A Fear of Clowns (The Greasepaint Chronicals) Read online

  The Greasepaint Chronicles:

  A Fear of Clowns

  P.S. Power

  Copyright 2014

  Orange Cat Publishing

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  A Little Bit of Madness (About the Author)

  Chapter one

  The little cream colored Volkswagen was a bit too small for Jason Hadley to really manage getting set up in. He wasn't a huge man, being only six feet tall, more or less. His frame was stick thin, which helped at the moment, but he had to have space to get his mirror facing the right direction. That meant he was on the far side of the vehicle with the passenger's door open when the first guests started to arrive. Ducked down, not so much to hide himself, but so that he could use the seat as a table. He wasn't due to go on for an hour, but he needed to get ready, and get a feel for the place, if he could.

  It was a nice home, from the front. A large house that had the feel of money to it. It was brown, but not the common kind that he was used to seeing. A fine sort of siding that was matte, but gave a sense of being clean and tidy at the same time.

  The first person to go to the door had a rather normal looking present in her hand. It was a silver and red striped thing, easily made out from across the street. Sun glinted off of the shiny paper, making it seem rich and refined. That was fine, since going to a birthday party meant bringing something, for most people. She was alone, and wearing a skirt that was just short enough to be interesting, without causing him to think anything that would leave him feeling like too much of a pervert later.

  She was also fourteen if she was a day. Not that he could tell for certain from where he was, but this wasn't a little girl. It was a problem. The real kind that had nothing to do with his aching knees, pressed into the hard ground, or the awkward tilt the car seat forced him to work at.

  Because girls that age didn't go to little kid's parties, as a rule. If she'd been guilt tripped into it, say by a relative that knew no one would show up for little Johnny's big day, she wouldn't have been wearing anything that revealing. It would have been shorts perhaps, and a t-shirt. Probably jeans, given the early spring weather. That meant two things then. First, Seth, the kid whose b-day it was, probably hadn't just turned six, like Jason had expected. Not unless he was a hardcore player, and liked older women. Second, Jason was well and truly screwed.

  The rest of the kids started getting there about five minutes after that. It was a decent turn out, for a party where there wouldn't be drinking. That he'd asked about, since he had a problem that way. It was an issue, so he always found out first, because a surprising amount of adults drank at parties, even ones for their children. Not that he was judging them based on that. It was just that he didn't want to be tempted.

  The next issue was that he didn't have a cell phone. They cost money, and the life of a clown didn't provide too much of that. It meant either going in blind, or walking up to the house to do some recon, and potentially spoiling the surprise.

  There was a chance, if an incredibly tiny one, that the kid was actually a hipster and wanted a children's entertainment clown for his party. One with the full-on big shoed and bright wigged experience. There was also a chance that he was about to walk into a den of kids that would crucify the poor brat, because his mother didn't realize the difference between four and fourteen.

  It took a few moments to work out what to do, given all that. Jason had made a point of learning all he could about his new business nine months before, when his buddy Carlos had suggested it as a way to make a bit of spare cash. It wasn't that he wanted to become a lifelong clown, just that he liked to do as well as he could, regardless of the job to be done. He had some feelers out for a new position, but history professors weren't being snapped up at the moment. In hard times, people stuck with their work, even if they hated it. So it was selling himself as a clown, or taking up some kind of criminal endeavor.

  Given that they were in Nevada, crime was a high competition business, which meant clowning it was. So he'd invented his act. Joey the Clown. The Clown of a Thousand Faces. It was ten, really, but he had one that he could possibly use for this. If he did it right. It would be risky.

  That meant going in ready and staying aware of what the audience was feeling. With teens that just meant failing most of the time. Kids tolerated clowns, when they didn't scream in fear or try to run. The whole concept was unfamiliar to them, and not a thing they saw on television anymore, like when he was a child. Adults were distrustful of them, since they hid their faces and seemed to want to be around the little ones. The older kids were going to be more concerned with seeming cool than anything else.

  If he'd been a rock star it might have worked, even one in his mid-forties, as long as some of the kids knew who he was. Playing music was a thing that people understood as far as parties went. That wasn't what he did, unfortunately. Not that day.

  Joey the Clown had ten faces, and a hundred tricks. He could look like a hobo, Joey the Hobo, in fact, who was optimistic and pleasant, or a bum that was darker, and more lazy. He could be cheerful and wear a rainbow wig, but also had some other tricks up his voluminous and brightly colored sleeves. He'd planned on going in as a regular party performer, and still would. With one minor change to his costume. A latex mask.

  This one was smiling, and didn't look all that creepy. A bit, since all masks like that did, being too close to real for the eye to be easily fooled. It was the makeup under it that was the risk. Jay took his time, and changed from the blue and green outfit he'd been planning on using, to the other one. The rainbow stripes on white. It was faded in places and looked a bit poor. Like Seth's mom had hired a cut rate performer, not knowing any better. She hadn't gotten that at all. She just didn't know it yet. Joey the Clown actually took pride in his work. As much as was possible, considering the shame of it all.

