After I killed my boyfriend, I hid his body in the basement, where he was swallowed by the stone, becoming nothing more than a shadow. Even in death, he still finds ways to surprise me. Many nights, I wake to find him staring down at me, and I know he wants to kill me. But apparitions can do nothing but bloom on the walls like flowers, pleading to be noticed.

It’s never enough, but it’s all they have—and all he ever deserved.

“At least you’re never alone,” I whisper to his silhouette. “Isn’t that something?” I’m not alone, either. Finally, completely, he belongs to me.

Killing him was an act of mercy; some might call it fate. I did what was necessary to save him. I love him, and now, he finally understands how much.

I dance in the golden light streaming through the hallways, my fingers tracing the walls, caressing his outline. I press myself against his shape, imagining his arms wrapping around me. He’s so warm, so happy—we’re both so glad I killed him.

I never turn on the lights, and I’ve thrown out all the curtains. I love him most when it is night, especially when the moon is bright. I follow him around the house, laughing at his frenetic movement, marveling at the shapes he contorts into. He’s always had such a vivid imagination that death could never dim. He’s the personification of perfection, everything I’ve ever wanted.

Years have passed since his transformation—decades, even. All that’s left of him in the basement are shreds of hair and shards of bone embedded in crevices, the remnants of what he has become.

I’m an old woman now. I’ve watched countless sunrises and worshipped every phase of the moon.

It’s harder to dance with him now. My joints ache, and my vision has blurred. Some days, I can do nothing but lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.

But now, it’s he who reaches for me. He emerges from the ceiling, sputtering into existence like static, his arms slithering like snakes, crackling and hissing like fire.

I don’t quite remember when he broke free from the walls, but I’m so happy he’s become more than a mere shadow. My fingers tremble as I trace his form; he mirrors the gesture. We both know we belong together. I need him as much as he needs me.

I know I’m dying, but I’m not afraid. I have no regrets. I’m so glad I killed my boyfriend, and I can’t wait for the night to fall.

Soon to adorn this space with him, and together we will dance in the light.

What makes the patch work, is the fabric and the stitch

The wrong fabric with the wrong stitch, and the patch will rip

and damage the specially formed piece, and article

The wrong stitch to the right fabric, and it won't stay

like it should, needing frequent needling back to...

The right stitch to the wrong fabric leaves slash marks

and a gaping hole, where the fitting should have been

unlike the right fabric, with the right stitch

These will outlast your garment.

Or?

September 03, 2024

He walked through my unlocked back door just after midnight. He did not have a warrant. He did not have a reason. My security camera footage was not admissible in court (Judge’s order). It did show Officer Peter Holcomb put his hand on the knob and push, then pull, the door open. He said the door was open when he arrived. He entered with his pistol drawn. He used the excuse of officer safety. My internal cameras show he never identified himself, nor did he ever call for backup. Officer Holcomb went straight to my bedroom where I was waiting.

Waiting with my Glock.

In the firefight, he shot first (also inadmissible in court by the same judge) and hit me in the left shoulder. I shot last and hit him twice; once in the neck and once in the leg). Officer Holcomb went down and I soon lost consciousness.

I am now serving a 30 year sentence, with no chance of parole. Officer Holcomb is a paraplegic with no chance of any normal life. I am buried in prison. No one cares if I exist. Peter, lives what little life he has, for tabloid attention and the sympathy of the public.

Thus, I get to read about him.

And I do.

The taxpayers picked up his medical expenses and his early pension benefits. His wife wheels him around to make speeches about gun control and increased safety for essential workers. His audience dwindles in numbers with each month, each year, he keeps repeating the same lines. His wife, Caroline I think, has that look of boredom wherever and whenever she goes. She is too young and too beautiful to sit by his side for the next 40 years of his shattered life. I bet a carton of smokes that she would ditch him by year’s end.

And I was right.

By Christmas, Caroline made the talk show circuit to promote a movie she was in. She told of her struggles and her new life. When asked about the risque scenes in the movie, all she could do was smile and change the subject.

By the next summer, the TV reported his wife filed for divorce and took the children to “an undisclosed” locale.

Next year, he was the bedridden spokesperson for a charity of some sorts.

