and your little dog, too

He didn’t have much to say to us beyond the word “goodbye”. Unspoken volumes were there in his eyes, and hung between us like a lantern with a slowly dying bulb. The longer he waited and lingered uncomfortably in the driveway, the less it seemed that there was anything left to say.

No one moved to touch him, to give him some final physical contact before he left. No one really wanted to, it seemed. He was really no longer welcome, and it appeared that everyone knew it.

“I’m…” he started to say, but then Mary shook her head as if to tell him to just stop.

He turned then, and folded himself into his impossibly small car. His red rubber nose no longer appeared as comical as it had when he arrived. He made a sweeping motion toward his chest with his left hand, and his small dog, which we had all but forgotten, jumped into his lap.

He closed the car door then, and put the vehicle in reverse with a heavy sigh.

I am sure he was disappointed that my mother did not offer him a tip, but honestly he had been lucky to leave our house without a broken leg. Because no one in my family tolerates a clown who shits on the living room carpet.