by IGMS
When he went out on stage, the crowd's cheers bolstered him. This would be great. They'd love it. And it just might be enough to boost ticket sales once more. Chad gave his spiel, building tension and gaining confidence as he went through the act. Everything was going to be fine. Just dandy.
But the moment he picked up the two test tubes, he heard as clearly as if he were still in front of his television watching the girl talk about Sam's death: "Even in the back row we could smell him." His hands began to tremble.
Even so, he was able to pour the liquids into the beaker. And, just as it had before, the beaker foamed. Dr. Freud cried out, "Ach, du lieber!" And then the thing exploded.
Chad was blinded, but he had expected this. While the audience roared, he groped about for the pull rope that would release the firefighting foam. He could smell his hair burning. The heat from the flames brought tears to his eyes. He reached wildly, suddenly terrified. The audience went nuts, screaming and whistling as he stumbled around trying to find the pull rope. He tripped over the lab table, landing with an 'ooph' on the floor. Where was he? The lab table seemed to have vanished. Bits of blackened hair drifted into his eyes. He blindly crawled along the floor, desperate to find something that would reorient him. If only he could see! When, at last, his fingers finally brushed against the table, he quickly pulled himself up. The smoke from the chemical reaction was now clogging his airways, making it impossible to breathe. And still the audience laughed.
When the pain hit, Chad screamed. He hadn't expected it. The flesh on his forehead seared like fish blackened in a frying pan. The stink of burning hair was replaced by a meatier smell. The pull rope was forgotten now as he tried to wipe the chemicals from his face. His fingertips burned. "Help me! God, help me!"
He was dimly aware that the curtain had fallen, and that someone was pulling on him from behind. Somewhere distant, he heard a hiss and smelled the sharp scent of neutralizing chemicals. The cord he'd been searching for had finally been pulled.
"Nice job." Al was trying to sound hearty, but Chad wasn't fooled. His manager's voice was unnaturally high and unsteady. "They loved you. You were great!" And as Chad's consciousness faded into black, he wondered if it was true.
Constance agreed to meet him at a café down the street from his apartment. Though it was really too dark and too cold to be dining outside, she didn't protest when Chad asked for a table on the patio.
"I need my space," he said when they were alone. He motioned at the windows, which gave a view of the cozily lit dining room filled with happy customers. "I can't stand to be around people."
"I understand." It was a great comfort to know that she wasn't just mouthing an empty sentiment. She took his hand. "You look good."
Almost without thinking, he touched his face. Most of his hair had grown back in, but the hairline itself had taken on irregular contours, like a complex shoreline drawn on a map. He kept his bangs long and combed to the front, hoping that it looked like a new fashion trend instead of what it really was: a desperate attempt to hide the scars on his now pockmarked forehead.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Okay." A partial truth. The skin on his face was extremely sensitive. Not painful, exactly, but raw, like an exposed nerve. Even the caress of the slight evening breeze against his check was making him wince. He had come to dread shaving in the morning and was thinking of growing a beard.
"What about your doctor?"
Chad laughed bitterly. "Buzz was long gone by the time I was in any condition to look him up."
"I read in the paper about the bots he gave you. You ended up exposing quite a scandal, you know."
He knew. And he supposed he should have been glad since the illegal factory where Buzz had gotten his goods had been shut down and was no longer making the defective pain bots. But he wasn't. He just wished the entire thing hadn't happened.
The waiter came, and they ordered drinks. Chad's was a double scotch. Neat.
"I'd like to pair up," Chad said. "If you still want me."
"Still want you?" Constance grinned and leaned back in her chair, seductively thrusting out her breasts. For the first time since he'd met her, Chad saw the old Connie Lingus. "Honey, after your last show, you're hot."
She was right. Ticket sales had spiked dramatically after his stage fiasco. But to Al's fury, Chad had closed the show and returned the money. As far as he was concerned, Dr. Chad N. Freud was dead for good. Even now, looking into the dining room at the other customers, he felt a flush of anger. I almost died, you bastards, he thought. And all you did was laugh.
