© 1995 Rich Gibbs II
When I was seven, we had this large fenced in back yard, with three crab apple trees and a dog house, the unofficial club house where Floyd, Kathy, those twin girls (I forgot their names, it has been so long ago) and I ate those apples. Floyd was my best friend and he had a red flat-top and these thick, pop bottle bottom lense, black framed glasses and didn’t weigh more than a minute. Kathy, she was my unofficial girlfriend and she was tan all year round, one grade ahead of me and flawless. She had brown hair and green eyes and like to dance, always showing me how she could do the Cyd Charisse routine she just watched in some movie. She said she liked me too, but because she liked weird. She also liked kissing me.
Beyond the back yard fence was this wide patch of desert, and to get to it you had to go down this little hill about three yards from the fence. This desert place was pretty cool with its flatness, broken up only by these little clumps of bushes that were both sticky to the touch and gave off this sickening sweet smell on hot days. They were also a great place to hide things. I hid things out there like Playboy magazines, Sex To Sixty comics and various other little items I wouldn't dare keep in my room. This desert patch also held a thousand Horney Toads, Tarantulas, snakes and beetles. In the early mornings there would be thousands of crows out there and Secretary Birds the rest of the time. I also caught Velvet Ants, known to us as Cow Killers, out there too, but those were very rare.
One summer the bunch of us were out in the desert playing war when Floyd came across a dead clown. No shit. A dead clown. He had on a blue, yellow and green striped jump suit that was not only baggy, but filthy, rotten and stank like old garbage. The big clown shoes were gone and his snow white feet looked like an old man's. The nails looked like half walnut shells, only brittle and black and ants crawled all over them.
The clown's head was still painted white with high arched blue eyebrows, red round circles on his cheeks and big, red lips, painted into a smile. He was bald with big ears and a tiny pointy hat on top, kept on by a multicolored string that ran down from the hat and tied under his slack second chin.
Floyd called us over and we stood looking down at him. Kathy was the one to say something about the ants on his feet first. I picked up a stick and poked him. He seemed too hard, like a burlap sack of hardening sand.
"I think it's fake," I said.
"Oh man," Floyd said, holding his nose. "He stinks like rotten fish."
"Those ants are eating his feet," Kathy said with a smirk.
"Poke him," I said, handing Floyd the stick. “Go on. Do it.”
"I ain't gonna poke the guy," Floyd said, refusing the stick. "What if he pops or something. I’d throw up."
"Those ants are gonna throw up," said Kathy.
"I think this is a joke," I said looking around.
"What's a dead clown doing out here," Floyd said looking around.
"I wonder if those ants are up into his pants legs," Kathy said squatting down to get a better look.
"Let's do something with him," I said, poking him some more.
"Like what?" Floyd took the stick and he threw it away.
"I don't know," I said with a shrug. "Set it on fire?"
"Set it on..." Floyd looked at me. "You don't set people on fire."
"You'll burn the ants," Kathy said standing. “That’s very uncool, Richard.”
"T.F.S.," I said. "Finders keepers, right. We found him..."
"I think it's a set up," Floyd was turning in a circle now.
"Oh, wow," Kathy said with true amazement, "He has ants along the collar of his clown suit, too."
"I'm gonna pee on him." I said seriously.
"What?" Floyd stepped back, still looking around, even up at the sky. "No, man, don't. We're being watched.... to see what we are gonna do. It's a trap."
"He has ants all over the back of his head," Kathy said. "He is covered in them."
"I'll pee some of them off," I said, freeing Willy.
"I'm history," and with that Floyd was running towards my house.
Kathy stood up, watched me pee all over the clown before she turned and walked towards the house.
I finished, put myself away and fell in behind her.
It took a lot of talk to get Floyd's dad to come see the clown but when we got there the clown was gone. Vanished. His dad cursed at us and told us that the next time we dick with him he was gonna beat our asses with a Hickory Canoe paddle.
"Where do you suppose it went," I asked. At the same time Floyd said "Aliens".. and Kathy said "Ants."