ClownFellas

by Carlton Mellick III

  But the comedian was only half listening. He was too focused on the foul-smelling bulldog that was slobbering all over his furniture.

  “Excuse me, but that’s a new couch,” Goldstein said. “And pets aren’t actually allowed here.”

  “It’s okay,” Buggy said. “He’s an emotional support animal.”

  Goldstein looked down at Mittens as the dog chewed on a throw pillow like a fluffy bone. When he saw that, the comedian’s face went from perplexed to annoyed.

  “So what do you want?”

  Buggy let out a loud sigh. “I want to hire you for a show, Mr. Goldstein.”

  “A show?” Goldstein asked. “Are you talking about a stand-up show?”

  “Exactly,” Buggy said. “You were the best stand-up comic in your day. I want you to come out of retirement.”

  Goldstein was shocked. “Me? Do comedy?” Then he shook his head. “No. No way. Comedy’s illegal.”

  “That’s just a technicality, Mr. Goldstein. Just because a government makes something illegal doesn’t mean it goes away. People need comedy. It’s an important part of the human psyche.”

  “Yeah, but I’m too old to do jail time,” Goldstein said. “You can forget it.”

  “You’ll get paid,” Buggy said.

  “I don’t care. It’s not worth it.”

  Buggy sighed and pulled out a briefcase from beneath Mitten’s life support machine. He opened it to reveal stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

  “Are you sure it’s not worth it?” Buggy asked. “I think we can make a lot of money together.”

  Goldstein paused for a second when he saw all the cash. But then he shook his head again. “Sorry. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “It’s just one night,” Buggy said. “That’s hardly a risk. I’ve got guys who’ve done shows several times a week for ten years who’ve never been caught.”

  Goldstein wouldn’t budge. “But I really don’t need the money. I’m retired. I’m happy.”

  Buggy stood up and looked the comedian in the eyes. “You don’t understand, Mr. Goldstein. I’m not going to take no for an answer. If the money doesn’t persuade you, then I’m going to have to find another method that will.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You have family, don’t you?” Buggy asked, picking up a picture of the comedian’s grandchildren off an end table. “It would be a pity if anything were to happen to them.”

  “Good luck with that,” Goldstein said. “One of them committed suicide when he was a teenager and the other has been missing for eight years. Have fun tracking her down. I’ve dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into private investigators with no results.”

  “I’m sure there’s other ways we can get you to agree, Mr. Goldstein. It would be a shame if your apartment were to catch fire while you were sleeping. Or if you took a spill down the stairwell while trying to escape. I assure you, a year or so in prison is nothing compared with being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life.”

  Goldstein shrugged. “Threaten me all you want, but I’m not going to agree.”

  Buggy tried to give the guy the most menacing look he could give him, but the comedian just wasn’t threatened by the old clown. He wondered if it was the pieces of toilet paper sticking out of his nostrils or that his ferocious bulldog was connected to a life support machine and having trouble staying awake.

  Buggy only had one weapon left. He had to appeal to the guy’s ego. And if Buggy knew anything after working in the funny business for so many years he knew that comedians were completely driven by ego.

  “Come on, Mr. Goldstein. Haven’t you ever had the desire to perform one last time? People would kill to see you again. You were the king of comedy. You still are the king of comedy.”

  Goldstein paused for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s been years…”

  Buggy smiled. He already had the comedian second-guessing himself.

  “You’re a legend, Goldstein. You owe it to the world to perform again. People loved you. They never stopped loving you.”

  Goldstein looked at the clown. Buggy could tell he wanted more than anything to be back on the stage. But the flicker lasted only a second before it disappeared from his eyes.

  “Those days are over.” Goldstein walked to his front door and opened it for the clown, signifying for him to leave. “I’m sorry I can’t be of help. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do.”

  Buggy picked up his bulldog off the couch and wheeled him out of the living room. Mittens still held a couch cushion in his jowls as they exited the comedian’s apartment.

  “Before I go I have one more question to ask you,” Buggy said.

