Changing the Past by Thomas Berger

after an exceptional hump, adding a crash of the high-hat.
    Without a conscious thought Jack strode onto the stage in his busboy’s red mess jacket. The lights were brighter than he anticipated, but that only added to an atmosphere which was both that of make-believe and heightened reality. He felt the master of himself and all he surveyed.
    â€œThank you, thank you,” he said to Elaine in a new, piercingly clear voice that he produced by instinct. “Let’s give the little lady a hand, oh yeah, oh yeah.” He grasped his groin. “Hey, Elaine, I got a big hand for yuh!” The audience guffawed. “Now, I don’t want any of you comin’ up here, smel-lin’ that curtain. That won’t leave me with anything to do after the show!” He sniffed audibly. ‘“Hi, you-a girls,’ said the blind Italian as he passed the fish store.” Next, Jack shouted, “Why is a police station like a men’s room?…It’s where the dicks hang out!” Without being signaled, the drummer began to hit a rim-shot after each punchline, just as he did for the strippers’ bumps-and-grinds.
    He got off a dozen jokes in rapid-fire, hitting them with the next before they had recovered from the previous gag, understanding instinctively that handling an audience has much to do with rhythm and pace, and of course confidence, which he had had from the first, perhaps because he despised these men who had nothing better to do than swill drinks and leer at women they couldn’t have except for a fee, and many of them were servicemen, some with colored ribbons over the breast pocket, for the war had not been over long. Whereas he was just a punk kid, manipulating all the people in the room.
    Mr. Charles called him in when he left the stage. “Kid, I got ta hand it to yuh: you got balls. And you ain’t bad, you ain’t bad.”
    Still swollen with a sense of triumph, Jack said, “I think I did great!”
    The saturnine manager pointed a finger at him. “Don’t get too fresh too soon. I said not bad: I didn’t fuckin’ say great. I liked the Eyetalian gag; it was comical yet respectful.” He pointed again. “So you do the rest of the shows tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll think about it. I don’t know about Buster. He might be ready for the pasture.” Mr. Charles had never been seen to smile. Now he added dolefully, “Listen, anybody come up and ast how old you are, you say twenty-one. If we keep you on as a comic, we’ll fix you up with I.D. You ran away from home, right? You ain’t registered for the draft, are ya?”
    Jack was settling down now, ready to deal with reality, and therefore he answered with simulated submissiveness. “No, sir.”
    â€œOkay, kid, keep it up.” Mr. Charles lowered his head and began to examine a ledger that lay open before him.
    â€œSir,” said Jack, “I’m only getting a busboy’s money.”
    Mr. Charles looked up lugubriously. “So? You’re a busboy.”
    Jack was making fifteen a week in wages and came in for a minuscule share of the tips of the three waiters whose tables he cleared, but he was dependent on the figures they gave him and assumed these were on the minimizing side, for his income from that source was only about three bucks per week. He did get most of his meals gratis in the club kitchen, which meant he lived on hamburgers, for the cuisine was exclusively short-order and the chef was hardly going to give him the so-called sirloin steak sandwich that led the menu and was priced at a whopping dollar and a half. (There was a cover charge of $2.50 at the Club Coronado, a minimum of two bucks. Mixed drinks cost a dollar per, and beer was fifty cents for a short glass. Customers paid through the nose, but there were few complaints: they came to see the naked girls, in a time when smutty movies could only be seen at Legion