Hobo Kin

    I first experienced this talent of his as we walked around the city in what I assumed to be a wild goose chase. Codsfellow talked on and on about the man we were searching for, this man who could supposedly give us a ride to his hometown. By the way he spoke, I was on the lookout for a nobleman in a limousine or a Prince on a carriage.

    "Dr. William W. Wearily III," Codsfellow told me. "Co-founder of the Clowntown University and architect of World's very first Theory of Humor. Fascinating fellow, that one. Quite the globetrotter. He's seen more exotic lands than any other Clown I know of. There's a bust of him in town hall, and my favorite park bench has his name on it. If you can temper your excitement when we meet him, I just might be able to steal you an autograph."

    And this was all true. In case you didn't know, or just refuse to believe it, there is an actual college built by Clowns, right on the edge of Clowntown, one that's devoted entirely to the scientific and philosophical study of humor. It was founded by two friends—one of them went on to become the first Clownish Elite, and the other, this William, went on to become the first chancellor of Clowntown University. He built the school on the foundation of his Superiority Theory of Humor, the first working hypothesis about why it is we laugh. It brought a lot of attention to the school, and it made him one of the most revered and well-known Clowns of the time.

    Codsfellow and I had been wandering around Northend for maybe twenty minutes, and right when I was on the verge of demanding we go back to the apartment, we found our guy down an alley in Uppertown...rooting through a garbage can with a broom.

    "Doctor?" Codsfellow asked. 

    The man stopped moving, then he slowly turned his head to look at us. At first I thought he might be a casteless person, but when I saw his face I was surprised to see that the man looked distinctly Clownish, even under all the wrinkles. His nose was red and swollen, and his skin was ghastly pale, especially around the eyes and mouth. Like Codsfellow, he wore makeup to "hide" the fact that he had no eyebrows—except where Cods's penciling was dark and sharp, this man's was smudgy and faded. He had a grubby stubble smeared across his cheeks and neck, and his baggy clothes were in filthy tatters. Wisps of white hair sprouted from under his scuffed bowler, and he moved like a geriatric.

    He squinted at us and grumbled. He was frowning so hard, his face was running out of room. Just looking at him made me want to put the guy out his misery.

    "Doctor Wearily! Oh it is you! Good to see you again, old bean! How well you're looking!" Codsfellow dropped his suitcase and grabbed the dirty man in a firm handshake, patting him on the shoulder, small plumes of dust rising with each pat. "Have you lost weight, or are those just larger clothes?" And then Codsfellow laughed at his theoretically polite joke.

    The man inspected Codsfellow closer, and then it appeared that recognition finally came to him. He rubbed his hand across his nose then rubbed that same hand into his eyes. His mouth opened, but he was speechless.

    "We were in the neighborhood and just thought we'd stop by," Codsfellow said. "Perhaps even request a favor, if you would be so obliged."

    The man noticed me and leaned to the side so he could see me better. I didn't feel like waving or introducing myself, so I just sucked in the corners of my mouth in a half-hearted smile. The guy looked more confused and concerned than ever, and he returned to looking at Codsfellow. And then, as he took in the sight of Cods's smiling face, the man's own face instantly scrunched into what looked like intense sorrow. His eyes teared up, and his voice cracked. He wailed like a baby and embraced Codsfellow in a passionate hug.

    "Hoomph!" said Cods, patting the poor man on the back. "It's good to see you too, William! Quite the full-bodied handshake you've developed!" 

    The "doctor" unlocked from the embrace and ran his slimy sleeve across his slimy nose. Codsfellow pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and gave it to the man. The guy honked his nose into it, then kept the handkerchief without asking, which didn't seem to bother Codsfellow at all for some reason.

    "Now, I'm just going to cut straight to the chase, Doctor," he said. "You see, we are in dire need of a boon. We're late for a dinner in Clowntown, and we were hoping you might provide us with a lift."

