Jojo smiled at his daughter. “It took me almost twenty years, but I finally fixed her for you.”
Taffy looked in her father’s eyes. She had no idea he’d still been working on her doll all these years, trying to accomplish the impossible in order to make her happy, even after she grew up and no longer had any interest in dolls or toys.
“Tutti-Frutti…,” Taffy said, not even caring about ruining her makeup as tears ran down her cheeks.
As his daughter hugged the clown princess to her chest, Jojo no longer saw her as an adult bride about to be married off and start a family of her own. Before his eyes, she transformed into Jojo’s little girl again. She became the sweet seven-year-old who dreamed of one day becoming a clown princess like Tutti-Frutti.
“You always called that doll the prettiest princess in the world,” Jojo said. “But that’s just a hunk of plastic. If you ask me, you’re the real deal.”
Taffy wiped her pink nose against his suit as she hugged him with all her strength. She wouldn’t let go of Tutti-Frutti, even as Jojo helped her onto the horse. She probably would’ve walked down the aisle holding the doll if he hadn’t taken it away from her and put it in the saddlebag.
Chapter 139
As the doors of the church were thrown open, the place erupted into the most beautiful circus music that any clown had ever heard. Bingo Ballbreaker led the clown orchestra, playing his violin with such passion that it affected every person in the building. Even Hats Rizzo and Jackie the Grump were moved to tears, passing a tissue back and forth to each other. And Taffy, riding her pony, was the most beautiful clown bride anyone had ever seen. It was a perfect moment. The stuff of fairy tales. And as Jojo led the pony by the reins down the aisle, he, too, got swept up in the moment. He suddenly got it in his head that everything was perfect, that nothing could possibly go wrong with the wedding.
But that moment was short-lived. As he walked closer to Reverend Jellybottom and Pinky Smiles—the groom waiting with bated breath in his slick pink tuxedo, so blown away by his bride’s beauty that he, of all people, couldn’t even smile—he saw who was sitting in the seat next to his drunken wife, Gianna. Because Jimmy was a family member, he and his guest were seated in the front row with the rest of the Bozos. And Jimmy sat Pepper right next to Gianna.
It was at that exact moment that Pepper decided to tell Jojo’s wife about the affair. Pepper looked Jojo in the eyes and smiled, then she whispered in Gianna’s ear. Now, his wife was short-tempered, but she wasn’t the type to make a scene. However, with all that wine she’d drunk, mixed with her medication, she was completely inebriated. She didn’t even know what she was doing when she stood from her chair, charged down the aisle, and slapped her husband across the face right in front of everyone.
The music stopped and every clown in the church dropped their jaws.
“You son of a bitch!” Gianna’s voice echoed through the building “You’re fucking that little whore behind my back?”
Taffy was so absorbed in the moment that she was the last person to realize what was going on. But once she saw her belligerent mother in the center of the aisle, screaming at her father about sleeping around, her heart nearly stopped.
“Mom!” Taffy cried, her face turning red.
Her mother yelled, “It’s not my fault your father’s a no-good pig!” Then she smacked her husband again. “How could you do this to me? You said you’d never do it again. Do you know how stupid you’ve made me look?”
Jojo tried to calm his wife down, but she was out of control. She wanted everyone in the room to know what a rotten son of a bitch he was. Pepper and Jimmy just laughed their asses off as Gianna went off on him.
“Calm down,” Jojo said. “This isn’t the time.”
While they caused the scene, nobody saw the French clowns coming, not even the clowns working security. With the entrance to the church wide open, a single clown car pulled up to the church steps. The doors flew open. Then, from just the single car, dozens of clowns poured out one at a time—a small army of jesters carrying popcorn tommy guns.
Chapter 140
As the gunfire erupted in the church, the pony freaked out. He threw Taffy off his back, dropping her headfirst into the floor, flattening the elegant hairstyle that she’d spent all day preparing. Then the pony kicked Jojo in the ribs and he fell on top of his wife, who was still cursing and smacking him. She didn’t seem to care or realize that the church had been turned into a war zone.
Within two minutes, the French clowns tore through the clown security Jojo had hired to protect the wedding. Then they turned their fire on the rest of the church. Old women dove under their seats, mothers used their own bodies to cover their children, and ushers dropped to the floor, while members of the Bozo Family pulled guns out of their suits and returned fire.
“Get down!” Vinnie Blue Nose yelled to the crowd while loading a clip of happy bullets.
Reverend Jellybottom knocked over the shrieking bridesmaids while trying to get to safety, pushing women and children out of his way to the back exit.
