Touch of the Clown by Glen Huser Page B

It’s not a problem. You want to tell me about it?”
    â€œDaddy wants us to go to Mayfair Park with Mrs. Perth’s son. I don’t want to go, but if I say so, I know it’ll hurt Daddy’s feelings. We don’t go…” I try to think how to finish the sentence. “Many places.”
    â€œYou should then, and enjoy the park. You shouldn’t even think about the workshop.” Cosmo is busy putting Mehitabel into the shed. “Hey,” he hollers from across the yard, “I got paid today. And whenever I get paid I feel it is obligatory to splurge on a triple cappuccino at the Italian center. So, Miss Barbara…” As he comes back across the yard, his voice thickens with a silly accent and he rolls his eyes at me. “Fma aska you to be my date for da cappuccino. Whaddya say, kid?”
    I nod. I may even be smiling. I can buy the hot dogs on the way home.
    We sit at a little table in a corner. “Now isn’t this like the movies,” Cosmo chuckles. “We just need the gypsy with his violin.” He says I have to order something, so I go for a large hot chocolate with whipped cream. When the brimming cups are brought to our table, the air is filled with the smells of chocolate and coffee and cinnamon from the sprinkles on top of his cappuccino.
    â€œThis is what makes life worth living,” Cosmo says, nibbling on the foam. He senses my stricken look. “This is one of the things that makes life worth living,” he corrects himself. “There are so many.” But his voice sounds tired. “So you don’t get to go out very much with your dad?” He licks the milk moustache off his upper lip.
    â€œHe’s not well… not very well, and Livvy…”
    â€œWhat exactly is Livvy’s problem?”
    â€œWell, you know…” I am surprised we are talking suddenly about Livvy. Cosmo can juggle topics, too. “She doesn’t always get to the bath-room on time.”
    â€œLots of little kids don’t.”
    â€œBut it’s worse with Livvy. She’s only got one kidney and sometimes she has even more than one accident in a day.”
    â€œAnd you clean her up.”
    â€œMost of the time.”
    We drink our drinks quietly for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the late-afternoon traffic getting all mixed up with Italian conversations at the tables around us.
    â€œDaddy thinks it’s because he and Mama were old when Livvy was born. I heard him telling Grandma, and then he cried. Mama was forty-four. Do you think that could be the reason?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Cosmo holds his cappuccino cup in both hands. “Whatever the reasons, though,” he moves his cup slightly forward like a kind of pantomime toast I’ve seen him do in skits at the workshop, “I think you’re…” He looks around the room as if there is a word somewhere, and then he smiles. “I think you’re swell.” He is laughing, and I’m afraid he is going to choke on his cappuccino. “I can’t believe I said swell,” he says. “Swell. Some words should never be used. What I meant to articulate, Miss Barbara Stanwyck Kobleimer, is that I think you are caring and tenacious and talented.”
    â€œI don’t mind swell,” I say.
    Myron Perth drives a potato-chip truck. It says
Crispy Dan the Potato Chip Man
in big red letters on the outside.
    â€œThat’s me,” Myron Perth says. “I’m Crispy Dan. My professional nom-day-ploom.” He wiggles his false teeth at Livvy and makes her laugh.
    There is only room in the cab for two other people, Grandma and Mrs. Perth, but Crispy Dan has put a kitchen chair in the back of the panel for Daddy to sit on, and a foam mattress for Livvy and me.
    â€œI’m gonna have to lock the back so you don’t all fall out,” Crispy Dan says, “so I’m assignin’ you, Livya, to be the