(NB: Hey everyone; I changed the order of the stories around here a bit because I felt that some of the stronger entries (i.e. Willamettan Wise Men, Alliance of the Alyssas, Star Wars etc.) were placed neglectfully lower down, while some of the earlier, relatively weaker ones (i.e. Leah Full of Grace, Wuthering Security Rooms) were closer to the top...I just wanted some of my more compelling stuff closer to the top and all. Sorry for the inconvenience, in any case, if you had trouble finding anything you might have read and enjoyed before. This is all stuff from mostly 2007, with a couple of things from 2012 also I think (the Scooping Ground (which is a parody/crossover of Haunting Ground mixed with Dead Rising 1; it's a bit crasser than my other stuff, though...also last year I just posted Swinging One Out of the Park View, which is a pretty standard Otis escape story). I'm not looking to do fan writing forever, but I still have some stories left in me; specifically I'm thinking of doing a Manhunt story ("Frankhunt"...watch the pronunciation on that:)), set in the Willamette Mall, in 2014...I'm debating on whether to do it, though...PM me if you'd like to see it. Also I'm thinking of doing a Marvel Super Heroes kind of thing, but with DR1 survivors in the hero roles (the infamous "hulCarly" might make a return here also:)) I don't know if it would be a huge train wreck, though, like some other major things I've written (*cough* Scarface *cough* Street Fighter *cough*...I know I bomb on some things...it's still fun to write, though. Again, PM me if you'd like to see the Marvel or the Manhunt here. In the meantime, I hope everyone has nice holidays and I'll be posting soon one way or another. -Q42 (12/7/2013) :))
SEPTEMBER 18TH, 4:00PM
"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, wayfarers and Willamettans alike, please give a peppy Park View Mall welcome to Wonderland Plaza's joyful joke-star…"
Adam mentally blocked out the rest of his introduction; he didn't want to hear the name they had for him again, his ears would explode. "Juggles the Clown"…God, he despised that so. He just set to tumbling his way onto the giant soccer ball and greeted his audience with a gleeful, genuine smile.
"Well hell-hell-hello there, kiddies!" he shouted in a high-pitched intonation.
He proceeded to go through all of his acts with undying vigor. First, living up to the awful name he was given, he took to juggling several objects at once. They changed from time to time, though not often enough; recently he was given to tossing up lipstick props from a nearby cosmetic boutique. He would improvise on occasion and pretend to paint his face with the lipstick, then gently press the prop on a little girl's face, making her and everyone else bust out laughing and clapping. Adam would roll and tumble about too, saying "yee-ha" all the while, enough times to establish a trademark on the exclamation. He would close with a really entertaining, unexpected act that even Adam couldn't believe the management at Willamette thought up.
"Now it's time for Juggles' Bubbles!" Adam bent over and picked up a bright blue bottle, then drank deeply from it.
"HIC"
Seconds later, a bright array of bubbles streamed out of his mouth. The audience roared in approval.
"HIC"
Another cluster of the little floaters. The kids were all about this.
"HIC" And on and on. The crowd applauded Adam heartily.
This was the moment at which he felt most high, even though he never reached the height of satisfaction he did in his previous job. Back at the other mall where he performed, he went by Adamac, a simple amalgamation of his first and part of his last name. It was nice because it was his own thing, in terms of the name he had as well as the repertoire he chose. When he first started at Wonderland, he saw the giant soccer ball and thought that maybe "Cleats the Clown" might be a neat idea, and that he could base some of his routine around that; but the management was so intractable. This was the big time; there was no room for an amateur act like Adamac, or whatever other act Adam invented, at the Park View. Besides, there had already been a tradition of Juggleses over the years, and Adam was privileged to be next to wear the wig.
He honestly and sincerely loved the work, though. It was an achievement to make people laugh, and he relished in the bliss of it all when they laughed at him. It meant that he was doing his job well. He thrived on being the punchline.
Adam looked around the Plaza to see if there were some other children for whom he could perform various sundry parlor tricks. There were a couple of cute little guys at Small Fry Duds, a little girl crying at Estelle's Fine-lady Cosmetics—aw, he would definitely have to cheer her up. But as Adam was fixing up to head over there, he caught sight of his lady love at Casual Gals. He executed an awkward tumblesauce, rolling in the direction of Debbie Willett.
She put her face in her hand in mock embarrassment at first upon seeing him, then cocked her head coquettishly and waved. After pleasing crowds of consumers and doing what he loved all morning and afternoon, this transaction had completed Adam's day. He was so glad that Debbie finally separated from her husband, the old coot. Now the two of them could pursue their desires to the limits of their imagination and beyond.
Debbie placed a hand aside her ear and extended her thumb and small finger, mouthing to Adam to call her later. He knew she was in a hurry to do a lot more things today than just hang around at the mall. But she sincerely felt for him, harbored the same passion towards him as he did towards his art.
"Looks like there's no trouble in Paradise today…or should I say, Wonderland," a voice piped up from behind the clown.
"Greg, hey," Adam replied in his normal alto voice, at the same time relieved and repulsed to see the manager of the Plaza. Greg used to be a maintenance man at the mall, but after several years of service and a slew of part time education, he moved up into management. Somewhere along the way, he lost the empathy he had stored up for the honest laborer, and was not very amenable to the requests of employees. Adam was eager to bounce some work ideas off of Greg, but he dreaded the thought of the conversation because he knew he would probably get nowhere with him.
"Hey, Greg, I was wondering—I've been working with the same lipstick props for the past week or so. Since I am 'Juggles,' after all, shouldn't I be tossing some newer stuff a bit more often?"
