suicide of bob, the one eyed clown luc simonic His steps were heavy and his shoes were big and red. It was another day in another town under the same tent. Stepping down through the final lines of the orchestra, clown Bob thought about taking the "whole fucking lot" with him when he went. His lone eye eyeballed the audience from under it's thick brow, dashing back and forth. Beneath the suit and get-up, the diabolical Bob 'told' those precious feelers that they should know what to do. Side to side, his head swiveled. He saw them. Bob when that they thought about it, those feelers did, whether it was earlier that same day or in a moment months ago. They knew that at any moment some great disaster, whether natural or not, could come and swallow them off to hell. Bob had a lump in his throat and it felt good. Bob caught one of the feelers in a stare. The man grinned, tipped his cap and sat back in his seat. The man's eyes settled nervously yet resolute like toes on the tightrope. And in no uncertain terms the man illustrated to our Bob, what came of all these trips. The feelers held so much fear and that somehow comforted Bob and pushed him toward that important decision to go ahead and spare them. To let them work their shit out for themselves The feelers bubbled up, and over, laughing and throwing their popcorn and half eaten dogs. Bob thought he could liven them up a bit. It has always been whatever it takes for a cheap giggle and, Anything once huh? Or the same old thing over and over. He picked one of the dogs up, shoved it into his mouth, chewed madly for a few seconds and then spewed the bits out all over the big top. What followed was uproarious laughter and more food in the air. The ringmaster was madly heralding a trance. 'What the fuck ever', is what clown Bob thought as he approached the atrium with tricks in tow. Gathering there with the other clowns and freaks. Bob was 52 yesterday and a promise of his adolescence was tormenting him. He had forgotten about it until he received a trunk from his recently deceased mother's estate. It said "BOB" on it in elderly squiggles and was mostly scraps and tentacles of memory of his better days; A hair bow from a sweetheart. A patch from his Boy Scout club. A rubber band gun his mother took from him at age twelve when his neurotic nature prevented him from ceasing to shoot the aged cat. Also, a very special note he wrote himself and stuffed under his mattress when he was sixteen:     "Dear Bob     I am sitting here, you, at age sixteen.     I am writing this letter for you to read     when you get old. You used to say that     you can do anything, that the sky is the     limit that this is America. And that     God gave you life and don't be stupid.     don't de a dummy! Promise me that     you won't be a dummy.     Now you are old. What is the story now?     Love, Bob" Bob wasn't sure what he had meant by "dummy", but as he was pulling rabbits from hats and tripping over invisible ropes, he decided that this was it. Bob had no one and nothing to show for it. The rest of Bob's life, the minutes in this inconsolable circus that had become more bacon than dog, more jewelry than ritualistic heroism, was just an obscure myriad of tracers and tramps before his suicide. This suicide, began 28 years before, and now will be lost forever under the tent of obscurity. This suicide is the toughest one of all. The libations and profundity of it's goiter like form, had twisted its slimy schism so fully engulfing the life of a clown that it left nothing but a bit of protein and bone. Off to heaven then! It was the last stop of the season. They found him 4 months later when they were ready to hook up for the next tour Bob's little Jack Russell named Poop Butt had chewed off most of Bob's face and had somehow disemboweled our hero and spread his intestines all over the place. Poop Butt had died also. Bob's caravan trailer held this stench long after his grave was cold and even after the hooker Carly Sue had bought it, three years later, at an auction. She used it to entertain. She had no clue of what had happened, nor did any of her johns. They were only there to fuck!