The Life of the runaway Clown Part 1- Copyright Robert Fullarton

                          taken from the book---Our Lives as Fiction 
©Robert Fullarton 2013

 

 

 

The life of the runaway clown

It has become too much for me to even walk down the street these days having to bear the criticisms of many men. I am no lunatic like the other clowns that shuffle, flop and bounce about the place like a damn half dead cow. There seems to be no restrictions for any circus amateur like any of the animal trainers, the acrobats or the very ringmaster himself. I had escaped from the circus exactly a week ago and ever since my quick and bungled departure I have been living a life of destitution on the street. I am a homeless tramp, a wreck and a bag of nerves, my single possession, is this accordion which I carry as I travel about and when I am not travelling or sleeping by the sidewalk I simply sing and busk with my accordion to earn a few “buttons” from the passing strangers, that frown, glower and moan about my very presence. But the truth is this; I am no permanent fixture to this side of the city. I have noticed for instance that an entire band of thieves now congregate outside the central bank and I am particularly gob smacked by the notion, that these beggars get everything for nothing. These rogues smile, they bare their golden teeth, these “gypos” come about like a like a bad smell, take all the sweet earnings, and the charity of strangers away from genuine cases such as myself. These men don’t suffer they simply cheat their way through life, rob me of my entitlement to public sympathy and they take the earnings that I should receive from the public. The street life is not everything its cracked up to be, you have to bear a certain grime that few can match, you have to look pitiful, but not too pitiful so that the public, will pity you, show condolences for you’re sufferings and give you a cup full of change. “This is the greatest job in the world” so said a friend of mine long ago during the height of circus performances and now here I stand on a sidewalk in the inner-city completely packed with makeup, wearing baggy green trousers, wearing my red glow in the dark rubber nose, my clown wig and my breeches, here I stand without even as much as a perfectly good change of clothes. When it rains in this city- and lord knows it buckets rain in this city- I find shelter by a bus stop or hide away at one of the many semi-concealed entrances to the great college, which is located at the heart of this fine city.

I had grown weary with the humiliating, debasing routine set out for me by the sadistic circus master who beats the other clowns into submission with his giant ashplant cane that he carries with him where he goes.

“Parmy, he say, what kind of clown are you? Certainly one that’s unfit for circus life, all you do is mope and weep at how lonely and unjust you find the circus life and then when you perform for each show, all you can produce are a few woeful songs off you’re mournful accordion. You don’t even make a third of the takings that the other clowns take in and their all midgets and you a full grown, fully able man of fifty. Cant you even make enough for one show? That’s why you are constantly broke because, you never did acclimatise to the travelling life of a performer. At the rate things are going I will have to accompany you onto the stage with my ashplant and let the audience see you perform under my own private tuition and we dont have to worry about a thing because the audience will think that this is all part of the show and they will applaud me for the sheer violence of it, for every member of society secretly yearns to see the clown beaten properly for their own entertainment.”

Yes indeed he was a sadistic bastard, he stood fully erect on his platform shoes and often on a high lofty altar, supported by wooden poles, where he stood at the centre of the stage to take command of the performers all before the very unassuming eyes of the public.

But I will not delve on my past experiences, for this last week on the street has been better in every aspect in comparison with my old, previous existence, of four years of fear, degradation and submission under the cane of the circus master.

One day while I had danced myself into a stupor and into a state of fatigue and exhaustion, I had simply sat down by the kerb near St. John’s Church, when suddenly a gang of “gypos” came and robbed my knapsack with every cent of my hard earned money taken. “Hey what sort of human robs a clown blind, in broad daylight in the early hours of rush hour?” I shouted at them as they ran past me- and I with no effort to run, for I was truly knackered and not even able to walk let alone to walk with fatigue- and one of these grimy thugs shouted back, “what sort of man wouldn’t rob a blind clown, after he had danced himself silly before the public. I am just trying to enjoy the act, its my job to steal the clown’s loot while he’s performing for his own audience”, and with that he disappeared off into the distance past a long orderly arranged contingency of buses parked methodically by the bus terminus. I had ripped the back of my pants in an effort to chase the brute who mocked me, down, but I had not even one iota of energy to walk from one block to the next and at this stage it was frivolous for me to even hope that I could stop any of these shifty characters, who had probably at this stage, slipped into one of the many council flats that stood towering above the line of the horizon in the distance. Luckily, as if by a meagre blessing of God, the brutes had not taken my accordion, perhaps because I had tucked away under my feet and they simply did not have time to swipe it and take it while they darted off to make a quick and cunning escape.

