Free On the Wing by Eric Kraft

two large men wearing black slacks and brightly colored shirts—one tangerine, one puce. Given the likelihood that the lounge was packed with humorists, the similarity of their outfits made it seem that they might be partners in an act.
    â€œLet’s sit at the bar,” I suggested. “We can ask those two guys to move over.”
    We approached the bar and found the two bright shirts crying in their beer.
    â€œIt’s over,” groused one. “Never again will the kind of humor we grew up on, the kind of thing we enjoyed as kids, achieve the ascendancy, the cultural dominance, that it once enjoyed. Not in our lifetime.”
    â€œIt was a golden age,” moaned the other, “and this is an age of crap, comparatively speaking.”
    â€œExcuse me,” I said to the one in tangerine. “Would you be willing to move one stool to your right, so that we could have the two vacant stools?”
    He looked at me for a moment. He seemed genuinely puzzled.
    â€œI don’t get it,” he said at last.
    â€œNeither do I,” said the one in the puce shirt.
    â€œI was hoping you wouldn’t mind moving over—”
    â€œOne stool to my right,” said tangerine, with a puzzled look. “I got that part, but if I move one seat to my right, I’ll be sitting in his lap. Is that supposed to be funny?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I was hoping that your friend would also move one stool to the right. That would leave two stools for Albertine and me.”
    They looked at each other, shrugged in the manner of two grumpy old men who are still willing to go along with a gag, and moved one stool to the right.
    â€œThanks,” I said. Al and I took the free stools and ordered martinis.
    â€œWell?” said puce, leaning around tangerine to say it.
    â€œThanks again,” I said.
    They looked at each other for a long moment.
    â€œImpenetrable,” said tangerine.
    â€œUnfathomable,” said puce.
    â€œThat’s the whole problem today,” said tangerine. “On the one hand, you’ve got this ineffable high-concept bullshit—”
    â€œâ€”and on the other you’ve got your lowbrow bathroom humor bullshit,” said puce.
    â€œâ€”and the noble middle ground, where once we played—”
    â€œâ€”is vacant.”
    â€œLet’s take these to a table,” said Albertine.
    *   *   *
    AT THE ONLY TABLE with two seats empty, I stopped, indicated the empty seats with a nod of my head, and asked those seated around the table, “Are these available?”
    â€œYou see?” said a beefy man, bringing his hands together with a smart smack. “That’s just what I’ve been talking about—a perfect example.” To me he said, “A classic setup, classic. Thank you. You couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune moment.”
    â€œBy all means, join us,” said a woman with hair that might have been dyed to match the puce shirt of the man we had left at the bar.
    â€œI want to see where you’re going to take this,” said the beefy man.
    â€œTake this?” I said. “Oh, I see what you mean. I don’t really have any plans to take it anywhere. You see, I’m not a humorist.”
    â€œYou’re not?”
    Albertine kicked me.
    â€œWell, technically I am. That is, I am a member of the Heartsick American Humorists’ Association—”
    â€œIpso facto,” declared the beefy man.
    â€œQED,” said a small man beside him, who might have been the beefy man’s professional sidekick.
    â€œSo give,” said the woman with the hair.
    I looked at Al. “How about helping me out a little here?” I asked.
    â€œWe’re on the road,” she said to the group, “bound for Corosso, New Mexico.”
    â€œNot bad, not bad,” said the beefy man, rubbing his hands together in gleeful anticipation. “Corosso is the