Beautiful Tales for the Disenchanted: Squeak!

“Squeak!” is the second story produced for the Big Squid podcast under the banner of “Beautiful Tales for the Disenchanted”. With audio producer Shaun Allen, we’re creating these short stories as standalone adventures with plans down the road to create…well, that would be telling. Suffice to say we have some long term plans for this segment on the podcast and these are the first steps to achieving those goals. If you’d like to listen to the original audio (and Shaun has really knocked this out of the park) you can find the link here. I’d suggest listening to it in the dark at night with the covers pulled up around your neck, your head popping out just far enough so you can see if there is anything moving out there in the shadows.

———-

There is a place just for you.

A place that embraces the promise of a warm spring night.

And a reminder to hurry home on a cool autumn evening.

It is a place that exist above and below.

Where the surreal and the sublime dance cheek-to-cheek.

This is a place just for you.

To sit back and enjoy

Beautiful Tales for the Disenchanted.

Tonight’s story is called “Squeak!”

Larry pokes the dead clown with a stick.

He grins as the corpse feebly squeaks from somewhere deep inside its chest.  Whoever committed this murder really did a number on him.  He studies what remains of the face.  It looks like a wax sculpture left too close to a burning candle.  There are no defining features left to suggest who this clown used to be.  Just a mix of flesh, paint, and blood.  Larry wipes his brow with the back of his bloodied hand and laughs when he smells the gas escaping the body.  He closes his eyes, breathes it in, tastes it on the back of his throat.  For a moment he can’t smell the rubbish in the tip but that doesn’t last long and soon the dross of the city overwhelms his senses. 

Larry studies his surroundings and wonders how he can climb out of here.  Split waste bags spill their detritus, a tasty feast for the flies and the rats. Rotten fruit.  Warm plastic.  Wet meat.  Mingled together like violent lovers, burning the nose, stinging the eyes.  Looking upwards to the edge of the tip hollowed out trucks stand silently, dead mechanical dinosaurs, their wheezing and groaning lives long passed.  He figures he’ll have to climb his way out but when he steps into the rubbish his feet sink all the way up to his thighs.  He winces as he feels glass and metal and syringes cut into his feet and calves.  With considerable effort he pulls his leg free and looks at the blood soaking into his baggy yellow pants.  With no firm footholds he’ll need someone from above to help him escape, but Larry is alone, down amongst the refuse of the living.  He checks his watch with the cracked glass and the missing hands and smiles.  Someone will be along in time. 

To his left Larry notices a broken mirror catching the light.  He wanders over, picks it up and stares at his reflection.  He runs fat fingers over fleshy cheeks that struggle to cling to the bone.  His bloodshot eyes hide deep within their blue painted sockets.  Painted teeth smile under his bottom lip.  Larry opens his mouth wide to reveal broken yellow teeth that contrast with the painted white fangs on the outside of his broad maw.  He closes his mouth and continues to stare at his reflection.  Larry likes what he sees.  Even when he’s angry, he’s always smiling. 

He discards the mirror with a casual flick of his hand and looks straight up at the gun metal sky.  Crows the size of small dogs fly concentric circles, their cawing sounds like laughter to Larry.  Always the showman, he bows to his audience.  Above the crows, thick clouds rumble and threaten to rain.  This is not a surprise.  It rains all the time.  That’s how it goes these days. 

“Oy, what are you doin’ down there?”

Larry turns around and sees Sweeny, a shadow of a man, standing on the lip of the tip, naked and shivering.   He checks his watch and runs his fingers through his greasy red hair.  Right on time.

“I’m checking out this dead clown,” Larry replies.  He smiles that Hollywood smile.  “Where are your clothes?”

Sweeny wraps his thin arms around his pot belly.  Spindly legs struggle to hold him upright.  Black and white make-up streak down his face like the bars of a gaol cell.  A couple of tuffs of blonde hair suggest what once bloomed with abundance in the spring of his youth now cling to the scalp in the autumn of his years. 

“I’ve been fleeced mate,” yells Sweeny.  “I’ve been fleeced like eleven kinds of Wednesday.”

“That’s a lot of Wednesdays,” replies Larry.

“Tell me about it, mate.  Nobody has any respect anymore.”