                                                         That night I slept for the third night in a row at the local shelter, St. Andrews home for the Homeless. The authorities there seemed to be quite warm and open with me. A pair of social workers who found me sitting idle one evening, directly after the incident with the “gypos” had broken out and with tears of sympathy in their eyes, they simply stated who they were, what they had to offer and invited me to come to the hostel, for a hot meal, soup, a bath, some spare, clothes and a bed for the night. They showed great commiseration for my difficult predicament and they promised me that everything was going to get better for me sooner rather than later and they said that I would never have to don the horrible clown suit again once they had gotten me settled and sorted out with the management themselves. These pasty-faced kids, were naïve enough in their promises but at least they were sincere, honest and a decent pair of kids, not like the gangs of thugs that pounce on buses these days robbing every passenger blind. These bus robbers have become infamous with regard to the media these days, and the last incident that broke out, took place when a gang of twelve year olds came out of the blue while the bus driver was simply waiting to drive off on his route, around came these kids armed with pistols, knives and crowbars and a black sack for the “booty” taken from each and every passenger. Yes it has become a custom in the rough, tough, barricaded suburbs outside the city to find that the buses have been hijacked, robbed and pillaged by these “bus pirates” who have made a successful living off hijacking buses instead of banks and many a good driver has simply gone running for the worth of his own very life. But now I am on a tangent of my own…

Now where was I, ah yes as I was stating, these kids are harmless and anyway I have seen them at night literally risk life and limb out on the back streets by the old abandoned train station, these kids get hassled by drug addicts, by drunken yobs on a Saturday night binge and even by their superiors, and they all take this criticism in their stride, they simply obey and follow orders. These kids believe in something, something which once existed in an old archaic system of law and order.

The home was filled with Polish, African and Lithuanian orderlies, nurses and carers as well as local volunteers who all cater for the needs of the two dozen or so fully grown men that are simply lying out stretched and completely ossified on their beds. The room smells of must, sweaty armpits and cleavage along with the watered down potato soup that tastes like sawdust mixed with wallpaper paste. The main nurse that led me in, had ordered me to immediately go and get changed, to wash off all my makeup once and for all and of course to go and have a nice hot bath in the one bathroom which over fifty five, fully grown hairy old tramps have to share. I received a coupon for my first bath from my dour faced nurse, a certain Miss Wasamba, from Nigeria who takes no nonsense from the alcoholics or the druggies and when she led me out of the main dormitory for my weekly bath, I had observed to my full horror how in the frame of the white tilled, windowless bathroom where another flabby nurse came to accompany me, I witnessed to my surprise the spectacle of several students, nurses and doctors all wearing their typical white gowns, with notepads, folders and pens ready talking notes while both my nurses scrubbed me down.

“What’s all this?” I later asked, in sheer curiosity to the carer that catered for me everyday, and who brought me three meals each day.

“Oh it’s a new study provided by the ministry of social affairs. Our home works with the Mandelson Clinic and we are carrying out tests on every homeless man.”

“Tests, what for?”

“Well we want to test each man’s reflexes, responses, nerves, vibes, moral standards, beliefs, living standards and limits through a series of rigorous tests and this is all pretty much standard procedure here.”

“What reason have you got to send the feckin team in to inspect me when I am in the nip, bearing all and giving all to tell. I don’t want the bloody press or the bloody doctors to be giving me an examination while I’m trying to have a bloody bath, that goes against my rights”, I said in uproar, protesting as loud as I possibly could.

