In which our Technicolor Angel's gruesomy dark side emerges, and she tolchoks me soundly from gulliver to yarbockles, leaving your humble narrator one bruised and weepy and disillusioned young devotchka, who sadly concludes that she must leave the employ of this certifiable bozova, who has suddenly turned all brutal-like...

===== HUMOR ME
===== by LAIKA PUPKINO
===== Part Four: THE OLD ULTRA-SLAPSTICK

"OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~Mr. Bill

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#.14)=========[MADCAPS]====>

Though I had been Punkin' Judy for a few hours now, this was the start of my actual performance as a clown. Poised there---peering through the window in the back door of this suburban ranch house, our audience all seated expectantly out in the yard---my apprehension is like a modest version of what a paratrooper must feel, sitting hooked to the static line, listening to the drone of the engines, the wind whistling past the open hatch. The breasts-and-belly form strapped to my front like a reserve chute adds to this impression.

Then comes Miss Tricia's kiss, and her cry of "It's showtime!", as she flings the door open and leaps off of the back porch. I follow a heartbeat later. Geronimo.

We go trotting out there, making as flamboyant an entrance as we can to the fanfare blatting from her little boombox. Running circles around the makeshift theater and stage, my new lady love going clockwise and me counter, with her doing an impressive series of flips and cartwheels while I'm just skipping and doing this jazzy "HERE I AM!" thing with my upraised hands. Lame, but it seems better than doing nothing.

The music is the theme from the popular kid's cartoon show Bionic Barnyard Commandos, the closing-credits version that's missing the vocal track. Tricia sings her own lyrics over the strident march, and seems to approve when I start shouting "Birth-Day!" in the places where the chorus goes "Oi! Oi!" in the real song. As the music comes to an end she is running straight at me. I see her nod discretely, telling me that this is intentional. We collide and fall down!

Miss Tricia rolls gracefully and springs back to her feet. I intend to do something of this sort, but with this rubber mass I'm wearing under my dress I just hit the ground like a big sack of rice and stay there!

As I lay there winded and dazed she appears, standing over me in a caricature of concern. "Oh my golly goodness! Are you all right, Punkin' Judy? Here, lemme help you up-"

She grabs my wrists and pulls, not realizing that she has her foot planted firmly on top of me and all she's doing is wrenching my shoulder sockets. Miss Tricia tries lifting me several different ways, each with an absurd built-in flaw, which is obvious to the audience but not to her.

As the kids go apeshit over this I'm starting to get what she has been telling me about clowning. That wry observational humor and pithy bon mots just don't cut it in hard-core. They are all howling at her feigned ineptitude, while my bit about filing for Workman's Compensation had died a lonely death [Thank you, one mom who laughed].

Tricia enlists our sound man's help in getting to my feet, then smoothly sends him off to rejoin the audience, embarrassing him with: "Ladies and Gentleman, our birthday stud, the mighty Bruno!"

Some seconds later she sashays over to me, pivotting left and right at the waist in an infantile display of coyness, "Say, Punkin' Judy..."

"Yes, Miss Tricia?"

"Do you like my flower?"

"I sure do!" I exclaim, leaning in to admire it. "Wowie-zowies, that's puuurty-"

I had expected to get spritzed, but the water comes out of it more like out of a pressure washer than any little squirt toy, and I didn't have to fake acting startled. Four seconds and a gallon later I am sputtering and drenched! Where had she hid all that?

And so it goes. Mirth and merriment of the most unsophisticated sort. I have discovered this hysterical shrieking giggle I can do; like the winnying of the world's silliest horse! It's a laugh that could become grating very quickly, but employed at just the right times it never fails to crack them up! It feels good to have brought something to this act; to know I'm not a complete disaster at this but seem to be finding my way here...

