A nobody like him found fame when he wasn't even looking for it, and it was for a reason he wished never happened.
When Raymond slid a copy of the ticket he printed out back at home, the host standing behind the counter asked, "So, no QR code?"
Raymond looked at her, confused. He asked, "What's that you say?"
The host raised an eyebrow, saying, "Um, it's what people scan with their phones to save time, so they don't have to Google anything."
"Isn't Googling stuff saving one's time in the first place?" Raymond asked.
The host of The Comedy Storage that evening could tell that Raymond was being genuine; not sarcastic in an attempt to make her either laugh, or comically become perturbed. Raymond Krexler was not a comedian.
"Anyways," the host began saying, "I'm just going to scan the QR code, and you're going to take out your driver's license."
"Yes, ma'am," Raymond said, taking out his wallet from his jean's pocket, opened it, and found his driver's license.
"'Ma'am'," the host of The Comedy Storage repeated as she took Raymond's I.D. and handed the ticket back to him. "Seriously?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Raymond said, flustering nervously. "Are you one of those... um, shit... trans -- in transition to be like the opposite of a man?"
The host almost started laughing as she checked Raymond's date of birth on his driver's license.
"No, Raymond, I'm all woman from birth to death."
"Oh, thank God," Raymond said, folding his ticket, and putting it in his back pocket. "This is my first time in the Hollywood Land environment. I don't want to fuck up things, you know. Plus, your name threw me off."
Raymond pointed to the host's name tag pinned to her black t-shirt. He said, "Logan. I forget it's a unisex name."
"No worries, Raymond," Logan said, handing him back his I.D. "I know things can be hard for Gen X."
"Technically, I'm a millennial," Raymond corrected.
"Whatever, Raymond. There's a two drink minimum. Alcoholic, or non. Enjoy the show. Welcome to The Comedy Storage, where all the best jokes are found."
Walking down the hallway leading to the sitting area in the main stage room, Raymond couldn't help but admire all the classic standup comedians depicted in amazing neon lights who started their successful careers at The Comedy Storage. He knew that in a few minutes he'd be sitting by himself at one of the tables before the main stage, laughing and giggling at the next Sam Kinison, Andy Kaufman, or Ellen DeGeneres. But Raymond was not solely at the infamous star making comedy club to hopefully witness the next Dave Chappelle; he wanted to meet the woman of his dreams, a standup comedian who was slowly, but surely on the rise: Leslie Dunkman.
Around six months prior to arriving in Los Angeles for a week long vacation, Raymond was eating lunch in the break room at the recycling facility he worked at in Oakland. Before he got to eating the lettuce, tomato, and turkey sandwich his mother had made him, he was browsing through YouTube to watch a video as he ate. He found one titled: Leslie Dunkman On Being dumped.
He clicked on it, laid his iPhone on the table, and began eating his sandwich. The footage was amateur; it was filmed with a phone from the very back of the audience. As he listened to Leslie do her bit about being dumped by a fat guy for not having a "beach-bod," Raymond almost choked on the sandwich when he laughed mid-swallow. He put the food down, picked up his cellphone to look closer at Leslie. He fell in love with her right then and there.
He later found her Twitter, read her witty tweets, watched the cute and funny skits that she and her friends filmed. All the while Raymond kept his fingers crossed, hoping she was actually single. There was no indication throughout her social media regarding a relationship status with either a boyfriend, or girlfriend. On Twitter she had six thousand followers, while on Instagram she achieved just over fifteen thousand.
Raymond saw on Instagram that Leslie would post videos of her part-time work as a tattoo artist. He admired the work she did. So much so that he decided to finally go somewhere on his vacation. Usually he'd do a stay-cation at home back in Oakland, sometimes taking a BART train to San Francisco, and get drunk at a bar he liked called The Riptide on open mid night to watch local musicians impersonate their hippie idols.
When he told his coworkers where he'd spend the weeklong vacation, one of them said, "About damn time you take a drive to see some of the world, even if it's in the same damn state."
A week later he found himself ordering a Racer Five I.P.A and a shot of Wild Turkey at one of the most infamous Comedy Clubs in the entire world.