    Codsfellow produced another hankie from the same pocket and gave it the guy to blow his nose with again, and once the man did, he again kept it. After all that honking and blabbering, he did seem better though, and he stroked his scratchy chin with one of his fingerless gloves, then looked over at me again. He nodded to me curiously.

    "Ah! Yes, how forgetful of me," said Cods. "This is my son, Sebastian."

    I waved. "Hey," I said. "I'm not his son. And my name's not Sebastian."

    The man blinked and nodded. He thought it over for a few seconds, then tipped his hat back and gestured for us to follow. Then he walked over to a large dumpster, lifted open the lid, and climbed in. 

    Codsfellow picked up his suitcase and climbed in without even considering not to. "You heard the man," he said to me. "Let's skedaddle. Best we not be any tardier than we already are." And he held out his hand for me to join him.

    I hesitated, but I was also curious. Yeah, I know how ridiculous it sounds, and of course I was skeptical...but I have to admit I was also a little...hopeful. Something about this felt too weird to be wrong, too stupid to be a joke. So I tossed up my backpack to Codsfellow, then I grabbed his wrist and let him pull me up and in. I dropped to the bottom, and he closed the lid behind us. Once inside the dumpster, I was shocked by what I saw all around me.

    The inside of a dumpster.

WILLIAM LIT SOME NEWSPAPERS on fire and dropped them into an empty coffee can to give us some light. The dumpster was mostly empty, thankfully, except for a few bags that William used as a seat. Codsfellow sat on his suitcase, and I stood next him, mad at myself.

    "What are we doing in here?" I whispered.

    "William here has agreed to give us a ride. We should be there shortly."

    The man was patting around his pockets frantically. He was grumbling and mumbling, and then he froze in relief. He pulled his hand out from his coat pocket and triumphantly dangled between his fingers...nothing. He then acted as if he were inserting an invisible key into the side of the dumpster. Then, still holding the "key," he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

    He turned the key, then made his own ignition sounds, pumping his foot against a pretend accelerator. From the way he was grumbling, things didn't sound too good. "...raggin, fraggin...WAW-WAW-WAW-WAW-WAW! ...nergud..."

    I looked at Cods for some clarity, but he gave me none. He was pleasantly removing trash particles from his shirt.

    "Hey," I whispered. "What's he doing?"

    "Who?"

    "What do you mean 'who'? Him! Your garbage friend."

    "Mm? Oh, I wish I could tell you. I never was much of a mechanic."

    "This-is-a-DUMP-ster, not a go-kart! What is he ACTUALLY doing?"

    Codsfellow looked at me as if I was the crazy one. "Certainly you've heard of hobo magic, child? Has no one ever educated you on that?" Then he drew in a tiny gasp. "Don't tell me you don't believe in it."

    "On the list of things that I believe in," I said, pretending to unravel a tall scroll between my hands, " 'HOBO MAGIC' is waaaaay down here at the bottom, just beneath 'flower power' and 'school spirit.' If you expect—"

    "—AW-WAW-WAW-VROOM-VROOOOM!"

    William clapped his hands together in prayer, and he murmered something that sounded like a thank you to the dumpster lid. "Shulick, cluck-click," he said, and he feigned pulling the gearshift down into drive, then he babbled his lips like an exhaust pipe, babbling harder as we increased "speed." The dumpster remained motionless.

    "This is the guy you were telling me about? The one who started his own college?" I asked.

    "The one and only," Codsfellow said proudly, then he leaned in close to me, grinning. "Do you think your classmates will believe that you actually rode in the same dumpster as Dr. William W. Wearily III?"    

    I re-examined the man. He had both hands on the "steering wheel" and was babbling steadily, occasionally giving a rude gesture to one of the dumpster walls. "Yeah," I responded. "They wouldn't take much convincing."

    "William!" Codsfellow said. "Why don't you impress upon us the basics of your Superiority Theory. My young friend here has never—"

    "Shh!" William threw up a hand to silence us, then he flicked down his blinker. It looked and sounded like he was concentrating on merging. "BuuuuUUUUUUBAduuuuUUUUDAbuuuuu..."

