Whiskey Canvas

[Warning: Substance Abuse, Language, Suicide, Physical Violence]

Face-down in Goliath’s elephant pen, Gus Harper was a masterpiece of ruin—sprawled amid piles of feces, clown suit faded, one shoe dangling. His orange wig clung, torn. The pen’s rusted metal poles framed him, a grotesque portrait in dirt and despair, as if the circus itself had vomited him out.

“Hey! Get up, drunk! Clown car’s in twenty minutes!” Benny Walsh’s voice cracked from above, his lean frame perched on the fence. Another clown, makeup smudged but dignified, Benny eyed Gus with weary disgust, a man who’d seen this wreck before.

Gus stirred, face peeling from the ground with a wet schlop. Dung—or mud, he hoped—smeared his stubbled jaw, a brown streak across bloodshot eyes. He squinted at Benny, snarling, “Paint me a hero, why don’t ya? World needs more—burp—shit-faced saviors.”

Benny snorted, kicking dirt. “Yeah, whatever, Picasso. But you ain’t cramming in that car smelling like Goliath’s ass!” He stomped off, clown shoes squeaking.

Gus rocked to his knees, swaying like a punch-drunk boxer. He wiped his pants, sniffed the streak, and shrugged—good enough. Wobbling to the trough, he dunked his face in murky water, muck smearing like grotesque paint. The circus, a sagging sprawl of patched tents and splintered wagons, groaned in 1940s rural nowhere.

Fumbling for a cigar, Gus froze—no Zippo. “Lila’s lighter—where’s it at?” he muttered, spotting its pink glint in the dirt. He snatched it, its cold weight heavy in his palm. A memory flared: Lila, a week ago, puffing a cigarette beside him, leotard shimmering under tent lights, flicked the Zippo to him. “You can keep it,” she said, voice hollow, like an echo in an empty tent. “Why? You quittin’ smokin’?” he asked, his heart doing a clumsy flip. “Something like that,” she said, eyes drifting.

The Zippo’s click jolted him back; he lit the cigar, puffing smoke like a dragon with a death wish. His fingers brushed a small oil portrait in his pocket, folded to the size of a playing card, its backside scuffed gray, creased from years of clutching—his mother’s face. He tucked the Zippo beside it, muttering, “Time to paint this damn clown mask again” He lurched up, flipped over the fence—a drunken tumble, not a vault—landing in dust. Cigar clamped in his teeth, he stumbled toward the clown tent, trailing smoke as faded banners flapped like sarcastic applause. If his life were a canvas, today’s first stroke was shit. Fitting.

c C C c

The tent reeked of greasepaint and despair, a stage for Gus Harper’s next flop. After smearing on his clown mask to blend with ten other fools, he shoved into the clown car, a rusted Model T splashed with garish stars. His polka-dotted bulk wedged against Benny Walsh’s backside, Gus growled, “Life’s my canvas, and it stinks,” his breath sour with last night’s whiskey. A hiccup jolted him, earning a glare. The car lurched into the main tent, springs creaking like a dying accordion, spitting clowns into the arena’s sawdust chaos.

They tumbled out, a riot of balloons, honking horns, and stuffed animals flung at a half-bored crowd. Gus plastered on a fake grin, flapping his hands like a giant flower at kids near the stage, then stumbled aside. As the tiger act roared in—three snarling beasts, claws glinting—he reached into his jacket for his lighter, itching for a smoke. His fingers froze. No portrait. His heart bucked like a spooked horse. There, in the sawdust, lay the folded gray treasure, his mother’s face, inches from a tiger’s paw.

“That’s mine!” Gus slurred, panic spiking. “Pa painted it—left us in ’07. Only thing I've got since TB took her!” Benny sighed, turning away. “Heard it, Gus.” Clowns, sick of Gus’s tired tale, drifted off, honks fading. Gus froze, clutching the Zippo, a tiger’s paw scratching the portrait’s edge, his coward’s heart thumping.

Only when the last tiger was guided out and it was safe did Gus bolt, tripping over floppy shoes, rolling through sawdust with a grunt. The audience roared, mistaking panic for comedy. Gus snatched the portrait, its new scratch a jagged scar under his fingers, and clutched it to his chest, gasping, “My only clean sketch.” Jeers drowned his whisper, each tumble smearing sawdust on his clown mask, a coward’s frantic stroke on his wretched canvas. Above, the crew swung out the trapeze, ropes creaking for the next act.

c C C c

Midnight cloaked the circus in a tattered shroud, muffled conversations of circus folk drifting from late-night fires in the distance. Gus Harper, drunk as a skunk, swayed into Goliath’s pen, a wilted bunch of carrots in one hand, a whiskey bottle in the other. Barred from bothering the elephant after this morning’s drunken stunt, he whispered, “Hey, buddy, brought ya carrots.” Goliath’s cracked feet shuffled, trunk snuffling as Gus alternated feeding him and swigging whiskey, staring at the star-pricked sky.