Eventually, a ghost writer penned a mediocre novel based upon Peter’s life story.

It failed as well as the associated made for TV documentary.

I spent these years pursuing my law degree, filing challenges to a series of prejudicial judicial rulings in hopes of gaining a new trial.

I also failed miserably.

But, at least, my star was rising.

Officer Holcomb had to have both of his arms amputated from exposure to a flesh eating virus contracted by an extended unsupervised stay in a hospital. The lawyers for the hospital claimed no responsibility for the events and did not want to settle. They insisted that dragging the case out for years was necessary to gather as much information as possible.

In 10 years, I finally secured a court date for a new hearing. I made a motion demanding Officer Holcomb appear in person to testify. This time, the judge agreed with me. This time, Officer Holcomb appeared, but could not speak because his ventilator stole that from him. I motioned for his testimony to be stricken from the record. The judge ruled against me and I found myself back in prison, but with a mistrial for my efforts.

I would never see the inside of a courtroom again.

In retrospect, Officer Peter Holcomb would never see the outside of his hospital room again.

His condition went from bad to worse. He began having trouble with his heart, then his intestines. Soon, he developed cancer of the pancreas. The doctors said these events all stemmed from the shooting of years before.

I wanted to sympathize, but I couldn’t. All I could say was, “Good!”

By the time I turned 50, Officer Holcomb had died from a variety of ailments. He was forgotten. He was indigent. He thought he was the victim of that night. I knew him to be a bad cop and I gave an interview stating so.

A local judge insisted that I was in contempt of court and added another year to my sentence.

At the conclusion of my stay, a very short news reporter asked, now that I was a free man, if I could do it all over again that night, would I? Since I was now free from the retaliatory clutches of judges and their ilk, I answered that if I had a wish, I would not do a single thing differently.

I would, however, give that wish to Peter, and permit him to answer accordingly.

He walked up to my unlocked back door just after midnight. He did not have a warrant. He did not have a reason. Officer Peter Holcomb reached for my door to open it, but then hesitated. My security camera footage shows a man with a sudden feeling of remorse struggling with inner demons. He really wanted to enter, but after an awkward pause of thirty seconds, he did not.

Officer Peter Holcomb departed my backyard to continue to his patrol car and leave the scene.

I had no reason to file a complaint or charges against the man I would never see again.

But, I did have a case of deja vu watching the very short news reporter conclude his local news cast for the night.

I came into this world two days late, mad as hell. My parents were nine years too far into their marriage. My mom was two years from an overdose attempt and my father, five years from a decade-long disappearance.

My grandfather-- who would later assume my dad's role-- had the quirk of nicknaming all the babies born into the family. Sometimes it took a while, as he needed time to reflect on looks, personality, and memorable moments. Then he would christen them with whatever he found fitting. But mine came in an instant. As I screeched in my mother's arms, wailing in protest, nostalgic for the void, her father pulled me into his age-spotted arms and I settled, growing silent in his embrace.

I like to think that my soul recognized his, that there was some part of me that carried an innate knowing of the traits we shared. But that's a story for another chapter. If you're the skeptical type, then it's a tall tale for another time. My Papa looked at me, and I looked at him, face still flushed with the remnants of my tantrum. On that Tuesday afternoon in the late Southern spring, my nickname chose itself.

Screaming Redcheeks.

Papa was the only one who called me this, and usually shortened it to Redcheeks, rarely calling me by my given name. There was even a paint stick with SCREAMING REDCHEEKS scrawled onto it with a fat-tipped Sharpie, kept atop the china cabinet for the days in which I lived up to my namesake. My tantrums became expected, routine even. I was set off by nearly everything, even trivial matters like the dog not listening or an especially tricky level of a computer game. I was (still am) argumentative and questioned the validity and authority of everyone and everything.

With my history, I find it strange that others describe me as calm or stoic. I was noted as being a polite, intelligent, and motivated child, though that sentiment decreased dramatically in my teens. Anytime I'm complimented on my nature, a montage of screaming fits, unfeeling language, and brazen manipulation flashes through my mind. I think of the year I smashed all the Christmas ornaments during a tantrum, or the time I threw a dining room chair at my mother. I see my children's worried faces and my patterns repeated within them. Then plays a vision of my marriage on the rocks, with my husband wavering on the cliffside, peering into the depths of Irreconcilable Differences.

