Here it is, in all its Circus Maximus glory, the full and final story for this Circus Maximus of a Build A Story Round 5. This one’s a doozy, in process for about four months and clocking in at over 3,000 words. Thanks to everyone who contributed and to everyone who’s been following along. And a very special thanks to Scott Ritchie once again for his enthusiastic creativity.
Have a read and let me know what you think!
Mrs. Blendinson had certainly entertained a foolish thought in her day, had even been married to one for twenty-five of them, but never had she been so resolute in her belief that this foolish thought, the one occurring to her now while she rooted through the neighbor’s trash, this was the foolish thought that if acted upon would put her back on top.
“If I can just find that clown nose,” she mused, “I’ll prove once and for all that the circus debacle was all Mr. Freddie’s fault, not mine!”
Mrs. Blendinson’s musings, unlike her foolish thoughts, took on the affect of a nobler woman, usually a duchess of some vague royal lineage, the kind who would never consort with a sad clown and his dim associates, who endured scandal with a stiff upper lip and dry eyes, not a stiff drink and stolen credit card.
In spite of her contemplative irrational thoughts and ramblings of life on the road with the circus, there were times with Mr. Freddie that were downright playful. Even though there were moments of joy and ecstasy, they somehow turned into long hours of nervous, frightful horror. Mrs. Blendinson remembered the time when she and Issey (Issey was Mr. Freddie’s self-appointed first name) created an impromptu beach setting at midnight behind the pup tent, which was just south of the Big Top. Mrs. Blendinson smiled to herself with the contentment only a woman in her 70’s could understand as she reflected on the unusual foreplay that occurred prior to the laying of the blanket.
But then she remembered that fateful BBQ afterward. She frowned, and her entire visage changed from nobility to something far less regal – vengeful. “That Mr. Freddie, and all the Freddies,” she mumbled. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”
And with that, the circus was relegated to a forgotten compartment in the portmanteau of her mind, for her new resolve was building, the resolve that drove her to reach inside the hem of her dress and pull out the thin strip of microfilm hidden within the gingham. She slipped it into the clown nose that she’d finally found, planning on the perfect place to leave it, where it would be found “by accident.” She looked around furtively, the microfilm/nose mélange secreted in the pocket that once held recipes for blancmange and other favorites.
“Outta my trash, Blendinson!”
She smiled and checked the diamond-studded watch that had been strapped to her wrist when she’d accidentally fled from Zales the other day. Right on time, her neighbor’s five a.m. ritual, a stumble into the bathroom and back, with a glance out the kitchen window, occasionally to check for raccoons, mostly for her. Mrs. Blendinson waved before she looked up and winced. Ruffy was out of his makeup, but his face still looked painted: purple-black around the eyes, yellowed cheekbones. That and a sweaty fistful of G. Washingtons his likely compensation for starring in another Clown Fight video the area college kids were always staging in the alleyway behind the fried chicken restaurant. Ruffy had fallen on hard times ever since the circus stopped employing sad clowns.
Mrs. Blendinson wondered if he’d like to help her make a different kind of dishonest wage today, although she couldn’t promise his nose wouldn’t get smashed in with a clown shoe for his trouble.
“Well?” he snapped.
She stuck a quick tongue over her shoulder, and yanked a pink and white cheap leather bag from the bottom of the trash. She could use this, even with one strap broken. She slung the good one over her shoulder and the bag became her shield. Now she turned saucily, determined to put Ruffy back in his clown car for good but the window was empty.
She bent and retrieved her Smirnoff, uncapped it and took a sip, acrid in the morning, trash-laced air. She made a face and began her waddle back to her place. She had plans.
As she approached the caravan she called home, she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She was certain that she’d shut and locked it. She always triple-checked it every time she went out. If Freddie had used his key to go in without her permission again he was going to be sorry!
She opened her door with some trepidation, calling out, “Hello? Is that you?” in her sing-song lilt. “No, it’s not me,” a strange voice answered back, sending chills down Mrs. Blendinson’s gingham-clad spine.
She stepped inside, sensed a presence in the kitchen, and lifted her new bag to her chest once more. But she paused, still in the hall, when she saw the revolver on the kitchen table next to an open Smirnoff bottle, her last. She stepped fully into the light and the view of a four hundred pound brown bear tossing back a shot of vodka with a raspy snarl.
“Daaaaaaaaamn!” it complained, shaking its massive head at the vodka’s bite. It noticed Mrs. Blendinson and swept up the pistol expertly.
