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Jenny Myst · (06-17-2022)

Betty Sue Said:“Well, we really think GaRRy is still finding himself. 37 and never filed a tax return isn’t that unusual these days”

Just imagine... Frying up a slice of this. Watching it shrivel and char, neither of you blinking as you casually sip warm gin from a Burger King Spiderman 3 collector's cup. The edges of the slice begin to curl. They split. You are both fractured, you think. Or is it the Meat Clown who thinks that? Not sure. More gin. Sip and char. Char and sip.

No smoke detector, thank God. You took the nine volt out and used it in your blood pressure cuff. You drained it in a single afternoon. Over and over. Inflate. Too high. Deflate. Inflate. Too high. Deflate. Inflate...

Fat in the skillet pops and spatters your bare midriff, calling you back to the moment. The Meat Clown refocuses you. The Meat Clown knows you worry too much. The Meat Clown knows you scream in your sleep, which is why you don't sleep anymore.

The Meat Clown knows why you scream. Why you drink so much. The Meat Clown knows why you put a brick through your TV during a rerun of Maury Povich last week and why you ripped the wiring out of your bathroom wall.

The Meat Clown knows too much. It knows, deep down, that you're no different than it. Just one Meat Clown cooking the other. You know he'd do the same to you if he was the one wearing the Bermuda shorts and his ex-wife's mink slippers, and you were between two slices of stale Wonder Bread. He'd feel the same, too.

Nothing personal, old friend. Hush now. It'll be over soon.

No more pain, Meat Clown. No more pain.

"They're all Meat Clowns. Every single one. I have to do this dance over and over and it never changes, just a vicious cycle of meaningless fleshy bodies I have to dispatch one by one week after week........Meat Clown after Meat Clown steps up to the challenge. They think they know you. They come on TV and tell the world all about what they think of you. You come on the TV and you spill your entire life, all of your emotions--what tortures you and what relieves the pain--and every single time, just when you think you're stuck in a redundant revolving door of toxic sludge with the only end in sight at the end of a sawed off--it starts all over again. Pulling you back in on a new adventure you never even thought was possible. Every week a different clown face, but at the end of the day, they all taste the same.

I open the fridge, boom. There they are again.

I remember these from when I was a wee little girl. I used to pop out the eyes and eat them first.

So tender.

Now, I see them every where I go. Week after a week a new Meat Clown, staring me down with its evil grin. WHAT THE FUCK IS HE SO HAPPY ABOUT?!

I don't know how Charlie did it. It's enough to drive a sane person mad. So what will it drive a mad person? Sane?

Some people let the Meat Clown conquer them, others make a sandwich. Me? I have quite the appetite, and I also love making new friends! One good thing about this title...I get to make a new friend every week! A brand new Meat Clown! Yay!

I get to play a new game where I put my new friend to sleep.

BUT WHY DON'T THEY WAKE UP!

WAKE UP!

Sometimes, when all you know is pain, the only thing to take that pain away is more pain. It becomes an addiction. You crave it because it is the only thing you know. Being the Television Champion is a blessing because I get to re-live my pain every week, and maybe, eventually, if I am a good girl, I'll get to play with Alias again! Or whoever it is that runs the playground when the time comes. But, until then, I have to play with whoever is around.

Buncha meat clowns, I'll tell ya.

Carbamazepine. Tegretol. Lithium. Zyprexa. Prozac. Paxil. Zoloft…

"Remember Zoloft?" Meat Clown asks, his dead eyes suddenly full of life. "Didn't fix a damn thing, but you had the trots for six months. There you were. Crying and crapping. Crapping and crying."

That's not why Sarah left. It wasn't even the impotence, not that that helped matters. You were just "too much," she had said and then split, leaving nothing but her mink slippers that are currently soaking up the gin that you've been sweating out the last three days. Oh, you'd still be drinking if there was anything left, but things being what they are…

You'd have to go out to get more, and that wasn't gonna happen. Today, it was bad out there. Sunny, ninety-five degrees. No clouds. Mostly, it was too big out there. Just too damn BIG.

Ativan. Xanax. Risperidone. Clonazepam. None of those had helped, either.

"Focus, man," says Meat Clown from his bed of stale Wonder Bread. "You're drifting. What were you doing just now?"

You grip the kitchen counter and sag. Your vision begins to white out. You stammer.

"Muuu…making… a sandwich."