I never imagined that my character would be so loopy and dumb, but this is what seems to work here. It's like when you're singing with someone ....... Miss Tricia projects herself as a strong "tenor", often foolish but unwaveringly confident. My harmonizing with this by adopting an even more serious persona might work in some other kind of act, but in clowning hers needs to be the bassline. So I've become this childish "alto" nincompoop, who these kids think is hilarious and the adults seem to find sweet, endearing...

She is doing a lot more of the actual work here than I am (I spin the jumprope while she skips it, juggling bright-colored clubs as she does), but after a half hour of this running around I am glad when she leads me to a folding chair that she had set aside for me.

Her oh-so-solicitous tone (how nice it'll be to sit and relax) should have tipped me off, but I wasn't thinking. And maybe it wouldn't have been as funny if I had known the chair was rigged to collapse under me, but I also wouldn't have yelled OH FUCK! like I did.

I sit on my ass on the damp grass and watch this solo part of the show- a game where the kids shout out things for Miss Tricia to make out of balloons, trying to stump her. With the exception of Bruno (who thinks it's a riot to request balloon facsimiles of "truth" and "redemption") none do. Her Abrams M-1 tank is amazing.

Inspecting my red>orange>yellow>green>blue painted nails, I am baffled to discover that where they had only extended an eight of an inch beyond the tips of my fingers an hour ago, they are more than double that. Measuring them against the same stripe on my plaid skirt I had used earlier shows that this is no trick of perception or memory, and I am utterly mystified. Spooked not by their feminine length and shape---that part I like---but by the question of HOW? And if they are growing, shouldn't there be a gap between my cuticles and where she painted them? But it's like the color is growing along with them. Weird!

A smallish pair of zebra-striped cowboy boots come into view. She is asking me something.

"Huh?"

"I said: So are you ready to bring out the cake?"

As I get to my feet I deliver the only line that I have been asked to remember today: “Duhhhh ....... What cake?”

"What do you mean 'what cake?', you banana-head! The cake I told you to buy. The birthday cake! We're at a birthday party, you know."

"No wonder I couldn't find the duty-free store. Oh yeah, the cake ......... Well you see I had it ........ but I was attacked by, uh ........ anti-caking agents?"

"A likely story. Can't I trust you to do anything? We promised all these kids-"

But by some fantastic coincidence, somebody had left this big cardboard box---which when we spin it around they can see is labelled CAKE FIXIN'Z---and this giant glass bowl on the picnic table. We set out to make Bruno's cake.

The flour (which we have a dusty little fight with) and the eggs are normal enough, but after that each ingredient seems to get more unusual---and more toxic---than the last. We act like it is the most sensible thing in the world to be tossing in catsup and instant coffee, spackle and plastic army men and leaky old AA batteries. A lot of the items in the box are from Miss Tricia's refrigerator, which she had given a long overdue cleaning last night. Tupperware tubs full of aromatic surprises.

The three gallon bowl is clear pyrex, so that the kids have a clear view of the gross-out developing within. They are both repelled and mesmerised [see De Sade and Gallagher: The Lure of the Unthinkable by Tricia Hackenbush, Dr. August's Clown Quarterly, Winter 2005]...

Into the mixing bowl goes a jar of glitter, then an old fashioned string of nasty pale sausages, which she works into the glop with her big potato masher.

"Hair conditioner?"

"Maybe just a schmeck," she cautions, but expresses no concern as I dump in the whole bottle, and then the bottle itself.

A lithe, elongated Siamese cat---who must live here---is padding quickly across the yard behind us, keeping its distance from all these shouting kids, erroneously deciding that Miss Tricia and I are less of a threat.

In one deft motion she scoops him up, and dangles him over the bowl: "Should we put the kitty in the cake?
A nice delicious kitty-cat cake?"

Ear-splitting screams from the kids before she lets it spring away- "Oops!"

The last ingredient in the box is three apples. She turns to me in concern, "Oh drat, Punkin' Judy! There's nothing to cut them up with."

I don't know why it is important to cut up these apples and not some of the larger and far less chewable items that are bobbing around in the glop, but I'm sure she has some perfectly stupid reason for it.

