Bonkers the dickhead clown went to the city of Ballycrumble to do his show.

Ballycrumble was ruled by a fat lazy tyrant king who spent the cities crippling taxes on his super yachts, sports cars and his luxury golf course in the Maldives. 

The city was a collection of bolloxed buildings all creaking in their shallow foundations. Everywhere reeked of blocked up sewer shit and the pothole infested roads doubled up as the city’s unofficial dump.

The dirt poor miserable bastards that festered in the city lived in fear of the fat bastard king and his cruel cops that patrolled the city with their big hitting sticks.

Nothing or nobody with any sense lived there.

The citizens that did remained were shackled in their slums so exhausted and under nourished that leaving was an impossible task.

Trees had stop growing, grass had turned to dirt, no animals or pets survived in the city.

Even the pigeons had vanished, some said there wasn’t enough food, other said they had become food.

The only animals that did remain were the skinny rats, waiting in the shadows, sharpening their claws.

Bonkers the clown carrying his bag of circus props and wearing his colourful crusty clown garb whistled as he tried to find the cities market square.

What a depressing place he thought as he bumped and tripped his way to through the gloomy streets.

Bonkers arrived in the market square and screwed on his shabby red nose, in the centre of the market square was Ballycrumble’s only piece of public art, the city’s gallows.

Luckily the executioner had sustained a shoulder injury and all free public entertainment had been cancelled. With no competition Bonkers confidently empty his bag of ti-dyed juggling balls, springy shoes, comedy cabbage and squeaky plastic chickens. Bonkers felt sure that his improvised comedy street circus show would make a killing among the Joes in Ballycrumble. 

No one laugh, no one smiled.

The few shady folk that stoped, stared at the stupid clown like prime suspects at a murder scene that was about to happen.

Bonkers tried harder. He pulled out his mini pink unicycle and his skipping rope of fire. Some of the children look excited. Kids universally love the prospect of a simple adult possibly burning themselves to death.

Two cops with big hitting sticks strutted past, their heads twisted and turned surveying everything with their beady little eyes. Bonkers could hear them grumbling ‘if I ate a clown would it taste funny?’

Bonkers mounted his unicycle and swung his fire skipping rope.

Bounce bounce bounce, but still no one cared.

Bonkers dug deep into his bag, past the modelling balloons, tickling stick, over size multi colour kazoo and found the firework. 

Bonkers lit the firework.

There was a loud bang followed by a fountain of sparks. When the smoke cleared from the base of the gallows Bonkers the clown could be seen balancing on his head with his baggy checkered trousers pulled down to reveal a roman candle firmly shoved up his arse. As the last sparks feebly spat out of the end of the firework Bonkers could be heard singing at the top of his out of tune voice  ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business.’ 

Serval kids lost their shit. Parents pulled their unkempt pointing and laughing urchins away from the gallows and the pathetic clown.

Bonkers sprung up and popped the firework out of his butthole and took an impressive bow. When he lifted his bright green afro wigged head, Bonkers stared out on to an empty square. 

Bonkers looked at his empty busking hat and the empty streets and empty pavement and empty shop fronts, and realised he had made a terrible mistake. His stomach was empty and made an empty hollow sigh. He was hungry, penniless and hated. It reminded him of his humiliating first day at clown school when Dopey Moe suggested in front of the whole class that he should consider training as a mime instead.

Only one really ugly snot faced child remained. 

The child with a face that look like a pizza that had been punched limped over to the clown. He smiled revealing his decaying teeth, the child’s breath slapped Bonkers in the face and it tasted of cat piss.

“Eh dickhead you’re funny” said the stinking child.

The kid held out a toy rubber hammer, Bonkers smiled back trying not to vomit. The foul looking child put the toy hammer into Bonkers hat.

The boy said it was a gift for Bonkers and that he hoped it would help him make people laugh. He then limped as fast as he could away from the stupid clown and jumped into an open sewer.

Bonkers picked up the rubber hammer and smiled.

Somewhere in the city the sound of a choking toilet being flushed echoed about the manky alleyways. The racket of it made the sunset seem like it has been sucked down from the sky and pulled into the toilets filthy black tubes.

And from the darkness the full moon tried to rise but instead sulked low in the sky hiding behind the shonky building. From through the dense smog it looked defeated, assaulted, black eyed and bloodied. The moon glared at the city as if it was looking for revenge.