Is this delirium tremens, or that stroke you've been dreading since you watched Dad die? He did it right there on that very same sofa. Laughing at the idiots on Maury Povich with you, but only out of half of his face--the right side drooping, his eye drifting off-center as if he was trying to watch both the TV and your spiraling horror seated to the right of him simultaneously. You had asked if he was ok.

"B-b-bb- bb-buuu. B-b-b-b-b-B-B-B," he had said. Those were his last words. You still have no idea what he was trying to tell you. You resent him for it.

You slide down the counter to the floor and the world slowly fades back into its proper place. Your proper place. This closet you call an apartment. The concrete floor is cool on your sweat-slicked skin. You roll to your back and whisk your limbs against it, back and forth. You roll over and struggle to your knees to examine your work. You actually smile.

There, in the dust and bread crumbs, is the only art you’ve produced in the last six months. “Sweat Angel of Despair?” you say.

Meat Clown scoffs at you from the counter. “You always were shit with titles.”

" You're quite the story teller, aren't ya Ray Ray? That little ditty about the Mist Monster, it was just adorable. It just wanted to squeeze it!

*squeals, hugging the air.*

I love when people waste Vinnie's money with air time, only to get on the airwaves and compliment me when they don't mean to. A monster? Spooky? Devil woman? Swamp Thing?! Uhh! I'm flattered Ray Ray. The fact that you spent an entire promo telling the world how everyone is afraid of me and I am some unstoppable beast--well that's about the nicest thing anyone has said to me since I've been back here! Maybe GaRRold has a heart after all?!

It's a shame I have to rip it from his chest.

Or perhaps its reverse psychology? Perhaps you're patronizing me? Perhaps there is some sort of message in there between all of the terrible attempts at humor and you screaming into a camera while the narrator tries desperately to explain to all of us just what the fuck is truly going on. I swear I could HEAR him sweating. I watched the entire promo, back and forth, eight, nine, ten times. It was hard for even ME to follow. What does that tell you? Your narrator had the most vicious burn in the entire thing, and it came at the very end. HE said what YOU should have.

SPEAK YOUR MIND GARR-BEAR!

But instead you chose to take us on some adventure that had no relevant purpose, not say a single thing about me other than in your redneck little riddles and even then I have had hangnails hurt me worse. I wanted to play a game GaRRY, and I was hoping we could be friends. I guess I was aiming too high, huh?

You look like someone threw shit at you through a screen door. I shouldn't be surprised that your playing skills aren't up to par with the rest of the victims children.

It all starts this week. The original Meat Clown, those big eyes and dumb expression, dense as a Redwood forest. If Seth Green fucked a cockatiel, it's you, GaRRy.

All this 'Merica talk, its adorable! I can see what Page saw in you! I can see why he wanted you to be the future of this place. The slapboxing champion of Nelson county! Huh, who'd have thunk I'd be in the ring with royalty?!

You make me physically ill, GaRRison. And that is coming from ME of all people! I was never a fan of pork, anyway. Shame.

When my toy box rips the meat off your bones, searing flesh from the useless hunk it currently rests on with reckless abandon, you will be reduced to your true form. No longer will you be a Meat Clown, but just a clown. A skinless clown. A clown who isn't funny, what a conundrum!

You are so concerned about my skin suits. Almost as if you fear becoming one. Many times, people wrap their fear in a joke. They portray their fear as lighthearted but inside they are screaming like they are being burned alive. I swear I saw a stain on those Wranglers. It's just little ol' me, GaRR. I mean, you could probably eat me! Pack me right in that lip with your mouth mulch and spit me out with juice, right? Apparently. I mean, you did beat Bam Miller and Venom Xavier after-all. You're Godzilla and I am the little Japanese people running and yelling, pointing with wide eyes. I should be no match for you, right?

But you WERE right. I AM a monster. A monster that I can't control. A monster that has a ferocious appetite that I can't seem to satisfy. You dropped the ball last week, you failed at your one chance to make me look bad. You had me, the cards were in your hand, the chips on your side of the table. You could have embarrassed me. But you didn't. You took us for a ride, sure, but you crashed at the end, totaled the car, and got air lifted away from the wreck with injuries that even the best doctor can't heal.

You have a chance to make history tomorrow night, GaRRbear.

You get to be the first one to play with me and my newest toy! How exciting! And you get to be the first one to see just how interesting my toy box can be! I'd be flattered, but I am sure you're not. I mean, we can play with monster trucks if that's more your thing. We can feed Alka-Seltzer to birds and light plants on fire. We can rip the limbs off of kittens while they're still alive or melt the skin off of various wildlife with an acetylene torch.

