About a Clown
By Christopher
Michael Carter
This
is Bob. He gets out of the shower. Once dried he wipes the steam and sweat off
of the bathroom mirror. With his makeup
kit on the sink he begins painting his face white. He’s staring into the mirror with his face
now painted stark white when his beautiful wife enters and puts her arms around
him.
Bob
sits on the end of the bed with his wife holding his left arm while her head’s
on his shoulder.
A
pair of red clown shoes sits on the floor.
She’s
sitting back on the bed watching TV while he’s putting his shoes on at the end
of the bed.
They’re
at the door as Bob’s about to leave for work decked out in complete clown
garb. Both of them are smiling. They kiss.
“I’ll
try not to be too late.” Bob says.
“Knock
‘em dead, honey. I love you.” She replies.
He
responds, “Love you too.”
“Oh
wait! You almost forgot!” She grabs his big red nose for his costume
off of the coffee table and gives it to him.
“Thanks,
babe. What would I be without you?”
“You’ll
never have to find out…” She says
lovingly.
He
puts the nose on and exits. She shuts
the door and sighs.
In
the night club we’re at floor level looking up at him on stage. He’s in his clown shoes, a blue and white
costume with white gloves, his face is painted with a big red nose and bright
red wig. He’s just finished his comedy
set with a rubber chicken in his hand. Everyone’s
laughing.
“Thank
you everyone!” Bob concludes, “Good
night!” The clown exits the stage. Fans and attendees discuss the show at their
tables.
“Ah,
man, he’s hilarious.” A man says.
A
woman adds, “He’s so funny. I’ve been to
all his shows.”
Backstage
Bob stands with the club’s owner, Vince.
“Think
they dug it?” Bob’s always thinking
about the audience.
“You
kiddin’ me?” Vince started, “You killed
‘em out there! That rubber chicken joke
got ‘em good! I can’t wait to hear what
the new stuff is like.”
“Well
when it comes to me you’ll be the first person to know.”
“How
come your wife never comes to your shows?
I bet she’d love it; her man bein’ a big time comedian.”
“Eh,
she just doesn’t like crowds.”
“Understandable. My sister’s the same way. Well alright, Bobby, you have a good night.”
“You
too, Vinny.” The two men exit in
separate directions.
At
the local bar, The Tide, Bob enters, walking through the door. People are clapping. Tony, the bartender looks over at the clown,
“Hey! There he is! How’d the show go, champ?” Tony sets Bob up with a shot of alcohol and
the clown approaches the bar.
“Eh,
it seemed to go okay.” Bob the Clown
shrugged as a drunken customer comes to his side, “Okay!? He was funny as hell. Heh, I think I peed a little.”
“Thanks,
friend.” Chuckles Bob while patting his
fan on the back. The drunken man walks
back to his group and Bob sighs before taking his shot.
“Think
I’m gonna head out.” Bob starts to
leave.
“You
headin’ out already?” Tony shrugs throwing
his towel over his shoulder.
“Yeah,
I’m gonna go home and get me some lovin’.”
“Alright,
later.” Tony chuckles.
At
the apartment building, Bob’s walking up the stairs to their apartment humming
a tune stuck in his head. He opens the
door and hears his wife moaning. He
takes off his bright red wig and opens the bedroom door just a crack to see
what’s going on to find his wife having sex with another man. He drops his wig in almost a slow motion and
he’s gone before it hits the floor. He
leaves; the door shuts. They hear it.
“Oh
shit.” The guy says.
“Oh
my God!” The adulteress says with her
hand on her head.
She
opens the door and sees the bright red wig lying there on the floor before
her. She kneels down and picks it
up. A sad look clouds her face.
“What? What is it?”
The man says walking over to her.
“He
was here. He knows.”
“Then
I guess he got the hint and took a hike.
What’s the problem?” The guy says
putting his arm around her. She knocks
his arm off and pushes him away, “Asshole…”
The man returns to the bed, “C’mon, babe… C’mon…”
She looks like she hates herself.
Meanwhile
Bob’s walking down the street whistling the theme to The Incredible Hulk TV
series.
Back
at The Tide, Bob enters the bar again looking as glum as ever.
Tony
sees this, “Whoa, Bob, who died?”
“My
trust.”
Tony
gives the man a beer, “What happened, man?”
Another
drunk customer approaches the clown, “Heya, Bobby, how’s life treatin’ ya?”
Bob
gives him a look from the corner of his eye, “He’s sleepin’ with my wife.”
The
man laughs, “Funny guy, this one. Have a
good one, Bobby.”
“Yup.” The man leaves.
“Man,
that bitch! I’m sorry, bro. That’s rough shit.” Tony sympathizes.
“You’re
tellin’ me.”