As if reading his mind, Connie once more reached for his hand. "We'll be great together, I promise. They'll be laughing at what we can do, not at how we can bleed."
He clutched her hand and let her certainty fill him with hope.
A week later, however, when she started outlining her ideas, he wasn't so sure. It wasn't that her routines were bad; they were just far too folksy - too yesteryear - to interest an audience weaned on blood.
But for her sake as much as his, Chad tried to make it work. They rehearsed together daily, each of them improving on the lines and making changes. And the more they worked, the more Chad relaxed. Even Al looked happy.
Two weeks into rehearsals, he and Connie drove to an old airplane hangar outside of town where their sets were being built. Connie looped her arm through his and led him over to where a trio of men were spray-painting one of her props: a computer as large as a school bus.
One of the men shut off his spraying wand and took off his mask. "What do you think?"
Connie was beaming. "Oh, baby, I love it!" The computer was for her sketch in which she played a technophobic old lady who unwittingly logged herself into a porno chat room. While the workers looked on, Connie sat in front of the monstrous screen, gave herself a moment to get into character, then said, "Merciful heavens! Why, those aren't mountains!"
All three men laughed. Not a polite, she's-the-lady-who's-paying us guffaw, but a real laugh. Chad could always tell the difference. It was a relief to know that Connie still had her magic.
The two of them left the computer and went to examine a gargantuan spider that Chad would end up battling in his scene about an arachnophobic exterminator. He stroked one of the black, furry legs that was twice as tall as he was. "I love these giant props," he said. "They're totally surreal."
"They're certainly larger than life," Connie agreed. Then she punched his arm. "That's our show! Freud and Lingus - Larger than Life."
It was perfect, and not just because Chad got top billing.
He put his arm around her and squeezed her. Hard. "You're a genius."
"Hey, Dr. Freud," one of the men called out. "Are you and Connie an item now?"
Chad and Connie exchanged a look. His favorite bit in the show was a tribute to their old characters. The bumbling Dr. Chad N. Freud giving psychiatric advice to the notoriously nymphomaniacal Connie Lingus, who did her best to seduce the clueless doctor. "Ve haff a professional relationship only, ya?"
Connie pinched his left buttock and nipped at his earlobe. "Or not."
This got laughs and a little applause as well. Yes, Chad thought as they walked back to the car, the magic was there. This was going to work.
On opening night, he was giddy with anticipation. When he and Connie walked out on stage, it was just like he remembered from the good old days. Cheers and whistles exploded from the audience. The applause went on and on.
But after ten minutes, the audience had cooled so much he was sure the temperature in the auditorium had dropped below freezing. During the second bit, he even heard a "boo." He flinched, and his guts clenched.
Connie Lingus, her hair a flaming red once more, didn't seemed fazed, but when they went offstage for the first time and she looked at him, he could see bewildered anger in her eyes. "We're dying out there." She snatched a towel from a stagehand and roughly dried her face. She'd been dowsed with several buckets of water in t
he last act and now looked drowned, her red hair flattened against her scalp, her smudged mascara making bruises underneath her eyes.
"We'll be okay," Chad said, unconvinced.
"Okay? They hate us." She glared at the wall, as if seeing the audience on the other side. "Bastards! They want our blood. They want pain."
It was sheer professionalism that drove the pair of them back on stage. Neither one wanted to face the audience, but it had to be done. They rushed back into the lights wearing lock-jawed smiles, cringing inside at the thought of booing and hecklers.
The crew must have been similarly uninspired, for they hadn't cleaned up the stage properly from the first act. Chad saw the puddle of water a moment before Connie reached it, but it was too late to whisper a warning. She skidded across it, her arms pinwheeling as she fought to regain her balance. She ended up falling on her ass. For the first time that night, they got a real laugh.
Chad knew the audience wanted more.
