Michael perches on the fire escape attached to the loft. His fingers move across the guitar automatically. He stares down toward the alleyway adjacent to his building. Street lamps dot the sidewalk and are visible, but the light doesn’t come close to penetrating the gloom of the alleyway. The melody that Michael plays adds to that gloom. The despair pours from his fingertips and is translated by the guitar into a mournful wailing. He tries to remember a time before him and finds it difficult. He knew his parents loved him. They loved him very much until their recent deaths. After the incident, as it was called at home, Michael was a different person. His exuberance left. His interests changed and he poured himself into music, a solitary pursuit that left little time for a normal childhood. That was fine, he didn’t have a shot at a normal childhood anyway. Grade school prodigy, high school genius and then off to Columbia.
During his teen years he became enamored with the macabre. Anything gruesome and supernatural fit the bill. He, naturally, combined his love of the horror genre with music and was pleasantly surprised (the first time in a long time) to stumble upon the horror-punk/rockabilly scene. Other musicians, some of them trained and degreed as well, melded their love of monster films, fifties and sixties camp, with haunting melodies and formed the nexus of the musical movement. It was escapism for Michael, the films and the music. He could disappear for days on end, lost in a fictional land where he was the pied piper that lures the nasties to their doom instead of one of the unwitting children drawn to the cliff’s edge by a clever minstrel.
He continues to stare, drawn to the darkness of the alley. Michael’s eyes close partially. His vision hazy, Michael can barely make out a figure attempting to hide behind one of the streetlamps. The bright yellow jumpsuit and shock of synthetic crimson hair is a dead giveaway, though. Michael’s eyes shoot open.
From around a streetlamp steps Orzo the Clown, in the flesh. The clown smiles…that best smile…and waves just like the show is starting. Michael’s fingers falter and a chord goes awry bringing the music to a halt.
Michael clamps his eyes shut as the music ends and tears squeeze themselves out despite the desperate clamping. Michael slowly opens his eyes to reveal…nothing. There is no figure at the streetlamp. Slightly relieved, Michael scans the area. A quick motion at the entrance of the alley catches his eye, something white moves like a shot into the alley. Michael turns, staring at the alley, waiting. There is nothing for a moment. Michael continues to stare, afraid to look away and afraid to keep gazing into the darkness. Still nothing.
The fingers appear around the corner. Oversized and clad in bright white gloves, the hand wraps itself around the corner of the building. The white gloves catch all of the meager light from the streetlamp so the hand appears to gleam. Michael sucks in a breath. The last time he saw that glove it was doing jazz hands in preparation to rape and murder him. Michael stands on the fire escape, stepping backward. Unbelieving, Michael shakes his head and clamps his eyes shut again.
The sound of the fire escape ladder descending pulls Michael out of his self-imposed blindness. He opens his eyes to find Orzo, smiling, leering, has pulled the fire escape ladder down to ground level. Michael cries out and backs toward the rear of the fire escape. Orzo steps up onto the ladder. Michael turns and cowers with a strangled sob. He holds the guitar out as if it were some kind of crucifix like the kind Peter Cushing would shove in Christopher Lee’s face to save the village from the Prince of Darkness. Michael holds that guitar aloft without looking. He can hear, though. He can hear the clang of oversize clown shoes on metal fire escape steps. He cries out again, not words, but pure verbalized anguish. The touch, his touch, will come at any moment. Michael can’t bear to look.
Michael isn’t aware of how long he stays in that position but after what seems close to forever he carefully opens his eyes. He is very slow about it, but the precaution is for naught. Orzo isn’t there. Michael stands to find the fire escape ladder back in its original position. He wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt and kicks the steps down. Michael slings his guitar across his back and descends the steps. He lands on pavement and makes straight for the well-lit street.
Michael walks for hours, He finally finds himself on a darkened sidewalk. The streetlights still dot the roadway. Michael holds his breath as he moves from light to light, in and out of the darkness, from one pool of incandescent safety to the next. The large pane of glass announcing Crazy Al’s TV and Appliance doesn’t catch Michael’s attention.