“Why don’t you come down here,” says Larry.  “This dead clown might be able to provide you with some help in the clothes department.”

Sweeny feels something dark and awful rise from deep inside and spits it to the ground.  Dark phlegm mingles with the dirt, a trace of blood standing out like a still viable vein. 

“How will we get out of there, mate?” says Sweeny.

“It’s easy to escape if we work together.”

For a beat the clowns hear nothing but the whispering of the wind. 

“Alright,” says Sweeny.  He pushes at the edge of the pit with one foot and watches the rubbish fall away with ease.  He doesn’t like the look of this, but he is also cold and wet and lonely, and that dead clown isn’t going to need those clothes anymore.  Sweeny gently steps into the edge of the rubbish and before he knows it he’s sliding and falling, bouncing and rolling, crashing and flailing down into the hole.  He lands upside down and lays still trying to catch his breath.  Larry laughs heartily, slapping his knee with one hand, rubbing his tummy with the other.  Sweeny sits up and removes the banana skin plastered to his head.

“Looks like I slipped,” says Sweeny.

“Oldest gag in the book,” says Larry.

“I was the first clown to ever make that joke,” says Sweeny as he throws the banana skin to one side.

“Sure you did,” says Larry as he wipes tears of laughter from his eyes.  “It’s a classic and if it’s a classic, then old mate must have done it first.”

Sweeny stands slowly and walks over to the dead clown.  He leans down, presses its chest until it squeaks and breathes in the corpse’s gas.  He begins to giggle but the giggling quickly segues into coughing, his spine rattling up and down his back.  Larry watches as he wipes spittle from his mouth between his forefinger and thumb. 

“This clown owes me money,” says Sweeny. 

“Everyone owes you money,” says Larry.  “According to you that is.”

“What did you just say?”

Sweeny gives a look, and for a moment Larry wonders if the naked clown is going to have a go.  Have a crack.  Take a swing.  He knows that no one in this dead city ever calls out Sweeny’s behaviour.   Sweeny’s character is irrefutable.  Just ask him.  Larry stares back at Sweeny and pushes his fat finger all the way up into his cracked, red nose.  He stares at his fellow clown, sloshes his finger about before slowly pulling it out, never once breaking eye contact.  Blood and snot run down over his knuckles and along his arm.  Sweeny doesn’t move.  Sweeny doesn’t blink.  His broken face calms.  Creases flatten.  Skin smooths.  Sweeny knows this is a fight he can’t win.  Not with Larry looking right at him.  If only he still had his knife.  Then he’d teach Larry a lesson. 

“I think I might take that jacket,” says Sweeny. 

“Yeah,” says Larry.  “Good call.”

Sweeny bends down and rolls the dead clown onto his stomach eliciting another squeak from the corpse.  He pulls the arms back and shivers with delight as they crack.  He tears the tattered orange jacket loose, holds it up to admire the blood and mud stains, and then slips his thin arms into the bulbous sleeves.  The jacket fits perfectly.  He feels a moment of relief now he can’t feel the cold wind ripping through his body anymore.  He puts his hands inside the pockets.  They’re much deeper than they look.  Deep in the left pocket his numb fingers can feel an object smooth and sharp, an object that he recognises.  He immediately slips his hand out so Larry doesn’t suspect he’s found anything.   It takes all his will power to stop himself from revealing it immediately and cutting Larry right where he stands. 

“What did you find in those pockets, ya daft fool,” says Larry.  

“Mate, nothing in the left pocket,” says Sweeny.  “Sad for me.”

“Typical clown,” says Larry.

“Wait a minute…”

Sweeny pushes his hand further down into the right pocket and this time he does find some treasures.  He walks over to an upside-down cart, the casters long gone.  He flips it over and admires the art deco design dusted in rust that eats away at the veneer like an aggressive cancer.   He removes the objects from the right pocket and places them on the table.   

A pair of fake teeth.

A plastic bag full of glitter.

A black and white photo of a pretty girl.

A tattered piece of paper with words written in a column.

A handkerchief that he begins pulling out but once begun, feels like it is never going to end.  Sweeny gives up on the handkerchief, stuffs it back into the pocket and looks admiringly at the rest of his loot.  Before he can make a comment, Larry grabs the teeth and slips them into his mouth.  He smiles that old Hollywood smile.  His eyes stare back like a dead child at dawn.