"I know!" she exclaims, and grabbing me by both biceps starts walking me backwards.

She stands me up against the trunk of the nearer of the two oak trees and sets an apple on top of my head.
I don't have a good feeling about this.

She goes over to "Dolly" and folds the clown-thing's trenchcoat back, pulling a bow and a sheaf of arrow from a slot alongside the helium tank. The bow is small, but it is clearly something from the sporting goods department and not the toy section. It's a real bow. Real arrows with pointy steel tips.

I am using my Punkin' Judy giggle to indicate timidity and reluctance ("Nope, uhn-uhn, don't wanna do it, nope!") but it doesn't seem to be influencing her decision to perform this stunt.

Which is when a voice in my head---gender-neutral, a different dissociative "person" from the one I had spoken with this afternoon in the bathroom---says with absolute conviction: NO ....... DEFINITELY NO.

I don't care if my boss here won the gold medal at Athens, or if she's done this a thousand times and never missed, there's always a first time. Just ask Joan Burroughs! Making a bunch of kids laugh just isn't a good enough reason to put myself at risk like this. Not when you can accomplish the same thing by just saying "Poop!" in a goony voice...

She glares at me furiously when I remove the apple from my head and toss it to her, then head off toward the house exclaiming, "Wow, I just remembered. I know where there's a cake. I guess I did bring it after all!"

As I start to make my way around the rows of spectators she calls out after me, "Oh no, I'm not falling for that one again!"

"No, really. And it's just a swell cake, all basebally an' ev'rything, Hee-yuck!"

"Do you really think I'm that stupid? This is the same exact stunt you pulled at that gig in Portland on Sunday. 'I'll be right back' you said. 'Trust me' you said ......... Right before you disappeared on me. Grabbed a passing cab and left us all stranded there without a cake. I had to stick candles into a bunch of Doobi-Doos. Horrible, horrible, discontinued butterscotch-kiwi Continental Snack Foods Doobi-Doos! How COULD you, Judith?!!"

What's so weird and creepy is the way her voice drops so completely out of clown mode, and has such a convincing quaver of bewilderment and hurt in it. I mean it sounds like actually BELIEVES this ludicrous story. If she's acting, she sure has me fooled!

She bellows in rage, "JUDY, GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE! I'M WARNING YOU..."

She had already notched the arrow into the string, and a rather paranoid idea comes over me- That as long as I don't turn around she won't fire at me, but to turn and face her would make me a fair target in her mind! A preposterous notion, and it really makes no sense---that she would be psycho enough to do the one but not the other---but this image has such an overwhelming grip on me that I keep my back to her, and quicken my pace toward the house, just twelve meters away now.

"You're gonna love this cake. Jumpin' Jillikers what a dummy I can be, forgettin' like that. I swear, I'd forget my head if I-" I make the 'mistake' of feeling for it in the air a foot above my head, "Whoah, where'd it go?! Oh wait, here it is!"

And now someone is coming up fast behind me, breathing hard. Tricia obviously. But just as I turn to face her-

(Feel free to skim this next chapter if it becomes too violent for you...)

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#.15)===[KIDS DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!]==>

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A fierce blow to the backs of my knees makes me fold and pitch forward!

I am on my hands and knees, trying to clamber to my feet as blows rain down on my ass and back! She is using this cartoonishly swollen and oversized florescent-orange plastic baseball bat. The thing might be hollow but she's really leaning into it! People are laughing, assuming that it's all just part of the act...

Why isn't she pulling her swings and letting me fake my reactions? Doesn't she realize how hard she's hitting me?

Of course she does. And while this is not as bad as having an arrow lodged in your aorta, it fucking HURTS!