  Goldstein was at the end of his patience, but he decided to hear the clown out.

  “How do you live with yourself?” Buggy asked.

  Goldstein was thrown off by that question. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re Bobby Goldstein. You’re the comedian who told the joke that got comedy outlawed. How do you live with yourself knowing that you’re responsible for that?”

  “It wasn’t my fault comedy was outlawed. Some nut-job tried to assassinate the president and things spiraled out of control. That’s like saying J. D. Salinger was responsible for John Lennon’s murder.”

  “Then why didn’t you say that back then? You gave a public apology for telling that joke. You took the blame for what happened to the First Lady. You were in a position to stand up for comedy. You were in a position to fight. But what did you do? You conceded like a coward.”

  “Hey, they forced me to make that public apology. What was I supposed to do? The president was shot. The First Lady was murdered. I would have looked like an asshole if I refused.”

  Buggy rolled his yellow eyes. “Keep telling yourself that. The fact of the matter is that the government took away our First Amendment right to free speech and you were the man who could have been a voice of opposition. You could’ve been a hero. But you rolled over and let them take our rights away from us.”

  Goldstein didn’t say anything. Buggy’s words were obviously thoughts the comedian had experienced himself a million times in the past.

  “I’m not saying doing this show will make up for that,” Buggy said. “Nothing will make up for that. But do you really want to die knowing that you did absolutely nothing to fight against oppression? It’s not too late to show them that Bobby Goldstein still has some fight left in him.”

  With that, Buggy walked away and let the comedian stew in his thoughts. He really didn’t believe in the words he said to Goldstein. Buggy was glad the Comedy Prohibition Act was passed. It made him a heck of a lot of money over the years. But laying the guilt on an ego-driven comedian like Goldstein was just the trick he needed to get him to perform. All he needed was to give him a couple of days and Goldstein would come begging to do the show. He probably wouldn’t even care to get paid for it.

  Chapter 86

  Two days passed, but there was no word from Bobby Goldstein. He didn’t come begging to do the show.

  “That son of a bitch,” Buggy yelled, flipping over his dining table and smashing his collection of bulldog-themed coffee mugs. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip off his scrawny legs and beat him to death with them.”

  Buggy looked like a mess. He wore a mustard-stained wife-beater shirt beneath a pair of purple suspenders. His hair was dreadlocked with sweat. He hadn’t bathed in days. When he saw what he’d done to his coffee mug collection, he smashed it further with his size twenty shoes.

  “Erff…,” Mittens said, upset over the crashing sounds that brought him out of his fourth afternoon nap.

  Buggy turned to the two clowns sitting on the couch across from him. They were the only two men he had left who weren’t behind bars at the moment—Winky Gagliano and Snuffy Sparkles. And they were the least capable of all his men. Snuffy ran the smallest, dingiest, least-attended comedy club in Bozo territory and Winky was the ma
n responsible for keeping street comedians from slinging jokes in their territory—which he was lousy at. Both of them had crews of three men each, who were even bigger fuckups than they were.

  Buggy turned to Winky—an ex-boxer with a crooked green nose and a winking tic. “I want you to go see Bobby Goldstein. He’s doing this show whether he likes it or not. Use force if you have to. Show him we mean business.”

  “You got it, skipper,” Winky said, punching his knuckles together.

  “But don’t rough him up too much. He’s got a show to do.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  As Winky took the address and left the apartment, Buggy wondered if he was doing the right thing sending that clown after the comedian. Winky was trigger-happy and short-tempered. He liked roughing people up and he liked whacking them even more. Although he was only a lightweight during his boxing days and was mostly just used as a clown-shaped punching bag for training real boxers, he had an unrelenting passion for violence. It was possible that Goldstein would find himself with a bullet in his head if he resisted too much.

  Buggy shouted, “And whatever you do, don’t kill him.”

  But Winky was already gone.