“Oy,” says Sweeny.  “You’ve already got two sets of teeth.”

“Do they suit me?” says Larry.

“If you want to look like a dickhead,” says Sweeny.

“Maybe I do.”

“Maybe you do.”

They stop talking, stare at each other and are reminded of the onlookers above as the crows indecipherable vernacular fills the silence.  Larry and Sweeny bow in unison to acknowledge their feathered audience.  For these two clowns, everything is performance.  Nothing else matters.  Larry farts loudly.  Sweeny laughs and replies with his own fart. 

“I want his hair,” says Sweeny.

“Take it mate,” says Larry.

“And his pants and his shoes.”

“Take them too.”

“I will!”

“I know you will!”

“You know I was the first clown to wear hair, pants, and shoes.  Every clown who does that now copied me.”

“Sure mate,” says Larry.  “You were the first.  Everyone says so.”

Sweeny looks back at the dead clown, his thin body covered in sores and scrapes.  It reminds Sweeny of the sores on his chin.  He scratches at the scabs sprinkled across his cheeks, his nose, and his scalp.  They bleed as dirty fingernails drag over their surfaces.  Once they used to hurt but he’s used to it now.  A long time ago, back when the sky was blue and the wind was gentle, Sweeny was known by another name.  Back then he was going to live forever.  He was beautiful and smart.  He was charismatic and loving.  He was filled with great emotion and bubbled with ambition.  He loved a pretty girl.  What was her name?  That was another time.  Another age.  A long, long time ago.

“Maybe I’ll start with the shoes,” says Sweeny as he looks at the dead clown’s matted green hair.  He’d like to slip that wig over his bleeding scalp since the mud might cool his fevered brain.  Yet it looks like too much effort for now.  The shoes on the other hand look perfect and should slip away easily.

“Of course, mate.  Take the bloody shoes,” says Larry, his new teeth pushing against the insides of his fat cheeks. 

Sweeny grabs one of the big, long, bright yellow shoes but the mud and the blood make it difficult to get a good grip.  He pulls and he sighs, and he pulls at the shoe some more.  He loses his hold and nearly falls.  Larry guffaws but Sweeny doesn’t notice.  He wipes his hands on his new jacket, and then tries again.  Finally, the first shoe slips free with a mighty squeak.  Sweeny places the shoe to one side and grabs a hold of the second shoe.  This time it slips off easily, another squeak signalling success.  Sweeny holds them above his head in triumph as a slash of lightning bifurcates the sky.  Thunder follows soon after.  Rain begins to fall and one particularly fat drop smacks Sweeny in the face with an insouciance that takes him by surprise.

“My eye!” says Sweeny, his shoe victory already forgotten.

“Calm down, dickhead,” says Larry.  “It’s just a raindrop.”

“That’s easy for you to say mate,” says Sweeny.  “What if someone walked past and looked down at me and saw that fat drop rolling down my cheek and then thought, fuck me, Sweeny’s having a little cry, like some kinda soft clown.   Rumours would spread like wildfire and then other clowns might try to take advantage of me and my good nature.  What then?”

“Do you really think anyone still gives a rat’s arse about you?” says Larry while pulling a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his crushed purple velour jacket.  He removes a dart, lights up and blows smoke into the air over his new teeth.  He watches as the smoke suspends in the air in a geometrically pleasing shape before dispersing on the breeze, disappears in the rain.  He waits for a reply to his comment but Sweeny’s too busy looking at the shoes.  He slips them on, stands and looks towards Larry with disgust.

“They’re too big,” says Sweeny.

“They’re clown shoes!” says Larry.  “What did you expect, mate?  Stop your damn crying.”

“I’m not crying mate.  That was a big raindrop.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Larry enjoying his cigarette.  He’s bored with this conversation already.  He checks his broken watch again.  Not yet.  It will be time soon enough.  He watches as Sweeny shuffles over to the dead clown and begins to remove the oversized belt buckle.  He struggles with the clasp but just as he finally removes it, water shoots out from the buckle and hits Sweeny in the eyes.

“My eyes!” says Sweeny.