“All right, now, Marjorie, easy does it.” He jerked the gun twice to the empty chair opposite.
Mrs. Blendinson slipped heavily onto it and her whole body seemed to slump in defeat.
“Daisy,” she stated.
“Goddamn right, only I’m done with the dancing.” Daisy the Dancing Bear used both paws to draw back the hammer on the gat. “Have a pop,” he commanded.
“A pop? I don’t think so,” Mrs. Blendinson sneered. “My father disappeared twenty years ago.” Since bears don’t understand puns, especially bad ones, Daisy faltered for a moment. This was Mrs. Blendinson’s only chance. “I have it,” she blurted. “What you want. I know what it is and I know where it is. I have it. I know right where to-
“Allllllright, fer Chrissake, shaddap!” Daisy brought a massive claw to his furry ear and dug at it angrily. “You don’t even know why I’m here,” he grumbled and adjusted his vest and its gleaming watch chain.
“Yes, but…” Then, very softly, daintily, she slid a box of bear treats onto the plaid tablecloth and looked up with a devilish anticipation. Her greasepaint smile grew as she saw she was right.
Daisy’s eyes never left the box. He let his grip on the pistol loosen then set it down altogether. He licked his lips. When Marjorie Blendinson swept up the box, he rose to his massive eight-foot height.
Mrs. Blendinson was wary, her head bent at an unusual angle. She had to be careful. She held the box out shakily even as her foot disappeared into the draped pantry and fished out a massive red circus ball. She shook the box and tapped the ball at Daisy.
“Up you go,” she hissed through her smile.
Daisy leapt upon the ball and balanced perfectly, head erect, paws at Ports de Bras. Mrs. Blendinson shook out a treat and tossed it. Daisy caught it perfectly, took two rolls forward and two back, bumping the table. Mrs. Blendinson’s eyes darted to the pistol. She shook the box into her palm again only… nothing came out. Daisy saw it. She saw it.
Empty.
Daisy crashed onto the tabletop and snagged the gun. He rolled back into his chair, out of breath and disappointed in himself. “Alll right, Blendinson. Think you’re smart. I told you I’m done with that shit.”
“Wait, I have more,” Mrs. Blendinson desperately stammered, “Some sardines, maybe.”
“What am I, a trained seal? I think not.” He paused. “It’s time, toots,” he said with chilling finality.
The words drew her feet under her involuntarily. Her heart skipped a beat as one of them encountered her salvation. She drew that foot forward and certainly rolled over it again. She lifted her foot and stole a glance. One of the bear treats must have been shaken from the box. She dipped quickly at the waist, causing Daisy to re-aim threateningly.
“Hey there, toots. Alright. No sudden moves.” he snarled. And then, “Harry!”
And out of the wash room stepped the sword swallower in top hat, head tilted toward the ceiling, eyes fixed on Mrs. Blendinson. And it was at that point the forgotten compartment of the sealed portmanteau in her mind was blown supernaturally open.
“H…H…Harry?” she stammered. “But I thought you’d burnt up into a colorful cinder! Didn’t I, I mean didn’t someone?”
“You overcharged my flame thrower, Blendinson,” he snarled. “But I faked the cinder part.”
“It’s time for a reckoning,” Daisy growled. “Show time.”
Just then there was a loud banging on the door. “Are you in there, Blendinson?” called a low rumbling voice. No, she thought. It can’t possibly be. And then the door flung open.
The fat man.
Rounder than a wrecking ball, he turned sideways to enter, allowing the midget to scamper past his knees, careful to duck under the thunderous overhanging gut.
“You have to be defecating me!” Blendinson stammered. Her little kitchen was getting crowded.
“Shaddap,” snapped Daisy. “The circus is in town and we ain’t leaving without the photos.”
Mrs. Blendinson produced the clown nose, micro film secreted within, and fixed it firmly on her own.
The fat man swatted it off. Mrs. Blendinson watched it skip out of sight under the stove until the fat man’s sweat-spotted face filled her vision with its foul labored breath.
“You making fun of us, Blendinson?”
Mrs. Blendinson couldn’t answer. Couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten to this point or what she should do next. She cursed Mr. Freddie. Wait until she saw him again. She was planning on pulling out her aristocratic air when her eye was drawn to her wrist, where the midget had just swiped her stolen, diamond-studded watch. The Little Man lifted it to his big ear, an island in his thinning hair, and smiled. She could only watch her watch as he winked and pocketed it. Something had to be done.
