Tears of a Clown
Page 5
still trembling shoulder. “Relax, Laurel. Losing control isn’t gonna help either of us.”
He turns to the cyclist. “Did you see anything?”
“No. I came along after. I’m headed to the fair.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll make this report official. A clown, huh?”
Al, skateboarding haphazardly down a suburban sidewalk, notices Chip in the distance sitting quietly on a knee-high wall staring blankly into space. The paved walk is not as smooth as Al would prefer, but his minor jumps do add to his riding enjoyment. Eventually, the skateboarder screeches to a halt right in front of his high school pal.
“Hey, Chip.”
“What’s up, Al?”
“You look like your dog just ate your football.”
“Try female trouble.”
“You? Mr. All-American Number One Draft Choice Lady Killer?”
“Hey, what can I say? Sometimes being incredibly handsome can be a curse.”
Al rolls his eyes. “Yah.”
“Where’re you headed?”
“The mall. I’m gonna boost something good for Julia, maybe some chocolate or flowers or something.
“Julia who?”
“Villa-Lobos.”
“The juvenile delinquent? That’s your main squeeze?”
“What? Like your life is perfect? Anyway, I’m working on it.”
“What d’ya see in her? She’s scary, dude.”
Chip rubs his chin. “Must be her piano playing.”
“Yeah. I heard she’s good. Won all those contests. You can find prettier, though.”
“Yeah, if I was you.”
“You want me to set you up with Beverly’s cousin, Ming?”
“Can you set me up with Julia?”
“You’re determined, ain’t ya? Okay, I can do a friend a favor. You did write my term papers for me. Be at the Kissing Booth in the fair around noon. I’ll see what I can do.”
“The Kissing Booth?”
“Something just popped in my head.”
“Okay. Thanks pal.”
Sheriff Torrance pulls his squad car up to the curb in front of Laurel’s house. Not as careful a driver as when he was a teen, he jumps the curb. Laurel, his shotgun passenger, unbuckles her belt. Torrance steals glances at her legs while she reaches for the door’s handle.
“Thanks for the statement, Laurel,” he congratulates her. “I’m sorry our sketch artist is out with the flu. I’m gonna call Jefferson County. They always have extras.”
“Okay. Do you want me to come back to the station this afternoon?”
“Yeah. Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”
“Uh huh.”
“Remember, no matter how small a situation seems, if it’s suspicious, call us right away.”
“Thanks, Torrance.”
Opening the door, she gets out of the vehicle then watches as the peacemaker squeals off leaving skid marks on the grass strip. Strolling up the long walkway to her house, she opens the door then stops when she hears the familiar sound of Postman Thom struggling with his rusty old mail cart up the sidewalk. Nearly 60 years old, the short-pants wearing postman seems aggravated. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are bleak.
She turns and waves to him as he approaches her opened mailbox.
“How’s it going, Thom?” she shouts.
“What is this?” he responds brusquely. “Twenty questions?”
Laurel, frozen by the postal carrier’s sharp retort, is speechless.
“Your neighbor’s freaking pit bull just chased me!” Thom complains. “It’s so hot out here I can make an omelet on the sidewalk! I’m supposed to be off today, but I know they won’t pay me overtime because these cheap-ass federal bureaucrats up on the hill are just trying to save every goddamn penny for their champagne and caviar shindigs on their 80 foot yachts out at Marina Del Rey, and you’d think they’d have the decency, the freaking decency, to spare one fucking drop of oil for this back-breaking cart? This job sucks!”
“Okay…” Laurel mumbles to herself, watching as he stuffs mail in the white metal box and slams the lid shut. Because of the lousy attitude Thom is in, she thinks it’s best to get her mail only after the postman leaves. Slowly, she starts walking towards the mailbox anyway. Thom sees her and motions for her to stay where she is.
“That’s okay,” he vows in a quieter tone. “I’ll bring your mail.”
He opens the mailbox.
BOOM!!
Laurel screams almost a split second after the innocuous looking box explodes with such force that the postman and his cart are blown about twenty feet to the street. Papers on fire start falling from the sky as the ground where the mailbox stood is now a giant glowing fireball.