So did Connie. She threw herself into the second act with manic intensity. The lines were now much pithier in her mouth, her gestures far more exaggerated. At one point, she shoved him hard, but he was ready for her and didn't give ground. A few people in the crowd whooped. He felt a chill up his spine.
The sketch ending the second act involved a lovers' quarrel with Connie playing the overbearing wife and Chad the hen-pecked husband. It was the edgiest part of the show, for Chad was supposed to lose his pants - literally - and flash his dick at the audience. But this time, when the argument reached its climax, Connie changed her lines. Instead of saying, "I'm going to give it to you," she said, "So you're going to give it to me," and she tilted her head slightly, lifting her chin up.
She wanted him to hit her.
After all those weeks working together, Chad knew this beyond a doubt. Like a defeated animal baring its jugular to the victor, Connie was offering up her jaw. Not only to Chad, who would be the one to deliver the blow, but to the audience as well. She was desperate to sacrifice herself for another laugh. Her eyes begged him to strike her. Pleaded with him.
The audience held its breath.
One blow to her face, and the two of them would be back on top. He'd been right on that first night she'd come to see him in his dressing room: two pain comics really could be funnier than one. Everyone wanted it: Connie, the audience; even Al, who was probably already counting the profits he could make off the two of them. Chad's hand formed a fist and he drew back his arm.
Sweat beaded along his forehead, making his skin itch. The lights were suddenly too bright, the tension too great. "Hit her!" screamed someone in the audience. Another man echoed the sentiment: "Send the bitch to the moon!"
Chad's jaw clenched, then - with a silent apology - he delivered an uppercut that he hoped looked harder than it really was.
Connie rocked backwards. The audience's roar of approval was too loud for Chad to hear a gasp of pain, but from the look in her eyes, he knew she'd made one. She dropped to the ground. Terrified that he'd hurt her worse than he'd intended, he rushed to her side. Connie looked up, winked, and delivered a kick to his groin.
Luckily, she misjudged the mark, and the full impact of her hit caught him mostly in the upper thigh. But one stiletto managed to target his left ball. The pain was exquisite, doubling him over in an instant. His stomach lurched. His first instinct was to not puke on stage, but then he thought otherwise and let it fly.
His spectacular splash of vomit received a standing O.
At the end of the show, the two of them hobbled off stage. Connie's jaw was already beginning to bruise.
Chad, trembling too hard to stand any longer, dropped to his knees. Al hurried up, assessing the damage and shouting for ice packs.
"Great show," Al said, for once sounding like he meant it. "Really terrific."
Chad tried to smile, but grimaced instead. "Glad you liked it."
Al handed him a bottle of water. "I just wish you would have given me a heads up beforehand."
"We didn't know ourselves," Connie mumbled through swollen lips.
"That's okay. Next time we'll be sure to bill it. 'Pain Comics 2.0' or something. God, it's the next frontier." Al was practically jumping out of his skin. "First real blood, now real pain."
Chad lifted his head, trying to see Al's face through the red haze that seemed to hang in front of his eyes. "What are you talking about?"
Al's smile faltered. "What are you talking about? I thought you two were nano-free tonight. No pain bots. Au natural."
Connie, too, was puzzled. "We're clean. At least, I am. I wasn't planning on getting hit tonight." Wincing, she pressed an icepack against her jaw.
"Me, too," Chad said. After what had happened with Dr. Buzz, he'd sworn off nanos and bots.
Al's smile returned. "Well, okay then. We're good. And when word gets out that you two are doing live pain comedy with no anesthetics, our audience will double. Triple, maybe."
The news sucked the air from Chad's lungs. Was Al serious? Pain comedy without a safety net? He glanced at Connie, whose complexion was alarmingly pale.
Al either didn't notice their horror or didn't care. "But next time you do this act, you need to go all out. You pulled your punch, didn't you," he said to Chad. "Chickened out at the last minute, am I right?"
