Jumbo's Banana Cream Cannon

Short Horror Fiction

Creepy Canapés is a series of stand-alone horror stories running through October. Welcome!

---

Images found on Pinterest

Jumbo polished the side of his jolly red cannon in the mildewed gloom of his basement studio. Attached to a lacquered yellow box stand he built himself, the cannon stood six feet long in the center of the sparse, dingy room. Fitted with a long, shiny trough and a metal plate that pulled back when he cranked the oversized handle on the side, the contraption took two months to complete. It was the finest piece of engineering he’d ever constructed. My clowning achievement, he thought and giggled.

The air in his subterranean studio was a permanent potpourri of hot dog water, cat piss, and fairy floss. Jumbo knew in America he was supposed to call it cotton candy, but he liked the British term “fairy floss” better. It was funner. 

More fun, he thought, correcting himself. 

It was hard for him not to think in child language. It was simpler, offering shortcuts to expressions of bigger feelings. Sharp as scissors, it cut off needless complications.

Fairy floss is funner if I say it is, he told himself.

His favorite song played on repeat, as it always did when he was getting ready to perform. The bouncing farts and whistles of “Heffalumps and Woozles” danced out of his suitcase speaker from the vinyl record he’d had since childhood. After millions of spins on the turntable throughout his life, the music stirred a new feeling in him that day, one akin to hunger, a rumbly in his tumbly. The worn-out vinyl lit his nerves like sparklers. He silently mouthed the words, nodding his head with the marching rhythm.

They're far, they're near, they're gone, they're here

They're quick and slick, they're insincere

Beware, Beware, Be a very wary bear

In the unhappy time before Jumbo was born, back when people called him Doug, he had been a good boy. Before the evil woman, Summer, had been so cruel to him, Doug earned an engineering degree from Berkeley and did all the things a grown-up was supposed to: a lucrative job designing instruments of war at Lockheed Martin, a house, fine clothes for Summer, all the useless nonsense that seemed to make adults so happy. But, it was never enough for Summer. Doug wasn't enough. 

Doug’s knowledge came in handy, though. Jumbo used it to build his cannon, which had two velocity settings. The first was the Good Boy setting. When the lever at the back was pulled, the pie launched lightly through the air to land elegantly in the target’s face. The second setting had a bit more oomph to it, supplied by a gas tank concealed in the box stand and activated with a hidden switch. That was the Bad Boy setting. 

He shot Good Boy after Good Boy at the child-sized mannequins populating his basement studio. He giggled and jumped, clapping at the splattering cream. It was fun! The Bad Boy setting brought an entirely different kind of joy. Jumbo stood stone-faced when the switch flipped, his palm sweaty against the lever. A tension curled about his gut before the pull and released as he watched the cannon send the mannequin flying from its stool, smashing it into the corner behind. He shot fewer bad boys. He needed to save his gas.

Jumbo couldn’t bake but banana-flavored whipped cream in pie tins worked just fine. One corner of his studio looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man exploded like in the movie. The sour smell of rotting cream was starting to bother him. It was taking over the warm smell of hotdogs and fairy floss. 

He set down his rag and walked to the stovetop. Last night’s hotdogs floated in gray water. The ends of the wieners were blown out from over boiling and he was out of buns. He plucked one from the cold pot and bit off the end like a cigar or Bugs Bunny’s carrot. 

What’s up doc? 

Lots of stuff was up, Bugs. 

Jumbo thought of his beloved Fisherman’s Wharf, a favorite place of his since childhood. He loved the merry atmosphere of the wharf and, until recently, performed there at least three times a week. Balloon animals, face painting, juggling – Jumbo did it all. His vintage suitcase was open for tips but money wasn’t the point. Doug invested wisely, thankfully tucking a sizable egg away for Jumbo in a foreign bank account, away from blood-thirsty Penny’s grasp. He lived cheap, ate cheap, and only spent money on clowning. It was a simple life. Just the type Jumbo always dreamed of. Before college. Before Penny. Before she rewarded his good behavior with chaos and destruction. Before she hurt him. 

Doug. 

Before she hurt Doug.

