The Guild of Fallen Clowns (36 page)

“Who let you out of your cage, freak?” he
said, stopping Geno in his tracks. Geno looked at the burly
middle-aged man and didn’t reply. The worker shook his head in
disgust as Geno turned away and continued creeping.

“That’s right, keep moving. I better not see
you lurking around my side of the midway again, you mutant troll
monkey.”

*****

“There’s an empty bench over there,” Mary
said, pointing through the crowd. With the drink in her other hand,
she rushed ahead to stake a claim on their dining location. Alan
lagged behind, dodging the chaotic movement of pedestrians while
maintaining a firm grip on the paper bag containing their first
meal together.

Mary sat in the middle of the bench, placed
the shared drink beside her, and patted the bench on the opposite
side of the cup. Alan caught up and took his seat. He proceeded to
remove the bag’s contents by handing Mary her hot dog. Next, he
took out his hot dog, then the shared fries. Using the bag as a
platter, he spread it between them on the bench and tilted out some
fries.

“Don’t worry, I won’t eat many of them,” she
said.

“Take as many as you want,” he replied. He
hoped she would be true to her word, though, because he liked his
French fries.

They were unwrapping their hot dogs when
Mary noticed a frail elderly couple shuffling arm in arm toward a
bench beside them which just became vacant.

“Look at them, Alan,” she whispered. Alan
glanced at the old couple. “Aren’t they cute?” she said.

He nodded. “Yeah, I guess.” His attention
returned to the food on his lap.

The old man’s eyes were locked on the bench
as the pair shuffled in slow motion toward their target. With less
than ten feet remaining, three ten-year-old boys with ice cream
cones scrambled past the couple and plopped on the bench. The
couple stopped and the old man’s chin dropped in despair.

Mary picked the drink up, tapped Alan’s leg,
and told him to scoot over. He slid against the armrest and she
picked up the bag of fries and placed them on his closed legs at
mid-thigh. She closed the gap between them and called out to the
couple. “Excuse me, sir.” The man turned. Mary patted the bench
beside her. “There’s room over here,” she said.

The couple looked at the space beside Mary
and smiled in unison. Mary returned the smile and the couple
shifted back into low gear toward them. Two more boys ran over from
the opposite direction toward the newly created space. Mary raised
her hand and yelled, “Not for you!” Her command appeared to knock
the boys backward as if she had thrown up a force field in front of
them. Stunned but unharmed, they spotted people leaving another
bench fifty feet away. They shifted ninety degrees to the left and
sprinted toward it.

*****

From beside a concessions trailer, Geno
spotted Alan and Mary on the bench. It was a tight fit as the old
couple squeezed in beside them. Mary removed the large purse from
her shoulder to make more room. She handed it to Alan, who hung it
from the armrest beside him.

Geno stared long at the handbag, and then
watched as Alan’s torso shifted toward the conversation Mary
started up with their new friends.

With his bag held tight under his arm, Geno
began his approach. He brushed past the crowd, always keeping
himself behind the plane of the bench. To Alan and Mary, he was
invisible. However, his tunnel vision to avoid detection from Alan
and Mary by tiptoeing from one hiding spot to the next started to
creep out everyone around him. Mothers pulled their kids out of his
path and shot disgusted looks as they got as much distance as
possible from the creepy stalker.

Geno was unaware of the attention he was
drawing. A child asked her father who the man was. The father
explained that he was probably an actor playing a trick on people.
Geno didn’t notice the dozens of people stopping to see what this
curious character was up to. His eyes and total focus were locked
on one thing—his target.

*****

Alan sat, mesmerized by Mary’s ability to
open up to everyone she met. In the two minutes they sat with the
elderly couple, Mary showed a genuine interest in knowing
everything about them. He didn’t say a word, but it didn’t matter.
As she talked, she was sure to include Alan in the conversation by
smiling back at him and grabbing hold of his hand. He looked down
at their hands locked together and snapped a mental picture as a
souvenir from the best night of his life. At one point, she caught
him staring at her hand. When he realized she was facing him, he
looked up at her. She smiled bigger than he’d ever seen her smile
before and squeezed his hand three times before returning her
attention to the couple.

