Didi Wood's Pick:
Give a Child a Laugh
by Krista JH Leahy
A darkly whimsical tale that makes me smile — and snicker — every time I read it.
The clown hated barbecues.
Hated the greasy faces of the fat, rich people. Hated how her hair smelled like smoke and charred flesh, even the morning after. Hated the mindless banter around the ice coolers. Most of all, Belinda hated how the children expected to be entertained, as if it were a birthright.
Her show consisted of three main events—balloon tying, magic show, face painting. Balloon tying was her chance to size up the crowd. Even the shyest would eventually stand in line and ask for a doggy, kitten, giraffe, butterfly, or dinosaur. Occasionally, a child would point out that the dog and the cat looked an awful lot alike, or ask how come the butterfly looked the same as the dinosaur, and then Belinda would turn her red painted smile on that precocious, or sometimes plain mean-spirited child, and she would press her index finger to her lips in the universal sign for quiet.
Once in a rare while, the child would persist in badgering her, in which case Belinda would crick her index finger twice, and tie the child's tongue in the same shape as whatever balloon they were mocking. Then she'd leave, quickly, without finishing her show, before the swelling had a chance to go down, and the adults at the party could diagnose the youngster's monstrous bruise as anything other than a bad case of a child biting their own tongue.
But most of her shows were as predictable as the barbecues themselves. Predictable as the cheap meat, worn out squabbles, inevitable sunburns, and men leering at women not their wives as they drained bottle after bottle of flavorless beer. Belinda's job, as she saw it, was to disrupt that killing predictability. Bring some unexpected joy. Give a child a laugh, her business card said, below the watercolor sketch of a tiny child moon-mouthed with laughter.
Her magic show opened with a couple of flying card tricks, followed by a series of transformations—scarves to flowers, paper napkins to doves, hotdogs into popsicles. Then came a sleight of hand section, coins pulled from the ears of her favorite children, rancid eggs from the mouths of the bullies; the whole thing ended with a grand finale of polka-dot bunnies hopping out of her hand-knit hat.
By this point, usually there were only a few children left. Most would have run off earlier, trying to capture the doves (no doubt to torture the creatures, Belinda thought), or plant the fantastic flowers and see who could climb the highest (some climbed too high and never came back), or they were blissfully trading popsicles (flavors the kids had never tasted anywhere else—early success, willed abandon, bittersweet restraint). The last few would chase after the spotted rabbits, and then came the only time Belinda didn't hate barbecues; the lucky moment when she would be left alone, face to face with one lonely, terribly serious child.
Belinda would start by offering a free face-painting session.
The child would shrug, mumble, "No thanks."
Belinda would try again: a surefire joke; her best funny face; smoke rings of rainbows. Finally she would be forced to ask, "What makes you laugh? What delights you?"
Inevitably, another shrug.
Able to stand it no longer, Belinda would kneel down in front of the child, and whisper, "And your secret?"
Sometimes, they wouldn't whisper anything. Sometimes, they would whisper a secret terror, secret truth, or, best of all, secret hope. No matter the response, Belinda would listen carefully, and gently place her index finger on the child's lips. The frightened youth would feel an overwhelming urge to bite the clown's finger. The more desperate the need, the greater the longing to sink their teeth into her flesh. But they never did. For that, Belinda would always love them.
She would whisper, "It's okay, go ahead. It's my gift to you." She'd have to tell them more than once it was all right. But eventually, the child would bite. Then, her favorite miracle, the child would laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh—a strong, joyous wind—carving out space for the child, not just the secret.
Belinda would bandage her finger, discreetly, before collecting a few extra dollars for some simple face-painting with the popsicle children. Then, without saying good-bye, she'd disappear, driving off in her old VW bug, business cards flying in different directions out her unrolled windows.
Krista JH Leahy lives in Brooklyn. Her poetry has appeared in Tin House, Free Lunch, and Indefinite Space.