All kinds of people came to see him perform at the wharf. Happy people, sad people, people on cell phones who always seemed to be both at the same time. People laughed at him, of course, but they were supposed to. Even if the laughter felt a little mean sometimes, Jumbo was a clown, and his greatest joy was giving the gift of laughter. What did it matter to a clown whether he was being laughed at or with? As long as people were happy, Jumbo had succeeded.

He tried to be nice to the pack of boys when they started showing up to his performances but they were just mean and rotten. It started small, with the boys knocking over his props, kicking his suitcase, and calling him names as they passed. Kids sometimes got carried away, especially in unsupervised flocks, but things kept escalating and they’d taken things too far. 

Before the final attack, Jumbo soldiered on, because it was his duty to bring joy and laughter. The delight he brought to most of his fans was worth enduring a little mistreatment from a few bad apples. They probably just didn’t have very good parents, he figured, and maybe one day they’d learn to love clowns as much as clowns loved children.

If honey’s what you covet, you’ll find that, they love it

Because they’ll guzzle up the thing you prize

He returned to his cannon to perform a final check of the mechanisms. Memories of the attack had been smashing their way into his brain for weeks, refusing to leave. It was like caramel off an apple glued to his tooth, and when he tried to dislodge it, he felt his skeleton being pulled through his mouth. The only thing keeping the thoughts at bay was working on his cannon. He completed it days before but got so much pleasure from shining it and firing pies at his mannequins, that he hadn’t continued with the next stage of his plan.

That morning was different. He stirred from his pallet on the floor and knew it was the day to complete his work. The boys had to learn it was wrong to humiliate people, especially clowns who only lived to make the world a better place. He saw the big boy’s face in his mind: round and hateful with freckled cheeks and black eyes. He was a foot taller than the others; he was the leader. He was the boy who needed to learn and Professor Jumbo was finally ready to teach. 

The last day at the wharf, the boys came down on him like a pack of hyenas. As he juggled bowling pins, the first boy slapped at them, making them fall to the sidewalk. He barely had time to react when he was bodychecked from behind and found himself surrounded. His heart became a frantic frog behind his cartoonish silk tie. He couldn’t find the words to beg or plead. What was happening? What did they want? 

The four little monsters shoved Jumbo between them in a circle, each push coming harder, making him stumble in his oversized shoes. They laughed at him. Jumbo couldn’t breathe. He saw the worried faces of his spectators and some spoke up, telling the boys to stop, but they ignored the protests, their smiles cruel as Jumbo whined and whimpered.

“I’m sick of seeing this fucking pedophile,” a boy behind him said.

“No!” Jumbo yelled, finally finding words. That was the worst thing you could call a clown. “I’m not that!”

One of the little beasts smacked him upside his head. It stung. It scared him. He was on the verge of peeing his pants.

“Is that why you’re down here, pedo? You think that shitty fuckin’ facepaint hides what you are?” One voice was doing most of the talking. Jumbo was getting dizzy, he was going to cry. He pinballed off them with increasing force. “You down here scouting for your next victim?”

“No!” Jumbo pleaded. “I’m just here to entertain! To bring laughter!”

“Entertain your little dick,” the boy said. The shoving stopped and the talker stepped in front of him. He was the biggest boy, of course, the meanest boy. His eyes were obsidian marbles, his grin vicious. He looked to be a middle-schooler but was almost as tall as Jumbo himself and built entirely of violence.

“Please.” Jumbo was so scared that Doug’s begging voice came out, lower and weaker. Doug was desperate. “Please don’t hurt me.”

The big boy laughed. 

“Hurt you?” The boy put his hands up. “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just trying to keep the wharf safe from child molesters.” He began to walk off and Jumbo or Doug, he wasn’t sure, closed his eyes, heaving shuttering air in and out of his lungs. He didn’t notice the boy had walked behind him until the voice came again in spitting rage over his shoulder.

“We just want to make sure you don’t hurt any kids, you sick fuck.”

