CLOWNWORLD SHAKESPEARE - The Tale Twists Along

Detained, chased and knocked down is no way to go through life. But it's a fine way to go through a comedic journey...

Before we begin Chapter 4, I’d like to introduce our sponsors... but, er, we have none, so without further ado, Chapter 4:

LAST TIME, we left off with William and Vicky’s muy mal adventure in the parking lot of the apartment complex, the name of which can be found HERE if you’re so interested.

INT. LAPD - INTERVIEW ROOM

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE sits across from a pair of LAPD DETECTIVES. He hasn’t changed clothes or washed, well, anything since yesterday morning. He’s in a dreadful fright too.

DETECTIVE 1: “Sir, calm down. We just want to talk. We got some of Miss Henderson’s preliminary toxicology reports back and want to confirm your story.”

SHAKESPEARE: “O, please kind, sir, no doubt a true Christian man of honor whose--”

DETECTIVE 1: “I’m actually Jewish. Last name Shneckberg.”

DETECTIVE 2: “Yeah, listen, pal, just keep your fucking gob shut or whatever the fuck you call it, answer a few questions, and you get to go home and spank it to Pornhub, capisce?”

DETECTIVE 1: “Officer Lentini, please!”

SHAKESPEARE: “I beg of thee, do not send me to Charringhouse Prison. O good kind sirs, the fortnight of horrors witnessed. It was as if every hell beast was vomited into a fur ball and mixed with the gangrenous pus of Satan’s oozing corpuscles and--”

Just then SAUL GOODMAN, yeah, that Saul Goodman, the one you better call, strolls into the room and holds his hand out to a trembling Shakespeare.

SAUL GOODMAN: “Saul Goodman, public defender. You must be, uh, Shakespeare, Bill.”

Saul clunks down into a chair and starts shuffling through a a stack of papers with the alacrity of a Vegas card dealer.

SAUL GOODMAN: “Don’t say a word. These guys got nothing. Nothing.”

Shakespeare tries to grab Saul’s paperwork to take a look, but Saul won’t let him.

SAUL GOODMAN: “The woman was higher than a Chinese acrobat at Shen Yun, and there was a whole host of medical issues.”

Saul reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crumbled faded news clipping.

SAUL GOODMAN: “So just let my client go and I don’t run to my good friend, my colleague...”

Saul looks quizzically at the crumpled newspaper clipping.

SAUL GOODMAN: “...uh, Vera Sko- Skola- Skolanowsky at the LA Times telling her how you’re trying to railroad some poor schlep immigrant here just trying to make a living, legally I might add.”

Shakespeare bristles at the “poor schlep immigrant” comment.

YE OLDE CUT TO:

EXT. LAPD HQ - A FEW MOMENTS LATER

Saul tucks a business card into William’s front coat pocket.

Shakespeare and Saul shake hands.

SHAKESPEARE: “Ah, yes, Good Man! Well, this ‘poor schlep immigrant’ thanks you from the depths of my beleaguered soul.”

Saul walks off with a wave.

GOODMAN: “Keep your nose clean, but if you don’t, you know where to find me, er, thee.”

William turns a corner. And boom, he’s smack in the middle of a large protest march.

In fact, two protest marches.

On one side, there’s BLM carrying signs with Vicky’s picture (yeah, Vicky is black) and slogans such as “Street Justice for Vicky.” And the other side is an anti-vaccine protest, featuring placards with Vicky’s picture and slogans such as “Suddenly Killed by Jab!”

Neither protest group exactly has a firm grasp on the situation, but yeah, Vicky did die, so yeah, that’s true. And police were on scene eventually.

But as for Vicky’s vax status? No one here at ClownWorld Shakespeare™ felt like we had the right to ask.

But enough pish-posh about respecting people’s medical privacy, back to the action...

POLICE CRUISERS pull up; the PROTESTERS start YELLING and SCREAMING.

COP OVER BULLHORN: “Disperse or we will unleash the robot K9s!”

The protesters continue to advance. William runs and ducks and cowers in an alleyway as the throng rushes by.

William hides for a few minutes. Yep, there’s a few robot K9s. Don’t wanna get some sort of e-bite. Neither a protester nor a tasty hunk of flesh be!

William jogs along a few deserted alleyways with lots of filled-to-the-brim garbage dumpsters.

He walks fast, then slows down a bit, then just shuffles along. Then a huge sigh. Quiet all around. The protest is now safely behind him.

The poet picks up the pace again and briskly turns from the alleyway onto a residential street. This stretch of area looks nice and safe. And quiet.

Real nice and quaint. There’s two ruggedly handsome Italian type MOVING GUYS taking stuff from a small cozy home into Rocco’s Moving Company white van. There’s lamps and tables and other homey furniture all over the front lawn.

And as William approaches, he sees the two movers nonchalantly carrying... AN OLD MAN’S DEAD BODY wrapped in cellophane into the van. The movers just glare at William, who slowly backs away.

He can’t stop staring at the dead body as he continues to back out of the gruesome scene. Shakespeare continues inching away, can’t stop watching. But after a few feet, he twists his head away from the dead body moving company and RUNS!

But doesn’t get very far. He SLAMS SMACK DAB INTO--

A 6-AND-A-HALF-FOOT-TALL MAN, built like a castle wall, but with fierce blue eyes and a wavy crop of blond hair.

Shakespeare crumples to the ground like a feather. Like a knocked-out fighter. Like the stock market circa October ‘29 (or anytime soon, really, as well). Like a pro soccer star faking a fall, you know, one of them simulation penalty jobbers. Yeah, that. That’s what Shakespeare looked like. But it was real and far from spectacular.

With a thick Scandinavian accent and distinct grammatical tic:

MAN: “I having hurt you?”

Shakespeare scrambles to get up, but the poet can’t move. He’s too weak and tired and just plain beat. He groans and slumps down on the sidewalk, holding his throbbing head.

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN IN CHAPTER 5…