Tears of a Clown

Now there’s some sad things known to man. But ain’t too much sadder than. The tears of a clown, when there’s no one around Smokey Robinson

    I have just reread my last column before writing this, since it seems that it struck a chord out there. Judging from the written response, which is not expected and almost never comes, I guess I have something to live up to now- here goes. I have one day left here in New Hampshire for this go ‘round, with apparently more to come at a soon but later date. As it is, I must wing my way across the fracking fields of this once great nation in order to pound out 80 miles worth of effort on my bike as a part of the Passport to Pain ride this Saturday, and then hop in a kayak to lead the way on the cross sound swim happening Sunday from Pt. Defiance to Vashon and back, all of which should be at least somewhat fun, in comparison with what has been going on here.

While I did start out each day at the beginning of my stay with a swim in the Knight Natatorium in the Hogan Sports Center at Colby- Sawyer College here in town, I soon began to think about the climb on Burma road along with all the rest of it, and decided that my exercise time would be best spent on a bike rather than in the pool. With access to a fairly speedy machine, I googled a map of the surrounding region and decided upon a loop which looked somewhat challenging and headed out. As the first part of the ride is all up hill, I quickly learned that my choice to ride was an important one, since my legs really did not like what they were being forced to do, and this internal discussion between brain and body parts is not something one wants to mediate on an eighty mile ride, let alone the short succession of hills I was first climbing this day.

As it was really hot and humid on the first day out, I went only part way around the intended loop and then turned back. This tactic of only riding a part of the loop lasted for a few days, and then I went for the whole thing and found it challenging but fun. In many ways, riding the rural roads of New Hampshire is like riding on the Island. Even though all three legs of this triangle are numbered state routes, there are almost always no cars on them at any time of the day. I have gone at 6:30 in the morning and midday and at four or five in the evening, and most of the time I have the roads mostly to myself. There are a number of wild turkeys that I tend to see in various locations along the way, and on dew moist mornings on a couple of stretches of road I have had to dodge small, four-legged moving targets, or at least the ones that are still moving. I have noticed this phenomenon on Vashon, mostly on the climb up from Cemetery Rd. to the dump, and usually in the early fall and late winter to spring, but never in the quantities and variety of sizes I’ve seen here. I do not know whether they are newts or salamanders, but they are small and orange and very determined to get to the other side- I assume most do, although the evidence of failed attempts is there for all to see as well.

This cycle escape usually takes somewhere close to two hours of my day. By this stage of the visit, with most of the gardening done, the remainder of the day was spent cleaning shit up, literally. With my Dad in a nursing home to give him better care for his Parkinsons, the house had been standing empty for a while. Eventually, my sister allowed my nephew to live there, which seemed like a good idea since it meant someone would be here to watch over things, and I have always felt that heating a totally vacant house in New Hampshire all winter while my parents luxuriated in the Florida warmth and sun was quite the waste. What I did not know was that along with my nephew’s ex-wife and daughter (don’t ask- I don’t get it either) there were two beagles, who as it turned out are not quite house trained- actually, not at all. After consistent mornings of getting up to find my nephew off early to a landscape job and lakes of dog pee and mounds of dog logs in all corners of the white tiled kitchen floor, I spoke with my sister about asking all to leave. With that action now accomplished I have spent many blissful mop free mornings, and with the advent of Mr. Steam and Son and their giant hot water vacuum just the other day, the rug stains and urine stench are now a distant memory, but wait, there’s more- or less, I can’t tell anymore.

There are things missing that I can’t account for, and a very large thing which is nowhere to be found. I can’t talk about it, but I have started things in motion that may find out where it all is. These things have been weighing heavily on my mind, and with more and more questions going unanswered I finally snapped the other day when I  opened a closet door to find that a painting that I remembered had been stashed there was now missing as well. I looked all through the closet and when there was no painting in evidence I emailed the lawyer and accused my sister of removing it. It is, in truth a horrible painting and actually not really a painting at all, but rather a print of a painting. It is one of those Red Skelton sad clown paintings, and I was shocked and mortified to see it hanging on the wall of their Florida house when I went down there for my mother’s funeral. It is horrible and I hate it, but it has some value and it was the tipping point in my holding back and watching various other items of value vanish.

Not long after that my sister showed up and the yelling began. As with other so-called conversations we’ve had, it usually consisted of a laundry list of all the “bad” things I’ve done through the years, which all, apparently in her mind, lead me down this path of evil and disrepute. In all of the tirade, she mentioned the closet in my dad’s den, and a little voice went off in my head that said: “oops”. After the storm cloud departed I looked in the den closet, and there it was in all its kitchiness. I immediately sent an apology email to my sister and the lawyer, for what that was worth. I finished it with the line: “I will just shut up now.”

But then there was the evening bike ride. It was way cooler than it has been and the night dusk is now coming much earlier than a month ago. As usual, my brain was running an internal dialogue of the day as I tried to pay attention to missing the masses of frost heaves along these roads. As I passed the halfway mark of the trip, I made a turn that led to a sweeping corner that went around the end of a small lake. I don’t know the name of  the lake, but my attention was immediately drawn  by the music coming from a guy sitting out on the end of a dock playing his banjo to the setting sun. And as I was nearing the end of the ride and spinning up the last incline through town before the flat and then descent to my parents’ house, one of the pair of college coeds on the sidewalk looked at me and said “Good Job” in encouragement. It’s not all bad, but I still have stuff to do before tomorrow, and as no one is around I’m feeling the need to step away from the mic and not embarrass myself.