ClownFellas (28 page)

At showtime, or what would've been showtime if there wasn't a church sermon going first, the doors were opened and the audience poured inside. Winky and his crew took tickets, making sure that those who'd actually paid the thousand-dollar price got the good seats.

Winky was chewing on hot dogs as he took the tickets.

“Hey, I told you not to eat any more food from the concession stand,” Buggy said to Winky.

“I thought you meant my crew wasn't allowed to,” Winky said, still eating his hot dog as he ripped ticket stubs. “You didn't say anything about me personally.”

“That meant you as well. The hot dogs are for the customers.”

“But they're
really
good hot dogs.”

“Then eat the leftovers after the show.”

The next in line was Uncle Jojo and a large group of clowns who were friends of the family. Jojo made eye contact with Buggy and didn't break it for a second as he went through the line.

“How's it going, Bugs?” asked Uncle Jojo as Winky ripped his ticket. “You've got quite the turnout tonight.”

Buggy nodded, feigning a smile. “Yes, it's going to be quite a show.”

“Good, I'm happy it's working out for you,” Jojo said. “But what's this I hear about a money-back guarantee?”

Buggy looked around. He hoped none of the other people in line heard him. “That's what Snuffy told people out of desperation to sell tickets.”

“So are you going to actually honor that if the show stinks?”

Buggy didn't know how to respond to that. “I guess…”

“Good, because my boys and I will most likely be expecting a refund by the time it's over,” Jojo said. “Just on the way over we were talking about how Goldstein couldn't possibly still be any good after thirty years. He's old and washed up. This show's going to be a bore.”

“So you want your money back?”

“Cash would be preferable.”

“But I'm the one who gave you the tickets. You didn't pay for them.”

“Haven't you ever returned a Christmas present you didn't like so you could have the cash instead? Same thing.”

Uncle Jojo just smiled as he moved on, stepping toward his seat with his men in tow.

“That miserable prick…,” Buggy said beneath his breath.

The underboss wasn't only going to watch the show for free, but he was also planning to have Buggy pay him the twenty thousand that he didn't even spend on the tickets. How somebody hadn't already blown Jojo's head off by then was beyond Buggy.

“I don't care how bad the show is or how much people complain,” Buggy said to Winky. “Don't give anybody their money back.”

“Even Jojo?”

“Especially not Jojo.”

The church event went first and most of the crowd had no idea what was going on during most of the show. The majority of the audience were vanilla tourists from outside Little Bigtop, so they had very little knowledge of what went on in a clown church. The fish-juggling contest was especially confusing to them. They weren't sure if it was meant to be a comedy sketch or a real juggling competition. Buggy just hid in the back of the room for the duration, covering his face in embarrassment.

“Brothers and sisters,” Reverend Jellybottom said, stepping across the stage with yet another drink in his hand. “I hope you're enjoying tonight's festivities.”

The members of his church roared and applauded, but those who'd paid top dollar to be there stayed silent.

“Ahh-ha!” Jellybottom cried, applauding himself.

“Raarrfff!” Mittens barked at the reverend, as if booing.

“Mittens, be quiet,” Buggy said.

“Raarrfff!” Mittens yelled, tugging on the cords to his life support machine.

Buggy had to pick up his bulldog to stop him from barking at the reverend.

Jellybottom continued, “Right now, I want to take a moment for some serious reflection. In a short while, we're going to have the one and only Bobby Goldstein out here to tickle your funny bone. But before that, I want to tell you a poem that will tickle your soul. Some of you may have already heard it before. It's called ‘Footprints in the Sand.' ”

Buggy knew the poem well. Pretty much everyone already knew the poem. It was a classic. He also knew it was the wrong audience to tell it to. He wondered if he could just run away.

“One day, a man was walking along a beach with the Lord,” Reverend Jellybottom said. He paced across the stage but never broke eye contact with the audience. “He looked behind him and noticed two sets of footprints. One set of footprints was made by him and the other was made by the Lord.”

