Tulip Jimmy and The Great Tiny Jimabobo go way back.  They attended clown school together back when they were James Phillips and Larry Owen, respectively, and- until they graduated and became clowns, relatively respectably.  James had also been known as Floppy Fill, back when he'd been a rodeo clown, and he might have introduced himself as Marty Mood the mime; had he not been a mime at the time.  Larry Owen had always been Larry Owen.
    
Larry never talks about his past, or so one may assume by what he has to say about it. 

"I'm only 3 years old.  I am a slightly oversize dummy, animated by termites.  Doomed to be stalked by the ghost of the ventriloquist who drowned while trying to do the drinking-while-throwing-your-voice trick.  One day I will disappear leaving nothing but a pile of sawdust, knock on wood."

"I was locked inside a steamer trunk until 5 minutes ago.  Do you have anything to drink?"

"I was raised by baboons.  That's why I have this funny OOKcent."

Certain documents necessary for admission into clown college did however disclose the fact that he was 19 when he enrolled.  James Phillips was 29.

Ever heard of a clown prodigy?  Too funny to even imagine right?  That's exactly what Larry Owen is.  He has a knack.  Only trained professionals can be in a room with him without leaving with split sides.   He can deliver a straight line, a curved line, a dotted line, any punchline, even no punchline, an anecdote, an antidote, a witty aside, a regular aside,  an affront, he can banter with the the best of them, the worst of them, even himself, he does blue humor, black humor, periwinkle humor, his blunders are flawless, he can bull, he can bull a cow until milk comes out her nose, he burlesques brusquely, bashfully or brashly, he does caricatures, he's always in character, his net catches everyone, his conundrums are insoluble, he can epigram, I once saw him entertain for two hours with nothing but a diagram of a diaphragm, it is impossible to exaggerate his ability to exaggerate, he does irony, coppery, robbery (but always in an original way), he speaks the most beautiful nonsense, a satisfaction to all your senses, his parody makes a parody of all others, he makes you believe a recovery even though you'll never see him make a genuine mistake, situational humor for any situation, put him in a volcano with a duck and he'll have 5 perfect one liners ready and a scathing satire on the poultry industry on tap.             

Of course none of us knew that the day he entered Dr. Floppy's College O' Clowning.  But... heh, I think I'll always laugh when I think of that day.  By the time he'd squeaked down the hallway in his big floppy shoes he'd made all of us laugh.  At The Oblong Turnip joke!  All of us knew that joke, had heard it a million times, some of us said it in our sleep, some of us wore earplugs in the dorms at night because we were so sick of hearing it.  I don't believe there is a clown anywhere who doesn't know that joke in at least one language.  But we laughed like it was the funniest thing any of us had ever heard. They say delivery is everything.  If that's so then he is FedEx and everyone else it write it out in lemon juice on a thin piece of bark, roll it up, put it into a bottle, throw it in the ocean, and hope for the best.  

There was one fellow who didn't laugh.  James Phillip.  He had taken advantage of our distraction to haul out a tableful of cream pies that were sitting in wait for target practice.  James always did have good timing.

“Hey rookie,”  he said, “you tell a decent joke but do you know how to throw a pie?”

Larry just stood there, about a foot away, rocking back and forth in his shoes and said “No.”  The expression on his face a priceless piece of childhood innocence.  Our hearts went out to him, but one thing every clown has to learn to take is pie in their face.  Well, except for Crumpled Johanson, he was allergic.  Maybe it makes me a bad person but the closest thing in the world to my Tulip-Jimmy-Just-Mocked-A-Gnu laugh is my Crumpled-Johanson-cringing-desperately-in-fear-of-a-single-slice-of-lemon-meringue-before-opening-a-miniature-umbrella-laugh.

Anyway James said “Well would you like to learn?”

And Larry nodded so hard that he started rocking up and down instead of back and forth.  By now some of us were wincing.  Why?  Hard to say.  I don't even remember the first time I was pied in the face.  Most of us don't, especially Pipsqueak Tony, who's a dyed-in-the-suspenders clown.  The second he learned to walk he was knocked down again with a pie.  But our hearts all went out to him somehow.  Kid was good, even then.

“Alright, here's what you do.” said James.  Larry was leaning forward a little bit, hanging on his every word.  “First, you cock your arm back like this.” 
Larry nodded.  Johnny Harelip hid his eyes.

“Now be careful here,” it seemed like a sense of honest concern went into James' eyes, “you want the pie to be as parallel to the face of the pieee as possible, but if it's too vertical it will slip right off your arm and you end up with a stocking full of custard.”

Larry nodded very slowly and seriously, as if he was coming to understand a complicated theory of pie physics.  Gramps Mcgumbo wiped his eyes with one of the 13 handkerchiefs hidden in his sleeves.  The one with the cowboys on it.  

“You see,” continued James, “the key is to rotate the pie to be completely parallel as it is thrown, like so!”

I don't think Larry even closed his eyes.  A second later he nodded vigorously again, shaking pie filling all over the ground.  “Thank you,” he said, “I think I get it.  Let me try.”

Now if there is such a thing as a clown jock James is it.  He has his own special sort of pie kwon doe.    He can catch a pie in midair by the tin and throw it back at you.  We all knew that any attempt of Larry's to use James' face for pie practice was doomed to failure.  

So when Larry took that banana cream in one undersized white-gloved hand we knew that he was in  a contest that he coultn't win. 

James didn't brace himself- he never had to.  I tried to pie him once when I'd had one too many Rasberry Spritzers.  One second the pie is in your hand and he's standing in front of you smugly uncaring as to his fate or your pie or the wig of the first queen of England; then the next your dripping with cream and he's standing in front of you smugly uncaring as to his fate or your dry cleaning bill but might buy you a beer if you could tell him who has the world's largest collection of nylon shoelaces.