Jumbo’s eyes shot open as the boy’s hands grabbed onto either side of his checkered pants and jerked them up into his groin, raising his heels off the ground and making him shriek. When he landed, the boy used the momentum to rip Jumbo’s pants and Winnie the Pooh boxer shorts to his ankles. Jumbo screamed, and before he could bend to pull up his pants, he was shoved hard in the back, sending him slamming into the concrete. His clown gloves landed in white and brown bird shit. He felt his clown thing flopping in the cold air as he rolled.

The group of boys melted back into the crowd, smiling and laughing. Jumbo wailed like a wounded infant. He grabbed frantically for his pants. His wails turned to throat-searing screams. He got his pants back to his waist but remained on his back, rolling side-to-side like a dying turtle. His limbs flailed and jerked. He could feel the whole wharf watching him.

The worst part was that nobody laughed. Everyone stood silent, watching Jumbo’s pathetic tantrum. His screams echoed off the buildings of Fisherman’s Wharf, swimming through the air with the cries of the gulls overhead. His eyes were jammed shut and his mouth gaped open as he sobbed and everybody just watched. Nobody helped. Nobody laughed.

He hadn’t been back to the wharf since. How could he present himself to his adoring public after they’d seen his clown thing, seen him crying and screaming, and not even found it funny?

Beware, beware, be a very wary bear

Jumbo turned from the cannon to the card table next to it. On it, was a tall stack of standard pie tins found in every grocery store, empty and waiting to be filled with whipped cream. Next to those was a special tin, just for the big boy. He lifted it, feeling its weight against his greasy hand. It looked similar enough to the others, only it had the heft of a dumbbell and held special surprises at the bottom. Jumbo salivated as he set it back down.

He was going back to the wharf. 

This time he would be a very wary bear. 

This time, he’d have his cannon.

Photo by Michelle Oude Maatman on Unsplash

The robin’s egg sky was strewn with wisps of fluffy white and the breeze felt like God blowing down lightly to cool his favorite pie. The gulls circled as the smell of melting butter and hot donuts drifted down from the breakfast spots along the wharf, and Jumbo was intoxicated by the salt air atmosphere that had brought him so much peace. There was an immediate rush of nostalgic warmth when he stepped out of his white panel van and he forgot for a moment what he was there to do. 

The feeling didn’t last long. His excitement over being back at the wharf was torn away when his eyes landed on the spot where he was shoved to the ground. Memories accosted him: the big boy, the cold wind on his shriveled thing, birdshit between his fingers. The silence cradling his sobs, lifting them higher into the air for everyone to hear. Nobody laughing. Nobody happy. Jumbo’s head was the landing pad of a strongman bell-ringing game and the sledgehammer of memory smashed over and over, making the puck shoot to the top, and ring the hellish bell in repeated clanging screams. 

He ripped the sliding door of his van open. The cannon shined amongst the rest of his props. His righteous instrument. His redemption.

He set up the long prize table first, draping it in a festive red cloth decorated with elephants. Next, was the prize wheel, handmade of course, with slots indicating all the wonderful trinkets he brought for the boys and girls of the wharf. He set them on the table: giant squishmallows, skateboards, expensive superhero action figures, all the things children craved. Finally, he brought out the crown jewel, the prize of all prizes, the one that had the smallest slot on the prize wheel: a brand new PlayStation 5, sealed with cellophane in its angelic white box. He made it the centerpiece of the table, set on a small riser above the others. 

Jumbo had done his homework. That machine made kids go crazy. He wrapped the doodad in feet of chain attached to a large, heavy anchor at the end. He didn't want anybody running off with it before the big boy had a chance to play. Once the table was set, he covered the whole thing in a fine yellow cloth.

Jumbo’s gloved hands trembled as he removed the heavy cannon from the van, setting it down on the sidewalk. He stared at it lovingly, sparkling in the morning sun. The candy apple red finish dazzled, it was hypnotic. The carefully painted portrait of Pooh Bear smiled maniacally on the side. He couldn't believe he'd built something so perfect and beautiful. It made him weepy. For all his pain and humiliation, he could at least be grateful it brought this magnificent mechanical marvel into existence.

