Dead Clown Barbecue

by Strand, Jeff

  "I knew you weren't going to stab me hard!"

  "You knew no such thing! I was standing here with a butcher knife! You don't gently stab somebody with a butcher knife! You are insaaaaaaaaane!" Mike began making insane faces, crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue and twitching around like he was having a seizure.

  He wouldn't really let them come and take me away to the crazy house, would he?

  No. He was my big brother. He'd protect me.

  But I'd trusted him a moment ago, and that hadn't worked out so well. If I was going to spend the rest of my life getting shocked, I'd rather it be because I was a maniac than an idiot!

  So I stabbed him.

  Mike yelped as the knife went into his side. "Stop stabbing me! Stop stabbing me!" he shouted.

  I yanked the knife out. "Ha! I win!"

  He pressed his hand against the wound. Blood quickly began to trickle between his fingers. "You little jerk! Do you know what you are?"

  "What?"

  "You're a cheater!"

  "I am not!"

  "You are so! It wasn't your turn!"

  "Yes, it was!"

  "No, it wasn't! I didn't stab you!"

  "You forfeited your turn!"

  "I never said I forfeited my turn!"

  I paused. He hadn't, technically, yet he'd definitely implied that not only had he forfeited his turn, but that the entire game had been a scam.

  "You quit," I said.

  "I did not. Now you have to let me stab you back or I'll tell everyone you're a cheater. Everyone!"

  I shook my head. "No. You'll just say that stuff about calling the asylum again."

  "I wasn't really going to have you committed, but I am going to tell everybody you're a cheater." He pulled his hand away, looked at the gash, and sighed. "Look how much I'm bleeding. I'm going to have to go to the hospital and get stitches, you cheater."

  "I'm not a cheater!"

  "You're a cheater! Cheater! Cheater! I'm telling everyone!"

  At this point, I figured, if I was going to get an undeserved reputation as a cheater, I might as well get a deserved one. So I stabbed him again.

  "Ow!" Mike wailed, clutching at his upper thigh. "Stop stabbing me! Stop stabbing me!"

  "That's what you get," I told him.

  "I was trying to make peace, and you went and stabbed me again! Now I'm bleeding twice as much!" Mike clutched at both of his wounds, and then something marvelous happened.

  My older brother began to cry.

  "You're a crybaby!" I shouted.

  "No, I'm not," he said, hurriedly wiping away the tears, leaving streaks of blood under his eyes.

  "You are! I saw you! Crybaby! Crybaby! Mike's a great big crybaby!" I began to dance around the kitchen, doing my just-invented "Mike Is A Great Big Crybaby" dance.

  "Shut up!"

  "Crybaby! Cry-cry-cry-cry-crybaby!"

  "Stop that!"

  "I'm going to tell everybody that you cried. Everybody!"

  "I'm sorry, all right? Look, I promise I won't tell that you were going to let me stab you, and that you stabbed me, and that you cheated, if you promise not to tell that I cried. We'll start fresh. Deal?"

  "Deal," I said, and we shook bloody hands.

  "Could you clean up the kitchen while I walk to the hospital?"

  "Uh-uh. I'm not cleaning up the whole kitchen. This is half your fault."

  "All right, all right."

  So, working together as brothers should, we mopped up the blood on the floor, though Mike kept adding to the mess, making it difficult to finish. We argued about washing the butcher knives, and settled for only washing the one I'd used to stab him.

  He went to the hospital and got sewn up, though unfortunately the stupid doctor called Mom. But he didn't tattle. He told her that he'd been trying to juggle knives, and that he now knew that he needed more practice.

  Though we didn't play many games after that, we remained the best of friends. We're both grown now and live hours apart, but we still call each other every day. He's the best person I know.

  I did not develop a taste for killing people after this, thank you very much. I know you want to hear that I went on some psycho rampage, or that I now keep body parts in my refrigerator, but that's not how it worked out. It's possible to play butcher knife games as a kid and not grow up to be a messed-up adult.

