| A TWICE WEEKLY SERIAL OF BIG TOP FOLK BY
SIMON PARKE |
|
EPISODE 7
THE CLOWN'S APPRENTICE
The boy is getting irritable and beginning to sulk; this is much harder work than expected.
"What's your problem?" asks Jess the Clown.
"Isn't it time for a break?" whines Lee.
"A break? You'll have a break when you've mastered the skills."
Mastered the skills?! This wasn't what the boy expected when he signed up to be the clown's apprentice. Lee ran away to the circus for a new life; not a hard one. He thought clowning around was just that – clowning around; just another fun fad to dabble in. He didn't realise there were skills to be mastered and a discipline to be learned. He was also missing his weekends, which didn't seem to exist in the circus. This wasn't quite the new life he was looking for.
"Everything is work," says Jess, as they sit exhausted later, with some circus coffee and a doughnut. "Every pie in the face, every knock down, every foot in the wet paint, every chase – these things are work; focused energy. Without work, my friend, you get nowhere and understand nothing."
And sadly the boy does understand nothing. He wants a laugh, a gas, a hoot; and not work. And come to think of it, The Great Davido had warned him about Jess:
"Jess the Depressed," he'd called him, in a quiet aside to Lee. "The Clown who's Down. The man who put the 'un' in 'funny'. No offence, of course; he does his best."
And so when Jess goes to the toilet, Lee takes off his red nose, leaves his coffee unfinished and steps out into the night. He'll leave clowning and find a better time somewhere else; there is always a better time to be had round the next corner.
More clowning around |