With the cannon placed, and the finishing touches of a backed stool, a backsplash for the pie, and his card table, the scene was set. Jumbo checked his makeup in the side mirror of the van. He’d gone with a Bozo variation, with an extra splash of red under the high-arching brows. He fluffed the cottony red sideways cones of his wig and checked his glittery black and white Pagliacci suit for any missed stains. He practiced a goofy smile, opened his eyes and mouth as wide as they’d go, and then scrunched his face as hard as he could. Lion face, lemon face, lion face, lemon face. 

He was ready.

By the time his elaborate sidewalk stage was complete, the crowds of weekend tourists began swarming the wharf. The other performers were out, too. There was the silver robot man who didn’t talk, the graffiti artist who did live paintings of science fiction scenes while techno blared from his boom box, and Rudy, the street magician. Rudy was excited to see Jumbo’s return, coming over to fawn over his new cannon and ask about the “Pie on the Prize!” sign Jumbo placed on the table.

“Well,” Jumbo said in cartoon falsetto, “I figured I’d have to come back bigger than ever for all the boys and girls of the wharf! The kids spin the wheel and, if they want the prize they land on, all they need to do is get hit with a delicious banana cream pie and it’s alllllllll theirs!”

“Wow,” Rudy said, obviously impressed. But, then, Rudy’s tone shifted. “You think the kids will actually let you hit them with a pie?”

Jumbo bristled. He did not like Rudy’s line of questioning one bit. Of course they would. Children loved prizes. Children loved pie. What was Rudy thinking?

“Well, of course!” Jumbo answered. “What child doesn’t love a free prize?” Rudy nodded but Jumbo could see the doubt on his face. Jumbo’s gut began to roil. His hands twitched in their gloves.

“You’re probably right,” Rudy admitted. “Well, have fun, Jumbo! It’s so good to see you again. I felt so bad about what happened with those boys. They keep coming back but they’ve calmed down a bit. I think they may have realized they took things too far.”

Jumbo blinked rapidly. He felt the big boy's meaty hands forcefully bunching his clown pants. He saw the faces of the people watching. 

No. 

No, they did not realize they'd taken things too far. They were wicked little shits who needed to learn. Jumbo shook off Rudy’s stupid fucking words. Whoopsy. Swear jar.

“Water under the bridge!” he sang with a swing of his arm. “Bygones be bygones. If the boys want to come by for a spin of the wheel, they are more than welcome!” Jumbo lined the back of his hand up against his mouth and leaned forward in a stage whisper. “There’s even a brand spanking new PlayStation 5 up for grabs.” He pointed rapidly, his exaggerated smile plastered over his grinding teeth. Rudy looked at the table in disbelief.

“Holy shit, Jumbo. I didn’t know you made that kinda scratch out here.” 

Jumbo giggled. “A clown has his secrets, Rudy.” He sprung a sudden cartwheel and spread his arms wide. “And his magic!”

Rudy laughed.

“You are one of a kind, Jumbo,” he said. Jumbo bowed dramatically.

“Thank you. Keep an eye on the fun over here today, Rudy! You won’t want to miss it!” The magician walked back to his usual place near a stone sea lion statue, a respectable distance from Jumbo’s turf. The clown’s smile fell. Nobody’s gonna wanna miss the fun the big boy is about to have, he thought. No sir-ee.

He had some time before the games began, so he started with his usual routine: balloon animals, jokes, and simple magic tricks, ones decidedly different from Rudy’s. Jumbo did the never-ending scarfs and the flowers from the sleeve but he stayed away from cards and slight-of-hand, out of respect for Rudy’s trade.

It was a perfect day at the wharf and streams of spectators stopped to watch Jumbo’s act. They laughed and clapped and threw dollar bills in his suitcase as the circus playlist jingled from his Bluetooth speaker. But the sun became torturous from its afternoon height. God’s gentle breeze was gone and Jumbo’s sweat began to fight his grease paint and stick his clown suit to his skinny body. His adoring public was entertained but he couldn’t stand to wait any longer. It was time for the main event.

He pulled the cooler with the whipped cream cans from his van along with his giant vintage megaphone and set the cooler on the card table.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he called through the megaphone. “The time has come for Pie on the Prize!” People began to watch as Jumbo walked to the prize table. He removed the yellow cloth in a flourish, revealing all the wonderful prizes, shiny and new. He held out his arm like a gameshow host.

