Instead of getting married again,

I'm just going to find a woman I don't like

and give her a house.

-Lewis Grizzard

Clowns

Kevin Brown

“At least I have a life,” Bitch says, and I tell her, “A hundred percent of all life ends in ash or mud and maggots.” Bitch is all Eau de Givenchy perfume and Valentino skirt. I say, “Now, Heaven and Hell, I guess that’s fifty/fifty. Unless you’re French, then it’s ninety/ten.”

“Hey,” Bitch says, “he can’t help it he’s French.” Bitch says, “I didn’t come here to fight, Stephen.”

I raise my head off the kitchen table to feign listening.

Bitch says, “May I sit down?”

“Only if your legs are about to fall off, and then I’ll need a majority vote.”

“Can I at least have a drink?”

“Toilet’s down the hall.”

Bitch sits down.

I say, “So what you’re saying is, you want to hire me to work that faggot’s faggoty kid’s birthday? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Float a little work your way. Maybe you can afford a maid.”

Dumb bitch. Married to her for thirteen years and one day she up and decides her life is boring and wants to be a painter. So what do I do? I hire this French fucker to teach her and Bitch ends up divorcing me for him. But they won’t get married because that’d stop the alimony checks. It’s not that she needs the money, it’s that she knows I do.

We didn’t have any kids, Bitch and I. Actually, she wanted to have a kid without the process of having the kid. The pain, Bitch said, she could take. “It’s the conception I can’t bear.” This French guy, he has one from a previous marriage, so I guess she scored all around.

And now she pulls this shit. That’s what I get for marrying a bitch whose family tree is really a family wreath.

Me, now I’m a clown. Literally. My clown name is “Clyde.” “Clyde the Clown.” I work birthdays and bat mitzvahs. Hospitals. An occasional wedding. Even did a funeral once. My make-up’s a rip-off of Bozo the Clown, and if face paint is considered copyrighted property, I could be facing a lawsuit.

My act is the usual—I squirt water from a little sunflower on my lapel, do a little stand-up routine. Dabble in a bit of magic. Last week I purchased the book The Magic’s Not Real But Who Cares? and learned how to stick a rabbit in a hat. Then there’s the little animal balloons. I make dogs out of balloons. Make cats and giraffes out of balloons. Make elephants and hearts out of balloons. It doesn’t pay much but I take clowning seriously. And now Bitch’s trying to make a fool out of me. Parade me around like a hired hand. Couldn’t she just leave well enough alone?

“Can’t you just leave well enough alone?”

“It’s a legitimate job offer. We want the best clown there is and you’re the best clown there is.” Bitch takes out one of those long thin cigarettes. “You have an ashtray?”

“I do but you kept it in the settlement.” I make myself a drink. My hands are smeared in white face paint from a cookout I worked this afternoon. “Really, you must still be nuts.”

Bitch says, “A proven fact for thirteen years.”

“Well did you have to take my ashtray?”

“Would you drop the ashtray, please? Just once, could we forget about the damn ashtray? I’m trying to conduct business.”

“It’s just my ashtray’s alls I’m saying.”

Bitch reaches over and takes my drink. She drinks it to the ice and a smudge of face paint from the glass rubs off on her lip. Bitch doesn’t even notice.

“Look, I know what you must think of me—”

“Bitch, slut—”

“—I mean, sometimes around noon on Tuesdays I even feel kind of bad—”

“—whore, gold digger—”

“—and if it’s about the money, any price would be worth this show—”

“—bile, vomit, spoiled, pampered, fake tits, fake lips, fake nails, fake hair, chin-tucked, eye-lifted, ashtray stealing trash.”

“Besides the once, have I ever given you reason to doubt me.”

I tell her, “You actually expect me come over to the house I paid for, prance around for your French pussy boyfriend and kid, take the money you pay me, then turn around and hand it back to you next week for alimony?”

“What do you say?”

“Fine,” I say. “See you Saturday.”