Larry picked up a pie.  He cocked his arm.  The assembled funnypeople held their breath and tightened their grips on their ukalaleees.

The next instant Larry's face was covered in a fresh layer of pie, as everyone had expected.  But there was something off.  James looked surprised and his arm was out at an odd angle.  Larry had cocked his arm, poised for the throw, and then curved around and hit his own face.  

“Like that right?” He asked, enthusiastically.   

James just stood there, stunned for the first time any of had seen.

Larry started to look worried.  “Did I do it wrong?  Let me try again!”

Larry picked up another pie and threw it into his own face.  James' hand stayed up and twitched reflectively.  

“Still no?  I can do better!” Larry threw a pie at his face with such force that he landed on the floor.
A nervous titter echoed through the silence.  

Larry tried to get up, but his hands were so covered in cream by now that he kept slipping.  Rubber gloves, creame, and hallway linaleum do not traction make.  Well, I suppose sometimes they do, whne you slip bad enough to get put into traction.

James assumed his relaxed posture again, I heard that titter again.  It was one of the lady clowns.  Yes, there are many lady clowns.  In fact there were more lady clowns at Dr. Floppy's then male.  This is common throughout the comedy world.  I've heard the joke more than once that male clowns outnumber female clowns- but only if you count the ones who aren't doing it on purpose.  Anyway she was the first to get that we were seeing a skit.  I would later learn that her name was Minnie Molusc.  Very funny lady, went on to become a great lawyer.

Larry was slipping around on the floor.  Finally he took off his gloves.  He was wearing another pair of gloves beneath them.  Like I said, Larry was always in character.  Finding a clean patch of floor, Larry was finally able to lift himself up.  And then he picked up another pie.  Hit himself hard enough that time that with the slick floor he was able to skid back to Pappy Hugs' shoes.  Not hard to do, he went beyond the average three sizes too big to three feet too big.  One year I got into the habit of  leaving Wigcraft 101 early just so that I could watch him go upstairs to Advanced Chicanery.  It was something to see.

The laughter had built up by now to the point that most of Larry's movements were accompanied by a laugh.  It was wonderful, laughter was scarce in Dr. Floppy's except where required for classroom participation.  Genuine laughter is seldom among clowns.  You do something all day you get tired of it.  That and there was a shortage on rubber chickens due to a yellow dye scare.  Times were hard.

Larry got up, using Pappy's left shoe for leverage.  He got it covered in banana cream in the process.  A guffaw from Cap'n Chewy Twinkie.  Nice to hear, he hadn't been the same since that freak accident with the flaming chainsaws he was juggling.  

He saw the hankerchief sticking out from Gramps Mcgumbo's sleeve, bowed shorly and reached for it.  He pulled it out, it was the one with a hula girl.  He wiped off Pappy's shoe, only to cover his right shoe, which he had been using to brace against with even more cream.  There was a chuckle.  Actually it was from me.  Name's Joey Grotesque, pleased to meet you.  My favorite movie is Killer Clowns from Outer Space, although of course I was never allowed to see it.  I'm not really important to this story though, so I'm back to the wings and wigs now.  

He reached into Gramps' sleeve again and pulled out... a juggling baton.  Which was apparentely holding a lot back.  Out of Gramps' voluminous sleeves tumbled his spare pair of spectacles, a mini dust-vac, a  quartet of plastic soldiers, an artificial rose, a ball of tinfoil, and most imprtantly 6 of his hankerchiefs.  Pipsqueak Tony giggled.

Quickly bowing his apology again Larry picked up the hankerchief with the Mona Lisa on it.  This time he thourougly cleaned off both hands before selecting the hankerchief with a fire truck on it to clean off Pappy's right shoe.  Finally he washed off the hankerchiefs in the drinking fountain and put them in  a baggie made of a pair of gloves (he was wearing a third pair underneath) and helped Gramps Mcgumbo gather things back into his sleeve.  He bowed again and Gramps inclined his head ever so slightly.  
           
Larry looked back towards James and exhibitted shock that he had forgotten about him.  It was obvious, but no over done.  Bugged eyebrows, but no forehead slap.  He ran back and picked up a pie, only to be overcome by his own momentum and hit James in the stomach with a coconut cream.    Johnny Harelip snickered.  He was the only one.  No one had ever pied James before.  We weren't quite sure whether he'd melt like the Wicked Witch of the West.  Or at least I wasn't- but then I worry about such things never having been allowed to see The Wizard of Oz. 

James picked up a pie.  He cocked his arm.  He tossed it.  Up into the air.  It flipped.  He caught it cracefully on his head at a jaunty angle.  He put out his arm, took off his pie tin hat and said “James Phillips.”  Larry shook it and said “Larry Owens.”  The cow bell for Western Slapstick rang, we all went off to class, and a friendship started that would last for many years.  James wore his pie tin hat for the rest of the day.

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When Larry got the Gerkhin scholarship James patted him on the back.  Of course he left behind a note that said “Kick me” but there are certain expectations.  There was never any jealousy.  At least not at first.

Who wouldn't be jealous of Larry?  Every clown wanted to have his ability with balloon animal haberdashery, his charming way with an oversized baby bottle, his ability to make a 4 year-old laugh at obscure tax law. Even short and plain he could get a girl away from James whose good looks, confident swagger, and degree of knowledge about all things rubbery had always been enough to make his chosen consort swoon.  No I don't mean “clownsort”.  Maybe it's implied, but that's all I'm giving you.

Well James wouldn't be.  Not at first anyway.  When the lady he was making guffaw was clowned out from under him he just laughed, adjusted his wig, and got another drink.  But then you couldn't not laugh around Larry.