Touch of the Clown by Glen Huser

Author:Glen Huser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd.
Published: 1999-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

Nathan walks us part way home. He likes to take different buses sometimes, he says, and he can catch one on 107th Avenue that will take him to the west end. He plays a game of tag with Livvy for a couple of blocks, both of them running circles around me, in and out of parking lots, darting into alleys, until Livvy begins to get tired.

“I don’t want to walk anymore,” she announces.

“Well, you have to. We still have eleven blocks to go.”

She scowls at me and straggles half a block behind, dragging her feet. Nathan and I walk slowly on ahead.

“You’re younger than everyone else in the workshop,” he says. “Cosmo a friend of yours? Is that how you got in?”

“Just someone we happened to run into. Or rather, he ran into us.” I tell Nathan about the accident. “But, yeah, he kind of snuck me in. I’m almost fourteen. Cosmo says I look sixteen, though. How’d you get in?”

“Oh, you know. Counselor at school thought I was a hotshot in drama. T-Trying to get me away from bad influences.”

“Bad influences?”

“Yeah. Th-The usual. You know, Mom and her b-boyfriend and my older b-brother all on booze. They think I’m next. Probably right.” He has a nervous little laugh. “Y-You keep an eye on your little sister all the time?”

“Livvy? Yeah, I don’t mind. Dad and Grandma aren’t very… capable.”

He looks at me quizzically. “C-Capable?”

What can I say? My dad’s between jobs. He has health problems. Grandma is eighty-two and quite crippled.

I decide to be honest with him. “On the booze, as you say.”

“Hey, we should introduce our families to each other. They c-could have one hell of a party.”

We check to see if Livvy is still behind us. She turns her back when she notices us waiting for her.

“Don’t pay her any attention. She just wants us to go back and coax her along.” Instead, we walk on even slower, stopping and looking in shop windows, but not really seeing what’s in them except for the imperfect reflection of our-selves, side by side.

“Do you think it’s true?” I look at Nathan. He’s rubbing at the bit of greasepaint on his cheek.

“What?”

“That Cosmo has AIDS?”

“Yeah, it’s true.” Nathan is close enough that I can feel his hand brush against mine. “My uncle had it, too. He had KS.”

“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.

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