Miming is for Lovers, part one.

a story about clowns and love, with a little bit of jewish guilt thrown in there for good measure.

Every morning was the same for Bernie Fineman. At 6:15 am, his alarm would sound, thrusting waves of music through his two bedroom apartment that lay delicately between the apartments of Eloise Hammerstein; the eighty-five year old widow who sometimes cooked old world favorites, and Harry Berkoff; a grouchy forty year old bachelor from Brooklyn who had somehow made his way to the windy city of Chicago.

            When the music from his alarm stopped, Bernie would take a three minute shower while singing a Frank Sinatra song—always a Frank Sinatra song. At 6:45 am, white makeup would be applied to Bernie’s face and accompanied by grey-ish stubble painted messily with fingertips. Red lipstick and black eyeliner adorned his face and by 7:55 am, Bernie would be fully clothed and ready for the eleven minute ride to his office in the city.

Before leaving for the day, Bernie would make sure the purple lapels of his suit jacket weren’t crumpled and place a hot pink lily in the right breast pocket. He’d carry his size fifteen shoes under his arm, make sure his rainbow suspenders were attached to polka dotted pants that happened to be three sizes too big, and lock the door.

When Bernie clocked in at work, it would be 8:15 am. He would thrust his stamp card into the machine and place it in its holder. He would then walk to the coffee room and sit down on the end of the coffee room couch, where he would wait five minutes for his new friend Carl to saunter in like the John Wayne of clowns and sit down next to him with piping hot coffee in a mug reading #1 Abba which was written in Hebrew. Together the two would sit and wait to be called for a birthday party or better yet, an upscale Bar Mitzvah where they could do more exciting animal balloons like dollar signs they called Bling and the vibrant characters from Family Guy.

When nine o’clock passed by, Miss Honeypie, the only clown who could turn herself into a human pretzel, would come into the coffee room and sit on the coffee room couch with Bernie and Carl. She would sip hot tea and read a chapter in Making Faces by Kevyn Aucoin. At ten, when she would leave for the Wrigleyville community center, she would offer a smile to Bernie. He would smile back and blush.

 

Author's Note

publishable?

Reviews

[luthien7]

Curious, is this just a bit of the story or a complete chapter? It's good and I've become interested in what is going to to happen to Bernie, what the rest of his day will be like. don't think it is complete as a chapter but as a lead in to the story it works great. Nice job in your description of mundane, day to day things, and making the reader want to check out part 2.
THanks