“Man,
I’d probably kill a bitch if she did that to me.”
“That’s
what I’m thinkin’.”
Tony
looks around before coming in closer whispering, “You gonna kill your wife?”
“I’m
thinking about it.” He says taking a
drink of his beer.
“Gettin’
a little fucked up, don’t ya think?”
“It’s
already fucked up. I gave that girl my
heart. You saw the ones I passed up for
her.” Bob shakes his head, still in
disbelief.
“Bombshells,
total knockouts…”
“Then
you see what I’m sayin’. What if… What if you went home tonight and Shirley was
fucking some dude in your bed?”
“Alright,
I get it. One sec…” Tony walks away from his friend for a
moment. Bob continues drinking and
lights up a cigarette.
Tony’s
on the phone, “Hey, honey, it’s me. No,
no, everything’s fine. How’re things
there? Oh yeah? Okay.
Anyone there? Oh, your
sister? Okay. No, hun, nothing’s wrong. Okay, talk to you later tonight. Bye”
Tony
walks back to the end of the bar where Bob is sitting. “So what did you say when you caught them?”
“Nothing. They didn’t see me. I saw ‘em and booked it.”
“Damn.”
“I
know.”
Bar
local, Jim, approaches the bar.
“Ay,
Jimbo.” Tony greets him.
“Ay,
guys. What’s up, Bobby? Girl problems?”
“You
can say that.”
“Broads,
huh? Say, whena re you gonna hook me up
with a couple of tickets to your show?”
Bob
turns to Jim, “Jimbo, you show up and I’ll get you in the show.”
“Now
that’s what I’m talking about. Bob, you
take care. Tony, I’ll see ya tomorrow.”
Tony
stops him briefly, “Jimmy, you got a driver?”
“I’m
hailin’ a cab. I’m good.”
“Alright,
later.”
Jim
exits. Bob looks deep in thought.
“Another
beer?” Tony asks.
“Nah,
I’m good.” He’s still stone faced.
“You
think he’s still there?”
“Maybe.” Bob shrugs.
“You’re
not gonna try to patch things up, are ya?”
Tony’s face scrunches.
He
lets out a stifled chuckle, “C’mon, Tony, how long we known each other?”
“You’re
right.”
“Go
home to Shirley tonight and you love the shit out of her. I’m goin’ home.” Bob gets up.
He
walks to the door still in a daze.
“Bobby,
you’re not gonna do anything crazy, are ya?”
The worried friend asks.
Bob
stops and thinks to himself, “You never know.
Hey, Tony, what do you call a live cheating wife?”
“I
don’t know. What?”
“Lucky…”
Tony
nervously laughs.
“I’ll
be fine. Have a good night, Tony.”
“You
too.” Bob leaves while Tony speaks to
himself, “She might not be so lucky,” before refilling drinks.
Bob
the Clown continues to walk home in a trance; his expression an about face to
his makeup. He kindly waves to people in
the street in passing while continuing his journey home as if nothing was
bothering him.
Upon
getting to the apartment building he looks up to his window to see a dim light
and shadows. Bob opens the passenger
door to his car and gets into his glove box to retrieve his pistol he keeps for
safety. The door is shut and he takes
another look up at the window before taking a deep breath and pushing forward.
He
slowly walks up the stairs he’s walked for years, this time with a purpose;
he’s a man on a mission. The clown
reaches the door and opens it slowly, scanning the living room. He quietly closes the door behind him locking
it. He treads lightly in his large red
clown shoes.
Back
at The Tide, Tony continues to work but the conversation with his friend is
weighing heavily on his mind. He stops,
thinking to himself, and goes over to the phone, picking it up.
The
apartment’s quiet but he can hear slight chatter from the bedroom; no moaning
this time. He sees his wig still on the
floor and bends down to pick it up. He
puts it on positioning it correctly and cocks his gun.
In
the bedroom the man is getting dressed while his partner in this affair is
dressed and sitting on the end of the bed.
“I
just don’t think we should do this anymore…”
She says shaking her head.
He’s
struck by this, “What? You can’t be
serious? What’s with all this shit about
how you don’t love him and you want us to be together. I thought you loved ME. Don’t you want me?” He’s furious.
She’s
confused, “I-”
Before
she can finish the door is KICKED open and the clown steps in firing four
rounds into his wife’s lover. The
gunshots are explosive and send the man back into the closet in a bloody
mess. His wife is screaming with her
lover’s blood splattered on her. Bob
stands frozen still pointing his gun and turns it towards her. “NO!”
She screams running out of the bedroom.
“I’m sorry!” She continues to
scream. She gets to the locked door and
wrestles with it before unlocking it.
