Irene's Diary, Part One

June 28th, 1934

Dear Diary,

The summer has been difficult so far, especially since Daddy is no longer with us. Mama originally said that he was traveling west to look for a job, but he hasn’t sent any letters for months. Lately she doesn’t talk about him if she can help it, and when the neighbors ask after him, she only says that he’s on a freight train, and she knows where it’s headed. The last time I saw him, his eyes seemed to well up in tears—although I don’t know if that was just on account of the dust—and he said, “Irene, I want you to look after your ma and your sisters. I’ve always known . . . I know you’re the only one who will understand in the end.”

That was the last we saw of him. He took half of our money, saying it would be a good start until he found his fortune, but he did leave behind his whiskey bottle collection. I tried to explain to Mama that this was The Lord providing for us, like she always said He would, but Mama simply wouldn’t have any of it. Instead of selling the bottles, she often had me and my sisters take them to neighbors. She said that this was charity, but accepting money for the wares of a slothful drunkard would be a sin. I hate to think of it, but Daddy drank the devil’s tonic more often than was agreeable to a Christian, and sometimes he would drink so much that he would just stare into the mirror for hours on end, not moving or even breathing. He would wake up soaked in sweat, and wouldn’t speak when Mama chastised him. He wouldn’t even look at us at all.

It was a delivery of Daddy’s old whiskey that brought me to the cabin of Uncle Bud and Aunt Judith today. They lived several miles away, and it was always an unpleasant walk. It was easiest to follow the dried-up creek, which was now filled with sand, and I tried to ignore the crows that sat on the dead trees, which seemed to laugh as Eunice, Nettie, and I made our way to the isolated home of our aunt.

Aunt Judith was washing clothes when we arrived, and acted pleased to see us, but she also seemed distracted. Perhaps it was because she has been with child for a few months . . . I couldn’t rightly say. She asked Eunice about Mama, Nettie ran off to play with their dog, Typhoid, and I entered the cabin to put down the bottles.

Despite the ever-burning sun that seemed to be punishing all of Oklahoma for some terrible sin, the cabin was dark, as usual. The room was barren except for a table, two cots with dirty straw mattresses, an unused box for firewood, and a mirror on the wall. Uncle Bud sat on one of the cots in the corner.

Uncle Bud has never been much for conversation—in fact, he never speaks at all. His head is about a foot long, and only one eye seems to work properly, and it follows you around the room. Sometimes he makes sounds, but never exact words. Once, I stayed for a night at their cabin on account of a particularly strong dust storm, and Uncle Bud moaned for hours while the dust and sand blew around the house. It made me a bit uncomfortable, but I just tried to pray for the storm to die down and not listen. In the morning, the weather had settled, and Uncle Bud looked at me all morning, as if he wanted to tell me something. He was looking at me again today. I said hello.

Uncle Bud and Aunt Judith also live with their one son, Cousin Erwin. He is very tall and talkative, with hair like a crow’s feathers and small, twinkling eyes. He was not at home today, and I figured that he was at the church in the neighboring town. Cousin Erwin went to church every Sunday, and he prayed more than anyone I knew. Aunt Judith always mentioned Cousin Erwin when she wrote to the family at Christmas. “He’s such a good boy,” she’d say. “I don’t know what I’d do without him around the homestead.” I could figure why he’d be so helpful, since Uncle Bud was limited in the work he could do.

Folks expected that Uncle Bud might be a genius because of his big head, and most of the family were disappointed when his small, twisted mouth never opened. But today, as I was walking out the door, I heard someone say my name. I turned, but Uncle Bud was looking at the window, not at me. It must have been the wind. The strange thing is, I thought I heard that same voice after I said my nightly prayers. There must be another storm on the move.

Circus Noir, Part One: Tears of a Clown

Poor Binky.  That poor bastard never saw it coming.  But how could he have ever known, ever foreseen what the real life under the big top is like? 

Yeah, I know the world at large thinks it's all just a game.  A joke.  A barrel of laughs.  A lark.  The truth is, we're all just sinners like everyone else in this Godforesaken world, trying to scratch out a living while the empty shirts upstairs laugh all the way to the bank. 

A motherfucking lark.

I held Binky's limp body in my arms, blood seeping out of the four bullet-holes in his head.  The blood, the make-up and the hot, melting rubber nose all mixing together and running onto your bare hands . . . it does something to a guy.  It's like he takes on all the memories of that foul liquid--all the madness and sadness and all the other things they've seen . . . it's like if you ate all the dreams of the poor fucks that sleep on one of those dirty Holiday Inn beds down Sheffield Street.  You'd eat 'em up and puke 'em out, and it would look something like the seeping brain fluid of a dying clown. 

I looked at poor Binky, his eyes all crazy with fear and rage, and I tried to apologize.  But what could I do now?  What could I say?  How could he forgive me?

*THREE HOURS EARLIER*

Fuck me, another overtime night at the Bazooko Circus.  Two of the bearded ladies thought it would just be a grand old time to shoot up with the junk, and one of 'em couldn't take the heat.  So the other one--Bernice, I think that's her name--comes running in, screaming like hell and sweating like fucking Niagara.  If you thought the bearded ladies were ugly before, imagine seeing one soaking wet with the junkie fire burning behind her eyes, makeup running and spit spraying with each nonsensical scream through her rotten meth teeth.  Meth--it's the quickest way to lose your teeth and your soul.  But for those of us who simply wanted to lose our souls, we just joined Bazooko's circus.

Anyway, one of the ladies checked out and had stopped breathing, and our ringleader, Mr. Vincenzo, assigned Wakka and Binky to clean up the mess.  It had been the ladies' turn tonight to do the customary grunt work around the tent, so this glorious charge was handed off to me, Pogo, Shep, and Toggle.  Shep was the angriest about it, but that's probably because he's the oldest damned clown alive.  Poor bastard's 86 years old, smokes a fat Colombian cigar on the dot every hour, and he still doesn't have the decency to die and spare us his gummy ramblings about Barnum and Albert Ringling's sleazy trysts in Morocco that he had allegedly been privy to. 

I didn't care about the ladies.  I'd seen 'em come and go in the past, and it's not like any of them were bound for a happy ending.  What little girl, bearded or not, dreams of growing up to become a bearded lady?  But Binky. . . .  I had a casual concern about Binky.  He was the new kid.  Fresh and easily excited.  When he couldn't afford to pay for a full degree program at clown college, he signed up with the military for the cash incentive they offer on paper to less fortunate clowns.  He'd been shipped out once already--poor bastard--and all the death, the sweltering days in the desert, the cold nights, and camel spiders crawling in his pants had shot whatever nerves he'd had left.  All before the age of 30.  Poor bastard.  Poor bastard Binky. 

I was the only one who'd made an effort to be decent to the poor kid.  Wakka was the typical bastard he always is, and had the record to back up all his talk.  He'd done ten for the "accidental manslaughter" of three dancing midgets when he "accidentally" backed over 'em with the ice cream truck.  Unfortunately for him, I'd been there and seen how they were first "accidentally" bound, gagged, and had water sprayed in their eyes with the joke flower that Wakka always wore.  I didn't squeal on him, though.  I had my own damned life to deal with.