On

So, they sat around a table with condensation on it, smoking and joking.

The laughter ricocheted off the walls and sounded like bursts from trumpets. Their shirts remained damp; they toweled off from the blazing heat. It didn’t matter. The sweat congregated at their temples, their  foreheads, their armpits. The smell of liquor permeated the air and almost made it hotter.

“I go in there and I see the same cat that gave me a tip and wanted me to touch his pantyhose!” Skillen Gastor related.

“Ayo!” The men shout.

“I know! So I tells ‘em…I tells ‘em…thanks for the tip, but I’m not down with that shit!” Uproarious laughter bubbled up once again as the comics continued to play spades and sip Bombay Sapphire out of conical paper cups you use to get water at fountains.

“I don’t know, I think If I'd gotten that tip, I would have given him something,” Vector Jumen extolled.

“It’s okay to come out now, Vec’. Hell, my mama's queer!” Corbin Mince blurted out.

“But seriously, we have to be down here waiting for the next act for us all to perform together?” Hilky Certman asked. 

“Looks like it. Someone is intentionally turning up the heat, I swear,” Gastor pointed out. He tugged at his collar.

“Mince!” A voice harsh and slender beckoned the comedian.

“It’s my time, now,” he announced as he got up from the table and looked at his watch.

“Y’all will get your chance,” he admitted and then ascended in the elevator.

The light of the contraption diminished as the doors closed. 

“Man, I swear this is going to drive me crazy!” Jumen patted the back of his neck.

“It’s going to be a chance for us to display our best sets. That’s our only chance.” He said it again as if giving wings to his dreams by repeating himself.

“Man, ain’t nobody getting out of here. This is good company. You wanted a better climate, you had the opportunity to go there. We’re stuck here until we plead our case like everyone else,” Gastor mentioned.

The heat felt like hot breath from a furnace coughing up the results of fiery coals. Certman rose to his feet.

“What have we been on? What are we doing here? We told a few jokes. What’s that got to do with anything? What is the major issue that we did to get down here?” he asked.

“We refused.” Jumen observed.

“Refused what?” Certman asked, sweat exiting from every pore.

“We chose the company like Gastor said,” Jumen added.

“That’s alright, though. I kinda like this temperature. The heat is like a salve,” Jumen admitted.

“What the––” Certman’s face looked like a broken sidewalk with cracks in it.

“You’re telling me that we are here because of that? We’re here because we wanted to know the cool cats.”

Jumen scoffed. “‘Cool cats’? Huh? The last time I saw a cool cat was in the front row of my concert who was not laughing. He was too cool. He made it a thing. I honed in on him. I saw him look into his girlfriend’s ear and pull out a set of keys. This son of a bitch was doing a magic show during my set. I was astonished, amused. I had to stop the whole show. He had to be here somewhere. I guess he found better climates.”

“That’s nothing,” Gastor added. “I had to give the whole audience a refund and give them an apology. Some bastard came on the stage waving a gun. It was a goddamn watergun painted black and silver. Messed up my whole set, man. I could’ve rapped the sound out of his ears.” A topless woman came by the table with champagne and water. Ameesha bent down to the table, droplets falling from off the bottle. 

“Can we get some glasses in here, finally, Darling?” Certman asked Ameesha.

“You know you’ve gotta pass the test in order to get glass,” she explained.

She made a frowny face and then smiled. “Don’t forget where you are….”Ameesha reminded the men. She walked away with a sashay that could have froze them in a trance had the concept of freezing even been contemplated here. The lights around the heated place looked murky and out of focus. Hotness kept the lines wavy and the blazes disturbed their minds.

“Certman!” the voice called with its dusty gravel.

“That’s my turn,” he put on his saturated jacket springing with sweat. 

“It’s not your turn Certman, I’m just letting you know you’re going last.”

“But why?”

“Did you forget where you were?”

Certman sat down like he had gotten news that his son had just been struck by a truck.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Jumen laughed nervously. “No, we’ve gotta be the ones who will entertain again. I’ve got a plan. Pink elephants and purple hippos are what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the impossible. Like where we are right now. A golden retriever giving birth to a flamingo. That’s all I gotta say, right? If I just have a set that will bring the place down. They’ll be rolling in the aisles with tears, not sweat issuing from out of them!”

