Touch of the Clown (2 page)

“Whatcha got in your hand, kid?” One of the girls could see my knuckles were turning white hanging onto something, so two of them held me and the third one pried my fingers open.

“Now that's not nice,” the biggest one laughed. “Didn't your momma tell you about sharing? I guess we're just gonna have to learn you a lesson.”

Of course, by that time, I was howling my head off.

“Shut up, or we'll give you something to cry about,” said the girl who had a tattoo of a skull and a snake on her arm. Before they ran off with the five dollars, this one knocked me down onto the sidewalk and kicked my legs. I lay there for a long time crying before I got up, scraped bits of gravel off my knees and hands, and limped home.

Daddy and Grandma were furious and they did a lot of yelling about what was the world coming to, and where were the police when you needed them, but they never phoned in a complaint. Neither of them really liked to have any-thing to do with the police.

After that, I knew you had to be suspicious of just about everyone who's bigger than you when you're on the sidewalk, except for old ladies with white hair.

But last year, the second time I got beaten up, I didn't have a chance. Two boys came bombing out of the pool hall just as I was going by with a bagful of videos to return to the video store. They grabbed the videos, and one twisted my arm really hard and said to give him any money I had. It turned out I only had twenty-seven cents in my pocket, and when they saw how it was such a little bit, the one twisted my arm even harder until I thought it would crack.

“Aw, let her be,” said the guy with my bag of videos. “She's just a kid.” He even smiled at me, big chipped teeth showing through a faceful of pimples.

The other one just kind of snarled, like a dog, and grabbed me by my cheek and pinched really hard before letting me go. By that time I'd found my voice and was screaming as loud as I could. They ran off. My arm hurt so bad I thought I was going to die, and I sat down on a bus-stop bench and cried until it felt a little bit better.

Then I was afraid to go home because of the videos. There were two new releases and four from the three-day rental shelves.

Daddy and Grandma were already in a bad mood when I finally straggled in. Livvy had had a major accident while I was out and they'd had to clean her up. This time they did call the police, but it didn't help anything, and we had to pay $215.00 to the video store, which took all of our grocery money for one month.

“I don't know why you can't be trusted to go four blocks by yourself,” Daddy yelled at me, as if it were my fault I got mugged.

So today Livvy and I cross the street four times just to be on the safe side before we get to the park with the curly slide.

Livvy is good for about two hours at the playground if she doesn't have an accident. I push her on the swings a bit and say “hey,” and wave when she hollers, “Baarbra, look at me!” as she works her way along monkey bars or climbs up into the little wooden tower. But mostly I sit at the picnic table with my survival bag, the straw beach bag Mama used to take with us to Alberta Beach. Some of the straw is coming loose, but I glue the pieces back with my white school glue.

In the bag I have a change of clothing for Livvy, my word-search magazine, a library book, and a scribbler that's good for playing X's and O's with Livvy or for making notes to myself, a box of crayons and an old scrapbook from grade five, which Livvy uses when she feels like making pictures. There are a few other things, too, which I carry for good luck: a little pink glass bottle that once held some of Mama's perfume, a letter from Marilyn Marsden from L.A. that says, “I hope sometime you can come and visit me. Your mama always wanted to come, and now that she isn't with us, you need to come for her.” I know the letter by heart. This is only part of it.

My library book today is called
Looking at the Moon.
It is about a big family at a beach, and they live in a cottage that has a whole bunch of rooms, and there's a boathouse and a pier. Norah, the girl in the story, isn't really part of the family. She's been sent from England to get away from the war. When you read the book you're supposed to be thinking about Norah and how she's falling in love and it's not working out very well, but I keep thinking about the beach and the trees alongside it, and the clear water, and
the sounds of children shouting, and seagulls dipping and diving like kites.

In this family, a cook makes the meals and I imagine things like oatmeal porridge and bacon and eggs and pancakes. I want to be Norah with her sore heart and her worries about the war and her family back in England.

“Baarbraaa–look what I found.” Livvy is dancing over from the playground equipment. She's holding a rubber ball in her hand. It is a faded grayish-green covered with a pattern of stars.