“Step right up! Spin the wheel, take a banana cream pie from Jumbo’s patented Banana Cream Cannon, and the prize is yours! Kids play free!”

The children of the wharf began to take notice, tugging on their parents’ arms, and pointing at the prizes. They begged for a spin while their parents eyed Jumbo suspiciously. He started getting nervous.

“It is perfectly safe folks!” he assured his fans. “If I could get a volunteer, I will happily be the first one to get pied! Spin the wheel, Jumbo takes the pie, and off you go with your free prize!”

A mother and father whispered to each other as their little girl pleaded to play Pie on the Prize. Her chances weren't looking good with her parents, so Jumbo greased the wheels. 

“Tell ya what, folks!” he sang. He put the megaphone down and picked up a massive squishmallow in a bear hug, pretending it was heavy. “Little girl! How would you like a kitty cat squishmallow and to hit ol’ Jumbo with a pie?”

“Puh-leeeeeeease,” the girl begged. Her parents relented, the mother looking irritated and the father’s face a scowl.

Jumbo helped the little girl crank the handle of his cannon, pulling the plate back to its locked position. He then removed a can of banana whipped cream, filled the bottom of a pie tin and rested it gently against the launch plate.

“So,” he told the girl, “when I say ‘Pie on the Prize', you just pull this lever here.”

Jumbo thought of the Bad Boy switch. It was hidden near the base, where the cannon attached to its stand, but thoughts of the girl engaging it accidentally made the sweat run thicker down his painted face. “Now, don't touch anything but this lever, okay?”

“Okay!” She said, nodding eagerly.

Jumbo swooped a barber’s cape like a bullfighter, wrapping himself up, and sat down on the stool. By this point, a large crowd had formed, countless children and their curious parents, waiting to see Jumbo's cannon in action. He looked to the throng.

“Okay, everybody! When I count to three, yell ‘Pie on the Prize!’ One. Twooooo.” He paused, performing a comical wince. “Two and a half!” The crowd laughed. “Two and three-quartersssss.” Harder laughter from the kids.

“Jumbo!” The girl called. She was leaning against the cannon, her hand dangling worryingly close to the switch. Had she accidentally flipped it while he was talking to the crowd? Why hadn't he hidden it better? Jumbo gulped. He would take his chances.

“Three!”

The crowd erupted in unison, “Pie on the Prize!”

The girl pulled the lever and Jumbo was relieved when he saw the speed of the pie coming toward him. It landed softly against his face and he threw his arms out in a dramatic sell of the impact. The crowd cheered and laughed and he felt his heart swell like an orchestra. The warmth overwhelmed him as he pulled the tin from his face, joining in their laughter. It was a drug administered through the ears. Validation, joy, the meaning of life. Nothing mattered when people were laughing.

“Nice shot!” he said. The girl was dancing as he wiped his face gently with a roll of paper towels, careful not to smear his paint. He handed her the squishmallow and she pranced away, back to her parents, who were smiling excitedly. The crowd was alive with chatter, kids egging each other on.

“Who's next?” he asked.

An hour of Pie on the Prize followed, with kids lining up and spinning the wheel, each one praying for the PlayStation 5. They settled for what they landed on and took a pie or walked away disappointed. He had a jar of candy for the kids who didn't want to sit in front of the cannon. It seemed Pie on the Prize was a resounding success. Jumbo wished he’d thought of it sooner.

The prizes on the table began to dwindle, along with the crowd, and Jumbo was so caught up in the fun and the addictive glow of second-hand happiness that he’d nearly forgotten about the big boy and his posse. After handing a laughing boy a brand new Creature skateboard as his buddies teased him and checked out his new wheels, Jumbo looked up. There, walking in a line behind the back row of the crowd, the pack of boys stalked like sharks through sea grass. The big boy walked in front, glowering through the crowd, his eyes locked on the PlayStation. Jumbo’s stomach lifted and his body hummed with a low trembling. The big boy saw the bait. He wanted it.