“Ya daft prick,” says Larry as he laughs.  “That clown’s booby trapped.  You can’t trust anyone these days, not even the dead.”

Sweeny feels the water stinging his eyes and for a moment he notices the voices in his head dissipate.  Memories return with such clarity that he stumbles to one side as he remembers why he become a clown in the first place.  He remembers his gifts.  He remembers the laughter.  He remembers the joy.  He remembers.  He looks at the dead clown he’s stripping naked and is overwhelmed with empathy for his dead brother.  Then the cold wind caresses his balls and Sweeny returns to the present, his memories long gone. 

He wrestles with the pants and once they finally come loose, he falls backwards into a mound of rubbish.  He stands up and kicks off the shoes.  He slips his thin scabby legs into the pants and then wraps the belt around his waist to keep them in place.  The pants are a perfect fit.  Sweeny raises his arms in triumph and looks to the sky, but as he does, a crow swoops down craps across his face.

“My eyes!” says Sweeny.

“You and your goddamn eyes!” yells Larry.

Sweeny is furious and picks up random objects and throws them at the laughing crows.  A coverless book.  A syringe.  Cheap jewellery.  None of the objects find their mark.  The lone crow continues to circle, cawing, laughing, and Sweeny feels the fury fill his veins.  He needs something smaller, something harder, something easier to aim.  He runs to the overturned cart, takes the bag of glitter, and stuffs his nose inside.  He takes a big sniff, and then with a mighty roar, he stuffs his hand in his mouth and pulls out a tooth.  He flicks it at the crow, hitting it in the wing.  He removes another tooth and flicks it at a different crow for another bullseye.  He repeats this action five more times until he has no more teeth to remove.  Sweeny doesn’t mind though.  He might no longer have any teeth, but it was worth it to remind these crows who the king is around here.

Larry watches all of this and can’t stop laughing.  He knows exactly what will come next.  It is almost time.  He notices that the crows are no longer laughing.  Their silence is unsettling.  They continue to glide and stare down at them in silent judgment.  Larry looks over at Sweeny who now holds the matted green wig of the dead clown.  He watches as Sweeny slips the wig onto his head and does a little jig.  He’s really feeling good about himself now.  Sweeny dances.  Sweeny shakes his hips.  Sweeny puts his forefingers into the corners of his mouth and pulls them up into a grotesque smile.  Sweeny laughs and presses his stomach, a squeak emanating from his belly.  He gives the thumbs up to Larry and looks down at the dead clown but is shocked to discover it is nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s the body?” says Sweeny.

“Made it disappear,” says Larry.

“How’d you do that?”

“Magic.”

“Of course,” says Sweeny.  “I taught you that trick.”

“Can’t believe you snorted all of that glitter and didn’t share any of it with your old pal,” says Larry. 

“I figured anything in the pockets belonged to me.”

“Fair enough,” replies Larry.  “What did the note say?”

“The note?” says Sweeny.  “Oh yeah, the note.  Just the usual.  Introduce yourself.  Talk to the crowd.  Random words like “plane story” and “toughest gig” and “my ex-wife”. Nothing new there. I’ve got my own folded up paper with a list on it.”

Larry nodded.

“We all do mate,” said Larry.  “Who was the girl in the photo?”

“Dunno,” says Sweeny.  “Don’t care.”

Larry smiles.

“She looks like someone you might have cared about back in the day,” he says.

“Don’t remember.  I’ll hold onto it anyway.”

He walks over to his stash and puts the photo and the rest of the glitter, the note and the photo back in the pockets.  He makes certain to put them in the pocket that doesn’t have the knife.  He just needs one more item before he kills Larry.

“Now could you help me out mate,” says Sweeny.  “I need some spare teeth; I seem to have misplaced mine.”

“No,” says Larry.  “The teeth are all mine.”

“So, they are.”

“So, they are.”

The two clowns at the bottom of the rubbish tip stare at each other.  They stare for a long time, attempting to read each other’s face.  A thin black drop of painted sweat dribbles down Sweeny’s forehead. Suddenly from above, a crow swoops down and caws at the clowns.  Sweeny looks up to yell at the bird but as he does this, Larry rushes over and grabs him by the shoulders.  They try to push each other to the ground but Larry is surprised to discover that Sweeny is much stronger than expected.  It shouldn’t be a surprise.  For all of Sweeny’s faults, he’s a survivor, always finds a way to get back on top.  He’d gladly step on the corpses of all the dead to touch the bottom rung of Heaven. 

