This is the third story in this summer’s online Flash Fiction series. You can read the entire series, and our Flash Fiction stories from 2017 and 2018, here.

Citizen Punch, sitting under his humped back and sugarloaf hat on the lip of the little stage, his floppy legs dangling, is performing for the rowdy seaside audience below him. “Life is shit,” he says with his peculiar wheezle.

“Yay!” they yell.

“People are better off dead!”

“Yay!”

“Give me your money!” he says. They do.

He loves his audience. They love him. But he hates them, too. They’re people, and people are mostly disgusting. Sometimes he wants to hit them so hard that he can watch their heads spin. Pow! Bash! Whirr! So hard that they never recover. Ka-BLAM! No loss. They’re stupid arse-kissers at best. But they do adore his arse, which he bares from time to time, taking pleasure in their adoration. “It’s your best feature,” the foxy Professor tells him, helping him display it. Looks like a knuckled fist, and is sometimes used as one. BOP! Sur-PRISE! He adores it, too. It’s when the dummies are puckered up at his knuckled backside that he feels closest to them. Gives them his happy face to show his appreciation, make them feel good.

Not everybody loves him back. There are always a few rotten barrels in every apple, as the Professor says. No problem. His people take care of them. “That’s the way to do it!” Punch tells them. “Total losers! Throw ’em the hell outa here!” His people hate do-gooders as much as he does. “We all know life’s just a joke,” he squawks, “but those patsies think it has meaning! They’ll never get the gag, not even when they’re hit by the punch line. Lay it on! Bigly!”

“How’s that, Mr. Punch?” It’s the Bottler. The Bottler is his fixer. Every honest man needs one. He beats on his big tin drum and tootles his pipes and works the yokels, squeezing them for cash. A genius. “Are you telling jokes again?”

“Yes, Bottler, I’m talking about the tragedy of life.”

“Ha ha, that’s a good one! You always break me up, Mr. Punch!”

“Believe me! Life’s the worst deal ever, Bottler! It’s an outrage! Shouldn’t be allowed! But, when you get snookered and there’s nobody to sue, all you can do is jump into the muck and swing your slapstick, bust a few heads, have as much fun as you can before the show closes! No one wins, but, like the Professor says, bullies last longest!”

“A beautiful credo, Mr. Punch! You are, as everybody says, a philosopher, a visionary, and a true disbeliever!”

“I am also a fighter, as you know. The world has done us no favors. It’s been against us from the start. We gotta get tough, take it apart, eat it up!”

“Truer words were never uttered, Mr. Punch. Listen to all your fans! They’re applauding you!”

“I know. They love my eloquence, my smarts. And they’re so generous! The suckers have nothing, and it’s like they can’t give me enough. Now, go take up a collection!”

Judy drops by with Baby. She can be a very nasty woman, Judy. From time to time, he has to belt her one. Give her credit, she always belts him back, the ugly beak-nosed bitch. They say he has a dick for a nose, but so does Judy. Gender equality! As for Baby, Punch doesn’t know how he begat the little shit machine, but Judy assures him that he did. She asks him now to mind the brat while she gets her snarly hair tarted up. That’s an invitation to toss squalling Baby out the window. “YI-I-i-i-iii!” He has the kid on a string, hauls her back up, throws her out the window again. Listen to her scream! He loves it! The crowd loves it!

Judy doesn’t. She’s gone to yell at the authorities about him, and now the scowling Doctor is standing where she was. The Doctor tells Punch that he belongs in the madhouse. He is mentally unbalanced. To prove it, the Doctor wraps his flabby arms around a slapstick as big as he is and—pow!—knocks Punch head over heels into the wings. Punch springs back, snatches the slapstick, and—“Unbalanced, my ass, baldy!” he yelps—smacks the Doctor with it. The Doctor’s an old guy; it’s easy. Laughing, Punch whacks him again. And again. Once more. He’s dead.

A brass-buttoned, red-nosed Constable turns up while he’s still pummeling the dead Doctor and tells Punch that he’s under arrest. “You’re breaking the law,” he says. What a laugh!

“Let’s see what else gets broken,” Punch cackles gleefully and lays into the Bobby with his stick. Ka-whack! WHAM! The Bobby’s helmet head cracks open, but he picks himself up and hits Punch with a subpoena. Punch hits him with a subpoena. Biff! Boff! He’s got the Bobby on the ropes! The crowd’s loving it! They shout out encouragement, and Punch pauses to take a bow. The broken-headed Bobby, on his dangling feet, swings his massive cudgel with both arms. The crowd tries to warn Punch, but too late—thwock! Punch is down. The Constable safety-pins Punch’s floppy hands to his pants and hauls him off to stand trial.

The Judge in his white wig calls for testimony from the victims. Pretty Polly says that Punch raped her. Joey the Clown says the same, and so does Crocodile.

“Guilty!” the Judge announces gravely, bringing his gavel down. “Citizen Punch must hang for his diabolical crimes!”

The crowd cheers at that. What? Then, when Punch asks the court for mercy, the Judge responds by rapping Punch’s head with his gavel—knock! knock! The crowd on the beach whoops it up. The traitors! After all he’s done for them! It’s not fair!

And now here comes the hooded Hangman to carry out the Judge’s sentence! Not a nice fellow. The crowd agrees. No one loves a hangman. The Hangman throws the noose over Punch’s head, but he ducks away. “It’s too small!” Punch cries out in his kazoo-like voice, as the noose bounces off him.

“It fits all customers,” the Hangman insists.

“No, look, it’s too small even for you!” Punch squawks.

The Hangman shows Punch that he’s wrong by dropping the noose over his own head, and Punch kicks him off the stage, hanging the Hangman! Punch has the howling crowd once more in the palm of his hand. But that hand is pinned to his britches.

The Judge himself comes to complete the grim ceremony. Judy’s there as a witness, along with Joey the Clown, loose-jointed old Jim Crow, Toby the Dog, loudmouth Mr. Scaramouche, and the Bobby, looking smug under his yawning helmet.

While the Judge is looping the noose over Punch’s head, his white wig falls off: It’s the Devil himself! Grinning like a no-see-no-hear monkey! The Devil is greeted by the fickle crowd below with friendly boos and laughter. He smiles his wicked smile and says, “Hello, Mr. Punch. And goodbye, Mr. Punch.”