As firecrackers explode on the grounds at the county fair, the townsfolk mill about in the annual carnival. The usual games booths, roller coasters, concession stands, tell-your-fortune kiosks, photography huts and obligatory Ferris wheel are all there. The Tunnel of Love and the House of Horror attractions are doing well as long lines of spectators wait their turn to enter.
The occasional clown with his multi-colored pinwheels are all over, some frightening young kids, others posing for pictures. A 50’s-type rock group like Sha Na Na is playing in a band shell as children run past mimes, jugglers, stilt walkers and other performers.
Julia, now attired more conservatively than her usual goth/darkwave outfits, is wandering around gazing at her smartphone like most of the teens and 20-somethings seem to be doing. She has removed her nose stud and eyebrow ring, though the dark eyeliner and black fingernail polish persist. Eyeing KQVZ-FM’s booth, she strolls over to it.
Draped across the front of the booth is a sign that reads ‘Enter to Win a Free Black Light Poster of Jimi Hendrix and an iTunes Gift card.’ On the counter are a box of pencils, blank entry forms, a raffle box, and two Bluetooth speakers playing the current selections from the FM radio station. Behind the counter is Jean Lynwood, an olive-skinned beauty in her mid-30’s. Often mistaken for a Hollywood star, this short haired belle looks almost out of place at a carny. Reading a big, blue Guinness Book of World Records, she is wearing a long black dress while perched on a tall wooden stool.
“Hi,” Julia greets her.
Jean closes her book. “Hi.”
“I’m lost. Normally I’d never be caught in noisy places like these.”
Jean turns the radio’s volume down. “Me neither, but business is business. You want to enter our contest to win a Hendrix poster and gift card?”
“Actually, I was looking for the Kissing Booth.”
“You found the wrong place.”
“I know. I’m supposed to meet a friend there, but I don’t know where it is.”
Jean points to an area in the northward direction. “It’s up there by the Ferris Wheel.”
“Thanks. You know, you sound familiar.”
Jean puts on her customary radio voice. “This is Jean Lynwood, your voice of reason.”
“Oh, shit! It’s you!”
“So, you listen to my program?”
“Yeah. I’m, like, your biggest fan.”
“You’re probably my only fan.”
“Cool.”
“What’s your name?”
“Julia Villa-Lobos.”
She extends her hand. Jean shakes it.
“Hi, Julia. So, you like my show, huh?”
“I get off on it, yeah.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
“I wish I can stay and chat longer,” the teen apologizes, “but I’m meeting somebody right now…where ever they are.”
Jean gives her a blank entry form. “Take this with you and fill it out. You never know.”
Julia looks at the form, then her watch, then grabs a sharpened pencil out of a small porcelain KQVZ-FM mug on the counter next to the box of entries.
“I’ll fill this up now ‘cause I’ll forget.”
Julia begins filling in the form while the radio host simply eyes her
.
“You go to CC High?” Jean asks.
“Yeah. I’m a senior.”
“That’s my alma mater.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve only said that at least 100 times on your show.”
“How do you like the school?”
“They’ll be letting me out for good behavior soon.”
“It’s that bad, huh?”
Julia folds the entry form and drops it in the raffle box. “It’s a freaking zoo.”
Noonday rises at the Kissing Booths. The two stalls there, standing in the shadow of the giant Ferris wheel, are decorated with stickers, posters and flags of shiny red hearts, chubby Cupids, red roses and other emblems of love. A wall full of stuffed animals sits upright in the rear. Planets and other celestial objects dangle from the ceiling.
Kissing Booth A, containing a comely lass wearing black Bavarian lederhosen and just puckering to be kissed, has quite a queue of young hormonal, pimpled teen boys waiting to see her. The other booth, sporting a chubby girl with freckles and huge glasses, attired as Wonder Woman with volcanic obsidian for teeth, has nary a soul in her line.
Al, standing a few feet away from both booths with his head buried in his cell phone, is sharply dressed in brand new blue jeans, red button down shirt, and black tie. Julia hurries over, looking left and right. The young man notices her and shakes her hand.
“Hi, Julia.”
“Hey, Al. Did you see Chip around here?”
“Chip?”
“Yeah, Chip. He called me this morning.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to meet him here, hopefully to set me up with his best friend, Bell. I hope I’m not too late.”
She checks her watch and surveys the area again.
