Title: The Happy Clown
Author: Jones, Alice Eleanor
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Happy Clown" ***


                            The Happy Clown

                        BY ALICE ELEANOR JONES

              _This was a century of peace, plethora and
              perfection, and little Steven was a misfit,
                a nonconformist, who hated perfection.
                   He had to learn the hard way...._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
             Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1955.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Steven Russell was born a misfit, a nonconformist, and for the first
five years of his life he made himself and his parents extremely
unhappy. The twenty-first century was perfect, and this inexplicable
child did not like perfection.

The first trouble arose over his food. His mother did not nurse
him, since the doctors had proved that Baby-Lac, and the soft
rainbow-colored plastic containers in which it was warmed and offered,
were both a vast improvement on nature. Steven drank the Baby-Lac, but
though it was hard to credit in so young a child, sometimes his face
wore an expression of pure distaste.

A little later he rejected the Baby Oatsies and Fruitsies and Meatsies,
and his large half-focused eyes wept at the jolly pictures on the
jarsies. He disliked his plastic dish made like a curled-up Jolly
Kitten, and his spoon with the Happy Clown's head on the handle. He
turned his face away determinedly and began to pine, reducing his
mother to tears and his father to frightened anger.

The doctor said cheerily, "There's nothing the matter with him. He'll
eat when he gets hungry enough," and Steven did, to a degree, but not
as if he enjoyed it.

One day when he was nearly a year old, his mother carried his Kiddie
Korner with the Dancing Dogsies on the pad into her bedroom, put him in
it, and began to take things out of the bottom bureau drawer. They were
old things, and Harriet Russell was ashamed of them. She had said more
than once to her husband Richard, only half joking, "I couldn't give
them away, and I'd be ashamed for anybody to see them in our trash!"
They were old silver, knives and forks and spoons that looked like what
they were, unadorned, and a child's plain silver dish and cup, and one
small spoon with a useful curly handle. They had belonged to Harriet's
great-grandmother. Once a year Harriet took the things out and polished
them and furtively put them back.

This year Steven cried, "Ma!" stretching out his hands toward the
silver and uttering a string of determined sounds which were perfectly
clear to his mother. She smiled at him lovingly but shook her head.
"No, Stevie. Mumsie's precious baby doesn't want those nasty old
things, no he doesn't! Play with your Happy Clown, sweetheart."

Steven's face got red, and he squeezed his eyes shut, opened his mouth
and howled until his mother passed him the dish and cup and curly
spoon to play with. At meal-time he would not be parted from them, and
Harriet had to put away the plastic dish and spoon. Thereafter, for the
sake of the container, he tolerated the thing contained, and thrived
and grew fat.

Steven did not like his Rockabye Crib, that joggled him gently and sang
him songs about the Happy Clown all night long; and he howled until
they turned it off. He was a clean boy, and to his mother's amazement
trained himself to be dry day and night by the age of fourteen months,
without the aid of the Singing Toidey or the Happy Clown Alarm; so she
bought him a Little Folks Youth Bed, with a built-in joggler, and Happy
Clowns on the corners, and a television set in the footboard. It was a
smaller copy of his parents' bed, even to the Happy Clowns. Steven did
not like that either, and if his parents persisted in turning the bed
on after he had learned to turn it off, he climbed out and slept on the
floor.

Harriet said worriedly to her husband, "I don't know what could be the
matter with him. Dickie, he's peculiar!"

Richard tried to comfort her. "Never mind, Harry, he'll outgrow it."

       *       *       *       *       *

Steven did not outgrow it. When he became too big for the curly spoon
and dish and cup he demanded a knife and fork and spoon from the bureau
drawer and ate his meals from the plainest dish he could find. He ate
them with his back stubbornly turned to the television set, away from
the morning cartoons and the noontime Kiddies' Lunch Club and the
evening Happy Clown.

The Happy Clown had been an American institution for thirty years. He
was on television for an hour every night at dinner time, with puppets
and movies and live singers and dancers and his own inimitable brand
of philosophy and humor. Everybody loved the Happy Clown. He had been
several different actors in thirty years, but his makeup never changed:
the beaming face drawn in vivid colors, the rotund body that shook when
he laughed like a bowlful of Jellsies, and the chuckling infectious
laugh. The Happy Clown was always so cheerful and folksy and sincere.
He believed passionately in all the products he instructed his viewers
to buy, and one was entirely certain that he used them all himself.

