by Robin Ray
hat?”
“My father.”
“He’s still in jail, right?”
Julia doesn’t answer; instead, she simply continues playing.
“I heard he was a kick ass bandleader,” Bell extols. “Taught you everything you know then when he went to jail. Y’all moved and you stopped playing, even ran away a few times.”
Julia stops performing. “What is this? This is your life?”
“You don’t run the streets no more, so it’s good you took the piano back up.”
“Stop probing in my life.”
“Just trying to understand you.”
“Please. You don’t have the capacity.”
Bell rises and tramps towards the door. Julia shouts after him.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“I like you, Julia. But your hardcore bad girl stance can be too much.”
She softens her tone. “I can change.”
“Famous last words.”
He exits. Julia kicks her piano.
“¡Stupida!”
Ripping open the bottle of champagne, she takes a swig and, putting the radio on, tunes it to 95.5 KQVZ FM. A talk show host, Jean Lynwood, Your Voice of Reason, is spewing out her typical right wing rhetoric. Secular organ music is playing in the background.
“And the shepherd stared out over his flock with his back to the wolf and knew the powers of darkness would never spoil the fold,” Jean sermonizes.
Julia plops down in a chair with the bottle of bubbly and continues listening to the Friday night liturgy.
“This is Jean Lynwood, your voice of reason. Do you sometimes feel like the things you want most is just always out of reach?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Julia answers. She takes a swig of the champagne.
“How do you make the one you desire most know you exist?”
“Preach Jean! That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Back in the days, when I was the homecoming queen, and people were Christian, everything seemed right!”
“Praise the Lord!”
“You had nothing, but humility kept you through!”
“Amen, Sister! I’ll drink to that!”
Julia takes a long drink of the bottled bubbly.
“Find me an honest God-fearing man,” Jean continues, “and I’ll show you a shepherd deserving of the flock!”
“Hallelujah, bitch!”
“God is love!”
“Woo hoo!”
The Spanish princess starts rubbing her thighs.
“I shall not want!” Jean yells.
“I shall not want!” Julia repeats.
“Come unto him, thine divine majesty!”
“Oh, yes!”
“I’ll be back after this message.”
New music comes on. Julia emits a climactic moan. Out of breath, she gazes at the radio.
“Was it good for you, too?”
Chip, captured by the drive-in film, doesn’t seem to be bothered by Beverly’s absence. Intrigued by the mindless gore, he simply dives into the Goobers like they were the last box on Earth. As the end credits roll, he collects the refuse and steps out.
Strolling past a few cars with their windows steamed up to the hilt, he heads towards a dumpster. Dropping the trash in, he returns to his vehicle. Unknowingly, he walks right past Beverly and the Mayor kissing in another car.
Laurel is all alone in the chem lab table making late night calculations. Most of the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling lights are out. Only an overhead lamp sitting on her table is on. Working in the dark with incandescent materials, she stares curiously at a glowing flask of blue bubbling fluid. Her concentration is broken when she hears something small rolling on the floor across the room.
“Who’s there?” she asks.
She waits for an answer but only get complete silence. Shrugging it off, she resumes her calculations. Picking up the flask, she peers at its base then is startled as The Clown jumps in front of her long work table.
“Hey, girlfriend,” he greets her. “Wanna play doctor?”
“What the hell?”
“You scratch my back…”
He stabs his five-fingered handclaw in the wooden counter top.
“…and I’ll scratch yours.”
“Oh, my God!” she gasps then jumps up and runs for the closest exit.
The Clown shakes his red gloved finger. “How rude.”
Laurel struggles frantically with the door’s handle but it doesn’t budge.
“Help!” she screams, banging on the door.
Looking through the door’s thick glass window, she sees no one out in the darkened hallway. Then, she gropes quickly along the door’s frame. The malicious mischief maker dangles a set of keys in front of her.
“Looking for these?” he taunts.
Laurel, eyeing a flask of liquid on a nearby table, runs and grabs it. “Don’t come near me!”
“Why? Are you contagious?”
The Clown edges slowly towards her.
“This is sulfuric acid!” she warns him. “Come any closer and I’ll melt the skin off your bones!”