Jumbo moved on to the next kid in line, there was only one more after that. A little girl spun the wheel and landed on an action figure slot. The boys planted themselves near the front of the crowd, not far from the last kid waiting in line. Jumbo looked up the sidewalk and saw Rudy talking to a cop stopped on a bicycle. He was gesturing toward Jumbo’s crowd. Rudy was trying to keep his ol’ pal Jumbo safe.

“Mister Jumbo.” The girl who had spun was tugging on his sleeve. His tongue was bloated sandpaper, his skin itched beneath the sticky silk of his suit. He blinked and shook his head, the tiny bells at his collar tinkling.

“Sorry, miss,” he said, snapping out of his dehydrated trance. “Would you like to take a pie for my last action figure?” The girl shook her head solemnly. “Well, that’s alright. Have your pick from my candy jar on the table there and have a wonderful day at the wharf!” She smiled, picked out her candy, and ran back to her parents.

“That wheel is rigged,” the big boy blurted. “Nobody’s gonna land on that PlayStation.”

His voice was even more repulsive than Jumbo remembered. It was like hearing a pile of slugs sizzling on the roasting pavement. The boy's hands were on his hips. The hands that had humiliated him. The hands that tried to take everything from him. Jumbo performed a smile.

“Of course it isn’t rigged!” he said, his tone high and jolly. “I’m not leaving the wharf until I’ve handed out all my prizes! Whoever lands on the PlayStation and takes a pie, takes her home!” The big boy scoffed, but he wasn’t wrong. Jumbo weighted the wheel slightly when he built it, ensuring the grand prize would not be won until he deemed it was time. 

The next child spun the wheel and landed two slots from the PlayStation, on the last skateboard. The crowd gasped at the narrow miss. The boy jumped and spun in a circle of agonized defeat.

“Damnit!” he said. 

“Rodney!” his mother said. “Language!” Rodney sighed.

“I wanted the PlayStation but that skateboard is pretty sick.”

“So, you’re ready for pie?” Jumbo asked.

“I guess so,” the boy answered and shrugged.

Jumbo put the barber cape on the boy, loaded the pie, and fired. The boy cracked up as he removed the tin and Jumbo handed him the roll of paper towels.

“Good job!” Jumbo said. “Now grab your skateboard. You earned it!” Jumbo looked back down the sidewalk. The bike cop glided toward his stage in a neon yellow polo and mirrored shades. He’d have looked a bit like a clown himself if it weren’t for the pistol on his hip.

Jumbo turned and bumped into the big boy, who had walked up behind him with his arms folded. Jumbo’s pulse reached blinding speed and he put his hands behind his back to hide their quaking. He realized he was terrified of the boy. He’d spent so long plotting and trying to avoid memories of the incident that he hadn’t considered how it would feel to actually be in front of him again. The big boy leaned sideways, looking past the clown, at the nearby cop.

“So, you’re telling me this wheel isn’t rigged?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Jumbo lied. He giggled nervously.

“Because there’s a cop right there and that would be false advertising.”

What a fucking idiot, Jumbo thought. Like the cop would do anything if I didn’t give something away for free.

“Clown’s honor,” Jumbo said, putting two fingers in the air. The big boy swallowed back whatever poison he was going to spit at Jumbo.

“So if I spin and land on that PlayStation, you’ll give it to me?”

“Ab-so-lutely tootly!” Jumbo answered. He strode to the prize wheel, slipping a sneaky hand into the side pocket of his suit. He’d stashed a magnet the size of a watch battery there, which he now held between his index and middle finger. “Right after you’ve taken a pie.”

Jumbo’s heart seemed to match the pound and pitch of the marching circus bass drum coming from his speaker. The boy took a step back and mulled it over. He looked at his posse and then at the cop. Jumbo breathed heavily, his makeup beginning to run in the heat, traces of whipped cream in thin streaks through his wig. The big boy didn’t notice Jumbo slyly sticking the small magnet behind the PlayStation slot.

“Okay, mister Jumbo!” the big boy said. The sudden change of pitch in the boy’s voice, him sounding like his actual age, slid a cold knife down Jumbo’s spine. The boy smiled with every part of his face, except the eyes, which burned like hateful coal toward the clown. “I’ll spin your wheel!”