  While he worked, parked a good way back from the house, the party crowd kept showing up. There were a lot more than he'd contracted for over the phone too, at least fifty. Enough to tear him apart if things got out of hand. Physically beat him down, if it went too wrong. A couple had clearly been drinking already. If anyone knew how drunks walked when they were hiding the fact from the world, it was him. Hang out in enough bars, and you learned things. Like what vomit smelled like. What a-holes looked like, too. There were at least a few in the mix. Young ones that strutted up to the door, acting bold, as if they were constantly on display.

  At ten minutes before he was supposed to go in, he took a deep breath and chanted his working mantra. It was a little ditty that he'd used before his first gig, and he found that it really helped keep things in perspective.

  "No dignity. A hundred and fifty dollars. No dignity. Pride is for people that can afford it." A very real stage fright took hold about then, too. That normally didn't happen, but he was used to meeting up with sugar crazed five year olds with present fatigue, not cannibals. Not monsters pretending to be human either.

  Teens. What the freaking hell was he getting himself into? No dignity? They'd probably eat him alive.

  The mother was in the back of the house, like she'd promised. She was pretty much what he'd expected, from the way she spoke. Her voice had been young, but mothers always sounded like that, until they were on their
third or fourth kid. She only had the one, and he probably wasn't hers. Mom's face was youthful still, no older than her early twenties, which meant she was a step-mom. One that Seth probably secretly wanted to bag, if he could. She had a nice gold band on, with a set of large glistening rocks set in the back. That matched the house, from what he could see, which was big and well kept. A vast modern castle, fit for a minor lord.

  So she'd married into money. If it had happened recently it might explain why she didn't know anything about kids in particular. Except for the fact that she'd probably been one within the last ten years herself.

  "Joey the Clown?" She said it so seriously he had to wonder if she were going for a joke.

  It was tempting to claim that he was just some other clown passing by, and then leave, even if it cost him his day's pay. He needed the cash, and the woman in front of him, who was dressed like what she probably thought a soccer mom was supposed to be, seemed eager to pay him. In that she had, right there in her lovely and soft seeming white hand, an envelope with what had to be cash in it.

  With his name on it. Joey the Clown, right there in black ink. Big letters, addressed just to him.

  Smiling hugely she started to hand it over, "I added a bit, since I didn't think so many people would show up. Seth's popular. Who knew?" Clearly not her.

  He didn't bother smiling, since his mask was already doing that for him.

  "Maggie Winthrop, I presume?" He used his cutesy stage voice. It was high pitched, and got a giggle from the brunette. That was the point after all. It was a parody of a child, used to help the little ones feel more at ease with the strange creature that someone had hired to "entertain" them.

  It worked on childlike adults, too. She smiled and wiggled the white envelope in her hand a bit, "I know that we originally said one-fifty, but there are a lot more people. I put a bit more in."

  He nodded, exaggerating the movement by a vast margin and bringing his arms into the act by pulling them up, elbows flying outward. Once he was on, he tried to stay that way. It left people feeling a bit more like they'd hired an alien being that had come to visit them, and not a washed up drunk that couldn't get a better job.

  "I'm not so concerned about the numbers. It's the age. The age! How old is Seth today? Forty? These kids today aren't kids at all." He tried to convey his real meaning without seeming serious. He wanted data, not to make her feel bad.

  She just nodded, her eyes wide and happy enough that he thought she might not be all too bright. If so then he could cut her some slack. After all, you couldn't help what I.Q. you were born with. Blaming people for ignorance was fair, since they should have taken the time to learn. Going after them for how they were born, wasn't. That would have been like saying that they weren't worth as much as anyone else. Everyone had their place in society. History showed that clearly enough. It was built not by the brilliant, but by those that lived in the world of their own time.

  In this case it was as a slightly vapid, but attractive, housewife to a rich man. At least she seemed pleasant about it.

  "Sixteen. Can you believe it? We should go in soon. I'm almost certain that no one is expecting a clown. This is so exciting." She turned to move inside, but Jay held out his hand, trying to get her to pause. It got stuffed with money.

  He decided, no matter how big of a disaster the day was, to always love Maggie Winthrop, if only a little. There were worst ways to treat people than paying promptly.

  "They might not want a clown at that age, so I worked up an act, just in case my regular one starts to fall through. Just so you won't be scared when I start doing strange things. That's all right, isn't it? I mean, you aren't doing this ironically, or just to destroy Seth with his friends?" If so, well, Seth wasn't paying him, and Jay had car insurance payments to make. So far he'd been keeping up, mainly thanks to the fact that he didn't have to pay rent for the shed he lived in.

  The woman in front of him gave him a look then. It was the sort of thing that he normally would have been pretty happy to see on any woman's face. It was loving and kind, and just warm enough that he understood how she'd managed to capture some rich guy without using gold digging tricks. It was all about sweetness. A genuine sort of thing that seemed to know no wrong.

