Chapter Text
Stede set the phone back in the receiver, smiling in satisfaction. He had never done a good job planning anniversary celebrations for him and his wife Mary, but this time he was sure he had done well. Who doesn't like dinner and comedy? And he hadn't just gotten them a table to watch any old stand-up, he was taking Mary to see Blackbeard, the most cutting edge comedian in New York. They had caught Blackbeard on The Late Show, and Mary had laughed, especially at the jokes lambasting the Upper West Side set. Stede had filed that away. When the chance to see Blackbeard at a supper club had come up the night of their anniversary, it had felt like fate.
A week later, Stede was changing into his pajamas when Mary sat down on the bed, her hands folded in her lap.
"Mary?" He frowned in concern. "What's wrong?"
She spoke to her hands. "Are you happy?"
An automatic 'of course' sprang to his lips, but there was something about her posture that demanded a more careful answer than the platitudes he espoused to his colleagues and his father. "As happy as anyone, I suppose. Is something bothering you?"
"Last week, when you took me to see that comedian," Mary took a deep breath, "the way you looked at him, I..." She turned to him. "You've never looked at me like that."
He frowned. How had he looked at Blackbeard? The man was funny, and handsome, and he was pursuing a career Stede couldn't even dream of having the courage to chase. But why did that make Mary so sad?
"Stede. We aren't happy. I... I don't know what the problem is, but I know that it's not because I'm broken. I met someone that makes me happy, and I can't go on pretending everything here is fine."
Stede sat down on the bed. He must be in shock. He wasn't angry. Why wasn't he angry?
Mary looked at him. "I'm sorry."
"Are you in love?" He asked.
Her eyes were shining through unshed tears. "Yes."
He wasn't sad. Why wasn't he sad? His eyes wandered to the packed suitcases by the door. "Are you leaving me?"
"Yes."
"What about the children?"
"I've packed them already."
"You forgot to cut air holes," he said with the bland tone he often used to deliver jokes.
Mary laughed a little and rested her head on his shoulder. "We'll share custody. I want you in their lives. You're a good father."
"But not a good husband?" He hated how small he sounded.
"I don't know, Stede. Maybe you'll be a great husband to the right person. You just can't be my husband anymore."
Stede stumbled drunk into the cab in the front of his building. He was wearing a dressing gown over his pajamas, although he had decided he wanted real shoes even if he couldn't be fucked to wear real trousers. After Mary had left with the sleepy children, Stede had gone into the liquor cabinet to pour himself the strongest drink he could find. When the bottle was empty, he had decided fuck it, and now he was telling a cabbie to take him to any comedy club in the Village.
The door to the Gaslight was sticky. Stede pulled a face. But everything in the Gaslight seemed to be sticky. He stumbled over to the bar behind which a tall young man with sideburns was watching the stage and rolling his eyes. "Rubbish," he muttered to himself.
Stede knocked on the bar top. "Your finest brandy, sir." Whoops, too loud.
The young man looked at him, top lip curling. "Do I look like your maid?"
"You look like a bartender," Stede shot back.
"Well, I'm not." He turned back to the stage, arms crossed over his chest.
"I'm more interesting than that twerp," Stede tipped his head.
"Oh, yeah?" The not-bartender looked him up and down, bored. "Prove it."
Stede narrowed his eyes. "Fine." He pushed back and marched to the stage.
He took the stairs on unsteady legs. The comic on the stage gave him a strange look that turned into a startled squawk when Stede grabbed the mic from him and shouted, "Hello, all!"
Silence from the audience.
"My wife just left me!" Stede started. "Me! Can you believe it?"
“What happened?” Called a curious spectator.
“Apparently, we’re not in love, after ten years! Coulda fooled me. I’ve been working the same bullshit job I hate, I even gave her two kids! A girl and a boy!” Stede pulled the mic off the stand. “I mean, sure, I barely did any work to make that happen, and the boy looks more like her painting instructor, Doug, than me...”
The audience reacted to that, whistles and laughter and a couple shocked gasps.
A woman in the front said to her partner, “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Stede stepped forward. “Me either, sister. Me either.”
More laughs.
“There are so many questions spinning around in my head. Why did she leave? Why wasn’t I enough? Are other married couples actually happy, or is that a lie we just tell ourselves until our marriage falls apart?”
The audience fell silent again. An audible flush sounded from the bathroom next to the stage.
“And why didn’t they put the stage over there against that wall instead of over here by the bathroom so you wouldn’t have to listen to every giant bowel movement that takes place in there?!”
The entire crowd laughed at that.
Stede put the mic back on the stand and shoved his hands in his dressing gown pockets. “I’m sorry, I’m a little drunk. She said she's not in love with me.”
The bathroom door banged open and a patron stumbled out.
“Are you feeling better now?” Stede asked loudly.
Loudest laugh of the night, Lucius noted from the bar, where he had been watching this situation evolve with interest.
“Thanks for covering me,” Pete whispered, tying his apron on. “What did I miss?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I can't look away.”
Stede pulled the mic off the stand once more. “So my life completely fell apart today! Did I mention that my wife left me?”
A man hooted from the audience, “Whoo hoo!”
