Touch of the Clown

by Glen Huser

  “KS?”

  “Some kind of skin cancer people with AIDS get. Cosmo has KS. You can see it on his arms. It looks just like my uncle’s.”

  “Does that mean he’s going to die?”

  “I think people with AIDS are living longer all the time. Who knows, maybe someone will come up with a cure next week.”

  “How long did your uncle have it?”

  “About ten years, I think. It was only the last c-couple of years he was really sick. My m-mom was kind of crazy. Wouldn’t let me or my brothers go and visit him, but we’d sneak in and see him anyway. I liked my uncle. He was really f-funny.”

  Livvy has caught up with us. “I want an ice cream,” she says, eyeing the store coming up on the next corner.

  “Sorry,” I say. “No money.”

  “Guess what?” Nathan says. “I’ve got just enough for three ice-cream cones and one pack of cigarettes. All the things we could need in life.”

  We sit on the bus bench and lick our cones. Nathan lets one of his buses go by before we finish. “There’ll be another one along in a minute,” he says, gesturing for us to continue the trek home. “Even f-faster if I light up a cigarette.”

  Livvy turns and waves at him every few steps until we can no longer see him. By the way she is walking, I can see she’s had an accident, and I have to take her into the bathroom in a laundromat to change her back into the clothes that have blue paint spilled on them.

  “I don’t want to put these on,” Livvy sobs.

  “It’s just for a little way.”

  She’s still crying when we get to our block. “I hate these,” she wails, dabbing her fingers into the blotches of blue on her shorts.

  “When we get home,” I say, “you can get out of these right away. And then, then…” I drag the word out, trying to think of something that will make her stop crying, “then we can do your most favorite thing to do. We can play jacks with Bingo, or we can color in your Pocahontas coloring book, or I can read to you out of Winnie-the-Pooh, or we…”

  “Can we make something special to eat? Can we make brown sugar and banana sandwiches and color in Pocahontas, too?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  Daddy hears us come in. “Where have you kids been?” he calls from the living room.

  “Just to the library,” I say, giving Livvy a little push up the stairs.

  A thunderstorm rolls in after the heat of the day. Great waves of sound rumbling across the sky, and sheets of light.

  “You’re supposed to unplug the TV in electrical storms,” I tell Daddy and Grandma.

  “We’ll live dangerously,” Daddy says, slipping a cassette into the VCR. “You kids want to watch this before you go to bed?”

  The movie is called Sarah Plain and Tall. I know the story from a book I got in the library when I was in grade four. It is about a family in pioneer days, and the dad is raising his two children after his wife dies. He decides they need a mother so he advertises for one.

  “Who’s in this one?” Grandma asks. She’s lost her cigarettes and searches for them as much as she can without getting out of her armchair, her hands checking through the mound of dishes and potato chip packages and tissues that have accumulated on her TV tray, patting the pockets of her housecoat, reaching toward the carpet.

  “Glenn Close,” Daddy says.

  “Never heard of her.” Grandma sounds disappointed. “She must be a new one. Livvy, be an angel and see if you can find my cigarette package. Claudette Colbert. People used to say I looked like her. I never saw it myself, but I did used to do my eyebrows long and thin with eyebrow pencil.”

  Livvy has found the cigarettes. “I want one,” she says.

  “Lord have mercy,” Grandma cackles. “Where did you ever get such an idea? You give those over now, and you can have some of that apple cider Mrs. Perth brought when she came by today.”

  “She’s not supposed to have sweet drinks before she goes to bed,” I say.

  Grandma fumbles with her lighter and finally gets her cigarette lit. Then she levels a gaze at me. Sometimes her eyes seem to be covered with fog, but not tonight. “I don’t know what we’d do without you, Barbara,” she says, as if she were cutting each of the words out with a pair of sharp scissors. “A little bit of apple cider isn’t going to hurt this child.”

  “Yummee!” Livvy dances around with her drink, slopping it onto the rug.

  Daddy is rolling his eyes to the ceiling. He doesn’t like it when people talk during the movies. “You want to talk, I’ll put it on Pause,” he always says. He puts it on Pause now. “Can I pour you a little something, Ma?”

  “I don’t mind,” Grandma says.

  With juice glasses of sherry poured for him-self and Grandma, and warnings about no more talking, he starts the movie again.

