With Ninjas

Sharon isn't really sure how she feels about her summer job as a substitute clown for a children's party service. Until, that is, she's called to stand in at the McKeon party.

The ad said, “Join the elite: be a CLOWN!” It was enough that it caught Sharon's attention. After all, since when do clowns have recruiting slogans that make them sound like the US Marine Corps?

“The few. The proud. The funny,” she'd paraphrased to herself as she filled out the detailed e-mail application form, while she giggled.

The novelty wore off quickly, though, as she slogged through page after page of really detailed background questions. Some of them were about her financial background, some were about her criminal history, some were about whether or not she was registered to carry a firearm. The application was a little strange, but as an architecture major, she just shrugged it off. Working with kids probably forced them to ask all these questions. Make sure she wasn't some kind of gun toting pervert who'd take kids hostage, or worse. She was sure that Mark, an education major, complained about all the interview and application requirements for people who wanted to work in any kind of school environment.

Still, a job was a job, and Sharon submitted the application. It was a week afterwards, one week into the summer semester break, that she received an e-mail back telling her that she'd been hired to, “...perform the substitute duties for a CLOWN who has gone MIA because of a PIE.”

Rolling her eyes at their dedication to the whole inappropriate caps, and continued emphases on the whole Marine clown vibe, Sharon clicked the reply button and acknowledged that she'd be picked up at the designated point, so she could be briefed (and she guessed that “de-briefing a clown” involved pulling his pants down in front of the kids) and given her costume before the party.

It was a summer job. It was all by e-mail. And they were clowns. It had to be part of their professional communication motifs. Like how, when asked to design a Greek restaurant, an architect planned for columns. Lots of columns. An overkill of columns. It made people snap many of their pencils at the drafting board that their creative genius (architects can be of that temperament) was wasted on having to cut-and-paste the only recognizably Greek thing to accommodate patrons who didn't know better. Sharon definitely felt bad for the publicist and HR people who had to type these want ads and employment letters, having been subjected to some of those same kinds of assignments before.

Two days later, a giant black conversion van pulled up to the curb outside Sharon's apartment. It had cheap magnetic signs on the side, the kind you can order anywhere on the Internet, when you're too poor to afford professional design people and professional printing services.

CLOWN SERVICES
DISCRETE PIES
Blatant Seltzer
Minimal collateral damage
BOOK YOUR PARTY TODAY!

The signs made her snort softly, but she stopped quickly once the back door slid open to a windowless inside. She was invited in, by name, from a clown dressed all in white. Stepping up into the van's cabin, she noted that all of the clowns there were famous clowns. At least, they were people dressed like famous clowns. She recognized Pagliacci from her one semester where she took Music Appreciation for one of her credit course pre-reqs. Bozo was driving, and his boon companion Cookie was in the passenger seat, going over something on a clipboard. There was also the Jack Nicholson version of Joker, and a black clown she didn't recognize. Maybe they ran out of iconic clowns for this guy to be recognizable to anyone.

The black clown turned to face Sharon, from a little stool mounted into the van's floor, and introduced the crew in a matter-of-fact manner, using only their stage names. He shook her hand and identified himself as “Homey,” whoever that was.

She was going to fill in for Emmett, who was their videographer. As straight-faced as a man in face paint could manage, Homey explained that Emmett wasn't there today because he was the victim of a pie from the last party they attended. Joker gave her a rundown of the shoulder-mounted news-style camera, which buttons to push and not to push while they were at the party, so that everything could be saved for review later. Throwing her the iconic hobo rags of the sad clown Emmett Kelley, Homey began the briefing on the party, waiting until Sharon was “briefing” herself in Emmett's pants.

Homey explained that they were going to be the clowns for the McKeon party. He was an older Irishman, having changed his name since originally serving in the Provisional IRA during the era when they attempted to bomb Prime Minister Thatcher in '84. Since then, he's become socially reclusive, and kept mostly to himself, but his son wanted clowns for his tenth birthday, and this van of clowns was obliged to attend and give a party the kid would never forget. Homey went over a list of security measures they'd been given, about where the clowns were and were not allowed to be, and that Sharon wasn't going to be allowed past the back porch and pool deck, and McKeon wasn't a fan of video cameras to begin with, and wasn't going to tolerate them anywhere except his son's party.

The van drove off, after that, and everyone was pretty quiet. Sharon just assumed that comedy was serious business, as the saying goes. It also probably didn't help anyone's nerves that they were basically attending a party for a former terrorist and Irish mobster recluse. Thinking maybe she should just “accidentally” not push the record button, feign stupidity, and collect her one and only paycheck this summer, Sharon wondered if getting this on tape was safe for anyone involved.

It was surprisingly congenial, and the first hour, of the four-hour party, went pretty well. There were security guards everywhere around the three-story mansion, and after a while, they became invisible to even Sharon, as she focused on her job of taping the young kids having fun at the party while everyone did tricks and clown stuff. Bozo and Cookie even held a version of the old Grand Prize Game, which Sharon was reasonably sure would get this small clown outfit sued into oblivion if anyone ever caught them at it. Pagliacci would have a turn in a solo performance where he sang and told stories. Just not his story, which was inappropriate for both clowns and young children. The rest of the clowns, Joker, Bozo, Cookie, and Homey, went inside to collect payment and maybe get some return business from McKeon during Pagliacci's singing sketch comedy.

That's when things went insane.

Sharon heard what she thought were party poppers inside the house, and turned the camera away from the kids, with her own body to see what was going on. It turned out to not be party poppers. Joker had pulled a long, long pistol from his pants and shot one of the guards. Bozo and Cookie were in the middle of hand-to-hand combat with a few more. On camera, Sharon was able to see Homey pull a small gun from the sock he carried around, and shoot McKeon twice in the face, in his study.

While the French doors were curtained and hard to see through, unless you were backed up to them, with a video camera, the kids heard the popping and tried to get to the door and see what exciting things were going on inside. Sharon did her best to block the kids from the doors, to see what was going on, while two of the security officers she'd forgotten about earlier came out with guns leveled at her and Pagliacci. With lightning alacrity, the pale clown produced a pair of combat knives from nowhere and ended the guards' lives in a dazzling display of brutality.

At a command from Pagliacci, she pressed one of the buttons she was told not to press on the camera, and a small gun fell into her hand. With just a shout Pagliacci had her save his life as she swung the gun his direction and emptied the small magazine into one of the guards coming up on the white clown.

There was a lot of running after that, and a squealing escape in the van.

Inside the van, everyone was panting and their makeup either sweating off, or being smeared off with blood, along with all the ruined costumes. Still in shell shock, Sharon only just began processing what happened.

“What the hell kinds of clowns are you!?”

Homey gave her a long stare, and in a Samuel Jackson baritone, admonished her that, “You haven't been listening. We're not clowns. We're CLOWNS. Covert Liquidation Ops With Ninjas.”

“You're what? Clown hitmen? Ninjas?”

“Yes. What about that hasn't been obvious from the beginning?”

“... … Can I be Harley Quinn next time?”

Joker laughed all the way back to the safe house.

Author's Note

Originally submitted to a flash fiction contest (defined as 500 - 1,500 words) back in October 2014 with the prompt, "Sharon isn't really sure how she feels about her summer job as a substitute clown for a children's party service. Until, that is, she's called to stand in at the McKeon party."

Word count is 1,490.

The entry was submitted under one of my pseudonyms, Jaime Mooreland.