Karaoke. You didn’t know.

A middle-aged guy in blue jeans with red suspenders and his shirt tucked in takes the stage with a melancholic rendition of “Love on the Rocks”. You see him at Barnes & Noble sometimes. He goes there with a backpack and a baseball cap and stays for hours. Reads a lot.

His voice is deep and he talks with a cadence that sounds aloof, and every step he takes looks a little too deliberate. You see him sometimes with a friend who’s shorter, slimmer, has more hair. They talk and talk and sound like close friends. This other guy sits while the big guy reads, never cracks a book himself. Just looks around, plays on his phone. Now and then he’ll interject with a remark. Big guy responds as though he weren’t preoccupied.

Next guy on stage is tall and white and bald, wears a sleeveless t-shirt, and he raps and even though the on-screen read-along has substituted the n- and f-word for something else he supplies them anyway. The room is uneasy, and he descends the stage with a smile. A shitty dude, powerless, takes what joy he can from making people uncomfortable.