"Shit, two drinks already?" the bartender said. "You're not depressed about sucking at an audition, are you?" The bartender then turned to pour Raymond's booze.
"Audition?" Raymond asked, confused. Then after a moment, he said, "Oh, I get it, you think I'm an actor. No, I'm just a blue-collar worker on vacation. I always order a beer and a shot after work."
As the bartender poured the shot of Wild Turkey, he said, "That makes sense. So, where do you hail from, out of state?"
"Oakland," Raymond replied, sliding over the his debit card for the drinks.
"No shit?" the bartender responded. "I'm from Pinole."
"Whoa, cool," Raymond said, lifting his shot glass. "Here's to a small world."
"Want an open tab?"
Raymond gave the bartender a thumbs up to say, Yes. To the bartender's amazement, Raymond gulped down the Wild Turkey, then washed it down with some of the Racer Five.
"Fuck, man, you are blue-collar," the bartender said. "My name's Kevin." He then reached over to shake Raymond's hand.
"I'm Raymond."
As the two Bay Area fellows greeted one another at the bar, a twenty-something comedian yelled into the mic onstage, "Hey, lovebirds at the bar! Shut the fuck up! I'm bombing up here!"
Still holding on to the bartender's hand, Raymond half-turned to look at the stage and people sitting at the tables. There were a few giggles, but it was mostly shocked silence.
Raymond raised his hand, and said, "I'm sorry. My bad."
The comedian onstage impersonated Raymond in a childlike voice, "'My bad, oh my bad.'" The comedian then continued his bit about giving himself a blow job.
His grip still holding Raymond's hand, Kevin steadily pulled him closer to quietly speak in his ear: "Don't take that personally. He does that when he's getting no laughs, and if anybody so happens to be ordering at the bar. Are you cool?"
"Oh, yes," Raymond affirmed. "I totally get it."
Raymond then -- as stealthily as he could -- walked over and sat at an empty table near the back. He saw the young comedian staring at him as he continued to do a lame bit about being locked inside an outhouse in Finland. He was the only one to laugh before sipping on his beer.
When the young comedian was finished onstage, Raymond and some others clapped. Raymond followed the guy with his eyes for a bit until he realized the dude was making his way towards him.
"Hey, man," the young man said, "I'm sorry about that. It's what I pull if none of my jokes are landing."
"Kevin informed me about that," Raymond said. "Even if that weren't true, I'd still be cool with it. I'm no Will Smith."
The young comedian chuckled, saying, "Well, thank you for that. The comedy world needs more people like you. My name's Adam. What's yours?"
"Raymond Krexler," Raymond replied, shaking Adam's hand.
"Cool name. Look, I want to make it up to you. Come with me to the green room."
"Really?" Raymond said, shocked.
"Yeah, man," Adam assured. "And when you've paid for your second drink, booze is on the house as long as you're back there."
"This is my second drink," Raymond said.
"That's your second glass of beer already?" Adam asked.
"No, my first drink was a shot of Wild Turkey," Raymond informed.
"What? Did you have a bad audition earlier today?"
As Raymond followed Adam into the green room, the comic announced him as soon as he passed through the threshold: "May I introduce a Sir Raymond Krexler from Oakland, California! Everyone shut up, and say, 'Hello, Raymond!'"
A group of around five comedians -- ages ranging from twenty-five to early thirties -- turned to look in Raymond's direction.
A young lady Raymond wasn't familiar with, said to Adam, "Fresh meat from the slaughter, dude?"
"No, no, Raymond here is just a blue-collar paying customer," Adam informed.
Another young comedian, who was finishing a marijuana joint, said to the group, "It's another traumatized tourist, Adam means."
"Not again, Adam," a voice familiar to Raymond called out from the open bar. "You need to work on your bits, and you just need to keep your shit together when all remains silent out there."
Raymond's eyes brightened at the sight of Leslie Dunkman, and his ears were soothed by the sound of her voice. He hoped no one noticed the sound of his breathing nearly making him gasp with joy.
The stoner dubbed out his joint on the bottom of his shoe, and said, "So, Oakland, what you drinking?"
"Racer Five," Raymond replied, taking a sip of the beer in his hand.