My temperament breathes in dualities. There's a consistent ebb and flow, tempestuous currents of mood and mentality. There is understanding betrothed to denial. Warm embraces are frozen in a duel with cold calculation. Within hope lives hopelessness. In the absence of mania, comes depression.

I am Screaming Redcheeks. I am Marissa Wolfe.

Somewhere, within the gray of black-white polarities, there have been touches of silver that slow the pendulum just enough to offer glimpses of what healthy, happy, and hopeful looks like. Just enough to strive for. Just enough to snap the paint stick and depart from the path of rage. Anger is birthed from sadness. Sadness is birthed from pain. Pain roots itself, unyielding, into the grooves of the brain and chokes out the chambers of the heart.

And yet, it has been my greatest teacher. My greatest motivator.

The flame-soaked phoenix wails to the heavens, wondering why she's been forsaken, but within her scattered ashes is the chance to start anew. She reforms, entrenched in her cycles, and cries a different song, more knowing than the one before.

I ran

I ran like I always run from problems

I ran like a kid who had thought they saw the boogeyman

But this was no boogeyman

This was a crime scene

You may wonder how it all began

He put one shot in my lover

So I put two in his

Oh he will never recover

But now I run

For I knew what to do but not how to flee

How could I escape from what has been done

I see a open door and decide to try and hide

Oh but how I would regret

The thing that couldn't be denied

It had one horn

It had one eye

It flew high and fast without a warn

And all around him

Dead, purple, people

The flying purple people eater made my chance of survival slim

I did it.

I finally did it.

I killed the bastard, using the same hunting knife he had used on me many times before. My only regret is his wife found me with his blood-emptied body and called the cops.

Now I am running for my life; a life I finally got back. I'll be damned if anyone will ever put me in a cage again.

My lungs are on fire as I harshly inhale the humid morning air, the fresh air almost makes me queasy, I am so accustomed to the rotting musk from the basement, that my body doesn't know how to handle the clean air. The muscles in my legs are protesting, but I push my body, running as fast as I can down the stirring street.

The town I haven't seen in... well I have no idea how long... blurs past me. I want to stop and see if the small cafe my mother used to bring me to every Friday before hockey practice is still there. The buttery chocolate croissant is damn near melting in my mouth from the thought. My stomach lets out a roar and I curse under my breath; when was the last time that bastard fed me? The days I spent in the cage blurred together with no window in sight, and my captor didn't bother to ensure I maintained a healthy diet. I can’t stop, not for nostalgia, not for anything.

The sirens are getting louder. Shop owners begin stumbling onto the sidewalk to see what could be causing such a disturbance in their quaint little town. A wave of desperation comes crashing into me, like a sickly chill, the feeling of premature agony.

I need an escape.

As if I manifested it, a red door appears on the side of a crumbling brick building. I have lived in this town my entire young adult life, and I know before the kidnapping, that door hadn't existed. A large sign on the building's front, "condemned", draws my eyes. The door is out of place. But I don't have the time to stop and ponder its existence as tires screech on the pavement at the curve of the road only a few meters away.

I am panting like a dog in heat. I know my gelatinous leg muscles will give out if I dare try to run again, so I do what any sane person would do in my situation... I yank open the red door, surprised to find it unlocked and slam it behind me.

I move to the side, ducking under a window I know, sure as hell, wasn't there a minute ago.

I hold my breath as the sirens race past me, the police oblivious to my escape. Once it quiets outside, and the only sound is my heart thundering inside my chest, I dare peek out the window. The street is filled with nosey onlookers, but nothing more. I have graced the townspeople with something new to gossip about for weeks.

I let out a deep breath, the window fogging around my lips. I decide to turn away from the window, if someone spots me looking all ominous and creepy they may call the cops back.

The area around me is dark, darker than normal dark if that’s even possible. It's as if the shadows are alive as they morph their onyx forms around the three men staring at me.

Oh shit.