"I hear ya, Adam, and I'm sorry, but, we need to reserve some more of our budget for repairs on the space ride."
The space ride. The space ride. All he ever heard about from Greg was the God damn space ride. These days, kids' minds and attention spans were being wasted on bells, whistles, video games, and friggin' space rides. Where was the appreciation for the older, more time-honored arts, like that of fooling, of clowning?
He was so tired of it. "I can't believe you're doing this to me, Greg. You were a laborer once…"
"And I'm in charge now. It's a different thing altogether. The space ride is what draws people here, Adam. Children come here for the ride more than anything else. Live entertainment in malls is starting to fade as a trend. People don't want to bother with that; they want to walk, they want to shop, and sometimes they have a need to distract their kids with something mindless. The space ride is ideal for that."
"Greg, this is a shopping mall, not an amusement park."
"And it's not a circus either—Clowny." Adam hated it when Greg called him that. "Willamette takes all sorts of liberties with the themes of things here. Next you'll be saying, 'It's a food court, not a Wild West reenactment.'"
Adam glared at Greg. "This job was supposed to be fun," he said wistfully.
"Fun?! Look, Adam, the bottom line is this: if the ride stops, then the children won't come back. And that won't be any fun at all. Not for the kids, not for the customers…and certainly not for management."
Adam was left with nothing to say.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go tend to something on the other end of the Plaza." Greg walked off. The clown sneered after the manager, determined to "tend to" him one of these days.
"Mr. Juggles?"
Adam turned around. It was the little girl who was crying in Estelle's. It was like fate. He really needed this at the moment, to resuscitate his spirit.
"Hi, little girl!" he said jovially, reverting to his high-pitched voice in an instant.
"I loved your show, Mr. Juggles. It was amazing."
"Aww, you're too sweet. Did you just see the last one?"
"No…I was so sad because I wanted to be in the crowd but I was stuck in a store."
Just then a fairly tall, imposing man made his way over to the pair.
"Oh, Mr.—Mr. Juggles!" the little girl became so excited. "This is my Gramps!"
Adam smiled big and wide. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Gramps." The tall man nodded pleasantly and reflected the clown's smile back at him.
"So…little girl and Gramps…" Adam craned his head down toward the girl, making her giggle. "What should I call a lady so dainty and darling?"
"I'm Claire," she replied cheerily. "Claire Hudson."
"Well it's a pleasure to meet you, Claire!" Adam then looked up at the tall man, who blushed a little in spite of himself. "And you, sir?"
"I'm Cliff. Nice to meet you, Juggles." Cliff seemed somewhat intimidating in terms of his size, but he was tender in his demeanor. He's probably a wonderful man to her, he thought. Perhaps Debbie could help me play this part, in time.
Adam was overjoyed to have an interim audience between shows. He proceeded to blow up a couple of balloons for little Claire and make them into all sorts of funny shapes. He stood on his head and jumped all around, making the girl double over laughing. He still had some bubble film in his throat left over from the last show, so he coughed it up a bit, causing the little one to chortle endlessly. Adam even made Cliff crack up a couple of times with his antics.
"You…you are too much, Mr. Juggles," Claire peeped, in between laughs. "Oh, Gramps, I'm so happy now! We're having so much fun today, and I can't wait till tomorrow too when you take me to the zoo!"
"Oh, the zoo, huh?" Adam squealed.
"Yeah. I've gone lots of times, but Gramps has never been, at least not in a while. I love the polar bears, but he's really into the monkey and ape exhibits and he wants me to show them to him, isn't that right, Gramps?"
"That's right," Cliff chimed in, grinning and picking an ecstatic Claire up of the ground. "You, little lady, are gonna tell me where the gorillas' hangout is…"
"Hee hee hee," she squeaked.
"Or else…heh, heh, or else…when I'm through tickling the information out of you, heh, you're gonna be begging your Mom and Dad to take you away."
"Hee hee ha ha ha…" The little girl was beside herself. "You're so goofy, Gramps." She looked back to Adam. "Oh, Mr. Juggles, can I come to your next show?"
Adam was happy to receive the attention once more. "What, are you crazy?! Of course you can! You and Gramps will be front row center, I gar-ron-tee it!"
"Oh, boy! This is gonna be the best ever…come on, Gramps!" The little girl pulled her grandfather by the sleeve, guiding him towards the seats near the giant soccer ball.
About twenty-five minutes later, Adam was all set for the next performance. This would be his best show of the day, and having Claire and Cliff in the front row made it so very nice.
This time he was going to open with the bubbles. He took a long swig from the bright blue bottle, and when the corny introduction was through, he bounded out from behind the soccer ball again to start his first act.
After making a couple of quick wisecracks, Adam closed his eyes and pretended to rear back, as if to first hold back, then release a magnificent sneeze. The bubbles would all come shooting out of his nose, and the audience would riot.
"Ahh—"
"Ahh—ch"
"AAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Adam opened his eyes. His audience was suddenly larger than he first saw it to be at the start, but, the stragglers coming in weren't there for the show.
People ran screaming, or at least most of them tried to. In mere seconds, many of them didn't have the legs or mouths to do so. Adam found himself surrounded by sounds spawned from horror rather than humor.
"Mommy!"
"Daddy!"
"CLAIRE!"
"GRAMPS!"
As he stood flanked on all sides by shrieks of despair, and not snickers of delight, the residue from the bubbles began to burn up, strangely, in the clown's throat.