Standard Deviation

There is a circle. Inside is the sandpit. Outside is the school’s rust-brown yard, yellowed weeds and solitude. Nicholas Lantern sits on his skinny haunches, on the outside, finger-tracing smiles on the resistant ground. He tries to estimate, through the circle’s shifting gaps, the progress that had been made on the sandcastle. The turrets are done, the door has been set, the playing-card windows in place and the moat is being dug.
“I’ve got stones for the moat,” he offers, and indeed he has; a little green bucket filled with ovoid, dark gray pebbles perfect for filling moats. But they ignore him.

He leans back on his arms, palms flat against the ground, and gazes upwards at the deep blue sky with its cotton-puff clouds. One combination looks like a bear; a dancing, polar bear. It’s rather like Baloo from the Jungle Book and appears to be wearing tennis shoes and a floppy hat. The thought makes him laugh.

The other eight-year olds – ten in all, boys and girls – are startled out of their play.

“It looks like Baloo!” he tells them, eagerly pointing upwards. “Only whiter.”

They glance upwards and then at each other.

“I’m going to the circus tonight,” adds Nicholas, trying to fill the hostile silence. “I bet it’ll have dancing bears.”

He sees the oldest boy, Pot, looking at the stones he has collected. Pot is the key to acceptance; a rotund, red-faced key with a penchant for torture.

“Here, take them,” says Nicholas eagerly, and attempts to step through the circle with his bucket of stones as a protective talisman.

Pot seizes the bucket and the others get to their feet. The sandcastle disappears inside the circle. Nicholas is a little scared of their glittering eyes, their united swaying front and their manifest hostility. He thinks of a many-headed snake.

His mother, Radha, prays to one. It is a secret though. Last year, when his father, Thomas, had had to be taken to the hospital with a broken heart, she’d frantically rummaged around in the bedroom closet and retrieved an old gilt-edged picture. It’d showed a gigantic, many-hooded, coiled black snake with a blue man stretched out over the coils. The blue man hadn’t looked frightened at all and had been smiling to prove it.

His mother’s prayer had sounded like the tumble of irregular stones in a tin can. He’d tried to imitate her: eyes closed, palms in namaste-pose and mumbling in nonsense speak. But she had slapped down his hands and hadn’t let him pray in Tammy (which is what she seemed to call her secret language).

“It’s just an old habit, Nicholas. Not something for all-American little boys.”

Nicholas wonders if Tammy had prayers for dealing with this sort of snake as well.

“Circus?” asks Pot. “Why? Your old man sold you to the circus, has he? Are they in need of a monkey?”

The other kids burst out laughing. Nicholas laughs along gamely.

“Maybe you can be their pet monkey,” says Pot, greatly cheered by the laughter. “Be a monkey, Nicky. C’mon monkey. C’mon.”

Nicky hunches down, scratching himself and sniffing body parts. He is always able to make Thomas laugh (“You’re a natural, kiddo.”) Maybe he is in after all, thinks Nicholas, and play-acts even harder.

He is completely taken aback when they start to throw the pebbles at him.

***

They were not arguing. Thomas and Radha never argued in front of Nicholas, never in public and certainly not in elevators. But their bodies saw it differently and reflected their misperception in the stiff six inches of separation between their elbows, in the stiff upward tilt of their heads, in their stiff expressions, in a throbbing headache (Radha) and in nagging nerve pinches (Thomas).

The elevator was headed upwards for the seventh floor of Columbia’s Neurological Institute.

I shouldn’t have agreed, thought Thomas. Why did I let her talk me into getting Nick tested?

“What harm can it do?” she’d exclaimed in exasperation. “If they say he’s normal, then great. If he isn’t we can do something about it.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.”

“What principle?”

“There’s no need to shout.”

“I’m not shouting,” she’d shouted. Her anger had tripped up the faux American accent she affected. “What’s the crazy principle that says that it’s better to be less informed?”

