BY DR. AGONSON
With tears, the clown still smiled his painted smile, but this sign of his sorrow drove furrows through the caked on grease. Opposite him, the man in the striped suit lowered his smoking gun. He cracked a grin, his white teeth glowing white in the firelight.
“You’ve finally made it, Mr. Puckle-luckle. I was afraid I would have to do something drastic.”
Mr. Puckle-luckle mimed concern, silently imitating, The Scream. The ringmaster, his whip fallen from his hand, lay clutching his arm, the trapeze girl kneeling beside him, her face awash in terror. In that darkness, the red coat obscuring the color, the clown could not tell how badly the shot had hit. So, he looked into his rival’s face and saw there, amid the agony, burning hot in the wounded man’s eyes, an intensity of hatred narrowing in on the man in the suit. He would live; if the ringmaster could still hate, he would live. Mr. Puckle-luckle left his rival and the woman who ruled his heart, turning his attention back to the man with the gun.
“Do you know how long it took me to find you, Edward?”
Mr. Puckle-luckle began to count, slowly, on his fingers, using big, exaggerated movements. Excitedly, he held up one full hand and the thumb of the other.
The gunman let out a single, little huff of laughter, his lip curled in disdain.
“And I find you, finally, and you’re here, acting like the clown you’ve always been.”
The clown gave a deep bow, his head actually touching the curling tips of his shoes and making there the small bells ring. Mr. Puckle-luckle was proud of that. He had figured out he could do this little trick with the bells of his shoes a while ago, but none of his acts would allow for the closeness and intimacy needed for his audience to hear. There was always too much yelling and shouting. But now, amid the silent terror of his friends, he could finally find a place for that little joke of the body, the type of joke which had always delighted him.
Pulling a gun from his breast, he rose, in one fluid, unfurling flourish, waving his free hand wildly to distract the gunman’s eye while his other aimed and fired. The man in the striped suit was dead before he fell, and the clown put his hand over his mouth and widened his eyes with shock. Looking at his gun, he stared at it agape as if he was just as surprised as everyone else at it being there. His shoulders rose and fell with a silent pretense at laughter as he mimed that “oops, I’m sorry” pose from I Love Lucy, though the trapeze girl saw, glistening on his cheek, the still flowing tears.
They shared one moment, one final moment, before Edward, alias Mr. Puckle-luckle, disappeared once more from the face of the earth. Sitting by the wounded man she loved, she gazed into the smiling, tearful face of the man she knew loved her. The world seemed to pause as the clown gave a little nod of his head. Turning, he sprinted away from the light of the fire, from the lovers, from the dead past, and disappeared, jingling and ringing into the night.
Tale Told 