Stuart Kaminsky - Catch a Falling Clown

“Nope,” he said, getting up and holding the broom out ahead of him. I followed him toward the cage where the small crowd had gathered and could see that one person remained in front of it. His back was turned, but I recognized the form.

“Mr. Hitchcock,” I said. He turned and saw me, and so did the mass of darkness in the cage. His bellow shook me and probably the walls of the tent. Gargantua began to rattle the bars of his cage. He reached down, grabbed his tire, and began banging against the bars of his cage as he bared his teeth at me, and large yellow teeth they were.

“I think,” said Hitchcock evenly, “that he doesn’t like you.”

“An understatement,” I said, worrying about the bars of the cage.

“Chrome steel,” said Henry without emotion. “He can’t get out.”

“That’s what Carl Denham said about King Kong, and look what he did to New York,” I answered.

Henry gave Gargantua the broom. The gorilla took it, was about to throw it, and then became curious.

“Don’t like clowns,” said Henry. “Sometimes he don’t care much. Some clowns.”

The other animals were reacting to Gargantua, starting to growl and complain. I went for the tent flap with Hitchcock waddling beside me.

“Mr. Peters,” he panted. “You are Mr. Peters?”

“Right,” I said, stepping outside and trying to rub my back under the inner tube. Most of the crowd was in the big top now, and the band started up with a familiar circus song whose name I didn’t know.

“Why, may I inquire, are you wearing a costume?” he said with dignity.

“Simple. The police are after me for murder, murder I didn’t commit. They are also unhappy about my poking a policeman and running away. I’m trying to catch the real murderer and save my life.”

“That,” sighed Hitchcock, “is quite interesting.”

“There’s a difference between interesting and fun,” I said, looking around for Alex or Nelson.

“Not as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

“You haven’t remembered anything about this morning, have you?” I took a few steps away from the tent. The cats had brought their noise level down to a growl.

“Nothing whatsoever,” he said.

“I thought you were going back to Los Angeles today,” I said.

“I am,” he said. “Just as soon as I see tonight’s performance. A murder,” he went on, savoring the word and then backing away from it when he repeated it, “a murder.”

Maybe I would have thought of another question, maybe an important one that would have cracked the case, but I spotted Alex coming around a tent about forty feet away. He might wonder why a clown wasn’t with the other clowns. I lifted my hat to Hitchcock and went toward the big top as quickly as my costume and back would let me. I could feel the wet mud oozing under my shoes. I was afraid my costume might come apart. It reminded me of the time I was in kindergarten back in 1904 or 1905.1 was spending a few months with my aunt in Chicago. It was Halloween. I wore a paper devil’s costume she had made for me. It started to come apart on the way to school, and I was scared through the whole morning that it would all come off and I’d be in school in my underwear. Each movement had terrified me. Ever since then, I’ve hated the idea of wearing a costume. The clown suit was no exception. I was afraid Alex would chase me right into the light inside the tent I was heading for and into the middle of the ring, where I’d trip and my costume would come off.

I didn’t know if Alex was after me, but I kept moving toward the music, the light, the big tent as if I were late for my act. I went through a small flap and found myself right next to the band. A tuba blasted in my ear. I looked down and saw that the round piece of metal on top of the drum an old guy in a maroon uniform was playing was rotting with age or accident and had been placed behind the tuba player and out of sight of the crowd. That was the way the whole circus operated, on the surface, a thin, fragile surface.

I began twirling my lasso furiously and headed away from the tent flap and the band. Some wire acts were just coming down. One of them had been using a bear; and the bear, the same one I had run into earlier, went by and took a swipe at me. I jumped back, and the crowd near us roared with laughter.

The band stopped and the tent went dim. I looked out into the arena and saw nothing. The ringmaster announced nothing, and then I saw Willie walk out, Emmett Kelly’s Willie.

The audience sounds were loud, but they went down as he moved forward and began to plant imaginary seeds in a victory garden in the center ring. As he planted, he also ate some of the seeds. Soon there were no seeds. He took off his hat to scratch his head, and there was a frog perched there. He spent a few minutes trying without success to determine where the frog sound was coming from. The crowd roared.

Then he picked up a broom and began to sweep or pretend to sweep. It took me and Willie a few seconds to see that he could also sweep the spotlight that lit him up. The spotlight grew a bit smaller as he swept it, and then it tried to run away. Willie chased it, holding onto his hat with one hand and the broom with the other. Gradually the circle of light got tired and Willie began to sweep it smaller and smaller until there was only a yellow spot about the size of a plate. He reached under his jacket, pulled out a dustpan, put it down, swept the last circle of light into the pan, and the tent went dark.

There was a beat of silence and then thunderous applause in the darkness. I was crying. I didn’t know what the hell I was crying about, and I didn’t want that light to come on and people to see me, but it came on. Two boys, fat kids stuffing their faces with popcorn, looked at me. One pointed and spit out about half a pound and laughed. I walked away and out the same tent flap I had come in, expecting to run into the waiting arms of Alex the angry cop, but I didn’t. Alex wasn’t there. Hitchcock wasn’t there. The band struck up behind me, and I walked slowly away, determined that if there was a threat to Emmett Kelly, it had to be stopped.

I stayed in the shadows, moved past tents and wagons, people talking in concession stands, and to a wagon I had been told to find marked with a big red number forty-five. Elder and I had agreed to stay away from Kelly’s wagon, the clown tent, and Elder’s office wagon, in case Nelson decided to look where he had already seen me or might look.

I knocked at the door of forty-five, and it opened. Peg was startled for a second and then put out her hand to help me up. I had trouble getting through the door with my inner tube and ache, but we popped me in.

“Nice place,” I said, starting to take off my pants.

She was wearing a robe and pajamas. Her hair was down, and she looked comfortable and comforting.

“Hold it,” she said.

“Don’t get me wrong,” I said, continuing. “I’ve got to get out of this tube and sit down. My back hurts, and I miss the feeling of just getting off my legs. I’m not going to attack you in a clown suit.”

“Or any other way?” she asked with a smile, watching me struggle.

“Depends on if you keep laughing at me like that or give me a hand.”

She gave me a hand, getting close enough for me to decide that she smelled good, not perfume good but clean good. As soon as I had inched out of the tube after removing my pants, I sat in a chair in my shorts, still wearing my clown makeup, tore off the hat, rubbed the indentation under my chin from the rubber band, and scratched my stomach furiously.

Peg was holding her stomach with laughter.

“I’d rather face Alex in that Mirador cell than put that costume back on,” I said. “You’ve got a great laugh.”