Mike loves kids very, very, very much, but he scares them. Yeah, I know, lots of kids are scared of clowns, and that scene in Poltergeist where the clown toy suddenly grows fangs and tries to strangle the little kid doesn't help one bit, but it's even worse for Mike. Mike was helping one of the visiting Chinese Acrob… Read more

Mike loves kids very, very, very much, but he scares them. Yeah, I know, lots of kids are scared of clowns, and that scene in Poltergeist where the clown toy suddenly grows fangs and tries to strangle the little kid doesn't help one bit, but it's even worse for Mike. Mike was helping one of the visiting Chinese Acrobat kids to get out of her harness one day. She was scared and started to cry: "Baigui! Baigui!" ("White ghost! White ghost!") Her mother explained to her that he was a man, just a man, and that his weird face was all makeup. She demanded that he take it off and show her that he was just a man. He did so, but he was using a new brand of spirit gum that day, and could not pull off his spectacular, pink, pickle shaped foam nose. She thought it was his real nose, and demanded to be sent back to China to keep from catching the "nose disease". Mike is omni-sexual, but frustrated. He would love a relationship with just about anyone, but the women are all hot for the trapezists and animal trainers and that cool guy that rides the motorcycle around and around inside the cage-ball, the concessionaires and carnies are temps and come and go with every city the circus visits, the only two gay men in the permanent troupe are already in love with each other, and the freaks tend to marry each other. So Mike spends a lot of time with the circus dogs. He romps with them, feeds them, runs them through practice sessions for the trainers, and sleeps with them. Once after a show a boy looked into his tent and saw Mike, naked except for his greasepaint and big lemon-yellow and purple tie, being luxuriously licked all over by a pile of the dogs. He was moaning. The child has withdrawn from his classmates and family, won't let anyone touch him for any reason, must be watched lest he starts pelting the neighbors' dogs with stones, and screams in terror at the sight of any clown. Once while Mike was watching the fire eater at the sideshow, he asked if he could try. The fire eater let him, but did not realize quite how flammable a clown can be. Mike' green nylon curls, greasepaint, foam nose, and latex ears all went up in a giant flash, PWHWAAH! The mysterious magician threw his cape over Mike and stifled the horrifying blaze before the flames could eat through his makeup, but the little girl who saw the event has not spoken a word ever since and simply sits and trembles. She grows more and more gaunt. The psychiatrists would give anything to know what happened to her at the circus that day, but they cannot reach into her mind and see the nightmares about the screaming clown on fire that she has every night now. Once Mike was working a local children's birthday party for extra money. He had the kids play follow the leader with him. One by one they jumped over the open drainage tube after him, except for the last girl, who fell in. The tube narrowed as it went down, and she lodged in the pipe with one arm over her head and one crushed at her side. She spent seven pain wracked hours in the tube, crying for her mother as the firemen chiseled slowly down toward her. The dust damaged her lungs, and in the process of chiseling around her, a chunk of cement caved in and broke her back. Now she is an invalid who seems to only take joy in murmuring endless, ranting stories into a tape recorder all of which feature clowns meeting violent deaths. Nope. Children don't like Mike one iota. Most of the circus folks think that Mike should go back to school and finish his MBA.