Three beady red eyes meet mine. A look of shock is all I can make out on their faces before the shadows swallow their faces, leaving the metal table they are gathered around visible. Another man is strapped to the table with cuffs around his ankles and wrists, his golden skin is marred with gouges and blood dripping into crimson pools on the cement floor beneath him. Six sets of latex-gloved hands hold instruments of doom above the man, whose impossibly purple eyes meet mine.

What in the actual fuck.

I clear my throat, reaching behind me, feeling the wall for the door so I can escape, but the cold rigid stone bricks are all I can feel. I turn my head in a flash, weary about facing away from the horror-movie-worth-scene in front of me.

The door is gone. The window is gone. There is nothing but a solid wall without any indication of how I got here.

“You are not going anywhere,” a gravelly voice comes from one of the men.

I whip my head back in their direction. The shadows are lining them like a demonic aura, their faces clearer, and their Cheshire-worthy smirks have my gut sinking low in my stomach.

Jail.

Jail is looking much better than this.

Meagan Verstraten.

The only thing more annoying than the wet bullets of sweat running down my face were the real bullets of lead whirring past my face. As I blinked the salty stinging from my eyes again, it flashed on me that it was an overwhelmingly foolish thing to try and pull off an armed robbery at the mannequin store, in the middle of July, and in broad daylight. At the time of planning, I thought it stood to reason that no one would suspect such a rash move, thus granting me the strategic advantage of pure, distilled surprise. The mannequin store being directly next to the police station was another element of reverse-psychology that had backfired. So when one of the patrons lucidly dialed the authorities, I had to bolt with empty hands. I had actually wanted one of the mannequin hands that was posed holding a very large and sumptuous diamond, but I felt I had to stuff something in my pockets.

I was also starting to wonder why I didn’t rush immediately to my car when it was clear the situation ran awry. I even left the engine running for a seamless getaway. I suppose panic makes fools of us all. I dodged another speeding capsule of death. I didn’t think it was quite fair for the police to use real guns when mine was only a squirt gun. I couldn’t even use it as threatened as it was jammed from the time I tried loading it with strawberry jam. I suppose hunger makes fools of us all. I knew there was a dark and dingy ally up ahead I could dip through, sandwiched between two competing delicious sandwich shops. I thought the cops wouldn’t dare thread their multi-ton hunks of metal on wheels through this narrow urban needle.

The bastards did it. The potency of the headlights grew stronger as they ravenously gobbled the distance between us. My first saving grace was that the alley was too thin for them to comfortably aim their pistols out of their windows. The second was the large and over-stuffed dumpster further restricting the clearance of the strip; there was enough for my lactic-acid-logged body but not so much a police car body. I heard a cacophonous crunch as the metals collided behind me. It was enough of a stall to escape the alley alone.

Returning to the sunlight, I knew reinforcements would soon circle the block by more legitimate means of traffic. I didn’t have much time. I did, though, have enough time to pause and flip a coin to determine the next course of my route: heads I head right; tails I tail left. Everyone knows any excellent plan bears the element of surprise, doubly so if the planner is also surprised. I flicked my quarter into the air with my thumb and watched it perform an amount of frantic rotations that would give any Olympic diver tens across the board, maybe with the exception of one nine depending on how it stuck the landing. I caught it and sighted the reverse of the coin. Left it was. So I took off running west down the avenue, only to glimpse a “one-way” sign directing south. I would be running straight into the police’s open, lethal, or optimistically, judicial arms. I suppose random chance makes fools of us all. Still, I sprinted onward. It occurred to me that perhaps instead of running myself into heatstroke, I could try hiding in a nearby building. I could now make out the pitch of sirens around the bend wailing louder.

With urgency, I tried barging into the closest building to me. The door was locked. I ran farther down, trying the next door. It was locked even harder somehow. Why were all of these businesses closed at such a prime, auspicious time of day? I suppose economics makes fools of us all. Now panting like a Siberian husky in a sauna, I reached my third and final option as the city block selfishly terminated after this building. I heaved my shoulder into the glass door as I had figured it was the quickest entrance if the door indeed allowed entry, forgetting to factor in how much pain would occur if it didn’t. Fortunately, it swung in with butterlike smoothness. I toppled down and slammed onto the flooring, undoubtedly bruising a substantial portion of the left side of my body. It couldn’t have been a tighter timing; I saw the nosy nose of a patrol vehicle crowning around the corner as I dove. I made a hasty crawl underneath the windows which were painted with backwards words in vivid, audacious colors that I had neither the patience nor desire to decipher. Tense with a grueling cocktail of anticipation, horror, and prayer to some anonymous god, I listened to the engines and sirens doppler past. I didn’t stop listening until the preying orchestra diminished beyond the horizon of audible perception. Then I sunk and melted onto the floor, plastered with a grin boasting the girth of relief.

