The clown stood in front of the kids. They cheered they laughed. They smiled. The clown smiled back. The kids didn’t know the tears the clown cries at night. The kids didn’t know the frown stashed behind that big smile. They saw what anyone in the world sees. A happy man. Who is this man behind the paint? The fake nose. The wacky color hair. Who is this man?

Jerry was 25 and desperate for work. He had just been laid off from his job at the company he worked for. He was an expert in finances, but he didn’t have the years many years with the company like everyone else. He didn’t worry. He thought it would be easy to get another job. He had gotten this one easily and now he has experience to back his credentials. He was never worried. Eight months went by and there was nothing out there. He slowly began to loose hope along with his valuables that he had accumulated throughout the years. His car he had to sell to keep himself fed. He slowly sold his life away to keep his home, but it wasn’t enough to keep him afloat. The house was sold and that left him with nothing. He managed to convince his girlfriend to let him move in with her. One day he was coming home from the grocery store and he found his wife with another man in the room. He lost control of himself and grabbed a golf club and beat the man to near death. He was then sentenced to two years in prison. After his release he was forced to live on the street. No one would hire him with his criminal record and he could not find any form of shelter to sleep in, so he took to sleeping on the streets. He started begging for change, but no one would help him because they believed he would use the money for drugs. One day he tried to kill himself by jumping in front of a bus, but the bus driver swerved the bus into oncoming traffic to avoid him and hit another bus head on. Ten people died in the crash. He now held this over his head. He believed he was a murderer now too. He believed he had to do something to help people to make up for what he had done, but no hospital would let him volunteer. He was banned from volunteering from shelters because he had stolen from them in the past while he worked there to feed himself. He thought he was out of luck till he saw a sign for free clown lessons. He believed it would be a start to his cleansing to make people smile. He believed that if he could get enough people to smile he could forgive himself for what he had done wrong. He passes all the classes and taught himself new stuff all the time. He posted fliers around the city for free clown services for parties. 40 parties later and he started to charge money for his service. 100 parties later and he had forgotten the past. 200 parties later and he was a new man. He bought a home. Bought a car. Bought furniture. He felt alive again. He met a girl. He was back on track. I must warn you though there is no happy ending to this story. Jerry went in for his first physical in years and was checked out. The doctor noticed a rash on his back that he wanted inspected further. Upon numerous doctor visits it was diagnosed that Jerry had skin cancer. It was too far along to treat. Jerry was going to die. The final show of Jery’s career. He keeps his cool. He recollects his life. He realized that he had made no impact to this world in all the years of his life. No one would know he was gone. He felt it was for the best to stop wasting space. Jerry finished the show drove home and killed himself. He had finally finished the job he had started years ago.