“What the hell happened to you?” Uncle Jojo asked Jimmy as he picked him up from school.
The kid had a bloody nose and his clothes were muddy and torn. Jimmy was in the sixth grade then. He was a much different clown when he was a kid than he was as an adult. He still had the short temper and foul mood back then, but he was kind of a wimp. He didn’t have a lot of friends and got picked on a lot.
Jimmy dodged the question. “Where’s my dad?”
“He couldn’t pick you up today. He’s busy.”
Jimmy crawled into his uncle’s car. “He’s always busy…”
It was a hard time for the kid. His mother died recently. And for months after his mother’s death, his father shut himself off, burying himself in his work. Uncle Jojo had to look after the kid for his brother on far more occasions than he could count. He didn’t know much about raising kids back then. His daughter was just a baby at the time and he still had a lot to learn about being a father.
As Jojo pulled out of the school parking lot, he returned to the topic. “So what happened?”
It took Jimmy a few minutes before he could answer. “The other kids jumped me.”
Jojo yelled, “For what?”
By the tone of his uncle’s voice, Jimmy thought he was mad at him for it.
“Because I’m a clown,” Jimmy said in a soft voice.
There weren’t many clown kids back then. Jimmy was one of the first hundred clowns born in the whole country. Even in Little Bigtop, most of the kids were vanilla. Jojo’s nephew was the only clown in his class.
“And you just took it?”
“There were too many of them.”
“So? You’re a Bozo. Bozos are supposed to be tough. What would your father say?”
Jimmy shrugged.
Jojo turned the car around and went in the other direction.
“Where are we going?” Jimmy asked.
“To the park,” Jojo said. “I’m teaching you how to fight.”
Uncle Jojo took Jimmy to the park and walked him away from the playground, away from the clowns who were juggling and hula-hooping in the grass, so they could have a bit of privacy.
“I already know how to fight,” Jimmy said.
“We’ll see about that.” His uncle put him in position across from him and raised his fists. “Show me what you got.”
Jimmy was too embarrassed to do anything but stand there.
“Come on,” Jojo said. “Hit me.”
“No…,” Jimmy said.
But his uncle wouldn’t let him get out of it.
“What, are you a wimp?” Jojo asked, shoving the eleven-year-old clown. “Are you going to let people push you around your whole life?”
Jojo wouldn’t quit shoving the kid until Jimmy got flustered.
“Are you going to cry now?” Jojo asked. “Go ahead and cry, you pansy. You call yourself a Bozo?”
Then Jimmy snapped. He ran at his uncle, swinging his fists. Jojo punched him in the stomach and the kid fell to the ground.
“Come on, I barely even touched you,” Jojo told his wheezing nephew.
“You hit me!” Jimmy cried, surprised his own uncle would’ve thrown a punch at him.
“What? You expected a slap on the wrist? I’m trying to toughen you up here. This is a real fight. Now get on your feet.”
Jimmy got back on his feet and charged his uncle, throwing fists at his stomach. His uncle just blocked every punch. Then he hit him in the face and the kid was on the ground again.
“I’m only using a quarter of my strength here,” Jojo said. “Stop being such a wimp.”
Jimmy tried again with a similar result.
“You know what your problem is?” Jojo asked. “You don’t use your brain. You don’t block. You don’t duck and move. You’re all offense with no defense, and your offense is wild and sloppy.”
He helped his nephew to his feet and looked him in the eyes.
“In a fight, you use your head, not your heart. Don’t let your emotions control your movements.”
Jojo showed his nephew how to hold up his fists.
“Once you learn how to block, I’ll teach you some combo moves,” Jojo said.
He spent the next two hours training his nephew to be a brawler. Then he took him out for ice cream. As they sat at the table in the ice cream shop, Jimmy wouldn’t speak to him. He was more upset with his uncle than he was with the kids who beat him up.
“I’m sorry for being rough with you,” Jojo said. “But I did what I had to do. It’s a rough city out there and people are going to be a lot rougher with you than I just was. You’ll thank me later.”
Jimmy shoved a spoonful of pistachio ice cream between his red lips.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Jojo asked, swirling the strawberry sauce and rocky road ice cream together with his spoon.
Jimmy wouldn’t respond for a moment, but Jojo was patient.
“I want to work with my dad,” Jimmy said.
Jojo laughed. “You what? Do you even know what your dad does for a living?”
“Yeah, he’s a clownfella,” Jimmy said.
Jojo laughed even harder. “Do you even know what that means?”
“It means nobody messes with him.”
Jojo nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. Nobody messes with your old man.” He took a bite of ice cream. “But why would you want to work with your dad?”
Jimmy shrugged. He wouldn’t make eye contact with him, just staring into his ice cream.
“You can do anything with your life,” Jojo said. “You can be a football player. Wouldn’t you want to be a football player? I remember you used to always love watching football with your dad and me.”
“Clowns aren’t allowed to play football.”
“Who says?” Jojo pointed his spoon at the kid. “Just because there hasn’t been one yet doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future. You could be the first.”
Jimmy shrugged. “I don’t know…”
Jojo lifted Jimmy’s face out of his ice cream. “What don’t you know?”
Jimmy didn’t answer.
“Look, kid. You’re a Bozo and Bozos don’t make excuses. If you think being a clown holds you back, you’re wrong. Being a clown makes you strong. You do whatever you want to do with your life and don’t ever let anything hold you back.”
Then he let go of the kid’s face and let him get back to his ice cream.
“Sorry for being callous,” Jojo said. “You’re my nephew, Jimmy. I just want what’s best for you.”