“We need some ballplayers,” said the clown with the voice of a man who had taken too many breaks from chugging bourbon to chainsmoke.  He further taunted, “High and dry.”  At this point, my dad shoved two dollars my way and nudged me toward the disinterested teenager holding three softballs.  I was probably ten or eleven and confident in my lot as the star first baseman of the Stonegate Spikes who had recently finished first in the Northside YMCA’s coach pitch division.  It was a challenge I was ready to take.

Staring down the bullseye that seemed so close, I got into the pitching stance I intended to use the next year.  The angry old clown seemed to be unaware of my arrival, and I pounced.  The ball whizzed past the big red dot.  Then it came.

“Does your mommy dress you?”  As trashtalk, it was weak.  My mom never would have come up with the mismatched shorts/t-shirt combo I had to have been wearing.  Unfazed, I tossed the second ball, and I swear it knicked the target but failed to have enough velocity to do any damage.

Perhaps it was how narrowly he had escaped becoming low and wet.  Maybe he had always intended to wait until my last throw.  Probably, it had taken this long to think of it.  But the big guns came out here.  In a sing-songy voice, the old man serenaded me:

Red-Red
Wet his bed
Blamed it on his brother Fred

The skin below my carrot top flushed crimson.  Despite my embarrassment, I got off my third toss, but it was as wider than a Rick Ankiel fastball from before he became an outfielder.  Crushed, I meandered back to my cackling family.  Dad offered another two bucks, but I wanted to be anywhere else.  As we exited stage left, Bozo spotted a man in the back of the crowd.

“Look at the guy in the pink shorts.”

The state fair hasn’t been the same without Bozo. Continue reading ‘Bring Back Bozo!’