Curing Jackson Blair: bp6

Sterling walked to his car with the weight of a previous life off his shoulders. He didn’t need to be a clown. He never made a promise to anybody. He wanted to just have fun in life, like everybody else; and clowning around wasn’t fun anymore. Sterling didn’t know what he wasn’t going to do with his life, but that was the point. He didn’t want to know. From now on, Sterling was going to stop bending life to his will and would instead just let life happen.

Sterling put his key into the car door when he realized that the air was not as cold as it was earlier that day. Somehow Sterling felt the night air was warmer, not that it was warm, though. Sterling stood by his car and looked around the parking lot. Nobody was in sight yet he could hear distant traffic and a helicopter over the downtown area. Sterling took out his key and walked to the back of his car and jumped up to sit on the truck of his car. By now the sun had gone down, but Sterling was still facing west, as if hoping the sun would briefly come back and do an encore sunset.

The make up on Sterling’s face was beginning to harden. And while the tightened skin didn’t feel particularly good, Sterling favorite part about wearing make up had always been washing it off. Especially after a lengthy performance or back-to-back shows, Sterling’s face would feel dirty, oily, flaky and aged. But every time, as soon as he splashed water on himself, Sterling felt cleaner than he had before putting the paint on his face in the first place. The make up wasn’t suffocating, but Sterling breathed best immediately after washing it off.

A northern wind reminded Sterling that it was October, he was outside and that the night was only going to get colder. Sterling wondered about what he should eat for dinner, his first meal as a free man. Not as a single man, or unemployed man—though Sterling was most certainly both—but as a man free from a destiny Sterling could see and no longer wanted.

If Sterling went back to his apartment, back to his school, he would graduate with good grades and get a part-time gig with Classy Clowns. However Classy Clowns would not have enough jobs to support Sterling, so he would have to take up a part time job as a barista at the Coffee Bean. Over the years Sterling would, somewhat unintentional, prove himself a good employee and be promoted to a shift manager position. Sometime in his thirties, Sterling would panic, ask for a month off and go around the country visiting old friends and family. Someone somewhere would teach him a lesson about life and he would go back to his old life a new man who cared about improving the coffee shop. As a clown, if Classy Clowns hadn’t gone under by then after an inevitable dip in the economy, Sterling would begin to rehash old birthday routines and start to suspect he was entertaining the children of children he once entertained.

No, I’m not going to let that happen, Sterling thought as he slid off his truck and into the driver’s seat. Sterling put the key into the ignition but froze once again. He didn’t know where to go. Sterling took his hands off the keys and the steering wheel and placed them in his lap. Sterling could feel a new coldness seeping into his car. His stomach growled.

It was at this point that Sterling started to cry.