ClownFellas (5 page)

When it was over, Earl dropped onto the heart-shaped bed and closed his eyes. He had never put so much care and attention into an animal in all his career as a veterinarian. He was satisfied with the procedure and couldn't be more confident that Happytooth would recover just fine.

“I got to thank you, Doc,” Don Bozo said, after he saw his pet's face was back to its regular shape. “Putting aside the fact that you tried to kill me, you're a real lifesaver.”

“So are you going to uphold your side of the bargain?” Earl asked.

“Of course, Doc. I'm a man of my word. I'll send Vinnie and the boys out to your place as soon as possible.”

The boss turned and wobbled toward the door.

Earl looked back at him, “Where are you going? Aren't you going to kill me?”

Bozo replied, “Not yet. I'll keep you around until Happytooth makes a full recovery. I can kill you another time.”

Earl stood up. “In that case, can I go with them?”

“What?”

“Can I ride along with Vinnie when he goes to save my family? I just want to make sure they're safe with my own eyes.”

“Wouldn't you rather not know for sure?”

“I have to know. I'm the one who got them into this.”

Bozo nodded. “I'll talk to Vinnie about it. If he doesn't mind babysitting you, I don't mind you seeing your family one last time.”

“Thanks, Bozo.”

“No. Thank
you,
Dead Man. Thank
you.
”

Blue Nose gathered the men together. “Hats, Spotty, Jackie, we're heading out. Get your gear together.”

Earl and the boss stood behind the capo, watching the three buttons as they dove into the arsenal, grabbing all manner of clown weaponry. The room was filled with items that Earl had never even heard of before. They looked more like the kinds of things he'd find in a novelty toy store—slinky bombs, bladed Frisbees, chain-saw yo-yos, an assortment of weaponized pies and cartoony handguns. They appeared more ridiculous than deadly.

“We're taking the doc with us,” Vinnie said as he grabbed two clips of laughing bullets. “Any of you got a problem with that?”

“I'm fine with the doc, but do we have to take Hats?” said Captain Spotty, loading a pink plastic shotgun with gumballs. “The guy's a jamook. He's gonna get us all killed.”

“Who you think you're calling a jamook?” Hats said, leaning an automatic squirt gun over his shoulder.

“We need every clown we can get,” Vinnie said.

“Give me five minutes and I'll get Pinky and Bingo over here,” said Spotty. “I'd rather have those two backing me up any day.”

“Forget it, Hats will do fine,” Vinnie said.

“Yeah, Hats will do fine,” Hats said, filling his gun with a blue fluid.

Once the men appeared ready, Vinnie said, “Let's head out.”

Jackie the Grump left the arsenal with so many weapons you could hardly see his face. “Those surrealistic pricks don't know what they got coming to 'em.”

Before they left, Don Bozo stopped Earl Berryman. “I want you to take this with you.”

The big man inflated a yellow balloon, twisted it into the shape of a gun, and handed it to the veterinarian.

“Just in case,” the boss said, patting him on the shoulder.

Earl looked at the balloon in his hand. He didn't know what he was supposed to do with it.

“You sure you want to give that guy a piece?” Vinnie asked when he saw the vet holding the gun balloon. “He just tried to kill you not thirty minutes ago.”

“He's got no reason to whack me anymore,” Bozo said. “His beef's with the Frenchies now.”

Vinnie Blue Nose nodded and moved on.

“Here, take a knife, too,” Bozo said to Earl, twisting a red balloon into an upside-down T.

The vet put the knife-shaped balloon through the belt loop of his pants, then shoved the top half of the gun balloon in his coat pocket. He assumed the big man was just messing with him. He was a clown, after all. But he decided not to question it.

The clowns piled into Captain Spotty's little red car. There should have only been enough room for two people in the backseat, but somehow Vinnie, Hats, and Jackie the Grump all fit back there without a problem. When Earl looked back, the three clowns seemed to be occupying the same space. They overlapped one another, like a hand of cards.

“It's how so many clowns can fit in a clown car,” Spotty said when he saw Earl's confused expression.

“How does it work?”

“How should I know? I don't even know how a microwave works. But if we had a dozen guys with us they'd all fit back there as well.”

They left Little Bigtop and headed out to Earl's house in the suburbs. The vet prayed they'd get there on time. He didn't care what happened to himself anymore, but he didn't want to die knowing he'd brought about the demise of those he loved most in the world. At one moment, he realized the clowns didn't scare him anymore. The thought of what was going to happen to his family was far more frightening than some irrational phobia. These clowns weren't monsters. They were his only salvation.