“Was that part of the routine?” a voice startled me and my smile dissipated. I looked around the room, the cones in my eyes slowly interpreting the light diffusing into them.

“Huh?”

“Was that part of your routine? I guess if the rest of it maintains the same level of theatrics we can forgive you for being two hours late.”

The room was diagnosably depressed. Matte grey cement comprised every surface, which may have explained why the damn floor was so hard. There was a circle of metal folding chairs entrapping a white plastic folding table. The table was populated with red cups and a rectangular cake with white frosting while the chairs were populated with a range of adults and children. The back wall sported a banner spelling “Happy Birthday Remy!” with a unique hue for each rounded sans-serif letter. Ebbing from my confusion, I was able to process what the crotchety old woman had said. It then flashed on me that I had made a horrible decision in wearing a clown costume as my robbery disguise. I suppose fashion makes fools of us all.

“You are the clown we hired, right? Or were those real police cars that you were running from?” Her words rang with a slight but perceptible echo from the near-unfurnished room. Her eyes narrowed at me in sharp suspicion.

“Uh, no! I am the real clown you paid money for as you can tell by my costume. I am Chauncy the Clown!”

“I thought your advertisement said you were Glimbo the Clown.”

“Oh, that’s just a matter of pronunciation. I hear that all the time.”

“Okay. You best get on with the rest of the show since you took your sweet-ass time getting here.”

This was a sallow, soren destiny to befall me. I abhor the art of improv. I’m a staunch believer that a firm, reliable structure is the key to comedy. I had taken one improv workshop before but that was only because it thought it was going to be be an “improve” workshop centered around self-improvement, the misspelling being an example of something they could improve on. The things presented there were an affront to jokes and good humor everywhere. It was an upsetting experience. I don’t wish to think about it anymore. And now I must improvise a comedy show of the utmost prestige or otherwise risk my painted, colorful hide on the streets. I would probably be captured and hauled away within minutes with my abundantly visible visage. I then considered that a jail cell may be a more favorable outcome. However, I didn’t want to stain my shiny clean criminal record, so I decided to let loose and live in the moment.

“Alright, then. Hello, children! I’m Clancy, or whatever. Are you ready for some good and wacky fun?”

The audience returned quiet, empty stares sterile as a shrink-wrapped operating room doused in rubbing alcohol. One of the children let out a tiny cough, I interpreted as a slight pity to me so the room wouldn’t be completely silent. I appreciated that. I knew I was going to have to tap deep within the rancid, sweaty pits of my one-day improv training to satisfy this crowd.

“Somebody shout out an occupation. It can be any occupation! This is sure to be a very entertaining activity for you all to watch and enjoy.”

“Comedian!” a child wearing a sort of ugly blue shirt on the outside right of the ring shouted. I felt a stab of insult at this, as if they didn’t expect me to be of a comedic persuasion already. I mean, I wasn’t, but the costume I thought was fairly convincing when I bought it.

“Now, someone give me an adjective. Remember, it can be any adjective!”

“Funny!” a child near the middle yelled. Another irrational pang of offense rolled through me. I was really banking on the costume’s inherent context of hilarity to really carry me through this ordeal, but obviously that wasn’t going to work. However, this did give me a shining opportunity to pull some of the finest one-liners out of my bag of jokes, which I imagine is Versace and crafted with black, luxurious leather. With expert pantomime skills (which I learned during the improv workshop), I feigned lifting a microphone and leaned on an invisible microphone stand.

“What do you call a deer with no eyes?” I paused for effect, “No eye deer!”

Confident I stuck the landing, I anticipated the assured wave of laughter. I received nothing of the sort.

“Did you get that joke from a Laffy Taffy wrapper?” heckled a small voice from the left. I did, but that’s beside the point.