OFFICIAL POLICE REPORT

A Detachment

-------------------------------------

Location: Jester Bay

Case Number: 01-10319

Type: Christ If We Know

Units responded to a call at 1963 Lampkin Lane where professional clown “Clyde the Clown” (Stephen Charles) allegedly displayed erratic, foolish, and understandable behavior. Working a children’s birthday party at his ex-wife’s residential home, Clown reportedly slipped Rohypnal, commonly known as ‘Roofies’, into ex-wife’s and current boyfriend’s (French) drink. With the two sitting flaccid in chairs near the swimming pool, Clown followed this by gathering the children around, pulling a small white rabbit from a magician’s hat, and heaving the bunny into said pool where it died of drowning. Clown then proceeded to sing the classic Chuck Berry tune “My Ding-a-Ling,” while making animal balloons contorted into numerous sexual positions. He spiked the children’s punch bowl with Seagram Seven liquor, and told, according to witnesses, the following joke: “Kids, anyone know how to make a French man’s noodle disappear?” After which he picked his ex-wife up and said, “Here you go!” which should have drawn laughter but didn’t. He next leaned over the boyfriend, who was now drooling, asked, “Wanna smell my flower?” and proceeded to squirt him in the face with what officers could only describe as “foul smelling urine.” His ex-wife (not British) proclaimed she wanted a “fag and a Salty Dog,” to which Clown responded, “You got one out of two.” Next, he threw her over his shoulder, went to the upstairs bedroom, and locked the door. Officers believe Clown assaulted her in a particular type of sexual manner, as the smeared visage of one “Bozo the Clown” could be seen smiling from her genital region. Immediately after, he hocked loogies on several nice Versace dresses hung neatly in the closet. Suspect allegedly took a bottle of Eau de Givenchy perfume, an ashtray from the bedside table, and ex-wife back outside where he emptied the bottle over a hedgerow. After several cups of punch, the children became intoxicated and were led in a game of “Pin the Tail on the Pussy,” pinning several paper tails to the Frenchman in the chair. Clown followed this by putting ex-wife on a rubber raft and shoving her out into the pool as she sang “Tuitie Frutie.” He set the hedgerow on fire singing, “We don’t need no water, let the motherfucker burn!” According to a neighboring eyewitness, Clown then mounted the diving board, stood bobbing at the end and, with his head thrown back, his arms outstretched, screamed: “I want to fart at the saddest moment of every funeral and dare to be called disrespectful, because everyone knows the deceased loved a good fart. I want to bust the windows out of every McDonald’s for not hiring me because I don’t have enough un-popped pimples on my face. I want everyone from each continent to pick up and move to another—Britain to Africa, Japan to China, Germany to Israel. Move America to Iraq and see if we’re really so advanced or if it’s just location, location, location.” Here, the ex-wife screamed her best Little Richard scream while the Frenchman fell over in chair, twitching about. “I want to change the type of element that backs the world’s currency,” Clown continued. “Instead of gold and silver, I’d make it water and see how fast we’d drain the oceans. Where class separation would be levels of dehydration.” He then allegedly capped it off with, “And children, always remember, friends don’t let friends drive drunk. They get blitzed and ride with them.” Clown next dropped drawers and led children in a mass urination around the pool while ex-wife floated and sang, “A whop bop-a-loo bop, a bob bam boo!” and Frenchman defecated. Police arrived just as Clown was in the middle of a double gainer off the diving board. After several magic demonstrations for arresting officers, he was taken into custody with no more than twenty nightstick lashings. Clown was read Mirandas but gave up right of silence by crying and screaming over and over: “My ashtray, my ashtray, my ashtray!”

Author’s Bio: Kevin Brown is the winner of the Permafrost Midnight Sun Fiction Contest. His work has appeared in Cadenza, Fiction Attic, Permafrost, The Ozark Review, and the upcoming issue of Alligator Juniper. He is also the recipient of The Baucom-Fulkerson Memorial Award for Fiction, and a Lily Peter Fellowship.