Bob is slowly walking after her blinded by rage. She opens the door and rushes out of the
apartment. Other tenants are stepping
out of their doors, “What’s going on out here?”
She
doesn’t take time to warn them or tell them that her husband has lost her mind;
she just continues to run down the hall.
The clown steps out of the apartment with his gun poised. A couple of guys are standing out in the hall
confused.
*BLAM*
He drops one of his neighbors with a shot to the chest. People panic and scurry. *BLAM* He shoots
another man and then *BLAM* a woman trying to escape his anger. It’s clear he’s lost it and is now on a
shooting spree blind to his initial morals.
Blood is spilt in the hallway as people continue to scream along with
his cheating wife who’s running down said hall. He fires randomly to his sides and behind him
before putting his wife back in his sights.
*BLAM*
*BLAM* Just as she reaches the top of the stairs he delivers two shots into the
harlot; one in the back and one in the head.
Her body, now lifeless, crumbles, falling down the long staircase to the
bottom. Though she’s dead well before
hitting the bottom her collar bone and a leg are broken and bones are sticking
out of her skin. Her body twitches for
moments after death with involuntary nerve spasms. She’s covered in her own blood and her
husband saunters down the steps. The
broken shell of a woman at the bottom of the steps looks only vaguely like the
woman he used to be so madly in love with.
His big clown shoes step over to the other side of her corpse. He stares down at his former love with a
blank stare.
He
crouches down to her, “Why? What did I
do? What didn’t I do? All I do is
work and live to love you. Did I not
love you enough? Did I love you too much? Did I not make you laugh? I just wanted you to love me. I’d ask you what I could’ve done different
but it’s too late for that. It was too
late long before this.” Bob motions to
his gun.
He
fires his handgun aimlessly upstairs at nothing in particular, reminding the
tenants upstairs of terror. The shot
echoes up the stairwell and panic can be heard.
“You
see…people think a clown with a gun is scary but what’s really scary is
marrying a stranger; or having someone unknowingly transform before your eyes
from something you loved into something that terrifies you, that angers you.” He stops briefly listening to the
mayhem. “No, what’s scary is giving
someone your entire being only to find them use and abuse it…corrupt it. …No, I’m not scary, this isn’t scary,” He
says holding up his pistol, “Having complete and total faith in something,
someone and they go and shatter it without a second thought – that’s scary.”
People
upstairs continue to scream and cry but it doesn’t faze him. The ethical notion of the chaos he’s birthed
has evaded him. He continues to talk to
his blood drenched dead wife.
“How
long has this been going on? How long
did you think you could get away with it?
You weren’t going to get off light.
Leaving you would’ve been too simple.
Hitting you wouldn’t make you stop.
In fact, it would only drive you to continue. No…this is right. He got what he deserved…and so did you.” Bob takes off his white glove and slowly
takes off his wedding band gazing at the ring; at what it meant. He tosses the ring down onto her broken body
before putting his glove back on and adjusting his wig. Closing his eyes he inhales and exhales big;
a sigh of relief.
Inside
his wife lies in a crumpled pile while her lover is sprawled out bleeding all
over their bedroom floor. The neighbors
are still terrified and probably will be for some time. Survivors are attempting to help the wounded
and the dead are just that. The carpet
is wet and stains and dampens the socks of those trying to help. The hallway is painted red; the same red the
staircase is splattered with. Cries and
whimpers fill the air.
Outside
the building multiple police cars have arrived with their lights flashing. The clown steps out of the door with his gun
in hand. The police draw their weapons.
“Freeze! Drop your weapon!” A policeman yells through his megaphone. Bob is still in a daze and raises his arms
with his gun still gripped.
“I
just wanted you to love me…” Bob
says.
“Drop
the gun!” The cops yell.
“I
just want to make you laugh…” Bob says dropping
the gun. Almost before the gun hits the
ground he’s reaching into the shirt of his costume, “See…?”
The
police see him reaching into his puffy shirt and open fire gunning the clown
down to the ground. The shots are brutal
and loud while the wounds are massive leaving his once white and blue clown
costume a mess of dark red. The clown’s
brief yet effective killing spree has ended and the police have taken out what
they see as a madman; a stone cold killer.
The newspapers love drama and with the actions of tonight they’ll have
plenty of it to go around. Not often do
they feature stories about a clown; a comedian whose laughter died and all hope
plummeted which led him to a point of no return.
What
he was reaching for wasn’t seen before he was shot down but they weren’t taking
any chances. Bob the Clown gave his last
show tonight and now lies dead outside his home on his back with his eyes open
staring into the night sky. His white
face paint is speckled with blood and his big shoes stick straight up. Though one shot surely would’ve sufficed, the
bloody mess is riddled with holes.
The
police move in on the body to find…a rubber chicken in his hand.
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