“Um,” Al praises her, “you look nice today. What happened to all your rings and studs?”
Julia, deep in thought, is hardly paying attention to her young admirer.
“Maybe he caught a flat or something,” she muses.
Al hands her a bouquet of flowers that was sitting on a table near the booths.
“These are for you.”
“What is this?” she asks.
“What does it look like?”
It slowly dawns on her exactly what’s going on.
“Oh, no,” she continues. “Don’t tell me. You and Chip set this up, right?”
“It was his idea.”
The Latin nymphet shakes her head in disappointment. “I don’t believe this nonsense.”
“Seriously, Julia. I think about you all the time.”
“Listen, Al. Not for nothing, but the attraction’s just not there, comprende?”
“You should give me a chance.”
“Al…”
She stops speaking when she sees Jughead Bell marching over wearing nothing but a long, Asian-inspired terry cloth robe and swimming slippers. A pair of binoculars is hanging around his neck and he’s not wearing his customary glasses.
“Bell!” she calls out to him.
“Hi, you two,” he greets them approaching. “I saw you guys across the way and came over just to remind you to see my high dive.”
“Where?” Julia asks.
Bell points to an area some 100 feet away. Though several spectators and onlookers intermittently block their view, they see a large, waist-high, square platform on which sits a huge, light blue, circular wooden tub about five feet high and 25 feet in circumference. There is a ladder protruding from the base that seems to stretch to the clouds.
“There’s no way you’re gonna get me to watch you do that!” Julia objects.
“Why?” Bell queries her. “This is my third year in a row.”
“I don’t know. It looks dangerous. Where are your glasses?”
“I can’t jump with them on, can I?”
“You’re crazy.”
“It seems like the ladder is longer this year,” Al notices. “Why do you put yourself through that?”
“Why do they climb Mt. Everest?” Bell retorts.
Julia taps the diver’s skull. “You’re an airhead, you know that?”
“Hey,” he realizes, “there’s a thought. You can lob off the top of my skull and use my head for a spin dryer.”
“You’re crazy. Suppose you slip and fall?”
“You see that platform up there?” he informs her. “It’s got sticky ridges on the board.”
He removes his binoculars and hands it to her. “Take a look.”
She refuses it. “No way, man.”
Al takes the binoculars. “Let me see.”
He places the optical instrument to his eyes then suddenly shouts out in pain. Al laughs. The binoculars, coated with a thin coat of liquid pepper, have left dark red circles around Al’s, now tortured, eyes. Angrily smashing the binoculars on the ground, he swings blindly at Bell who easily evades the youngster’s wild thrusts.
“Hey,” Bell warns him. “Take it easy.”
“You’re an asshole, you fuck! My eyes are burning!”
Julia jumps between them. “Stop it, you two.”
Her intervention fails as Al quickly circles her and leaps towards the practical joker. Bell, taller and stronger than Al, easily subdues him and gently pushes him to one side. The young man is breathing heavily.
“Jerk. Now I gotta go wash my face,” he laments.
Holding his eyes, he leaves for the rest room area. Julia shakes her head.
“That wasn’t too cool, Bell.”
“I’m sorry. I used a little more liquid pepper than I’d meant to.”
“You were actually gonna let me put that thing to my face?”
“I woulda stopped you. Well, gotta go prepare.”
He turns to leave.
“Wait!” Julia yells. “Are you gonna call me later?”
“Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
He turns and faces her.
“I’m gonna be busy,” he concedes. “Why don’t you go browse Grindr for a friend if you’re so lonely?”
“Is that how you think about me, Bell? Lost in the woods?”
“You’re the one that’s always hounding me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. It’s like you’re obsessed.”
“What are you saying? I’m crazy?”
He shrugs. “If the shoe fits.”
“Screw you, Bell!”
The bicyclist turns and moseys away.
“Crazy bitch,” he mumbles to himself.
Julia yells after him. “I hope you slip, you egotistical bastard! What the fuck do I see in you anyway?!”
Bell throws up his hands to signal “I don’t know” and keeps on stepping.