Or just play jax or some shit.

Point is, I am versatile! I am willing to play whatever game you want but I must warn you, I don't play well with others. It's something I am working on, but I'm not perfect.

STOP JUDGING ME!

I don't judge people Double R, but its quite ironic of you to call me a monster when you look like you roofie yourself at bars. You've had one match in the XWF, I've lived through a war. This is what I do, GaRRy. You're time will come but right now, the time is mine. I have waited far too long for my recess, and I am not going to let you spoil it! You may not think very highly of me, and like I told Centurion, that's totally peachy because nobody does. I actually prefer it that way. I know you want to make a joke at my expense--err, I am going to assume the monster riff was a joke because you can't be THAT dumb--but when the lights go off tomorrow night and the arena empties out, I am the one who will be getting the final giggle.

I'll be damned if my newest toy gets taken from me by someone guy who smells like chewing tobacco and hot tar. So do me a favor....if you do nothing else for the rest of your time here.

Kiss Betty Sue, and tell her you love her. Kiss her long and deep while Billy Ray Cyrus's Greatest Hits plays in the background. Tell her that she is everything to you, because when you return to Nelson county, there is a very good chance that she won't even recognize you. Do something you love. Sit on your ripped couch and watch Fox news all day while drinking Busch beer in your favorite Cheeto and macaroni stained tee shirt. Do something you love because it may be the last chance you get.

“It’s time,” Meat Clown says. The Wonder Bread muffles his voice, much like a pillow would do. You’re pretty sure that he’s been crying.

It’s a sound you’re very familiar with–the sound of a voice choking on words as spit, snot, and tears soak a pillow. Your voice is lower-pitched than Meat Clown’s. Your words are usually less comprehensible than his. Between the two of you, Meat Clown is the reasonable one. If he was a soprano, you’d swear you’d traveled back in time to six weeks ago and that the plaintive, muffled words were Sarah’s.

Only she hadn’t said, “it’s time.” She had said, “I can’t.”

She had said it fifty-three times. You had counted. She had thought you were sleeping. You had let her believe that. If she had known that you had heard her, it would’ve broken her. You couldn’t let her know that you knew. She had been through enough already. You knew that, too. She doesn’t know that you knew. You’re glad it’s that way.

You had let her cry, knowing that she wouldn’t be beside you in the morning. And you had done so out of kindness. She’d be as crazy as you if she had stayed.

“Release me.” Those words are Meat Clown’s. You think.

You crawl to the counter and pull yourself to your feet. Your knees are a little weak, but your vision is clear. You’re stable enough, you think, for the moment. Your hand is steady as you reach for the top slice of bread. You remove it.

“No!” Meat Clown screams. “No no no NO NO NO NO!”

“I can't,” you say flatly. “Not yet.”

There is no perceptible change on Meat Clown’s charred face, but his tone shifts from fear to anger. “It’s time when I say it’s time! You know this!”

“What would happen if I didn’t?”

“Suffering!”

“Aren’t we doing that already?”

That’s when it happens. The charred edges of Meat Clown’s face begin to glow like cinders. They crackle and spark.

“Fine, then,” Meat Clown says. “Let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes. Hop hop, little bunny. Little bunny! LITTLE BUNNY! LITTLE BUNNY!”

Meat Clown’s voice rises–higher and higher, louder and louder–becoming a feedback squeal on a tape delay, ripping through your eardrums and stabbing deep into the folds of your temporal lobes. It becomes more than sound. It becomes the Platonic Ideal of Orange. It blinds you with its vividity, sears your nostrils and tongue with a citrus so tart that it burns. All five senses are awash in tangerine, but it is your mind which is being peeled.

Violently, you claw for the slice of Meat Clown. You shove it into your mouth in a large wad and chew like it’s the nuclear launch code and the terrorists are drilling through the silo door. You swallow.

The sensations fade as the Meat Clown hits your stomach acid. The tangerine nightmare becomes the usual muffled screams. These, too, fade, until you can barely hear him sobbing.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Over and over. You will only say it once, but not yet.

You stand there, staring at the grease stains on the slices of Wonder Bread on the floor and counter. One looks like a strange man. His face never seems to settle, its features constantly shifting.

The other stain is Sarah. It’s always Sarah.

You blink, then turn to the refrigerator and swing the door open.

“Hello,” says Meat Clown.

He’s there. He’s always there.

“I’m sorry,” you reply.

"Turns out Kenny was better off dying in all those episodes."

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