From his position near the rear of the assembled throng, he watched as some of the others began to go over the edge, each in their own particular manner and style.

First was Bartholomew, who ran crazily around the rooftop with a pinwheel twirler in each outstretched hand, bobbing and weaving as he coursed through and around the mass of gathered Big Top brethren.  Laughing and giggling in his familiar high-pitched voice, Bartie seemed to delight in the moment, delight in the whizzing sound coming from the spinning pinwheels and in the approving murmur coming from the attendant witnesses.

After a few more charges, retreats and feints, Bartholomew finally straightened his approach from as far back from the edge as he could manage and then galloped full-speed towards his intended launch point.  He aimed for a spot on the knee-wall that ran almost the full circumference of the flattop roof and which had only a few two-or-three-foot breaks here and there for drainage or access.  His timing couldn’t have been better as he hit his mark and leaped high into the air, achieving a graceful arc against the backdrop of the clear-blue afternoon sky.  Bartie, his arms and legs spread wide, his back arched and his head craned upward so that his face caught as much of the full sunlight as possible, closed his eyes and smiled broadly.

And then he dropped, plummeting downward, pinwheels whirling madly in the rushing air.

Sad Ray went second and without any fanfare whatsoever.  Instead, heading for one of the breaks in the wall, he slowly put one big yellow shoe in front of the other and glumly, ploddingly, walked off the edge.  Level and deliberate.

Watching this, he shook his head and reminded himself that Sad Ray has always been a bit of a downer.  The kind of a clown who could ruin a fairytale dream.

At this thought, his mind began to wander a bit and he imagined a world of wonderment and delight, filled with ice-cream and magical creatures and happy thoughts.  Cotton-candy clouds drifted across a startlingly blue sky, a pristine double rainbow on a rainless day framed the scene in his mind’s eye.  A joyous realm of peace and contentment.

And then, one big-yellow-shoe footstep at a time, the image of Sad Ray entered and intruded upon this perfect place, shattering the japery of the land.  Dark clouds and frowns.  Unicorns of Pestilence trampling a fluffle of emphysemic bunny rabbits as they coughed out chunks of their tiny, diseased lungs.  Murderous Harlequins impaling Marshmallow Men on sharpened spires of crystalline candy, their slow descent described in white streaks of sticky horror.

Paradise shattered, he thought back to a time when a civilian had become angry with him and had asked with a sneer if hamstrung clowns had extra-floppy feet.  He hadn’t replied, but for the rest of that day the phrase ‘a pie to the face and a shiv to the ribs’ had played and re-played constantly through his mind.

Shaking his head to clear these visions and bring himself back to the moment, he mused that, perhaps, Sad Ray should have gone first and the thought, a bit scandalously, made him smile inwardly.

Next up, a rapid succession of fellow and fellowette clowns… by ones and by twos, over they went.  Most laughing, some affecting a frown or false tears before brightening suddenly with some sort of last moment gag reveal – a bouquet of flowers, a silly balloon animal or a sparkling whiz-banger belying the feigned tragedy of their final acts and then over the edge they would tumble, flop, hop, skip or jump, off into the void in their bright costumes, exaggerated footwear, crazy hats and crazier hair; flowing over the brick horizon like a multi-colored waterfall.

Then JingleWinkle took center stage and all the others took notice.

JingleWinkle was a real clown amongst clowns, a clown’s clown it was said, with an immaculate flair for showmanship and a commanding presence.  With him, as always, was his ubiquitous pogo-stick, freshly festooned and adorned with additional ribbons, streamers and bells.

Seeing JW with his p-stick caused a slight pang of regret.  ‘I should have brought my tiny bicycle,’ he thought to himself.  But he was quickly pulled away from such musings by the tell-tale ‘chun-Chunk… chun-Chunk… chun-Chunk’ sound of a pogo-stick gaining momentum and gaining height.  And as momentum and height increased, small tricks and movements were fed into the routine – JingleWinkle doing his thing one last time, pulling out all the stops until eventually he’d pogo’d, power-screwched and quarter-flop-full-half-over-zipped his way to the brink of the precipice in a bravura performance.

And, with one ultimate Herculean bend and thrust, JW propelled the pogo-stick and himself high, high, high into the air.  Turning at the apex to face those still on the roof, he smiled widely and waved a giant, squishy, faux-hand at them in a gesture of brotherhood, understanding and goodbye.  And then he too descended.

Watching JingleWinkle’s final act, he half expected to hear a mighty ‘SPROING’ and to see clown and stick triumphantly re-emerge into the sky, still smiling and waving.  But, instead, heard only a meaty thud and metallic crunch.

He remembered a time from his youth when his father had become enraged with some group of people or other and had virtually screamed that what they ought to do was gather together all of the offending individuals, dress ’em up in clown suits and march ’em down the road in a long, sad parade.

When someone had asked, ‘And then what?’ his father had replied, ‘Shoot ’em in the face.’

Now seemed the right moment for he, himself, to go.

Earlier, he had considered tucking his thumbs up into his armpits and flapping his elbows chicken-wing style as he went over, but had decided against it.  Instead, he strode to the edge, not too fast and not too slow, the horns built into each shoe bonk! bonk! bonking! as he went.

When he could go no further, he stepped up onto the short perimeter wall, turned his back to the void and faced his remaining friends and colleagues.  He wore his registered face work, hair-shock and appliances, but for today he had opted to don a favored slogan T-Shirt pulled over his regular uniform of red, white and blue.

He caught the eyes of some of those he faced and saw each of them smile and nod in turn and he smiled back at them.  And then he snapped a sharp salute to those before him and as they read the ‘Et tu, Shlomo?’ emblazoned across his chest, he fell over backwards.

The wind rushed past his enormous prosthetic ears, whistling strangely as it did.

A phrase flashed briefly through his mind:

Odd is the sound, 

I hear as a clown,

Who is falling.

———————————————-

Lieutenant R. Wallas stood near the edge of the silliest puddle ever, quietly surveying the scene.  A viscous pool of blood, brain, bile and grease paint spread out before him.  The hem of his drab woolen trench-coat flapped and ruffled in the intermittent breeze.

The crystal shards of a shattered seltzer bottle twinkled in the sunlight like a thousand diamonds.

The melancholy ‘drip-drip-drip’ of a squirty-flower without an owner could be heard emanating from somewhere deep in the merry wreckage.

A red foam-rubber nose caught in a draft of fast moving air bounced across the pavement and a lone pinwheel stood proud amidst a mound of gaily costumed gore, vainly trying to spin in the gentle wind, thwarted by its own bent shaft.

A Sergeant standing nearby was sobbing quietly to himself, while a little further away, near a narrow strip of grass which bordered the area, another officer was doubled-over and retching.

Wallas reached up, took his hat in his hand and slowly lowered his arm to his side.  And as he stood there, shoulders slightly stooped, hat dangling loosely, its brim pinched between a thumb and forefinger, he smiled slightly to himself and thought, ‘Jesus Aitch Christ, I fucking love this job.’

Somewhere, off in the distance, a car honked.