POSTCARD TO NANCY
I'm fasting again, day three, water only. That means I have to fill my hours with distractions. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube stand-up comedy.
Two cannibals were eating a clown when one said to the other, “Does this taste funny to you?”
My father was a clown in the circus, and when he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car.
Elect a clown, expect a circus.
NANCY’S REPLY
My old pal Sam is a bit of a clown. Recently, he sent me two photos, relics from fifty years ago when we were in high school in Portsmouth. Under the photo of me with my new short haircut, his caption reads, “You look like Sal Mineo.”
The second photo is the break-up letter I wrote to Sam in our junior year. We’re both 70 now and he is still mad at me. In the letter, among other shortcomings, I cited his heavy drinking. The funny thing is, I don’t remember us dating, though I do remember a party at his dad’s house and his near-death experience involving a fifth of Southern Comfort.
I remember the time in art class when we all had to do a clown painting. The paintings were judged by a doctor from the mental hospital. I won first place and the doctor bought my painting for fifty dollars.
I am fond of old circus photography, I think because the grim reality of circus life is so different from the gaiety of its public presentation. I used to run a little antique business in Columbus. I once came across a seller with a cache of old, black & white, rather bleak circus photos. I wish I’d bought them all. I ended up with just one.
My old pal Bill used to be a volunteer with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Every time the circus came to Columbus, Bill joined the PETA protest. One time, the Ringling Brothers lion tamer chased Bill into the parking garage, trying to kick him in the ass as Bill ran off in a zigzag pattern. Bill used to be the quarterback at Ohio State.
MY REPLY
I remember Sal Mineo for two things, his role in "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) and his murder at the hands of a mugger in 1976. Sal Mineo, stabbed in the heart, made it to the age of 37.
I am uncomfortable in the presence of clown paintings. When I was a kid, the clowns were good... Clarabell on "The Howdy Doody Show" and the famously sad circus clown Emmett Kelly, Jr. Somewhere along the line, clowns turned sinister and evil, the most lethal being the schizophrenic party clown Pogo, a.k.a. Patches, a.k.a. John Wayne Gacy, who murdered 33 boys and young men and hid 26 of the bodies in his basement crawl space. When the State of Illinois executed Gacy, I breathed a sigh of relief. One less clown to worry about.
I have a theory about why Dr. Rogers was the judge in the clown painting competition. He enjoyed analyzing the artist's pathology through the face of the clown they painted. Fifty dollars in 1968 is four hundred dollars today. I think the doctor was stimulated by your renegade pathology.
I have been to only one circus. In Portsmouth, down by the rail yard, the main tent was set up in a field south of the Harmon Street overpass. You rightly identify circus life as a grim reality where, like the popcorn and cotton candy aroma that perfumes all transient carnivals, a creepy otherworldly chill invades the senses. A former girlfriend once described a carnival ride operator as having "too many tattoos and not enough teeth." "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" (1988) is a terrible movie, but I watched all of it just to see the Terenzi brothers in their ice cream truck and Sheriff Dave save Debbie from Jojo the Klownzilla and destroy all the evil klowns.
When I was in junior high, my father and I liked to watch "Combat" on the basement rec room TV. I sat on the couch and dad relaxed on the folding chaise he'd brought down from the back patio. Next to him was a case of Hudepohl beer. One night my mother came down the stairs, irate about God-knows-what. She reached around the back of the chaise and put dad in a choke hold. Yelling and a slap fight broke out. Using the upstairs kitchen phone, I called our next-door neighbor. Ted came over and tried to break up the fight. My mother slapped Ted in the face. Ted, the Portsmouth city solicitor, strode upstairs and called the sheriff. In minutes the sheriff’s deputy arrived and, in a huff, mom stomped off to her bedroom, leaving in her wake a series of slammed doors.
If you watch too much Dateline, you get the impression that most marriages end in murder.
It is truly a wonder that all marriages don’t end in murder. It was the same comedian who also said, You aren’t truly married until the cops have been called at least once.