Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys With Gardner Dozois

by Gardner R. Dozois

  With a sudden thrill, David took the next logical step. Nobody could see the clown except him. Maybe he was the only one in the world who could see him!

  It was an exhilarating thought. David stared at the clown in awe. Nobody else could see him! Maybe he was a ghost, the ghost of an old circus clown, doomed to roam the earth forever, seeking out kids like the ones he’d performed for when he was alive, sitting in the sun and watching them play, thinking about the happy days when the circus had played this town.

  That was a wonderful idea, a lush and romantic idea, and David shivered and hugged himself, feeling goose flesh sweep across his skin. He could see a ghost! It was wonderful! It was magic! Private, secret magic, his alone. It meant that he was special. It gave him a strange, secret kind of power. Maybe nobody else in the universe could see him—

  It was at this point that Sammy slammed into him, laughing and shouting, “I’ll learn you, sucker!” and knocked him into the pool.

  By the time David broke the surface, sputtering and shaking water out of his eyes, the clown was gone and the old rocker was rocking by itself, in the wind and the thin, empty sunshine.

  After leaving the pool, David and Sammy walked over the viaduct—there was no sign of any freight trains on the weed-overgrown tracks below—and took back-alley short cuts to Curtmeister’s barbershop.

  “Hang on a minute,” Sammy said and ducked into the shop. Ordinarily, David would have followed, as Sammy’s father kept gum and salt-water taffy in a basket on top of the magazine rack, but today he leaned back against the plate-glass window, thinking about the ghost he’d seen that morning, his ghost, watching as the red and blue stripes ran eternally up around the barber pole. How fascinated he’d been by that pole a few years ago, and how simple it seemed to him now.

  A clown turned the corner from Avenue B, jaywalking casually across Main Street.

  David started and pushed himself upright. The ghost again! or was it? Surely, this clown was shorter and squatter than the one he’d seen at the pool, though it was wearing the same kind of black costume, the same kind of white gloves. Could this be another ghost? Maybe there was a whole circusful of clown ghosts wandering around the city.

  “David!” a voice called, and he jumped. It was old Mrs. Zabriski, carrying two bulging brown-paper grocery bags, working her way ponderously down the sidewalk toward him, puffing and wheezing, like some old, slow tugboat doggedly chugging toward its berth. “Want to earn a buck, David?” she called.

  The clown had stopped right in the middle of Main Street, standing nonchalantly astride the double white divider line. David watched him in fascination.

  “David?” Mrs. Zabriski said impatiently.

  Reluctantly, David turned his attention back to Mrs. Zabriski. “Gosh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Z.,” he said. A buck would be nice, but it was more important to keep an eye on the clown. “I—ah, I promised Sammy that I’d wait out here for him.”

  Mrs. Zabriski sighed. “OK, David,” she said. “Another time, then.” She looked across the street to see what he was staring at, looked back puzzledly. “Are you all right, David?”

  “Yeah. Honest, Mrs. Z.,” he said, without looking around. “Really. I’m fine.”

  She sighed again with doughy fatalism. And then she started across the street, headed directly for the clown.

  It was obvious to David that she didn’t see him. He was standing right in front of her, grimacing and waving his arms and making faces at her, but she didn’t even slow down—she would have walked right into him if he hadn’t ducked out of the way at the last moment. After she passed, the clown minced along behind her for a few steps, doing a cruel but funny imitation of her ponderous, waddling walk, pretending to spank her on her big, fat rump.

  David stifled a laugh. This was better than the circus! But now the clown seemed to have grown bored with mocking Mrs. Zabriski and began drifting slowly away toward the far side of Main Street.

  David wanted to follow, but he suddenly realized, with a funny little chill, that he didn’t want to do it alone. Even if it was the ghost of a clown, a funny and entertaining ghost, it was still a ghost, after all. Somehow, he’d have to get Sammy to come with him. But how could he explain to Sammy what they were doing? Not that it would matter if Sammy didn’t come out of the shop soon—the clown was already a block away.

