Kankakee slumlord, narcadoodle and Vaudeville clown Madeline Topolla-Teirant walks behind the strip mall, past the dumpsters, to hide from a client who turned her in for illegal activity at Kankakee’s Best Low Income Apartments, which she manages.
“Madwoman!” a male voice calls out.
“Who called me?” a terrified Madeline asks.
A slender, young, dirty-blonde male wearing shades, a hoodie, and ripped blue jeans walks up to Madeline.
“I am Brandon Dixon. I own Brandon’s Imbecile Machines in Kankakee. I hear you are a clown.”
“Ummm, yeah…”
Madeline shakes even more.
“I am one too. I would like to try out for your touring Vaudeville act.”
“Maybe I can use an understudy.”
“You bet. Call me.”
The two shake hands and part ways. Madeline heads back to work, Brandon home.
“Hi, is this Wally Green?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Madeline Topolla-Teirant. I need to order a case of some half-ply toilet paper. That’s the kind that breaks off one square at a time right? I need some really cheap supplies for our community centers here at our low income complexes and I am not going to pay a lot. Ohh, hold on I have a beep.”
Madeline switches calls.
“Robbie?”
“Hey babe. Moronic Half-Assets has a gig coming up tomorrow in Gary, Indiana. I was totally thinkin’ I would rock the joint as Roy Orbinson.”
“You’re just an Elvis impersonator and not a very good one,” Madeline insults Robbie.
“Well honey, I can also pull off a crazy cool Mike Mesmith.”
“Get outta here with that.”
“Peter Tork? “Johnny Cash?”
“NO!”
Madeline slams down the phone.
“Riiiiiing!”
“Yes.”
“This is Wally. You wanted to order toilet paper?”
Madeline sighs…
The next afternoon, a Wally Green’s truck shows up to the low income housing complex where Madeline works.
“Beep beep beep beep.” The truck backs in.
“A whole case of half-ply toilet paper, just like you ordered. Just sign here on the sticker.”
Madeline scrawls her name.
“Here you go!”
“Ouch!”
“Whoopsie!” says the driver.
“You dropped the box on my foot. I think you broke it!”
Madeline drives over to the nearest 30 Second Clinic.
“It’s a bit bruised but you will be fine. Just ice it for two days while you are at home. You can go back to work now.”
“But doctor?”
“Your thirty seconds are up. We have other patients out there in the waiting room. Our medical office assistant will walk you out and take your copay.”
An angry Madeline begrudgingly pays her bill and heads home. There is no way she can make the gig tonight.
Madeline gets on her mobile phone.
“Hey Brandon, this is Madeline. I know this is short notice. I have a clown gig tonight I cannot make. You see I broke—“
“I’ll do it!” Brandon says with a smirk only he can see on his face, as he is looking at himself in the mirror.
“Gary, Indiana. Lapolla Theater.”
“Oh, I will be there, makeup and all.”
“I knew I could count on you.”
“Thanks.”
Madeline hangs up her phone and takes a nap.
Hours pass and Madeline thinks about how happy she is that she has another clown. Deep down inside she really does not want to do that gig in Gary. She falls asleep while thinking up a scheme to get out of paying Brandon.
A series of dings wakes a sound asleep Madeline.
From: Konrad
“I did not know you were sending us a juggalo. The crowds booed us! What were you thinking, Mad?”
From: Robbie
“Man this clown is weird and he looks funny. He reminds me of people my father hung out with. He keeps asking me to buy him Faygo. Our gig sucked because of him, not because of me. Just saying.”
A series of photos came in of Brandon, Konrad and Robbie on stage.
Needless to say, Madeline was up all night, and it was not because of her foot hurting.
“Why don’t you have enough staff in here? I come to your pharmacy here in Kankakee, they say ‘20 minutes.’ Two hours later, my meds are not ready?” the tall, curvy, light-skinned lady with the blue curls asks.
“It has only been 2 minutes” drugstore chain owner and wacky inventor Wally Green gaslights Kitty Bee, one of many ladies who rejected his advances at the local bars and cafés.