“Please let this end…,” Buggy said.

Winky nodded in agreement, picking up another hot dog from the concession stand. Buggy snatched it away before he could take a bite and put it back behind the counter.

“The man turned to the Lord and asked, ‘What's with all these footprints, Lord?' And the Lord responded, ‘They represent your path through life. And as you can see, I have always been by your side.' Then visions of the man's life appeared in the sky above the footprints, each of his days corresponding to a step in the sand.”

Buggy rolled his head back and groaned. The preacher was too drunk to even remember how the poem went. He was messing it all up.

“Then the man noticed that during the hardest, most trying times of his life there was only one set of footprints. This upset him. He asked the Lord, ‘How come when my life was in its darkest days you abandoned me to walk alone?' ”

Buggy noticed that Uncle Jojo and his whole row of associates were staring right at him. They were each giving him a look of confusion and disgust, as if to say,
What the hell is this shit?
Buggy just broke eye contact and ignored them. He knew he was never going to hear the end of this one.

“Then the Lord said, ‘When you see only one set of footprints in the sand, it's not because you were abandoned. Those are the times that I carried you.' ”

Buggy couldn't take it anymore. He wondered if it was too late to have the reverend whacked.

The reverend continued, “Then the man noticed that in one area of the beach, near a single set of footprints, there were large dips in the sand. He asked the Lord, ‘But what are those large dips in the sand?' ”

Buggy didn't remember this part of the poem. He wondered if the reverend had gotten it mixed up again.

“And the Lord responded, ‘That was when you gained all that weight. You were too heavy to carry so I kept dropping your fat ass.' ”

Then the reverend burst into laughter.

“Wait…What?” Buggy said.

“Ahh-ha!” the reverend said, as his parishioners laughed and cheered. “That's how we do it in Little Bigtop!”

“What the heck is he doing?” Winky asked.

Buggy's mouth dropped open. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

“Ahh-ha!” Jellybottom said again, as if it were some kind of catchphrase.

“Oh my God. He's trying to steal the show.” Buggy watched in horror as Jellybottom shook his round butt at his applauding parishioners. “He's going to do a stand-up routine.”

Then Reverend Jellybottom told a series of jokes. He'd mentioned to Buggy that he always dreamed of one day being a stand-up comic before the Comedy Prohibition Act was passed, but Buggy had no idea the reverend would've chosen that night to make his dream come true.

“So…,” Jellybottom said. “Any of you vanillas out there ever been with a clown girl before?”

It wouldn't have been that big of a deal—a comedy routine was still better than a boring sermon—but the reverend chose to tell some raunchy, distasteful jokes that just didn't feel right coming from the mouth of a holy man.

“I like me the rainbow-headed clown girls best. Mmm-mmm. Those are the yummiest. They taste like a bag full of Skittles.”

He even made his own parishioners feel uncomfortable.

“You know that with clown girls the carpet always matches the drapes…if you know what I mean.” The reverend paused to point at his crotch. “So doing it with a rainbow-headed girl makes you feel like a leprechaun. You have to follow the rainbow to get to the pot of gold.”

The audience just stared in horror as the reverend stuck out his tongue and made licking motions.

“Ahh-haa!” Jellybottom said, bursting into laughter and slapping his knee. Other than his own laughter, the room was completely silent.

This went on for an hour, and each joke was more perverted and disturbing than the last. If it were a normal comedian the jokes wouldn't have been so bad, but because it was a preacher telling them they came across as extra creepy. He only got a small pity-applause when he was finished.

“See you at church on Sunday” was how the reverend decided to end his performance before he walked off the stage. It was clear that many of his parishioners were debating on whether they should sleep in that day or not.

When Bobby Goldstein finally took the stage, the audience appeared shell-shocked. They weren't ready for another comedian. They all wanted to go home. But Goldstein went out there anyway, staggering on his broken leg, stinking up the front row with his blood- and urine-soaked clothes that hadn't been changed in a week.