  Anxiously, he peered in through the window until he managed to catch Sammy’s attention, then waved to him urgently. Sammy held up his index finger and continued his conversation with his father. “Hurry up, dummy,” David muttered under his breath. The clown was getting farther and farther away, almost out of sight now. Hurry up. David danced impatiently from one foot to the other. Hurry up.

  But when Sammy finally came running out of the barbershop with the news that he’d talked his father into treating them both to a movie, the clown was gone.

  By the time they got to the movie theater, David had pretty much gotten over the disappointment of losing the clown. At least it was a pretty good show—cartoons and a space-monster movie. There was a long line in front of the ticket window, a big crowd of kids—and even a few adults—waiting to get into the movie.

  They were waiting in the tail of the line when the clown—or a clown—appeared again across the street.

  “Hey, Davie!” Sammy said abruptly. “Do you see what I see?” And Sammy waved to the clown.

  David was startled—and somewhat dismayed—by the strength of the surge of disappointment and jealousy that shot through him. If Sammy could see them, too, then David wasn’t special anymore. The whole thing was ruined.

  Then David realized that it wasn’t the clown that Sammy was waving to.

  He was waving to the old man who was waiting to cross the street, standing just in front of the clown. Old Mr. Thorne. He was at least a million years old, David knew. He’d played for the Boston Braves back before they’d even had television, for cripes’ sake. But he loved children and treated them with uncondescending courtesy and in turn was one of the few adults who were really respected by the kids. He was in charge of the yo-yo contests held in the park every summer, and he could make a yo-yo sleep or do around the world or over the falls or walking the dog better than anyone David had ever seen, including the guy who sold the golden yo-yos for the Duncan Company.

  Relieved, David joined Sammy in waving to his old friend, almost—but not, quite—forgetting the clown for a moment. Mr. Thorne waved back but motioned for them to wait where they were. It was exciting to see the old man again. It would be worth missing the movie if Mr. Thorne was in the mood to buy them chocolate malteds and reminisce about the days when he’d hit a home run off the immortal Grover Cleveland Alexander.

  Just as the traffic light turned yellow, an old flat-bed truck with a dented fender came careening through the intersection.

  David felt his heart lurch with sudden fear—but it was all right. Mr. Thorne saw the truck coming, he was still on the curb, he was safe. But then the clown stepped up close behind him. He grabbed Mr. Thorne by the shoulders. David could see Mr. Thorne jerk in surprise as he felt the white-gloved hands close over him. Mr. Thorne’s mouth opened in surprise, his hands came fluttering weakly up, like startled birds. David could see the clown’s painted face grinning over the top of Mr. Thorne’s head. That wide, unchanging, painted-on smile.

  Then the clown threw Mr. Thorne in front of the truck.

  There was a sickening wet thud, a sound like that of a sledgehammer hitting a side of beef. The shriek of brakes, the squeal of flaying tires. A brief, unnatural silence. Then a man said, “Jesus Christ!” in a soft, reverent whisper. A heartbeat later, a woman started to scream.

  Then everyone was shouting, screaming, babbling in a dozen confused voices, running forward. The truck driver was climbing down from the cab, his face stricken; his mouth worked in a way that might have been funny in other circumstances, opening and closing, opening and closing—then he began to cry.

  All you could see of Mr. T
horne was one arm sticking out from under the truck’s rear wheels at an odd angle, like the arm of a broken doll.

  A crowd was gathering now, and between loud exclamations of horror, everyone was already theorizing about what had happened: Maybe the old man had had a heart attack; maybe he’d just slipped and fallen; maybe he’d tripped over something. A man had thrown his arm around the shoulders of the bitterly sobbing truck driver; people were kneeling and peering gingerly under the truck; women were crying; little kids were shrieking and running frenziedly in all directions. Next to David, Sammy was crying and cursing at the same time, in a high and hysterical voice.

  Only David was not moving.

  He stood as if frozen in ice, staring at the clown.

  All unnoticed, standing alone behind the ever-growing crowd, the clown was laughing.

