I was eight years old when I first saw the clowns. They were walking down my street to the beach. I was outside playing after dinner, something that fewer and fewer children do these day. I had never been to the circus, but I new what clowns were. I watched them in wonder. I didn't see them again that day, I had to go in to bed not long after they walked past.
The next day I went to the beach and there was the remains of a fire and several beer bottles. I found what looked like the end of a cigarette in the ground, but it wasn't like the ones my mother smoked, it was strangely pinched and filterless. But I could recognize the burnt end and general purpose of it. Some of my mother's visitors smoked similar cigarettes, that they rolled by hand. I wondered if one of them had been here after the clowns. I went home and wondered about it, but eventually just forgot.
The next time I saw the clowns was a year later. I could stay out later, but I still didn't see them walking back from the beach. This time I saw that they had carried beer with them. Clowns drinking beer? It seemed so strange. I puzzled over it, but didn't see them again until a year later. Again the same thing.
And the year after, and the year after, and so on, until I was 16. I finally followed them to the beach. I watched as they drank and sang songs. One passed around what I now recognized to be a joint. My friends and I sometimes smoked them after theater practice. Then one of the clowns saw me and I ran.
At this point in my life, I spent as little time at home as possible. My mother had continued to get visitors, but they had become increasingly coarse and crass. Sometimes they would make passes at me. So I spent as much time with my friends as I could. My mother, so help her, approved. She just wanted me to stay out of trouble, which I always said I was. If there was a test, my friends and I were studying. Or so I told her.
She never checked my progress reports, which was good or else she would have seen I was getting a D in Math and a C- in Science. I was doing fine in English and my other classes, but those were so easy they were basically blow-off classes. My real passion lay in the theater and in the gymnasium.
I had done everything I could do to learn about clowns. Something about them fascinated me now. Maybe it was the mystery of their beach parties, but 16 year old me still was entranced by them, even though that mystery had been solved. Every weekend I practiced the face-paint in the mirror, then the facial expressions meant to amuse an audience. Each weekend I grew in pride.
The next year I followed the clowns again. This time I made myself known. "What are you doing following us down here, girl? Don't you know we're nothing but a bunch of old clowns?" The one who said this elbowed one of his companions, as if this was funny, and they all burst out laughing. I didn't get it. "How did you get to be clowns?" I asked. So they each told me their stories. One was a high school dropout, the one who had gotten elbowed. The rest had went to school to become clowns, but he was self-taught.
They told me tales of traveling and clowning. Of being chased by frightened people who thought they were there to cause trouble. Finally I asked them the question, "Will you take me with you." The answer was a resounding "No." Then they said to finish High School and they'd see about getting me a job in the circus.
A year passed and they didn't return. I got a job at one of the local supermarkets and waited. Another year passed and they didn't return. Now this was before things like Google, so I couldn't just look them up. I made calls for months until I finally found out the circus had went out of business. My heart was broken, my dreams shattered. How would I become a clown now? I didn't have the kind of money needed for clown school. No circus would be stopping in town to take me with them. I'd never see my friends, the clowns again.
Now I'm 42 and I manage the supermarket I worked at. Every weekend I practice with the face-paint. My mother relies on me to take care of her and so I do. At work I see the bright young faces and wonder where they will go. Some talk of college, others have no such plans and will probably be here working under me for most their lives. I have contented myself to participate in the local theater, I still smoke joints with my friends after practices, but oh how I long to see the clowns walking down my street again.
No comments:
Post a Comment