  That said: you mess with my brother, and I'll fucking stab you.

  Heh heh. Just kidding.

  EIGHT-LEGGED VENGEANCE

  I am not typically a vengeful person, despite my "Blood for Blood!" temporary tattoo. But when my girlfriend Erica became my ex-girlfriend Erica the Skank, a bit of revenge was in order.

  She claimed that she was cheating on me with my casual acquaintance Dave. However, Dave had an alibi for each weekend in question, and the Guitar Hero scores to prove it, so Erica finally broke down and confessed that she hadn't been cheating on me at all — she just didn't want to admit that she was repulsed by the small mole next to my ear. Now, I'm not saying that it's an attractive mole, but give me a break. After six weeks of bliss, we were through.

  And so I decided to seek revenge. I didn't want to kidnap her dog or decapitate her favorite teddy bear or anything like that. I just wanted to do something that was clever and memorable, but not illegal or too mean. I invited my friend Dave (a different Dave than my casual acquaintance) over for a couple of beers and a brainstorming session.

  "You could burn her house down," Dave suggested.

  "No. It can't be anything that would involve the cops."

  "Wouldn't they send the fire department instead of the cops?"

  "Yeah, but when they discovered that it was arson, they'd involve the cops."

  "Bummer." Dave took a swig of beer and swished it around in his mouth. "What about keying her car?"

  "Nothing destructive."

  "What's wrong with being destructive?"

  "Destructive makes it seem like she got to me too much. I don't want to convey rage. I want her to think I'm laughing at her, not punching holes in walls."

  "So you're thinking more of a 'nyahh nyahh' than a 'screw you, hell-bitch'?"

  "Exactly."

  Dave drank some more beer. "I can work with that. The way I see it, the best alternatives to bloodshed and/or destruction are fear and/or humiliation. Do you agree?"

  I nodded. "Fear or humiliation. Yep. Both of those are good."

  "Which do you prefer?"

  "I'm not sure," I admitted. "Humiliation might be kind of mean."

  "Dude, are you seeking revenge or shopping for an engagement ring? You have to be mean. That's the whole frickin' point!"

  "I know, I know. I just don't want to dump pig's blood on her or anything like that."

  "So . . . fear or humiliation?"

  "I'm not sure. Let's flip a coin." I reached into my pocket but found it coinless. I reached into my other pocket and found it equally lacking in coinage. "Do you have a coin?"

  Dave patted his pockets, and then picked up the bottle cap from his beer. "I've got this."

  "Okay, if it lands upside-down, we'll go with fear. If it lands right-side-up, we'll go with humiliation."

  Dave flipped the bottle cap. It landed on the floor, upside-down.

  "Humiliation," he announced. "Cool."

  "No, that was fear."

  "It's upside-down."

  "I know. That was fear."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh." Dave finished off his bottle of beer. "Fear. Fear, fear, fear. Lots of possibilities in the fear arena. What's she most scared of?"

  "Terrorists . . . cancer . . . dying alone . . ."

  "What about spiders? Is she scared of spiders?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "What about a big ol' hairy tarantula?"

  "I assume so. We never really talked about it. You think I should mail her a tarantula?"

  "Not unless you're a complete loser," Dave said. "You've gotta be more inventi
ve than that. Mailing a spider is a level one plan. You have to bring this to level two or three at the very least."

  "You're right. What could we do with a tarantula to make it more memorable?"

  "Dress it up?"

  "Please stop being stupid," I requested.

  "My bad."

  "We need an inventive delivery method for the tarantula. Maybe a singing telegram or something."

  "Do they really do singing telegrams?" Dave asked.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I've never actually seen a singing telegram. I thought maybe it was just something they did on TV."

  "Are you kidding me?"

  "Have you ever had a singing telegram?"

  "No."

  "Then maybe I'm right. Where would you even go to get one?"

  "I don't know! Any party store! How can you doubt the existence of singing telegrams? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"

  "Sorry," Dave said. "Can I have another beer?"