“All I’m saying is that we accept him as he is. He’ll decide what he wants to be. Not drugs. Not us. His identity--”

“Oh god, not that word. Of course we decide. It’s our responsibility to do so. We’re his parents. To decide not to interfere is also an act of interference. He’s going to fit in. I know what it’s like not to. You don’t. And he’s going to be you, not me. Ok?”

That had finally silenced him. In her private war against her otherness, she’d recruited Nicholas. And should she fail in that war, as he feared she would, failure’s reverberations would extend far beyond the boundaries of Nicholas.

His worry reified as a sharp pinch somewhere north of his shoulder blades. He flexed his neck gingerly to ease the pain.

The elevator was crowded and everyone, of course, stood facing the door. Everyone that is, except Nicholas. He stood facing the crowd, silently examining the faces arrayed before him; incipient smiles danced at the corner of his mouth. Thomas could tell people were getting a little freaked out.

“Turn around, Nicholas,” said Radha with a forced smile.

“Why?” asked Nicholas, flexing his neck in imitation of his father.

“Because,” said Radha with a wry apologetic smile at the other people. He is being difficult, said the smile. One of those days.

Nicholas laughed in delight. He was imagining how funny it’d be if it were the other way around, with him facing the door and all the others had their backs to it. What if people stood sideways? Or at angles? What it you were required to stand with arms on hips in elevators? That would be way too funny. He had to laugh.

“Nicholas!” hissed Radha.

“It’s all right,” murmured Thomas. He pulled Nick towards him, turning him around. For some reason, it seemed to profoundly disturb Nicholas for some reason. He wriggled and struggled violently throughout the rest of the short ride.

“This is the sort of weird thing that gets him in trouble,” remarked Radha, when they’d gotten off. She sounded more thoughtful than bitter.

“So?” Thomas gave her an angry frown. They had a pact not to discuss Nick as if he were not there. “He’s a kid, that’s all. Kids have weird perspective on things.”

Nicholas was looking up at them with an anxious smile. Thomas ruffled his head, and Nick’s smile widened, the anxiousness disappearing.

“Nothing registers on him,” mused Radha with the same thoughtful expression. It was as if she hadn’t heard Thomas. “No matter what the situation, he remains the same. He is always stepping into the same river. Once, twice, thrice …”

“There are worse problems,” said Thomas curtly. He was looking for Room 720. That was the room where Nick would be tested. MRI, PET scans, personality assessment. Next week they were scheduled to discuss the test results with a neurologist, Dr. Bennett.

Nicholas laughed. Radha bent down and turned the boy to face her. Her voice was urgent. Desperate.

“Why did you laugh just now, Nicholas? What was so funny?”

“Leave him alone,” said Thomas.

“Circus,” announced Nicholas, tugging at Thomas’ trousers. “We’re going to the circus tonight, aren’t we, Dad?”

“Yeah, kiddo, we sure are,” said Thomas with a smile and again ruffled Nicholas’ hair.

Nicholas had a grand old time at the Institute. They slid him into various instruments, showed him Chaplin movies, wired him up with cold gel pads, shone lights into his eyes and tapped his funny bone. He was also asked to read stuff, do sums, count backwards and boring stuff like that; Nicholas spun off answers just to get the damn thing over. He wanted to get back to the funny movies; they’d made him laugh so hard he’d nearly peed. In fact, he had peed, but the medics had been real nice about it.

***

What Nick wants to know is why the whole world is not a circus. He asks his father that question and Thomas laughs which makes Nick laugh. At first, it’s just to keep company, but then Nicholas imagines his father going to work in a clown costume (farting briefcase, rubber nose, the works) and he can’t stop laughing. The smile slowly disappears from his father’s face.

“That’s enough,” he says shortly.

Radha bends down; there is a fierce expression in her eyes and Nick can’t understand what exactly has happened. He smiles and he thinks her expression softens but then the sternness reappears.

“Now listen carefully, Nick, you have to behave yourself. Be quiet when everyone is quiet. Not make noises or laugh in the middle, ok?”

He nods happily, not really paying attention. The world was too wonderful at the moment. Cotton candy, crazy bright lights, striped tents and adults who made sense. Holy Chihiro! There was a zillion feet tall man walking around.

