An arm was thrown about twenty feet, and his leg about fourteen. Crushed skull, chest caved in, blood all  over the field.

Eddie  found him.  The tractor had run out of gas in a patch of corn.  He picked up the body and carried it out to the barn. Laid it out on a table they used  to store  things on like photo albums, old bicycle parts, candles, Coleman lanterns. The high school senior knocked all of it off with one swoop of his arm. That’s where Billy rested for a short time. Eventually, mom and the kids  gathered around him to lift his spirit up to the sky.

But William Sr. wasn’t there. The mother tried to track him down. Tell him about his oldest son. But the old man laid in an alley downtown  four sheets to the wind. It wasn’t till Billy was cremated that he found out. Then, the yelling started.

Why didn’t you tell me? He asked mom. You  could’ve told me. There was a bottle of cheap vodka in his hand. Half of it was gone.

I looked everywhere for you. I called all the bars. Tried looking up a few names of women in the phone book but got too nervous. What was I gonna say. I’m the wife of the man you’re screwing? Dad turned around and walked out the door. They never saw him again.

Where’s dad going? John asked.

Off to join the circus, mom said.

What’s he going to be?

A clown. He’s always been a clown.

Will I see him again? The blue-eyed short boy asked.

Hard to say. He likes trapeze artists. She laughed. Hard to say.