"No," the stoned comedian said, "what do you want a shot of? I'm sure Adam told you it's complimentary."
"Wild Turkey, then," Raymond said.
Everyone in the room, except for Adam, gasped. Some of the other ladies placing a hand over their chest to emphasize the shock.
"Damn, Adam," the stoner blurted.
"What the fuck did you say to this poor man, Adam?" Leslie asked.
"What?" Adam basically whined. "It was the usual. My voice started echoing back from over those sheep about to fall asleep, and Raymond here so happened to just come in, and actually was talking to Kevin at the bar."
"Kevin did explain it to me almost immediately," Raymond said. "It's all good. I'm cool. I just love Wild Turkey."
"Well, okay then, come with me over to the bar," Leslie said, beckoning him to join her.
Smiling brightly, Raymond said, "Certainly. I'm thirsting to down another one."
As Raymond came up to the small corner bar, Leslie was popping open a fresh new bottle of the bourbon. He knew why she had to open a new one, so that was the subject of conversation he started with in speaking to the girl of his dreams.
"I see there are never any Wild Turkey drinkers back here," he said, as Leslie filled two shot glasses.
"Yeah, every newbie wants to be levelheaded before going up," Leslie said, handing Raymond the full shot glass. "Except for Steven over there." She pointed at the stoner who spoke to Raymond earlier. She continued, "He's high on weed after doing a few lines in the bathroom."
Raymond looked over at Steven standing in the short hallway leading out of the green room. He saw Steven hopping up and down, sizing himself up as if he were about to run the hundred yard dash for Olympic gold.
"I'm breaking both legs," Steven yelled to everyone. "See you at the E.R. later." He then was gone as Raymond heard the high comedian being announced on the main stage.
"He's at least funnier than Adam," Leslie said.
"Hey, that hurts," Adam said, sitting on one of the couches.
Leslie told him to grow a pear, and write better jokes. She then raised her shot glass, and said to Raymond, "Here's to real talent."
Raymond raised his own shot glass level with Leslie's, and said, "To your talent."
They both downed the bourbon. Raymond chased it down by gulping the rest of his beer. Leslie couldn't help but stare at him doing so as she chased down the bourbon's burn with bottled water.
"Goddamn, dude," Leslie said. "You are truly blue-collar. Are you in construction?"
"No," Raymond replied. "I sort through recycling on a moving conveyer belt. Separate the paper from the plastic. Unscrew the bottle caps, etc. etc."
"Do you like it?" Leslie asked, pouring bourbon into the shot glasses once again.
"Thank you," Raymond said, gesturing at the new shot of Wild Turkey coming his way. "Yeah, I like it. Once you get past the nasty smell, and the mundane boredom of the job, the eight hour shifts wiz by like nothing. Though it took a while to not drink and smoke weed on the job every once in a while."
Leslie giggled. She then asked a fairly common question of any kind of tourist, "What brings you out here to La La Land?"
The booze Raymond had ingested since being in The Comedy Storage was about to make him honest for once. They don't call it liquid courage for nothing.
"For you," Raymond said.
"What?" Leslie uttered.
"I wanted to spend my first vacation away from home to come see you here perform onstage," Raymond said, his eyes becoming hazy from inebriation. He couldn't wait for his next shot. He continued, "Never thought I'd be lucky enough to be back here actually talking face to face like this. I've never been so lucky. Like ever."
Leslie's expression went blank at first, then a look of concern formed, almost like worry and fear.
"I recognize you," Leslie said. "You liked all my Instagram posts."
"Of course I did," Raymond said, chuckling. "I'm your biggest fan."
Leslie hastily walked around Raymond, making a beeline straight out of the green room.
"Hey, where are you going?" Adam asked.
"We didn't drink our second round Wild Turkey shots yet," Raymond said.
"The fuck you think I'm going, the bathroom," Leslie said, not looking at anyone else in the room before disappearing.
"Must be a number two poo poo," Adam said. "Yo, Raymond, come sit on the couch with Stacie and I. She wants you to regale her on why people up in the Bay Area say, 'Hella' all the time."