Laurel, nervous as a zoophobe on safari, is sitting in the small sheriff’s station chewing her nails down to the roots. The overhead ceiling fan is on low. Several ‘Most Wanted’ posters are attached to the walls as well as photos of missing children and a handful of ‘Don’t Drink & Drive’ and ‘Safety First’ flyers. On another wall hangs a road map of Century City dotted with small, round, red, yellow and green push pins. The officer’s schedule is on a blackboard next to it, soaking in the afternoon sun as its light dances in through vertical wooden slats beneath the sheer curtain- covered open windows.
Three desks sit in the quaint office. At the one closest to the front door, a deputy is filling out a report. At the other, a female cop is asking Laurel questions and writing notes. A sketch artist is sitting at the third desk penciling a picture. An old-fashioned bell on the front door chimes as Sheriff Torrance walks into the station. The female officer gets up, greets him, and leaves. Torrance sits with Laurel. She continues biting her nails.
“I can’t stand it,” she sighs.
Sheriff Torrance rubs her shoulder. “I know, Laurel.”
He sits down at the desk.
“How are you holding up?” he asks her.
“Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been me, right?”
/> “There’s a whole slew of bomb experts checking out your house inch by inch as we speak. Are you sure there’s nobody you and your brother can stay with till this whole thing blows over?”
Laurel raises her eyebrows. The sheriff catches his faux pas.
“Sorry.”
Laurel shakes her head. “If there was we would’ve went there already.”
“I wish you two could stay with me, but I live in an open studio.”
“I understand.”
“I’m scared for you, Laurel. This guy is clever. I’d never seen anything like it before. Closing the lid of the letterbox activated the bomb. Opening it again was the trigger. Mark of an expert, probably did a tour in Afghanistan or Iraq.”
“Sounds like you’re impressed.”
“Only from a purely criminal perspective. You know, you should call your parents.”
“I’d feel so guilty if I ruined their trip. Plus, they’re due back home soon anyway. Why get them upset?”
“Just saying. Parents like to know these things.”
The sketch artist holds up the sheet of paper he was drawing on and shows it to Laurel and Torrance.
“Is this him?” he asks.
Laurel studies the artist’s black and white rendition of The Clown – black shoes, puffy black and white clown suit, white-painted face with grim markings, black puff ball nose, spurts of black hair, black painted lips and gloves.
“Yep. It’s all there, I guess.”
Sheriff Torrance shakes his head. “This is gonna be tough.”
A little girl in a red, floral print dress, sitting alone on a bench at the county fair, is crying. Revelers, caught up in their own little worlds, stroll by but none stop to help or ask her what’s wrong. To ease her tears, a red gloved hand extends and offers her a pink lollipop.
“I hate to see little girls cry,” the stranger says.
The girl looks at the candy holder and smiles when she sees it’s a clown with a warmly painted face in a black and white jester suit. Completely at ease, she accepts the candy.
“What do you say?” the clown asks.
“Thank you,” she replies happily.
He pats her head. “Good girl.”
They hear a woman’s voice call a few yards away. “Shelly?”
The little girl abruptly gets up, looks in the direction of the call, sees her mother amidst the sea of fair attendees, and races to her. They hug.
“Are you okay?” her mother asks.
“Yes, Mommy. I got lost, but that nice clown gave me this.”
She holds up the lollipop.
“What clown?” her mother asks.
The little girl turns and points. “Him.”
The mother looks over to the bench where her daughter was sitting but sees no one.
Bell, wearing only shiny, gaudy swim trunks, swim goggles, and a silver chain around his neck, is limbering up at the base of the tall diving platform. At times, he’d dip his hands in the cool water and splash it over his near anorexic body. As he prepares to climb the 75-foot-high ladder, several spectators gather around, some eating cotton candy, fried dough and corn dogs, others slurping cups of soda large enough to put out a bonfire. A female announcer, conservatively dressed, on the ground with a mic in her hand, begins her spiel.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” her voice booms from a PA, “boys and girls! Live! Direct from County Fair and brought to you by Leoni’s Buns on Highway 31, you know you can’t have just one, I present to you Century City’s own High Diving Bell!”
The crowd cheers. Bell waves and begins ascending the ridiculously tall ladder.
“This year,” the announcer continues, “Bell has a treat for you. Gone is last year’s 60-foot ladder. It became too easy, almost like a walk in the park. This year, a uniquely constructed 75-footer was built especially for him courtesy of Ryman Brothers Hardware, all the stuff you need under one roof.”