The Clown freezes in his tracks about 40 feet away. “That’s it,” he warns her. “First thing tomorrow, I'm gonna have your etiquette teacher fired.”
Eyeing the second exit on the other end of the room, and realizing the clown school reject stands between her and freedom, she holds up the acid.
“Throw me those keys,” she orders him. “Now!”
“Say please, Laurel.”
“How do you know my name?”
“You’re the valedictorian this year. Kinda like the mascot with brains. Who doesn’t know you?”
“I’m warning you. Throw me those keys or I’ll…”
Before Laurel could finish her sentence, the handclaw whizzes just past her face and embeds in the wooden table of elements on the wall behind her. Shrieking, she drops the flask, smashing it in pieces.
As the Clown makes his way around a long bench towards his garden tool, Laurel turns and runs towards another door on the other side of the lab. Struggling with the handle, she tries pushing the door open. Looking behind momentarily, she notices the demented devil is gone.
Grabbing a metal stool nearby, she holds it by the legs and strikes continuously against the reinforced glass. At first, nothing happens. Then, after a few moments, the glass cracks. Eventually, it breaks. Carefully reaching her hand through the new opening, she pushes aside a tall metal stool that was propped up beneath the handle and opens the door. Running screaming into the hall, she rounds a corner. Seconds later, she runs into a group of students coming quickly in her direction.
“What’s going on, Laurel?” A student questions the frantic young chemist.
“I saw him! I saw him!”
“Saw who?”
“A clown! He tried to kill me!”
The students study her with curiosity.
“A clown is trying to kill you?” the second student, dripping with doubt, asks.
“Yes! In the chem lab. He threw a…a thing at me.”
The third student is skeptical. “A thing, huh? Did he look like Clarabelle or Bozo?”
All three students laugh.
“Maybe he just wants to tickle you to death!” the second student guffaws.
“Ha ha,” Laurel responds sarcastically. “Laugh at the monkey in the cage. Come with me and I’ll prove it.”
The three students, with Laurel, survey the damaged, but empty, lab. With the light now on, they see the broken flask of acid on the floor and the spilled incandescent fluid on a table.
“I think you’ve been working too hard, Laurel,” the second student opines.
“I tell you,” she insists, “he was here. He had me trapped so I had to break the glass.”
The third student takes down a set of keys hanging from a nail in the door’s frame and holds it out to Laurel.
“Next time try these. Always worked for me.”
“He had them,” L
aurel shouts, “not me!”
She examines the door and sees the handclaw’s tine marks.
“I'm telling you, he was here. He stabbed this spot.”
She points to the shattered flask on the floor. “He made me drop that acid there.”
“That’s probably expensive stuff, Laurel,” the first student remarks. “How do we know you didn’t make this up to avoid repaying the school?”
“There are only two exits out of here,” the third student notices. “They’re both on the same side. We would’ve seen somebody out in the hall. Maybe you should go home and relax.”
Laurel shakes her head. “Y’all will see. Just wait.” She exits.
On her way out of the building, she passes by the janitor, Mr. Montebello, a homunculus of an Italian émigré in his early 50’s. Attired in faded, paint-splattered, blue overalls, he is up on a ladder fixing a light in the vestibule. She stops to watch him for a moment.
“Working kinda late, eh, Mr. Montebello?”
“So are you. You don’t hear me complaining.”
Laurel eyes him suspiciously and exits.
Hours later, Laurel is sound asleep in her comfortable bed beneath a blanket with the Table of Elements quilted on it. The room is illuminated by the glowing light of the moon and a cloud-shaped night light plugged in the wall next to the base of the door. In the midst of dreaming about dancing in a waterfall, she is half-awakened by her smartphone’s loud old-fashioned ringing on her nightstand.
“Go away,” she groans weakly. “It’s too early.”
The phone keeps ringing. Laurel wipes her eyes and looks at the alarm clock on her night table. It reads 6:15 AM.
“Geez,” she utters. “Some people have no concept of time.”
She picks up the phone and puts it to her ear.
“Yes?”
“Hi, Laurel,” the female voice on the line greets her. “I mean, bonjour.”
