Hijinks Ensue, by Sasha Brown
By the time you get to the city you won’t have a penny to your name. Also someone’s gonna steal your duffel bag out of the bus station when you’re in the bathroom. It’s gonna be a bummer. Real desperate times. You’ll wander off through the city destitute, past all the beautiful people with their pennies. You’ll turn away from them, embarrassed. The crowds will thin and disappear and, late that night, you’ll come to a neighborhood with no one in it at all. An empty city.
There’ll be no trash in this neighborhood and no dogshit and no seats in the parked cars, just smooth blank spaces. The shell of a city. On a corner there’ll be a duplex with one side all lit up and the other side dark. You’ll sneak to the unlit side and find an open window like it’s waiting for you. No furniture. No one living there. No one around. You’ll sneak in and fall asleep on the empty floor.
You’ll wake to the sound of screaming.
Sun in the windows, shrieks from the other half of the house. You’ll stagger into the hallway. Through the other door a deep voice will go, “I barely even KNOW her!” More screaming.
You’ll consider just going back. Blocking your ears in the empty apartment. But for what? Through this door, you’ll think, something is happening. Probably not even a good thing, but definitely a thing. Happening.
You’ll throw open the door and there’ll be this wall of dazzling light. Suddenly everything’ll be dead silent. You in the glare, blinking and squinting. You won’t be able to see shit. You’ll be like, “Somebody dying in here or what?”
When your eyes adjust you’ll see a handsome man and an attractive woman, standing in half of a kitchen. The other half will be more people, sitting in tiered rows of cushioned chairs, watching.
There’ll be cameras, spotlights. Gaffers or whatever. Everyone’s gonna be looking at you.
The dude will look pissed, which is fair. You didn’t even knock. The attractive woman will recover first. She’ll give you the brightest smile, roll her eyes, cock her thumb at her handsome husband. “Dying? Only this guy’s jokes.”
You’ll blurt out, “Better him than me!”
The crowd’s gonna lose their shit. Bedlam in the studio. Hooting and hollering. Texting their moms. One guy will even get up like he’s gonna do a standing ovation. No one else will do it with him so he’ll sit right back down again, embarrassed, but it’s still cool that one guy likes it so much.
In the middle of all this, a production assistant with a headset will come up like, “Nice work. Glad to have you on board.”
“On board what?”
She’ll smile politely. “Save it for the audience.”
They’re gonna let you stay in the empty apartment for free. All you’ll have to do is go next door and be funny. It’ll be cool. You’ll crack a couple jokes, people laugh, you go back to your place. They’re gonna give you money for this! Like not a ton, but enough to buy furniture.
You’re gonna like your job. It’ll be fun to think of new excuses to go over there. Wackier things to say. “Can I borrow five pounds of sugar?” you’ll yell.
The handsome man will make a face. “Sugar? I barely even KNOW her!” Wait for applause.
One night you’ll be woken up by a noise in your newly-furnished living room. The production assistant will be out there, still wearing her headset.
“Focus groups like you,” she’ll say.
“Oh. Wow.”
“How would you like to be married?”
“I guess it would depend on who to?”
There’ll be a little titter. Someone’ll be pressed up against your window, the same window you snuck into way back when. They’ll be looking in and giggling.
The production assistant will flap her hand at the window. “We’ll need to get rid of this.” The whole wall will winch up and away, revealing tiers of chairs. The audience member will sit down.
“Jeez,” you’ll mutter. “Now where am I supposed to masturbate?”
The production assistant will smile thinly. “Jokes aren’t going to do it anymore. This is a dramedy now.”
“A what?”
The handsome man is gonna get hit by a truck. It’ll be a real special episode. The ambulance driver will be this hot lady. You’ll introduce yourself as his best friend. She’ll put her nitrile-gloved hand over yours, comforting you for your loss. The violence will have come as a shock to you. Maybe the handsome man really was your best friend. You’ll hold the hot ambulance lady’s nitrile-gloved hand back. She’ll look startled, but then she’ll smile.
The bright lights will flip on at your place. The hot lady will move in immediately; the wedding will come soon after. She won’t be very funny, but she’ll seem nice. A lot of things will seem to happen to her. She’ll develop and kick a shoplifting addiction within, like, two weeks.
