Read by Alex Woodhall
Let me tell you something about me. I'm knockout. 100% pure man. I bone for fun. I mean, I don’t have to work for it. If I told you I used to work at a gym, you might not be surprised. But it wasn't just any gym; it was exclusive. A place where they hired the best instructors.
When he finally told me who it was I was kinda disappointed. I was hoping for somebody like Michelle Obama. What I got was a punked-out fifty-year-old rocker. Sure, I’d heard of the great Master Kerr, or Kramer Otley as he was known when off stage. He was the King of Goth - but I’d never listened to his music. That shit was all just noise and self-loathing.
So, the guy rocked up to the gym on day one and I wasn’t sure how to play him. Something put me off the hey buddy, slap-him-on-the-back-and-talk-about-women approach. But I wasn't sure about the kiss-his-ass-because-he’s-a-star-and-he’s-really-fucking-important approach either. He was bigger than I expected, tall and kinda built. Not like an instructor - but when you've worked with people in this industry you get an eye for the ones that were meant to live. He had these big tattoos that covered pretty much his whole body, serpents sliding down both arms with the heads tattooed on his hands.
He talked about not being a gym rat and how it was important that his fans didn’t know he went to a place like this because it would spoil his image. He said image was everything and looked at me like he was gonna kill me. Tell me about it I said, giving my muscles a flex. Maybe this spaced-out junkie was looking to connect. I laughed but he didn’t so I shut up.
Anyway, after he’d walked the room a little, pacing it like a prison cell, he sat down. Then he started talking again and it turns out he's after a little role-play. Not like George Michael in a toilet type role-play, not yet anyway. Just motivational. He wanted me to push him, keep him on his toes. Easy, I thought, I do that all the time. This guy really doesn’t know a thing about gyms. That’s pretty normal I tell him. They guy backs off from the word. No, he told me, what he wanted probably wasn’t quite normal:He wanted me to swear at him, call him names, really get on top of him. Well, my manager had said anything goes and it didn’t bother me. Then he pulled out a list. A fucking list of terms he wanted me to use. He came up real close, eyeball to eyeball and shouted them at my face. I mean, I took it. I didn't look scared or anything but I wasn’t comfortable either: fucking pussy; cock whore; waster prick; ghetto scum; twisted feltch.
I know I coulda pulled out then. I knew it was a little weird. But I had my eye on a new road bike and my manager had talked special bonuses and anything goes so I just said yes.
It was a bit odd at first but after a few classes I got the hang of it. None of my other clients let me abuse them in this way. I started to save up my frustrations from the week and just let rip, right in his face. But it didn’t stop there. After a couple of months he turned up to a class with another request. He told me he wanted a little more make believe. Shit, I thought, where is this going? He threw down a green army kit bag at my feet. I opened it and inside was a set of military fatigues, of the kind, Kramer told me, worn by the recruiting sergeants of the US Marine Corps. I was to be the sergeant. He was the rookie.
I know what you’re thinking. I coulda just told him I wasn’t his guy. I coulda said that, right? But I didn’t. I was getting mad bonus cash from the boss and to tell you the truth I was enjoying it. I practiced in the mirror. I looked at myself and thought, yeah – Hell – I could get through the training, no problem. 1-2-3-4 United States Marine Corps.
The next morning I got in early and set the studio up with climbing ropes, a vault box and a set of monkey bars. With a step routine and a playlist of Full Metal Jacket and Team America, we had a workout. I’ll break him, I told myself as his car pulled in behind the gym.
I won’t lie, the role came easy. With my usual middle aged banker and lawyer clients it was the encouragement that got them off - the fitter I made them think they were the more classes they paid for. But I realized, as Private Otley fell from the rope for the third time whilst I abused him for being more garbage man than spider man, that I'd had this voice in the back of my head throughout my classes. When I was telling somebody that they were doing great, what I was really thinking was: that’s not a squat thrust you no good whore sonofabitch.
The routine worked for a few months until one morning he turned up in his grey tracksuit again. I called him to attention but Private Otley did not respond. He just threw a black duffel bag at my feet and left. I opened the bag. The first thing that I took out was a whip. Oh shit, I thought. This is getting weird. It was followed by a red tailcoat, wool pants, a silk waistcoat and a pair of shiny black shoes.
Inside the pocket was a neatly typed message. You are Lockhart, the ringmaster. I am Bozo, the clown who ran away. As a result of my truancy you will have to get me back into shape and back into the ring. You will mock me, to my face and to the audience at large. I will be captured in about a month.