  Glenn Close is too beautiful to be Sarah Plain and Tall, but I let myself sink into the movie. I wonder if people nowadays still send away for mail-order brides. What would happen if Daddy got a wife, a mother for Livvy and me? Would anyone marry someone Daddy’s size? Maybe he would diet and quit drinking.

  It isn’t long before both Grandma and Livvy have fallen asleep. Daddy winks at me. In the old photographs with Mama, he is a good-looking man, overweight even then, but with dark wavy hair and a moustache. I think of him and Mama holding hands at the movie theater where they worked. And I can feel again the feeling, like the little spark of electricity that went running up my arm and then went racing around my body when Nathan’s fingers kept brushing against mine as we were walking home. Different than the touch of Cosmo’s fingers, so smooth with white greasepaint. Cosmo said it was a touch connecting us to the world of the clown.

  In the world of Sarah Plain and Tall, the pioneer family gathers by a pond for a picnic. Green meadows stretch as far as you can see. The whole world seems to be made out of grass and sky. The little boy plays a harmonica. His sister has her sketchbook open. The father and Sarah joke shyly with one another. The dog runs back and forth over the picnic lunch and everyone yells at him and laughs.

  This must be their perfect time. Hang onto it, Cosmo would say. Make a life preserver.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  On Wednesday when we get home, Daddy is watching for us at the door.

  “I don’t know why you kids can’t stick closer to home,” he says, eyeing the rolled-up piece of paper Livvy has squashed flat on the way home from the art gallery. “You’re always wanting to go somewhere. And guess what–we are.” He is trying to keep back a smile. I can see the edges of his lips quivering.

  “Where? Where?” Livvy has forgotten how tired she is from the walk home and is dancing from foot to foot.

  “Guess,” Daddy says.

  “Disneyland!” Livvy shrieks. “I want to go to Disneyland and see Pocahontas.”

  “Well, it’s not quite Disneyland.” Daddy laughs a thin laugh. “Mayfair Park. What do you think of that? Myron Perth is home for a couple of days and wants to take Mrs. Perth on a little outing tomorrow and said for us all to come along.”

  I feel like someone has opened a trap door and I am falling, without warning, everything gone from under my feet.

  “How long will we be gone?” My voice comes out as a little squeak. “I mean, when will we be going? And coming back?”

  Daddy looks at me sideways. “I don’t know. Around noon, I guess. We can have lunch down there. Why are you interested in time all of a sudden?”

  “Oh, no reason. Just wondered.”

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Daddy backs toward the sofa. “It’s summer holidays. If we’re late it won’t be like you have to get up and go to school the next day.”

  “Goodee.” Livvy is jumping like a kangaroo around the living room. “We get to go to the park,” she chants, tossing her flattened paper into a corner, just missing Grandma’s ashtray. “Does it have a playground with a curly slide?”

  “It has a gigantic playground.” Daddy sinks back into his sofa
. He is looking at me, waiting for me to be happy and excited. “I said we’d bring the hot dogs. You don’t mind nipping down to the store, do you, hon? We got enough for weenies and buns but not a cab. Maybe Livvy’ll go along and keep you company.’

  “Me tired. Don’t want to walk,” Livvy whines.

  “Its okay. I’ll go,” I say. “I don’t mind.”

  “Get me some cigarettes, Barbara.” Grandma’s walker squeaks through the kitchen doorway. “I’m getting low.”

  The feeling is still in my stomach as I head for Cosmo’s apartment. With everything inside me fallen, my feet move heavily up the steps to the landing. When I knock, there is no answer. As I begin to go back down the stairs, though, I see him coming down the street, moving lazily along on Mehitabel, singing as he goes. As he reaches the gate, he finishes the song–a little whispery song about an octopus’s garden in the sea.

  “Barbara.” His eyes widen with surprise. “Didn’t expect to find you on my doorstep. Something the matter?”

  “Tomorrow…” I start to tell him and then my voice stops and won’t go on.

  “Hey, catch your breath.” He gestures toward the bench by the patio table. “Close your eyes and relax a minute.”

  I close my eyes and spots dance around in the sudden black. The air in my chest seems to be beating its way upward and I shudder.

  “Okay?” I feel Cosmo’s long fingers on my arm.