  Then it was just Buggy and Snuffy Sparkles. Snuffy was a sniveling weasel of a clown. Nobody liked the guy. How the joker ever got made, Buggy had no idea. They called him Snuffy because he sniffled all the time. He was allergic to pretty much all pollen, all animal dander, and all sorts of food products. It seemed almost impossible for a person to be allergic to so much. Buggy figured most of it had to be psychological.

  “Can you open a window or something?” Snuffy asked, holding a red-and-blue-checkered handkerchief over his droopy nose. “The dog hair is killing me.”

  Buggy sneered at the runt. “No, I’m not fucking opening a window. It’s raining out there. Mittens doesn’t like the draft.”

  “Erfff…,” Mittens said in agreement, licking his nose.

  “But I seriously can’t handle it, Buggy,” Snuffy said. “I have a serious condition. I could be hospitalized.”

  “Deal with it,” Buggy said.

  Snuffy sneezed glitter across the coffee table and into Mittens’s face. The bulldog didn’t seem to notice.

  “You’re going to be responsible for promoting this thing,” Buggy said. “I know promotion isn’t your strong suit. If it was, you’d be able to get more than three people into your lousy club each night. But I don’t have anyone else. You’re going to have to promote this event and you’re going to fill the venue. Don’t screw it up.” The capo gave the clown an address book. “Take this. It’s a list of my regular clients. Those are the most important people to promote this event to. If we get them interested, word will spread. After that, get your crew to spread the word on the street. You’ve got the most important job. If you fuck it up you’re dead. You hear me?”

  Snuffy nodded and sneezed more glitter into the air.

  Buggy really wished he had somebody else to do Snuffy’s job. Anybody else.

  Chapter 87

  “What do you mean you’re already booked?” Buggy yelled, wheeling Mittens through the Rainbow Gardens clown brothel. “I thought the space was available. That’s what you said when I spoke to you last week.”

  Miss Tina shrugged her fluffy shoulders. “I told you that it might be available. You never checked back in with me. It’s available next Saturday, but not Friday.”

  “But I need it on Friday,” Buggy said. “I’ve already been promoting that it’ll be here on that date. I can’t change it now.”

  “It’s not my fault you didn’t solidify plans before promoting your event. Besides, my event space is meant for burlesque shows, not comedy routines. Find somewhere else.”

  “Come on, Tina.” Buggy followed her as the madam inspected a line of clown girls, correcting their posture and tightening their belts. She wanted each of her employees to look as sexy as possible before the customers started arriving for the evening rush. “You’ve got to do me a favor here. It’s a matter of life or death for me.”

  “Spare me the sob story, Bugs.” Miss Tina used a long purple fingernail to wipe a drop of chocolate from one girl’s bright-pink nose. The girl cringed at the sensation. “The Bozos aren’t my favorite people right now. After Jimmy smashing up this place last month, not to mention the hit that was put on Pinky’s life, I’m not feeling up to doing you any favors. Your man Winky almost killed my only son. Do you know what that would have done to me?”

  “None of that was my fault. Winky was acting on his own. I never would’ve agreed to it.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Bugs. He’s part of your crew. He’s your responsibility. I’m not a Bozo, but even I know that.”

  Miss Tina grabbed one of her girls by the breasts and squeezed them. The honking noise they made sounded more like a dying cat than a horn.

  “Put more air in these, Cassie,” she told the large-breasted clown.

  Buggy wouldn’t give in. “Can you at least tell me who reserved the space from you? Maybe I can cut a deal with him.”

  “Confidentiality is important in my business,” Miss Tina said. “I don’t divulge that kind of information.”

  Buggy pulled out a wad of hundreds.

  Miss Tina looked at the capo, then at the money. She took it and shoved it in her cleavage.

  “Reverend Jellybottom,” Tina said. “But you have to keep that between us.”

  “Jellybottom? What kind of event would he want to throw at a brothel?”

  Miss Tina shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”

  Buggy tried to wrap his brain around what a priest would want to do with the brothel’s event space, but every possibility sent chills down his spine.