“Three people on the sales floor asked me if I needed anything. Yeah, you need more pharmacy staff and fewer sales clerks!” a rightfully upset Kitty tells Wally.
“I’m not about to debate capitalism with you,“ Wally dismisses Kitty’s concerns, logs onto his dating app and begins to think up more useless inventions. Multi-tasking is one of Wally Green’s core values and part of the chain’s Mission Statement, whatever the heck that means.
Kitty goes home and writes up a review on Welp to warn other customers about her bad experience, and tags the Federal Trade Commission, the Illinois Attorney General and the Chicago Tribune.
The Attorney General’s office contacts Kitty, very concerned about Wally’s history of mismanaging his Deerfield-based drugstore chain. They have received multiple complaints from customers, staff and providers.
“I want to have a sit-down with you” the caller from the Illinois Attorney General office says to Wally. Terrified any legal troubles — and potential bad press — might hurt his profits, Wally racks his bird-brain for new ideas to make money. Sales of Toiliots and Mr. Plopsies are down anyway.
“Hey Robbie, design me a new flyer.”
“I can draw a bit but do not know how to design. My high-school classmate and I made a cartoon once.”
“Good. We need a letter to go out yesterday offering all of Illinois our new credit card. It has a 69 per cent UFO, but who cares?”
“Umm, you mean APR, right?”
“Whatever. Just get it done.”
Robbie gets to work. A few hours later, after taking a Number One, this part-time Elvis impersonator and store clerk shows his boss Wally Green his design:
“Perfect. Now get on that mail merge.” Wally walks away from Robbie and goes into his office to check his OKStupid account. “I clink on the lick and not one lovely lady swipes right. Why do nice guys like me finish last?”
“I can hear ya, boss. What the heck is a mail merge? Hello?”
Robbie sighs, goes back to sweeping the floor and then tries to sell folks Wally’s patent-pending Half-Ply Toilet Paper.
Wally Green’s profits sink due even further since the truth came out all over the media about his crappy stores. The “Buy One, Get One Half Off (But Never Free)” sales did not help, either.
Wally goes down to his favorite bar, The Gaslight, and parks his bum at his usual spot. It’s going to be a long night for the dysfunctional Wally.
Bourbonnais multiplex clerk, neckbeard and communal narcissist, Damien Hurlbutt, has caught word that his estranged former wife Lori is coming into Kankakee County for a doctor’s appointment. He is deathly afraid of running into her because he is scared she might confront him about his history of verbal abuse toward her, tarnishing his squeaky-clean image. He heads over to his brother Robbie’s apartment to ask him and fellow con man Pat Splatt to come up with a sneaky way into avoiding her.
“I’m back!” Damien tells his younger brother and fellow narcissist, Robbie.
“I’m front!” Robbie snickers back.
“I am leaving town for a week or longer. I am telling my boss at the cinema and then hitting the gas. My ex-wife is coming back into town and I am scared.”
“Scared?” Robbie replies in his typical faux-Elvis voice.
“Yeah. Sssh, don’t tell anyone. I really look good online after I smear campaigned her to all my friends, even to that famous couple until they had told me to stop messaging them, sending them presents and mailing them weekly postcards. I had sent them a drawing I made all by myself after our friend passed away since I had talked them into letting me send them art instead. I swear, they are really impressed! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” Damien exclaims with glee as he rubs his palms together.
“Just man up and deal with it!” Robbie Hurlbutt tells his older brother Damien.
“Come now. That is not how you talk to a fellow Men’s Rights Activist! You know that!” Damien says on the defense to Robbie.
“I hope you get the time off approved.”
“Okay, okay, okay, okay…” Damien repeats ad nauseum, not knowing his little brother Robbie is already out of earshot.
“Ding-dong.”
“You’re wrong!” Damien snickers beneath his breath to the person at Robbie’s door.
A half-grinning Pat Splatt opens the door and struts inside.