He gave one much more than advertising, though. Some of his nightly
gems of wisdom (he called them nuggets) were really wonderful; they
made one think. A favorite nugget, which people were always writing
in and asking him to repeat, went like this: "We're all alike inside,
folks, and we ought to be all alike outside." The Happy Clown's
viewers were not children and adults, they were kiddies and folks.

After the Happy Clown went off the air the happy kiddies went to bed,
to lie for a while looking at the Jolly Kitten and the Dancing Dogsie,
until, lulled by the joggler, they went gently to sleep. After that
came the cowboys and spacemen, carryovers for any happy kiddies with
insomnia. For really meaty programs one had to stay up past ten.
Then the spectaculars began, and the quiz shows, and the boxing and
wrestling.

Steven did not like the Happy Clown or the Jolly Kitten or the
Dancing Dogsie. Sometimes he began to grow interested in the cowboys
or spacemen, but when they stopped in the middle of an adventure to
talk about how they could not possibly rope the steers or shoot the
asteroids without a good breakfast of Cornsies and Choko-Milko, which
everybody ate, just everybody, Steven climbed out of bed and slept on
the floor.

Steven did not like the records or the talking books, and when he went
to kiddie-garden he viewed the televised lessons with a cold eye. For
some reason which he could not have explained, he wanted to learn to
read, but they would not teach him till he was seven, and so he taught
himself, from the letters on the jarsies. But then there was nothing
to read except the newspapers and the magazines, which he puzzled over
patiently, getting most of the words right after a while. The many
advertisements were easiest; they used pictures and the simplest of
language.

His parents thought it was very cunning of him to look at the printing
like that, so wisely, as if he could read it! He said once to Harriet,
"I can read it," but she said, "Oh, Stevie, you're teasing Mumsie!"
and looked so frightened at this fresh peculiarity that the child said
gravely, "Yes, teasing." He wished he had a silent book. He knew there
were such things, but there were none at home. There were few silent
books anywhere. There were none in kiddie-garden.

Steven was not happy in kiddie-garden. The enthusiasm the other kiddies
showed for the lessons appalled him. The kiddies themselves appalled
him. They joined so passionately in the group play, clutching each
other with their hot moist hands, panting and grinning into each
others' faces. They were always clutching and panting and grinning, in
large noisy groups, with large community smiles. They confused him; he
could not tell them apart. Steven retired to a corner and turned his
back, and when they clutched and panted and grinned at him he hit them.

The kiddie-garden monitor had to report of him to his unhappy parents
that he was uncooperative and anti-social. He would not merge with
the group, he would not acquire the proper attitudes for successful
community living, he would not adjust. Most shocking of all, when the
lesson about the birdsies and beesies was telecast, he not only refused
to participate in the ensuing period of group experimentation, but lost
color and disgraced himself by being sick in his corner. It was a
painful interview. At the end of it the monitor recommended the clinic.
Richard appreciated her delicacy. The clinic would be less expensive
than private psychiatry, and after all, the manager of a supermarket
was no millionaire.

Harriet said to Richard when they were alone, "Dickie, he isn't
outgrowing it, he's getting worse! What are we going to do?" It was a
special tragedy, since Harriet was unable to have any more kiddies, and
if this one turned out wrong ...

Richard said firmly, "We'll take him to the clinic. They'll know what
to do."

       *       *       *       *       *

The first thing they did to Steven was to talk to him. The psychiatrist
made him lie down on a foam rubber couch, kiddies' model, with the
Happy Clown motif on the slip-cover, and said with a beaming face,
"Now, Stevie, what seems to be the trouble?"

The boy turned his head away from the psychiatrist's shining teeth and
said, "My name's not Stevie. It's Steven." He was a thin little boy,
rather undersized. The baby fat had melted away fast when he began
to be exposed to kiddie-garden. He had dark hair and big eyes and an
uncommonly precise way of speaking for a child of five.

The psychiatrist said, "Oh, but we're going to be friends, Stevie,
and friends always use nicknames, don't they? My name's William, but
everybody calls me Willie. You can call me Uncle Willie."

The boy said politely, "I'd rather not, please."

The doctor was undismayed. "I want to help you. You believe that, don't
you, Stevie?"