“well don’t worry, you wont be naked next time, you’ll be drunk in you’re bed with a few plastic tubes going through your ear and you’ll feel as right as rain”, said the doctor as casual as can be.

“What do you mean drunk?

What do mean plastic tubes through my feckin ears?”

“Well we want to observe you’re behaviour, from a drunken, feckless and somewhat happy perspective. Don’t worry we wont be doing all this until you have been upgraded unto the next level, by the manageress herself when she comes to inspect you tomorrow morning. Anyway don’t even dwell on this at all, when we do this test we will feed you w nice bottle of bourbon a couple of sedatives and a nice movie, this is all a revolutionary new method of science and a good examination of your conduct, throughout the entire span of your stay with us. You see we were particularly enthused with the news that we had a homeless clown coming to stay with us, you see we have never had a clown like you before here at St. Andrews and with you we hope to break the mould with our new methods of analysis”, said the carer beside my bed, who diligently pressed and pushed the pillows back behind my head, before leaving me to wallow in my state of immense confusion. What sort of place do these people run here? That’s what I thought to myself while I looked around to see several carers chase a pair of homeless bearded vagrants around in a circle frantically around the length and width of the main dormitory room.

“Hey stop them, they’ve broken into the ward’s drink depository, stop them before they drink themselves to death”, I heard one of the Polish carers shout while running out of the door in sheer desperation, trying to catch the pair of alcoholics that had stolen nearly and entire case worth of whiskey from the home’s drink depository.

“Hey you clown, why don’t you entertain us here in the ward, we have all been dying here, going cold turkey, suffering from the withdrawal symptoms and from the brutality of these so called carers and now we feel as depressed as hell. We could do with a good laugh. Why don’t you put you’re makeup on, and go and get you’re self ready for some hospital entertainment, we could all do with the laugh”, shouted the bearded urchin from across the hall opposite me, who was now starting to point and get the attention of the other patients in the hall, just to get me to perform some little jig or dance for the amusement of the other drunks that cohabited the place.

I simply ignored the man and I have to say that even if this shell shocked emporium was better than my old days as a belittled performing circus monkey, I refused to bow and grace the others by reliving and becoming once again the clown of my old days.

Someone must have told him about my old profession and I have a reasonable suspicion that it was my very own carer himself, the man from Poland, with the unreasonable motive to make me become the official hospital mascot or dancer for the entire ward. I had made up my mind not allow myself any more humiliating moments of a demeaning carer that had passed me by and I refused to allow any doctor to pump my body with sedatives and alcohol just so they could perform some psychological experiments on me, while I was completely inebriated and ossified. Anyway I vowed never to drink, ever since I left my old profession behind.

After I had spent a week locked away in the confines of St. Andrew’s home for the homeless, I had the brave decision to leave the place at the first opportunity I could take. I had grown weary with the constant analysis given from a crackpot team of analysts, who never ceased to give a moment of privacy to convalesce but instead took notes and gave staff lectures on my conditions as the first homeless clown in the city and they were always trying as desperately as they could to try and coax me into telling them all the secrets and the motives made for my quick and hasty departure from the circus and its pressing demands and routines. I had grown weary having to tolerate the drink being and drugs that I was being fed through tubes, all for the experimentations of the shelter and its own neighbouring clinic. After three weeks of tolerating this patronising and belittling regime, I arranged my new clothes, what little allowances and monies that were given me and I had decide to break free. I snuck out one evening, when I was sent out on a special errand for the shelter and simply never returned and with my accordion firmly in my hand along with my belongings I had decided to go and live out my life once again on the street and this was a tough decision for me to make but I had to live by it, regardless of what the others or what the consequences might have been. With what money I had been given, I spent on buying new clothes, makeup and a fine pair of baggy shorts all so that I could earn some money once again on the streets, busking for what change anyone would give me.