  Laughing silently, in unheard spasms that shook his shoulders and made his bulb nose jiggle. Laughing without sound, with his mouth wide-open, bending forward to slap his knees in glee, tears of pleasure running down his painted cheeks.

  Laughing.

  David felt his face flame. Contradictory emotions whipped through him: fear, dismay, rage, horror, disbelief, guilt. Guilt . . .

  The fucking clown was laughing—

  All at once, David began to run, motionless one moment and running flat-out the next, as if suddenly propelled from a sling. He could taste the salty wetness of his own tears. He tried to fight his way through the thickening crowd, to get by them and at the clown. He kept bumping into people, spinning away, sobbing and cursing, then slamming into someone else. Someone cursed him. Someone else grabbed him and held him, making sympathetic, soothing noises—it was Mr. Gratini, the music teacher, thinking that David was trying to reach Mr. Thorne’s body.

  Meanwhile, the clown had stopped laughing. As if suddenly remembering another appointment, he turned brusquely and strode away.

  “David, wait, there’s nothing you can do . . .” Mr. Gratini was saying, but David squirmed wildly, tore himself free, ran on.

  By the time David had fought his way through the rest of the crowd, the clown was already a good distance down Willow Street, past the bakery and the engraving company with the silver sign in its second-story window.

  The clown was walking faster now, was almost out of sight. Panting and sobbing, David ran after him.

  He followed the clown through the alleys behind the shoe factories, over the hump of railroad tracks, under the arch of the cement viaduct that was covered with spray-painted graffiti. The viaduct was dark, its pavement strewn with candy wrappers and used condoms and cigarette butts. It was cool inside and smelled of dampness and cinders.

  But on the other side of the viaduct, he realized that he’d lost the clown again. Perhaps he had crossed the field . . . though, surely, David would have seen him do that. He could be anywhere; this was an old section of town and streets and avenues branched off in all directions.

  David kept searching, but he was getting tired. He was breathing funny, sort of like having the hiccups. He felt sweaty and dirty and exhausted. He wanted to go home.

  What would he have done if he’d caught the clown?

  All at once, he felt cold.

  There was nobody around, seemingly for miles—the streets were as deserted as those of a ghost town. Nobody around, no one to help him if he were attacked, no one to hear him if he cried for help.

  The silence was thick and dusty and smothering. Scraps of paper blew by with the wind. The sun shimmered from the empty sidewalks.

  David’s mouth went dry. The hair rose bristlingly on his arms and legs. The clown suddenly rounded the comer just ahead, coming swiftly toward him with a strange, duckwalking gait.

  David screamed and took a quick step backward. He stumbled and lost his balance. For what seemed like an eternity, he teetered precariously, windmilling his arms. Then he crashed to the ground.

  The fall hurt and knocked the breath out of him, but David almost didn’t notice the pain. From the instant he’d hit the pavement, the one thought in his head had been, Had he given himself away? Did the clown now realize that David could see him?

  Quickly, he sat up, clutching his hands around his knee and rocking back and forth as if absorbed in pain. He found that he had no difficulty making himself cry, and cry loudly, though he didn’t feel the tears the way he had before. He carefully did not turn his head to look at the clown, though he did sneak a sidelong peek out of the corner of his eye.

  The clown had stopped a few yards away and was watching him—standing motionlessly and staring at him, fixedly, unblinkingly, with total concentration, like some great, black, sullen bird of prey.

  David hugged his skinned knee and made himself cry louder. There was a possibility that he hadn’t given himself away—that the clown would think he’d yelled like that because he’d tripped and fallen down and not because he’d seen him come dancing around the corner. The two things had happened closely enough together that the clown might think that. Please, God, let him think that. Let him believe it.

  The clown was still watching him.

  Stiffly, David got up. Still not looking at the clown, he made himself lean over and brush off his pants. Although his mouth was still as dry as dust, he moistened his lips and forced himself to swear, swear out loud, blistering the air with every curse word he could think of, as though he were upset about the ragged hole torn in his new blue jeans and the blood on his knee.

