apologizes, turning it off. “My bad.”
“You could leave it on, Julia,” Laurel requests. “It’s okay.”
Julia complies but turns the volume down. The deputy again offers coffee to Laurel.
“Why don’t you drink a little? It’ll calm you down.”
“Thanks, but I have such a headache, right now I can’t see straight.”
“Don’t you have any aspirins?” Julia asks her.
“I’m fresh out.”
“I can go get some from the 7-Eleven,” the pianist offers.
Laurel shakes her head. “That’s okay. It always goes away.”
“I don’t mind,” Julia insists. “I have to get a couple of things before they close anyway.”
“Thanks. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why should I? You’re my friend.”
They hug. Laurel momentarily breaks out in tears then just as quickly dries them up.
“Don’t worry, Laurel,” Julia affirms. “You’ll eventually get over it like me.”
“What happened to you?” the deputy asks the goth-inspired senior.
“Two years ago,” Julia begins, “my brother got shot in the neck because of some drug deal gone wrong. The patos were looking for me cos they figured I knew about everything that went down. That’s when I had to get off the streets.”
“Your brother died?”
“No, just paralyzed from the neck down. He can only move his eyes and his tongue.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Stories like that break my heart,” Crenshaw admits.
“Yeah,” Julia sighs. “That’s life. See y’all later.”
She exits. The deputy shakes his head.
“These kids today have it so rough, but hey, it was just as bad when I was coming up.”
“Not for nothing,” Laurel doubts, “but I don’t believe that.”
“See,” the mayor protests, “that’s what I mean. People think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. You’d be surprised. It was torture living in my house. You don’t know how many times I wanted to jump off a fucking overpass just to end the misery.”
“Geez,” Laurel apologizes. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
She walks over to a window across the room and gazes blankly outside.
“I’m gonna check out upstairs,” the deputy suggests then exits.
“It’s all my fault,” Laurel moans. “I should’ve paid more attention to him. I was always so busy in that freaking lab.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Laurel,” Crenshaw consoles her. “You didn’t know.”
“Then, whose fault is it?”
“It’s nobody’s fault. You can’t hold yourself responsible for your brother’s, or anyone’s, actions.”
“You don’t understand, Jim. My folks left him in my charge because I’m supposed to be responsible. I let them down.”
“Did you tell them yet?”
“I thought I’d let you do that.”
“Why me?”
“Because by the time they get home tomorrow I’d be a vegetable.”
Crenshaw walks over to Laurel and rubs her shoulders.
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I hope they got a bed for me at the mental hospital.”
He hugs her. “We’re not going to lose you, Laurel.”
The valedictorian starts bawling in his arms. Crenshaw strokes her hair.
“Thanks for standing by me,” she tells him.
“It’s alright, Laurel.”
Slowly, Crenshaw’s wayward hand gropes down Laurel’s back. He stops and steps away when the deputy returns from upstairs.
“Everything checks out up there,” he reveals.
“If you want,” Crenshaw suggests, “you can clock out early.”
“Are you sure?”
“Everything’s secure. You said so yourself.”
The deputy looks to Laurel.
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay. Thanks for watching over me.”
He walks over and rubs her shoulder.
“Sure. You take care.”
The deputy exits the house and, standing on the walkway, adopts a swaggering Texas gunslinger’s pose and John Wayne’s voice.
“Too bad I never ran into you, pilgrim clown,” he boasts, pointing to no one.
Unsnapping the leather strap over his service revolver, he whips it out, and imagines himself the victor at the fight in the O.K. Corral.
“I would’ve made you taste my steel.”
He re-holsters his gun, straps it back in place and hears what sounds like feet racing quickly across the roof.
“What the hell?” he mumbles, spinning around to survey the pitched canopy where he sees nothing unusual or out of place.
“You’re facing the wrong way,” a man’s voice utters from about 15 feet behind him.
Whipping his body around, the lawman finds himself facing The Clown, the sinister stranger standing still on the street with both arms at his side, the handclaw in his right hand.