Sweeny smiles as he sees Larry begin to doubt himself.  Larry’s knees begin to buckle.  Drool falls from his mouth.  Sweeny laughs.  He knows he is about to finally murder this pretender to his throne.  Just as Sweeny is about to throw Larry to the ground, he steps one foot behind him to gain better purchase but he steps on the banana skin.  He flies backwards, his feet pointing to the sky and lands on his back, his whole body giving an almighty squeak.  Larry knows this is his moment and leaps on to adversary.  Sweeny tries to push back but he suddenly realises his jacket is too big for him, and his leverage is lost in the sleeves.  He learns that his new pants are too large, and they strangle his waist.  His discovers his new wig isn’t fastened properly and falls across his eyes.  Larry pins him to the rubbish and slips his hand into Sweeny’s jacket pocket and removes the cold, steel knife.  Sweeny is shocked.  How did Larry know it was there in the first place?  Then it dawns on Sweeny.  This isn’t their first dance.

Larry raises the knife in the air as a sheet of lightning illuminates the tip.  Sweeny knows he’s done, and Larry obliges, slamming the knife deep into the clown’s squeaky heart.  His body jerks, wobbles and then finally comes to rest.  Once Larry is sure he is dead, he removes the knife and wipes it on the back of pants.  He places the knife deep down in the pocket of Sweeny’s jacket.  Larry might be exhausted but he’s also experienced.  All props should be returned for the next performance.  He removes the fake teeth and opens Sweeny’s mouth.    

Larry slowly steps away from the corpse to catch his breath.  A crow swoops down and lands on Sweeny’s face.  Then another crow lands on his leg.  Then another on his chest.  Before Larry can make sense of what is happening, Sweeny’s body is covered in crows.  They move backwards and forwards across the dead clown.  Then one crow lets out a loud caw and suddenly it is a feeding frenzy.  One crow tears the throat.  Another crow rips at the chest.  A couple of crows peck at the face.  The dead clown once known as Sweeny squeaks.  Larry is filled with fear, something he is not used to.  He falls to the ground, clawing at the rubbish as he tries to escape this scene.  He crawls on hands and knees up the steep walls of debris, but it is soft and easily comes apart in his hands.  He rolls backwards, arse over tit, until he crashes back down at the bottom.  Without warning the crows take to the air with stuffing in their beaks, glitter covering their black feathered bodies, their red eyes glowing in the half light of the tip.

“Fuck off crows!” says Larry.  “Show some respect!”

The crows circle above and begin to laugh.

“You’ve ruined everything!” says Larry.  “I’m a truth teller.  I’ll tell everyone what you did so carrion like you can’t get away with shit like this.”

Larry waves his fist at the air.  He waves and he shakes but the crows are no longer interested.  They’re engaged in their own secret conversations.  Larry rubs the back of his head.  He feels tired.  How long has he been down here?  Maybe it was time to leave the tip, go back into the city, find some other clowns.  He wouldn’t mind some company.  He’s been alone for a long time.  Where did all the fun go? 

Larry picks up a stick and wanders over to the dead clown.  He looks at the corpse and wonders who this used to be.  He pokes it with the stick and hears a squeak.  He grins as he stares at the otherworldly face, featureless, covered in cuts, paint, and blood.  He looks around the tip, at the maggots and the rats.  He can’t even remember how he came to be in this godforsaken place.  Larry closes his eyes and attempts to remember but his memories are gone, all that is left of him is instinct.  Larry looks at his watch.  He checks the time through the broken glass.  Nothing is the same, yet everything repeats.  From behind he hears a voice.

“Oy!  What’s goin’ on down there?” says the voice.

Larry blinks.  At the top of the tip his old mate Sweeny looks down, naked and shivering.  Finally, someone can help him get out of here.  But then a mischievous glint sparkles in the corners of Larry’s eyes. How many times has this happened before?

“You should come down and take a look,” says Larry.

From above the crows descend to watch the latest performance.  

Copyright Justin Hamilton 2022