“Hi, Mom,” the student greets her, sitting up. “What time is it in Paris?”
“3:15 in the afternoon. What time is it there?”
“6:15AM.”
“How’s Al?”
“Hold on,” Laurel requests, then gets up and puts on a robe and slippers. She exits her bedroom and knocks on her brother’s door just a few feet away.
“Al,” she calls to him, “are you up?”
Receiving no answer, she opens the door slightly, peeks in, and sees Al is fast asleep. The aquarium-shaped lamp on his bedside table is on, illuminating a room so disorganized it looks like a tornado swept through it yesterday. Closing the door, she resumes her phone conversation.
“He’s out like a light.”
Walking downstairs to the living room, she puts on a table lamp and plops down on a sofa. The darkness of the night is beginning to slowly give way to the coming light of the morning sun as illustrated by the mix of beams sneaking in through the translucent curtain covered windows. Turning on the TV by remote control, she continues her phone conversation.
“I feel guilty about being away so long,” her mother admits.
“What do you mean you feel guilty?” Laurel asks. “It’s only for a few days.”
“Do you have any money?”
“Yeah, I mean, not really. If I run out I can always sell Al into slavery…sorry.”
“We might take a little longer than planned.”
“How come?”
“We get a discount if we depart during the week as opposed to the weekend.”
“Oh.”
Laurel looks at a platinum record album, a gift from her musician uncle, hanging on a wall. Framed in lacquered oak, it resembles the gold and platinum awards decorating the halls of record and movie executives in Hollywood and elsewhere.
“The County Fair and Flea Market’s down at the park this weekend,” Laurel informs her. “Maybe I can sell Uncle Roger’s platinum record to a collector.”
“Don’t you dare. He’d be crushed.”
“Okay, okay. Just a suggestion. Well, tell dad I said hi. I gotta go. I love you. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Laurel turns the phone off and looks at the framed record again.
Chip, an early riser, is practicing punts by himself in the nearly empty high school football field. Save for two students running on the oval 6-lane track, it’s just those three. Hungry black crows are perched up on the stadium lights and goal posts, squawking like they were being choked to death. Although he’s a quarterback, Chip finds it necessary to understand all the other field positions by playing them himself. Sometimes he practices with the running backs, other times he’s on the O line or playing defense. He’s been warned a few times by his coach about his dangerous choices, but in his efforts to be as good a utility player as his hero, Doug Flutie of the New England Patriots, he ignores his concern and practices different positions anyway.
After practicing his punts, and with no one to toss the ball to, he starts a few training skills such as tire and shuttle runs, vertical power jumps and the ladder drill. In the midst of his offensive and defensive maneuvers, Principal Parks, wearing a red jogging outfit, comes over.
“Hi, Chip,” he greets him.
The All-American quarterback stops training for a moment. “Hey, Mr. Parks.”
“I see you’ve gotten more range these past few weeks. Not taking steroids, are you?”
Chip ignores the remark. He’s heard those rumors before but has now grown tired of defending himself.
“Listen,” Parks continues, “I got a phone call last night from Iowa State. They might be interested in offering you a scholarship.”
“Cool.”
“Don’t get your hopes up yet. It’s not in the bag. It’s actually between you and Douglas Brown.”
“Your nephew? He has no talent.”
“That’s your opinion, Chip.”
“My opinion? Everybody knows I’m the best player on this team. Who’s got all the trophies, huh?”
“Don’t take it so personally, Chip. It’s only a game.”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve passed me over, Mr. Parks.”
“You know what, Chip? A little humility now and then would suit you.”
Mr. Parks jogs off.
The brawny ball player grabs his crotch. “Suit this, motherfucker.”
Resuming practice, he sees Beverly sitting alone in the stands. Immediately, he runs over. His girlfriend, looking somewhat nervous, is sitting on her hands.
“Hey, Bev, guess what?” Chip begins. “Principal Parks just told me that Iowa State is interested in me. But it’s…”
“Gee, that’s swell,” she interrupts.
“What’s the matter with you?”
He sits by her. She sidles away slightly.
“I don’t know what’s going on with us, Chip,” she admits. “Are we a team?”