  “Tomorrow’s ruined. I can’t come tomorrow.”

  “Hey.” Cosmo’s fingers slip down into my hand. “It’s okay. It’s not a problem. You want to tell me about it?”

  “Daddy wants us to go to Mayfair Park with Mrs. Perth’s son. I don’t want to go, but if I say so, I know it’ll hurt Daddy’s feelings. We don’t go…” I try to think how to finish the sentence. “Many places.”

  “You should then, and enjoy the park. You shouldn’t even think about the workshop.” Cosmo is busy putting Mehitabel into the shed. “Hey,” he hollers from across the yard, “I got paid today. And whenever I get paid I feel it is obligatory to splurge on a triple cappuccino at the Italian center. So, Miss Barbara…” As he comes back across the yard, his voice thickens with a silly accent and he rolls his eyes at me. “Fma aska you to be my date for da cappuccino. Whaddya say, kid?”

  I nod. I may even be smiling. I can buy the hot dogs on the way home.

  We sit at a little table in a corner. “Now isn’t this like the movies,” Cosmo chuckles. “We just need the gypsy with his violin.” He says I have to order something, so I go for a large hot chocolate with whipped cream. When the brimming cups are brought to our table, the air is filled with the smells of chocolate and coffee and cinnamon from the sprinkles on top of his cappuccino.

  “This is what makes life worth living,” Cosmo says, nibbling on the foam. He senses my stricken look. “This is one of the things that makes life worth living,” he corrects himself. “There are so many.” But his voice sounds tired. “So you don’t get to go out very much with your dad?” He licks the milk moustache off his upper lip.

  “He’s not well… not very well, and Livvy…”

  “What exactly is Livvy’s problem?”

  “Well, you know…” I am surprised we are talking suddenly about Livvy. Cosmo can juggle topics, too. “She doesn’t always get to the bath-room on time.”

  “Lots of little kids don’t.”

  “But it’s worse with Livvy. She’s only got one kidney and sometimes she has even more than one accident in a day.”

  “And you clean her up.”

  “Most of the time.”

  We drink our drinks quietly for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the late-afternoon traffic getting all mixed up with Italian conversations at the tables around us.

  “Daddy thinks it’s because he and Mama were old when Livvy was born. I heard him telling Grandma, and then he cried. Mama was forty-four. Do you think that could be the reason?”

  “I don’t know.” Cosmo holds his cappuccino cup in both hands. “Whatever the reasons, though,” he moves his cup slightly forward like a kind of pantomime toast I’ve seen him do in skits at the workshop, “I think you’re…” He looks around the room as if there is a word somewhere, and then he smiles. “I think you’re swell.” He is laughing, and I’m afraid he is going to choke on his cappuccino. “I can’t believe I said swell,” he says. “Swell. Some words should never be used. What I meant to articulate, Miss Barbara Stanwyck Kobleimer, is that I think you are caring and tenacious and talented.”

  “I don’t mind swell,” I say.

  Myron Perth drives a potato-chip truck. It says Crispy Dan the Potato Chip Man in big red letters on the outside.

  “That’s me,” Myron Perth says. “I’m Crispy Dan. My professional nom-day-ploom.” He wiggles his false teeth at Livvy and makes her laugh.

  There is only room in the cab for two other people, Grandma and Mrs. Perth, but Crispy Dan has put a kitchen chair in the back of the panel for Daddy to sit on, and a foam mattress for Livvy and me.

  “I’m gonna have to lock the back so you don’t all fall out,” Crispy Dan says, “so I’m assignin’ you, Livya, to be the keeper of the light so none of them groblems get ya.” Myron Perth talks like he has a mouth full of rags. He gives Livvy a large flashlight.

  “Yippee!” Livvy beams it to all the corners of the truck, flashing it back to the tower of trays filled with bags of potato chips and cheese puffs. “Me hungry,” Livvy shouts. The flashlight scampers over a bag of picnic stuff, and the woven plastic and metal pipes of folded-up lawn chairs.

  “Keep that light in one place,” Daddy says, settling onto the chair. “When you flash it all around it gives me motion sickness.”

