A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals) (5 page)

For the first time he actually
moved in and really stared at the green glass. Each had a cork in the top,
which seemed wrong, once he considered it. The labels were of different types,
but he didn't recognize any of the brands. That wasn't all that likely. Even
before he'd taken to drinking as a full time occupation, he'd known wine, even
down to the level of private vineyards. There were three brands visible. The
labels were all similar, but not the same. Shining gold and red for one, silver
and black for another and one that was a more tasteful matte colored label in
mustard and peach. That one
might
have had a cork in it, but not the
other two. They were gaudy, and meant to catch the eye. Expensive wines almost
never were.

They were all laying side by side
in a nice wooden box. That, he thought, but couldn't prove, was also a thing
that changed each week. This one was a bit lighter in color, and less beaten up
looking than the other one. There was a thick layer of straw in the bottom too.
Maybe it was shipped that way. If so, and it were his fridge, he would have
just stood them up on end when it was delivered. It would save space, if
nothing else.

He certainly wasn't going to
think less of them if they drank on occasion after all. For him it was a bad
idea, but a lot of people could more or less handle it. If they using it in
cooking, or had a glass with meals, then what was the problem?

Staring at it he nearly just gave
up on the idea. They had some bottles, and he didn't touch them. It really
wasn't his business. That was the rule, in most things. On the streets, and the
classroom too. You weren't supposed to question things without permission. It
was a hard piece of life for most to realize. They lived by it anyway, just
without being cognizant of the fact. Nature demanded it. People that wanted a
good life didn't stick their nose into other people's business.

Conspiracy theorists did that.
Apparently clowns too, because he kept wasting electricity by holding the door
to the cold box open, just standing there. Staring at the green glass, sitting
on its cushion of straw. The bottles all labeled, with different colors, but
they all had a twin, or in one case, a triplet.

The font used was the same for
each one too. That didn't happen too often, he didn't think.

Jay didn't give in and touch any
of the bottles, just closing the white door and standing there for a bit, as an
idea dawned on him. His friends had a magic act. So what would they need wine
bottles for? That wasn't exactly rocket science. His mind had just been too
closed to understand it before. Too hung up on the idea of drinking to see what
was clearly in front of him. They used them for their act. Some kind of
substitution trick, probably. A bottle would be broken, and then reappear,
whole and exactly the same. They needed exactly seven a week, and that meant
getting more bottles. That, or making them. So it was a special trick, not one
they did all the time. Given the math, it would be enough for four shows. They
did more than that each week.

Jay wasn't forbidden from
snooping around the house. They probably figured that he would be doing that,
given the fact that he was a person and would probably want to search for booze
at some point. He hadn't done that yet, but it had been close a couple of
times. What he did now wasn't really a betrayal of trust, as much as confirming
his suspicions.

In the lower cupboard, next to
the sink, there were molds. Things that looked like bottles. Given that glass
was hard to work with, compared to some things, his guess was that one of his
friends made the bottles out of sugar. Like rock candy. The labels all had the
same fonts, because they made them at home too. It was probably a cost saving
measure. That would be why they spoke of cooking with the wine. Or more exactly
the bottles, which were unfilled. They weren't there to get him to relapse,
just to make the magic show more entertaining.

Laughing, he put it all away and
walked back to his little stone shed. It was dark out, and cold already. The
day had been comfortable, but it was still early spring. It was, he thought,
about eleven at night now. His little mystery, which wasn't much of one, had
taken a lot more time than he'd thought. So had doing the floors. Between the
two things he was already a bit sleepy, so barred his door from the inside, and
settled on the mattress.

Once the lamp was off, he just
stared at the pitch black ceiling. It was lighter colored during the day, but
almost no light was coming through the window at the moment. There was no
reason for it to. They were back from the street, and the neighbors that
counted, being close, were so old that they went to bed at about nine every
night. It had them getting up at about four in the morning, since the elderly
didn't sleep as much as the young.

He could still manage it, on
occasion. Not most days, since his back got sore after a few hours. It was a
low ache that showed him that he was getting old already. Only in his
mid-forties, the best part of his life was gone. Wasted, on people that just
didn't matter at all. Or
shouldn't
, if he was going to be a real man. The
kind that didn't have his wife treating him like trash.

Not for the first time he
seriously considered just going to her house and killing her. It would serve
her right. It wasn't fear for himself that got him to not do it, but worry over
the damage it would do Alex. She might not have been his, but she was his
daughter. Even if the court was fine with the idea that she wasn't. He'd help
to raise her, and had really done more of it than Lynn. That, plus the fact
that he wasn't the kind of person to lash out in anger. Jay was too weak. Too
much of a pansy to take action.

Lynn had said that to him, before
they divorced. He
had
taken action, there at the end. Not by being
violent, but by leaving. It seemed to amaze her that he'd done that. Angered
her too. That was one of the few good memories he had of that time. The look on
her face when he told her to get the hell out of his life.

She was so confused. As if she
just hadn't seen that one coming.

It also occurred to him that Carl
Morse really didn't deserve to live. That one was a lot more dangerous, since
the man was the County Sheriff, but there was always a way, if a person were
careful. Jason would need to be armed, and learn to use the weapons well, but
if an idiot like Carl could do it, so could he.

Revenge fantasies weren't
rewarding or helpful, so he blocked them out, and wondered how the heck he was
going to fix his life. It seemed so hard, from where he was. When he was
younger it had all fell into place so easily. He'd gone to school like everyone
had told him to, worked a few office jobs and then went into teaching. It
hadn't been hard at all. Rote almost.

This time, no matter what he did,
it seemed like there just wasn't going to be a simple or easy break for him.