“I popped the question!”
“What question?” Damien asks.
“Heyyyy…where did you meet her?” Robbie replies and looks away.
“Hey Pat, my ex is coming into town and I am feeling lukecold about this. I was wondering if you could help come up with a scheme—“
“Damien, I just got engaged!”
“I know, I know. My ex is due in sometime this week. I would like to gingerly bow out of town but I have to work. What do you suggest I do?”
“Hey, can I sing at your wedding, Pat?” Kankakee’s number one Elvis impersonator, the one and only Robbie Hurlbutt asks.
“Do you know anything besides Elvis?”
“I can sing lots of oldies.” Robbie replies.
“Do you play any metal?”
“No, but you can book me really cheap. I will throw in my groovy dance moves for free.”
“I’ll consider it.” Pat says to Robbie.
“So where did you meet her?” Robbie asks.
“The dating app OKStupid. Hey, I’ll show you guys a picture.” Pat gets out his phone and opens up said dating app.
“Who’s Daniel Sprague?” Damien asks.
“Oh, that’s my profile,” a half-embarrassed Pat replies as his gawky, straggly self shows the Hurlbutt brothers the obviously-stolen photos of the handsome, athletic man in the photos with the gorgeous hair and eyes.
The Hurlbutts smile and ask to see his new girl.
“Her name is Alix. She’s from South Africa.”
“When did you meet her?” Damien asks.
“Oh, a month ago.”
“She came to Kankakee?” Robbie asks?
“No.”
“Hey Damien, let’s work on avoiding your ex,” Pat says to change the topic and the three work on scheming.
The next day arrives and so does Damien. Unlike Pat, Damien rings the bell and waits. While he waits, he taps his foot and jiggles the doorknob a dozen times. Make it a baker’s dozen.
“Well doesn’t that put poop in your soup?” Damien asks Robbie.
“Say what?”
“My time off did not get approved. I have to work. That means if my ex-wife comes into town, and visits the theater, she could say something bad about me if I am mean to her! What do I do?”
“Weren’t you saying you had heel spurs, just like the former president?”
“You know, the Moon landing may not be real but durn it, my bone spurs are!” Damien sternly replies.
“You deserve a long, hard week off.”
“You know, that’s right. I’ll just call in.”
“What do you do at that theater anyway?”
“Oh, make copies of tickets and give them away. And make color copies of things I print out…all on the company’s dime. Why not? They’re paying for it.”
The brothers share a giggle and Damien drives home to his neckbeard nest to sleep on the floor.
Damien dials his supervisor, Cinema-13 owner Konrad Teirant, on his ten year old flip phone to call in “sick.”
“You will need to be examined by a doctor and have a written excuse for each day you are out. Company policy.” Konrad says to Damien.
Upset and surprised by this rule, Damien makes an appointment to be seen. The office cannot tells him he cannot in until next week.
“Phew!” Damien says aloud after he hangs up his ancient flip phone and writes down his doctor appointment.
Damien drives over to Robbie’s apartment, where Robbie, his roommate Andy Skandees and Pat Splatt are all dancing and watching children’s entertainment.
A bulbous Damien sits down on the basket chair and nearly falls out, while Pat stares angrily at his phone on the couch next to Andy, who is relaxing in his white tank top and cargo pants.
“She says she wants to come meet me. In person. I keep telling her I am busy. She says she is on her way to Kankakee in a week-and-a-half for a business meeting via way of Chicago!” an unhappy Pat exclaims.
“Why don’t you want to meet your girl? Andy asks.
“Reasons,” Pat replies.
“Did I tell you my story about the poop elves?” Damien asks with a large grin on his face.
“Way too many times…” the rest of the room answers in unison.
“Oh, I forgot.” Damien lies.
The Kankakee storm rages on, and then changes to sun five minutes later.
