The Gays of Vaudeville

Death By Rock and Roll

Henlo there, fellow gays! I'm proud to announce that this is the first chapter of my new story! Though, I do have a few warnings we need to get through before we start off with the chapter. Trigger warnings are implemented throughout the chapter for alcohol usage, the effects of drinking alcohol, vomiting (for the emetophobes), and vague mentions of self-harm. Please use discretion when reading this chapter. Now, with that out of the way, I sincerely hope you enjoy!

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~January 19th, 1973~

    I STARED VERY COLDLY into my glass of whiskey, the effects of the alcohol making my face feel flushed after not even three drinks. The sound of other people talking in between four brick and mortar walls and a two thousand-square foot setting being heard over the music of Black Sabbath being played on the jukebox gave me nothing short of a head-splitting migraine. I raised the glass to my mouth and drank it as I felt a pair of light blue eyes gaze at me in concern. "Yer not doing so great, Ignatius," the owner of the light blue eyes said, carrying a heavy Dublin accent.

    I sighed after slamming my glass down on the bar table. "You wouldn't know this level of alcoholism even if it looked you in the fucking eye, Ludwig. I am fine, I do this every goddamn d-day to help me function."

    "How many glasses have ye had, laddie? This is what, yer fourth one?" He asked, looking down at the three empty glasses and the full one in awe, not even finishing his first mug of Guinness.

    I nodded, a glossy look in my eyes. "Wow, even a D-Dubliner knows how many g-glasses I've had. I'm fucking pathetic."

    As I took a drink out of the fourth glass of whiskey, Ludwig broke his moment of silence. "Ye need help, lad. I may not look it, but I know what alcoholism is like from an outsider's perspective. My father suffered from alcoholism for nine years before he and my mother had me, and then, just a couple of years after I was born and having to move here, he got right back into it."

    I put the glass down on the bar table again and belched afterward. "A-And? W-What happened to him, did he, like... recover or something?"

    The Dubliner with curly royal blue locks going over the left side of his face shook his head, his hair swaying with every movement as he adjusted himself on the barstool. "No, lad. He died. Fiery car accident in... I wanna say 1958. What I'm saying here, lad, is that if ye don't get the help ye need, then... yer going to end up dead like my father, and... I don't want that for my best friend."

    Yeah, right. Say that to me again when you go and hang out with Elliott and hear how much he says about absolutely despising my fucking guts. The worst part is that fucking Leonid has to hear that shit, too, and it brings him to tears because of how much negative shit that black and red hedgehog has to say about me. And guess what?

    "Elliott was spot on," I said after taking another drink from my glass of whiskey. "I'm nothing more than just a cheapskate magician who couldn't throw that fucking punch at Stonewall three and a half years back. I'm just... I'm fucking tired of the constant slander on my character from him. The worst part is that he also misgenders me, t-too. I hope he puts me in a fucking coma or kills me so I don't have to deal with the depressing reality of such a mundane life."

    "Now now, Iggy, don't think like that, laddie. If ye were nothing more than just some cheapskate magician, then ye wouldn't be Broadway's best vaudevillian magician! Stop letting Elliott get to ye, his words should mean nothing to ye."

    "Y-You s-speak to him, and I-I don't fucken kn-know w-w-why," I growled at him, a stutter in my speech. "*hic!* Y-You must probably th-think that... that shit, too!"