  “If you can get him to agree to move his event elsewhere, you can have your event here,” Tina said. “But if I hear that you threatened him or forced him to change venues in any way, you’ll have to answer to me.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure money will be enough to persuade him.”

  Chapter 88

  Buggy didn’t like the idea of bribing a priest. Not because he was morally opposed to it, but because priests were usually expensive to bribe. He hoped Reverend Jellybottom was the corrupt easy-to-bribe kind of priest. The reverend was planning an event at a brothel, after all, so he couldn’t possibly be too ethical.

  “Raarrfff!” Mittens roared when he saw the priest step out of his office.

  “Reverend Jellybottom?” Buggy’s voice echoed through the church.

  “Yes, can I help you, Brother Buttons?” said Jellybottom. The preacher had a wide smile on his face, stepping belly-first toward the capo.

  Buggy had never met him before, but he was only half surprised the reverend already knew his name. He heard that the clown liked to keep tabs on everyone in the Bozo Family. Perhaps he hoped to one day convert a Bozo. It would be quite an accomplishment for a priest to get a clownfella to change his ways.

  “Raarrfff!” Mittens roared again. It was the most passionate bark Buggy had heard from the animal in ages.

  Jellybottom looked down at the dog and said, “It appears your bulldog doesn’t like me, Brother Buttons.”

  Buggy picked the bulldog up in his arms, getting himself tangled up in the life support wires.

  “Raarrfff!” Mittens cried.

  Buggy had no choice but to hold the dog by the snout so he wouldn’t bark anymore.

  “Sorry, Reverend,” Buggy said. “Mittens is agnostic. He tends to get upset whenever he’s around devout religious types.”

  “Ahh-ha!” the reverend said with a big smile on his face. He assumed the clownfella was joking. “Well, what brings you here on this fine day, Brother Buttons?”

  Buggy said, “Can we go somewhere private? I don’t like how my voice carries in this place.”

  “Of course. Of course.” The reverend led him and his bulldog into his office and shut the door. “Please, have a seat.”

  Buggy sat down in a chair across from
the priest’s desk and put Mittens in the chair next to him with the life support machine between them. Mittens didn’t bark anymore, but he sat upright with a grumpy look on his face, his bottom teeth sticking up over his jowls with utter contempt for the reverend.

  “I hear you’re throwing some kind of an event at the Rainbow Gardens.”

  “Ahhh-ha,” said the reverend. “Yes, yes. The church is being renovated next week so I needed a place for my congregation to meet for mass.”

  “On a Friday night?”

  “Yes, yes. Friday Night Mass. That’s when we have the fish-juggling contest.”

  “Fish-juggling what?”

  “It’s very popular,” said Reverend Jellybottom, nodding with a wild smile on his face.

  “So…you’re having mass…at the Rainbow Gardens…on a Friday night…” Buggy’s brain felt like it was about to melt out of his ears and roll down the back of his head.

  “Yes, yes. Tina and I were childhood friends. We go way back. She often lets me use her venue for my church’s events.”

  “You know it’s a whorehouse, right?”

  “I know it’s a place of sin, yes. But most places in this world are havens for sin. As a man of God, I don’t judge.”

  “And your congregation is okay with that?”

  “I just tell them that it’s a jazz club. They don’t know the difference. Besides, there’s a separate entrance for the theater. My congregation doesn’t have to go through the brothel to get in.”

  “Well, here’s the deal,” Buggy said. “The space was double-booked for next Friday. I have a really important event I need to throw there and it coincides with your Friday mass. I’m wondering if you can move it elsewhere.”

  Reverend Jellybottom rubbed his nose and stood from his desk. He paced the room, bobbing his head up and down in thought.

  “Yes, yes,” he said. “That is a dilemma indeed, Brother Buttons. But, unfortunately, it’s too late for me to make other arrangements. There’s not another space available that my church can afford.”

  “What if I set you up at the Marriott?” Buggy asked. “I’ll pay. I can get you a real nice space to have your mass. It’s got to be better than doing it in the back of a brothel.”