“Taffy!” Pinky Smiles cried as he saw his bride tangled up in her own wedding dress, right in the middle of the chaos.
The groom ran down the aisle, pulling a pistol from an ankle holster and firing as he went. He shot flower bullets, which caused roses to grow from the wounds of the clowns he hit. Pink and blue roses bloomed throughout the room, which coincidentally matched his wedding colors.
He got in front of his bride to act as a shield, taking two popcorn bullets to his upper back as he helped Taffy to her feet. But even as the bullets exploded in his body, they didn’t stop him from saving the woman he loved. He didn’t even realize red spots were forming on his pink tuxedo until he’d gotten her to safety. The clown who was supposed to be his best man, Captain Spotty, came to his aid to stop the bleeding. Taffy screamed at him, begging him to save the boy.
The French clowns threw pies into the pews, which exploded on impact, sending bits of wood and shredded suits into the air. As the explosions died down, Don Bozo blew up a collection of balloons and twisted them into the shape of a machine gun. He stood up, pointing his balloon weapon at the pie throwers, and filled them with bullets before another exploding dessert could be tossed.
Jojo stayed on the ground, hiding his face beneath his drunken wife’s fists. He wanted to run, but could hardly move after getting kicked by the pony. He thought at least two of his ribs were broken. No matter what happened to him, he was relieved that the groom got his daughter to safety.
“You dirty bastard!” his wife cried, clawing at his face.
But even with his wife on top of him, he couldn’t remain hidden from the enemy.
“You’re a dead clown, Jojo,” Daddy Longlegs yelled, stepping through the church on his massive stilt legs.
The chef capitaine of Le Mystère carried a bottle-rocket launcher—a device that wasn’t normally used as a weapon. It looked like a cross between a Gatling gun and a rocket launcher, only the mini rockets it rapidly fired were supposed to be used in firework displays.
Jojo grabbed his wife and rolled out of the aisle, between two rows of seats, as Daddy Longlegs fired dozens of rockets at them. The room lit up with colorful explosions as the rockets burst above Jojo’s head. Some of the fireworks created shapes as they went off, such as hearts and stars. Jojo would have been in awe of the colorful lights if they weren’t meant to kill him.
“Would you cut it out already?” Jojo said to his wife as she continued smacking him.
One rocket bounced off the back of a seat and exploded near the orchestra. Bingo Ballbreaker looked down. The explosion had created a scratch on his violin. It was the tiniest scratch that probably wouldn’t even be visible to the naked eye, but Bingo could see it. He could almost hear his beloved crying out in pain.
“Melinda…,” he cried.
Then Bingo looked up at the clown who’d injured his precious violin. His eyes tightened around the sight of Daddy Long
legs. He put his violin back in the case, straightened his suit, and charged the clown on stilts.
“You killed my sons, you miserable bastard,” Longlegs yelled at Jojo, creeping toward him like a spider.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Jojo cried. “I’m sorry.”
Jojo had a gun on him but couldn’t reach it with his wife still beating on him.
“Don’t apologize to me, apologize to my sons.”
Longlegs got right up to Jojo’s hiding spot and aimed his weapon at the clown’s head. Gianna finally sobered up to what was going on around her. She got off her husband and crawled away.
“I’ll send you to Hell so you can tell them yourself,” Longlegs said.
Then Bingo Ballbreaker barreled through the seats and tackled Daddy Longlegs. The brawny clown went straight through the Frenchman’s stilts, breaking them in half. Then he threw him to the ground.
“This is for Melinda,” Bingo said, as he punched the legless clown in the mouth.
Jojo used that opportunity to escape. He held his broken ribs and forced himself to his knees. Then he crawled under the gunfire and escaped into the bathroom.
Chapter 141
The bathroom was full of cowering wedding guests. Two of them were security guards he’d hired for the event, the only two left alive. When Jojo saw them, he was pissed.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” he yelled at the security clowns. “Get the hell out there and do your fucking job.”
The clowns wouldn’t move. Jojo didn’t have the patience to deal with them.
“Suit yourself,” Jojo said, then he pulled out his handgun and shot them both between the eyes.
The other wedding guests screamed as the security clowns flopped to the floor. When Jojo turned his back, they ran out of the bathroom before he turned on them.
He ripped open his shirt and wound up his heart. Then he washed his face and pulled up his shirt to examine the dent in the side of his chest.
“You really fucked things up, didn’t you?” his reflection said to him.
