Once upon a time I was a clown. I guess you could say I was sort of a diva. There was an acting troupe headed by an ambiguous man, rich and retired and who loved his women, the rumors went. We were the gaggle of social misfits and community trash: the ones whom others didn’t know what to do with anymore and so sold to people like this: this acting troupe leader of a man, who never showed his face and never paid his rent. People didn’t even watch his shows all that much: so I don’t know why we stayed together as long as we did as a helter-skelter bunch of rag-end performers.
It was Show Night, that much I do remember: that one night where we performed somewhere other than city sidewalks and cornerstone cafes for nothing more than the price of a few ham sandwiches, to bide us by until tomorrow. This time it was at a hall: the sort that had padded walls and built-in stage lights with cutouts for dramatic effect and the sort of stage that could revolve. Not that we were using that particular feature.
We were split into acts: with the Terrible Twins going first with their fire-eating routine and then Tommy the Hat-trick Magician with his purple doves and red smile and yellow flowers. The ladies all loved Tom. Then it would be me: what I would do on those stages I am still not very sure of until today. I remember getting dressed in black gauze, sheer on top and sheer on the bottom, covered just enough to be considered decent; the sort of underwear women wear when they put themselves on show. I was not a circus whore, if that’s what you’re thinking. I was a clown. Fortuneteller, maybe: but never a whore. Red nails, white top hat, trailing gossamer shawls; I’d worn the same thing for as long as I can remember. The stage was my drug: my lie: the audience loved me. Performing always felt like an eleven on the Richter scale of orgasms.
We lived in a caravan-like sort of thing back then; with a room for the women and a room for the men, and a long corridor down the middle which served as dressing room, kitchen, living room and storeroom all at once. It was a hard life, but it was the happiest I’d ever remembered being. Going from place to place and never knowing what kind of people you’d meet. Sure, you got the bastards who threw things at you and tried to feel you up after shows and the kind of people who would try to gang-rape one of the girls at gunpoint or knifepoint, but the men were here for that. Stupid and arrogant as they were, they looked out for their own: because really: who else would take care of us if not us ourselves? We were, as odd as it is to say it: family.
There was a clown with orange eye makeup and orange hair that stood up everywhere. I can’t remember his name, but there was something wrong with him. We always had to persuade him to do acts and watch him more than we watched the others. He had mood swings, and he’s go and get drunk just hours before a show. I guess he had problems and he dealt with them the only way he knew how. Some of the other guys tell me they’d find him awake at night, crying. I never asked. Perhaps I should have.
Come Show Night, we were running a tad bit late. The Orange Clown was refusing to leave. He was on the bed, crying. The Twins were out front watching for our signal: we had to leave soon. I don’t remember what happened next, but someone must have gotten the Orange Clown to straighten himself out: because the next thing I remember is being backstage watching the fire come out of Christopher’s throat like some kind of sun-magic. There were more people than usual in the audience tonight. I wonder who the Fat Man had bribed to get this many to come watch our show. Didn’t matter for much: it was still going to be the same anyway.
In the hall we were performing in, there were boxes up on the second floor for the ones who could afford better seats. There was a couple in the first one: I knew because they were kissing. The man had red hair.
I don’t know how it happened, but we all died that night. Shoot-off, maybe it was. Either way, it didn’t hurt as much as they tell you it will and at the time it didn’t really matter so much. So you don’t really have to be afraid when your time comes; if it ever does.
When I woke up I was in that place where people walked on water and rainbows were tangible and malleable: so much so that people built houses on them and made paint out of the different colors so bright you couldn’t see. I thought I’d went crazy at last, seeing as how all those nights out with the boys had addled my mind. Alcohol does that to you, I guess: sex and booze and drugs.
There were fish. There was a beach or an ocean or a really large pool: and there were people walking under water like it was something you did everyday. The deeper it went the darker it got, and the deeper it went the larger and the uglier and the more fearsome the fish got. Some of them had red eyes and huge jaws with tens of rows of teeth. Some of them were blind and were bigger than a sunken ship. The small ones stayed on the surface where the water was crystal blue and the light from all the rainbows still shone. These were white and pink and pale blues and reds: little and dainty and neat-scaled, like those people who don’t face facts. Occasionally one of the smaller fish got too curious and went too deep, wanted something too much other than their little valedictorian world. Those were eaten.
I was a clown, living in squalid conditions and happier than I’d ever been. Maybe that was naiveté. Perhaps I was a fish as well, small and living in a box full of ideals; or large and terrible and hiding in the depths. Like death, it didn’t really matter. What was important was that I’d lived.
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