THE CIRCUS, a brand new novel by J.D. Strange, comes to town today.
FROM the inside....
GUESS IT
took Joey the Clown, and the dead child, to finally drag me away from The Circus.
It
wasn’t easy.
Tearing
yourself from the carnival is the most difficult thing you will ever do, Ladies
and Gentlemen - The Circus is cunning, baffling, and powerful…
…
The Greatest Show on Earth…
Joey the Clown was like a brother,
but he had buried a dead child in a ditch behind the Strongman’s caravan, and, as
you all know, the worst thing about having brothers is that you never know what
they’re up to.
And
yes, clowns and brothers are generally repulsive creatures, and Joey was no
exception. He’d apply Mehron makeup while taking long purposeful drags on a mentholated
cigarette, telling us, with uncanny wit and detail, what a cruel and unhappy
place the world had become.
Behold
the blood-red smear smile of the clown, the black and white striped shirt, those
thick, bushy, arched, evil eyebrows, the white makeup, behold the evil inside.
Behind that evil smile was a man who had killed a kid, dug a ditch, and dipped
him in there. Then he’d shoveled enough earth on top to help us all forget what
he’d done. There was bound be trouble from that day onwards, Ladies and Gentlemen,
each and every time The Circus came to town.
***
‘So, what’s it all about then, eh?’
None
of us knew what it was about.
At
least I didn’t.
What
was it all about?
Was
it about the way he’d grasped the rose-colored skin of the child’s neck and
twisted until it snapped?
Or
the speed with which he’d dug the ditch behind the Strongman’s caravan?
The
way he’d dumped the body and lit a cigarette with the casual displacement of a
meat trader?
The
pack of cards he’d used to lure the boy in?
Or
was it all about the screech of the owl that flew above The Circus that night?
Life is cheap under the Big Top, but Joey
never seemed the type of clown you’d see luring puppies into the heart of the
forest. As a child he was neither evil, sociopathic, nor superficially charming.
Not at first, at least. Joey’s toxicity was slow and deadly, building up like
mercury or lead. His evil, once settled, radiated from within - long periods of
exposure resulted in total obsession - a subtle manipulation of thought. Once
trapped inside the web you’re reliant on that toxic theatre - you needed it.
Native American Booger Dancers wore
masks chasing Indian girls deep into the smoky night before ritually savaging
them. When not cracking jokes at funerals (what kind of douche cracks jokes at
a funeral?) the Archimimus of Ancient Rome performed grotesque impressions of
the dying at the foot of the gallows. The French arrogantly boasted both the
Clown Blanc, the Anarchist, the Fool, and the awful white-faced Auguste. Then
there’s the less obscene Charlie Chaplin, the pathetic hobo tramp of modern western
cinema.
Clowns
were everywhere, on television, in magazines, hiding under the bed. Cumbersome
floppy feet creeping about in the woods, huge blood-red smiles hiding cruel
intentions. Victims of coulrophobia claimed the supposedly emotionless clown mask
spooked them. This is nonsense. Clowns do feel emotion; they feel a
prolonged stasis of malevolent HATE.
Captain
Popov, the human cannonball, taught me much of what I know about clowns and had
warned me about Joey – ‘there’s something not quite right ‘bout him,’ he said.
But once you’ve been charmed by the wonderfully cynical despair of a pantomime artist,
it’s difficult to get back on track.
Amazon kindle: https://tinyurl.com/y9yww6ooAmazon paperback: https://tinyurl.com/ydh68gdn