“Look, starshine,” she says. At one time the stars must have been covered with glitter paint. Most of the glitter has worn off, but here and there a little fleck catches the sunlight.

“Play ball with me,” Livvy begs, dancing around, throwing the ball up in the air, trying to catch it, chasing it across the grass and the gravel.

“Okay,” I say, “but we've got to go soon.” A cluster of teenagers moving across the field toward the playground makes me decide to leave even sooner. I throw the word search and
Looking at the Moon
into the survival bag. “We can play catch on the way home.”

Which isn't such a great idea because Livvy can never catch the ball and ends up spending all of her time chasing it along the sidewalk and sometimes even into the street as I scream at her to look out for cars in my fiercest imitation of Grandma Kobleimer.

Livvy is having a great afternoon. Somehow the ball with its sad little glittery stars has made her feel like a winner. She hops and skips as she goes along, and claps her hands, and sings a song that she learned at school about a dog named Bingo.

“I'm gonna call this ball Bingo,” she informs me. “Bingo is my ball-o.”

There are two girls in high heels at the next corner, so I hiss at her, “Cross here, Livvy.”

And then it happens. She throws the ball ahead of her so that it goes bouncing into the street, and before I can yell at her, she is chasing it down the middle of the road. A car swerves, startling her so that she darts into the oncoming lane and a man on a bicycle runs right into her.

Have you ever noticed how, when something truly terrible happens, the world stops for a few seconds? Nothing seems to move. I can hear, faintly, the sound of a ghetto blaster from an
open upstairs window across the street. Somewhere a dog barks. The car that swerved to avoid Livvy moves on. I am like a statue, pure stone.

Just a couple of seconds and then Livvy's cry shatters the air and sets everything in motion. Another oncoming car screeches as it stops and then swings around the tangled pile of Livvy and the man on the bicycle. My feet move at a run.

By the time I get there, Livvy has pulled herself away from the man and the bicycle. She is sitting on the pavement holding her knee, screaming nonstop. There is blood all down one leg, and blood on her hands, and more blood starting to ooze from a gash in her forehead.

The man untangles himself from the bicycle. He is bleeding, too, but just above one hand, and he quickly unties his neckerchief and wraps it around his forearm.

I am there now, with my arm around Livvy's shoulders, my hands brushing at her cheeks, trying to smooth away the tears, wipe off the blood. “It's okay, honey-pie,” I croon. “Its okay.” And I rock her a bit.

The man is on his feet now and he picks up his bicycle and lays it on the grass between the sidewalk and the curb.

“Let's get her off the street,” he says, all the time making funny rag-doll shaking movements
with his arms and legs, tilting his head toward one shoulder and then the other, and moving his jaw like he's checking to see if anything is broken.

“Gee, I'm sorry,” he says, crouching down next to Livvy. “I didn't have time to get out of your way. Are you okay? Let's see if you can get up.” He has a soft, gentle voice, and he smiles at me, just a quick smile filled with white teeth. It's then I notice he is dressed differently from most men we see in this part of town. He has on a T-shirt the color of egg yolk, blue suspenders, faded red jeans and green running shoes the color of limes.

Livvy's mouth is open but no sound is coming out at the moment. Just a little rattle at the back of her throat.

“See if you can get her to move her arms and legs–just a bit to start with,” the man says to me. “I've been bleeding so I'd better not handle her.”

Livvy has found her voice again, a howl that can shatter windows.

“Sssh, baby-pie.” I hug her closer and rock her a bit more. A car honks its horn as it goes by. “We've got to get off this street. Let's see if
you can move your arms.” I feel along her arms and get her to bend them. The blood is coming from a big scrape I can see. “Now let me help you up.”

“I cant.” Livvy has found her voice. “I'm dying,” she screams.

“Try, sweetie-pie. Try for Barbara.” I hold onto her, my arms wrapped around her chest, and gradually lift her.

“Owww.” She softens her cry to a wail when she finds out her legs still work.

“Atta girl,” says the man. “Just a few steps and we're off the road.”