Ah yes the people laughed at me, they mocked me and they joked at the idea of this busking clown, playing an old warn out accordion could even dream of making some money off the apathetic general public who cared nothing for the suffering of the great dispossessed and the delinquents of the city. They thought most of all about their own cares and nothing else. Then one morning, after another horrible night, sleeping rough on the streets through the cold windy nights of the city, I awoke from my sleep in a haze, surprised to see the sight of a small three legged mongrel dog, that looked unkempt, probably a flea bitten mutt, a smelly unwanted unloved tramp –certainly a tramp amongst all pampered pets from the rich suburbs- and I noticed immediately that this little unkempt black dog had a certain affinity and a great deal of affection towards me. The dog would not move when I whistled, ordered and even chased the mutt to run off and leave me alone. But it was all of no use, for the dog returned each evening and he had even started to sleep next to me on top of my old brown cardboard box, which I used for begging and receiving tips out of. Oh how could I vent anger with this dog, for his eyes were the most melancholic and sorrowful eyes I had ever seen and with his loving gaze of warmth and friendship I could not muster the courage or even the strength to condemn the dog to leave me alone, for I knew that he would mostly likely die on the streets if it were not for the efforts of my own kindness that would keep the mutt alive. I think this mutt must have been attracted to the very stench, which my clothes gave out, that of tuna fish mixed with a strong human odour for the need of a good bath or shower.

On the following Thursday morning, I returned to the homeless shelter feeling a certain sense of fear and anxiety over what would happen once the carers and the clinicians came for me, to do more stupid tests, to tie me down to a bed for a week of alcoholic examinations and observations. Perhaps they would paint me or draw some sort of pseudo-scientific diagram or perform some experiment on me, as I emerge fully unclothed and completely bare-arsed, naked from the shower.

Well I had only come for the money, for the handouts, perhaps for temporary accommodation if I needed it and of course for some food for my new pet, which I named blackie, with regards to the colour of his coat.

I stood impatiently in the examination hallway, while some old toothless woman whistled, a fly buzzed recurrently against the window sill and the sight of a young man being beaten down by tow carers so he could be injected with a sort of tranquilliser could be seen in the background past the main reception desk, where the receptionist worked methodically picking up one call, murmuring something for a five minute rant and then she hung up only to repeat the process once again.

Then I recognised my old doctor, a certain college graduate, with a doctorate in medicine and biology, a fastidiously tailored individual, whose hair had gone grey at the temples too early approached me smiling happily in his clean, white doctor robe, carrying a set of files with the intention to speak with me.

“So your wearing makeup again, what’s this clown obsession with you all about?

Why do you have to waste all your welfare money on joke shop materials, baggy shorts, plastic noses and clown wigs? This obsession of yours takes the human compulsion to obsess to an almost psychotic level. I have been patient with you for too long, don’t you know that I can no longer defend you against the Psychosis police and they’re the team of crackpot genius experts that will have you locked away in a padded cell for the rest of your days. These people work in the ward next to mine, and they are particularly interested in you’re case and in this instance they would love to meet you, only so they can advance their own carers. Don’t you see Phillip, that I am your salvation, your guiding light, and your hope? I want you to stay with me and I never want you to escape ever again. You can drink your share of alcohol, you can embrace a drunken dream in your bed, watch movies, and you can never go hungry again. But if you do not come out of your fantasies then I pity you and say that there is no hope for the likes of you, the “runaway clown”, more like the runaway fool, a fifty something madman with a pooch that fouls my shoes, ugh, disgusting.”

The smiles had abruptly disappeared and now finally I had seen his true colours, he was trying to make me look like a mad man, so that he could get me to stay in the ward, so that all the students, carers, doctors and staff could work on me either while I am completely naked or else perform another one of their drunken semi-sadomastic tests again.

“Hey” I shouted in his face, “I know what sort of operation goes on here and I am not going to have you patronising bunch of white coat wearing bastards, categorize me and tell me that I am insane, don’t you think that I’d be the first to know whether I am insane or not. I am a clown its in my nature to know whether I am sane or not and I have put up with worst kinds that you. I will never again allow you to stick probes up my back passages, try out new and mind numbingly bad forms of drugs and mind altering substances again on me. You cant examine while I am naked nor can you get me drunk so you can observe my behaviour all while I daze a semi-visible dot on the far corner of the room.”