“Hey, how’s the weather up there?” shouts Nicks and laughs hugely at his joke.

“Nicholas!”

Uh oh. He refocuses on his mother. She is saying something about behaving himself, treats, blah, blah, boring blah. Her face is so close to his, that he just has to touch the tip of her nose. Poing! Her expression clears, and she smiles, shaking her head.

“Monkey,” she says and straightens his tie, adjusts his buttons, smoothes his hair; he fidgets and rolls his eyes the way he’s seen other kids roll their eyes.

“Mom!”

“Alright. Now behave.”

They’re seated right in the front row. Nick is waiting for Rubber, the clown. He’s seen the TV ad where Rubber is walking very importantly to the microphone and bam! trips right over his shoes. Not once. But twice! Nick thought he’d die laughing. It’s really hard to trip over one’s shoes. Nick had to practice for hours before he got the knack of it. The main problem, he’s concluded, is that his shoes are too small. Either that or he’s got small feet.

“Can I have big shoes?” he asks his mother.

“Why? What’s wrong with the ones you have? And it’s ‘May I have big shoes,’ Nicholas. Now shush.”

Nick shivers as excitement’s slippery little tongue worked its way down his spine. When would it start? He could hardly wait. He rocks back and forth till his exasperated mother catches him by the shoulder.

“Sit still, Nicholas!”

Oops. He is quiet for a few seconds, but then as memory fades, it is back to rocking. Finally, the trumpet sounds. Nick is out of his chair leaning against the railing, the thunder of clapping hands all around him as the first of the performers enter, cart wheeling, juggling, dancing: silk, shape, leap and laughter. Nick is hollering and clapping as if his life depends on it. There’s Rubber! He is being chased around the ring by a small yapping dog; Rubber’s holding onto his floppy trousers for dear life.

“Rubber! Rubber!” yells Nick, and for a millisecond the width of a smile, their eyes meet. Clown grin stretched wide, so wide that Rubber’s hollow dark eyes seem to be punctuation points. Then the whirly gig swirls by: dog, clown, bark and grin.

***

“I went to the circus yesterday,” announces Nicholas. “It was a lot of fun.”

Pot winks at the others. “Really? What sort of fun?”

Nicholas can’t believe his luck. They are looking at him with interest. He responds to their smiles. Class would start in a few minutes so he begins to describe what he’d seen and heard.

Pot frowns thoughtfully. “What do you mean, ‘clowns’? What’s that?”

“Clowns?” asks Nicholas. He looks around with an uncertain smile. They are all looking puzzled. Shaking their heads. Yeah, what’s a clown, Nicky? Show us. C’mon. Never heard of it. Show us.

“Well, they have makeup and stuff,” he says, demonstrating the clown’s smile. “Then they do funny things, like falling and big shoes and stuff.”

There’s a lipstick in Janet’s hands. She gives it to Pot.

“Come here, Nicky,” says Pot casually. “Let’s see if we get what you’re saying.”

Later, the teacher – it’s her first day -- doesn’t think it’s funny at all.

“So you’re the class clown, I suppose?”

Nick smiles anxiously at her. “I was showing them what a clown was,” he protests.

“Oh, is that so?”

She makes him sit out the class with the makeup on. After class, she tells him to wait.

“I hope you’ve learnt your lesson, Mr. Lantern?”

He nods. He is near-tears, but he’s damned if he’d cry. So he smiles.

“I see. There’s only one place for clowns, Nicholas. The circus. That’s where they belong. Not classrooms. Do we understand each other?”

For the first time in his life, Nicholas truly and clearly did understand exactly what it was that an adult was telling him.

***

“So the bad news,” concluded Dr. Bennett, suppressing a yawn, “is that the scans show epileptic activity in the anterior portion of Nicholas’ supplementary motor area … that’s a section in the left superior frontal gyrus.” He gestured to an area just above his forehead. “But,” he continued, examining the Lanterns with tired eyes, “the good news is that a polytherapeutic drug regimen, a combination of ESM, VPA and ACTH, should be able to control it.”

