over the radio, on the big screen, on the tube. And now in person. And it’s always a scream.

But he thinks of Mark as he says it, and a look of concern briefly crosses his features. The custody, the trial—and what will come after? What kind of life will they have, separately or together?

But as the laughter crests and starts subsiding, as the big light turns toward him and the camera dollies forward on its track, the next line rises to his lips, the next gag; and the cloud that crossed his features passes. The audience leans forward.

Koo Davis is home.