It was all just going to have to
be done one big shoed step at a time. That wasn't what he wanted to do, but
whatever grace the universe had for him earlier in life, it had withdrawn it
now. Thinking about it wasn't going to help, so he rolled over and pretended to
sleep, until it finally came.

It took a few minutes to blink
the sleep out of his eyes, and longer to raise enough concern for living to
stand up. Really, it wasn't anything as powerful as a will to survive that did
it, but the fact that his bladder was about to burst that got him into motion.
That meant a trip into the house. Even this time of year, in the early morning
just before dawn could truly break, it was cool. Not cold, but he slipped on
shoes first, since the yard managed to have sharp bits in it for some unknown
reason. Jagged edged rocks that time had forgotten to smooth, and strangely the
odd piece of sharp plant life. It hadn't taken him long to learn that wearing
something on his feet paid off, given where he was.

The sun was well and truly down
still, even as the sky at the horizon tried to light things up a bit. The
neighbors off to the left had turned a lamp on, but not all of them. It was
morning then, or they'd still be asleep. He could tell time off of their
schedule, most days.

The yard wasn't a proper lawn,
being too barren for that. It had a patch of grass, but that was spare and
reedy, not even worth mowing really. The low spiky plants that would try to
take over if no one battled them were starting to grow, and looked pretty, this
early in the year. They were green in an area that needed it, making them
special and perfect, even if later in the year he'd be cursing them daily.

If he were still around for that
part of things. It wasn't the plan, but he'd learned not to really count on
anything he did making a difference. Not as a thing to rely on. He knew enough
that he'd try, and keep going, but you took things where you could get them,
and didn't turn down any chance. Jay hadn't always been good at that last bit,
but decided to be from then on, as he hobbled across the dusty earth that lay
between him and the sweet relief his bladder cried for.

The house was silent and dark
inside, waiting for the next day when Carlos and Wendy would be back, bringing
life and happiness to it. It still held that faint scent of lemon, from his
efforts with the floor. The whole thing was sparkling, so he made certain that
he cleaned up after himself well, before washing his hands. It was a minor
point, at four in the morning, but they could come back without sleeping, and
did about half the time. It was about a two hour trip, so when they finished
packing up, at about two, they often just climbed into the van and headed home.
Taking a small rest, when they could find it.

So he jumped when the phone rang.
It was early, and their land line, which was a thing that most people didn't
even bother keeping anymore. He'd never asked why they had it, since it wasn't
any of his business. The answer would probably be pedestrian and boring anyway,
like they'd gotten it once and had simply never bothered to get rid of the
thing and update. They both used cells, and carried them all the time, so it
wasn't fear of radiation that did it.

Blearily, and feeling a bit
breathless, he approached the thing. It was wireless, since they weren't
complete luddites, and they'd sprung for caller I.D. which meant that he knew
it was a call from a number that came from within Nevada. For the first three
rings he just stood there, not knowing what to do. It wasn't his phone, but
he'd answered it before, and Carlos was happier knowing that he'd take a
message than not. Calling this time of day probably meant either an emergency
or a disaster had happened. That, or a wrong number.

Taking a deep breath, he picked
it up and tapped the glowing button to make it work. It felt odd and clumsy in
his thin fingers, but the throw rug under his feet, in front of the wooden
phone table, kept him grounded and feeling real. It was where it was supposed
to be, which meant this wasn't a dream, or a nightmare trying to take place.

"Hello, this is the
residence of the Great Mantooth, I, his humble manservant Joseph stand ready to
take any message you might have for him." He affected a British accent,
which wasn't too bad, if he had to say so himself.

The familiar voice on the other side
of the phone laughed.

"Joey the Clown, is that
you?" It was Carlos, but he picked up on things fast, and always had.

"You got me. Is something
wrong?" It didn't sound like it. Carlos didn't even sound sleepy. Then he
was just a few hours past his shift, wasn't he? This was pretty much just life,
for him.

"Nope. Wendy and I picked up
another gig here. Twenty-three performers in one hotel all came down with food
poisoning. That's the word. It's the Placemont, so off the main strip, but
still a high profile job. The manager begged us to work for the next two weeks.
I was hoping to catch you. You still up?" That made sense. All of it did,
to tell the truth.

Carlos was a good magician, but
had to use his intellect and charm to carry his shows, since his fingers didn't
allow a lot of sleight of hand work. They were the wrong shape for it and a bit
too short to really pull it off. So he'd compensated by being interesting and
not coming across like a freak. Why so many of the modern magicians did that,
acted bizarre, Jay didn't know, but he'd seen it more than once, in the last
year. It meant that Carlos and Wendy were popular to work with, if not
that
well known. They didn't do work on television for instance, since that might
look like people were mocking the little person.

"Just getting up. I went to
bed early. Do you need anything? Props? Those fake bottles in the fridge?"

There was a soft gasp, and the
man's voice was a bit tense when he spoke, even if the words themselves were
kind. The phone against Jason's ear was irritating, but he didn't let it move.

"You weren't thinking of
drinking from them, were you?"

"Not in the least. I just
wanted to figure out why there were always exactly seven bottles. So you know,
I worked it as a project. Corks, in the tops that are out of place, the same
font being used on all the labels, and of course, the fact that there are molds
in the cupboard. I do love a good mystery." It was, he realized, the
truth. As long as there were no real stakes to it. Especially if it let him
work out why things had happened. That was the big part of it for him. How, was
simple if you had the facts,
why
took real work. If he had the chance
ever again it might be nice to really try his hand at anthropology. He was a
bit old to change careers again, but it was still an idea. A thing that
he
wanted. Or had, once.