    "That's it," I said, grabbing a nearby box and placing it down like a step stool. "I'm heading back to the apartment. I'll see you when I see you Clown. And, Billy—no offense, but you're batspit cra—wwWHAAAA!"

    When I opened up the lid of the dumpster, my hair blew around as if there was a tornado outside. I peeked out through my squinted eyes and saw an endless, three-dimensional ocean of purple lightning and garbage. Flying dumpsters whooshed past, one of them nearly clipping our lid as it zoomed over.

    "Sebastian," Codsfellow said up to me in a loud whisper. He was shaking his head and frowning, drawing his flattened fingers across his throat in an I-wouldn't-if-I-were-you signal.  "Not while Dr. Waiverly has the air conditioner running, you understand."

    I fell off the box, and the lid clapped shut. I scooted backwards against a wall, terrified. "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod," I was saying. "Hobomagic'sreal, hobomagic'sreal!" My shaking hands scoured my pockets searching for my cigarettes.

    Our driver coughed hard, and then he actually spoke: "Welp, now that the cruise control's on," he said in a voice that was rough and phlegmy. It sounded like he was on the trembling verge of tears. "Did I hear one of you fellas ask about my theory?"

FOR SUCH A SPIRITLESS MAN, I wouldn't have guessed William could be passionate about anything—really, he didn't even seem to be all that passionate for continuing to breathe—but it turns out that there was one thing that brought a sparkle to his tired eye, and that thing was humor. That's not to say that he liked to be humorous, though—he just liked to talk about humor. What the word meant, how do we identify it, what's its purpose. All of those things I was talking about way at the beginning of this.

    "I spent the best years of my life trying to make others see how important humor is," he said, staring off through what I can only assume was the windshield. "And once I finally convinced'm, once I finally made'm see it how I see it, I found myself having to convince'm how important I was. No matter what I did, they laughed at me. They laughed at me before, and they laughed at me after." Codsfellow chuckled at that.

    "Hey kid," he said to me, and I think he was somehow looking at me through the rearview mirror. "Why do you think it is we laugh?"

    "...what do you mean?"

    "So we frown when we're sad, right? And we smile when we're happy...so what are we when we're laughing?"

    I found a cigarette in a wadded up box in the bottom of my backpack. I tried to press it back together, then I stuck it in my mouth and held it in place with my tongue. "I don't know," I said. "We're just...more happy, I guess? Sorry, but I don't really do roadtrip games."

    The man turned around slowly and stared at me with grim hopelessness. "I know," he said. "I know what it is." Then he crept his face back around to the front and flipped down his blinker.

    The dumpster grew quiet. I could almost hear the asphalt under our tires, the clicking of our turn signal. William's question hung in the air, What are we when we're laughing?, and I thought about it a little harder. Codsfellow was looking off to the side, and I wonder if he could see some vast landscape rolling by.

    "...so?" I eventually asked. "What is it? What's going on when we laugh?"

    The man seemed reluctant to answer, even after all that buildup. He scratched behind one of his ears, then he asked: "When's the last time you've laughed, kid?"

    I shrugged and searched around my pockets and my backpack trying to find my lighter. "I dunno. It's been awhile since I've seen anything funny. Except this of course. Riding around in a magic garbage can with a couple of literal Clowns...that's about as funny as it gets, I think."

    "But you ain't laughing. If this is so funny, why ain't you laughing then?" William leaned forward, then pressed something into the wall. After holding it there for a few seconds, he pulled it back out and handed it backwards to me. "Careful. It's hot."

    He wasn't holding anything, of course, but I took it anyway and held it up the end of my cigarette and puffed. Nothing happened, and I felt so stupid for even trying...but I still tossed the imaginary thing away over my shoulder instead of just stopping to pretend. Codsfellow hissed in pain, then grabbed around the floor and handed the lighter back to William once he found it.