  Part of him wanted it to be fake, and for her to announce that she was hiring him to destroy the boy inside the house. It actually hurt to see someone, a woman, look at him like that. It was an emotional problem for him, and nothing she was doing really, so he sucked it up and didn't let his expression show. The mask made that a whole lot easier. There were good things to being hidden. It was one of the reasons that Carlos had suggested he be a clown. The expressions were built in.

  "Oh, no. I want this to go well. I promised Seth that it would. A real party for his sixteenth birthday. I got a big cake, balloons, a clown and some fruit punch. That's it, right?"

  Taking a deep breath, and fighting the urge to run away, he shook his head, slowly, the weight of the mask pulling from side to side enough that he knew it wasn't going to easily fall off if he made a dash for his car. That would be the prudent and sensible reaction. Toss down the cash, and make a run for it. Except that would leave Maggie all on her own, probably not knowing what to do if anything started to go wrong.

  Being an idiot he spoke instead, "that depends, did you get him a car for his birthday, or a pony? Really at sixteen, you probably should have had a live band, and a buffet. Do you have a sound system?"

  "Oh... Well, yeah. I... What do I do? I'm doing it again aren't I? I always ruin everything. I really want this to go well. He's such a good boy." She looked miserable, but didn't dissolve into tears instantly.

  "Can you get the kid that car? Or, promise to buy him whatever he wants, within limits, or something big like that? We can make the rest of this seem like a joke. Go huge in one way, and the rest of this will seem like a gag. Ironic, but not mean." That, or he could end up in the hospital, after the crowd helped Seth kick his butt all over the rather nice home. At least they seemed to be people with enough money to do something nice for the kid. If they'd been poor, then Jay really would have to take off, just to live through the day.

  Rather than speak to him again, a rather frantic Maggie made a call. She spoke in a high pitched and rapid voice for a minute then hung up, looking shocked.

  "Um, I think we're going with your plan, Mr. Joey. My husband is sending a man with a car. It will take a bit. A little over an hour and a half. What do we do until then?"

  "Why, my dear Mrs. Winthrop, we entertain!" He sounded like he'd sucked way too much helium that day. Trying to get high enough to do his job, no doubt. It wasn't working yet.

  The first order of business was music, since he wasn't going to entertain a room of teens for two hours. If he could keep their attention for twenty minutes it would be showing his transcendent skill. Jay made a point of explaining that, several times.

  The thing there was that, once the tunes started, a thumping bit of club music, since that was what Maggie had ready to go, the teens actually seemed happy enough. They had cake, and the balloons didn't stand out too much. They looked festive, and like decorations, all being blue. When he came in, after an hour, they didn't even throw anything at him.

  He frankly, was shocked.

  "Hi boys and girls! I'm Joey the Clown." He swung his arms out wide, making an expansive gesture. People hated it, but it was tradition. Clowns, the modern ones at least, had started out working on the big stage. Real acts meant to entertain, in a theater. That meant going larger than life, so the people in the back could see what you were doing. He started right in to balloon animals. Mainly because he'd practiced making them daily for eight months. Jay would be darned if he was going to miss out on a chance to show his skills just because of mortal fear.

  "Who wants to see a giraffe? Everyone loves a good giraffe, right?" That got a sea of blank looks, until he "failed" to make that at all, and managed to twist something into being that looked suspiciously like a pe
nis with large a pair of balls hanging underneath.

  Maggie giggled at least, when he comically looked down at it. He lowered it a bit in front of his body, so that everyone would get the idea, and then let it droop, as he sighed.

  "Maybe not a giraffe? That isn't a good one at all. I guess I made a... hotdog!" Then he popped it, getting people to jump and react a bit. There was some laughter, since sex jokes worked with a lot of people. Even subtle ones. Seth, the birthday boy suffered to let him make a crown of balloons that also had a "hotdog" sticking out the top. He did two or three more gags like that, mixed with real animal sculptures, before one of the girls got bored and called him on it.

  "You keep making dongs, what are you, a perv?"

  He clutched his chest dramatically, showing that he was wounded by the words, and stared around the room obviously, leaning into it and moving his whole upper body in a way that caught attention. Then he focused on the young lady in question, making a visor of his open right hand, pretending she was hard to see. She was near the open patio door to the back, so it worked well enough and got people to turn to stare at her.

  "Dongs? Why I never! You don't like hotdog sculptures? I assure you it's state of the art, and art of the wise! I know, I'll show you! I have skills! Name any animal, anything at all, and I'll make one for you. Quickly, quickly, time is flowing backwards here!" He pretended to tap his foot, the oversized yellow shoe slapping the soft cream colored carpet with deep thumps. His throat hurting slightly from his high pitched and squeaky stage voice. The mask was getting a bit warm too. He'd need to get it off soon, or he'd risk a makeup meltdown.

  It itched, but that could be ignored. You couldn't be a clown without the ability to put up with minor annoyances. Everyone thought it was simple, or easy, but that wasn't the case. It was all about hard work and preparation.

  So when the girl asked for an elephant, he was ready. He even had a plan for that one, since it was a common thing to request.