“It’s me! It’s me! Your best pal Orzo!” blares from the window. Michael’s attention is caught. He slowly turns, ready for anything. He is greeted by four television screens. Each of them has the smiling face of Orzo the Clown plastered across them. They are all, obviously, on the same channel. Michael, assured that the bastard was not live, moves toward the window. He stares into the devil’s eyes until the camera switches to a studio talk show.
An interviewer’s desk, like any standard late night talk show, sits off to the side with a guest couch on its stage right. A large sign above the desk reads Late Talk with Monty Reigns. Sitting below the sign, Monty Reigns himself shakes his head in disgust. Late fifties, silver-haired and marginally photogenic, Reigns has built a career on badgering guests, taking the moral high ground, and being a class A hypocrite. He turns to his guest—a wiry, thin and bespectacled young man of Michael’s age, and scowls. A text graphic appears underneath the guest announcing him to be Dan Prescott, Jr., the son of Dumpy Dan.
Michael presses in closer to the glass, desperate to hear.
Still scowling at Dan Jr., Monty picks up a DVD of The Complete Orzo the Clown Show from his desk and holds it out at arm’s length to the camera.
“And welcome back to the Monty Reigns show,” he begins. “If you’re just tuning in, we are with Dan Prescott, Jr. You may remember his Dad, Dumpy Dan Prescott? Well Dumpy Dan was the sidekick of a perverted child molester, right Dan?”
Dan, Jr., half smiling, shakes his head and runs his fingers through his thinning, sandy blond hair. He takes the question in stride. He expected this.
“Monty, my father was a children’s TV star…so was Orzo. After Orzo’s death, the rights to the show went to my father. They brought a lot of joy to a lot of kids…”
“And a lot of something else to a few more kids!”
The audience, as is standard procedure on the Monty Reigns show, worships their loud, gregarious, controversial and obnoxious hero. They erupt in laughter.
Dan just shakes his head and turns away.
“As my discerning audience already knows, this puke right here is releasing, on DVD no less, the complete Orzo television series! All two seasons. Now, why was this ‘essential part of children’s programming history’ only on for two seasons, Mr. Prescott?”
Dan smiles again. “As you know, Orzo was killed during his arrest.”
“For being a pee pee toucher.”
The crowd roars its approval. Monty stands and waves his arms up and down, egging them on.
“Orzo, or Reginald Bent, was never tried,” Dan tries to get across only to be cut off by a belly laugh from Reigns. The talk show host picks up the DVD and shoves it in Dan’s face. Dan flinches involuntarily much to the delight of the assemblage. They cheer, spoiling for a fight.
“That’s because he died with a SWAT team at the door and a little boy chained in the basement! This is so wrong…glorifying a pedophile!”
Monty turns toward the crowd.
“Whaddya guys think? Is this right? Or is Mr. Dan Prescott, son of Dumpy, just as big a pervert as his hero?”
Dan stands up, trying to plead his case. He tries to address the crowd as well.
“Look—” he manages to get out before being cut off by the crowd. Monty leads them in a chant, overpowering anything Dan might have to say.
“Pervert! Pervert!” Reigns starts.
“Pervert! Pervert!” the audience picks up quickly.
Dan looks around the studio. He raises his hands in a show of defeat and slumps back onto the couch. Monty smiles, smelling blood. He looks right into the camera and points to the viewer as the crowd continues to chant.
“All right! Clam it! I’ve got a job for you fans of the Monty Reigns show.”
A graphic comes up on Monty’s right side. It is a grainy picture of a young Michael emerging from Orzo’s house. The boy is covered in a blanket and being led by the SWAT Leader.
“Everyone who hates pedophiles out there, we’re looking for this kid. His name was withheld after the SWAT team got him out of that sleazy clown’s pit! We want pictures, we want a name and we want to know where he is! His voice must be heard so porno pushing perverts like Danny here can own up to their mistakes!”
Dan, resigned to his fate on this show, simply lowers his head into his hands.
“E-mail your videos or pics or info or whatever to Monty at montyreigns.com. Got it? Be good to each other, we’re out!” Monty continues to pander to the crowd as the credits roll.
The show blips off and is immediately replaced by The Complete Orzo the Clown Show DVD commercial as an announcer informs the viewing audience that the Monty Reigns Show is brought to you by you know who.