  "Later. Anyway, I don't think we'll find a singing telegram service that will sing a song and then chuck a spider at her. Let's think of a better delivery method."

  "It would be cool if we could figure out a way to get it to jump out of a cake, like one of those naked girls."

  I sat up straight. "I've got it!"

  "What?"

  "We could bake a tarantula in a cake!"

  "When's her birthday?"

  "Not for a few months, but still, there has to be a cake-giving occasion coming up. It's perfect! She gets this nice, beautifully decorated cake delivered to her house. She takes a bite, and something's a bit off. She investigates a little further, and there's a frickin' tarantula baked right into the cake! She freaks out. Vengeance is mine."

  Dave rubbed his hands together in malicious glee. "You, sir, are a genius. Albert Einstein never would've thought of that. He would've thought of something about physics or science or something. A spider in a cake. That's brilliant!"

  And so our nefarious scheme was hatched. After I gave Dave another beer, we divided up our duties equally: Dave would obtain the tarantula, and I would obtain the cake.

  It was a difficult decision. Should I go with chocolate? Vanilla? Angel food cake? Pineapple upside-down cake? After much thought and price comparison, I settled on a yellow cake, since it seemed like it would show off the tarantula the best. I also bought some yellow frosting and a tube of red gook used for writing words on cakes.

  I returned to my apartment and played football on my Xbox until Dave showed up. He had a tarantula in a small plastic aquarium, which he set on my coffee table.

  "Cool," I said, tapping the plastic.

  "You owe me thirty-five bucks."

  "Thirty-five?"

  "Twenty-five for the spider, ten for the aquarium."

  "Twenty-five bucks for a spider?"

  "How much did you think it was gonna be?"

  "Free! I thought you'd go to a shelter or something, where they were going to step on it if nobody took it home!"

  "It's not a puppy."

  "Well, why did you buy the aquarium?"

  "It was half-price with any pet purchase. I wasn't gonna drive it home on my lap."

  I wanted to smack him in the face with an empty beer bottle. "It's not a pet! It's a sacrifice! Why did you get a live one?"

  "Where am I gonna get a dead one? You think they have a dead tarantula aisle at Wal-Mart?"

  "But . . . but . . . but . . . twenty-five bucks? It's not even a big one."

  "It's average size for the species."

  "No, it's not. Tarantulas are huge."

  "You're thinking of tarantulas in 50's horror movies," said Dave. "This is a tarantula in real life."

  "I didn't think it would be the size of my house, but it should at least be the size of my hand!"

  "It's a perfectly good tarantula. Stop being such a whiner."

  I held out my hand. "Let me see the receipt."

  "I don't have it anymore."

  "I'm not paying you back without a receipt."

  Dave sighed. "Okay, fine, it was thirty-two, not thirty-five. You're so damn suspicious all the time. Jeez."

  "Jerk."

  "Cheapskate."

  "Drunkard."

  "Cheapskate."

  "Fine." I took out my wallet and dug out a twenty, a ten, and two ones. That pretty much wiped out my beer budget for the rest of the month. Who knew vengeance would be so pricey?

  "Oh, there was tax, too," said Dave.

  "Screw you."

  We went into the kitchenette of my studio apartment and I made the cake batter, while Dave provided helpful advice about what I was doing incorrectly, and I provided very specific suggestions about what he could do with his advice. I cursed as some eggshell dropped into the mix.

  "Who cares?" Dave asked. "If it's going to have a spider in it, it might as well have some eggshell."

  "If she crunches down on a piece of eggshell, she'll quit eating the cake, then she'll never find the tarantula, and then my devastating revenge will have been that she ate a bit of eggshell." I dug out the shell bit and flicked it at him.

  "Ow! Ow! Dammit! You got my eye!" He recoiled and stumbled backwards, smacking into the counter.

  "I did not."

  "Take a look! Take a look! Is it protruding?"

  "Move your hand away so I can see."

  "I think you poked my iris, dude!"

  "Move your hand."

  "Oh, crap, I'm gonna be seeing eggshell for the rest of my life!"