  “Help yusself,” Crispy Dan says before he bolts the door. “You girls each grab a bag to munch on. There’s salt and vinegar on top, and ketchup on that second tray or, if you like dill pickle, there’s a few left on that flat over there. You wan’ one, Edwin, help yusself.”

  We hear the catch closing on the outside. Livvy clicks off the flashlight and we are all sitting in a thick, close blackness.

  “Quit horsing around, Olivia.” Daddy’s voice cuts through the darkness. “If I’d known how primitive…” he mutters. “Olivia, turn that light on now and leave it on.”

  Livvy turns it on, beaming it onto my face, blinding me.

  “Brat.” I close my eyes. I wonder what they are doing at the clown workshop. I can imagine Cosmo on the stage with everyone gathered on the closest seat-steps surrounding it. In his soft voice he would be telling them things about what a clown does. I wonder where Nathan is sitting. I wonder if he’s wondering where I am today.

  “I want dill pickle,” Livvy says. She gets up off the foam mattress, staggering back and forth in a mock effort to keep her balance. The light flashes all over the place. Daddy groans in his chair. “Can I have a beer?” Livvy says, stumbling over a case.

  “Livvy, I’m beginning to lose my patience,” Daddy says. “Sitting back here is intolerable,” he mutters. Intolerable, I decide, is a good word to know. I say it twice, quietly.

  At the campground, Daddy and Crispy Dan set up the lawn chairs for Grandma and Mrs. Perth. Livvy loves Crispy Dan. She follows him around. “You ‘n’ me,” he says, “we better fine some kinling wood and get us-selves a good weenie fire goin’ here, eh, Livya? Whaddaya think?”

  “You want to walk down by the river,” Daddy asks me, “while Myron and Olivia are looking for firewood?”

  I’m surprised. My head nods automatically. We have walked only part of the way when I hear his breath coming out in wheezes. We walk slower. The path along the river is thick with trees, and it is cool with the sunlight blocked by branches.

  “So quiet and peaceful,” Daddy says, stopping and leaning with his hand at arm’s length against a large poplar. “Whew. Am I out of shape.”

  “It’s nice down here.” I smile at Daddy. I can’t think any more about the workshop. I look at Daddy, streams
of perspiration running along his face. He finds a handkerchief and rubs it away, mussing his hair where it is turning gray at the edges. He pats it smooth again.

  “Your mama and I used to go on picnics when we first got married,” he says. “Uncle Potts–do you remember Uncle Potts and Auntie Vitaline? No. I guess not. You’d be only about two when they passed on. Always had a cottage at Alberta Beach for the summer, Uncle Potts and Auntie.”

  We have moved on to the edge of the river bank where we can look down and see the North Saskatchewan. It is low and muddy, moving with a summer slowness.

  My mind is filled with questions. Was that the cottage we used to stay in at Alberta Beach? Why don’t we have it anymore? Did you and Mama come to this park?

  But before I can decide which question to ask first, Olivia and Crispy Dan burst through the bushes.

  “Dad-dee,” Livvy shrieks, “we got weenie roasting sticks and we can use them for marshmallows, too. And Uncle Crispy and I got goodles of wood, didn’t we, Uncle?”

  “Nuff to cook a moose,” Crispy Dan says. “Boy, you gotta keep hoppin’ to keep up to this ’un, lemme tellya. You never move’ this quick, Eddie, I remember. We allus had to wait for you. You wuz the cow’s tail.”

  “Cow’s tail,” Livvy giggles. “Daddy’s the cow’s tail.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Daddy says. “This cow’s tail could beat you any day, Miss Smartypants.”

  “No, no,” Livvy shrieks, jumping up and down, and suddenly Daddy is stumbling up the path, weaving back and forth, making it impossible for anyone to get past him, but Livvy darts into the trees and comes out ahead of him. She is shrieking and laughing, her feet barely touching the ground, dancing back and forth in front of us all the way to the picnic tables.

  “Lord have mercy,” Grandma Kobleimer says. “What a ruckus. We could hear you coming half a mile away.” She and Mrs. Perth are sipping from big glasses of pink Kool-aid.

  “I want Kool-aid,” Livvy says. “Me thirsty.”

  “How about you, Edwin?” says Crispy Dan. “We have kiddie Kool-aid, and…” he pulls out a big bottle of vodka that has been hiding inside the picnic bag, “we got the grownup version.”