“So what are these French clowns like?” Earl asked the driver. “I've never even heard of Le Mystère before today.”

Captain Spotty tensed up when Earl mentioned their name. It was then that the vet realized these clowns were just as nervous to go into this fight as he was. Spotty squeezed the steering wheel tightly as he spoke. “Le Mystère isn't like the Bozo Family. These guys are kind of a new wave of clown. They do things different—let's just leave it at that. They don't respect the clowning traditions that our people value so dearly.”

“Have you been at war with them long?”

“We're not officially at war. Not yet, anyway. There's been a truce between the two families ever since they arrived in Little Bigtop five years ago. But they've been pushing us, trying to elbow in on our territory. And now they make an attempt on the boss's life. After this, those avant-garde bastards are gonna have to make amends or I don't know what's going to happen.”

“Hey, Spotty,” Hats said from the backseat. “Why are you talking to a dead man?”

“None of your business, that's why,” Spotty said.

“Well, why don't ya keep your fat mouth shut.”

Spotty and Hats were the same rank, so the putz couldn't tell him what to do. Still, when Spotty and Earl looked at the clowns in the backseat the expression on Vinnie's face said that the lot of them oughta keep quiet and get their heads in the game. They had no idea what they were about to walk into.

As they drove in silence, Earl wondered how his children were doing. He wasn't too worried about Sarah. She was tough. As long as she didn't get
too
tough and try to stab one of the clowns in the throat when the others weren't looking, he knew she'd be fine. He also wasn't too worried about his youngest, Mandy. She probably didn't even know they were in any danger. In fact, she was probably having the time of her life being surrounded by clowns. But his middle child, Vicky, was the fragile one. She was the one who was easily scared.

Earl had no idea what made Vicky so paranoid, but she always thought something horrible was going to happen. Just the other day, Earl woke up to find her staring at him while he slept. She had a look of panic on her face. It was three in the morning and he had no idea what was going on.

“What's wrong, honey?” Earl asked. “Why are you awake?”

“I thought you were dead,” she told him.

“What?” Earl sat up in bed.

“You stopped breathing. I thought you died in your sleep.”

“That's just sleep apnea. It's no big deal. Go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” Vicky said, but she didn't go back to sleep. She just went downstairs and sat on the living room couch.

When he heard a crash in the kitchen, Earl put on his robe and went to see what was going on. He found the blender on the floor. Vicky was unplugging all the appliances.

“What are you doing?” Earl asked her.

She didn't stop what she was doing as she replied, “My teacher said you shouldn't ever leave toasters plugged in. They can cause a fire.”

“The toaster wasn't plugged in.”

“Yeah, it was. So was the coffee machine, the blender, the juicer, the popcorn maker, and the microwave. All of it should be unplugged. Mom needs to be more careful.”

“You don't have to unplug the microwave.”

“I had a dream the house burned down while we were asleep,” she said. “I can't sleep until I know the house isn't going to burn down.”

“The house isn't going to burn down,” Earl said.

“Nine out of ten people who die in house fires die in their sleep, because they weren't able to catch it in time.”

“Where did you get that figure?”

“We should sleep in shifts. That way, we'd always have somebody prepared to deal with the fire.”

Earl didn't know what to say to her. She was completely serious about the issue.

They had taken Vicky to a psychologist several times, but she was still having horrible dreams about her friends and family dying in car accidents or plane crashes. Sometimes she dreamed the world was going to end by either a meteor strike or a nuclear holocaust. The psychologist wondered if she had ever been through a traumatic experience in her life, but nothing bad had ever happened to her. It was her dreams. She had been traumatized over and over again in her dreams.

Earl had no idea what would happen to Vicky after a real traumatic experience like the one she was going through at that moment. He worried that her paranoia would be ten times worse. He worried that she would need counseling for years to get over it. Like Earl, she would become terrified of clowns.

Outside the Berryman house, Earl and the four clowns crept up the driveway behind a row of azalea bushes. They didn't do a very good job of being discreet, though, since their brightly colored outfits could be seen down the block. And Hats's size 30 shoes squeaked every time he took a step, and he couldn't keep his three-foot top hat from poking above the bushes no matter how far down he squatted.

