CLARENCE: All you can do is laugh. They can't touch you if you're laughing, no matter how hard they try. If you just look deep enough into their faces, their anger, and just find the cartoon quality of it all. Ever just looked at someone pissed off, their eyes bulging out like a fish, their mouths flecked in saliva, their fists clenched, ready to swing like an octopus on a fan blade? I almost can't breathe, I laugh so goddamn hard.
Voltaire once said "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh" and I fucking believe it. All you can do in this world is get a good chuckle out of what it dumps on you. Or go insane.
I was nine when they died. I spent all my life in the same house. Listening to Mama sing. Listening to her laugh. Smelling breakfast in the morning cooking on the stove. Listening to Papa play zydeco in the kitchen.
There's times when I forgive him. My brother. When I can understand what made him so angry, so full of fear. He was close to Mama and Papa too so that made me the only family he had left. He'd just come back from Korea and suddenly he had to take care of his little brother, had to be the provider. That's a lot to put on a person. I dunno. There's times when I think he just wanted me to be safe, that he was simply scared I'd be hurt. Sometimes I think I can understand his reasons.
Sometimes.
He loved the military. That was his whole life. It defined his walk, his stiff puffed-out chest and his stern eyebrows, the way he talked, the way he looked at you. He was always trying to find something out. Like an owl. He had eyes like a fucking owl. Always hungry for something to pounce on.
He loved every minute of it. He used to play Soldiers with me when he stayed at our house. Before he shipped out. He was always the leader because he was bigger and older than me. I'd argue that sometimes and he'd always fly into a rage if I didn't do what he asked, if I didn't follow my "commanding officer's orders". Mama used to get angry when he'd get brutal with me, when he'd tease me till I cried. "You're ten years older than him" she'd tell him, her finger shaking at him. "You can't be so rough with your little brother. You're supposed to protect him. Not hurt him."
He'd just laugh and say he was joking around. So I don't know. Maybe it was there the whole time. That anger. I don't know where it came from. But he always had to vent it on sombody.
When he came home from Korea, something changed I think. I don't know what happened to him. He never talked about it much, except later when he got drunk and then you couldn't fucking understand him.
But whatever it was that fueled him, that made him fly into beserker rages, it got louder, stronger, more violent when he came home from Korea. The Army took all of that anger before and made him razor-sharp. Made it a bulldozer. And then Mama and Papa died and that was what I got that in exchange.
Papa hadn't kowtowed to a pickup truck full of white assholes, hadn't bowed and genuflected enough for them. They were drunk, my aunts told me. Those good ol' boys were drunk and looking to mess up something or someone. My father was a good man. Strong. Honest. Sure of himself. He was a musician. He had money in his pocket and pride in the way he held his head. And I hate those sonuvabitches for that. For making him pay just because he was proud of being himself.
My father was a good man.
Anyway, back to what I was going on about. Anthony used to make me run miles with him in the morning. I fucking hated that. My sides would feel like they were set on fire and my stomach would tighten up with hunger. We didn't eat breakfast until they were done. Anthony's rules. Always Anthony's rules.
He used to whip me with that belt for all sorts of little stupid things. My grades were his biggest excuse. No. That's not completely true. My liking boys. That pissed him off more than anything. He was in charge, he would say, and by god I was gonna tow the line.
I remember this one time, when he caught me kissing a boy at the local pool. I just thought the other boy was fascinating. I just thought he was beautiful. I mean, I was 13 at the time. I didn't know. But Anthony was furious. He took me home and he whipped me with that belt. He said he wasn't going to let me turn into some faggot. That he had to make me strong. That faggots got beat, that they burned in Hell for doing nasty things. He was trying to save me from myself, he'd say. And then that leather would whistle through the air.
Eventually he started just going crazy with it. I used to roll up into a ball and cover my head, letting him wail on my back or on my arms. It's funny the shit you learn. I got asked too many questions by kids at school about black eyes and welts on my face. So I started using my arms. You could always wear long-sleeves and nobody would ever know. Clever me.
I finally couldn't take it anymore. Three years I spent with him. And I had had enough. I had to find some way of getting away from him. I knew my aunts and uncles. I knew they loved Anthony. I knew they thought he was doing right by me. So I couldn't go looking for help from them.
I missed Mama and Papa.
It was the circus that found me. Not the other way around. That's how I see it anyway. They were in town one night at the fairgrounds, sometime in the summer, July probably and my friend took me to see them. We ended up sneaking our way in without paying.
It was one of the fortunetellers that first talked to me. Meerlinda. The younger one. She heard me peeking under her tent I think, watching her read the fortune of some skinny guy with a thin moustache. When he finally left, a little sad but mostly at peace with the news, she just sat straight ahead with her back to us, and said, as if she was greeting an old friend, "Well... are you boys gonna spend all night watching me from under that tent flap. Or are you gonna come and sit with me so I can read your fortunes?"
It scared the shit out of me for a second. My friend Willy panicked and scrambled away. Leaving just me. So I figured, yeah what the hell. Worse she could do is call the cops. I'd get it from Anthony probably but I figured that was going to happen anyhow.
I slid under the canvas and went in to her tent for real. Took a seat across from her at the little table with the black cloth draped across it. She was really beautiful. Pretty enough to be a movie star. Long red hair. Tender smile. She had this look of generosity on her, y'know? That soft smile sort of thing? I asked her if she was going to call the cops and she grinned. "Should I?", she asked. And I told her no. She smiled wider and stared off over my shoulder. "I didn't think so", she said.
Her eyes were barren. No spark. Nothing. Everything kept in her face. Took me a little while to figure it out as I'd never seen a blind person before.
She asked me what my name was and I told her.
"Give me your hand, Clarence" she said and she stretched hers out, palms up, to take mine. "And let's look into your future".