The boy walked toward Jumbo and the wheel. Jumbo recoiled instinctively before regaining his composure, smiling and stepping back to let the boy have his spin. The boy turned to what was left of the crowd, landing his gaze on the cop straddling his bike.

“This wheel is rigged!” he announced. He spun the wheel hard, its pegs clicking a machine gun whir against the stopper. It turned and turned. Jumbo squeezed his hands into fists, worried the force of the boy’s spin had dislodged the magnet or that his design had been wrong and his trick wouldn’t work.

The wheel slowed to a steady drumbeat of clicks. The growing crowd leaned in. Click. Three stops from the PlayStation. Click, click. The final peg bent the stopper at an obscene angle next to the machine.

Click.

The crowd exploded. The bike cop applauded loudly and hollered. The boy’s friends hugged each other and yelled in triumph, pumping their fists, and, in an instant, the big boy turned into the child he should have been. His eyes lightened, smiling with the rest of his face. His friends beat him on the back lovingly. Jumbo slapped his gloved hands together in excitement, caught up in the moment.

“I can’t believe I won,” the boy said quietly to his friends.. Jumbo could barely hear him through the joyful crowd. “My fucking mom would never buy me one of those things.” The air was electric. It seemed the whole wharf celebrated with the big boy.

“Alright!” Jumbo said. “Now all that’s left is your pie!”

The crowd quieted. Silent attention was focussed on the boy. His brow dropped back down in the hush, along with the corners of his mouth. The twinkle in his eyes receded as he noticed everyone watching him.

“I’m not taking a pie,” he said. Jumbo was heaving hot wind. He looked at the cop, who'd removed his shades.

“Well,” he said, “those are the rules of Pie on the Prize!” Jumbo smiled at the crowd, at the cop.

“Why?” the big boy asked.

“Because that’s the fun!”

“How is that fun?”

Jumbo sighed and walked tiredly toward the boy. He was wiped, exhausted, and desperately thirsty. He dropped his voice low, so that only the boy could hear, and was surprised when it wasn’t his voice, but Doug’s that came from his mouth.

“Look kid,” Doug said. “I don’t want any more trouble down here, okay? Just take the pie, take the PlayStation, and leave me alone, alright? This is how I make my living.”

The big boy stared at him suspiciously. He looked again at the cop.

“Motherfucker,” he said quietly to himself. “And you’ll give me that PlayStation?”

“I promise,” Doug answered and pulled out the key to the lock around the coveted machine, jingling it in front of the boy. “Just stay away from me out here after this, okay?”

“Alright,” the boy answered loud enough for everyone else to hear. He took the key and everybody applauded, anxious to see the final stage of the game.

The boy sat on the stool and Jumbo draped him in the barber cape. Sat down and wrapped up like that, Jumbo saw the boy for the child he was. He looked small and the joy on his face when he realized he’d won had genuinely touched Jumbo’s heart. He realized that this boy likely came from a horrible home, that he didn’t have any role models to look up to. His family was probably poor, his parents likely abusive. Like Jumbo’s, or Doug’s, own parents. He stepped back, continuing to study the young man, who glared up at him before his face changed back to the performative smiling niceness of before.

“One more thing,” the boy said, “but it’s a secret. Come here, Jumbo.”

Jumbo felt his grease paint leaking down his neck, down his chest. He tried to swallow as he leaned closer but was too parched. The boy spoke in a barely audible whisper.

“You can hit me with that pie,” he said. “But I swear to fucking god, if I don’t leave here with that PlayStation I will murder you in front of that cop. I don't give a fuck. And if I see you down at the wharf again, you’re going to wish I only pantsed you again.”

Jumbo’s chest became a volcano inside his clown suit as he stood and walked toward his cannon. The world swam in a dizzying haze of rage and memories of what set him on this path in the first place. A larger crowd had been slowly assembling to watch the boy take home the Grand Prize. The faces of the crowd distorted in the heat. They were ghoulish and laughing at Jumbo, not with him, and he realized then that it did matter. Nobody helped him. Nobody gave a fuck. They were perfectly happy to watch this evil little pig hurt Jumbo and take everything from him. 