    "How old are you, kid?" asked William. "Eleven? Twelve?"

    "Twelve."

    "So you're familiar with the playground then?"

    My eyes narrowed. I had flashbacks to the schoolyard. I could almost hear the screaming and feel the Indian rug burns. "I've heard of it."

    "Next time you're there, take a look around. Everything you need to know about humor is right there. Children being pushed off of monkey bars. Pigtails getting pulled. Faces being made fun of. All done with laughter."

    William took one hand off the "steering wheel" and turned around completely in his seat. "Can you guess why it is we laugh, son? Why the ones laughing are always standing above those crying? Why every laugh points a finger? Why laughter surrounds and suffocates those who are alone? Why it attaches itself to the miserable and the pathetic?" His saggy eyes looked right into mine, blinking as slow as he breathed. His face was darkening and twitching, as if he was holding down some acidic cough. I was overcome with discomfort.

    "Don't tell anybody I said this," I did indeed say, "but maybe you should keep your eyes on the—"

    "We LAUGH," he bellowed, his face trembling, "because we love to be CRUEL. We love the feeling of knowing we are better than others. We love expressing that feeling, and we love showing it off. Whenever we laugh, we are becoming better than something else, and we love that! Wanna know why you're not laughing now, even though you'll be hooting and hollering about it with your friends soon as you get out of here? Because when you're with your friends, you're better than us—but right now you are us, and there ain't much funny about that. Oh, I know! I know...people laugh at me now, but it's true! Don't ever let them try to tell you that laughter is all hopscotch and ticklefights. There is ALWAYS something getting put dow—"

    "William!" Codsfellow said. "Look out for that—"

    William spun forward and slammed his foot against the floor. Codsfellow flung his arm across my chest. William's body flew against the front wall, and Codsfellow somersaulted into his back. They both groaned for a minute, crumpled together on the dumpster floor.

    "S-Sebastian!" yelped Cods, once he regained his bearings. "Where are you, child?"

    "Still over here. Still not Sebastian."

    "Are you hurt?"

    "Nope."

    "Oh, thank Doug!" Codsfellow leaned himself up and grabbed William by the armpit. "How about you, William? You unscathed?"

    "...still alive."

    "Splendid! Oh what reflexes you had there, old sport. I say, that bindlebat appeared out of nowhere!"

    William crept himself back into his seat. He looked at me in shame. "Sorry, fellas. I'm done driving. This is as close as I want to come anyway. We're here." He pushed the stick into park, then he stood up and pushed back the dumpster lid. Sunlight and fresh air spread throughout the space. Codsfellow stood up and stepped out, then he offered me his hand to pull on. With William's help, I scaled the dumpster wall and jumped over. Outside, there was no longer a dirty alley, but instead an empty parking lot behind a train station.

    "Thanks for lift, old bean! This is plenty close," said Codsfellow, lifting his hat. "Look me up next time you're in West Townville. There's this Turkish deli I know of that has some of the most delectable leftover Naan you've ever tasted, and if you go at just the right hour, it'll still be as warm and as fresh as when they first served it."

    "Sure thing, Arthur. Give your mother my love, and tell your father I'll see him in hell."

    "I will! She'll be glad to hear how well you're doing. Alright, come on, child. Let's see if we can catch ourselves a train."

    Before I could say goodbye or thank you, William lowered  himself back into the dumpster and closed the lid. I wanted to peek inside to see if he was still there, but the dumpster was too tall, and I didn't know what it mattered anyway. So I hitched up my backpack onto my shoulders and followed Cods into his hometown.

WHAT DO YOU IMAGINE a town full of Clowns might look like? Suburbs made out of circus tents? Rainbow-colored idiots cartwheeling down the sidewalks? Parades and marching bands strolling down every street? Don't be ashamed if that's what you imagine—you're not that different from most, and you're not that different from me when I first visited Clowntown. I expected chaotic insanity, when really it was more like...heavily controlled insanity.

