Miles was agitated. He considered his emergency options. Pulling the electricity would only plunge everything into darkness and that was the last thing he needed. He thought about setting off the fire alarm, but who’d hear it over the noise? What was this guy doing? Where was his sitcom material?

A glass hit the back curtain and smashed on the floor.

“Move on to the plastic glasses!” Miles shouted to his bar staff. He’d lost too many this evening.

From the back, working its way forward, a chant of “You’re shit!” was building into an organized rhythm.

John’s eyes filled with tears.

“I’m not . . . I’m not shit.” Trembling. Horrible.

The chanting grew louder. The room pulsed.

The mob stamped their feet and banged their glasses. Urgent beats reverberated around the room. Tribal. Baying.

More cigarette butts were flicked. A beer mat was lit and spun onto the stage. Cheap indoor pyrotechnics pleased the crowd. Another followed, and another.

Miles wished he had a sprinkler system. The noise crescendoed.

Unfunny John was besieged.

Two more glasses landed near his feet.

Tears streamed down John’s face.

Anything said over the mike would be lost in the mêlée.

John felt like a child caught too far out to sea, facing an enormous wave with a tiny wooden surfboard.

Miles again turned to his bar.

“Pull the shutters down!” he shouted. “Secure the bar! Where’s the doorman I asked for?”

The storm intensified, the wave grew as if created by an earthquake out at sea. Sending a monumental breaker toward the city. Destroying all in its path.

When it seemed that it had reached the Wellington and would break over the stage, Unfunny John took a gun from his breast pocket.

He looked at it. Almost as if he was surprised that it was there. It was an army service revolver. Polished to a rare sheen.

Those at the front fell instantly silent.

John turned the gun over in his hands and then checked the barrel. Everything seemed to be in order.

John lifted the gun and put it inside his mouth.

The wave died. Silence suddenly.

Unfunny John looked around at the audience in front of him. The woman to his left, who twenty seconds ago had called him a “fuckwit arsehole,” now stood openmouthed, as if the words had petrified on her tongue. An empty glass poised. Frozen like Lot’s wife.

Many of the rest of the audience were in the same state.

Miles was no less immobilized. He’d never seen a firearm of any description before. He dreamt about getting shot with one. Many times. It was a recurring theme.

John stood at attention, gun in mouth.

A glob of dribble ran down the barrel.

John raised his free hand in a waving salute.

In his head John counted slowly to ten.

Miles was one big heartbeat.

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.

John started waving. A little wave, a small wiggling of his fingers.