I end up carrying her, easing her onto the grass. Livvy has stopped crying for a minute, suddenly intrigued by the man of many colors. And, by this time, one of the girls in high heels has hobbled over to us.

“You okay, honey?” she asks. Livvy is looking at the pattern of black lace butterflies flying up the girl's net stockings to her leather skirt. “I seen it. You shouldn't run out in the road no matter what or you could get killed.” She smiles a big lipstick smile at Livvy. “You need some help or something?”

“No, I think she'll be okay,” the man smiles.
“I think it's mainly scrapes and scratches. Are you close to home?”

“We're about six blocks away,” I calculate.

Suddenly Livvy opens her mouth in a howl again, as if she's been hit by a bicycle for the second time. “Bingo,” she screams. “I want Bingo.”

“Bingo?” The man and the lady in high heels speak at the same time.

“Her ball,” I say. “The ball she was chasing.”

The man in the colored clothes places his hand overtop of his eyes and bobs his head up and down like a bird. He makes me think of someone who is acting. “Aha,” he says. “I spy Bingo.” Waiting for traffic to clear, he lopes across the road to a fence on the other side and plucks Bingo out of a clump of crabgrass.

“There. Ya see, honey?” The girl in the high heels lights a cigarette and squats awkwardly in her tight skirt, just in front of Livvy. “Ya got your ball back now. Ain't that lucky?” She plucks some tissues out of her purse and dabs at Livvy's forehead. “Ya got a little cut there but it ain't too bad. My old man give me worse.” She winks at me.

He is back with the ball but he doesn't give it to Livvy right away. Instead, he tucks it under
his chin. Rummaging through a backpack attached to the bicycle seat, he pulls out three colored balls. Magically, he tosses the balls into the air, adds Bingo, and continues juggling, the neckerchief bandage a blue blur, all the time making funny faces at Livvy.

Both Livvy and I are speechless, and Livvy seems to have momentarily forgotten her wounds. “Well, will you look at that,” the girl in high heels says in a whisper. But her friend at the corner is hollering, “C'mon, Melody,” and she reaches into her purse, pulls out a loonie and presses it into Livvy's blood-stained hands. “You buy yourself a little treat, honey,” she says. Sighing, she rises from her crouch, adjusts her skirt and heads back to the corner.

I can see Livvy thinks this day has turned into some kind of strange dream, and I'm beginning to think so, too. The juggler is throwing the balls higher and higher into the air, finally scooping the three colored ones into a kangaroo pocket in his T-shirt. Then he clasps Bingo in both hands and presents it to Livvy like one of the three wise men bringing a gift to the baby Jesus.

“Behold, Bingo,” he says.

Livvy actually laughs, and then, remembering
herself, turns it into a prolonged moan.

“I live just down the street here. You come along with me and we'll get you washed up, and do you know–” he looks Livvy directly in the eye, “I have some Band-Aids that glow in the dark. I think you're going to need at least ten or eleven.”

I remember all of the things I have ever been told about never going anywhere with a stranger. “We'd better get home,” I say. I cannot believe this man in his rainbow clothes, juggling for Livvy even while his arm is bandaged, can be bad, but it is better to be safe.

He seems to be reading my mind. “We'll do a little front yard ministration,” he says. “There's a place where we can sit down, and I'll nip up to my flat and get some water and bandages. Do you want me to call your folks from my phone?”

“Naw. It's okay.” I don't want to tell him our phone was cut off when Daddy didn't pay the bill for three months.

“Before we go anywhere, though,” he smiles his wide smile, “we need some names. You have before you Cosmo Farber.” And he does a little bow. “My mangled companion,” he makes a sad clown mouth and points to the bicycle, “is Mehitabel.”

“My name is Olivia de Havilland Kobleimer,” Livvy shouts. I watch Cosmo do a mock staggering back, as if the name has struck him.

“You're kidding me,” he says.

“No kidding,” I say. “She's Olivia de Havilland and I'm Barbara Stanwyck. My dad suffers from a bad case of old-movie illness.”

“Hey, you're all right,” Cosmo laughs. “You support the wounded Olivia de Havilland, and I'll tend Mehitabel.”