The crowd oohs. More spectators arrive as Bell continues climbing.
One bystander covers his eyes. “I can’t look.”
“These kids today are crazy,” his heavy set, over-sauerkrauted hot dog eating friend with his hairy belly exposed, tells him. “What they’ll do for a buck.”
At the far side of the diving platform’s base, behind a chain link fence where the public is prohibited from entering, water is rapidly flowing unseen from the bottom of the platform into a crudely fashioned diversion emptying beneath the water tank and into a leaf-covered storm drain.
Standing with the crowd, the female announcer rubs her hand in nervous anticipation.
“Let’s all be quiet as Bell prepares.”
Bell, near the top of the tower, says a quick little prayer, kisses the oval medal on his chain with its depiction of St. Genesius – the patron saint of plumbers and clowns – then climbs up the rest of the way and strides towards the edge of the diving board. The little girl with the lollipop walks over to the announcer and tugs on her jacket.
“Miss…”
The announcer brushes her off.
“Not right now, little girl.”
The little girl tugs harder on the announcer’s jacket.
“But you have to see this!”
The announcer gets annoyed.
“Where’s your mother, little girl?”
“She’s fine,” the anxious girl insists, “but that’s not the problem!”
The announcer bites. “Oh, what is it?”
“Something around the back.”
The announcer sighs and hangs her microphone up on a stand a few feet away from the tank. The little girl then tugs her around to the distant end of the wooden base where water is now pouring heavily from beneath the slats into a runoff drain. The announcer grabs her head.
“Oh, shit!”
She notices a boarded partition is loose. Raising it, she peers beneath the platform and makes the startling discovery – water is pouring out of at least six golf ball-sized holes directly beneath the circular tub. On the ground below the holes she sees a large hand drill.
“Oh, my God!”
Looking up, she sees The Clown running away through the spectators and calls to him.
“Hey!”
Racing back around to her microphone, she grabs it and looks up at the platform.
“Bell! The tub is draining! Don’t…”
The microphone cuts off suddenly when some of the water draining beneath the platform splashes against an outlet, causing a sparking short which kills the amplifier’s power. The announcer cuffs her hands around her mouth.
“Bell!”
The confused crowd, suddenly realizing the danger, wave and shout for Bell to stop. High atop the diving platform, Bell, looking down at the crowd, simply smiles. Cursed by poor vision, from his viewpoint, everything looks fine. He waves back to the crowd below.
“I love you, too!”
The announcer frantically makes a “time out” sign for Bell to stop. Too late. Everyone watches in horror as Bell, casual as can be, swan dives off the towering platform and lands – SPLAT! – right into the hard, nearly empty, unforgiving tub.
Over in the Sheriff’s station, Laurel is sitting at Torrance’s desk drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. In the ashtray before her sits at least ten or twelve crumpled cigarette butts. The youngster is shaking her legs nervously. Torrance eyes her with curiosity.
“I didn’t know you smoked that much.”
“It’s never too late to start a new habit.”
“Where’s your brother now?”
“I don’t know. I think he’s at the Fair like everyone else.”
“We’d better find him just in case.”
His desk phone rings.
“Excuse me,” he tells her.
“Yes?” he asks, answering the phone.
Laurel stubs out her cigarette and immediately lights up another.
“Oh, shit!” the sheriff yells on the phone. “Not again.”
Piqued, he hangs up the phone an
d rises.
“What happened?” Laurel asks.
“There was an accident at the Fair.”
He grabs the sketch of The Clown and turns to Laurel.
“Come along. You might be useful.”
A small crowd in the midst of the fair has gathered on either side of an ambulance as Bell, already bagged, is taken in on a gurney. Two police officers are receiving statements from eye witnesses, including the devastated announcer. As Sheriff Torrance interviews a witness, Laurel stands off to one side. Like most everyone else, she is in shock. The sheriff comes over.
“He never hurt anybody,” she cries.
“I know,” he reassures her. “This is gonna crush a lot of students. Come on. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
Minutes later, Laurel and Sheriff Torrance enter a large canvas-covered corral in the fair where five frustrated clowns are sitting on chairs. All five are dressed in brightly colored, oversized shoes, one-piece clown suits with fat ruffled collars, and sporting whiteface with different colored afro wigs and red puffball noses. There are two police officers standing by, keeping a close eye on the entertainers. Torrance turns to Laurel.
