Mordecai meets Bubbles the Clown: a Coney Island story of friendship
They met in the comments section of the Brooklyn Cyclones Facebook Live broadcast on the fourth of July 2018.
It’s a story that unites two countries, two religions, and one learned love of baseball.
Mordecai Twersky, a Brooklyn Cyclones Account Executive from Flushing, met David Forsythe, a Scottish clown named Bubbles.
During a Brooklyn Cyclones home game, the comments section online runs wild with viewers writing in where in the world they are writing from. Bubbles, writing in from Scotland, commented that he had recently visited Coney Island and needed to learn the rules of baseball before watching the next game. His affection for soccer over baseball was obvious.
Mordecai, a lover of soccer and jerseys, or at least selling them on eBay, immediately took interest in the European soccer fan, and the two chatted back and forth. One found an opportunity in the other. Mordecai was to send Bubbles a Cyclones jersey, and Bubbles to send Mordecai a Hearts of Midlothian jersey — a local soccer club from Scotland.
“I sent him my mailing address,” Mordecai said. “But had trouble when I got his.”
Bubbles gave Mordecai his street and town name, but left out the number to his house. Puzzled, Mordecai reached out and asked him for the number, hesitating to pry into someone’s life for private information — especially when they met in the comments section online.
“He told me not to worry about the house number, but to just send it to his town of Wishaw, Scotland only with his first name,” Twersky said. “I was just imagining them strapping the package to a goat or a sheep and sending him off to his house.”
Through the grace of magic, and not of farm animals, the jerseys were exchanged successfully in the fall of 2018. Flash forward to the Fourth of July 2019 when Bubbles came to town.
“They told me to hand out the hot dog vouchers at one of the four entrances to MCU Park,” Mordecai said. “I was messaging him asking where he was, hoping to find him amongst the bustling crowd.”
By chance, Bubbles entered at the exact gate that Mordecai was working that fateful night. This match made in heaven finally took shape, and the two had been united. Poetically, Mordecai was wearing his Heart jersey, and Bubbles was wearing a Cyclones jersey — a Coney Island miracle.
“And then he starts talking,” Mordecai remembered. “But I couldn’t understand a single word he said.”
“He couldn’t even pronounce my name,” Twersky said. “There are no Mordecai’s in Scotland. There’s never been a Mordecai in thousands of years of Scottish history.”
The Scottish clown had a thick accent, but once the conversation slowed down, Bubbles extended a buzzless hand of friendship to Brooklyn’s youthful and exuberant account executive. An invitation was offered to the Scottish Isle, but Mordecai politely deflected, trying not to pop Bubbles’ emotions. Due to his religious practices, his need for available Kosher food has made it difficult to bank on a European trip.
“I didn’t have the heart to tell Bubbles that Kosher isn’t a thing in Scotland,” he said. “I would need to live on a salami for a week or two.”
The difficulties of the new companionship aside, it was an exchange of jerseys, for a lifetime of friendship. They are the Woody and Buzz of Coney Island — Tom Hanks and Wilson, Turner and Hooch. An unlikely pairing brought together by the digital world of pixels and page views.
Mordecai Twersky of Flushing and Bubbles the Clown of Scotland are now bound by the twine of the jerseys that hug them tight, beating on like fans amongst the Facebook comments section, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