“It’s a fucking clown” spat the drunk, tattooed faced squatter.

Bonkers the clown had found an open window of what look like an abandoned building, climb in and gone to sleep.

The smashed up public library was not as it turned out empty.

He now found himself surrounded by a gang of savage ravenous punks.

Bonkers had been to self defence classes and knew exactly what to do in a situation involving archaist squatter punks.

In one beautifully executed move Bonkers reached into his bag of useless plastic clown props and produced a full bottle of wine.

The punks looked at each other “welcome to your new home brother.” 

It was a long night of punk karaoke and serious drinking. 

The next morning Bonkers was eating his breakfast of bananas with a very sore head when he heard the wailing of sirens outside. Bonkers looked out the broken window and saw that the squat had been surrounded by cops.

The squat quaked with the rumpus of big booted angry squatters. Someone grabbed Bonkers and dragged him outside into the street. A line of twitching bobbing cops with big hitting stick stared at the dirty squatters.

The squatters thew bricks, rocks and insults, and when that didn’t work they threw Bonkers the clown.

Bonkers flew over the heads of the cops managing to hold onto his tasty breakfast banana and then landed with a honk behind the line of cops. 

The cops looked baffled and Bonkers looked bewildered and fumbled his breakfast banana which disappointedly landed in a puddle. He looked down at his fucked banana and his tummy grumbled.

When he looked up the chief cop was running toward him with his big hitting stick raised high above his thick angry head. He was ready to whack the stupid clown.

Miraculously the chief cop slipped on the dropped banana, he flew into the air, a spiralling blur of curses, feet kicking and arms flaying. He sailed past Bonkers’ head and hit a wall of other cops. The wall of cops fell.

What followed was a spectacular domino effect of cops crashing, crushing and knocking each other unconcious around the stupid clown. 

A huge roar of ‘fuck the king’ came from the squatters.

The remaining cops realised they were out numbered and ran back to the castle with the urgency of projectile vomit.

Bonkers was crowned with an abandoned traffic cone and declared the new king of Ballycrumble. 

He wondered if this would be a good time to pass his hat around and ask for money.

The squatters made him a throne from a disused toilet and tied it onto the back of a donkey. 

They paraded him through the shit stained streets of Ballycrumble and everywhere he trotted crowds waved, shouted and raved.

Bonkers took to his new role as easily as he drank from the endless free wine poured into his plastic chalice. From his donkey toilet throne he proclaimed new laws, banning the clergy, canceling all debt and free beer for all.

They all cheered for their new clown king and every time the revellers shouted ‘God save the king’  Bonkers would balance on his head on the toilet and show them his arse.

It was the best of times and Bonkers thought one of his finest performances.

The next morning Bonkers woke with a massive headache and surrounded by heavily armed Punks. 

They explained that a citizen assembly had decided it was time to save the city. Today they would raid the palace, capture the king and hang him from the gallows.

Bonkers thought this was a great idea and wished them all well, and headed for the door.

When he got outside he was greeted by a tsunami of people who swept up their new clown king and funneled him through the streets of Ballycrumble until finally dumping him at the King’s castle.

 

The stupid clown stood frightened at the phallic towers of the King’s castle. A thick line of well fed thick cops surrounded the thick castle walls, they were brandishing and rattling their big angry thick hitting sticks.

The clown was scared and gripped hard onto his bag of shit props, a little bit of wee ran down his leg and dripped into his over sized shoes. The cops beady eyes stared at the clown and fear vomit churned in his stomach like a malfunctioning washing machine.

The punks picked up the clown and threw him over the line of cops. With a mighty thud Bonkers splatted against the castle wall. He then slid slowly with a skidding noise down the face of the fortification and then landed in a clump with a flump on the dirt. 

Everyone laughed, even the cops smiled, for a moment everyone in Ballycrumble was united in the pleasure of seeing an idiot suffering. 

It was a mighty entrance.

‘If only that bollox Dopy Moe could have seen that’, wished Bonkers and wondered how the hell was he going to follow that.

He plunged his hand into his bag of shit props and felt about for inspiration.

He pulled out the toy rubber hammer that the kid had given him at the gallows.

He held the mighty rubber hammer aloft and sunlight glinted off its rubbery rubber, the mob held it’s breath.

