Curing Jackson Blair: bp2

Ashton University was what most people would call a clown college. This is partially because the classes offered seem to have little relevance in the real world and the graduates seemed no more educated on graduation day than on day one. It was also known as a clown college because it was an institute that trained and employed clowns of all varieties. It was on this campus that Sterling and Preston walked to their first class of senior year, with William alongside them, filming once again.

“Why are you guys here?” William asked from behind the lens.
“So that you have somebody to film,” quipped Preston.
“Fine, be a funny guy. What class are you guys going to?”
“Look. Told you we’d see her,” Sterling said while pointing the attention to Cookie and some of her friends from across the field. Preston straightened his posture and walked to the girl clowns with only a slight hesitation while Sterling turned to the old classroom building. William went with Sterling.

Preston would be late to his first class of the year but it was just small enough of a price to pay. William had earlier asked Preston which clown was Cookie, but Preston’s answer—“the pretty one”—only confused William more. Once in the classroom, William temporarily turned off his camera and admitted his disbelief that clowning education required such, well, normal structure. After all, clowning can’t be learned from a book.

“You will need three books for this class!” exclaimed Dr. Garbo—who had a striking resemblance to Madeline Albright. Sterling sank in his seat. He could feel his wallet getting lighter as the professor assured the class they would need the books “Clowning Around the Clock,” “The Clown and the Fury,” and “Understanding Mathematics: A Quantitative Reasoning Approach.” The last book sounded strange to William, but the first thing taught in Quantitative Clowning is the rule of three—which is the comedic principle that two things establish a pattern and the third is used as the twist element. Essentially it is the bare minimum necessary to set up a joke. After 50 minutes in the class, William would begin to find jokes far less funny than ever before.

But before William’s sense of humor suffered a terrible blow, Chester raised his hand and before being called on, asked Dr. Garbo if the “Understanding Mathematics” book was just a joke, or more specifically, a punch line. When the chuckles died down, Garbo snidely shot back, “What are you, the class clown?”

“Well…yeah,” responded Chester. “But so is he.” Chester pointed to Spanky--a boy in full make-up and striped baggy pants. The class muffled laughter again. And before Garbo could make a first-day example of Chester, Preston walked into the classroom.

“I will not allow this laziness,” Garbo exploded, “I will not stand shenanigans and will not abide any more tomfoolery!”

“So I’ll just leave this outside,” Preston offered, holding up a water balloon, which then exploded in his hand, soaking only himself. “Please don’t mark me absent.”

While filming all this, William then turned to Sterling and admitted he found these clowns and their antics as disturbing as they were confusing as they were funny. Sterling turned to William.

“No kidding.”