The cop had his arms folded over his canary chest. A polka version of “Camptown Races” came to an end and the familiar, dreamy sounds at the beginning of his favorite song came prophetically through his speaker. Jumbo cranked the handle as the world went sideways in a red haze of fury.

They're far, they're near, they're gone, they're here

They're quick and slick, they're insincere

Beware, Beware, Be a very wary bear

The metal plate locked into place and he removed a can of whipped cream, setting it on his card table. He looked down at the few remaining pie tins resting atop the special tin at the bottom. Jumbo pretended to adjust the aim of the cannon, flipping the Bad Boy switch with an errant finger. He heard the hiss of gas from its hidden place inside the stand.

The cop watched the boy and not Jumbo as he picked up the whipped cream can. Maybe he’d just use a regular pie tin. The boy may not learn his full lesson, but it would certainly teach him something. The force was enough to wrap the standard tins around the face of his mannequin during test fires. A standard tin would still be terribly unpleasant for the young man. He looked at the boy, who glared.

“Come on, man,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.” Jumbo shook his head in a tinkling of bells. He couldn’t see straight. His clown suit suffocated his body. 

The boy smiled and silently mouthed, pedophile.

If honey’s what you covet, you’ll find that, they love it

Because they’ll guzzle up the thing you prize

Jumbo removed the normal pie tins, revealing the weighted one at the bottom. He quickly began swirling whipped cream in a frenzy, burying the bed of pointing razors fixed to the bottom. He giggled as the razors were swallowed in cream and then set the heavy tin against the launch plate. The big boy’s expression changed as the tin clinked against the plate, his smile gone. The heavier tin sounded different from the normal ones. Jumbo looked at the cop and gripped the handle that would release his retribution.

“Alright, folks!” Jumbo called. “This one is for the whoooooole enchilada.” An unhinged laugh escaped him. Enchilada was his favorite word. “A grand prize for a grand young man who has earned it! When I count to three, everyone yell, ‘Pie on the Prize!’”

People clapped. The big boy’s hyenas laughed and pointed at him. He looked nervous, as if he may get up.

“One!” Jumbo yelled.

The crowd inhaled.

“Two!” 

The cop leaned over his handlebars.

“Three!”

The big boy went to say something but was drowned out by the crowd yelling the name of Jumbo’s wonderful game. Jumbo’s eyes locked on the boy’s and his smile turned hellacious as he bared his teeth and yanked the lever as hard as he could.

The launch plate shot forward like a piston, releasing a ca-chunk sound not yet heard that day and, barely visible, the special pie flew in a streak at the big boy’s face.

The sound was a melon being slammed on asphalt. It was a thousand water balloons bursting with viscera. It was the neck of a baseball bat being broken over a knee. And it was the sound of screams. Deafening screams. Children and parents. Crying. Shrieking. Wailing like Jumbo did the day he’d been humiliated. Vomit hit the sidewalk. Every expletive ever conceived sailed from the lips of the crowd and soared with the gulls above the wharf.

The weighted tin caved in the boy’s face from just above his chin, all the way up. The ruin of his visage was smashed back to his ears, held in place by the razors dug into the meat. The force had cracked his neck like the top of a pencil, his spine jutted from his throat, and his head hung backward like a busted PEZ dispenser. Gore splattered the backsplash, sliding down through the whipped cream, and plopping in pink piles beneath the boy’s fresh corpse.

Jumbo jumped up and down, clapping with screaming laughter. 

“BEWARE! BEWARE! BE A VERY WARY BEAR!” he screamed.

Jumbo spun lazy circles in the hurricane chaos of the vomiting crowd. Parents sprinted away with their children in their arms. The big boy’s friends sobbed as they ran from Jumbo's stage. The cop was off his bike, pointing his gun at the drenched and melting clown. He barked orders Jumbo couldn't hear.

Jumbo sang his favorite song as he ceased his spin and faced the pistol. He smiled and stretched out his arms, his gloved fingers spread like claws, and bowed.

---

Special thanks to

Dev

for editing this beast. Jumbo is not the most delightful guest to have in your mind.