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3 Prologue: Rusty I’m a clown. And I don’t mean that in the sense of being a fool ei­ ther— al­ though I’ve been that too. I mean, I’m an ac­ tual clown—as in I wear face paint (an ex­ ag­ ger­ ated frown, of ­ course), a big red nose, bal­ loon pants, and giant ­ orange shoes. I jug­ gle; I fall; I’m a fool for hire now in­ stead of just doing it pro bono. I’m not so dif­ fer­ ent from any other clown ex­ cept for my pros­ thetic leg, which I use to great ef­ fect. I’ve got my clown pants put to­ gether in such a way that I can knock it out from under me. Then I’m able to use it as a prop: put­ ting it back on up­ side down, or car­ ry­ ing it ­ around under my arm while I hop about; I shake it at chil­ dren; toss it some­ times into the au­ di­ ence if the kids are old­ enough to catch. They ei­ ther howl with laugh­ ter or are re­ duced to utter si­ lence. The two most im­ por­ tant ­ things in the world right there in the same place. Im­ a­ gine that. They call me Rusty. And I don’t speak. Ever. So I guess you could say I’m a mime too. ­ That’s on ac­ count of Jimmy, who al­ ways told me I ­ talked too much, and Eu­ gene, who­ showed me how not to. The hard­ est part is not sing­ ing, of ­ course. But I do hum and laugh and groan and make all the an­ i­ mal ­ noises. I be­ came a clown for the usual rea­ sons—be­ cause ­ things ­ didn’t work out. On a grand scale. ­ That’s the cli­ ché of clown sto­ ries, I know. Yet I 4­ didn’t go bank­ rupt or lose my fam­ ily in a tor­ nado or any­ thing like that. I just lost Jimmy, which ­ amounted to the same thing, and then some. Be­ cause it was like a tor­ nado, the way it came, leav­ ing noth­ ing be­ hind but dust and rui­ na­ tion—and ­ Jimmy’s voice as he ­ grabbed hard ahold of my wrist with what ­ strength he had left, his big hol­ low dark eyes look­ ing at me: “Don’t for­ get to take me back the way I came, Sea­ mus . . .­ road’s the place for lost souls.” The ques­ tion that was my face. “Prom­ ise?” I nod­ ded. Then I ­ kissed him on the fore­ head and sat hold­ ing his hand, lis­ ten­ ing to the ­ rhythm of his breath­ ing—and hum­ ming along with it—as he made his way to­ ward sleep. Jimmy was a song, see? And the ­ song’s over. Let me tell you the story. You read and I’ll hum. ...

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