CLOWN WARFARE

I took a step back when the guy pushed open the door to my cozy- yet empty- little bar. He was in a bright silver jumpsuit, with powder blue stars all over the place. A big curly red wig atop a face painted white, with a big red rubber nose, black diamonds over the eyes and a big red smear across his mouth. That was the part that made me curious, that indistinct red slash across his mouth. You see, there had been a feud running between the Sad clowns and the Happy clowns for as long as I'd been alive. But it had always been a small, petty sort of thing. Spiteful words, maybe a little bit of roughhousing when the circus came to town. But things had gotten weird in the past month, every week it seemed there was a lot more blood and greasepaint on the pavement. There had been a big clown rumble two nights ago, and word on the street was that there were three in intensive care in the hospital. One might not make it at all. So yeah, clown warfare was wrecking the city of my birth. The streets weren't safe, my business was suffering, so suffice to say...I didn't like the look of this clown.