The child said, "Steven. Do I have to lie down?"

The doctor said agreeably, "It's more usual to lie down, but you may
sit up if you want to. Why don't you like kiddie-garden, Steven?"

The boy sat up and regarded him warily. The doctor had a kind face, a
really kind face in spite of all those shining teeth, and Steven was
only five years old, after all, and there was nobody to talk to, and he
was desperately unhappy. Perhaps.... He said, "You'll tell them."

The doctor shook his head. "Nothing goes farther than this room,
Stevie--Steven."

The child leaned forward, pressing his knees together, hugging himself
with his arms, bowing his head. His position was almost foetal. He
said, "I'm never by myself. They never let me be by myself."

The psychiatrist said reasonably, "But nobody can live by himself,
Stevie." He had apparently forgotten Steven, and the boy did not
correct him again. "You have to learn to live with other people, to
work and play with them, to know them, and the only way you can learn
is by being with them. When you can't be with them personally, there's
always television. That's how you learn, Stevie. You can't be by
yourself."

The boy looked up and said starkly, "Never?"

The gleaming teeth showed. "But why should you want to?"

Steven said, "I don't know."

The doctor said, slowly and with emphasis, "Stevie, long before you
were born the world was a very bad place. There were wars all the time.
Do you know why?"

The boy shook his head.

"It was because people were different from each other, and didn't
understand each other, and didn't know each other. They had to learn
how to be alike, and understand, and know, so that they would be able
to live together. They learned in many ways, Stevie. One way was by
visiting each other--you've heard about the visitors who come from--"

Steven said, "You mean the Happy Tours."

"Yes. When you're twelve years old you can go on a Happy Tour. Won't
that be fun?"

Steven said, "If I could go alone."

The doctor looked at him sharply. "But you can't. Try to understand,
Stevie, you can't. Now tell me--why don't you like to be with other
people?"

Steven said, "All the time--not all the _time_."

The doctor repeated patiently, "Why?"

Steven looked at the doctor and said a very strange thing. "They touch
me." He seemed to shrink into himself. "Not just with their hands."

The doctor shook his head sadly. "Of course they do, that's just--well,
maybe you're too young to understand."

The interview went on for quite a while, and at the end of it Steven
was given a series of tests which took a week. The psychiatrist had
not told the truth; what the boy said, during the first interview and
all the tests, was fully recorded on concealed machines. The complete
transcript made a fat dossier in the office of the Clinic Director.

At the end of the tests the Director said seriously to Steven's
parents, "I'll be frank with you. You have a brilliant kiddie
here--right now he has the intelligence of a twelve-year-old--but
brilliance has to be channeled in the right direction. Just now--well,
frankly, it's channeled in the wrong direction. We'll give it a year or
so, and then if things don't clear up I'm afraid we'll have to correct
him."

Richard said through dry lips, "You mean a Steyner?"

The Director nodded. "The only thing."

Harriet shuddered and began to cry. "But there's never been anything
like that in our family! The disgrace--oh, Dickie, it would kill me!"

The Director said kindly, "There's no disgrace, Mrs. Russell.
That's a mistaken idea many people have. These things happen
occasionally--nobody knows why--and there's absolutely no disgrace in a
Steyner. Nothing is altered but the personality, and afterward you have
a happy normal kiddie who hardly remembers that anything was ever wrong
with him. Naturally nobody ever mentions it.... But there's no hurry;
in the case of a kiddie we can wait a while. Bring Stevie in once a
week; we'll try therapy first."

Being, as the Director had said, a brilliant kiddie, Steven soon
understood much of what was kept from him. It did not take him long
to learn what was making his Dadsie look stern and white and what was
making his Mumsie cry. He loved his parents and did not want them to be
unhappy, and he certainly did not want to have his head cut open, and
so he began to act. Even at five, Steven discovered in himself a fine
talent for acting. He began to conform, to adjust, to merge. He became
social and cooperative and acquired the proper attitudes for successful
community living. He gave up the old silver voluntarily, he accepted
the Youth Bed, he looked at the Happy Clown, and he did much better in
kiddie-garden. He even joined in the group experimentation and was not
sick any more, though he could not keep himself from losing color.