“So, Nick has … epilepsy?” Thomas found it difficult to get the word out. An ancient abomination. Gesticulating, jerking, frothing, biblical abomination.

Dr. Bennett regretted his use of the E-word. People invariably freaked.“Let’s just say he shows above normal activity – by about 3 standard deviations – in an area of the brain associated with producing laughter. He is very easily amused, as you all must have noticed.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” said Thomas. “He just has a very good sense of humor, that’s all.”

“Well, Mr. Lantern, if it’s ‘just’ that, then why are we here?” countered Dr. Bennett, looking at him with mild irritation. “The diagnosis is statistically sound, I assure you. I do understand your reluctance to put your son on long term medication. But--”

“How can being cheerful be a disorder?” interrupted Thomas in the same baffled tone. “I can understand depression being a problem but cheerfulness?”

Dr. Bennett sighed. “Of course, Mr. Lantern! Being cheerful is not a problem. Just like being depressed is not a problem. The issue arises when someone is overly cheerful or overly depressed. Either case leads to maladjustment. The medication will help him react normally to situations.”

“But who’s to say what’s normal?” insisted Thomas.

“That’s simple,” smiled the doctor. In his forthcoming book, he had a whole chapter on the subject with lots of nice quotes. “Anything inside three standard deviations. Maybe two.” Then his face turned serious. “Nicholas does not – cannot -- react appropriately to situations, that is, react as people expect him to react. People find that disturbing, weird.”

“Yes, they do,” said Radha. “Tom, Nicholas never gets invited to birthday parties, he has no friends, he gets into fights because the other kids think he is making fun of them, he’s always getting in trouble in class … how can someone be so insanely cheerful all the time? It’s like he has a perpetual smile carved on his face.”

Dr. Bennett looked at her with approval. “That’s a good way of putting it.” He made a note in his palm-top. “It really is not all that worrisome, Mr. Lantern. It’s not like the bad old days. Modern drug regimens are very targeted.” He yawned. “Whew! … excuse me. It’s been a long day …” Then he brightened. “Yeah, take coffee for instance. If I’m feeling sleepy, say—” he smiled to indicate that he really wasn’t, “then I might decide to drink some coffee. It’s not very different, really.”

“You’re not serious, are you?” said Thomas.

“Pardon?”

“Surely you’re not comparing medicating my son to drinking cups of coffee?”

Dr. Bennett woke up. He glanced at Radha and made a placating gesture with his hand. “Of course not … all I was trying to say was that we routinely manipulate our mental states. Coffee, splashes of cold water, sugared drinks, food, mood music …”

“Will it change him?” asked Thomas.

“Well, that’s the idea, isn’t it?”

“I mean, will it change who he is? His identity?”

“Tom—”

“Goddamn it, Radha. We need to know, don’t we?”

Dr. Bennett looked at the couple. “Identity … yes … Well, I leave that word to the philosophers, Mr. Lantern. Your son has great difficulty in social settings. Is that part of who he is? I don’t know. But we can, should you choose, remove one cause of that difficulty. If he had a broken arm, would you consider it part of his body’s identity? I think not. But it’s your call.”

Silence.

“Comprachicos,” said Thomas, spooning his thoughts in a remembered word.

“Pardon?”

Thomas wondered if he should elaborate. Comprachicos. A group of Spanish entrepreneurs who, in the late middle ages, had traded in children. Their core competency – to use a modern term – lay in the production of freaks. People had to be entertained and entertainment needed freaks.

Thomas wisely decided not to elaborate.

“Nothing really … Victor Hugo wrote about a group of people who transformed children for a living …”

“Who cares?” asked Radha, irritably. “Hugo is not raising Nicholas. We are. We are not taking anything away from Nicholas. We’re giving him something. A gift, if you will. Helping him to fit in. Be like others. What’s wrong with that?”

Dr. Bennett made a note on his palm-top to look up Victor Hugo. Might give some needed color for his chapter. He nodded in support of Radha.