Answering such a query from a Southern Californian wasn't the first time for Raymond; one of his supervisors at his job was from Los Angeles, always asking about the local vernacular. He decided to drink the two shots Leslie had left behind. He then moved over to sit on the couch between Adam and Stacie.
"What exactly does saying 'hella' actually quantify?" Stacie asked.
Before he could give her an answer a large man entered the green room. He yelled, "Where's this Raymond?"
A female comedian Raymond had not been formerly introduced to pointed him out for the big guy.
"That's Travis, the head of the bouncers around these parts," Adam told Raymond. "Hey, Trav, this here Raymond is from your neck of the woods up in--"
Travis quickly went up to Raymond, looking down at him sitting on the couch, he asked, "What are you doing back here?"
"Yo, Trav, I--," Adam began to say.
Travis put a hand up to Adam's face to shut him up. He said, "I'm only talking to Cathy Bates here. I'll ask gain: What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Um, I came to see the show," Raymond said. "It's my first time in L.A. -- "
"Back here, in the green room," Travis interrupted. "Why are you in here?"
The room was silent. Raymond observed everyone's confused expressions for a moment.
"Adam invited me to hangout," Raymond said.
"You've made Leslie uncomfortable," Travis said. "You got to leave the premises."
"Look, I didn't -- " Raymond attempted to say before -- to everyone else's shock -- Travis bent down, hooked his arm under Raymond's left armpit, picked him off of the couch, causing Adam to spill his drink, and hastily dragged Raymond out of the green room. Raymond attempted to physically protest, but Travis tightened his hold on him, hurting his shoulder.
"Fuck, man, that hurt!" Raymond yelped.
"Good," Travis said as they emerged into view of the crowd near the bar. "It's what a stalker like you deserves."
"Stalker?" Raymond said, shocked. "I ain't a fucking stalker, yo."
Raymond attempted to walk upright, but Travis was relentless, holding him down. It caused Raymond to knock into the very table he had been sitting at when Adam walked up to him.
"Try that again, and I'll knock you out," Travis yelled.
This caused all the people in the audience to turn their heads toward the commotion. They only got the tail end of it as Travis continued to drag Raymond toward the outside patio for smoking instead of the entrance he had come in through earlier when he gave his ticket to Logan.
As Travis was pulling the stumbling Raymond through the empty patio, Raymond said, "Look, sir, there's a simple misunderstanding. I was here just to see the show, nothing -- "
Travis got Raymond to the patio entrance, and threw him on the concrete sidewalk.
"-- nefarious," Raymond yelped as he hit the ground.
"Not only are you eighty-sixed, you're banned from ever entering this place again," Travis said. "You're cancelled, bitch."
As Raymond slowly got up to his feet, he said, "How could I be cancelled if I'm not even a fucking celebrity?" He started to laugh.
"You being smart, you bitch?" Travis stepped toward Raymond, and pushed him off his feet.
Raymond fell backward onto the pavement in between two parked cars. He cursed in pain.
Travis pointed down at him, and said, "No incels allowed in here, boy." He then turned around to go back in the building.
"Wait," Raymond called out, still laying on the pavement, "my debit card. Kevin still has it."
Travis turned back around, and said, "Your ass pays for two drinks from the bar, and four drinks from the green room."
"That's fine," Raymond said.
"Plus the eighteen percent gratuity for --"
Travis was interrupted when -- from out of Raymond's view, due to lying between the two parked cars -- loud gunfire erupted. Three bullets in total hit Travis: two in the chest, one right in the gut. He fell to the sidewalk on his back.
When the shooter came near to the entrance of the patio, he looked down at Travis laying on the concrete, dying. He decided not to put another AR-15 bullet in Travis again; the bouncer was finished. He looked over between the two parked cars where he saw Travis push Raymond toward. He did not see anyone laying on the pavement. The shooter figured the fallen man had run off like a coward, so, decked out all in black like a member of a police SWAT Team without the helmet, the murderer turned toward to go inside The Comedy Storage, and continue his killing spree. As he passed the railings, he saw the patio bartender simply standing behind the counter, shaking, too shocked and horrified to move. The shooter took aim on the deathly pale bartender, but before he could shoot the AR-15 he was bum-rushed, his body slammed into the wall.