“Ah, hah!” the deputy brags, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
He reaches for his sidearm. The Clown, faster than milk through lactose intolerant bowels, runs up and buries the handclaw’s tines in the officer’s right forearm. He screams, dropping the pistol. The Clown raises his right foot, presses it against the deputy’s chest and forcefully pushes him backwards. The muscular strength of the shove causes the lawman’s forearm to rip away from his hand at the point of the stabbing. With blood flying from the gash, the open-mouthed but silent enforcement officer stares at his handless right arm in utter shock.
“Aw,” the wise cracker laments, “cat got your tongue? Let’s see.”
Dislodging the impaled hand off the tines, the depraved demon shoves the handclaw upwards beneath the deputy’s chin, planting its tines all the way up to the level of his nasal passages. Then, in one tug, rips off the bottom half of the shocked man’s face, examines the bloody meat and bones dangling off the handclaw, and notices the tongue is there.
“I guess not,” The Clown jokes as the deputy drops dead like a punctured zeppelin.
Inside the living room, Crenshaw and Laurel are engaged in a game of Chinese checkers. Sitting on opposite sides of a center table, the two are deeply in focus, maintaining all their concentration on the pitted board with the multi-colored marbles between them. Jean Lynwood is delivering her gospel on the radio as organ music plays in the background. The mayor’s ears prick up when he hears a faint thump coming from outside.
“You heard that?” he asks Laurel.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
He patrols over to the front door, opens it, and looks out. There’s no one there.
“Must be my paranoia kicking in,” he surmises.
Closing the door, he reenters the living room. All the lights and the radio suddenly go dead, leaving them lit solely by the moonlight coming in the windows. Laurel leaps up.
“Dammit.”
“What happened?” the mayor asks.
“The fuse box went again. Does that every so often. Old wiring.”
She gropes towards a bookcase, opens a box, removes a flashlight, and turns it on.
“I’ll be right back.”
“Where’re you going?”
“To the basement.”
“I’ll go. You stay here and wait for Julia.”
“Okay.”
She hands the mayor the flashlight. He exits. Scant seconds later, she hears a loud bang coming from the door to the basement.
“What was that?” she calls out.
“Ouch. Just me,” Crenshaw answers.
The mayor, light in hand, descends the basement stairs, groping through the darkness of the cool subterranean chamber. His hand feels a light switch. When he flips it, nothing happens. As he leaves the stairs, he steps in something that makes a squishy sound.
“Shoot,?
?? he tells himself. “That’d better not be what I think it is.”
Using his light, he looks downward and sees he’s stepped in soft bluish clay sitting on a cardboard. Continuing on, he shines the light on each wall and finally locates the fuse box. Opening it, he unscrews and examines each fuse. Finally, he finds one with a separated filament.
“Jackpot.”
Rifling through the dusty spares in the base of the box, he successfully finds one with the same amperage as the other one and screws it in. The lights in the basement flicker on. After turning the flashlight off and closing the fuse box, he turns to go back up to the living room only to come face to face with The Clown standing between him and the staircase.
“What the…” Crenshaw spits out.
“Greetings, Mayor,” The Clown orates.
“What is this? A joke?”
“Do I look like a joker to you?”
“You’re not real. I saw the real one die tonight.”
“That little imposter couldn’t fill these shoes.”
“Which imbecile is this?”
He reaches for the clown’s puffball nose but the jokester leans and kicks the mayor with such force that he flies backwards into a shelf of cans. Dazed, he struggles to his feet.
“Listen, Clown,” he warns him, “you’re fucking with the wrong person.”
“Am I?”
“Take my advice and get the fuck out of here right now.”
“Or else what?”
Crenshaw takes a diving leap at The Clown but the painted marauder deftly spins his body around to the back of the mayor where he kicks him, forcing him to fly face forward into a wooden support, knocking at least one tooth out of his mouth. Slowly coming to, the politician touches the blood on his chin. When the Clown takes a step towards him, he trusts out his hand.
“Wait!” he begs. “I’m worth a lot of money. I can give you whatever you want.”
The harvester of sorrows doesn’t say a word.
“I’m just going for my wallet,” the mayor advises him, slowly reaching into his back pocket and bringing out his Italian