Filamentary Ribaldry

"I've got an IQ of 183," Bill said again. "I could have done anything I wanted but it was always clowning, always clowning, always... since that day..." He put down his tea. I noticed the discoloured verruca plaster swimming in the oily residue at the bottom of the mug. "You don't know me," he continued, "Merkin doesn't know me. Merkin. If it wasn't for Merkin... You know what Merkin did to me? You should stay away from him if you know what's good for you. Three years in Japan. Three years and I was the biggest thing on TV. I had my own show - started off doing the interstitials between cartoons but the part kept growing. They loved the gaijin clown - 'Lucky Big Clown' they called me, 'Rucky Bigoh Crownoh-san'..." he trailed.

"Then they got hold of the photos in Tokyo. Someone must have sent them. It happened again. I got dropped again. I protested that they wouldn't be able to recognise my face under the make-up but they wouldn't listen."

Bill's breathing became more shallow and rapid. I could see his hands tensing into two big fists with the painful memories. He told me how he had had an 'episode'. He'd flown into a rage, refusing to leave the TV studios. He described how he'd smashed his way through the cameras, the production crew all jumping up onto his back, trying to restrain him, as he stomped around roaring like an enraged bear, whirling around and throwing them off, continually scattering them about the studio only for them to keep jumping back on again, frantically stabbing him with their biros.

Bill was in another world as he continued. "'Clazy kaiju - crownoh godzirraaghh!' was the last thing I heard before they overpowered me. You want to see what they did? You want to see?" He ripped off his shirt to show me his broad, pasty back. It was still peppered with hundreds of tiny red welts from the desperate biro attacks.

"Merkin," he whispered again, darkly, and sat down quietly next to a hideous mannequin.

"I never stopped clowning, though. I stuck to it. Always a clown, always a clown, always since..." I saw Bill's face soften and drop as though he was about to cry. "...always since school. Matron. Matron made me a clown. I did it for matron." He took a deep breath and seemed to compose himself, continuing in a steadier voice.

"Pater wanted me to continue in the family business. I was being groomed for it. The finest education money could buy. Oh yes, the finest, most despicably lonely education that money could buy. I was a boarder and the only thing that made it worthwhile, the only consolatory salve, the only element of untainted beauty was lovely sweet matron and her fifty-denier stockings.

"The lower sixth were all off for a run - cross country. I hated cross country, so I punched myself in the nose to make it bleed which meant I had to go and see matron instead. Off I went in my rugby kit with a scarlet-soaked handkerchief over my nose. I knocked on her door but she didn't answer. I just heard a faint groaning from inside, so I pushed open the door and crept in. It was the stockings I saw first. Those black fifty-denier stockings, crumpled around matron's beautiful white legs which were waving wildly up in the air, she on her back on the sick-bed and Dobber - Mr. Dobson - on top of her, dressed up for the school panto... dressed up as a CLOWN!

"'William...' she said softly as she noticed me, a sympathetic look of concern and dismay on her beautiful face. Dobber just sneered and imperiously shouted 'Feltch - out!' I had an episode. My first episode. I was carrying my spiked running shoes. We weren't allowed to wear them indoors. Anger convulsed me and, with an improvised weapon being at hand, I hurled myself forward, striking down with as much force as I could muster at the pale, still bobbing behind of Dobber. The shoe sunk into his left buttock with a resounding thunk, the deep spikes keeping it stuck there like Velcro. He cried out in an inhuman wail of pain, prompting a shrill shriek of shock from matron beneath. I ran. Dobber, red-faced with fury through the clown make-up, lunged after me mid-coition.

"The image I will never forget. Dobber, his still tumescent member waggling eccentrically like the convulsing neck of an electrocuted swan, coming for me, tripping over the baggy clown pantaloons wrapped around his ankles and falling, his murderous eyes still fixed on me, falling face-first into a chrome bedpan with a resonant clang. It was a freak blow, dispatching him instantly. As I sat huddled on the floor in a corner, watching sweet matron sobbing uncontrollably and peeling off the running shoe from Dobber's perforated buttock muscle with a loud ripping noise, I realised at that moment that there was only one vocation for me. Spurn my family though I must, lose my inheritance though I would, clowning - clowning was the path I had to follow."

Bill closed his eyes, took a long, deep sigh and opened them again, staring at me with pin-prick pupils. "You want this? You want the book? You get me a woman. The book for a woman." Slowly, a thin smile formed across his rouged clown lips. "I like to lick her tears."

"Did you... did you just say that you like to lick..." I started.

But Bill didn't answer with words. He just let out a long groan as if of pleasurable contentment, gently stroking his arms as he did so.