The Clown

Appeared in The Broken Plate, 2013 Issue


The clown stumbles down the sidewalk. With both hands he presses on the right side of his chest. The rain just stopped and steam rises from the warm street, releasing the smell of everything mashed into the pavement. The clown squeezes his eyes shut, grits his teeth, let’s out a stream of moans. Behind him he leaves a trail of shimmering confetti—balloons, smiley faces, stars, ponies, top hats, hearts.

A crowd, mostly young couples and their children, follows him. Mr. Winters, a fat man with greasy combed over hair, wearing beige slacks and a sweat soaked white button-up, bounces in a circle around the clown. Mr. Winters brings his balled fist up at his eyes, mocking the clown’s tragic face. The crowd explodes with laughter. Their gaping smiles grow, their eyes glisten.

Mrs. Parlimore’s cheeks cramp, but her lips do not drop, the creases go deeper into her skin and muscles. Her black mascara and blue eye shadow melts in the humidity and streaks down her rouged cheekbones. Overhead, sunlight streams through the parting gray clouds, causing her pupils to dilate into wide black circles that suck in the scene.

Tears stick to the clown’s make up. “I,” he starts to say, but a sob mixed with a scream erupts from his throat. The crowd howls. The clown leans on a parking meter, lays across the hood of a car. Two teenage girls move to the front of the bubbling crowd. The girls pull at his tattered costume, wrench his hands away from his chest, widen the wound with their painted fingernails. They lift him to his feet, push him along. More confetti slips through his fingers. Emptier now, his legs shake, his hands tremble. His slumping head rolls side to side. The girls move to the side so Rosset family can surround him and scream Fucik’s “Entry of the Gladiators” at him. Everyone in the crowd joins the singing, drowning out the clown’s cries and the scraping sound of his oversized shoes dragging on the concrete.

When the clown’s legs finally buckle, a gap-toothed boy with yellow hair jumps on his back, pulls his hair and rides him like a bucking bronco. The crowd cheers the boy, their shouts echoing off of the tall glass buildings. The kid wraps his stumpy fingers around the clown’s throat, yells, “Get it you old maid! Get it!”

Bank executives look down from their offices and call their coworkers to watch. The clown rolls to his side, pulls his shoes off. Blisters on his heels bulge and leak. The clown drags himself forward on his elbows to escape three children sticking their fingers down their throats, making fake vomit sounds in his face. Their tongues and lips touch his hair, forehead, nose, earlobes.

The bankers run to the street, twirling and laughing, shedding their jackets, shirts, shoes. A woman wearing a black skirt and high heel boots trips over the curb. Ligaments tear, vessels break, blood rushes, but she continues jumping, oblivious to the pain.

The clown lies in a puddle of rainwater and gasoline. Confetti pours freely, mixing with the pool in which he now rests. A man and a woman scoop it up, toss it in the air, showering the crowd that is jumping and shrieking, singing louder and louder. The children link hands and dance around the clown.

The clown stares into the sky. His eyes go black.