I know what you’re thinking – perhaps this was the moment to say enough is enough and call it quits. But I didn’t want to. I was excited by the idea. The next day a man arrived at the gym to measure my head and provide me with a bespoke silk top hat. I felt like a million dollars. Like a star. As I stood in front of the mirror checking out the way my chest bulged outta the red tailcoat I knew that I'd moved up in the world.
When I asked my manager if I could make some modifications to the studio area, he told me that he was surprised it had taken so long for me to ask and that I could do whatever I wanted – but he did not under any circumstances want to know the details. The account, he said, was unlimited.
Weird, right? Well, by the time Master Kerr came back the studio was a circus tent, complete with disco ball, a sawdust floor, trampoline and a mini trapeze. I’d stopped short of hiring some circus entertainers but only just. I didn’t need to worry. He brought his own. A black van pulled up and three hefty clowns lifted him by his jacket and hauled him in front of me. We’ve found him master, the Pierrot said as he presented his captive, who they pushed to the ground in front of me. He won’t run away again master. Kramer looked up at me with contempt. His red nose looked faded, as though he’d tried to remove the evidence of his clown identity.
Take him inside boys. I felt bigger than the world.
I set him to running routes around an obstacle course I’d created with the circus gear. The clowns just sat around laughing and making jokes about how slow he was and how big his ass looked in his pants. Did I mention his pants? They’d decked the man out in prison garb – black and white hoops. Boy did those clothes make him sweat.
It continued like that for weeks. I got better with the whip the more I used it. I started cracking it just behind his ear so that he jumped or yelped like a dog. Each time that happened the clowns would go crazy, shouting and cheering. And there I was in the middle, commanding it all. This was my show, fuck Bozo.
It was right about then that something changed. Not in the routine but in me. I stopped caring about my other classes. I'd pace the floor of the circus when Kramer wasn't there and visualise the next performance. I’d meet the clowns after work and learn new words, new moves. We’d get shitfaced and they’d talk about turning Bozo into some kind of freak show as punishment or selling him on to another troupe and they’d look to me for encouragement – like I was the one who had to make the decisions. And it's not like I can say, I know what you're thinking, I shoulda pulled away then, because by then I couldn't. I wasn't thinking in that way any more. I wasn't really sure what I wanted but I knew that it started with crossing a line and making sure that that no good skullfucking sonofabitch knew who was the master.
The moment the clowns dragged his sorry ass through the door the next day, I knew the time had come. The first crack of my whip brought howls of laughter from the clowns. They all came forward to get a closer look, excited and tense. I'd caught him right on the ass as he'd jumped through a hoop. He went over forwards in a kinda barrel roll but got up quick and kept going. So I hit him again, this time right in between the shoulder blades and the clowns went even wilder and came closer - I could smell them and feel them shuffling around behind me. Bozo was not going down easy. And that's what I wanted right? I wanted him to go down. Or did I? I wasn't sure.
At the third strike he ducked like some superhuman sense had told him where the whip would go. He rolled sideways and came up standing, facing me, his arms hanging down and his face wild with something like fear or excitement or lust but not quite any of those things. The clowns were going apeshit, hooting and hollering and screaming obscenities. They'd fanned out into a ring with Bozo in the middle. I hesitated for the briefest moment and heard my manager’s voice saying: Whatever this guy wants you give it to him.
I pointed with the whip in the direction of the trapeze and the clowns opened a space for him but Bozo did not move. He looked around him at the other clowns who stared back like a pack of hungry hyenas and then he made a break for the door, but the clowns caught him.
It took three of them to bring him under control as he bucked like a mule. I saw the shock jump from his eyes and then disappear, replaced by a kind of surrender. The clowns saw it too – something ran through us like electricity. This time there would be no way out. Bozo was staying with the circus.
(c) Rhuar Dean, May 2015
Rhuar Dean is a poet, writer and occasional journalist currently living in Washington DC. His lies have previously been performed at the Leagues in New York and Leicester but this is the first in his home town. For links to other poems and stories check out his website www.rhuardean.com
Alex Woodhall (left) has worked in comedy for the last 14 years, on stage, TV and radio. He DJs extensively around the country in clubs, festivals, zombie chase game 2.8 Hours Later, and is half of The Coffin Dodgers' Disco. Interests include ballroom dancing, Native American art and pornography.
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