“Do any of them look familiar?”
“None are in black.”
“I know. Just look at their faces.”
Laurel studies each clown.
“I can’t tell. The one I saw has a black mouth. These are all red.”
“Look harder, Laurel.”
“Tell them to say something,” she requests.
The sheriff turns to the clowns. “Everyone, say, ‘It’s so nice having a clear sunny day at the County Fair.’”
All five lazily return the statement at the same time. “It’s so nice having a clear sunny day at the County Fair.”
Sheriff Torrance grunts. “One by one, you clowns!”
One by one, each clown wearily recites the phrase.
Afterwards, Laurel shakes her head. “Sorry. I still can’t tell.”
“Are you sure?” the sheriff asks her.
“What do you want me to say? I can’t tell. Their voices and their suits don’t match the one I saw.”
Torrance turns to the clowns. “You gentlemen can go. Thanks for your cooperation.”
The clowns file out one by one, all of them grumbling at the insult of being a suspected criminal. Torrance looks at Laurel.
“We have files on each of them. If necessary, we can bring them back.”
“Sheriff,” the teenager confesses, “I don’t feel safe anymore. Everything makes me all jumpy and nervous. I think I’m losing my mind.”
“You’ll be just fine,” he reassures her.
“I hope so,” she acknowledges although she’s not so sure.
Seconds later, Laurel, exiting the tent with Torrance, sees the high school janitor walking quickly away in the distance. She calls to him.
“Montebello!”
The janitor stops and spins around to see who called him.
“Who’s that?” Torrance asks her.
“The high school janitor.”
Montebello, sweating like a bullfighter, quickly turns and runs away. Torrance motions to Laurel.
“Wait right here.”
The youthful sheriff takes off after Montebello, but because of the amount of people in the park, he has a hard time keeping up with the fleet-footed maintenance man who, despite his age, sprints like an Arabian racehorse.
He chases him past the Iron Dragon roller coaster, through the busy bumper-car arena, and across a shallow boat-pool filled with rowers. He then zigzags around the dancers teeny-bopping on a knoll to the 50's revue group, flies right past a row of red & white shooting and dunking stalls, and finally tackles the surprisingly energetic janitor down on a grassy, ketchup and mustard tainted field.
“Let me go!” the school employee yells.
Torrance, lifting him to his feet, gets a whiff of his odor.
“Whoof!” Torrance grunts, brushing away the foul scent in front of his nose. “Why were you running from me? Geez, you smell like 100 proof whiskey.”
Montebello doesn’t answer.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” the sheriff asks, but the maintenance man still doesn’t answer. Torrance then searches Montebello’s pockets, finds a tin flask, opens it up, and sniffs it.
“What is this?” the sheriff asks. “Jack Daniel’s?”
Montebello hangs his head in shame.
“Is this why you ran?” Torrance queries again. “Public drunkenness?”
The Italian finally answers with a look of deep concern on his face. “I can’t afford to lose my job, Sheriff. It’s the only one I have. My wife would kill me.”
Torrance shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”
Laurel comes over as Torrance releases the embarrassed janitor.
“What happened?” she queries.
“You can go,” the sheriff orders Montebello who immediately bounces off.
“Just a scared drunk old man,” Torrance mentions to Laurel. “Man! That guy must’ve been on the track team as a kid. I really need to hit the gym.”
“He makes me nervous,” Laurel admits.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s harmless.”
She bites her bottom lip.
“It’s me I’m worried about.”
Silver Lake, nearly three and a half miles in circumference, and teeming with avian wildlife such as blue herons, robins, blue jays, ducks, and coots is one of Century City’s best kept secrets. Not really lying within city limits, it’s nevertheless claimed by more than a handful of local residents as their personal pond. Nestled about fifty yards off a rural, almost hidden road, a purposefully unpaved path leads to its unspoiled serenity.
Numerous trees, plants and shrubs fill the immediate area. Fallen trunks jut out towards the lake where a thin mist hovers over it like a floating carpet. A sprawling purple and orange banner across a descending path towards the lake this evening reads “Welcome Century