“Don’t you know that these mind altering drugs have helped to worsen the situation all the more with regards to you’re absurd belief that you are an escaped circus clown, a homeless circus clown that was robbed two weeks ago by a bunch of foreign gypsies. Don’t you think that none of it sounds believable whatsoever?

What sort of genius do you take me for; do you think that doctors who play God could ever make a mistake with regards to a diagnosis? We are the professors of sanity, the keepers of bodily and mental stability, the “real” drug dealers and watchers of every social unit that lives and breathes and we watch to see whether there are any stray, “fallen” units wandering or lying vacant about the place and we take them for experimentation, for observation for the glory of science, we can turn these hopeless cases into real prodigies for life and we can recharge their old dead batteries and that is what we do, we give life and breath into the sleeping vessels and semi-deadened corpses of the mentally ill.”

The doctor’s face grew heavy with anger, with a certain seriousness that shook me in my chair and all I could look at was the sign of the dog doing another poo on my left hand shoe.

“You have said it yourself, you are liars, mass corrupters of the truth, clinical morons that try and make men into lab potatoes. You assess and you pump men with pills and you take tests but you cant save men. Men must know their own abilities, must find their niches and their own talents, comforts and strengths and they can never do this while you vultures hover around for the next patronised victim to emerge from the caves or streets of society. This is no home for homeless men this is a terrible refuge for the victims of the streets that are turned into test subjects, guinea pigs and living slaves, you don’t help them you just drug them up and research their conditions, because nobody in this day and age will act as a human vivi-section to be modified, molested with the interior makings of the mind and you all just think you have the right to do what you like, because you are an authority with you’re doctorates and you’re white coats, well I have had enough, I will not tolerate any of this, I know that I am a lucid, fully coherent individual and I don’t want to be mocked any further by you and you’re freckled faced, specie four eyed type.”

“Hey, the dogs after doing a dump on your shoe.”

“Yeah I know, but its not going to get me down, I still have my dignity and I am going now, I wont listen any longer to your crap, I am going to find my one and only living relative this lives somewhere in the city”, I said with a brass determination not be bogged down by the words and deterrents made by the doctor.

“Well you run off to some invisible circus act by the side of the bus terminus, wait until the bus robbers or the gypsies rob you and I will, because I know that you will come crawling back with a face like poison, filled fear, shame and with regret. You will have no other option but to come and stay with us here and you will eventually come to love the daily doses, the injections, the tests and the bedside floggings that we give to bad patients who don’t cooperate with our schedule.”

“Floggings, that’s a new one, haven’t heard that one before.”

“You can run, but always remember that we know where you are and if we really want you, we will come for you in a way you wont even recognise.”

“One day, mark my words you’ll get slashed in the face by some fat and hefty tramp with a syringe and he’ll probably beat you to a pulp once he slips past the arms of you’re lackeys. Now get out of my way, I’m leaving, and you wont find me next time because I wont let you find me, you don’t own me, I came here voluntarily, not suspecting a thing, and if I had have known that this was coming I would never have steeped inside this clinic for the mentally deranged.”

After I shouted in his face I didn’t have to even stop and look at the doctor, I stormed out of the main hallway in a rage with my newfound furry companion out onto the street.

The rain fell heavy on the sidewalks and the sidewalks had transformed into rivers of water and human sweat mixed with the depravity of human apathy, as all the faces that passed me by were coloured in a great mirage of navy blue and black umbrellas, as the bleating armies of the city marched on by me, while the sewers opened up above, belching out excess rainwater onto the roads. The buses swerved and dodged the newly merging lakes of water and instead splashed a group of innocent bystanders with a torrent of water that left them all soaked and completely frustrated and while this occurred I walked on past and gathered the occasional laugh and taunt off the faces of a few deranged adolescents that roamed like viruses through the city streets.