A discreet red pulse on the intercom. It was time for the next patient. Dr. Bennett spread his arms and shrugged. It was both conclusion and dismissal. He got up and held out his hand.

“It is entirely your choice of course. Personally, I think there’s an excellent chance of treating Nicholas. His brain is very plastic at the moment. That is, it will be very suggestible to biochemical treatments. Later … it might be difficult. And, as your wife pointed out, Nicholas has to deal with his social problems now, not later. I recommend treatment. We can always dilute the regimen if there are complications.”

Dr. Bennett was writing a popular book: “The Well Tempered Child.” He had almost decided to include a chapter on Nicholas. He would use a different name of course. The good doctor was scrupulous about protecting the identities of his patients.

***

The sun is still only a curved promise, but Nick is busy packing. His knapsack contains all the things he thinks he’ll need: the Tom Gordon baseball card (old times sake), couple of sheets of blank paper (for writing jokes), matches, water and cheese sandwich (be prepared!), a small kitchen knife (self-defense, cooking), and his blue cowboy shirt with the faux leather shoulder patches (for good luck). Things he didn’t add: cell phone (didn’t have one), compass (ditto), shoes (too small for clowning), basketball (too round), his father.

He considers taking extra underwear but decides against it. It is unnecessary, he reasons; he doesn’t see what underwear has to do with being a good clown. Besides, people assume you’re wearing one even if you weren’t. So why bother? He suppresses a smile.

A mighty heave on the zip and the knapsack zips up.

At the thin blue edge of the private horizon, he senses a coiling darkness: emotions, thoughts, expectations and beliefs. But he has no words to haul them in for inspection, and so they remain outside, just outside, the plain wooden fence where mind meets matter.

All through breakfast (‘Why Nicholas, it looks like you’ve been up for hours!’), all through the bus ride (‘Charlie, my mom is picking me up after school’), all through the now-familiar bullying, and all through the teeth grinding of school minutes, Nicholas Lantern pets his little secret.

At last. 4:30 pm. Nicholas is on the 22L. An old brown woman is sitting next to him; she smells of cumin and long-shut cupboards. Nicholas feels her gray-clouded eyes on him, and reflexively, he smiles back at her. Her face brightens and she smiles back, almost tenderly.

“Did you miss the school bus?” she asks. Her accent reminds him of his mother. He nods cheerfully, half believing his own lie.

“Such a sweet smile,” she croons. “You’ll win the hearts of all the ladies, no doubt. Where are you going, young man?”

“I am going to the circus to see Rubber,” he says without thinking. He claps his hand over his mouth but it’s too late. The words are already out. He sees them drifting like a queue of elephants, bumping ass to trunk, all the way to her ears. He laughs and she joins in good-naturedly.

“Rubber? The famous clown? He is my son! Would you like me to take you to him?”

“Si,” he says, judging her to be Spanish. He wins another smile from her.

“It’s a secret,” he adds. She nods as if she knew all about the importance of secrets.

“I have many,” she says. She begins to talk; it is almost as if she is talking to herself. Her sing-song croon shifts languages and he finds himself getting drowsy following its sibilant serpentine undulations.

“This is our stop.” She shakes him awake.

As they get off the bus, the driver gives them a curious glance.

It seems natural to follow her. She is going to see Rubber after all, and she seems to know where she is going. There is a queer feeling in his stomach. Straight ahead, through the enclosure of trees, he sees the fluttering flags and the dip and rise of the huge striped tent. It is so large that he almost loses his balance.

“Almost there,” she says and her grip is a vice. Or perhaps it is her voice.

***

They are arguing.

“We have to go to the police,” says Radha, her voice loud and near-hysterical. “What are we waiting for? It is 5:30 pm, the school gets over at 3:30. Where can he be?”

“Goddamn it, Radha, if I knew wouldn’t I be there?” snarls Thomas. “We have to stay calm— Hello? Yes, hi, my name is Thomas Lantern and my son, Nicholas, is a student in your school…”

Thomas is on the phone. Friends. School supervisor. One of the teachers. The bus driver, Charlie. After the last call, he folds up his phone.