“Okay, alright. I know I’m into birdwatching,” the audience booed, “and I love books,” crowd was mixed on that one, “and I’m terrible at planning anniversaries.” Another hoot. “But I was a great husband! I was dependable! I never looked at other women! My secretary is a man, for chrissakes!” More laughs.
Lucius came around the bar and leaned against the soundbooth. The lighting tech had finally figured out he needed to swing the light to follow the car crash happening on stage. And Lucius was starting to get a strange feeling about this fancy man in his pajamas.
“And I know that Mary- her name is Mary- wanted to go to cool parties in the village and rub elbows with artists and we’re too rich for her to be taken seriously as an artist... Really?” He interrupted himself to yell at a man who was walking towards the bathroom with familiar determination and shame, “Really? After what I just said about the bathroom?”
The audience cracked up, and the man went scurrying in the other direction. Stede followed him off the stage. “Walk of shame.” The man moved faster. “Walk Of Shame.” Now on the same level as the rabble, Stede started speaking to people at their tables. “What is love, after all? Isn’t it putting your dreams behind everyone else’s, so they can live the kind of life that makes them happy?”
The crowd listened, rapt.
“Isn’t it playing pirates with your children- even though Mary specifically forbade it- because they love it so much? Isn’t it calling ahead from the payphone in the park that we’re coming home so she and her painting instructor can finish fucking each other before the kids and I walk in?”
The audience screamed with laughter. Even Lucius was smiling. Someone whistled.
He walked back up the stairs to the stage. “And I thought I was losing my mind. Which would be perfect now, since she left me. I can be alone and insane, the famous mad divorcé of the Upper West Side.” Stede dramatically threw his arm over his face. The audience laughed. He pulled up the stool from the back of the stage and perched on it. “And here’s the worst thing. I like the man she’s fucking. His name is Doug. Doug never makes me feel stupid or useless. And I know it’s petty, but I’m just so much prettier than he is!”
The crowd lost it.
“And who wouldn’t want to come home to this every night?” Stede pulled his dressing gown off and dropped it on the stool, holding his arms out to the audience, who had fallen uncomfortably silent.
“Okay, alright. Maybe today isn’t the best day to judge. I’ve been drinking and my face is all puffy-” Chuckles from the crowd as he looked down and made a face at his belly, “and I’m all bloated... Miss, can I just borrow...?”
The confused waitress handed him up the two trays she was about to take back to the bar.
Stede held one over his face and one over his belly, leaving only his mountainous pectorals on display through his silk pajama top. “Who wouldn’t want to come home to these every night?”
Cheers, claps, and laughs for his great tits.
What the fuck, Lucius thought, even though he was also cheering for the man’s tits.
“Yeah!” Stede pulled the trays away. “They’re pretty good, right? Plus, they stand up on their own.” He ripped his shirt open to shocked gasps from the audience. "What's not to love about these tits?"
“Shit,”Lucius gaped. What a fucking nutjob. But he couldn’t look away. Neither could the rest of the crowd, who were all cheering.
“Cops!” Pete shouted.
Stede hadn’t noticed, or didn’t understand what that meant to him. “There’s no way Doug can compete with these tits!” An officer grabbed him and dragged him off the stage. The crowd surged to their feet, perversely giving Stede a standing ovation as he was being arrested.
“Excuse me? What are you doing?”
Lucius chased them out the door. “He’s just some pampered husband, he doesn’t know the rules!”
“Yeah, yeah, we can discuss it at the station.”
“Station?” Stede piped up. “What station? I don’t understand what’s going on!”
The officer didn’t even look at him. “You’re being arrested.”
“What?” He exploded. “WHY?”
“Public indecency and performing without a cabaret license.”
Lucius watched the fancy man get belligerent. “You need a license to do that? Seriously?”
The cop shoved him into the back of the squad car. “Yeah, yeah. You can bitch all about it to your friend in the back seat there.” He slammed the door.
“Ouch.” Stede was reeling, the booze and the adrenaline making everything feel unreal. “What the fuck.”
The man next to him wasn’t handcuffed either, just glaring out the window while he smoked a cigarette, a trench coat pulled up to his ears. He cast a world weary glance at Stede. “Hey.”
Not in the mood to make friends, Stede looked away. He felt more than saw the man take in his torn open pajama top, pecs still visible. Stede pulled the top closed, and then frowned and looked at the stranger. He gasped in recognition. “Are you...?”
The man winked, his black beard tucked almost, but not all the way into the turned up collar of the coat. “I’m Ed. Do you smoke?”
Filter off from shock, Stede blurted out, “Only if my mother won’t catch me.”
The man, Ed, Blackbeard, laughed, and passed over his smoke. Stede took it, unable to stop staring. “Why did they arrest you? Did you let your cabaret license lapse?”
Ed snorted a laugh. “Nah, mate. They just like to arrest homos.”
Stede’s face must have registered his shock, because Ed rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, you’re not in danger.”
“No, I just..." Stede pushed the smoke back into Ed's hand. "Excuse me, what do you think of my tits?” Stede pulled his top open. “Would you leave someone with tits like these?” He demanded.
Ed stared at his chest, smoking intently. His eyes flicked to Stede's hair, his lips, and to the thick legs in silky bedclothes. "No," he finally decided. "I don't think I would."
"THANK you." Stede thumped back in his seat, releasing his shirt.