Three squeezes,
he thought.
What
was that? Was it some sort of code? Is she getting tired of the
conversation and asking me to rescue her? Three squeezes. Is she
saying, “Please—help—me”? But she looks so interested in what
they’re saying. Could it be that she is just the kind of person who
doesn’t have the ability to be rude by finding her own escape?
Three squeezes. Please help me. That’s got to be it. What else
could it be
? he wondered?

*****

Geno sat on the ground behind the bench.
Mary’s purse was hanging within reach. He took the bag out from
under his arm, opened it, and pulled out the figure of Peepers.

Still unsure of the hidden message Mary
squeezed him, Alan looked away to think. As he did, he noticed all
the people stopped and staring at him. Some were smiling while
others just stood there with blank expressions.
Why are they all
looking at me?
he thought. Without taking his eyes off his
audience, Alan let go of Mary’s hand. She turned to see why he let
go. She followed his confused stare and her eyes widened when she
saw all the people watching them.

Hidden from the crowd behind the bench, Geno
delicately opened Mary’s bag. Just as he began lowering the figure,
Alan, not realizing Geno was there, grabbed the purse and handed it
to Mary. Geno retracted the figure and shoved it inside his bag. He
tucked into a fetal position as Alan stood.

Alan looked at Mary and the couple and said,
“I don’t want to appear rude, but I really need to find the
bathroom.”

Mary stood. Her eyes shifted between Alan,
the couple, and the strange people in the crowd staring at
them.

“Okay,” she said. She turned toward the
elderly couple, who were oblivious to the extra eyes fixed in their
direction. “Uh, what can I say? Nature calls. It was a pleasure
meeting you both. Good luck with your upcoming surgery.”

Alan grabbed her hand and pulled her away.
The elderly couple also stood and walked away, exposing Geno,
tucked in a ball behind the bench. The curious watchers lost
interest and moved on.

“Ew, I hate using those things. They’re so
gross and disgusting,” the college girl said to her three friends
as they approached a row of Porta Potties.

“I hope the last person wasn’t a big hairy
guy taking deuce,” another added.

“You guys go on. I’ll wait for you out
here,” said the third girl.

“You’re so lucky you don’t have to pee,
Holly. Watch my purse.” The girl handed her purse to Holly. The
other two handed her theirs as well before all three entered
neighboring green plastic relief huts.

Holly waited beside an overflowing trash can
off to the side. From inside one of the units her friend called out
in a panic, “There’s no toilet paper. OMFG, there’s no TP in here!”
The girls in the adjoining units busted out in laughter. “Holly!
Bring me my purse. There’s tissues in my purse,” she called out in
desperation.

“Stay where you are, Holly. Don’t bring our
purses near these things. I’ll bring you some TP in a sec, Meg.”
Holly tried to contain her laughter as she noticed confused looks
from passersby who overheard parts of their conversation.

While hanging on to the purses, she noticed
an odd-looking man walking toward her in a straight line. As he
passed people along his path, his head and gaze remained fixed on
her. She grew nervous and looked away, but as he got closer, his
pace appeared to quicken. She looked away to the ground, gripping
the purses more tightly. The determined stranger was less than ten
feet away. She looked up and he stopped and smiled.

He removed a bag from under his arm, pulled
something out, and continued to close the distance between
them.

“Are you guys finished yet?” Holly cried out
to her friends in an attempt to thwart the creepy man’s
encroachment into her personal space.

He stopped a few feet in front of her and
turned to the trashcan beside her. Holding the item over the mound
of trash, he gently placed it on a clean food wrapper. She looked
down at the figure and quickly turned away as he turned his head to
see her watching. He folded his empty bag and returned it under his
arm and walked away.

Once he was out of sight, Holly looked again
at the discarded object. The Peepers figure was placed face down on
the pile. She looked around to see if anyone was watching her.
Confident that nobody would see her reach into the trash, she
grabbed the object and turned it around to see what it was. Her
faced winced as she scanned the figure.

The sound of a creaky spring followed by a
slamming Porta Potty door pulled her focus from the figure.