"Oh no," she hisses, her voice choked with hatred, "You're not leaving me again! Every time, just as I'm getting you trained, you pull this shit! You're incapable of gratitude, you little whore! All my effort, all the sacrifice, the promises we made, the hopes-"

Somehow in the last couple of minutes she's turned as crazy as a shithouse rat! Either she really believe I had done this to her, or she's mistaking me for some previous Punkin' Judy who left her- whatever her malfunction is I have to get away from this barrage of blows!

But when I have almost managed to scramble to my feet she does the back-of-the-knees trick again and I land face first, my lips sliding across the grass! She plants her boot on my back and addresses the audience, "Punkin' Judy tried to run away and leave us all without cake, kiddies! Because she's a big selfish Stupid Butt who can't bother with what anyone else needs! And what do we do with bad clowns who don't do their job?"

The children all shout out suggestions, none of which are what she says next.

"That's right! We BEAT THEM!" she cheers, and to demonstrate this she starts dancing around, swinging the bat at imaginary targets, taking them out in sequence.

This is my chance to make a break for it, but hindered by this heavy prosthesis hugging me I only manage to get to my knees before she whirls and swings it toward my face, but at the last instant veers and brings it down on my collarbone- driving me down! And now she breaks into song---the same song we had been singing together back on the freeway---punctuating each line by whacking me:

"Oh step right up, and take a look at a fool-" . SMASH!!

"He's got a heart as stubborn as a mule-" . KRAK!!

"Come on ev'rybody, he’s good for a laugh-" . POW!!

It's odd that it never occurs to me to call out for help- (I guess some stubborn reservoir of masculine ego making me reluctant to hollar, "Help! Help! This GIRL is beating me up!"); I am staggering back and forth on my knees with the blows, grunting! While the vest is padded, it doesn't help in the back, where it strikes my kidneys! Oh Fuck, I'm going to have some real bruises tomorrow!

"And no one can tell his heart is broken in half!" . WHAM!

Part of me still can't believe this is happening! It's like some Three Stooges take on that ghastly "Singing in the Rain" scene from A CLOCKWORK ORANGE!

"Well the Joke's on me, I'm off to join the circus-"

Here I make a grab for the bat, only to have it connect with my wrist! . KRUNCH!!

I draw this arm in against me, and now only have my left hand to defend myself with. I picture her last Punkin' Judy in a hospital bed, huge old-fashioned casts on her arms and legs, suspended by wires and weights on pulleys.

Our agreement of '$50 for a few hours work' sure didn't include this! I shout, "Whoah, whoah, whoah! Time out here..."

"No time out for you," she squeaks inanely, Minnie Mouse as a dominatrix- "You didn't say your safe word."

"My WHAT?! Are you out of your goddamn- GHAAAHHHHHH!!!"

The bat has caught me cleanly across the tits! There must be steel wires inside this vest, and the plastic cudgel must have driven them clear out of the rubber- because what feels like a fondue skewer has stabbed into each of my pectorals, missing my nipples by millimeters!

At this I fall over onto my back. The bat comes down on the belly part of the costume, and another spike gets me right in the navel! The kids roar with laughter as I scream!

Finally she backs off, leaving me gasping in pain. She stands like she's posing for her statue, staring off over the brown shingled rooftops, her eyes burning with some insane joy. Obviously the woman has issues. Serious issues. Mogadishus...

I should really get up and run now, but all I can think about right this moment is to see what the hell stabbed me in these three places, and how bad these wounds are, to see whether I should relax or really start to panic!

Although I don't know how I'm going to get to behind this rubber sack strapped to me when with my sprained and numb right hand I can't even rip this blouse open-

Miss Tricia clamps her hands to her cheeks, her mouth forming a scandalized O- "My goodness! What are you doing, Ju-Ju?!"

"Just go away," I answer miserably.

"Oh no! Punkin' Judy is trying to rip her clothes off. Remember what the judge told you last time? That's a Bozo No No!"