“Keep it down, would ya?” Jackie the Grump said to Hats.

“I'm just walking,” Hats whined. “It's the shoes that won't keep quiet.”

“You're going to give us away,” Jackie said. “This is supposed to be an ambush over here.”

“What do you want me to do, take them off? I'm not going in there barefoot.”

“Walk on your hands or something. You're going to get us all killed, ya mook.”

“Forget about it. They'll just think it's a dog with a squeak toy.”

Spotty turned back. “Quit clownin' around, the both of yas.”

When they arrived at the top of the driveway, they heard a group of men speaking with French accents. They were right inside the living room.

Vinnie Blue Nose looked at Spotty. “Send in the scouts.”

The grubby clown nodded in compliance. He opened his coat, and five cockroaches crawled up his torso and into the palm of his hand.

“Luigi, Donny, Carmella, Carlito, and Little Alphanso,” Captain Spotty whispered to his pet cockroaches. “I need you to go inside and check the place out. Then report back to me.”

The roaches wiggled their antennae at him and then buzzed their wings, flying across the yard toward the open window. As they waited, Hats Rizzo stepped back and forth, squeaking his shoes.

“Why are you still squeaking over there?” Jackie whispered. “We're not even walking anymore.”

“I got to take a leak,” Hats whined, squeaking back and forth.

“Then go take a leak.”

Hats didn't argue. He unzipped his fly and stepped toward the other side of the garage door. As he took his noisy steps, the Frenchmen went to the window.

“Do you hear that?” asked one of the French clowns. Earl couldn't see his face through the window, but he could hear him. It wasn't the same man he'd spoken to on the phone.

“Hear what?” asked another Frenchman.

“I don't know. It sounds like a dog with a squeak toy.”

The clowns kept quiet as they listened to the Frenchmen—all of them except for Hats, who emptied his bladder in loud splashes against the concrete.

“What dog? I see no dog.”

“It's there. I can hear it taking a leak.”

“Well, don't let it inside. I'm allergic to the rotten mutts.”

When the cockroaches returned to Spotty, the grubby clown had them crawl into his hand, and then he put them up to his ear.

“Uh-huh,” Spotty said, as if the bugs were actually talking to him. “Yeah. Are you sure? Really? Shit.”

“What's wrong?” asked Vinnie Blue Nose.

Spotty looked at Earl. The expression on his face wasn't good.

“What?” Earl asked. “Is my family okay?”

“Sorry, Doc,” Spotty said. “They're not in there.”

“What do you mean they're not in there? Where are they?”

“I don't know. Somewhere else.”

“Are they dead?”

“We don't know that for sure,” Vinnie said. “We need to take one of them alive for questioning.” He turned at Spotty. “How many of them are there?”

“Six.” Spotty ordered his roaches to form a map of Earl's house on the garage door. He pointed at the area of the living room by the front entrance. “Two here.” Then he pointed at the back of the living room with the couches and television. “Two here.” Then he pointed at the kitchen. “And two here.”

Earl was surprised at how detailed the cockroaches were with their map of his house. They even had baby cockroaches positioned where the Frenchmen were standing.

“Why so many?” Jackie asked. “They need six guys just to take out one vanilla vet?”

“Maybe they know we're coming,” Vinnie said. “Let's not take any chances.” He pointed at Spotty and the Grump. “You two wait here. I'm taking Hats and the doc around back. Once you see the smoke, come in blasting.”

“You got it,” Spotty said.

When Hats Rizzo was finally finished taking his piss, Vinnie waved him over and said, “Take those damn shoes off and follow me.”

“I'm not going barefoot,” Hats argued.

“You don't want to take them off, fine.” Vinnie pulled out a switchblade and stabbed it into the sides of the noisy shoes. A frown grew on Hats's face as the air oozed out.

“You ruined them.” Hats stepped back and forth, but they no longer squeaked. They only made a soft whooshing sound. “You owe me a new pair of shoes.”

“Shut up and get moving,” Vinnie said.

Since it was his house, Earl led the way to the backyard. He unlocked the gate, waved them through, and tried not to rustle the leaves on the ground as they hiked along the side of the house.

“I'm serious. These things don't come cheap. I had to get them custom-made and everything.” Hats wouldn't stop complaining. Earl wished Vinnie hadn't used the switchblade to solve the problem. Squeaky shoes were much quieter than a whining Hats Rizzo.