  "Move your hand." I grabbed his hand and pulled it away from his eye. "I can't see it."

  "It's in there!"

  "Okay, I see it. It's not jutting out or anything; it's just stuck in the corner."

  "Oh, crap . . ."

  "It's no big deal. We'll just run some water on it."

  "What if the water flushes it up under my eyelid? It could slice my eye all up! Oh, crap . . ."

  "Stop being such a baby. It's just a tiny little speck of eggshell in your eye." I took a dishcloth out of the sink, ran it under some cold water, and twisted the corner. "Don't move."

  "What are you gonna do?"

  "I'm gonna scrub your eye out with a scouring pad. What do you think I'm gonna do? I'm going to flick the shell out."

  "Be careful."

  I poked at the corner of his eye with the cloth. I could no longer see the piece of eggshell.

  "It's out."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yeah."

  "I can still kind of feel it."

  "Well, it's not in your eye anymore."

  Dave rubbed his eye. "Thanks, dude."

  "No problem. Can we go back to making the cake now?"

  "Yeah, yeah, sure thing."

  I stirred until the batter was completely mixed, then I poured it out into the pan. "When should we add the tarantula?"

  "I'd say now."

  "How do we kill it?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "How. Do. We. Kill. It."

  "Just bake it."

  "We can't just throw a live tarantula into the oven! That's cruel!"

  "Dude, it's a bug."

  "I don't care. You don't cook things alive like that. It's uncool."

  "That's how they boil lobsters. And I think it's how they cook deer."

  "Well, it's not gonna happen in my oven."

  "Maybe it'll drown in the batter first."

  "Shut up." I peered at the spider, which was crawling around on a miniature plastic log. "So what's a quick and humane way to kill it?"

  "Stomp on it?"

  "Get the hell out of my apartment, dumbass."

  "What?" Dave asked. "I wasn't saying that you should stomp it flat and scrape the mess off into the batter. But you could, y'know, stomp on it gently and break its back or something."

  "No."

  "Cut off its head. It'll still look like a tarantula."

  "This would've been a lot easier if you had just brought home a dead one in the firs
t place."

  "They don't sell dead tarantulas locally! I already told you that! Maybe we could poison it."

  "The cake?"

  "The tarantula. To kill it."

  I considered that. "I don't think I have any spider poison."

  "Do you have any ant poison? That would probably work."

  "No. I don't keep a lot of poison in the apartment."

  "Do you have any cigarettes? We could blow smoke in there until it chokes to death."

  Instead of calling Dave a moron, I gave him a look that said, "You're a moron."

  "Fine. You're the leader of the 'Be Humane To Cuddly-Wuddly Spiders' movement, you decide how to kill it."

  "I don't know! I have no idea how to kill a tarantula without squishing it. Screw it. Let's just bake the stupid thing." I turned on the oven.

  "We should name him."

  "Yeah, sure, let's give a name to the creature that's going to die a horrible, agonizing death because of us. Let's call him Timmy the Tarantula and paint a smiley face on his back."

  "We could name him Eight-Legged Vengeance."

  "Don't be such a frickin' — actually, that's pretty cool. Let's go with that." I tapped on the aquarium. "Hello, Eight-Legged Vengeance. How's it going?"

  Eight-Legged Vengeance did not respond.

  "Maybe we should feed it a mouse as one last meal," Dave suggested.

  "Do you have a mouse?"

  "No. But I could go get one. I think the pet shop had mice."

  I started to give him another "You're a moron" look, but decided that it wasn't worth it. "Let's just put him in the batter and get it over with."

  "Sounds good."

  I lifted the top off the aquarium. "Okay, reach in there and grab him."

  "Yeah, that's gonna happen."

  "What, you're scared?"

  "It's a tarantula! They're venomous!"

  "No, they're not."

  "You do it."

  I reached inside the aquarium, stopping a few inches away from the arachnid.

  "So pick it up," Dave urged.

  "I'm going to."

  "I hope it doesn't take your hand off."