The Clown: A Double Trilogy

1.
 Downwind
                                             
She took the jar of mustard
from the table, my neighbor did,
and with a strong fluid motion threw
it at the clown in the cooks hat. 

The clown, gesturing wildly
with a barbecue fork,
never saw it coming; it caught
him just behind the left ear. 

He coughed once like a cold engine
and slid loosely to the ground,
 the lump growing magically
before my eyes. 

The woman nodded
in grim satisfaction and marched
toward the house.  She was
mad, my neighbor was. 

Meanwhile, the clown,
 who happened to be the muggers
husband, stared into nothing,
his legs twitching, 

like a beetle on its back.
I stared after his wife,
swallowing hard.  She looked
so good from behind,

especially with her anger pushing
her.  But, my personal lust
 notwithstanding, I'm glad
the two of them live downwind.

  


2.
Fun Times

My neighbor,
the clown, was really
a very nice guy and he did have
high spots; but nonetheless,
he was a bonafide clown.

One day he told
his wife he was going
to walk the dog (his wife
actually smiled at him)
and was gone for six months. 

He came back
with the dog and a broken foot,
in the middle of the night,
blind drunk and promptly
set fire to the garage.

His wife was beating 
him with one of his crutches
when the fire engines came. 
The dog was yelping and jumping
around, really enjoying himself.

 
3.
He's Gone Again         

Two things happened after the big fire;
My neighbor took the pledge;
and his wife took to smiling more. 
They both gained weight,
looked less harried,
and made less noise,
but I was still uneasy. 

I’d come home from work and glance
down the hill looking
for some telltale sign of mayhem. 
I'd see the two of them playing
badminton or volleyball with the kids,
the dog yelping and jumping
with them, but I was still uneasy. 
 
 Maybe expectations push
events, I don't know;
but on a hot, pulsing, August night,
with air‑conditioners
gasping in every window,
the clown stumbled over his wife
and the bartender from TwoJacks bar
mixing it up in the back
of her new Volvo wagon.
Like startled chickens,
they bolted in different directions, 
The bartender headed home,
where later his wife would
grimly tell the police he had been
there the entire night. The wife
ran to her sister's and stubbornly
refused to talk to anyone.  The
clown, quite naturally, considering
what he had in mind,
headed straight home. 



He dug out a stashed bottle
of Jack Daniels, took a series of violent
pulls, then eased the twelve gauge,
semi‑automatic shotgun
from its sheepskin case. 

With his sanity stretched like a hide
on a wood shed door, he went looking
for his wife and the bartender.

Three o'clock in the morning,
and still suffocatingly hot,
the clown jerked himself erect
in front of the now sleeping TwoJacks bar. 
Quickly he shot out the plate glass windows,
the heavy covering drapes billowing inward
like vincible ghosts.  He then blasted
the door off its hinges in three quick
eruptions, rolled inside like a crack
squad member and reduced everything
to a noisy plurality.

He had blown his last eight
rounds into the empty Volvo,
still parked in the back lot,
before the police clubbed him
into grinning submission.

He's gone for five years this time, 
but at least she knows where he is.



1.
He's A Wonder!
Shortly after my neighbor ran
afoul of the peoples wrath,
two things happened lightning fast;
a third, deeply buried,
 clanked slowly to the surface.

First:  His wife left him. 
Sold the house, took the kids,
and beat it for higher places. 
The bartender didn't
figure in the move.
Second: His dog died. 
The jumping around,
having a good time dog
simply faded when they
took the clown away;
 crawled under the porch
 and never came out.  

The third? Well, the clown
took to writing.
Every spare minute
(and I imagine
there were a few)
 he spent learning
his trade. 
The joke of the joint
was the clown selling
a travel article
 about a place he'd never been,
from material he culled
from the sparse prison library.
Having his own holiday of sorts.
 Clever man, my neighbor,
 always the clown. 





3.
It's Different Now!
The clown showed up one bright Saturday,
a little more than a year after his book hit
the streets—six years to the day,
after the shoot-out at Two Jacks bar.

He pulled into the yard
in a cream colored convertible
with a tailor made tropical suit to match. 
A huge grin divided his face into two
uneven parts, comic strip style. 
The book, with its brightly colored
dust jacket sealed in shiny plastic,
reflected sunlight as it swung in his hand.
 Close at his heels, a young,
yellow-eyed dog whose tongue
swung from his mouth
at an astonishing length,
 jumped and drooled.
Our greeting was mutual.
The grin faded as he looked
down the hill, the house roof
 just visible over the surrounding trees.
She never came,
not once in all that time.

Don't go looking, Patsy,
It'll only cause you trouble.
He grinned again, the clown did,
 startled at my use of his first name.
 He quickly, stood on his toes
 and kissed me full on the forehead.
Our eyes met very briefly.   
I took the book,
and he turned away to his car,
 the dog pushing against him,
wild eyed, still slobbering.
Clown no more.












2.
Take Out Your Own Trash
The next I heard from the clown
was a shocker. 
He was responsible
for a long, done before,
but cleverly written full length
 novel about life in the suburbs. 

An unbelievable success,
and him still doing his quite time.
Everyone was sharply visible,
 accessible, easy to use.
 And like a play on old-time radio,
only the names were changed:
Our illustrious leader, who reneged
on the clown's plan to open
a fish stall in the town square; 

the clown's wife, who creamed
him with that mustard jar
at the long-ago town picnic;
and the local authorities who,
to the man,
took at least one shot at the clown
at one time or another.

But the most surprising part,
 and I loved him all the more for it,
 was that he did this with such wit,
with such good taste and finesse,
that all of us who could be
considered harmless to the plot,
laughed and chuckled, and called
 him our local independent spirit.

I’d say the clown performed
 a community service by emptying
our brimming wastebasket.






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