Written by John Davis Frain

A to Z Challenge: L

Lawyer v. Lion Tamer

L“First time I’ve represented a lion tamer,” Dal Peccataglio said, “but I think we can make a good case for temporaryL insanity.”

“Temporary –” Louie roared, “I tame lions for a living; you think a sane person would do this?”

“You’re hurting your own case, Louis, we’re gonna call you Louis from now on by the way, cut the Lou-eee shit. The love of your life has a beard and you’re not even gay, I think we can agree that’s insane.”

“You’ve got a beard, and I can’t stand you, plus you’ve been driving me insane the past half-hour.” The last thing Louie remembered before the cops busted in: I can go alone or I can do the world a favor and take this circus clown with me.

 

What the L, a double-dose of today’s letter. Sorry, Dena, couldn’t kill you so had to bring in a stand-in with your initials.

The six-sentence story was inspired by Hemingway who penned a six-word story (For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.). Today’s episode was brought to you by Lay’s Potato Chips, betcha can’t eat just one. And by Lucky Charms, they’re magically delicious. And by Lucky Strikes, you’d be Mad, Man to stop smoking. Thanks for stopping by. Come on back tomorrow for M. Might be time to kill Myself again!

27 thoughts on “A to Z Challenge: L”

  1. You know what they call a 100 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.
    An old joke but your story reminded me of it. And Dena, we adore you.

    I enjoyed this once more. Now back to my dread day job for the next little while and then back to Query Lake – I think that could make a great horror story, don’t you? Query Lake, where writers disappear at an alarming rate.

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  3. What’s the difference between a dead lawyer in the road and a dead snake in the road? There are skid marks in front of the snake.

    When the lawyer fell off the boat, why didn’t the shark eat him? Professional courtesy.

    These are just the jokes that popped into my head when I read E.M.’s comment. There are millions more. In truth, all the lawyers I know personally are wonderful people, but they are one of the last groups that it’s socially okay to make jokes about.

    Oh, wait, I just remembered another: What do you call a skydiving lawyer? Skeet.

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    1. Why do certain phrases just resonate and lead to so much more in your mind. Crazy ass clown. You just say those words and fourteen different stories pop into your head and start jumping all over the place. Doesn’t even have to be in a circus. Think of a crazy ass clown from the rodeo and as soon as that rodeo is finished and Crazy Ass Clown goes home … well, you know that’s not a typical suburban house with a Weber grill on the patio out back. He lives in the house a little ways off the road with curtains that are never opened and the one time you saw inside cuz your mail got mixed up with his you noticed there’s a window on the inside that doesn’t match up to one on the exterior wall and what’s up with that? Oh, you crazy ass clown, what do you do with yourself when the rodeo leaves town? Uh huh, I thought as much…

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      1. I thought about that real hard before I wrote it! If you wanted to really meet a Crazy Ass Clown, there was a really, really bad one in American Horror Story, Freak Show. It was good – at the beginning, and then it got a little disjointed and weird and we didn’t finish watching…but there WAS this clown. Honestly, he was CREEPY, and you could tell he was CRAZEEEEE. And speaking of living a little ways off the road, well he did, in some run down little dump of a trailer. I wished they’d done more with that character, to be honest.

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  5. Darn it. Now I totally want Lays and Lucky Charms. But I don’t smoke, so there is that silver lining. Great story today, but that one by Hemingway is kind of scary. Hope the baby’s feet were too big.

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    1. Tamara, you must be one a them half-glass-full kinda people, which makes you awesome. I love people who can look reality in the eye and still come up with their own version of it. I have NEVER even considered the idea that Hemingway’s baby was born with big feet. The legend has it that Ernest scratched out his story on a napkin. It has haunted me for years, both the story and Hemingway’s stumbling upon it.

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    1. Oh, dear Me, now you’re making me think. AHS. Hmm… Alfred Hitchcock Stories? No, that’s Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine so AHMM. Hmm… American Horror Story? Oh, maybe. I saw the first season, loved it, but then never made it back for some reason. Maybe two seasons. I was going on a fishing trip with a buddy after the first season, he’s driving, asks me “You watch any TV?” “Quit a few months ago, but it’s like smoking so you go back now and again. I watch one show: American Horror Story.” He laughs. “Yeah, right. You knew my question somehow.” His cousin, it turned out, had a big role in it. He played (plays?) the boyfriend of the daughter. Small world.

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  7. Louis must have a loose lug in the lobos to lead a lion-tamer’s life. Though being lawyer to a loony lion-tamer might be ludicrously more loopy! Fun stuff, John! 🙂

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  8. “What the L” ?!! Even your text supporting the stories are brilliant!

    By the way, I worked out why Google only lets me comment on your stories some times and not others – it’s because I was trying to comment from my work computer (whoops!) So then I tried tweeting you to let you know how much I’d enjoyed ‘J’ and ‘K’ and then Twitter was blocked by the network too – arrggh!!!
    Moral of story: get off my own butt, get WIP finished and agented and published and the $$ rolling in, and then I won’t have to use that computer or network anymore LOL

    Anyway, loving the stories. And also those ideas from the ‘crazy ass clown’ comments. So many ideas. So well expressed! You should be a writer or something…! (How’s that ending coming? Will the QOTKU be able to send out your manuscript sometime soon?)

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    1. I like the moral to your story. Get that WIP finished. Get agented. Get published. I like that formula so much I think I’ll try it for myself.

      My ending is coming along, thank you for asking. It is so painful scrapping entire chapters, especially with particular lines that I just loved. Hopefully I’ll get to use them again later. But I try to keep the Kurt Vonnegut advice in mind – Every sentence must do one of two things: reveal character or advance the story.

      Thanks for visiting. Now get going on the WIP and turn it into a WUS! That’s what I’m gonna start doing in a few minutes.

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      1. Nope, I didn’t like them long before Stephen King terrified me.

        For me, I think it was the circus when I was a kid, because the clowns looked so happy but were so mean to each other. And then there are the sad clowns. What’s the deal with sad clowns?! Have they not collected enough souls?

        Hmm. Apparently this brought up deep clowny feelings.

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  10. My favorite – Why does New Jersey have the most toxic waste dumps and California have the most lawyers?

    Because New Jersey had first choice.

    Thanks for letting me live another day. I’ll accept your stand-in with my initials =)

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      1. Update: No Halloween candy. But she enjoyed the joke. I don’t think she enjoyed me interrupting her reading Alan Furst for a joke though. Oh well. I’ll do it again with another one of these lawyer jokes in about 15 minutes. Just as a test, of course.

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