chapter 10: happy the clown

“My brother and I were born in Philadelphia. When my brother was young he was always happy. He was always smiling. He was such a joyful child that everyone just started calling him ‘Happy.’ He was always laughing. Everyone loved him. But when he turned thirteen something happened to my brother. His smile went away. The things that used to make him happy just started stressing him out. He used to always love being outside in the sun, but one day he told me the sun was the ‘great reaper in the sky.’ He told me that when people die of old age it is actually sun poisoning that is killing them. The sun might give us life, but it only gives us life for so long. Eventually it kills us. Takes the life back away. That’s what he said. Other children used to look up at the clouds and find shapes of animals in them. My brother said clouds brought storms. They brought floods which brought famine. He said trees and flowers made him sneeze. His allergies got so bad that he never went outside. He was exhausted from all that smiling. His face was tired. Even the things that used to scare him now just brought him disappointment. Everything was one big letdown.

Happy was diagnosed as clinically depressed, and my family tried every treatment in the book. Nothing helped one bit. He was resistant to all known treatments. My parents researched everything they could on the internet. They tried all kinds of alternative treatments. Transcendental meditation. Stem cell therapy. They were talking to doctors in Japan about a new pill that could cure depression. It just made Happy throw up. He got shock therapy. He micro-dosed psychedelics. They sent him to Mexico to trip on Ibogaine. It gave him a panic attack. He didn’t speak for weeks. They sent him to camps. They bought him a guitar. He did talk therapy. He did laugh therapy. They got him supplements. They switched his diet. They bought probiotics from Venezuela. Nothing worked.

One day Happy met this girl at a diner in Philadelphia, and he immediately fell in love with her. He told me they barely spoke, but they didn’t have to speak. He knew immediately that he loved her. There was no reason why. He just knew. He told me it sounded cheesy, but that he was happy again. We were all thrilled, but scared out of our minds. Happy’s newfound happiness depended on one person. None of us even knew her.

I found out who this girl was. I tracked her down. I searched her name on Google and found her school. I waited outside of her school. Around lunch time she walked out the back door where I was sitting in my car. She walked past me. She was at a private school so she was wearing the standard Catholic school girl uniform. Her clothes were all wrinkled, and her hair was a mess. She wore bright red lipstick. She wore a camo jacket, and had a bright pink Vans backpack. I followed her for a few blocks, and then she sat down on a bench in the middle of a park. I watched her for awhile and she just sat there, looking down at the ground. She was skipping school. There were kids playing all around her. She didn’t even seem to notice them. I watched the girl for about an hour, and she barely moved. Just stared at the ground in front of her. It felt like I should go say something to her, but I had no idea what I should say. Eventually I just went home.

This girl’s face wasn’t just indifferent like Happy’s, it was stuck in a permanent frown. She was worse off than my brother. Happy had this crazy idea in his head that if he could make the girl smile then they would fall in love. So he decided to become a clown. I don’t know why he thought that would work but he told me clowns were funny, and if he was funny enough then the girl would eventually smile at him. Happy bought this clown costume. He started practicing juggling around the house. My family was so happy that Happy was doing something we just left him alone. We were always walking around on eggshells when he was home, and now we were even more vigilant. No one wanted to be the one who killed off Happy’s happiness. The truth is that Happy never got very good at juggling. He practiced from the time he got home from school until well after midnight. The problem was he had this rare condition. There were spiders living under Happy’s skin. When they started crawling up toward the surface he had to scratch at his skin or they would chew their way out. If he scratched hard enough they would disintegrate and get swept away in his bloodstream. So Happy was doomed from the start. This condition did not bode well for a juggler.

Last week Happy got a gig juggling at a kid’s birthday party. I snuck over to the party and watched through a crack in the fence. Happy actually did pretty well on this day. He juggled six balls at once, and barely even scratched his skin. The kids seemed to love him and they cheered and cheered. When happy was getting ready for his grand finale the girl showed up. I think one of the kids there was her brother. Happy was ecstatic. You could see it on his face. Before his final act he went over to the grill and doused the bowling pins he was going to juggle in lighter fluid. He lit them on fire. Then he stood up on a stool next to the grill and started his routine. While he was juggling the flaming bowling pins I looked over at the girl. Then it happened. Her lips started to twitch. Then they started to move. It was like the breaking of a wave. It was like the crescendo at the end of a masterpiece. It was like the top of the sun coming up over a mountain. It was beautiful. I barely even knew the girl and her almost-smile sent off a symphony in my head. You can only imagine what Happy was thinking. Right then you could tell the spiders started to crawl under Happy’s skin. He began to vigorously scratch at them. The pins fell to the ground. The patio caught on fire. Happy fell down off of his stool. Happy’s clown pants lit on fire. Parents ran and grabbed their children. While they were busy shielding their eyes Happy’s clown suit caught on fire. He ran as fast as he could. The fire got worse, and you could tell Happy was burning alive. Parents grew even more scared, and started dragging the children out of the backyard. No one seemed to care that Happy was burning. I tried to jump over the fence but I couldn’t make it. I ran around to the front of the house. I sprinted inside. I jumped over furniture. They were a very rich family. It took me forever to get through their giant house. Finally I made it to the back patio. When I reached the stool next to the grill, Happy was unconscious and his whole body was badly burnt. I saw his smoking body on the ground. Spiders were crawling all over him. It was a nightmare. He died a week later in the hospital”

I looked at the red-haired girl sitting across from me. I realized I was in love with her. I asked her if the story was true.

“Parts of it are true,” she told me, “including the ending. My brother really did just die.”