Tom Langdon, Banker
Tom has finished the last day of his career at the bank.
This story has been placed here before, a couple of years ago. I received a lot of response that it had to end differently. Here is that new ending. Enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Tom Langdon is on his way home, riding on the top deck of a London bus, wearing his business suit, having completed his last day as Bank Manager in Green Town. Tom had been counting down the days to retire.
As the bus eases to a stop, picking up passengers on the edge of town, Tom makes a spontaneous decision, madness he called it in his head, having observed the flashing lights in the town’s parade ground, and seeing the advertising hoardings put up in this past month, to hop off bus and join the crowds walking toward the Big Top.
There are a million reason that Tom had never visited a circus but only one was the real reason. Tom had never married, and there was no child whose hand he could hold.
It’s still early for the show as Tom joins the line, feeling out of place, and already regretting getting off the bus. He looked beyond conspicuous, wearing his pin-striped suit.
Coming down the line, a clown is entertaining the children. It is a female clown, keeping the children gasping and writhing with fun, juggling a cap taken from the head of a small red-headed boy, a pretty pink bow removed from the head of a child with blond ringlets, and, not least, a pair of spectacles seized from an unsuspecting father.
The clown, with great skill, juggles these objects. The children clap and jump up and down with glee as things are returned to their owners.
The clown is rather petite, with yellow hair, a red nose, not huge, just red, a pale face, and delicate hands. Tom hears the softness in her voice, caring, asking each child’s name as she hands out red balloons and tickles the children with her magic laughing duster, setting each child to giggling.
Tom has no child’s hand to hold, adding to his self-conscious state of mind, and nervously tries to shuffle back deeper into the line, believing the clown will ignore the fact he isn’t with a child and pass on by.
The clown’s outfit, a riot of yellows and oranges, blues and greens, is shimmering under the white ruffle around her neck in the late evening sun. Her baggy green pants droop low, held aloft by suspenders, allowing them to be sprung up and down at will. Then, as if purposely picking Tom out, confronts him directly, staring her bright brown eyes into his while he seeks to look anywhere but back at her.
“Now, my little precious, you’ve come to see the circus, have you?”
Tom tries to convince himself that the clown is talking to the little girl standing beside him, thigh high, holding her mother’s hand.
“Welcome,” she says, I see you haven’t brought your parents with you.”
The children in line laugh hysterically because Tom is six-feet-four inches tall, too tall to hide front of back.
“Now tell me, what’s your name, little fellow?” She says, dusting his chin with a feather stick.
Tom relents from his protective stance, producing a smile; a tight smile, unsure, gradually changing his facial contours, and accepting his fate.
“Don’t be shy, we get big boys come to the circus all the time. Tell us all your name,” the clown asks.
The little girl in the front giggles, prompting other children to join in the fun. Tom feels dumbstruck, not knowing how he shall handle his embarrassment.
“Oh, com’on, I bet it’s Walter — it is, isn’t it?” She says. “Do we think his name is Walter, children?”
“Tom,” he responds in a whisper.
“Louder, please!” She says to Tom.
The girl holding her mother’s hand becomes hysterical, “no, your name is Walter, silly,” she says, doing little leaps of joy.
Tom looks down at the child, her eyes as big as the world, and he says to the clown, “I guess my name is Walter.”
“Walter, meet, what’s your name little one…”
“Abigail. I’m six!”
“Walter, please shake Abigails hand, please. Abigail is six years old. How old are you, Walter?”
Tom gently grasps the girl’s tiny hand and gives it a soft shake. The clown pushes the feathered stick under Tom’s chin, forcing him to look at her.
He swallows hard, “I’m a lot older than Abigail,” he admits.
“And tell us all, Walter, why have you come to the circus?” Her voice is not mocking but genuinely interested.
“I thought I liked clowns!” He says, now smiling without restraint.
“You don’t like me, Walter?” She asks rather loudly, her voice hurting, her chin falling.
Abigail glowers at Tom. Pulling on his sleeve, causing him to bend some, she speaks to his ear.
“You must tell her you to love her, Walter. She likes all the children to love her.”
The clown patiently waits on Tom’s answer, pretending to wipe her eyes.
Tom straightens, looking at the clown.
“I do, I love you, I think you’re beautiful,” Tom says.
“You love me, Walter. Children, did you hear that? Walter loves me!” And she does a tiny foot shuffle forward to get in real close to him and rests her powder-pale face on his chest, leaving the white powder on his suit.
Abigail’s face turns from sour to peach in a moment. She starts jumping up and down on the spot.
“Walter loves the clown — Walter loves the clown,” she sings in delight while the clown keeps her head resting on Tom’s chest.
At that moment, Tom whispers into the clown’s ear, “the boy standing next to Abigail, the one hiding behind his mother, I think he would love to have a balloon.”
The clown lifts her head.
“Now tell me, Walter, how did you do in school today?” She asks.
The many children howl with laughter, and the parents are glad they are not the ones being picked on. However, the thought of this tall man sitting at a small school desk has the children laughing and parents, too, infected by the moment’s delight.
“I didn’t do so well, Miss Clown, I did very badly,” he says, hanging his head.
Abigail cannot control her enthusiasm and sticks her hand up.
“I did good, Miss Clown, I do good every day,” she calls out.
The clown turns to the child, feathering her little shining face, causing her to shriek with delight.
Then she continues with Walter.
“So, you didn’t do good, Walter. Oh my — Oh my, Walter. You know what happens to boys who don’t do well in school, don’t you?”
“I guess they don’t get a balloon, Miss,” he says, joining in the fun and wanting to keep Abigail laughing,
“That’s exactly right, Walter, they don’t get a balloon.” She looks up and down the line. “Did any other little boy do good in school today?”