“What’s that?” Caitlyn said as she
approached. Another door slammed and they turned to watch the girl
crack open the door of another Porta Potty and slip a wadded up
ball of toilet paper to their friend. The door closed and she
joined Holly and Caitlyn to wait for Meg.

“You should have made her suffer a little
longer, Loren,” Caitlyn said.

Loren reclaimed her purse from Holly. “Yeah,
that would have been classic. You should have said something.”

All three girls chuckled over the missed
opportunity to humiliate their friend. Caitlyn took her purse from
Holly as Loren spotted the figure.

“Ew, what is that thing? Where did you get
it?”

Holly held it out so all three of them could
look it over. “Someone threw it in the trash.”

“You picked it out of the trash?” Loren
moaned. Caitlyn joined in.

From behind, Megan stepped up. “What are we
whining about?”

Caitlyn pointed to the figure and turned to
face Megan. “Holly took that thing out of the garbage.”

“That’s gross. What is it?” Megan said.

“It didn’t touch anything. It was on some
clean napkins. I don’t know what it is. Looks like some kind of
creepy clown thing,” Holly replied.

“Put it back, it’s scaring me,” Loren said
as she covered her eyes with her hand.

“No, don’t throw it away,” Caitlyn said. “We
can give it to Debbie. She’s scared to death of clowns. Remember
how she reacted the other night when the pizza guy was dressed as a
clown? That thing will freak her out big time!”

“I say throw it back in the trash,” Loren
said with her hand still blocking her view of it.

“C’mon, guys, think about it. We have to
give it to Debbie,” Caitlyn said.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Holly
said. “She was terrified. That might be taking it a little too
far.”

“Are you kidding me?” Caitlyn said. “What
about that time when Debbie turned the light out on you when you
were in the basement? This will be payback.”

“I still think you put her up to it,
Caitlyn,” Holly replied. “But even if you didn’t and she did it on
purpose, giving her this would be too much. I’ll find another way
to get back at her, but not with this.”

“Will you just toss it already so I can
lower my hand?” Loren said.

“What about Adam?” Megan said.

“Adam?” Caitlyn questioned. “He wouldn’t be
scared of it. Why would you give it to him?”

“I know he’s not scared of stuff like this.
He likes freaky things. He can add it to his collection of scary
Halloween decorations. He’ll love it.”

“Good idea, I’ll give it to Adam,” Holly
said.

“You guys are a bunch of wusses,” Caitlyn
said.

“Okay, now that you know what you’re gonna
do with it, could you please hide it somewhere?” Loren said,
peeking through her fingers.

Holly looked around for something to wrap it
with.

“Put it in Megan’s ‘mom purse,’” Caitlyn
said.

“Oh, good idea,” Megan said as Holly handed
her the purse. “I’ll have to make room first.” She removed three
juice boxes and handed them to Caitlyn.

“BOXTAILS!” Caitlyn cheered. Loren peeked
through her fingers as Holly lowered the figure inside the large
purse. With it hidden from view she lowered her hand and opened her
own purse.

“I got the juice, now where’s the Goose?”
Caitlyn chanted.

Loren wiggled a fifth of Grey Goose from her
tight purse and raised it up. In an effort to avoid attention,
Holly lowered Loren’s arm and shushed the girls. Holly watched as
her friends proceeded to break the seals of the juice boxes, flip
them upside down, and squirt a third of the contents to the ground.
Caitlyn took a pen from her purse, widened the holes of the three
boxes, and returned the pen. She reached into Megan’s “mom purse”
and pulled out a small funnel. They replaced the spilled juice with
vodka, then stuck their straws back through the holes.

“Are you sure you don’t want some, Holly?”
Megan said.

“No, thanks. I’m happy to be the DD.”

Caitlyn raised her box. “A Goose Juice toast
to Holly, our DDBFF.”

Loren and Megan clacked their boxed drinks
to Caitlyn’s. Holly pulled her car keys from her pocket and joined
their toast by jingling them above their boxtails. Holly pocketed
her keys as her friends took long sips through the narrow
straws.