Damien spends the next week off work, feeling glad he does not run into his former wife out and about, especially at work. It is review week coming up and he is deathly afraid of this time of year, as he is every year. Damien lives to impress, and will not even let his peers throw him a birthday party because he is not the one doing the impressing. If anyone would care enough to surprise him —not that they would — he would take over the check, (in a not-so-polite-way) and insist on paying on it himself thinking that would somehow impress them.Damien only does this for image, as he only cares about himself. He just wants to look good to cover up his lack of empathy.
Damien goes to the doctor’s office the following Monday before returning to work at the movie theater that night. After all, he had just spent a week off for his heel spurs!
While waiting for about an hour for his fifteen minute exam, in walks a familiar-looking woman, along with a much older lady. Damien looks up.
“Oh gawd.” Lori says to her friend after briefly looking over at Damien and then back at her friend.
Damien is now shaking with fear. He immediately dials up Robbie. It goes straight to voicemail. He calls Andy. Same thing. He calls Pat.
“Hey, man. It’s an emergency.”
“Be right over. I am charging you double-time.”
“Fine.”
Damien flips over his bronze-age phone and waits, tapping his fingers, whistling audibly.
Thirty minutes pass and Damien has not been called back to see the doctor, neither has Lori.
Pat Splatt walks in, cowboy boots a-clomping.
“Hi Damien. What’s going—“
“Look, Pat.”
Damien points across from him, to his former wife and her friend.
“What do you want from me?” Pat asks.
“That’s my ex wife! I thought her appointment was last week! You gave me the info.”
“So what. Things change. It happens.”
“Hey, you sound familiar!” says one of the ladies across from him.
“Hey-hhmm-hhuhhh—hmmm—what?” a melodramatic Damien replies.
“No not you, that guy next to you.” the elderly lady replies in her Cape Town accent, appearing to be about 72.
“You mean Pat?” Damien snarkily replies.
“Pat? I thought your name was Daniel!”
“Alllll-iiiiixxxx?” a stunned Pat Splatt replies.
“Yes, sonny. It’s me. I had told you I was coming into town. But you hadn’t wanted to meet me. I wonder why not? You do not look anything like your picture. The engagement is off.”
“Well neither do you!” Pat exclaims.
“Calm down everyone!” a staff member shouts from behind a window.
The group of people waiting wonder how any of them would get any calmer by a comment like that.
Damien is eventually thrown out of the office and Lori is called in next.
Needless to say, Damien does not pass his yearly review at Teirant Cinema-13. Poor Damien. If only he had just tried to be nice. But then again, he would not be Damien.
Kankakee pharmacy clerk, vulnerable narcadoodle and the city’s number one Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt was surprised to see his ex-girlfriend who had left him 17 years ago. Mimicking his self-entitled communal narcissist brother Damien, he put his flip phone up as she passed by him at the grocery store and took a photo of her, in plain daylight.
He never got over her having broken up with him, and him being the creepy narcissist who thinks he can do no wrong, Robbie thought it was just dandy to take her photo and keep it in his souvenir collection of exes he idealized, devalued and discarded like chewed up gum.
Kankakee pharmacy clerk, vulnerable narcissist and Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt, his equally narcissistic brother Damien and con-job roommate Andy Skandees join together for one rotten number. Robbie’s Youtube clones could not make it. Don’t close the washroom door.
Kankakee drugstore clerk, Elvis impersonator and vulnerable narcadoodle Robbie Hurlbutt is feeling down because he cannot seem to get a date. Do you think he will ever figure out why?
Join Kankakee’s newest Vaudeville act, MHA – Moronic Half Assets, across the USA! Kankakee theatre owner and comedian Konrad Teirant joins his dumpster-clown wife, Madeline, in Elvis impersonator Robbie Hurlbutt’s clownmobile as they tour the country! See them before they leave their stop in Utica, New York!
Not only am I a writer and cartoonist, I am also a musician. When I write about these silly characters, I listen to a certain playlist dedicated to just them.
Each character has a theme song. Not only does it remind me of said character, it gives the reader insight behind the character’s personality, behavior, and interests. Please stay tuned as this list will grow over time.
MoronicArts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.