“I want you all to know,” she began. “That even though I was flattered you thought of me for our barbecue, I never said cooking was my strong suit. Now, the three pounds of laxatives I left carelessly above the stove must have accidentally fallen into the maplewood baked beans when I had my back turned. ”
Her visitors looked at one another remembering with a certain…discomfort. And then very conspicuously their eyes settled on Daisy.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, so bears don’t just shit in the woods. Satisfied?” Daisy showed her teeth to Mrs. Blendinson. “You got to the count of ten to cough up dem photos. Or I turn your insides into maplewood baked beans.”
The fat man again leered in her face. The short bursts of rancid air he flushed from his nostrils were mind-altering enough for Mrs. Blendinson to wonder if she might be back outside rooting through Ruffy’s garbage.
“I got it, Stanley, please,” she said, trying to close her own nostrils without using her hands and triggering Daisy’s gun. “One…two…three…four…” And then, just to keep things interesting, she started counting again. This time, backwards.
The Sword Swallower advanced, head tipped skyward, voice full of silver menace. “Marjorie, we of the center ring request the photos so impudently snapped in our moment of disrepose…if you please.”
Mrs. Blendinson’s eye twitched. Her foot rolled the bear treat two revolutions. She steeled herself. “Disrepose…is not a word.”
Harry’s eyes flamed and his Adam’s apple convulsed, as a monkey on a stick. His jaw distended and his hand disappeared inside, only to emerge clutching the coiled handle of a saber, drawing its spit streaked length continuously out of his throat until clear. He sliced the air and brought the blade to rest at Marjorie’s cheek.
“Are you feeling us, madam? Your act is drawing to a close.”
“Under the stove,” she stammered. “On microfilm inside the clown nose under the stove.”
Daisy’s massive paw sent the table sliding across the room in one move.
Meanwhile, a “Timeless Travel” taxi pulled to a stop in front of the small trailer bungalow. The passenger door creaked open, rusty from disuse.
Inside, Daisy fell to his knees and laid the pistol on the linoleum. His paw wouldn’t fit beneath, and his head was too massive for either eye to see. He swung his snout in irritation.
“You, hors d’oeuvres, get over here,” he commanded.
The midget stomped over angrily, and raised his fist, the one wearing the watch. “You want the time, Gentle Ben?”
Daisy cuffed the midget under the stove with a CLANG! It came back with lint in its little hair and a jujube stuck to its cheek. But it was holding the clown nose.
Daisy’s eye caught something rolling toward him. Could it be?
Marjorie bet it all on this moment.
Harry was distracted, the Fat Man, too labored to react. Mrs. Blendinson swung her pink and white leather bag off the chair behind her and draped it over the sword-swallower’s saber. With all of the act’s momentum, she charged him past the Fat Man and into the laundry room, into shelving that collapsed boxes of detergent onto his head. The midget grabbed up Daisy’s pistol but Daisy didn’t care until after he’d swallowed the treat and, of course, by then it was too late.
The midget smiled at Mrs. Blendinson, signaling their new partnership in crime until she kicked him into the wall at thirty miles an hour with her shoe.
She snatched up the pistol and the clown nose and spun.
“Allllllllllllllllllllllllriiiiiiiiiiiiight,” she hissed.
The moment breathed, short and thin with tension. Marjorie’s focus flit face to face. Every eye glistened with a scheme. Even the midget, splayed oddly in the corner, waited to right himself until the moment played out.
Daisy’s eyes darted to the fat man’s. A conspiracy? Marjorie thought so, so cocked the hammer and swept her aim from man to midget
The second hand on the wall silently bled their diminishing choices, reaching out to grasp fate’s hand when, rooms away, the front screen door springed its coil and then banged its thin metal clap.
Harry’s eyes slid toward the hall. Detergent sifted from his top hat.
And all at once they knew. Everyone knew. It was the squeak of shoe leather, faint at first, but most rhythmic. Squeak…squeak. Squeak…squeak. Coming closer.
It was unmistakable. Those shoes were big.
They wore a hat of their own, a bowler. Following it down the kitchen hall, you couldn’t help but notice the flower, short of stalk, jutting from the band. Beneath, big red wings of hair, a foot in both directions, sculpted to a point like cotton candy. When they all reached the kitchen, the tableau hadn’t changed.
Mr. Freddie had returned.
