The Clown's Smile

The Clown’s Smile
On one corner of my dresser sits a smiling toy clown on a tiny unicycle--a gift I received from my aunt although she knows I am terrified of clowns. The clown's puffy red hair, made of cotton, covers its ears but is parted above the eyes. The green eyes are outlined in black with thin, dark lashes flowing from the brows. It has cherry-red cheeks, nose, and lips, and its broad grin disappears into the wide, yellow ruffle around its neck. The clown wears a fluffy, two-tone nylon costume. The left side of the outfit is light blue, and the right side is red. The two colors merge in a dark line that runs down the center of the small outfit. Surrounding its ankles and disguising its long black shoes are big pink bows. The white spokes on the wheels of the unicycle gather in the center and expand to the black tire so that the wheel somewhat resembles the inner half of a grapefruit. The clown and unicycle together stand about a foot high. Although I don’t fancy clowns much, this colorful figure greets me with a smile every time I enter my room.

The Clown
He's a young man, the clown, with white socks striped in black, and black suspenders over a white T-shirt. White face, red nose. His MO is to follow people and imitate their motion without their noticing, to the glee of the sizeable, ever-changing audience. We're sitting here on the steps of the Museum, hot and sweaty, watching the show.

The clown can follow anyone: a slinky woman wearing pink ruffles, a kid with a mountain bike, a muscle-shirted dude talking Spanish on a cell phone, an old man walking his schnauzer, a big gray pigeon bobbing this way and that in search of food, and then taking flight.

Now he slides behind high-school girlfriends, floppy-sandaled flirts leaning toward each other and flinging back their hair with unthinking charm, the clown their vampy shadow. When he bids them goodbye, he flourishes a soft, velvet-bodied top hat, and you can see his head is shaven, except for a forelock. Now he's got a routine with a bottle of water. It's stuck in his mouth and silently he implores a guy to get it out for him.