Some, but not all. He rolled the garbage can off the stage and outside, gesturing for the other clowns to clear the tricks out of the show tent to make way for the next batch; judging by the thick carpet of sparkling dust over the floor, this crowd had been harvested for all they were worth. He rolled Deeby towards the river. Jamie ran out after them.
"I don't appreciate this," Deeby said. "Just because we have different ideas about the true purpose of comedy. Emerald is totally going to hate this garbage smell."
"If that's the worst thing happens to you today, you be grateful, chumbo," said Gonko as they reached the riverbank.
"Real comedy makes people think," Deeby said. "Your act was superficial and needed some social commentary. I gave it much needed depth."
"Uh huh, you just keep right on talking, pal."
"When my hands get free, bro, it's on. You and me."
"Oh, it's on all right," said Gonko. The garbage can rolled into the river. Gonko stood on its side, balancing like a surfer as Deeby thrashed beneath the surface. "What say now, professor?" said Gonko. "Glug glug glug?"
"Gonko, come on, get off him," Jamie said nervously.
"Sure, pal, just give me a quarter hour, and I'll be right off."
"I mean it, Gonko, you're going to kill him."
"That's the plan."
"Come on, maybe he shouldn't have gone onstage but they laughed when you threw the trash on him. It worked out all right."
"You liked that improv, eh? Watch and learn, young Jamie. This gag is called Drowning Some Fucker."
"Gonko, get off him."
Air bubbles popped on the water's surface. Deeby thrashed hard for a little while then went still. Jamie ran forward and threw himself at Gonko, knocking him deeper into the river. The bin tilted. Deeby's head broke the surface, and he gasped hard. The face paint had begun to run off his face.
Gonko burst through the water's surface with an axe in hand. "There are some things you need to learn vis-à-vis the whole interfering-with-clown-chain-of-command thing," he said, raising the axe.
"Hey, boss," Rufshod called from the riverbank. "Jamie's okay. Don't you remember?" He mouthed the words, good guys.
Gonko paused, considered. "I dunno, Ruf. That's getting to be a bit of a hassle, that whole deal. Frankly, this Jamie ain't exactly clowning the house down neither."
"You need to give me a chance," Jamie said, backing away. "You didn't even let me on stage tonight."
Gonko dropped the axe over his shoulder. "Well, now's your chance. Get up there and caper some, sport. This pile of puke is never again wearing the clown uniform. You got that?" He pointed to Dean, who had, in rubbing mud from the river from his face, cleared away most of the face paint by now. He coughed up river water then sat bewildered like someone who has woken up in an expected place.
"Anything you say boss," Jamie said quickly. "Just give me one minute with Dean?" Gonko wasn't listening. He strode out of the water, back toward the stage tent.
"Dean! You okay?" Jamie said. Rufshod watched them for a moment more then followed Gonko up the riverbank as a train thundered across the bridge overhead.
"Jamie," Dean said, coughing. "What the hell is going on?"
"You pissed him off, that's what. He was going to kill you. Why the hell . . . man, I told you not to go onstage! Why the hell did you get onstage? I just saved your life, do you realize that?"
"I . . ." Dean tried to think. "I wasn't myself. Something changed."
"What do you mean? Are you drunk? High?"
"I'm getting out of here, Jamie. I haven't been me these last couple of days. It's like someone else took over, and he's not afraid of these people at all. He thinks he can take any one of them on. Why? What the hell changed me?"
"I don't know. The clothes? The face paint? They make me feel a little different too, but not like what you're saying. There's magic here, Dean, some kind of magic. I don't understand it . . . but look, you can't run away. They'll find you, just like they found me. And maybe kill you. You know about them now, you see? They won't like that."
"So we're in deep shit, huh?"
"Maybe. . . I mean, they told me they're the good guys, but they don't act like it. There's something weird going on, weirder even than the crazy stuff we can see. Stay cool, okay? The clowns aren't dangerous if you don't make them angry. Stay cool, lay low, play along. At least until we know what we're really dealing with."
Dean looked at him—his face showed fear, but not only fear. Jamie also saw that he was thoroughly, righteously pissed off. He said, "And when we know what we're dealing with?"
"I don't know, Dean."
"Well, I do know. We take them out, Jamie."
•
So Jamie the clown got onstage and had his moment. He capered and clowned like his life depended on it, with a potent mix of adrenaline, fear, and face paint magic coursing through him. He shrieked like a hysterical woman when chased by Rufshod the Romantic, armed with roses and a heart-shaped chocolate box. He copped a cream pie followed by a brick pie to the face and hardly felt it. He threw, when prompted, a rolling pin at Goshy's belly, which bounced back at him and knocked him stupid. The crowd of tricks hooted, jeered, laughed. The sounds were like an ocean far away. When they cleared out, he still lay flat on his back breathing hard. The other clowns' faces popped into his field of vision above.
"He's . . . why, he's a clown, Gonko," Doopy said breathlessly. It was high praise.
Gonko's lip curled. "Then he's very lucky. You did okay, I guess." The four heads withdrew. Jamie heard in Gonko's words the unsaid: Forgiven, for now. You live to fight another day. And in Jamie's mind, it was said reluctantly.
•
When Gonko's pocket watch alarm went off, he sent word out to the ticket collectors, who'd brought their gate pieces back from the train station. "Send 'em down," Gonko told them. "Show time below."
Curls and his friends had set other gate pieces up further down the way, beneath the train bridge. Gonko and the others herded the tricks like border collies herding sheep, with just as much barking and growling. Jamie watched them go through the gate and vanish to God knew where. When the last of them was through, the dwarfs disassembled the gates.
"What's eating you, Curls?" said Gonko.
"The lice on my nuts," Curls snapped.
"You'll cheer up real pretty when we see the pay packet coming your way tonight."
In fact Curls cheered up right then and there, but was still troubled. "It's this thing with train stations," he said. "You got people in car parks, waiting to see their friend tricks come through after a train pulls in. But their friend trick is late. And he don't show up at all. And there's heaps of friend tricks maybe still there waiting and getting scared."
"So?"
"So they report 'em missing to their cop tricks, and then their friend tricks show up in the car park, few hours later, when the two shows get done with 'em. They'll know somethin' happened."
"Don't worry your curly little head. The cop tricks will look for 'em and not find squat. They'll be home late is all, and have to explain it to wife and husband tricks. Which ain't my problem nor yours. Any of these tricks notice you?"
"Didn't look like it. We know how to hide."
Jamie left them to it and observed the feverish new activity all through the tents and the grass around them. On their hands and knees, carnies crawled over every inch, picking up little glimmering shards with pinching fingers and tweezers, digging around at times for particles that had been stepped on. It was the look in their eye he found troubling . . . this stuff, according to Gonko, was a manifestation of illness, bad luck, bad karma, and whatever other problems infest a person. Those who collected it, their faces shone with hunger and greed. Buckets were filling up with the stuff. They were carried to the clown tent, each bucket's passage followed by eager eyes. In the clown tent, Rufshod scooped the stuff with a soup ladle into velvet bags, just like the one Jamie had found in his pocket "that night."