It was really about three saketini's after Tony stumbled into Happy that he raised his fourth to the crowd from the stage. That was the cue for the music to be turned down and, to the sound of potent cocktail fueled, encouraging applause, someone to scramble to provide Tony with a microphone. First, Tony raised a hand, trying to quell the excitement just long enough for him to get his piece out, and then they could go as crazy as they wanted to. He wasn't here to put an end to any of that. He just had something very important to share with the assembled:
"I feel so sexy tonight," he breathed into the mike to another burst of noise that he patiently waited out with a chuckle and sip of his drink. "And it's not just that this gal up here just flashed me her rack, but that was very nice of you, sweetheart. No, the bartender slipped me his phone number. Yeah! And I gotta ask, because I'm a little inexperienced with the protocol here, but is that, like, a date thing, or a booty call thing? I gotta know, I don't know if I should be wearing the D&G or the g-string." Another pause for another drink and the laugh Tony had done very well to contain until he tried bringing the microphone to his lips again and had to drop it for a burst of giggles. "Now that I have your attention," he said when he could continue evenly, still with a lopsided grin, "can I please hear a round of applause for the future Mr. and Mrs.-- whatever hyphenated hippy name they're going for. Okay, okay, I said a round, not a great length-- thank you. I'm the one on the stage, no reason to get so excited on their account. Seriously, put those away, I'm getting distracted.
"Pepper...Pepper, Pepper? Where are you? She's there. She's the most beautiful thing I ever see all day. Sometimes the second most, because I'm feeling good enough some days to look at myself in the mirror, but most of the time it's her. If anyone deserves to wake up in the morning and have her be the very first thing they see-- they've lied somewhere along the way because no one really deserves that. You're all filthy. But Happy beat us all to the punch and we have to live with that. No, he's a good man. I know he doesn't look like much but he's got a heart made of something soft and warm and probably lots of blood and muscle tissue. That's an accomplishment for some of us. And I know they did this all before and they're only doing it now because they'll both look like assholes if they back out of it with a baby on the way, but I missed it the first time around, and I missed it when they broke up and tried to have each other killed or whatever that was, and I kept missing it for months. Months, they didn't tell me when they got divorced. They weren't going to tell me this time, either-- about the wedding and, you know, but it was either let me go on believing that Pepper was getting fat or cough up the truth. If I organize the wedding, too, they won't be able to forget to invite me to that, so I've already hired the planner, nobody panic. It's going to be beautiful, there's going to be a tiger skin rug and maybe a church. What the fuck--"
Up to this point, Tony had been idly meandering and rambling along the stage, but then he let his arm drop heavily and he stared quite intently at the DJ. This must have involved some kind of telepathy, because he seemed to know that Tony wanted the music turned back up, which made Tony turn his grin back on the crowd. He said something quite unintelligible into the microphone before letting it drop with a harsh, amplified thud and squeal onto the stage, followed more daintily by Tony's emptied martini glass. This, obviously was to free his hands so he could shrug his jacket off, letting it fall unceremoniously to the floor behind him, then start on his shirt buttons with his hips finding the rhythm with an enticing sway. The crowd was hollering their encouragement again, which meant they were just waiting to be invited to take all of their clothes off. Someone just had to dive in for them. He should have picked a venue with a pool.