Floozman and the Traveling Entertainers

by Bertrand Cayzac

Table of Contents
Vers la version originale

part 5

Fred Looseman used to be the head risk assessor at World Wide Credit Corporation and the chairman of the Anti-Money Laundering Commission. Now he works as an automated teller machine repairman.

Sometimes he hears voices, and sometimes what he hears moves him to tears. His bank account overflows with the money of deliverance, and he becomes a financial super-hero: Floozman.

The procession entered the countryside. It was a noisy, motley line extended by a sinister cortège. Hundreds of onlookers had come to swell it at the exit of Plouvigny without understanding what was going on. Others followed in their cars, windows shut.

Far in the beet field, one could distinguish a marquee adorned with thousands of pennants. Gun salutes greeted a cloud of incoming helicopters. On the edge of the field, hundreds of wire-meshed police vans were posted.

The head of the parade was now made up of three hundred female elephants ridden by three hundred horsewomen bearing torches. As they strode along before the armoured vehicles, sparks crackled in the evening air.

Men from Zachariah’s camp approached Floozman’s mount.

“What shall we do? Too many people. This is not good.”

“Keep your chin up,” Zachariah answered. “We mustn’t miss this opportunity. Be ready to leave tonight.”

The parade deployed itself around the marquee with elaborate choreographic figures. Part of the crowd rushed inside. Those who could not go in settled outside, in the middle of the fields. Floozboys were distributing loaves and fishes. The young people were dancing. The sick and the crippled had gathered to wait for Floozman.

Under the marquee, a television stage had been installed. As the spectators were taking their seats, the speaker opened the debate.

“Can we still continue to shut our eyes? In offering this land to the travelling entertainers, the Mayor of Plouvigny — who is going to join us any minute now — is taking the question to the public. Do we have to house and integrate these marginal people? If yes, how? Does the solution not require the definition of a specific status?

“To conduct this debate, Mrs” —he read his card— “Floozgirl, representative of the Wandering Campers, an association supporting the travelling entertainers, Mrs Boursou, president of the neighbouring communities and Mr Saint-Prophyla, official representative of the secretary of state, have agreed to exchange their points of view and to answer questions from the audience.

“Before the discussion starts, we will present a few live interviews. But first of all, welcome to the Circus, and to Mr Loyal!”

The presenter asked the audience for a last volley of applause via the giant prompters before plunging the stage into darkness.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the clowns!” The spotlights focus on Mr Loyal, who has just entered another part of the ring.

The Auguste was joining him. It was a caricature of Floozman, wearing a coat and a feathered turban. The coat was oversized so that he was constantly walking on it. With a ridiculous pistol, he was shooting off coins all around while singing at the top of his voice. A smell of powder and rectal mucous pervades the air.

“Ouch, you are hurting me with your coins!” The white clown made his entry into the circle of light.

“It’s for your good. You won’t have to be a clown anymore. You are rich!” he said with broad waving motions of his sleeve. He fell down. Drum rolls. He got back up.

“But you have stolen this money, upon my word! You cannot be rich!” replies the white clown.

“What do you mean, I cannot be rich? Tell me what you want and I will buy it to you!”

“FOR you!”

“TO!”

“FOR!”

“Well, whatever. Now, tell me what you want and I will buy it for you.”

“Err... I don’t know. A banana?”

“Here you are.” A rain of bananas pours on him.

“Enough! Enough!” cries the white clown.

“Is that all?”

“Well, no. Wait. A planet? It’s more convenient.”

“A big one?”

“Whatever.”

“All right.” He concentrated. An alarm blared. The spotlights were thrown into a panic.

A third character appeared. He was wearing a black tracksuit and an eye mask.

“This can’t be happening. He made the PLANET fall! It will crush EVERYBODY. Stop it! I am serious.

“Yes, but it’s his planet, now,” said the pseudo Floozman.

“And when I say STOP, I really mean STOP!” the third character shouted in a tone slightly out of the clownish register. “My ray gun will put you in debt forever. You will be my slave and stop this nonsense.” He pointed a laser pistol at his accomplice.

“You’re not scaring me with your toy.”

“What!? A TOY?! It’s HIGH-TECH. It’s serious. Look! Do you have a credit card?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, taking a giant card out of his jacket.

“You want to be rich. Even richer? Well, it’s easy. With the beam of my ray gun I will read your account number.”

“So what?”

“With your account number, I will establish a universal and irrevocable credit transfer and you, you will only have to say: ‘Yep’.”

“And why would I say ‘Yep’?”

“Because you want to be even richer, of course!”