You’ll do your best to go with the flow. Being the main character is gonna be a drag. You’ll have to think of a lot of things to say. Sometimes it’ll seem boring. Everyone will do wacky stuff except you. Your attractive neighbor will burst into your apartment, just like you used to burst into hers. It’ll be late at night. Your hot wife will be in bed.
“I think you’re supposed to make a joke when you come in like that,” you’ll say. Light chuckle from the night audience.
“This isn’t working,” she’ll whisper, wide-eyed. “We’re losing the audience. They’re going to cancel us.”
“Really?” You imagine having to find a new place to live. Getting a job in wherever it is people get jobs. “What do we do?”
She’ll pause, like she’s gathering courage, and then she’ll kiss you.
It’ll be good. Finally, you’ll be doing something interesting. You’ll feel guilty and excited. You’ll kiss her back.
A low whistle will rise from the night audience. Shocked. Titillated.
You’ll creep sheepishly into the bedroom, way later. Your hot wife will close her laptop. You’ll be surprised to realize she’s the one who looks furtive. She’ll turn away and pretend to be sleepy. Overcome by your own guilt, you’ll snuggle in behind her, spooning.
“This was supposed to be my big break,” she’ll whisper.
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to be cool.”
“I just think I might have been better on a different show.”
You’ll slip your arm beneath her, and under her pillow you’ll feel the cool metal of a gun.
You won’t say anything. She’s got her own thing going.
You’re gonna get super into eating your attractive neighbor’s ass. Something about the illicit nature of it. You’ll try not to overthink it. Your hot wife is a spy or maybe a serial killer. None of it will work, not even the ass eating. The audience will be thinner every day.
The production assistant will arrive, muttering into her headset, and turn her cold eyes to you. “We’re slipping,” she’ll say. “I just want to let you know. To be fair to you. We need to turn it around. It’s not good.” Behind her, your hot wife will loom, holding something behind her back. But the production assistant will already be leaving.
You’ll bring it up with your attractive neighbor. She’ll be like, “Told you,” over in her apartment where there’s no audience anymore. “We need a real shakeup. Melodrama.”
“My wife has a gun,” you’ll say, in case it’s useful and also because you just want to talk about it with someone.
“Oh my God,” she’ll say. “Chekhov’s gun.”
“Wait, she stole it?”
“No - have you not even read Chekhov? If there’s a gun at the beginning, one of us is gonna get shot by the end.”
“The gun wasn’t at the beginning though. This is the middle. In the beginning it was just, like, the studio audience.”
“Don’t be pedantic. All guns are Chekhov’s guns.” She’ll give you a withering look, like how gauche. She won’t kiss you when you leave. Probably still let you eat her ass though. But it’ll feel like a goodbye.
The next morning she’ll burst into your apartment again, interrupting breakfast, wild-eyed. The door will sproing off the wall. Your hot wife will jerk her head up. “It’s time we stopped living a lie!” your attractive neighbor will shout. “We’re sleeping together!”
“I barely even KNOW…” you’ll start, but no one’ll be paying attention to you. They’ll be staring at each other. They’ll both move at once. Your attractive neighbor will sprint to the bedroom and reappear with the gun.
“Oooh,” the studio audience will go.
Your hot wife will glare at you. She’ll know you betrayed her. She’ll turn to your attractive neighbor. “First you steal my husband, now you steal my gun? What’s next? I have a UTI, you want that too?”
The crowd will erupt. The tension will break. The applause will be deafening. They love it. Bedlam again, like the old days. They’re texting their moms about it. Your hot wife will freeze, staring past the lights with the littlest smile. Then she’ll break for your attractive neighbor. They’ll wrestle for the gun. You’ll rush over to stop them. “Quit it! We don’t have to do this! Can’t you hear it? You’re funny! It’s going to be okay!” But the gun will go off. The crowd will gasp. Dead silence. Holy shit. That one dude will get up like he’s gonna try another standing ovation.
Sasha Brown is a Stoker-nominated writer and gardener whose surreal stories have been called “Creative! But in a bad way.” He’s in lit mags like Wigleaf and Split Lip, and in genre pubs like Bourbon Penn and Weird Horror. He’s on bsky at sashabrown, and online at sashabrownwriter.com.