His jacket was bright yellow, crossed with a blue and red plaid. It draped his pear shape oddly. His gloves were immaculate, white and pleated. His bow tie was huge and blue, matching the eyes in a face that was wide and a little dumpy. The tip of the nose remained unpainted and bare, missing its signature ornament. But it was all offset by a big painted smile that he garnished with a fat, unlit cigar.
“What’s the rumpus?”
And still nobody moved. As if they could not.
Marjorie’s eyes trembled, liquid amber in the morning sunlight. “Issey?”
“The very same.” He produced a big bike horn and squeezed its bulb loudly. Twice.
The pistol tumbled from Marjorie’s hands, which had left for her mouth.
“All right now,” Mr. Freddie looked around shyly. “None of that.” He reached down and removed Harry’s hat, shook the detergent from it and handed it back.
“Stand up, Harry. Everyone, up.”
And each in their own fashion straightened. Mr. Freddie moved the table back to its original position as if it had never been moved.
Daisy seemed worried and moved to explain.
But Mr. Freddie held up his hand. “Uh-uh-uh, shhhhh.” His massive shoes planted either side of the pistol, which he lifted and placed on the table. “It would appear my presence here is sorely needed. I’m guessing all this is about the photos?”
Everyone suddenly found interest in their own feet.
“Well, I’ve seen all three of them and although they leave an indelible mark on the nutter, none of them embarrass you and they certainly don’t call for all this.”
He held out his spotless white palm to Marjorie. Into it she placed three Polaroids. Mr. Freddie frowned. “Hmmm, no microfiche?” he asked.
She shook her head with downcast eyes.
“There never was, was there?”
Another shake. He gently took her head and kissed it.
He spun the cards like an expert dealer, which he was, and held one up to the fat man. “Bert, I dare say this colonic misadventure is less remarkable than your size. Don’t you agree?”
The fat man squinted and, having seen too much, agreed. Mr. Freddie shuffled the pics once more and thrust a photo at Daisy. “This is you in the woods is it not?”
Daisy growled.
“Doing what comes naturally, despite…” he spun the photo for a glance and grimaced. “…the pose.”
He set the photos on the table next to the gun. He pointed at the midget. “Tyler, gimme.” The midget slid off the wall and handed over the watch. Mr. Freddie reached behind him and Harry put the leather bag in his hands. Everything went on the kitchen table, even the sword. Then everyone stepped back.
“Alright now, you know what’s what…” Mr. Freddie intoned. “What has to happen.” And when no one moved he squeezed his horn.
“C’mon. You’ve had your fun and said your piece. Fall in line.”
And slowly they did, each taking their place in a line behind Mr. Freddie who regarded Marjorie tenderly. A kindness shone from his eyes as he moved close and took her by the shoulders.
“Marjorie, are you still blaming me?” he asked skeptically.
“Well, who brought those laxatives to the BBQ in the first place?”
“Yes, but did I spill them in the beans?”
Marjorie wouldn’t meet his eye, trying instead to hide a small, devilish smile.
“Did I?”
She shook her head quickly, twice.
“No. That would be a foolish thought to have, wouldn’t it?”
She nodded and began to giggle. He hugged her and she saw that they were now alone in the kitchen. And when he set her back, tears filled her eyes, tears of love and gratitude.
“But there was another, wasn’t there?” Mr. Freddie began to glow.
Marjorie nodded, faster and faster, the pain pulling the muscles of her face to its center, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
“I thought…” she tried. “I thought…”
“You can say it.”
“I thought if you saw me rooting though the trash…” Her chest heaved, her shoulders hunched and she let it out. She threw her face into his big blue bowtie. “I thought you’d feel sorry and come back for me. Ohhh, Issey, I’ve missed you so much!”
She sobbed and sobbed. He stroked her hair. “There, there. There, now. I’m here.”
Mr. Freddie’s glow intensified. He set her back and looked between them. “I think you have something that doesn’t belong to you.”
Her hand unfolded. She brought his clown nose up and placed it where it belonged. Mr. Freddie wiggled it into comfort.
“Thank you. Are you ready, my love?”
Marjorie looked around her kitchen of so many years, wiped her nose and nodded. She took Mr. Freddie’s hand. “Ruffy is still sad, in case you were wondering.”
“Well that’s always been his downfall. Why don’t you leave him his credit card.”
Marjorie relented with a grumble and slid it onto the table. The light was almost blinding now, making the kitchen hard to see. Mr. Freddie kissed her smile.
Mrs. Blendinson was found one week later, dead in her bed with the smile still on her face and the all too big shoes of her love on her feet.