ISSUE FIVE: July, 2020

A VENICE FOR CLOWNS

by HEATHER SAGER

Flop down Center Street in your clown shoes. A fair-headed boy eyes you at the crossing—eye him back. You read me, kid. I’m here. Fallen leaves rake the August sidewalk. The apothecary’s window blanches in lemony-hot sun. Distantly, a marching band cranks. You pull your clown pants from your backside. 

The slanting hills spread in four directions amid the green valley. Bluffs doze like sleepy dinosaurs, shadowing your quaint town. The famed Highway 61 snakes by on the horizon—a pocked highway of roadsters and songsters. 

But you never sing. When not performing your routines, you prefer silence. 

A small truck rushes by. Goodbye, truck for Sno-boy Peaches! Go on, fruit seller! (The fruit seller once was the town’s sheriff, you note. And before being sheriff, he served in the gunboats of some world war. Always a crooked smile on his toothy face, now grown old). You traverse the sidewalk’s bright and dark patches. Afternoon coyly marches on, a shadow fleeing the corner of a bodega for the corner of a bungalow. 

Mrs. Ripert’s bullmastiff growls. All the downtown fences growl. 

Down at street bottom stands a cafe. Slam the rickety door behind you. “Anise,” you say. Act proud—try to. The clear sweet liqueur soothes as you taste. The customers stare, but you don’t look back. Find a window and sit. Soon your window is full of dusk and glimmers in the ascendance of night. A crescent star hangs over the sleepy licorice river and grain mill. An occasional car passes, but mostly silent night silent star. In your throat you feel her death—the death of the other clown—her death sharp as the descended lemon sun. The river encircles the café, warming you with reflected colors. Soon streams of anise forgetfulness enclose your spine, embolden the heart. Darkness dons her regal evening dress. You recall your afternoon visit to the asthmatic boy, then you let dreams come. The patrons of the Highway 61 café whisper. Milk crates in alleys, cats on fences, vines creeping across walks. 

Cars boat past serene intersections. Feet swelter in evening shoes. The apothecary has long ago shuttered his windows, is home with the newspaper the wife. The river floats about and dances reflections on the jazzy blue arched front of the café.

HEATHER SAGER is an Illinois-based author of fiction and poetry. Her stories have most recently appeared in Lamplit Underground, Horla, La Piccioletta Barca, The Esthetic Apostle, Ariel Chart, The Cabinet of Heed, Sweet Tree Review, Little Patuxent Review, and New World Writing.