Sightings by B.J. Hollars

Author:B.J. Hollars
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780253008466
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

This went on for a couple of weeks, everyone pretending as if everything was normal. I didn’t say a word after I unclogged the shower drain of red hair, nor did I complain about the white face paint smeared on the table, marking the exact coordinates of where Uncle Clown most recently passed out.

Even the neighbors – who’d seen Bubbles’s obituary in the paper – were kind enough not to make too big of a scene as they watched my drunken uncle attempt to mow zigzagged lines in our lawn in his squeaking 26EEE sized shoes. Likewise, the mailman took it upon himself to forward their subscription for American Clown Quarterly directly to our doorstep, and even the Jehovah’s Witnesses managed to walk on past every time they spotted the red-nosed man passed out in the kiddie pool.

Yet despite their eccentricities, my parents were right, they were good people – at least good clowns – and Aunt Clown always offered to help wash dishes or set the table. And better still, she left intricate balloon animals on my pillow on the days she changed the sheets – a menagerie of latex walruses and white-handed gibbons greeting me every few nights.

Yet the Clowns couldn’t stay cooped up in the house forever. Most mornings they’d load up their Volkswagen and tour the city, working the street corners, “prostituting ourselves,” Uncle Clown often grumbled, “turning tricks for cash.”

But it was more than that, more than simple tricks.

They actually made quarters leap from behind people’s ears, pulled rubber chickens out of their armpits. They had the unique talent of juggling apples and oranges and pears all at once, as if they alone kept the universe in motion. In the evenings we’d all watch television while Uncle Clown – pre-nightcap – struggled through a few sets of push-ups. And other nights – post-nightcap – when he was feeling extra loose, he and Aunt Clown would sit us down in the backyard and put on their show.

They only had so many routines, but we clapped and cheered even at the ones we’d already seen. That handheld tape recorder played the same calliope music again and again, but we pretended we were hearing it for the first time.

“Sophie,” Uncle Clown often gasped, his throat laced with whiskey. “What’s that . . . quarter doing behind your ear?”

He’d remove it, of course, amid our clapping, and after his grand finale – involving a unicycle, six bowling pins, three shots of tequila, and a hula-hoop set aflame – he and Aunt Clown would take a knee, waving their hands in the air, perfectly synced with the music.

While Mom, Dad, and I wished they didn’t feel the need to perform for us, we couldn’t do anything to stop them.

“Look, just enjoy it,” Uncle Clown begged, sweating like an iceberg. “It’s all we know to do to pay the rent.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.