“How you all doing out there tonight?” Goldstein said into the microphone. “I'm Bobby Goldstein…They said they were going to do some big introduction for me, but I guess they forgot.”

There was no response.

“It's a good crowd,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

They were still quiet. Buggy rolled his hand in the air, indicating to the comedian that he should get on with it. Goldstein went right to his first joke. His voice, however, was shaky and quiet.

“Have you ever noticed how painful it is to urinate after you've had your kidney illegally removed by a black-market surgeon?” Goldstein said. He had no energy in his voice at all, as though he was just saying whatever popped in his mind so that he could get it all done with and go home as soon as possible. His lack of enthusiasm matched that of his audience.

Buggy went to Snuffy and told him, “Turn on the laughy-gas. Quick.”

Goldstein continued, “Have you ever noticed how humiliating it is when someone runs you over with their car in the middle of the day? It's painful, sure, but nobody ever tells you how embarrassing it is. You're just lying there, crumpled up, and everyone's staring at you not sure what to do. Especially once the driver who ran you over gets out of the car, picks you up off the ground, and tosses you in the trunk.”

Buggy was so focused on the lack of a reaction from the crowd that he didn't realize Goldstein's routine was a thinly veiled cry for help.

“It's not working,” Buggy whispered to Snuffy. “Turn the gas up higher.”

“But it's already flooding the seating area,” Snuffy said. “They should be laughing by now.”

“Do you see anyone laughing out there? Crank it up.”

Goldstein looked around the room, waiting for a response. But there was none.

“Have you ever noticed how comedians don't normally perform with broken legs, ripped-up clothes, or bruised-up faces?” Goldstein didn't know how to get through to the audience without spelling it out more than that.

Buggy didn't know why the Happy Juice wasn't kicking in yet. The comedian should have transformed into a clown by then, giving the crowd a more lively show. Buggy also didn't know why the laughy-gas wasn't changing the mood of the audience.

“I don't get it,” Buggy said. “Are the jokes so bad that even laughy-gas won't help?”

“They are pretty bad…,” Snuffy said.

Buggy agreed. “Okay, then turn the gas all the way up.”

“All the way? That might be enough to kill them.”

“I don't care,” Buggy said. “Nobody's leaving here until they laugh their gumballs off.”

“Whatever you say…”

Snuffy turned the laughy-gas all the way up. It got so thick in there that even Buggy was beginning to feel woozy.

Goldstein said, “Have you ever noticed how I haven't performed at all for the last thirty years because I'm a law-abiding citizen who would never do comedy illegally unless it was against my will?”

Somebody giggled after that joke. Goldstein paused, surprised to hear somebody actually laugh. Then another person giggled. Within a minute, the whole crowd was laughing.

“Have you ever noticed how the underground comedy club on Hundred and Second Street has a back room that's perfect for imprisoning retired comedians who don't do what they're told?”

The audience laughed harder, slapping their knees as if he'd just told the funniest joke they'd ever head. Goldstein had no idea why his cries for help were being mistaken as humor.

“Have you ever noticed how I've been kidnapped and held hostage for the past week in order to do this show I never wanted to do and am now desperately trying to get you to call the police but none of you seems to notice or care?”

The audience screamed with laugher. They fell out of their seats and rolled on the ground. The clowns in the audience weren't as susceptible to the laughy-gas as normal humans, but the humans were becoming spastic. They laughed so hard they couldn't breathe. They choked and spasmed. Blood shot out of their lungs.

When Buggy noticed what was happening to the members of the audience, he gave Snuffy the signal to cut the gas. Then he stepped back so he wouldn't inhale so much of it himself.

“Have you ever noticed how a clown named Buggy Buttons is the one responsible for imprisoning me? Call the cops and have him arrested immediately.”

Buggy heard that joke. He looked back at the comedian and realized what was going on. Goldstein was trying to get the crowd to call for help.

“That little prick,” Buggy said. “I'm going to kill him.”