“Vec, it’s alright,” Gastor mentioned. “You can do that set, but what will it give you to go off your original material?”

“I don’t know, I just want this heat to go away,” Jumen admitted. 

Gastor looked at the two men. “We’ve got our funny. No one can take that away. Look at it this way, we’ve been placed here to continue to entertain. Just think about how absurd all of this is. Who even made this table?” He shook it and a sheet of condensation rained from the surface. “Where did Ameesha come from? Where did this table get its construction and why is it cooler than everything else?”

“What is the point of sitting in the company of you bastards? Why am I here? I did what I had to do. You bums don’t know nothing about no comedy. I could call out that funny shaped head of yours, Hil,” Jumen acknowledged. Certman popped his shirt as if to put air in sails and shook his head. He looked at Jumen with a “why me?” sort of face. 

“Your head looks like a bulldog threw up a mastiff.”

Gastor started laughing.

“What you laughing at, Skill’?” Jumen asked.  “Your grill looks like a salamander got down with a cottonmouth.”

“See that ain’t even funny. My mama said I had a defect,” Gastor pointed out.

“The dozens?! All you have are the dozens?” Certman asked quizzically. 

“That ain’t gon’ get you nowhere. What y’all are going to have to do is just point out the flaws in this place. How jacked up it is….How we have another chance to make it out of here.”

“Shut up. That’s why you’re going last. With your triflin’ ass!” Jumen observed.

“I may be going as the final contestant, but at least I don’t have to change up my whole routine. I’m going to do my set my way. I don’t care how hot––”

Just when he said this the air grew even more ovenlike. The men felt the blast of heat like a horrific hand had slapped them all across the face with a scorching blow.

“I can’t take this,” Jumen announced. “I’m going in that elevator.”

“You can’t go out of turn,” Certman reminded. Ameesha returned with a bottle of Scotch. She had placed a bra over her breasts. 

“Whatchu doing out here amongst us rabblerousers?”

She swigged from the bottle. “I’m on break.”

“Well, since you work here, maybe you can tell your boss to let us skip the process. Man, this table feels so cold,” Certman suggested.

“It’s connected to the lowest level here,” Ameesha reported.

Certman placed his head down on the table and let the coolness ease into his pores.

“It’s connected to the lower levels, isn’t it? Ice, that’s what’s down there?”

“Sure. I can tell y’all one thing, though….Just be funny, that’s all,” Ameesha declared.

“Have you been trying to get out of here?” 

“No, I like the company. It could be cooler, sure. But I can take the heat,” she pointed out.

“Certman!” The voice shouted.

“That’s me!” he cocked his fedora and popped his suspenders.

“I’m on my way,” he called.

“That ain’t right, Certman. You know it was my turn. How did you get ahead of me?” Jumen asked, almost on the verge of crying. An edginess in his voice prevented it from cracking.

“I don’t know. And I ain’t gonna worry about it. My name was called again and that’s all there is to it.” Just then, the door opened and a man no older than nineteen stepped through the door. He wore an all white suit with a red shirt and red leather shoes.

“Am I in the right place? Goddamn. What they got the heat on––”

“No, don’t say it!” Gastor barked. 

“Yeah, youngin’ you’ll mess up our whole flow,” Certman chastised him and walked by the fellow and headed up to the elevator.

“What’s your name, youngin’?” Gastor asked.

“Cobb. Corey Cobb.” He looked at Ameesha with prowling eyes and watched as she rose from the table to continue her shift. “Can a man get a drink?”

“She’ll be back out braless with your potent potable. That don’t mean nothin’. That just mean she workin.’”

“Well, I let her work, then,” Cobb mentioned. 

“It’s lava hot down here. What number am I so I can get out of here?” Cobb wondered.

“Relax. You’re in good company. All you have to do is just take in the moment,” Jumen instructed.

“Here?” 

“That’s right,” Jumen answered.

“This is the Super Spot. Where it’s super hot!” Gastor exclaimed.

