Thursday night used to be Amateur Night, but the all the amateurs stopped coming, with the exception of one. Edward Blake had begun frequenting the comedy club over a year before, and, after only a few weeks, he got tired of thinking about how he would have made the jokers' routines better and decided to have a go at it himself.

At first, he only got a few laughs, from those who actually got his layered jokes that bordered on social commentary, but slowly, he found a way to read the crowd. Eddie was an observant man- always had been- and he used that to learn what it was the patrons of the club wanted. He found a way to make everyone laugh at least once during the brief slot allotted for his routine, until his time got extended, longer and longer every few weeks.

Eventually, he had the whole night to himself and nobody else bothered signing up for Amateur Night. He was popular, he knew how to make the crowd laugh, and with a full night to himself, he had the chance to make his own jokes about life how he saw it. After all, he was an observant man and he was the sort to see the humor in everything, so he was always finding new material.

The third Thursday of every month had been Ladies' Night instead of Amateur Night; free admission for women and half-priced drinks. This didn't change when Eddie took over Thursdays, but they stopped booking acts for Ladies' Night. Instead, he would tailor his own to fit the mood, sometimes playing the part of an idiot husband who couldn't get his marriage right and other times playing the part of the free and easy bachelor. Repeat customers knew he was making it all up, but that didn't make it any less funny.

He was so popular that he wondered when the club owner would acknowledge it and finally start paying him. Mr. Veidt owned several clubs in Manhattan and was rarely seen at Shots and Giggles- a name Eddie would punch him for, if given the chance. He was rich and successful and well-liked by the public, but Eddie had yet to meet him and ask when the paychecks would start.

Not that he needed extra money. He did alright for himself, considering his job, and he wasn't one for luxuries anyway. He had worked at the same Walmart in Brooklyn for so long that he had found his way into a management position. It was tedious work and made it very hard to keep his temper in check, but he managed, blowing off steam through his jokes every Thursday night.

It was through these nights that he made an unlikely friend in a young man named Dan Dreiberg. He was a graduate student and he had appreciated Eddie's jokes from beginning, being one of the few people who really got the early ones. They were as different as night and day, but they had become friends all the same.

Eventually, Dan had begun bringing his friend, Walter Kovacs. Walter really appreciated Eddie's more politically charged jokes, and wasn't in school, as far as Eddie knew, and he wondered how the two had met. It was pretty clear that Walter wasn't well-off, which was a pretty sharp contrast to Dan, who seemed to come from money, but Dan just seemed the sort to make friends with anyone.

How Dan met Laurie Juspeczyk was another matter altogether, and something Eddie wondered quite a bit. It was a crazy coincidence, that his unlikely friend from the comedy club would be friends with his daughter, but, seeing as she didn't know he was her father, it wasn't something he could bring up.

In fact, he was lucky if he could bring anything up around her. The first time Dan had introduced her to Eddie Blake, she had torn into him. "Oh, my mom's friends told me all about him," she'd snapped. "I'd hoped the name was an unfortunate coincidence and that Dan had better taste in friends, but I guess not."

"What?" he'd said, playing as dumb as possible. "Ya don't mean to tell me you're Sally's little girl, do ya?" She was twenty three and not exactly little, but it was the first time he had seen her since she was an infant.

"Is that really all you have to say for yourself, after what you did to her?" she had screamed, looking ready to kill.

Dan had stepped in then, laughing awkwardly and saying, "Well, I think we should get to our table now. See you after the show, Eddie, good luck."

After that, he had continued to bring Laurie every now and then, and though she didn't yell at Eddie as often, she treated him coldly and was most likely only going for Dan's sake. Whatever Dan thought about his checkered history with Laurie's mother, he didn't say.

Meanwhile, Eddie tried to disguise his interest in Laurie, but it was hard not to wonder what his daughter had made of herself. Without directly asking, he didn't learn much about her, other than the fact that she was dating a physicist by the name of Jon who was more than likely a lot older than her, and he was not sure how he felt about that.

It was incredibly obvious that Dan didn't like her relationship with Jon either, though he tried to be subtle about it and it was for very different reasons. It was awkward for Eddie, knowing that one of his few friends was that interested in Laurie, but again, there was nothing he could do about it. They were all adults and he had no stake in her life, no matter how much he wished he did.

If Dan had any plans to make a move on Laurie, he was taking his time about it, and Eddie doubted their relationship would ever be anything more than one-sided. That being said, he had noticed another one-sided relationship in the group; Dan was just as oblivious to Walter's feeling as Laurie was to Dan's.

It wasn't something most people would have noticed, but Eddie was observant and he was in tune to his audience and what they wanted, and he could tell almost immediately that Walter wanted Dan. And though Dan had no idea, Eddie would bet that Walter had no idea either. The poor kid probably hadn't figured out he swung that way yet, and once he did, he would have to deal with the new panic of figuring out if Dan did.

But Dan only had eyes for Laurie and Laurie was still hung up on Jon, and Eddie could only watch and shake his head and chuckle at their drama. Yet another joke he'd discovered, and he couldn't even tell them the punchline without spoiling everything. The fact that he was Laurie's father was a punchline in itself, but they tied into each other in a way that would have been truly hilarious, had he not been so involved.

Even so, he couldn't help but laugh sometimes.