“But when will I become even richer?”

“When you say ‘Yep’.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yep. You say ‘Yep’ when the beam hits you and you will get what you want right away. Of course, you will owe me the corresponding annual interest. If you do not want to pay, your descendants will pay, or you will pay me in services.

“All right.”

A candy-pink beam started out, together with a powerfully reverberating sound.

“Yep!” shouted the card holder. At this very moment, an enormous fluorescent-green rubber planet fell and deflated all over the three clowns. Ring boys came running in and carried off everything in nets. The music resumed.

* * *

In the large dressing room where Floozman and old Zachariah were sharing a narghileh with distinguished guests, Cyril Handlebar was trying to recollect his mind. “Nothing will ever be the same,” he said to himself.

He needed to regain control. He decided to use the best-suited conceptual tools. A “SWOT” for instance:

I am a branch manager in a blue chip company.
I have a good salary.
I am in good shape, I exercise.

My wife has gone nuts.
I am in a state of depression (untreated).
I have debts.

These circus loonies are giving me lots of money.

I don’t know where this money come from (risk).
It may be altogether a bad scene.

Just as he was drawing up his list, Cyril heard Mr Loyal proclaim “The Elephant Queen!”

Cyril Handlebar was startled. Petula was making her entrance in the ring, dressed in a flamboyant red sari.

How beautiful she is! he thinks at first, with a little gasp. How her face has changed! Then he remembers that she had fallen asleep by his side a moment ago as he was trying to call 911. How had she run away? And nobody told him she was gone! Had he also been sleeping in those suspicious incense fragrances?

The ring boys were placing large drums on the sand and distributing specially adapted hammers to the elephants. Petula was beating her tambourine, and the pachyderms started playing. It was not a rhythm, but not noise either. It was a strange and hesitant beat that converged and diverged, promising to reunite anew.

Petula was dancing with the elephants. The audience was mesmerized. At the end of the show, in a storm of applause, Mr Loyal took her to the TV stage, which was lit up again.

“Petula, only yesterday, you were a management assistant. What happened?”

“I have already forgotten. I had an acute depressive episode, a very violent crisis, and then the circus people took care of me. That’s how I met the elephants. I knew at once that my life was with them,” she answered, looking right to the camera, “especially with Ratnapala, the young male with whom I entered the ring.

“The truth... the truth is that we are in love and that we have found ways to give each other joy. I... I would like to tell my husband right away that I must leave him to follow the circus. He’ll understand. The children will join me. I do not want them to miss this happiness. The circus has very good teachers and also very good lawyers...”

“Well,” the presenter resumed, “it’s a grand moment of emotion and earnestness that you are offering us, Petula.”

Cyril Handlebar was suffocating; he wanted to undo his necktie and then realized he was still dressed in a track suit. He got up, sat down, got up again. He looked for Floozman, but Floozman had left the room.

As he rushed into the corridor, he felt a firm pressure on his arm. A middle-aged man, dressed in a dark suit was talking to him.

“Mr Handlebar, we know you and we understand what you are feeling. Please do not add to the confusion...”

His momentum broken, Cyril listened to him with no reaction.

“We are trying to understand the events. We are mandated by different international banking institutions. This business is international in scope. You are a sensible man, we think that you can help us.”

“I want to get my wife back, to go home and take care of her. I am fed up with that circus!”

“Mr Handlebar, are you aware that your employer is firing you?”

“What!? How!?”

“You will also be charged with criminal association. Why did you escape from the police station? Why have you accepted the sums which you were given?”

“But I did not run, I...”

“You see, it is in your interest to collaborate. When the time comes, we will bring all this to an end and you will take your revenge. But we have to fight this Floozman with effective weapons. A little bit like the clown, a moment ago, you see... Never mind, I’m just kidding...”

The exhaustion Cyril Handlebar had been feeling gradually gave way to a feeling of adventure. He could not stay where he was anyway.

“Follow the movement, Mr Handlebar, and you will not be troubled. Follow the movement, join Floozman and we will get in touch with you when the time comes,” the mysterious man said in a soothing voice.

After a moment of silence, he took his leave. Only the swaying of a heavy crimson curtain reminded Cyril of the reality of this encounter.

Now, Cyril felt that he only had to find the way back to his recent mortification to surrender to Floozman with some sincerity. He could not curb the shameful relief that swept over him at this thought. Yet he knew for sure that this hoaxer was his enemy. Clutching his fists, he swore to take his wife back and avenge himself. Vague symbolic rewards were associated with this fantasy.

* * *

To be continued...