The aspiring NFL player holds her hand. “After you disappeared last night, I swore to myself I’d have nothing to do with you. But, I know you’re going through a lot here, all the modeling opportunities being limited and what not.”
Laying his hand aside, she gets up. “That’s not it.”
“What is it then?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe I just need to be alone for a while.”
She walks off the bleachers. Chip gets up and follows her.
“What’re you saying?” he poses. “We’re breaking up?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I just need some space, that’s all.”
“But you can talk to me, Bev.”
“Since when do you ever listen to me?”
“I always listen to you,” he retorts.
“Face it, Chip. I ain’t important to you no more. All this football shit made you forget about me. You’re always so tired now it’s like being with a…a…fucking zombie.”
“Bev…”
“Later, man. I’ll catch up with you later.”
The shocked All-American watches as she storms through the exit g
ates of the field.
“I’ll never understand women.”
The mid-morning sun is glistening off the polished hood of a light blue domestic sub-compact as it casually makes its way down a quiet, leaf-blown country road. Lines of trees, some bearing edible fruit, dot the landscape. Occasionally, a bread, newspaper, or some other delivery truck would zoom past in the opposite direction.
Laurel, checking her watch, presses the gas pedal a little harder, causing her little sub-compact hooptie to cough and sputter. Reaching over to the glove compartment, she opens it and gropes inside without taking her eyes off the road. Unable to find what she’s looking for, she momentarily turns her head to peer in the dark box.
Returning her attention to the street seconds later, she gasps and swings her car off the road to avoid ramming The Clown, standing right in the street with his arms outstretched and his five-tined tool in his right hand. The vehicle careens off the pavement, screeches down a ditch, and flies headlong into an oak, dazing her for a moment with its abrupt, hood denting stop.
Recovering some composure, she slowly comes to, still disoriented from the crash. Finally focusing her eyes and realizing what just transpired, she sees the damage to the windshield as well as the now smoking hood, then checks her body for contusions or breakages. Luckily escaping harm, she unbuckles her restraint and tries opening the door. It doesn’t budge. Kicking it repeatedly, it finally opens.
Mustering up all her reserve, she stumbles out of the car, looks around, sees no one then surveys the damage to the smoking car. The front end is completely smashed in, fluid is leaking from the engine, and the front left tire is flat.
“What the hell is going on?” she asks herself.
She hears someone coming down the gravel and ditch towards her. Panicking, she looks around the ground quickly, eyes a large stick, picks it up, and runs behind a tree. Seeing Bell coming down the ditch, she breathes a sigh of relief, throws away the stick, and walk out to him.
“Are you okay, Laurel?” he asks.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
“Did you see him?”
“Who?”
“That fucking clown!”
“I didn’t see anything. I was riding out to the fair to practice my dives and I saw these skid marks in the road.”
“Somebody dressed like a clown is taunting me.”
“A clown? Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s the strangest thing I ever heard.”
“It was a clown. It was dressed in black, but it was one of those circus maggots.”
“Geez! What do you have against clowns?”
“They give me the creeps.”
“Everybody’s got issues. Look, I wish I could tow your car out, but I just have my bike. Where’re you headed?”
“School.”
“On a Saturday?”
“The labs are opened for a few hours in the morning.”
“Maybe you should call the police.”
“I am. Right now, I’m too shaken up.”
Bell helps Laurel climb up the ditch towards his bike by the side of the road. Gazing up the road, they see the sheriff’s car approaching.
“Speak of the devil,” Laurel sighs.
Sheriff Torrance pulls up behind Bell’s old bike and steps out.
“What happened?” the officer asks.
“Laurel got scared off the road by a road clown,” Bell responds.
“Come again?”
“He’s been harassing me,” Laurel insists, “and I think it’s the same guy that killed Ellen.”
Sheriff Torrance eyes her suspiciously. “A clown, huh?”
Laurel sees the disbelieving sheriff stifling a laugh and is not amused. “I expect derision from the others, Torrance,” she chastises him, “but not you.”
“Sorry, Laurel. It’s just a little hard to take. If you want, you can come back to the station and give our sketch artist a description of your…clown.”
“It’s not my clown!”
The sheriff gently rubs her