  He kept slapping at his pants a moment longer, still bent over, wondering if he should suddenly break and run now that he was on his feet again, make a flat-out dash for freedom. But the clowns were so fast. And even if he did escape, then they would know that he could see them.

  Compressing his lips into a hard, thin line, David straightened up and began to walk directly toward the clown.

  Closer and closer. He could sense the clown looming enormously in front of him, the cold blue eyes still staring suspiciously at him. Don’t look at the clown! Keep walking casually and don’t look at him. David’s spine was as stiff as if it were made of metal, and his head ached with the effort of not looking. He picked a spot on the sidewalk and stared at it, thrust his hands into his pockets with elaborate casualness and somehow forced his legs to keep walking. Closer. Now he was close enough to be grabbed, if the clown wanted to grab him. He was right next to him, barely an arm’s length away. He could smell the clown now—a strong smell of greasepaint, underlaid with a strange, musty, earthen smell, like old wet leaves, like damp old wallpaper. He was suddenly cold, as cold as ice; it was all he could do to keep from shaking with the cold. Keep going. Take one more step. Then one more . . .

  As he passed the clown, he caught sight of an abrupt motion out of the corner of his eye. With all the will he could summon, he forced himself not to flinch or look back. He kept walking, feeling a cold spot in the middle of his back, knowing somehow that the clown was still staring at him, staring after him. Don’t speed up. Just keep walking. Papers rustled in the gutter behind him. Was there a clown walking through them? Coming up behind him? About to grab him? He kept walking, all the while waiting for the clown to get him, for those strong cold hands to close over his shoulders, the way they had closed over the shoulders of old Mr. Thorne.

  He walked all the way home without once looking up or looking around him, and it wasn’t until he had gotten inside, with the door locked firmly behind him, that he began to tremble.

  David had gone upstairs without eating dinner. His father had started to yell about that—he was strict about meals—but his mother had intervened, taking his father aside to whisper something about “trauma” to him—both of them inadvertently shooting him that uneasy walleyed look they sometimes gave him now, as if they weren’t sure he mightn’t suddenly start drooling and gibbering if they said the wrong thing to him, as if he had something they might catch—and his father had subsided, grumbling.

  Upstairs, he sat quietly for a long time, thinking hard.

&n
bsp; The clowns. Had they just come to town, or had they always been there and he just hadn’t been able to see them before? He remembered when Mikey had broken his collarbone two summers ago, and when Sarah’s brother had been killed in the motorcycle accident, and when that railroad yardman had been hit by the freight train. Were the clowns responsible for those accidents, too?

  He didn’t know. There was one thing he did know, though:

  Something had to be done about the clowns.

  He was the only one who could see them.

  Therefore, he had to do something about them.

  He was the only one who could see them, the only one who could warn people. If he didn’t do anything and the clowns hurt somebody else, then he’d be to blame. Somehow, he had to stop them.

  How?

  David sagged in his chair, overwhelmed by the immensity of the problem. How?

  The doorbell rang.

  David could hear an indistinct voice downstairs, mumbling something, and then hear his mother’s voice, clearer, saying, “I don’t know if David really feels very much like having company right now, Sammy.”

  Sammy—

  David scooted halfway down the stairs and yelled, “Ma! No, Ma, it’s OK! Send him up!” He went on down to the second-floor landing, saw Sammy’s face peeking tentatively up the stairs and motioned for Sammy to follow him up to his room.

  David’s room was at the top of the tall, narrow old house, right next to the small room that his father sometimes used as an office. There were old magic posters on the walls—Thurston, Houdini, Blackstone: King of Magicians—a Duran Duran poster behind the bed and a skeleton mobile of a Tyrannosaurus hanging from the overhead lamp. He ushered Sammy in wordlessly, then flopped down on top of the Star Wars spread that he’d finally persuaded his mother to buy for him. Sammy pulled out the chair to David’s desk and began to fiddle abstractedly with the pieces of David’s half-assembled Bell X-15 model kit. There were new dark hollows under Sammy’s eyes and his face looked strained. Neither boy spoke.