    We started off in what I assumed was downtown—crosswalks, window displays, buses, lofts, things like that—and if it wasn't for a few small things, it would almost pass as any other downtown in any town not run by Clowns. The buildings were well-taken care of and freshly painted...but almost too well taken care of, and too freshly painted. There wasn't a shred of litter to be found, all the plants in the window boxes and urns were so green and shiny that they might as well have been fake, and the buildings were so colorful I had an urge to adjust the settings on the TV. 

    But the strangest thing about the town was the inhabitants themselves. Yes, they were Clowns—colorful, poofy hair, white skin, red noses, blank stares—but what made them so weird was not that they were Clownish, but that they all seemed to be trying their hardest to be un-Clownish. When we were in downtown, I saw Clownmen dressed like Barbers, even going so far as to wear fake, curly mustaches, and I saw Clownladies acting like Bakers, with their white toques and aprons and flour-covered cheeks. None of them seemed to be particularly skilled at whatever caste they were trying to imitate (the ceilings in the bakeries had been stained black with smoke, and the tile floors of the barbershops were more pink than pearl), but they were all trying to be something...normal all the same.

    Codsfellow fit right in here...almost. He certainly didn't stick out as much here as he did back in Westie—but still, the residents here didn't treat him much differently than the ones back in the city. They stared at him as he walked by. They stayed quiet when he greeted them. They stepped into the street so as to not share the same sidewalk. And, just like in the city, Codsfellow didn't seem to notice or mind at all. "It's good to be back," he told me after a cafe owner flipped her sign from OPEN to CLOSED when she saw us approach. "Shoot," he said at that. "Always a minute late and a penny short."

    Once we departed from the downtown area, we entered a suburb, which, like the rest of the town, was vibrant and pristine. It smelled like fresh cut grass and gasoline, and the birds chirped and sang like a well-practiced choir. When Codsfellow saw someone mowing their grass or pulling weeds in their garden, he would lift his hat to them, and they would stop and stare and do nothing more.

    "Are we there yet?" I complained once we walked out of the suburbs. We were in a park now, climbing up hills and strolling down windy paths. I had thrown out my school books almost as soon as I first saw a trash can, but my puny, smoke-ridden lungs still did not approve of all the exercise.

    "Nearly," Codsfellow said. He was starting to sweat, and the perspiration was gathering around the neck of his shirt. He had loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves about a mile back. "Just a little further now."

    Nearly. That's all I had been hearing since we left the dumpster. I wasn't convinced that he knew where he was going, or if he was even from here. Even though he acted like he knew everyone, making sure to tell me the life story of each person we saw, no one acted like they knew him. He did the same thing back in the city, but at least back there the people had the guts to tell him to his face that they had no idea who he was. Here they just...stared.

    "Phew!" he said and stopped walking. "Let's take a breather, shall we? Give our dogs a chance to catch up." There was a nearby bench under a sycamore, and we went over to it and sat down. As much as I wanted this walk to be over, I was grateful for the seat and the shade. Codsfellow dug into his pocket and pulled out a package of peanut-butter crackers. He took one for himself, then handed me another. I took it without saying thank you.

    "Can you just call someone to pick us up?" I begged, spraying crumbs as I talked. It had been a long day, and I didn't know how many more nearlys I could handle.

    "No, I'd rather not disturb anyone," Codsfellow said, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a handkerchief. "It's bad manners to call during the hours of dinnertime, wouldn't you agree?"

    I groaned and yanked on my hair. "I'll do it then! We passed a payphone not too long ago. I can just use that. Who should I call? Your parents? How about siblings, you have any of them?"

    "I am afraid my family doesn't believe in phone numbers," he said. "Bit old fashioned that way."

    " 'Old fashioned'? " I nearly scoffed up my crackers. "At what point in history—between now and the invention of the telephone—did anyone not 'believe' in the existence or usefulness of phone numbers?"

    Codsfellow adjusted his legs and moved the food around in his mouth thoughtfully. "Do you have a phone number?"