They were pleased with him at the clinic and after a few months
discharged him. By the time Steven was twelve and had made the Happy
Tour and joined the Happy Scouts and had a happy affair, involving
experimentation, with a neighbor's daughter, Harriet and Richard ceased
to worry about him. If sometimes he felt so tightly strung-up that a
storm of tears was his only relief, he kept the tears quiet.

       *       *       *       *       *

He was graduated from high school at sixteen and from college at
twenty, having read all he could of the silent books in the scant high
school library and the more ample university one, and having wisely
elected to appear more stupid than he was. Even his I.Q. was now
judged to be only slightly above normal. He left college with honors,
popularity and a reputation as an actor. He took the lead in all the
dramatic club plays, having particular success in the reproduction
of a Happy Clown program. Steven, of course, was the Happy Clown. He
enrolled at once in the New York School of Television Arts, and his
mother cried when he left home to live in the School dormitory.

Steven did well at Television Arts, soon taking more leads than was
customary in School productions, which were organized on a strictly
repertory basis. He did not stay to graduate, being snatched away in
his first year by a talent scout for a popular daytime serial, "The
Happy Life."

"The Happy Life" recounted the trials of a young physician, too
beautiful for his own good, who became involved in endless romantic
complications. Steven was given the lead, the preceding actor having
moved up to a job as understudy for the Jolly Kitten, and was an
immediate success. For one thing he looked the part. He was singularly
handsome in a lean dark-browed way and did not need flattering makeup
or special camera angles. He had a deep vibrant voice and perfect
timing. He could say, "Darling, this is tearing me to pieces!" with
precisely the right intonation, and let tears come into his magnificent
eyes, and make his jaw muscles jump appealingly, and hold the pose
easily for the five minutes between the ten-minute pitch for Marquis
cigarettes which constituted one episode of "The Happy Life." His fan
mail was prodigious.

If Steven had moments of bewilderment, of self-loathing, of despair,
when the tears were real and the jaw muscles jumped to keep the mouth
from screaming, no one in the Happy Young Men's dormitory where he
slept ever knew it.

He managed his life well enough. He had a few affairs with girls, it
was expected of one, and he did not have to work very hard at it since
they always threw themselves at him; and he got along well with other
young men, who forgave him for being so handsome because he did not
work at it except on camera; but he was lonely. Surrounded by people,
intruded and trespassed upon, continually touched in ways other than
physical, he was yet lonely.

       *       *       *       *       *

During his life he had met a few other nonconformists, shy, like him,
wary of revealing themselves, but something always seemed to happen
to them. Some were miserable being nonconformists and asked pitifully
for the Steyner, some were detected, as Steven had been, and some
were unfortunately surprised in hospitals. Under the anesthetic they
sometimes talked, and then, if they were adults, they were immediately
corrected by means of Steyner's lobotomy. It had been learned that
adults did not respond to therapy.

There was never any organization, any underground, of misfits. An
underground presupposes injustice to be fought, cruelty to be resisted,
and there was no injustice and no cruelty. The mass of people were
kind, and their leaders, duly and fairly elected, were kind. They
all sincerely believed in the gospel of efficiency and conformity
and kindness. It had made the world a wonderful place to live in,
full of wonderful things to make and buy and consume (all wonderfully
advertised), and if one were a misfit and the doctors found it out and
gave one a Steyner, it was only to make one happy, so that one could
appreciate what a wonderful world it was.

Steven met no nonconformists at the School of Television Arts, and none
while he was acting in "The Happy Life" until Denise Cottrell joined
the cast. Denise--called Denny, of course--was a pleasantly plain young
woman with a whimsical face which photographed pretty, and remarkable
dark blue eyes. It was her eyes which first made Steven wonder. They
mirrored his own hope, and longing, and the desperate loneliness of the
exile.

For two months they were together as often as they could be, talking
intellectual treason in public under cover of conventional faces,
and talking intellectual treason in private with excitement and
laughter and sometimes tears--falling in love. They planned, after
much discussion, to be married and to bring up a dozen clever rebel
children. Denise said soberly, "They'd better be clever, because
they'll have to learn to hide."

They made love in Denise's apartment when her roommate
Pauline--Polly--was out, as awkwardly as if there had never been any
group experimentation or happy affairs. Denise said wonderingly, "When
you really love someone it's all new. Isn't that strange?" and Steven
said, kissing her, "No, not strange at all."