Cobb’s suit already got sweated throughout its entire cloth. He patted his head with his red pocket square.

“I don’t know about y’all, but I’m finna have the best set out of all of y’all. My game’s so tight,” he leaned back and saw the backside of Ameesha in the back room. “When I get out of here, I’m going straight up to where this here brochure got the weather just right,” Cobb imagined.

“Wait…are you that same Cobb that was the Kid’s Pick for comedy?” Jumen asked.

“Damn right. But I ain’t no kid no mo.’”

“What happened to you, man? You had flow,” Certman recognized.

“Life and apparently whatever this is,” he acknowledged. He looked around the dark space. Some strobe lights and candles burned at the other tables. Other than that the extreme heat almost suffocated them all.

“Yes. I couldn’t tell a joke but I could still make the girls giggle. It felt like magic to hear those high-pitched sounds.”

“But you were funny,” Gastor observed.

“I know that for a fact. You goddamn right I was funny.”

“You not as funny as me. I’m ‘half Jumen, half amazing.’ I could sell out football stadiums.”

“I heard of you. I know you sold out a crowd. But that don’t mean nothing,” Cobb countered.

“Look at you, dressed like a pimp. What you think this is the show for the hoeless and doughless?” Jumen replied.

Cobb raised from his seat and patted his head once again. Sweat continued to drip from all of them.

“I know you ain’t talkin’. You washed up old man. In particular, you messed up your life playin’ with your nose. They should call you half cocaine, half amazing!”

“Damn,” Gastor said. “I know it’s hot up in here, but that was cold.”

Cobb found his footing as Jumen approached him. 

“What you gon’ do, old man? You gon’ kill me? I’m I supposed to go all over again?” Cobb asked, looking Jumen up and down again.

“No, but there’re levels here. You don’t want to go lower….I can have you sent there.”

“Alright, alright,” Gastor finally spoke up. “It’s only right that we do a roast right here, right now to settle this. I know it’s hot enough, but we’re going to do one with no compliments at the end, just straight disses.”

“I’m game,” Jumen replied.

“Let’s go,” Cobb chimed.

“On account of the visitor who just got here, Cobb, you flip the coin,” Gastor outlined.

He abided. 

“Call it in the air,” Gastor instructed.

“Tails!” 

The coin showed the side of an American bison.

“It’s on you youngin’.”

Cobb cleared his throat. “What can I say about Vector Jumen that hasn’t already been said about an avalanche? I guess one would be nice right now, wouldn’t it? Where is the booger sugar he’s so accustomed to using? Why is he not using the dandruff down here? I kid. He can’t afford to snort any more. Those females he played with…were they in their teens? He’s the type to say, ‘Well, eighteen or nineteen is just not my thing.”

Jumen stepped towards Cobb.

“Corey Cobb…you tap dancing little chimp…. How many times have you put on a dress in a movie? Yes, in your brief  career, you donned a wig to please the wider audience. How does that make you feel? You should be more concerned about your tiny stature as you’ve been selected to play one of the apes that got mistaken for people before the Middle Passage.”

Then, the brusque voice sounded around the room. “Jumen!” He got right in front of Cobb. The heat of the place made them almost go into a fit of chills, somehow. 

“This is over because I’m getting out of here,” Jumen pronounced.

“Alright. But you didn’t beat me. You’re corny.”

“Corny?! You were a kid star. You didn’t even have peach fuzz on your chin.”

“You snorted up all your money and had to slum and bum to get roles,” Cobb countered.

“It’s better than being an ass kisser. Never did I lose my manhood over a part.”

“And neither did I,” Cobb relayed.

Gastor rose to his feet and patted his forehead. “Maybe you should heed the call, Vec’,” Gastor mentioned.

Cobb looked at Jumen in the eye about six inches away from his face.

Jumen walked by him, the heat from his body emanating moisture. His shoes knocked against the floors and Cobb sucked his teeth twice, flashing gold in his mouth.

“It’s just the three of us, now,” Certman asserted. “And I’m last. We’re going to get to that greater climate,” Gastor sighed. Ameesha came from the back of the bar in her usual half-garbed attire and dropped a little liquor into the paper cups for the three men.