Among all the hands reaching for the sky, she sees the child poking his hand up from behind his mother, standing on tippy toes, it seems. The clown picks the boy out for a balloon with Tom’s words in her ear. In a generous gesture, Tom winks at the clown, keeping a broad smile on his face.
As the clown makes her way farther down the line, Tom is overcome with sadness. Life has been good to him. He has everything he needs. Beautiful home, a luxury car to use when city traffic isn’t a bear, holidays worldwide, money in savings, when his wife was alive, but their wish, well, the thought brutally bit on his lip.
Looking around, the sounds of slide trombones, small children riding on daddy’s shoulders, and all the green grass on which children ran after lost balloons.
As they moved closer to the Big Top, Tom saw a child run to her parents, her outfit so beautiful, like a fairy in the garden, then ran off again, pulling her red balloon, having stolen her mother’s kiss like a fairy thief.
Inside the Big Top, the show is beginning. Tom sits toward the back of the arena. He can’t recall having so much fun since his first school outing. The ringmaster, wearing a gold, sparkling top hat, introduces the trapeze artists as the spotlight picks them out inside the roof of the big tent. The oohs and aahs rise in audience delight. Then come the horses, ballerinas on their backs, jugglers and acrobats, a man on the high-wire, and clowns running around the arena handing out balloons while others throw buckets of shredded paper into the audience, bringing cheers, laughter, and the shrieks of the children who clap and fall back into their seats. It is joy, and it is fun.
Tom feels a tear run down his cheek, a lonely tear.
Come to the interval; Tom looks to see…and yes, there, with yellow hair, red nose, and paler-than-pale face. She is coming right to Tom. His heart shines. Abigail and her mother are just five seats away. The clown kneels at Tom’s knees.
“We don’t have boys and girls coming into the circus without a balloon, Walter,” and she hands him a bright red balloon. Abigail, her mother, and the people around laugh with him.
“I’ll do better in school tomorrow, Miss, I promise,” he says loudly enough so that Abigail can hear. She laughs through her fingers as her hand covers her mouth in fun times.
The clown kisses Tom’s cheek, at which moment all the circus sounds disappear. It feels like all the laughter in the world has turned to silence, and at that moment, a spark enters his heart and sets it beating like a tambourine. Then, as quickly, the noise returns.
The clown is gone.
He looks around to see if what he is feeling has been spotted by anyone else. But, fortunately, all attention is paid to the arena white horses — except that for Abigail.
After the show, people file out of the arena. Tom feels a familiar tugging on his jacket. It’s Abigail.
“You got to be a good boy at school, Walter,” she says sweetly.
“I will, Abigail. I promise. I must. I got my balloon, right?”
Abigail’s mother, holding her daughter’s hand, says, “I think you made an impression on my daughter. She lost her granddaddy last week. I know your name is not Walter but thank you. Abigail, say goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Walter.”
“Goodbye, Abigail.”
Tom isn’t uncomfortable, standing at the bus stop holding a red balloon. A man, a rotund guy, waiting for the bus with a scraggly grey beard, looks first at the red balloon and then at Tom, “you lost your kid, mate?” He says jokingly.
Tom wants to say, ‘No, sir,’ but instead, he says, “I swapped him for a red balloon; I always wanted a red balloon.”
The scraggly bearded man moves away, shaking his head.
It is nine-thirty in the evening when Tom gets home. He picks up the mail pushed through the letter box and ties the balloon to the kitchen door handle. After removing his jacket, which he hangs around the back of a chair, he fills the kettle for a cup of tea and sits down to sift through the mail. There is nothing that needs his attention right now.
He gets a shower and puts on some clacks and a t-shirt and returns to the kitchen.
On the stove, the kettle chirps for his attention.
His life feels happy again. All because he stepped off a bus and entered a Big Top with all the other parents and children. He picks up the evening paper and looks to find the times for the next performance. Tonight was the final performance. The circus will move on. To where? he wonders.
Tom sits back in his chair, thinking about everything he has, which means nothing without love in his life. He laughs at himself, 65 years old and thinking about finding love.
Damn it, he thought, and picked up a jacket on his way out the door. If there was a chance of asking her out to dinner, this would have to be the night.
As Tom approached the Parade Ground, many circus trucks were already leaving. There were a few scattered stalls. Men walking about hauling ropes, poles, and great stacks of canvass. He parked his car out the men’s way.
Never in his life had Tom been in a position where he was looking for a woman who wasn’t a secretary or a bank teller, and here he is, late at night, looking for a clown.
He looked around, but clearly all the caravans and animals had departed. All the was left was a half collapsed Big Top, and a dozen men working in the lights.
Tom went back to his car, but before he got in he asked a chap where the circus was going.
“Newcastle, opening on Monday.”
Tom felt dejected. But then remembered he’d spent his last day at the bank. What was he doing Monday? Nothing.
He started the car and turned it around heading for the open gates, headlights glaring.
As he approached the gate, a woman, slight in stature, was holding a red balloon. She was a wonderfully bright vision in his headlights, and she was laughing, tears were streaming. Tom stopped the car.
“Is it you?” He asked.
“I couldn’t leave. I don’t know why. I just couldn’t,” she laughs, silently, crazily, out of breath.
Tom too, with choking gasp admits, “I had to come back. I don’t even know your name,” and he was laughing tears. “I thought you’d gone, and I was going to drive to Newcastle, find you, stand in line, watch you with the children, and let you scold me,” he says.
Tom walked right up to her in the lights of the car, touched the tears falling upon her cheeks with his forefinger.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Lucy, I’m Lucy the Clown,” she says fighting her breath.
“Hungry, Lucy?”
“Starving, Tom.”
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