“He wasn’t on the school bus. Charlie claims that Nick told him that you would pick him up. Did you say that?”

“Of course I didn’t say that! If I’d said that, I would have picked him up, wouldn’t I? How could they just believe him. Oh my god, why would Nicholas say something like that? I’m sure they’re lying. They must have dropped him off at the wrong place--”

Her voice cracks and Thomas shakes her by the shoulder.

“Radha! Calm down. Look, let’s go down to the station. I’ve just talked with John. He’s going to get together some parents and drive around; maybe Nick’s just walking around somewhere … ”

Thomas was thinking about what Janet, John’s daughter, had said on the phone.

“Nicky? None of us saw him, Mr. Lantern. But he sits alone anyway. He doesn’t, like, have any friends or anything.”

Tight little bands around his chest. His son. Friendless. How was it possible? You couldn’t find a sunnier kid. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Abnormally happy. Well, he’d help Nick when they found him. Radha had been right. No time, though, for all that.

As he gets into the car, he has an idea. He gets out, switches seats and then calls the bus company.

***

Rubber’s trailer reeks of cumin. It is so overpowering that Nicholas starts to feel nauseous. Why didn’t they start the vent? Light candles? Open the paper-covered windows? That’s what his mother did back home.

Then there’s the light. A malevolent yellow bulb so bright that it hurts the eyes to look at it. Now he is not at all sure if he can stay here. He tries to smile, but it’s a poor imitation of its former glory.

Rubber looks … different. Gone are his foot-long shoes, polka-dotted pants, humongous green bowtie, umbrella hat and bulbous red nose. He has skinny, scarred brown arms, and periodically, he scratches one with the other. But it is confusing. Though the clown has disappeared, his smile remains. White convex lips, full-stopped only by the shadowed eyes. As if it has been burned, cut, carved in.

“So Mother tells me you’ve run away, Nicholas?” Rubber’s voice is harsh but not unkind. It’s as if the room’s yellow naked bulb had been given a shade. “To become a clown.”

Nicholas nods. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. How many years, he wonders, does it take to become a clown? Because, by golly, he is going to do it in half the time.

The old woman smiles and Nicholas looks away. She’s wormed it out of him, his address, the names of his father, mother, the telephone number … she’s inspected his money, searched his pockets. If he weren’t so afraid, he’d cry.

“It’s a pity,” says the old woman. “Such a beautiful smile. But he’ll be missed. I think I’ll call.”

“Do you know what happens to boys who run away, Nicholas?” asks Rubber as if she’d said nothing at all.

“No,” squeaks out Nicholas. He smiles for reassurance but nothing is forthcoming. “Please, sir, can I … I mean, may I—”

He is interrupted by Rubber.

“Bad things, Nicholas. Bad things. Do you understand? The world is a snake and it bites.” Rubber made a hooded strike with his right hand to illustrate.

Nicholas nods. But the clown appears unconvinced though his face remains stretched out in a smile.

“I’m going to make a call,” says the old woman. “Keep the boy occupied. Clown a little.”

She smiles and this time even Rubber look away. The moment she leaves, the tension seems to lighten up a little.

“Bad things …” repeats Rubber. “Shall I tell you a story?”

Nicholas wonders when Rubber would start to teach him. The sooner they started, the sooner they would finish.

“Please, Rubber. Can we … May we, um … Can we get started on the lessons?”

But Rubber is looking at him slyly. “I am not really her son. Oh no.” He puts his finger to his smiling lips. “She is not my mother. I’m a prince, you know. My kingdom lies in India. Swans, scented ice and gardens with peacocks. I dream about how it all happened. This smile …” He points to his face. “I wasn’t born this way. Oh no. I was made. Can you remember all that?”

Nicholas is really worried now. Rubber is nodding and smiling, smiling and nodding. As he shuffles around the cramped trailer, he flaps his hands wildly; it should be funny but somehow it is full of despair.

“Oh no,” mutters Rubber. “That’s the word. Oh no.”

“Are we starting the lessons?” asks Nicholas with a quaver in his voice.

