It felt later than six
o’clock. Surely it was closer to noon,
and the unseasoned eggs at which I was picking should certainly have been a
food more suitable to both the tongue and the time. But no, it was six o’clock in the AM, dad
said so; I merely felt chronologically displaced because we had awoken so very
early and I was not used to doing so.
Early indeed! At one in the
morning the annoying bird outside my window was still dreaming of his early
worm. I most definitely should not have
been awake! But, I did not really have a
choice. Little sister insisted on coming
at an ungodly hour, and Mom and Dad had rushed her three siblings—myself
included—out of their beds and into the car, with nothing to pacify them except
a box of dry cereal. So here I was,
picking at fake food when I was starving for real sustenance, and trying not to
drop dead into my grits. It had been a
hard night, but it was worth it. At
least, it was supposed to be. A new baby
is always supposed to be worth it, right?
Shoving
my plate of rubber-and-plastic food away, I looked about the hospital
cafeteria. There was no one in it except
for myself, my father, my brother, and my oldest younger sister, who was still
a baby herself. We had been the only
living things in the dreary, eerily quiet room for the past half hour. Nothing except the sound of the littlest
eating and our breathing had marred the silence, and now on top of being
comatose tired, I was exceedingly bored.
Oh, no, wait…here were some fellow humans…
A
troupe of elderly men entered the cafeteria, served themselves at the counter
(a cafeteria lady had magically appeared) and seated themselves three tables
over. They were dressed in blue overalls
and sported white tags. Not a one was a
day under sixty. I turned my sleepy
attention back to my plastic-filled plate, only to look up again as a shadow
fell over me.
“Are
you going to be here for a few more minutes?”
I
looked up at the old man, who had come behind me to address the above query to
my father. His face and hair were thin,
the skin about his mouth marred with fine lines. His eyes were of the palest blue, and
sparkled like the water they resembled.
“I
think so,” my father replied, nodding at my sister, who was shoveling her eggs
into her mouth as though everyone in the room was intent on stealing them off
her fork at a moment’s notice. “We are
waiting for the little one to finish.”
The
man’s face brightened, his smile grew larger.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, “I’m going get my balloons! They are downstairs in the pick-up. I’ll just be five minutes.”
As
I stared at him in surprise, he walked out of the cafeteria with an energy that
did not suit a man of his years. “I’ll
just be five minutes! You wait here!”
was his parting refrain.
I
tried to imagine what the old man was up to, but could not conceive of
anything. His fellows were still at
their table, nibbling away at their food.
Did they even notice he was gone?
Probably not.
In
less than the predicted time, he was back, carrying a little dark blue
bag. Placing it on the table right next
to us and pulling up a chair for himself, he said proudly “I used to be a
clown. Yup, I’m a professional clown.”
What a lovely thing to aspire to, my
fourteen-year-old self mentally remarked, sarcasm as thick as mayonnaise
slathered on a sandwich. My little
sister, however, was quite excited by this declaration, especially when she saw
what the retired clown was pulling out of his bag: a little pouch filled with
brightly-colored balloons just waiting to be inflated. A small air pump followed and in almost no
time the old clown was pumping air into a long pink balloon. In rapid succession, he constructed a black
wiener dog and a pink poodle. She was
delighted with this new pair of pets, and happily absorbed herself in making
them trot across the tables and chairs.
I was intrigued now. I certainly
did not know how to make figures out of balloons, and paid close attention as
he taught my brother to twist the fragile latex into a bright red parrot. Okay, that was cool. It would definitely be neat to learn how to
do that…and then my eyes went from the parchment-like skin that covered his
hands to his face. His eyes were
sparkling like a toddler had poured an entire bottle of glitter into them. He talked the entire time he turned those
uninteresting, ordinary balloons into fanciful creatures and funny
flowers.
“Are
you listening to this?” he asked my sister as he taught her his trade. “You’ll be quizzed on it later!”
“Do
you have a sharp knife?” he inquired of a passing cafeteria lady. “My finger is caught in this balloon and I
cannot get it out. I will have to cut it
off.”
Every
time he made such a joke, he would look around to see who had heard it and who
was amused by it. There were more people
in the cafeteria now; many did hear, and smiled at his open, frank manner and
kind expression. And he grinned right
back, not unlike a kid himself.
In
between his jokes, he conversed with my father.
I learned that he usually volunteered at the hospital on Mondays and
Fridays but that he was there on that particular Tuesday because his wife had
been admitted that night. He was going
to go visit her in a minute, as soon as he was done showing the little ones his
balloons. By the way, did we want his
balloons? And his how-to books? And his pumps?
“I’m
going blind, and I’m allergic to latex.
I don’t need them anymore,” he said.
Eventually, my sister finished consuming her eggs, and we had to leave. The old man gathered up his belongings,
assuring us that we could keep what he had made, and left to return his things
to his truck. As I watched him leave,
his step slower than before, I thought that he was a very nice man. He made a good clown, always trying to make
others happy, his only concern seeing the smiles of children before he could
see no more. And I wondered what had
made me think his was a profession to scoff at, and why I could not be a clown
myself.
-February 2008
-February 2008
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