I'm really coming to hate that stupid singsong voice she uses. "Look this isn't funny, alright? This piece-of-shit fat suit of yours is coming apart, and it-"

Miss Tricia gasps, and two fingers drive themselves up my nostrils then yank upward! My eyes fill with tears and I hear myself making noises I didn't know a person could make as I am half lifted, half clamber to my feet!

"Punkin Judy just said 'shit', kids. She said a naughty! And what do we do with naughty girls who say bad words?"

"Beat them!!" roars the peanut gallery.

"That's right, we wash their mouth out with soap. Right this way, Miss Poopymouth!"

Her fingers twist my nose and she walks me to the picnic table- a surprisingly effective means of inducement that she must have learned when she was employed at Abu Griab. She mutters through clenched teeth, "You've broken my heart for the last time, you ungrateful bitch! You think this hurts? Then you have no idea of the pain you've put me through-"

I am still bent in half, my captive honker hovering over the table as she fumbles around with her free hand for something. "Soap? I coulda sworn I saw a bar soap around here ....... Oh drat!"

As I'd expected, she slides the giant bowl with the noxious concoction in it into position under my face."I don't see no soap here kids, we'll just have to wash her mouth out-"

A plan is forming in my head. My helplessness and bewilderment are only partly an act as I whine, "Why are you doing this to me?"

"WITH CAKE!!" she hollars---which doesn't make a lot of sense when you think about it---and releases my nose just long enough lock her hands behind my head and shove it into the foul concoction.

Bubble bubble. Whatever you do don't breathe in. This has been a weird day. And on top of it all I'm hallucinating voices. Staticcy + distant like on some cheap little radio:

*This looks bad, Cap. Should we move in?*
*Maybe, not just yet...*

Bubble bubble. Something bobbing, like trying to get into my ear. What am I doing here? Oh that's right-

My eyes clenched tight, I drive my heel back into her shin and push off the table with both palms, and with all my might! She staggers back. I grab the bowl and fling it at her.

It misses her by a mile. But that's fine. The main thing is I am out of her clutches, and I'm going to stay that way! I scream as loud as I can, "THAT'S IT, I QUIT!"

"You what?!" Miss Tricia gasps.

"You heard me, I quit! Quit! QUIT! You You SICK FREAK!"

"Oh for Pete's sake. Haven't we rehearsed this enough times?"

"What rehearsal?! I know we sure as hell didn't rehearse you beating the crap out of me," I scream. Some ingredient from the "cake fixins" is burning my eyes.

"It's a plastic bat. You're totally padded," she huffs, and pounds her own thigh with it quite hard to demonstrate that it doesn't hurt. "Don't be such a goddamn baby!"

"Hey, can I try that?" I cackle nastily, reaching for the bat, and I am gratified on some dark animal level by how she steps back away from me.

"Folks, I apologize for my partner here," she announces, the model of reasonableness. "She's got some problems at home. I guess I didn't realize how bad it was or I would have told her to stay home today..."

"You can make up any lies you want. Just stay the hell away from me!"

"All right, go sit down, I'll finish this myself. Stay out of my way for the rest of the show, and when I'm done I'll give you a ride home. Again my apologies, folks. Now who's up for some FUN?"

Half-blinded, I make my way around the audience toward the house. The kids are laughing at my stiff staggering walk---probaby not realizing that a clown can actually get hurt---but I sense considerable tension about this incident from many of the adults.

The pain that had lanced through my chest and belly is subsiding, but I picture the metal points that had jabbed me as all misshapen by rust and oozing God-knows-what. I limp away, muttering, "If I need a tetanus shot, you're going to pay for it."

She hollars lewdly, "Sure Baby. I'd love to pay for your tit job!"
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And that---Sirs and Madams, Sisters and Brothers---is the worst of it. The part I have been dreading telling you. But I had survived this plunge into that gyring, lucifer space; and while again on my oddy so knocky, I was free. But in my gloopy innocence I failed to fully pony
the shiny whirring machinery of her craft...

And why am I talking like this?
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<====[ END OF PART FOUR ]====>

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