He took her to meet his family--Denise's family lived three thousand
miles away--and she behaved with such perfect decorum and charm that
Richard and Harriet were delighted and as eager as Steven for the
wedding. Steven had agreed reluctantly to put it off until Denise
had a chance to introduce him to her parents; they were coming East
at Christmas. She laughed over it and said, "I'm being terribly
conventional, darling, but that's one convention I like."

       *       *       *       *       *

While they waited, Steven's agent secured a really unprecedented
opportunity for so young and relatively untried an actor. The current
Happy Clown was unhappily retiring, by reason of age and infirmity, and
Steven's agent arranged a tryout for the part. He said, "Give it all
you got, kid; it's the chance of the century."

Steven said, "Sure, Joey," and allowed his sensitive face to register
all the proper emotions. Actually his emotions were, in the vernacular
of a previous century, mixed. He loathed the whole concept of the Happy
Clown--but there was money in it, and Steven was not rebel enough to
despise money. With money he could retire early, go away somewhere with
Denise, to some country place where they could be relatively free of
pressure.

Over staggering competition he got the part. He called Denise up at
once from a booth at the studio to tell her. Polly answered the phone,
looking pale and frightened over the viewer, and said rapidly, "Oh,
Stevie, I've been trying to get you for an hour. Denny's sick. They
took her to the hospital!"

Steven sat back against the hard wall of the booth, feeling cold, the
receiver slack in his hand. He said, "What's the matter with her? Which
hospital?"

"Ap-pendicitis. Happy Hour." Polly began to cry. "Oh, Stevie, I feel
so--"

"I'll go right over." He cut her off abruptly and went.

The doctors caught Denise's appendix in time to avoid the necessary but
rarely fatal complications ... but under the anesthetic she talked,
revealing enough about her opinion of television, and the Happy Clown
cult, and the state of society in general, to cause her doctors to
raise their eyebrows pityingly and perform the Steyner at once. While
Steven sat unknowing in the waiting room, smoking a full pack of
Marquis cigarettes, the thing was done.

At last the doctor came out to him and said what was always said in
such cases. "It was necessary to do something--you understand, no
mention--" and for a moment Steven felt so ill that he was grateful
for the little ampoule the doctor broke and held under his nose. They
always carried those when they had to give news of a Steyner to
relatives or sweethearts or friends.

The doctor said, "All right now? Good .... You'll be careful, of
course. She may be conscious for a minute; there's no harm in it yet,
she won't move or touch the--"

Steven said, "I'll be careful."

He was still feeling ill when they let him in to see Denise. He sat
down beside her bed and spoke to her urgently. "Denise, talk to me.
Please, Denise!"

She opened her eyes, looked at him drowsily and smiled. "Oh, Stevie,
I'm so glad you came. I've been wanting you, darling."

Steven said, "Denise--"

She frowned. "Why do you call me that? Call me Denny. Did you get the
part, darling?"

He drew back a little. "Yes, I got it."

She gave him a radiant smile. "That's wonderful! I'm so proud of you,
Stevie." She slept again.

That night in the HYM dormitory Steven did not sleep. He lay quiet,
tense, hoping for the relief of tears, but it did not come.

       *       *       *       *       *

Steven went to see Denise every day though after the first time she
was not awake to know him. The doctors were keeping her under sedation
until the head bandage could be removed. So far as Denise was to
know, she had gone to the hospital simply for a rather protracted
appendectomy. Looking at her, Steven knew that he could never leave
her. He had loved her completely; he would love her now with as much of
himself as she would need or understand.

For a while he waited to be kindly questioned, to be thoroughly
examined, to be tenderly given the shot in the arm and to awake like
her, but nobody came. Denise had apparently said nothing about him.
Some censor or other--perhaps it was the censor of love--had kept her
from even saying his name.

For a while Steven considered confessing to somebody that he was
a--what?--an unacceptable member of society. Then they would make him
like Denise. He shuddered. Did he really want to be like Denise? Some
stubborn pride in him refused it.

When Denise left the hospital for the hotel where she would stay until
the wedding, Steven was more gentle with her than ever, kinder and
more loving. He made her very happy. He made love to her again, and it
was like loving a ghost--no, it was like loving a fine beautiful body
without the ghost, without the spirit. He returned to the HYM to lie
sleepless amid the breathings and mutterings of the other young men,
turning restlessly in his bed, feeling oppressed, tormented, strung on
wires.

