48 Hour Short Story Contest

“What the hell did you think you were doin’?” Tracy yelled at Jason, punctuating each word with a pointed finger to his wet, polka dotted chest for emphasis. “You started this new business thinking you would make us some extra money, and look what has happened? We are broke and probably going to be sued, because you couldn’t keep your hands off the kids’ mom! I got a call from Mr. Shaffer!”

Jason was still soaking wet and embarrassed at Tracy’s accusations. He was getting angrier by the minute. He could see that Tracey was not letting up any time soon. These arguments always ended the same way. She intended to fight all night… again. More and more this happened. She was jealous and angry and mean-spirited when she got like this. Her jealousy was well known among their friends and usually ended in tirades where she accused him of sleeping with every woman he came in contact with.

He removed the soggy rainbow colored hair that was still dripping water on the kitchen floor, but forgot that he was still wearing the big round light up nose. “Trace will you listen to yourself? You are a mad woman! Listen and I will tell you what happened!” Jason was yelling now too. The sound activated nose was blinking on and off frantically as his words reached fevered pitch.

“I did not grope Molly. I know he says I did, but I didn’t. I was really trying to be helpful.” Jason finally realized that he was yelling and he took a deep breath to bring his voice down to a normal tone to try and talk reason to Tracy. The soft glow from his nose highlighted her face at intervals.

“HELPFUL? You were trying to be helpful? You had your hand down her dress, you clown!” Tracy yelled. “And now you are on a first name basis with her? Molly? You are close enough to call her Molly? When you left home this afternoon, her name was Mrs. Shaffer!”

Jason may have brought his voice down a few notches, but Tracy was not giving up that easily. She had points to make and darn it, she was going to make them. “How can you explain that, Jason? How?”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain to you if you will just be quiet.” Jason spoke calmly and even a little patronizing, as adults often do when they speak to little children. “I pulled up to the house in my wiener mobile. I turned on the music to play, ‘Happy, Happy Birthday’ over the loudspeaker and all the kids came running out to see it. Molly, umm, I mean, Mrs. Shaffer, came out too and asked if she could help me to take anything to the backyard to the party site. I handed her the large inflatable hammer and she carried it to the house. I carried the big box of my party tricks. As we were walking in, we were laughing and chatting and she told me to call her Molly to differentiate between all the kids calling her Mrs. Shaffer.

That Tommy of hers is a real brat, Trace. All the way from the car to the pool area, he was running along kicking me on the ankle and calf. The whole time he was screaming, ‘I didn’t want a stupid clown! I wanted a magician! I hate clowns! I hate clowns!’ Tracy, he was barefooted but his toes felt like little spikes in my ankle and calf. By the time I got to the pool, I was limping. I felt like turning around and belting the little snot.”

Tracy tapped her long manicured fingernails on the table annoyingly as she listened to him talk. She was impatient to hear what he had to say, knowing that she wouldn’t believe him anyway, but she had calmed down some and gave the impression of listening.

“Tracy, do you remember when I told you to get these shoes for me? Well you got them three sizes too big, remember?” They both looked down at the large bulbous toed red paten leather shoes. “You bought them too big. I told you they were too big but you wouldn’t take them back to the store and get them a size or three smaller. Nooo, you said you were too busy to do that. You had time to get your nails done, a massage, a facial, and a new hairdo, but you didn’t have time to exchange the shoes. When I got dressed this morning, I stuck socks in the toes to fill them out but they still felt too big.”

Tracy felt her indignation rise and responded testily, “Jason, it is not so easy to return clown shoes. It’s not like I could just run down to PayLess at the mall. I had to drive to the city to Clown Central to replace them. I didn’t have time to take half a day off from work to go.”

“Ok, Ok, don’t get upset again.” Jason knew he was getting in hot water and had better get back to his story. “Did I tell you that Molly, … erm, I mean, Mrs. Shaffer, has a large kidney shaped swimming pool? There were lights hanging around it and all kinds of games set up for the kids. There was a table for me to put my magic cloth on with my, ‘Bubbles the Clown,” cover so I sat my box on the ground and put my cloth on. Just as I put it on and set the box back on the table and covered it with my Bubbles the Clown cloth, a grasshopper jumped on Molly’s dress strap and she screamed in fear! I went to brush the grasshopper off and I fell over these darned big shoes! My hand went down Mrs. Shaffer’s dress as we both fell into the swimming pool. The magic cloth was caught on my shoe. I pulled the magic cloth and all the magic tricks into the pool. They were floating all around and sinking to the bottom. Even my shoes came off my feet and went to the bottom. I think the socks I had stuffed in them went into the pool skimmer.”

Jason looked forlorn as he continued, “Tracy, she socked me right in the light up nose. I thought she was struggling so I tried to hoist her out of the pool. Just as I was pushing her out of the water with my hands on her butt cheeks, she turned around, screaming and cursing and calling me terrible names, right there in front of the kids! By then I realized that she could probably swim so I started diving to get my tricks out of the pool. I threw them to the side of the pool and Tommy would run and grab them and throw them right back in. It was terribly frustrating, Trace.”

Jason continued, “Tommy finally got tired of the game and went to the table to harass a little girl named Susie. I had just collected all of my things from the pool and put my shoes back on when Mr. Shaffer got home from work and came through the gate.

At first he was smiling and said, ‘What is going on here?’ and then he saw that Mrs. Shaffer was soakin’ wet and I was climbing out of the pool drenched. Then Tommy said, ‘Daddy, Bubbles the Clown put his hand down Mommy’s dress and then he put his hands on Mommy’s butt.’

Tracy, my heart was pounding 90 miles an hour. Mr. Shaffer stalked over to me and said real quiet-like, ‘Bubbles the Clown did WHAT?’ Tommy was laughing and repeating his story with relish, knowing that there was more action coming. He knew that his dad was going to do serious damage to me and he loved it, Tracy.

Molly was protesting as she stood there drenched. Mr. Schafer looked at Molly and said, ‘Molly, Did Bubbles the Clown put his hand down your dress and on your butt or didn’t he?’

Mrs. Schaffer said, ‘Yes, he did, but in his defense, it was all an accident and a misunderstanding.”

Mr. Shaffer picked up the soggy box and threw my tricks into the street, Trace. He took the inflatable hammer and bopped me on the head with it all the way to the street. It was not easy to walk with these big wet shoes on and no socks in the toes. The kids were laughing and yelling and then Tommy took the hammer from his Daddy and ran to the wiener mobile and began beating on it. I was just glad it was an inflatable hammer.”

“Oh Jason, you poor thing.” Tracy finally saw what had happened. It was strange though; Jason’s telling of the story was making her feel very close to him. She walked over to Jason and took his white gloved hand into her own and led him to the couch. As she began to unbutton the huge buttons from the front of his costume, he reached to take the red blinking nose off.

“No, Bubbles,” she purred, “let’s leave the light on.”

Yep, he was right. These arguments always ended the same way.

WORD COUNT: 1,544


PROMPTS:
* One scene in the story must include an argument.
* One character must be a clown.
* Three objects must appear in the story:
a grasshopper
a hammer
a shoe

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