It was Raymond. After the shooter bounced off the wall he turned to Raymond, and raised his gun to shoot him. Raymond slapped the barrel of the gun with his hand. It went off, the bullet hitting the ground. The shooter raised it again, and this time Raymond gripped the hot barrel with his other hand, lifted it up above his head. The gun went off one last time, with the bullet going into the ceiling.
"Not tonight, bitch!" Raymond yelled. He then punched the shooter in the left cheek.
The shooter lost hold of the gun when Raymond's hard fist caused his head to hit the wall. Raymond got hold of the rifle with both his hands, turned it sideways, pulled it close to him, then slammed the center of it across the shooter's throat. The shooter, who hadn't said a word since before murdering Travis, looked at Raymond in the eyes, his teeth bared like a rabid dog desperately wanting to bite any kind of flesh near it.
Raymond, his forehead dripping with sweat, stared right back at the shooter's hateful eyes, and said, "You're not taking her away from me."
As fast as he could, Raymond pulled back the gun, and slammed it right into the shooter's throat. This caused the shooter's raging, contorted face to turn into a fish out of water. His jaw dropped. Raymond knew he broke the bastard's windpipe. When he released the rifle from pressing against the shooter's neck, he immediately heard the heaving sound of oxygen barely making it to the idiot's lungs.
"Drowning on land rather sucks, don't it, shithead?" Raymond said, then grabbed the shooter by his collar and, as hard as he could, pulled the choking man and threw him on the ground behind him. The shooter's hands went to his throat after hitting the ground.
"So you think you can turn a laugh factory of happiness and joy into a slaughter house of screams and horror," Raymond said, moving closer to the shooter laying on the ground, ejecting the rifle's magazine, and popping out the last round from the chamber, letting them bounce on the ground. Standing over the heaving shooter, Raymond, his hands gripping the AR-15's barrel and grip, raised the murder machine over his head like a baseball bat, he said, "This is how you really use a gun this big."
He began hitting the shooter hard: Once in the left leg, then twice in the stomach. This made the shooter turn on his stomach in pain, trying to crawl away. Raymond hit him three times in the back. This made the shooter turn back around, giving up, and laying on his back. He looked up at Raymond, tears in his eyes, his lungs desperate for a full breath of air.
Raymond tossed away the rifle, put a finger behind his right ear, and asked, "What's that you said? Oh, that's right. You can't talk. I'll make sure you're never able to speak again."
Raymond stepped right onto the shooter's throat, and crushed any chance of the killer ever breathing fresh air again. Raymond failed to notice the shooter reaching for a semi-automatic handgun he had in a holster at his hip. In his last moments of life he raised it, and blindly fired once.
"AW! SHIT!" Raymond screamed. "My ASS!"
In utter shock, Raymond fell to the ground of the patio, cursing in frustration at the fact he didn't notice the shooter's handgun as he was beating him with the rifle. Raymond, breathing heavily in agony at the pain coming from his right butt cheek, he looked over to the shooter holding the handgun with a twitching grip, still aimed at the ceiling. Raymond watched the murderer's last moments on Earth.
A year and a half later Raymond attended the red carpet for the film premiere of Comedy's Guardian, which was about the murder of Travis on that terrible night at The Comedy Storage. As he nervously walked in front of photographers, and spoke with entertainment reporters, Logan held his hand, and at times, put an arm around Raymond's shivering shoulder's. When she'd kiss him on the cheek, she would whisper in his ear, "You're doing good. Just be yourself. Everyone likes you."
All the comedians who were at The Comedy Storage the night Raymond saved them found some kind of fame. Logan had just filmed a standup special for Netflix. Raymond had written a few jokes for her, but he didn't know if they made the final cut. The two had been dating since reconnecting on the set of the movie when Raymond and her were consulting the actors playing them.
The first day Raymond was on the film set, Leslie Dunkman -- who actually was playing herself in the film -- attempted to approach him, and thank him for saving her life. He turned his back on her in front of the entire film crew, and never said a word to her since that terrible night Travis was murdered by some kind of monster.
It was because Leslie was the girl of his dreams. Raymond made sure to keep it that way.