He rehearsed feverishly for the part of the Happy Clown, and because he
was a fine craftsman and a conscientious artist he continued to give
it all he had. The sponsors were pleased. A week before Christmas the
current Happy Clown retired and hobbled off to a nursing home. There
was no fanfare--the public was not to realize that the Happy Clown was
mortal--and Steven took over with no visible change. For five days he
played the part to perfection.

On the sixth day he performed as usual, perhaps a little better. His
commercials had a special fervor, and the sponsors exchanged happy
glances. Denise was sitting in the booth with them; she smiled at
Steven lovingly through the glass.

Steven was running a little fast tonight. The engineer made stretching
motions with his hands to slow him down, but he used up all his
material, even the nugget, with three minutes to spare. Then he said,
"All right, folks, now I have a special treat for you," and moved
quickly to the center mike. Before the sponsors, or the engineers, or
the studio audience, or anybody in the whole American nation knew what
was happening, he began rapidly to talk.

He said, "Are you all happy? You are, aren't you?--everybody's happy,
because you're all sheep! All sheep, in a nice safe pasture. All
alike--you eat alike and dress alike and think alike. If any of you has
an original thought you'd better suppress it, or they'll cut it out of
you with a knife." He leaned forward and made a horrible face at the
camera. Under the jolly makeup and the artful padding, his mouth was
shockingly twisted, and tears were running out of his eyes. "A long
sharp knife, folks!" He paused momentarily to recover his voice, which
had begun to shake. "Go on being happy, go on being sheep. Wear the
clothesies, and eat the foodsies, and don't dare think! Me--I'd rather
be dead, and damned, and in hell!"

Fortunately nobody heard the last three sentences. The paralyzed
engineer had recovered in time to cut him off during the pause, and
had signalled the stagehand to draw the curtain and the sound man to
play the Happy Clown sign-off record--loud. Steven finished himself
thoroughly, however, by repeating the same sentiments, with some others
he happened to think of, to Denise and the sponsors, when they all came
pouring out of the booth. Then he collapsed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Steven's Steyner was a complete success. He recovered from it a
subdued, agreeable and thoroughly conventional young man, who had the
impression that he had suffered a nervous breakdown. He was discharged
from the Happy Hour at the end of January, innocently leaving behind
him the broken hearts of three nurses and one female physician, and
went home to his parents. During his convalescence they were patient
with him and passionately kind. In spite of the disgrace they felt, a
disgrace that would never be mentioned, they loved him even better than
before, because now he was irrevocably like them.

Denise was lost to him. The outburst in the studio, and the Steyner,
and the loss of the Happy Clown part were cumulatively too much for
her. She broke the engagement and was heard to say that Stevie Russell
had proved himself an absolute fool. He was miserable over it, though
he had only a hazy idea of what he had done or why Denny should
suddenly be so unkind to him.

The Happy Clown incident had passed off well--immediately after
it occurred, a powerful battery of comedians, including the Jolly
Kitten and the Dancing Dogsie, forgetting rivalries to rally 'round
in a crisis, went on the air to insure that it passed off well. They
made certain that every viewer should regard the whole thing as a
tremendously funny if rather mystifying joke. The viewers fell in with
this opinion easily and laughed about the sheep joke a good deal,
admiring the Happy Clown's sense of humor--a little sharp, to be sure,
not so folksy and down-to-earth as usual, but the Happy Clown could do
no wrong. They said to each other, "He laughed till he cried, did you
notice? So did I!" For a while teenagers addressed each other as, "Hi,
sheep!" (girls were, "Hi, lamb!"), and a novelty company in Des Moines
made a quick killing with scatter pins fashioned like sheep and/or
lambs.

But, around the studios Steven was dead. Steyner or no Steyner--and
of course that part of it was never openly discussed--sponsors had
long memories, and the consensus seemed to be that it was best to
let sleeping sheep lie. Steven did not care. He no longer had any
particular desire to be an actor.

Steven went to work in his father's supermarket and was happy among
the shelves of Oatsies and Cornsies and Jellsies. He got over Denise
after a while and met a girl named Frances--Franny--whom he loved and
who loved him. They were married in the summer and had a little house
with as much furniture in it as they could afford. The first thing they
bought was a television set. After all, as Stevie said, he would not
want to miss the Happy Clown.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Happy Clown" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.