The clown came in screaming. “This isn’t what I asked for,” he said, shoving the basket of fruits and cookies back in your face, and everyone laughed, but the laugh died out quick, because fundamentally all involved were professionals — all on your side at least, or maybe it’s more to the point to say that fundamentally they were all humans, trained to laugh at a clown, maybe even wired that way from birth, and later in the evening that question would nag at you, the question of whether the laughter was wrong or whether the cessation of the laughter was wrong, or maybe neither of those was wrong but something else overarching them both was wrong, namely the fact that you were putting the clown’s actions and the responses to those actions before your own needs, that you were allowing the question of his rage and its risibility to obscure the fact that you had handpicked the fruits and cookies, spent hours in fact, and that the reality of your effort was now lost in the tangle of someone else’s violent neurosis, and you wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat, and eventually Marcus would put his hand on your shoulder and tell you that the question needed to be answered but that perhaps it would be better answered by a psychologist and a neurologist, ideally both at once, convenient, Marcus would then say, since Drs. Borman lived down the street, he a psychologist, she a neurologist, and they stayed up late most nights watching old movies so you could just go over there and knock on the door and one of them would answer, probably her, and you’d get invited inside for a drink, and sure, maybe you’d get the sense of something a little too close in the place, not creepy exactly but sensual, maybe you wouldn’t be able to fend it off, maybe you wouldn’t even want to, since the Dr. Mrs. Borman was a beautiful woman, and you’d had your phases with women, not just college, once in Phoenix for about six months, and it was fantastic, really a transport for both of you, but in the end she said it was like “effing a mirror,” though she didn’t say effing, she went ahead and used the real word, and you let loose with an out breath of shock, though it wasn’t a word that truly shocked you, it was more like a release and a relief, though you also had to admit that she was one thousand percent correct, especially when the two of you lay side by side, and you parted as friends, and you rented a U-Haul and said goodbye to Phoenix, but how did the Dr. Mrs. Borman know any of this, I mean, the Dr. Mr. Borman maybe, he was a great listener, but you’d regain a sense of why you knocked on the door in the first place, fight down your rising feelings, there’d be plenty of women later, plenty of men, that’s not what you came for, you were here on a referral from Marcus, and you’d ask your question about the clown, and she’d say that before they answered she needed to know exactly which clown you meant, and you’d tell her, and she’d roll their eyes, and any soupçon of seduction would be gone, suddenly, completely, and the Dr. Mrs. Borman would fold her arms across her chest and say, “Bozo? He’s just an asshole—I know him better than you think—he was our contractor for the extension for our house and he had no goddamned idea what he was doing—we drew up very specific plans with him and then he was like a man trying to climb up a greased pole—just no sense of how to make it through a process unscathed—I’m not surprised he put you through the wringer on this basket thing though I am sorry to hear it—Jesus—what a jerk—Jesus,” and you’d shake her hand, feeling a little foolish, but what else are you supposed to do in a case like that, advice given, advice received, and you’d hoof it back to Marcus in time to have him kiss you goodnight, he’d have an interview in the morning, he was really trying to catch on in local arts administration, and you’d think about climbing into bed with him, just for the warmth, you and Marcus would never think of anything beyond that, why blow up thirty years of trust, but instead you’d fall asleep on the couch dreaming of hitting Bozo with a car, a clown car, and you and all the other drivers would get out one by one, each falsely expressing concern, each leaning in to see how hurt he was, each suppressing a laugh as water shot from the flower on your lapel and splashed his already crying face.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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