At the Clown’s Birthday Party

After cake and ice cream, the guests, in their painted smiles and polka dot attire, settle in to watch the man they’ve hired to entertain them.  An actuary analyst!  So much better, already, than last year’s accountant or the year-before-that’s linguistics scholar.  In his narrow dark tie and shirt sleeves, he opens his briefcase of tricks, produces an over-large ledger sheet and pencil, and, while the clowns watch open-mouthed, calculates a number of profitable, competitive insurance premium levels while determining the amount of cash reserves needed to assure payment of benefits and then— before they can even catch their breath—withdraws a dozen manila envelopes and reviews employee claims activity to see if premiums are adequate to cover losses.  Hurrah!  They laugh when he extracts a large seltzer bottle, lifts it high, and uses it to water down his scotch because he explains, Jill thinks he is drinking a little too much lately, though he can quit anytime he wants, and with a flourish, he sets up a cardboard bar and sits at it and lights a cigarette and runs his hands through his hair, opens his wallet to a picture of Jill, who (surprise!) left him last week, the kids, still in their braces, and while his magic In-Box slowly fills itself and after he breaks five pencils with one hand, out come the skinny balloons which he deftly twists into a variety of shapes, including the 5-alpha reductase enzyme that is causing both his baldness and that little twinge in his prostate, and the Q-shaped ucler growing in his duodenum.  He leaves one balloon uninflated but won’t talk about it.  The clowns are not, he tells them, his fucking therapist, and he never liked them anyway.  The clowns cheer and laugh; this is so much better than anything, despite the bite of pathos they feel as the man cries now, sobbing into his open palms, and the clowns all know, know in their hearts, that this funny, sad man is really laughing on the inside. 

***Originally published in Hotel Amerika.