Title: Hard To Live In The City.
Summary: "You were opening for a puppet when I found you!"
Author's Note: Josh has always been one of the minor characters I've really loved. I would like to start writing him more. We'll see where this goes. One shot. Title taken from Albert Hammond, Jr. song.
He drops out of NYU the second semester of his sophomore year; he never really wanted to be an engineer anyway. It was just something his parents pushed him to do and he did it because he was too absentminded to think for himself. He didn't get along with the math leagues and constantly found himself in the Improv room, doing impersonations with the drama geeks. It's only when the professor suggested switching majors that he considers dropping the mathematician act and pursuing something that he actually enjoyed.
Of course his parents are against it. They threaten to stop supporting him financially and kick him out of their house in New Jersey. His father yells and yells when the school calls and puts Josh on academic probation for failing most of his classes. Spittle flies from the older man's mouth as his mother stands nervously behind him and Josh sits on the couch, his head lowered to avoid the disappointing gaze from his ever expectant parents.
He's twenty years old and stranded on the streets of New York. Its springtime and all he has is a suitcase with faded jeans and cheesy tee shirts, and a notebook full of skit and impersonation ideas. He stays with his friend Alec for a few weeks until he can pull things together.
Eventually, he finds a day job as a waiter at a deli on 65th Street. It's tedious and he almost gets fired several times. He usually gets yelled at for mixing up orders and miscalculating the bill which he finds sort of sad seeing as he used to be an AP Algebra student.
But at seven o'clock every Thursday evening, he opens for Farley, the tap dancing puppet on the outskirts of Central Park. He does every impersonation he has, even the Bill Cosby one that he still can't quite perfect but most people don't really care, they just want to see the damn puppet.
In May, he finally finds a cheap apartment on the Lower East Side. He buys a gun he knows he'll never use but he feels safer at night feeling it in the safety box under his mattress. He's kept awake by sirens and the loud neighbours so he sits on his bathroom sink and practices impersonations in the mirror until dawn and he has to put on his khakis and go to work.
He opens for Farley one Thursday and things are going as they usually go. The kids in the crowd are loud and crying for their puppet and he's standing there feeling like a moron, trying to make people laugh with his Eliot Spitzer impersonation but it's like, ten year olds don't even know who that is, so what's the point? As he starts the end of his set, he sees a woman sitting near the back with her hair tied messily in a bun and a pair of square glasses on her nose. She's watching him carefully and he stumbles over his Robert De Niro piece because he isn't used to people watching him.
Seven thirty rolls around and he forgets about the woman and quickly gets off the stage before grabbing his brown backpack and walking back to his apartment for the night.
The next evening he's sitting on his bed cross legged, watching The Jerk on his miniscule TV and eating Ramen Noodles. The doorbell rings and he contemplates getting his gun as he carefully walks over to the door. He doesn't have a peep hole, so he leaves the top chain locked and pulls the door back slowly.
He sees a pair of glasses under disheveled bangs.
"Hi," says the woman from the audience on Thursday night. "I'm Liz Lemon. I work for a show called The Girlie Show on NBC."