Chad couldn't meet his eyes. When he'd hit Connie he'd tried to do as little damage as possible.
"Look, if you're going to do pain comedy, then do it. Understand? None of this half-assed crap." He turned to Connie. "And you, sweetheart. Balls are always here, got it?" He grabbed his crotch. "It's the same location on every guy. You missed by a mile."
This time, Connie looked away.
"Don't worry," Al said. "We'll make sure you two practice."
An intern, a doe-eyed coed who'd confessed to Chad that she'd always wanted to do stand-up, came over and handed him another icepack. Her face was pale, her eyes even wider than usual. "You're bleeding." She pointed to Chad's crotch, where a spot the size of a bottle cap was rapidly blooming.
Al tilted his head, considering. "Those stilettos of hers were wicked. They probably tore something down there." He sounded as matter-of-fact as if he was discussing a flat tire. "Too bad it didn't bleed on stage."
If Chad could have stood, he would have happily delivered some pain to his manager right then. It would do the smart-ass good to get a taste of what it was like to get a stiletto to the balls. The way Chad felt right now, he'd happily deliver some heavy pain to his entire audience. Never mind their standing O.
That thought sent a vibration through his brain, and somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, an idea stirred. Something very important. He tried to nail it down, but the more he chased after it, the further it receded. The pain was too much of a distraction.
In the hospital, Chad was given anesthetics (medicine this time, not bots) so the doctor could carefully stitch him back together. The doctor, a defeated-looking man with stooped shoulders and thinning hair, asked, "How did this happen?"
Chad said, "Would you believe it's an occupational hazard?"
The doctor rolled his chair backwards. "I know who you are." He looked over the tops of his glasses and held Chad's gaze. "There's a crowd of reporters waiting for you outside."
Reporters! Chad would need to get his hands on a comb and wash his face before leaving the room. He wondered if Connie had already spoken to them, and what she might have said.
The doctor stood up and stripped off his gloves. "I don't know who disgusts me more, pain comics or their audiences." His gray eyes smoldered. "There's nothing funny about watching a man bleed. If the audience had felt the pain that you did when you were brought in here, they'd understand."
And there it was. That elusive little thought that had been teasing him was now laid right out in the open. Chad laughed. The doctor's eyes narrowed. He muttered something under his breath and left.
A few minutes later, Connie came into the room. Her jaw was still swollen, and
the bruises had begun to darken. She tied a balloon bouquet to the foot of the hospital bed. "God, I'm so sorry." She gently touched his shoulder.
He grinned, woozy with drugs. "It's okay. Looks like I got you pretty good, too."
She didn't smile. "I wanted you to be the first to know that I'm getting out of the game. For good."
He took her hand. "Don't leave. Not yet." He pulled her closer. "You have to try our new show. At least once." And before she could protest, he told her his plan. He explained about turning the tables on the audience, asking for volunteers. He explained age-of-consent and pain thresholds and the need for waivers. God knew, they couldn't risk having a pregnant woman or someone with a heart condition strapped to one of Dr. Chad N. Freud's machines.
Connie shook her head. "It won't work. No one would volunteer."
"Of course they will," he insisted. "It will be perfectly safe. Besides, comics have been doing it for years. Penn and Teller, Cirque du Soleil . . . All of them. And we'll give away t-shirts, too, that say, 'I submitted to Connie Lingus.'"
Connie's mouth quirked in a half smile. "I suppose there'll always be suckers."
"That there will," Chad agreed. He envisioned an audience member, prepped with nanos and bots, strapped into Dr. Chad N. Freude's automatic nose-hair clipper. Even someone who'd been given am ample dose of pain meds would blanch at the sight of a giant, rotating blade heading straight for his left nostril. The look of horror on the volunteer's face would be hysterical, especially if the image was projected on an overhead screen so large it would make the JumboTron in Times Square look puny.
Connie tapped her chin as she considered. "My S&M skit might work well for that."