Bonkers smashed the toy hammer against the wall. It made a pathetic honk.

A stink of bemused disappointment pooped and then lingered around the mob and prancing cops. 

Bonkers hit the wall with a honk again and then again, honking, honking and honking like a pneumatic honking rubber hammering machine. The relentless hammering made Bonkers’ trousers fall down exposing his bare arse. 

The bemusement curdled into bafflement, but Bonkers kept on hitting and the toy kept on honking. His arse wobbling with each strike.

A crack appeared in the wall.

35 years previous Alan Bentman and Son’s won the contract to erect the new high security wall of the King’s castle.

Alan had greased a lot of palms to win the contract. In his application Alan had promised to deliver an affordable, innovative, state of the art security wall. Using modern recycled materials the wall would be built using the latest construction techniques that meant delivery would be well under conventional builders timetables.

With a complete lack of professionalism and total disregard of reading instructions Alan Bentman and Son’s went to work drinking the advance payment while leaving the actual work to their new unqualified project manger, cousin and former hotdog salesman Steven.

Steven knew if he wanted to make some money he would have to cut some corners.

Steven went about making some cost savings to the initial budget. He then skimped so much on materials that there were no materials.

He hired cheap labour, slashed and rationed wages. Finally he introduced cunning cutbacks and asset stripping austerity. 

On the shoestring that was left Steven fired all the staff and ordered the trainee volunteers to build the wall with rat shit.

Honk

All this innovational cost saving and exploitation meant the wall was about as solid as a politician’s promise.

Honk.

Another crack appeared in the wall.

Bonkers hammered harder.

Honk, honk.

Cracks spread chaotically like a darting drunks piss down a cobble street.

Honk, honk, honk, honk.

The walls fell.

When the dust settled Bonkers stood naked from the waist down, his tiny dirt covered dick waving limply in the breeze, while high in the air he heroically held his toy hammer aloft. Bonkers felt badass. Now, he thought, was a great time to pass his hat around.

The cops flapped about unsure of what to do, panic and fear spread between them.

“Fuck the King” shouted the mob and began making their way toward the fallen wall.

Terror smothered the cops like a virus, they twitched, they pouted, one of them, cooed. Another cop let go of his hitting stick and fell to the ground. His arm seemed to be shrinking.

He was shaking and contorting, another cop fell to the ground and was vibrating uncontrollably, others fell, their bodies collapsing into themselves. 

Their heads were shrinking their legs were disappearing, bones could be heard twisting and cracking. They tried to scream but all they could do was coo.

As they shrank their armour fell off them. 

Hair was racing out of every pour of their bodies. They flapped their now tiny arms about to try and stop the transformation.

Their noses and mouth morph together and reshaping into a beak, their hair moulted and feathers appeared. 

The King’s squad of cops had fully metamorphosed into a flock of pigeons.

The pigeons hopped, strutted, cooed and fluttered around their discarded uniforms and hitting sticks.

Distressed, bumbling and unable to figure out how to fly the pigeons did not realise that they were being slowly surround by the hungry mob. The mob stole the hitting sticks and with the zeal of kids high on sugar at a 12 years old birthday party they deliriously bashed the former cops like it was a pigeon piñata party.  

Bonkers pulled his patchwork baggy trousers up, and packed his cock away. All around him people were cheering, dancing and busting holes in the rest of the wall.

No one noticed the ugly pizza faced kid limping towards the clown. The gruesome kid had managed to get deep into the castle and help himself to the kings jewels. Gold necklaces and bangles hung around the kids neck and arms. He was carrying goblets and bedazzled rods of precious stones and on his head he wore the kings flamboyant crown.

“Eh dickhead you’re funny” said the stinking child who then threw the kings crown onto the clowns bag of shit props. The reeking child limped away with arms full of loot and jumped into a near-by open sewer.

Bonkers picked up the crown and put it into his bag of shit props, looked about at all the chaos and ran out of the city of Ballycrumble, never to return.

That evening the whole city came out to watch the king swing by his fat neck from the gallows. 

Some of them had a passing thought about, ‘how come they had never notice how fickle the castle walls were?’  They would pounder that idea while simultaneously looking up at the old bastard king wriggle, twitch and drool while they happily ate roasted pigeon. 

END