Lyndon and ?
There is always the clown.
He comes whooping out of the stalls, carefully watching where he steps, and trades banter with the announcer.
"I kissed every girl who came here today!"
"Bet you ten dollars you didn't," says the announcer.
The clown pulls up his suspenders, struts around,
and takes on the bet.
Turning to the crowd, the announcer says, "Alright, every girl who didn't get kissed by this clown, raise your hand." And all the women and girls raise their hands. The clown turns slowly, grins, leaps over the fence, bounds up into the stands and starts kissing all the screaming, laughing girls.
An old man without teeth smiles and his wife leans her head on his shoulder. The field is again filling. Bareback riding. "I used to do that," says the old man, and a child screams with laughter as a cowboy is thrown to the ground.
The clown is clowning again. A little boy has hold of his hand through the fence and the clown is yelling, "Let me go, let me go. I gotta go." It sounds like authentic anger, and there is fear on the little boy's face as he lets go. The clown shoots backward and lands on his end in the dust. The crowd is laughing, forgetting for a moment the rider thundering past, and then the rider is thrown from the horse, caught in a stirrup, and the crowd screams. There is something common shared in the fear of the little boy, and the terror of a man dragged by a stirrup, and the frightened horse . . .
Story and Photos by Richard Louv
Someday
Out of the chute
A clown in the crowd
Caught in the stirrup