“Perhaps,” says Rubber. He reassembles himself: shoes, nose, pants, and hat. Just in time too, for there’s a knock on the door.

“Come in,” says Rubber listlessly.

Blue men. For a second, Nicholas half expects to see a swaying, many hooded snake but then his mind rearranges and he detects …

“Mom! Dad!” hollers Nicholas and rushes into Thomas’ arms. It is difficult for a moment to say where Thomas begins or where Radha ends or where Nicholas begins and Nicholas ends. Nicholas examines their faces anxiously and begins to smile as he figures out that they are not angry; at least, not for now. Radha says little; wild-eyed, tight-lipped and close to tears, she is content to pat his head every now and then. For now, it’s the thousand and one in-between emotions that have no listing in any directory.

“… the bus system was giving us the run around … thank god your mother called us … we were besides ourselves with worry.” Thomas is expansive in his relief. He seems unwilling to let go of Rubber’s hand. “Are you sure we can’t thank her in person.”

“Yes,” says Rubber in his harsh voice. “In person, if there is one. Oh yes. That’s the question, isn’t it?”

A large florid man – the circus manager -- inserts himself into the tableaux. He proceeds to arrange a photo-shoot. It’ll be in all the news and that can’t hurt collections.

As Rubber leans his head next to Nicholas for the photo frame, he whispers in Nicholas’ ear: “Remember.”

***

See Rubber. How he runs around the ring! “Bow, wow,” barks the dog. The candy-stripes of the big top, the shrieks of kids, the clip-clap of applause. How they love the man who laughs. In his trailer sits a mother, hag haired and old. Oh no.

See Thomas and Radha. They are arguing again. Voices, shouts, tears and threats. Why do they fight when there’s so little cause? For a child who no longer exists? Surely, what they did – do -- was what they had to do? But guilt must be shared, reassurances must be seized.

See Nicholas. He is reading quietly. A glass of water by his bedside. He has, like every other night for the past three weeks, taken his pill.

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” his father had said the very first time. He’d looked so sad that Nicholas had clowned around and tried to cheer him up.

Now, there are no sounds at all in the room except the rustle of falling pages. Truly, a hermeneutic miracle are the pills. How focused his mind, how narrow his focus, how final the narrowing. A fierce whiteness now shrouds the unruly green. Winter has hushed the forest’s mouth. Nicholas is reinterpreting Nicholas.

Occasionally, he shivers. The triggers are many. The smell of spices, the feel of rubber, the rise of an elevator, the shape of clouds. The memory of laughter.

--- The End ---

Notes:

This story was inspired by Victor Hugo’s horror story “The Man Who Laughs.” It is about a man who, as a child, had a smile permanently carved on his face by Comprachicos. Hugo describes them as follows:
“The comprachicos, or comprapequenos, were a strange and hideous nomadic association, famous in the seventeenth century, forgotten in the eighteenth, unknown today ....
Comprachicos, as well as comprapequenos, is a compound Spanish word that means ‘child-buyers.’ The comprachicos traded in children. They bought them and sold them.
They did not steal them. The kidnapping of children is a different industry. And what did they make of these children?
Monsters.
Why monsters?
To laugh.
The people needs laughter; so do the kings. Cities require side-show freaks or clowns; palaces require jesters ....”
We note with relief that the charity of this age leans more towards removing deviance from children. Comprachicos are a thing of the past.
Actually, therapists prefer to talk about dyssemia (dys = difficulty, semes = nonverbal signs and signals) rather than ‘deviance.’ Dyssemia is a psychological affliction, whereas deviance is a philosophical stance.
A technical note: When we find something to be funny, it results in the activation of three very specific parts of our brains. Wait, I got that wrong. The activation of three very specific parts of the brain is why we find something to be funny. In one landmark case, the epileptic Miss A.Z. was made to laugh on demand by the electrical stimulation of a 2*2 square cm area in her supplementary motor cortex. Q.E.D.
Next, the sense of horror.
[1] First published: Chiaroscuro # 24, April-June 2005.