Clown Chronicles: Cool, Charlie's Calling

Allow me to begin my tale with a simple revelation. A tiny fragment of a much larger truth. An iota of deep meaning in a sea of random sarcasm and silly plot. This story makes no sense. It is not supposed to. It is not supposed to make you cry, or to make you think. This story will not send you spinning into weeks of quiet contemplation and silent conversations with yourself. It will not make you fall in love with the characters, or draw you in with its clever innuendos and beautifully articulated metaphors. This story is hilariously moronic in its nature, and it begins... Now!

.  .  .

 It's not easy being a clown. The task of entertaining the children weighs heavily on every clown's shoulder, and constantly dealing with that incessant, needling fear of clowns that is so common; it truly makes you age. If I had any hair left it would be solid grey. If you could see my face through the white paint it would be full of wrinkles. I nearly don't need my red nose because my nose is already tomato-red from the sniffles. I feel like I rely more on my painted smile than I do on my real smile. I can't even remember what my real smile feels like.

Allow me to explain. My name is Cal Carnaghan. To be more precise, Clown Cal C. Carnaghan, and I live in California. What a beautiful state it is, but it has little need for clowns such as I. Yet, I survived, somehow. Even when children cried at the sight of me or women shied away in fear, I persevered. I continued...clowning. I was good at it, whatever anyone might tell you. When the circumstances and audience was right I could truly amaze the crowd. My balloon animals were breathtakingly beautiful. My face painting skills rivaled DaVinci in spectacular skill and precision. I could juggle, right a unicycle, trapeze, tight-rope, anything their little hearts desire. But shows like that were so few and far between it nearly broke my heart.

Then Charlie called. You see, Charlie is my twin brother, and he is a lawyer. Not just any lawyer. He's The Lawyer. He wears the most expensive Rolex, drives the most gas-guzzling Hummer, has the most generic family, and lives in the most cliche white picket fenced house. He's successful and handsome, and rich, and successful. I'm just a clown. Anyways, Charlie called me and said something like,

"Yo, Cal-dog, what's up?"

Or maybe,

"Greetings, Brother Cal, how do you fare?"

Or possibly just,

"Hey."

But you can't possibly expect me to remember stuff like that. Charlie said something that might have meant "Hello, how are you?" and I replied "Life stinks and I want to die." For some reason, he ended up coming out and signing me up for therapy. He made me stop being a clown. And suddenly, life was better. Until he got hit by a bus. Then life stunk again. I went back to clowning. Now I'm sitting in this restaurant, writing on a napkin, and I'm about to run out of space. I only have one more thing to tell you, and it's very profound: You have to remember to—[END OF NAPKIN]