“Hee-HEE!” goes the Goldfish.

Between the asshole mime and the braying sex laugh track behind me I feel both confused and tormented, a straight man caught in a Beckettian scene. My eyes perceive Alpha but my visual cortex processes it as Po-Mo, Deke, the Rat Burglar—all my failures—and I snap. For the second time in my life I throw a punch that is not an aerobics-class punch. It’s all business. It’s all malicious intent. It’s a hard sinking left that appears to have admirable speed and targetry until, that is, it skims over the air above his head and twists me around in a swirling triple axel that sends me to the ground.

Alpha looms above me, making that face and throwing a fey drumroll of impotent punches. As I feel the sinus sting that heralds chaotic, prolific, playground-style tears, I see, at the edge of my visual field, a sudden movement and all at once the mime’s neck is ensnared in Herk’s fist. Alpha, who probably weighs two-twenty, and isn’t dainty, leaps to his tiptoes in a sprightly rain dance of pain, thrusting up his chin in search of oxygen.

“Why don’t you mime on someone your own size?” Herk says evenly.

With his chin the guy makes an eager, nodlike movement.

“What was that?”

Alpha nods again, wordlessly.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t hear you.” Through the fabric of his shirt I can see Herk’s clublike forearm flex, making Alpha’s eyes gush waterworks. The guy makes fending-off measures, clutching desperately at Herk’s sleeve, which reveals skin halfway to the elbow—a violation of unfathomable Taoist principles—but it’s only for a second. Instantly Herk increases his vise-grip and says, “I don’t like it when people mess with my shirt, friend. It interferes with the signals, you know what I mean?”

Alpha makes a toadlike noise of compliance and speedily relinquishes the sleeve.

“Now, I think you owe my friend an apology, and I’m beginning to interpret your silence as bad manners.” Herk squeezes again and from within his grip come several gristly popping noises. “But I’d like to offer you another opportunity to do the right thing. Now, what were you saying?”

Alpha makes a few agonized balloon-squeaks.

“Come again?”

“O.K., O.K.,” Alpha manages. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Having made Alpha commit the most humiliating act of submission, Herk lets him go. When he flees out the door Herk sends the Goldfish on her way, rights my stool, gives me a hand up, and invites me to sit.

“What’s all that about, then?”

“I didn’t get top score.”

“Say what?”

“I got second.”

“I thought you nailed it, buddy.”

“I did. I swear I did. But I guess I didn’t. I can’t figure it.”

“Hey, don’t look so sad. There will be other gigs. It’s not the end of the world. Right? Maybe your receptors were just down. You been eating avocados like I told you? You been downing that Spam?” Then, when he sees my expression, he says, tenderly, “Or were you distracted by... that personal shit you were about to tell me about?”