    "Well, no, but...that's 'cause I don't own a phone."

    "Fair enough. How many phone numbers do you know, then?"

    "Well, none...but who needs to memorize phone numbers any more? C'mon..."

    Cods smiled and pointed at me. "I believe that you and my parents will get along swimmingly!" Then he looked struck by an idea, and he held up a finger as if to say, One moment.

    He pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and scooted closer to me. When he opened it up, an accordion of pictures unfolded all the way to the bench seat. Every photograph was nearly the same.

    "What the muck?" I snatched the wallet from his hands and looked closer. "When did you take all these pictures of me sleeping?!"

    Codsfellow chuckled. "On your first night in my home. You were so cute at that age. Oh how quickly you've grown!"

    "I've only known you for, like, two weeks, man!" 

    He nodded and smiled as if he completely understood why I was troubled so much—which he obviously did not, because if he did, he would have kept those pictures in a safe, not his pants. "Here," he said, and he retrieved the wallet and folded all the pictures back into the middle, then he pulled out a different photo, a larger one that was stashed in one of the coin pockets. "Take a look-see at this."

     He handed over a ragged, sepia-tinted photograph of five Clowns staring into the camera, all of them appearing shocked and confused. Codsfellow pointed to the two adults standing in the back of the group. "There's Mother and Father," he said, then he lowered his finger to the three Clownish children in the front, moving from shortest to tallest. "And there's my younger brother C.J....my sister Genevieve...and then Yours Truly, right over here." He handed me the picture so I could look it over more, and he leaned back with a proud look on his face. "Yes. It will do my heart good to see everyone again."

    The father in the picture looked more like Codsfellow than the boy who would eventually become him. The man had the tired face and the wrinkled brow that was present even when Codsfellow smiled. The boy in the photograph looked so fresh and so happy, even in the bewildered state that the cameraman seemed to have caught them in—the flash even made his eyes sparkle.

    And then something occurred to me. "That Farmer guy said it's been years since the buses came out this way," I said, tossing the photograph into Cods's lap. "So how long has it been since you last saw'm?" It was an odd thing for me to ask, something that was actually courteous and curious, but I was tired and not feeling myself.

    Codsfellow's smile faded, but it never left his face. "Genevieve visited me for my birthday last year. But my parents...well, let's just say that it's been some time since I've last seen them." I wanted to question him further, but he suddenly looked so tired that I thought against it.

    After a minute of peaceful silence, Codsfellow slapped his knee and stood up. "Welp! I feel refreshed! Off we go, if we hope for there to be any food left!" He didn't even wait for me. He just grabbed his suitcase and started walking. 

    I groaned and slid off the bench. When I turned around to grab my backpack from the seat, I noticed a piece of metal that had been riveted to the back of the bench. "In Honor of William W. Wearily III," it said. "May His Contribution to Comedy and Clowns, No Matter How Misguided, Never Be Forgotten."

    I stared at it for some time before Codsfellow yelled back: "Come now, child! No time for dilly dally!" And I hitched up my empty backpack and continued down the path.

    THE SUN WAS FATTENING and beginning its descent when we reached our destination. The end of the park was lined with a black, wrought-iron fence that had been taken over by ivy. Codsfellow walked alongside it until he found a gate, and he creaked it open, and we walked inside.

    It was a cemetery, quite lovely, quite clean, and I had figured that it was just another detour on this endless journey we were on. But we walked deeper into the graveyard until we came to a big willow by a pond. Codsfellow ducked underneath the branches that hung like flowery ribbons, and I followed him in. Underneath the canopy of this tree were two gravestones, side by side: CEDRIC CORNELIUS CODSFELLOW, 1946—2010 and GLORIA VANDERPLOP CODSFELLOW, 1948—2011.

    "Mother! Father!" Codsfellow said, putting down his suitcase and removing his hat. "How well you both look!" And after a few seconds of confusion, I grew nauseous with clarity and fatigue.