“My ex-husband used to tell that joke all the time,” whispered another, more adult sounding voice to another adult. It then flashed on me why the name Remy was so familiar: that was the name of my son’s best friend! Then it flashed on me why the kid with the ugly shirt looked so familiar: that was my son Emit! Then it flashed on me as to why the sound of that aside whisper was so familiar: that was the voice of my ex-wife Melinda!

Damn me straight to Hell right now, I thought, struggling to keep my composure in check upon this soul-hammering epiphany. Our divorce was messy, and not only because she served me the papers while I was at my landfill job. In the end, she won custody of the kid, the dog, the house, the car, and, worst of all, my favorite set of salt and pepper shakers. She left me more ruined than the great lost city of Atlantis. Our marriage had been faring fairly well, or so I thought. At least up until I became fixated on stealing that diamond from the mannequin store, that crystalline fruit plump and bodacious, acutely ripened for my harvest. Five years later, here I am, craving the sweet sensation of the universe subducting me through its fabric and into indescribable oblivion. One solace I had was that it was clear she didn’t recognize me through my expertly applied mug of clown make-up. I learned such a skill as it was a part of the one-day improv workshop.

“Is this the best you got? Your $2,000 deposit is why we had to book this shithole venue. Give me a refund or I’m calling the police,” said Mrs. Crotchety, which had just flashed on me that she was Remy’s curmudgeonly grandmother and guardian, Doreen, with whom I arranged several playdates with. Not between us, but for our children, of course. I wouldn’t want to play with her anyway, the curmudgeon she is. She also denied me the one time I asked.

In a stroke of improvisational genius, I realized I had a wealth of information residing within these people. These people that possessed no suspicion or clue as to who I truly was. Information I could exploit for a stellar psychic act, the likes of which had never been witnessed. I kicked into a high, divination oriented gear.

“Hang on, just wait a dandy moment here! Let me segue into the next part of the show. Now, it is a well kept secret that I, Glimby, in addition to a hilarious clown, am also a gifted psychic.”

“Your website did mention that.”

“Oh. At any rate, I will need a volunteer. I will let the ether guide my gaze.”

I closed my eyes and slowly and gingerly waved my arms in the air, thumbs pinched to my index finger. I also hummed for an added dash of mysticism, pretending that I was a microwave to really sell the character. After a few seconds, I spouted my predetermined target.

“I’m sensing a name that starts with the letter M. I also sense that it ends in an A. There seems to be an I in the middle, flanked by an L and an N. Then I sense that there is perhaps an E and a D, two more complimenting condiments for this delicious letter sandwich. Is it Melinda? Is there a Melinda here that wishes to join me up front?”

Melinda stood up from her seat, a look of genuine surprise on her face. Dare I say attraction? Perhaps subliminally the decontextualized timbre of my voice reawakened buried feelings, warm and fluttering. Does she pine for me as I have pined for her alone, cold and weeping every night on my lumpy mattress, listening to old Taylor Swift CDs? In my wildest dreams I had never imagined to be this close to her again and now the weight of reality was almost too heavy to bear. I had to stifle the welling tears and emerging lump in my throat; the show must go on, unimpeded by petty, personal drama.

“Me- Melinda. I hear a whisper from the ether. It is telling me that it has been five years, three months, and sixteen days since you and your husband have been divorced.”

“Wow, impressive! Scarily accurate,” she said in her tone that I could never recognize if it was earnest or sardonic. I choose to believe it was earnest.

“The ether is now whispering to me that there is a rift in your heart that has never been sealed since. It howls yearning melancholy when the bitter winds of your sundered spirit blow through, only to be hushed and reconciled if you are reunited with your former lover and father of your child, Emit.”

“Uh, I don’t know about that. I actually feel pretty good since the divorce. Great, even. I’ve made great strides in my career and I’ve never felt freer. He would always go on about stealing this stupid plastic diamond from the mannequin store. I thought he was joking until one night I found him hunched over his desk red-eyed, secretly making plans to do so. ‘It will make us rich, I tell you! We shall want for nothing!’ that idiot would tell me. That’s when I knew our marriage was a mistake. And also our child is named Ethan.”