Buggy clenched his fists. He was wondering if it was possible to whack him on stage in front of everyone and still get away with it.

“Erff…,” Mittens said.

“Don't worry, Mittens. I'll let you have a piece when I'm through with him.”

With the audience nearly paralyzed with laughter, Buggy decided that they wouldn't even notice if he dragged Goldstein off the stage and out the back door. He would toss him in his trunk and nobody would ever hear from him again.

“Have you ever noticed how there's an angry clown headed to the stage right now who will kill me if he gets his hands on me?” Goldstein said.

Just before Buggy could get to the stage, the side doors broke open and dozens of policemen poured inside.

“It's a raid!” Snuffy cried.

Buggy jumped on the ground as the cops flooded the room.

“Kill the pig bastards!” yelled Winky.

Winky's men pulled out handguns and fired at the cops, foot-long hot dogs dangling out of each of their mouths.

“Don't shoot, you idiots,” Buggy yelled.

But Winky was too trigger-happy to stop. He didn't realize how much worse the charges were going to be for everyone involved now that a firefight had broken out.

As bullets flew overhead, Uncle Jojo and his men crawled across the room toward the back exit. When they passed Buggy, Jojo said, “You're dead, Bugs.”

“Erff…,” Mittens said, lying behind his life support machine with his belly in the air.

“Your dog's dead, too,” Jojo said.

After Jojo made his escape, Reverend Jellybottom followed after him, as well as any other clowns close enough to the exit.

Winky and his crew of clowns continued eating hot dogs and firing at the cops, even after the cops shot both of Winky's legs out from under him. The crowd was between them, right in the middle of the crossfire. But they didn't run for cover. They just kept laughing and slapping their knees. Bullets tore through their bodies, but their laughter continued. One vanilla woman was shot right in the voice box. There was no noise coming out of her throat, but she kept laughing.

That's when the Happy Juice flowing through Bobby Goldstein's system finally kicked in. He was cowering behind the podium when it happened. Nobody really noticed until it was too late. It turned out that Goldstein was one of the unlucky 10 percent of people who have a bad reaction to Happy Juice. When he transformed, he didn't become a normal clown. His body bulged and twisted into a monstrous, deranged mutant clown with muscles the size of bowling balls. His hair turned banana yellow and his eyes bulged out of his head like those of a giant alien slug.

“Have you ever noticed how human heads pop like grapes when you smash them together?” asked the Goldstein monster in a deep, demonic voice.

Then he leapt from the stage into the middle of the audience and crushed two human skulls with his bare hands.

“I think it's time we took our leave, Mittens,” Buggy said.

With the mutated Goldstein keeping the cops occupied, Buggy lifted Mittens up off the ground and sneaked toward the back door.

“What do you say we hop on the nearest train and get the hell out of town?” Buggy asked his bulldog.

“Erff…,” Mittens said. Not even the gunfight was enough to excite the dog.

Just before exiting out the back door, Buggy looked back at the chaos he was leaving behind. The whole room was filled with laughing, applauding people, who didn't seem to think anything they watched was real as Winky and the cops blasted each other full of bullet holes and a monstrous freak rampaged through the room, ripping arms and legs off anyone he could get ahold of.

Then Buggy found himself doing something he hadn't done in a long time: He started to laugh. At first, he thought it was the laughy-gas taking effect, but then he realized it was something else. He realized that what he was witnessing was actually pretty funny. Maybe it was because he loved the idea of seeing all the people he hated in this business finally get their comeuppance—from the ego-driven comedian to the annoying yuppie clientele to his idiot staff who always messed things up to the cops who always tried to shut him down. Or maybe it was just the simple fact that his sense of humor had suddenly become morbid. Either way, Buggy opened his mouth and let out a deep, satisfying laugh.

And he didn't stop laughing—not when he left the club and hopped on the first train out of town, nor when they strapped the straitjacket on him six weeks later. Buggy had finally gotten his sense of humor back and it was a damn shame he wasn't able to put it to good use before his unexpected retirement.