Jojo couldn’t disagree with himself. “Yeah, I sure did, didn’t I? You think Taffy will ever forgive me?”
“No.” His mirror image laughed. “You turned the happiest day of her life into a bloodbath. Did you see her groom out there? You nearly got him killed.”
Jojo groaned. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“So what are you going to do now?” his reflection asked. “You just going to hide in here until it’s all over?”
“That’s what I was thinking, yeah,” Jojo said.
“Are you that big of a coward? Your daughter’s still out there, so is your wife and brother. You’re the one who caused this mess. You should be the one to fix it.”
“What do you expect me to do? Kill all those French bastards single-handedly?”
“Yeah, if you have to. Or you could die trying. That’s what a real clown would do.”
Jojo shook his head. “It shouldn’t last much longer. I’m just going to let it run its course.”
“You worthless piece of crap,” the mirror said. “Are you telling me when this is all done your only contribution will be killing two of your own guys for hiding in the bathroom?”
“Guess so,” Jojo said.
His reflection shook his head at him. He didn’t respect himself in any way at that moment. “I thought you were a clown with brass gumballs. What happened to you? You’ve become soft in your old age. Where’s the clown who helped build the Bozo Family from a group of no-good gutter brats into the kings of Little Bigtop?”
Jojo couldn’t look himself in the eyes.
“You need to go back out there and show those bastards what you’re made of,” his reflection said. “It’s the least you can do. If you won’t do it for yourself, at least do it for your daughter. Do it for your family…even if they all probably want you dead.”
Jojo took a deep breath. He checked how many bullets he had in his clip, then held it up and nodded.
“Okay, we’ll do it your way,” Jojo said. “We’ll show them just what kind of stuff Uncle Jojo’s made of.”
Chapter 142
But there was nothing Jojo could do to make up for all that he’d done. As he stepped out of the bathroom, the first thing he saw was a metal chair coming at his face. The seat collided with his forehead and he crumpled to the ground.
“How’s it going, Uncle Jojo?” Jimmy Bozo said, leaning over Jojo with the chair propped on his shoulder. Bullets flew over his head and shoulders, but the kid seemed to have no worries of getting hit.
Then he smacked his uncle again.
“Jimmy, you got to understand…”
His nephew kicked him in the teeth. “Understand what? That you sold me out because you were afraid of Le Mystère? What kind of coward are you?”
Jojo tried to guard his face as the chair hit him again. “I was worried about my daughter.”
“Well, you had nothing to worry about,” Jimmy said. “We’re Bozos. We made short work of those bastards, even when they got the jump on us.”
Jojo looked around the room. The French clowns were fleeing. Bingo Ballbreaker picked Daddy Longlegs off the ground and snapped his neck, then threw his limp body at the fleeing Frenchmen. It was over. In the end, the Bozos wiped the floor with them.
A high-heeled shoe stabbed Jojo in the cheek. He cried out and looked up to see Pepper standing over him, kicking him with her heel.
“You tried to have me killed, you bastard?” Pepper cried, shoving her heel in his crotch. “You actually tried to have me killed? Just because I loved you so much!”
Pepper and Jimmy took turns beating the crap out of Uncle Jojo. Once Gianna saw what was happening, she came over and helped them out, calling him a fat bastard with every swing of her foot. And then, after it was assured that Pinky would be okay, Taffy joined in. She was so pissed that her wedding was ruined that she took out her aggression on her father, punching, kicking, and screaming at him in her blood-soaked wedding dress.
And as she kicked her father, all the bride could say was, “I was supposed to be a princess! I was supposed to be a princess!”
As he was being beaten, Jojo stared at his reflection in a pool of his own blood, but his reflection just shrugged and said, “Don’t look at me. If I could, I’d be with them beating the crap out of you myself.”
Then Jojo felt his heart giving out again. He pulled out the brass key and put it into the hole in his chest. But as he turned, the key snapped in half. The old rusty piece of crap had finally given out.
He looked at the broken piece of key and said, “Cheap piece of shit…”
Then he curled in a ball and let his loved ones beat him half to death.
About the Author
CARLTON MELLICK III is one of the leading authors in the bizarro fiction genre—a booming underground movement that strives to bring weird, crazy, entertaining literature to the masses. He has had more than forty-five books in print since 2001, including Quicksand House, Hungry Bug, and I Knocked Up Satan’s Daughter, and has been translated into Italian, German, Russian, Polish, and Japanese. He lives in Portland, Oregon, the clown capital of the world.
carltonmellick.com
@carltonmellick3
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