It flashed on me then when I eyed the diamond as I was robbing the store, it did have a distinct plastic-looking quality. Another devastating blow to my already fragile mind. It was a fake; I just didn’t want to believe it. It felt like my tender heart was imploding all over again.

“Okay. Return to your chair.”

Melissa returned to her chair. I was crestfallen. This was the worst birthday ever.

“Could you maybe include the birthday boy in this? It is his special day after all?” barked Doreen.

Any enthusiasm for the show had deflated from me. It was all colluding to be a resounding lost cause. My ex-wife felt nothing for me, the police were probably going to lock me away, and, on top of everything, Glunky the Clown was going to have to refund the $2,000 deposit. Just another reason to despise the wretched art of improv.

“Yeah, sure. The mysterious ether tells me that Remy, the very special birthday boy whom everyone loves, should come and join me up here.”

Remy waddled up to the front, saturated with a mixed expression of excitement and embarrassment. This poor kid. All he wanted was an exceptional appearance from what is presumably his favorite clown. All he got was this unqualified, renegade, bumbling imbecile of an impostor. I’m sure this is all my ex-wife’s fault somehow.

“So, pal. Is there anything you want to ask the mysterious ether?”

“Uh, does it have any cool presents for me?”

Of course I didn’t come prepared with a present, an absence that would be just another brown, insoluble splotch on this catastrophic failure of a day. To humor Remy, I plunged my hands into my deep and billowy pockets; perhaps there would be some spare lint to bequeath. My fingers felt around and identified the unmistakable smooth, hard plastic of other fingers. Interlocked in my own hands, they reminded me of the gentle, meek grasp of Melinda. My trophies from the mannequin store excursion. The only product of my miserable heist. I would be torn to depart from this meager haul, but I sensed the boy would be even more torn without a consolatory birthday prize. In the spirit of jovial childhood wonder, I presented him the mannequin hands.

“No way! God is real!” Remy exclaimed shrilly upon sight.

A buried memory then crawled through the topsoil of my memory like a zombie in a zombie movie; Remy was obsessed with rings. Every time I picked up Ewan- I mean Ethan, I would see Remy outside decked with a shiny ring on each of his short, chubby digits. I recall his adorned jewelry would be different each time I saw him. Even now his fingers were spangled in gold and silver bands. Of course he would want a set of false hands to proudly display his rings when the alternates are not in use.

“Yes, yes! The ether has known of your love of rings and has bestowed to you these hands. Take them in merry peace.”

Remy walked back to his grandmother, babbling on about his new precious plastic hands. Then I heard the front door swing open and I saw a clown crash to the floor, undoubtedly bruising his entire left side.

“I’m so sorry! I got here as fast as I could and I assumed battering myself through the door was the quickest way to get in,” the clown huffed out while getting up and dusting himself off, “I tried my best to be here on time, but I realized I had mixed up my days. When I noticed, I scrambled over but then I was shot at and then arrested by the police. Apparently they were looking for a clown that robbed a mannequin store? No self-respecting clown I know of would do that. Once I was able to prove my identity and that they had the wrong clown, they let me go. I know my website says ‘no refunds,’ but I will fully return your $2,000 for this misunderstanding.”

He then took notice of me and his painted frown turned even more sour.

“Oh, what the hell? So I’m a little bit late and you decide to replace me with whatever old clown that happens to be on the street? You didn’t even call to make sure I was okay! I’m Glimbo the Clown, for Christ’s sake! What happened to community? What happened to kindness?”

The crowd stared at us in silent shock. I stared at Glimbo the Clown, unsure of how to assess my next order of operations. Only Doreen was able to retain some wits about her.

“I’m calling the police,” she announced.

“After all I have done for you? After I single-handedly saved this party? What happened to community? What happened to kindness?”

“Yes, hello? I need an officer, please,” Doreen spoke into her cellular telephone.

So I bolted out the door, turning left, but only after flipping a coin before deciding to do so. I kept running without a set destination in mind. I am still running to this day. Last week I saw my name and face in the paper with a headline dubbing me “The Outlaw Clown” and then in smaller print it said “who loves improv.” What a horrible combination of words, words that were supposed to be describing me. Was this some sort of karmic punishment? Had I transgressed in enough severity to warrant this? I suppose life makes fools of us all.