Gus lit a cigar, the Zippo’s flame flashing across his raw, unshaven face, a rare moment free of clown paint. “You miss Lila, Goliath? Me too,” he mumbled, voice grief-thick. “I tried to return the lighter to her the next day.” The bottle slipped, clattering to dirt. Gus fell on his ass, tears streaking his cheeks. “Found her hanging—tent pole, leotard twisted, face blue. Too late.” Sobbing, he clutched the Zippo. “You and her, only ones who cared.”

He rambled, painting Lila’s memory with slurred words—her laugh, her gentle nods, their only friend in this cruel circus. The Zippo’s flame held him and Goliath in a trance, the elephant’s eyes glinting, used to the wavering light. Goliath stepped forward, lost in the glow, and crunched the bottle, glass shattering under his foot. The flame snuffed out. Gus lurched up, punching Goliath’s leg. “Stupid beast!” he roared, storming off into the dark. “Ain’t stayin’ here, that’s for sure!” Goliath shifted, the broken glass glittering in starlight, a fractured stroke on the circus’s shadowed canvas.

c C C c

Noon scorched the circus, tent flaps stirring. Gus hunched at his cracked mirror, painting his clown mask—white base, red nose, black arches. Whiskey splashed between colors, a sloppy cascade soaking his lap. His mother’s portrait propped on the vanity—its folds creasing her mouth flat and cracked, but her brown eyes gleamed, caring. Gus painted his mouth to match, a flat almost-frown.

“Lila had your eyes, Mama,” he said, staring at the portrait’s gentle gaze. The thought passed. “They took her body to New York,” he continued, dabbing a blue tear from his right eye. “Couldn’t afford to go, even if they’d have me.” Eyeing the new whiskey bottle, he sighed, “Fought with Goliath last night... Lila’s gone.” A real tear rolled, smearing the paint down his cheek. He checked the giant yellow plastic flower bursting from his lapel like a tumor. “But I’ll always have you, Mama.” Folding the portrait, he tucked it into his pocket, grabbed the bottle, and stumbled out, humming Danny Boy.

Emerging from the clown tent, Gus tested his flower, squirting water at the well-dressed Carter family passing by. Kids shrieked, soaked. “Creep!” the mother snapped, shielding them with her parasol. “Drunk disgrace!” the father barked, waving his cane. Gus cackled, “Run from the clown!” Swigging whiskey, he weaved into the crowd. In the distance, Goliath’s trunk blasted a sharp bellow as if yelling, “Piss off, ya drunk!” to his old friend who had just punched him in the leg hours before.

c C C c

Circus music blares, brassy and wild. Trapeze ropes swing, cutting the air. She’s a vision—Luscious Lila, in a violet leotard, soars. Crowd roars. Purple scarf falls. I find it, hold it out. She takes it, brown eyes smiling. “Oh, thanks!” she says. “I’m Lila… Lila Monroe.” Can’t breathe, can’t think. “I’m Gus Harper… just a clown. New clown.” Hands brush, electric—

Gus woke, sprawled in sawdust, a retching heave staining his ruffled collar with vomit. “Mister, I found this,” a little, brown-skinned boy in a bright yellow shirt said, offering the detached plastic flower. His family stood nearby, parents cautious but kind. “You smell,” the boy added, nose wrinkling. Gus snatched it, snarling, “Piss off, Flower Boy!” and rolled over, vomiting again. Wobbling to his feet, he fumbled the flower back on, reeking of whiskey. Alone in this dusty hell, he muttered, “Gotta get to the car…”

He staggered to the staging area, wiping vomit on his sleeve. “I’m ready,” he slurred to the empty Model T. Benny, touching up its paint, gagged. “Hell no, Gus—no show for you tonight. Get help, you’re docked a week!” He shoved him away. “Screw you!” Gus spat back, stumbling outside. “I don’t need nobody,” he mumbled. In the distance, Goliath’s uneven steps limped under a hose’s spray, the circus grinding on.

c C C c

An hour later, Gus sulked tent-side, flask in hand, glaring at the clown car’s garish stars as it sputtered into the arena. He jeered, booing the clowns for shunning him, his slurred taunts drowned by the crowd’s cheers. The Carter boys, stiff-collared in the front row, clapped wildly, their eyes bright with awe. Gus mocked their accents, rolling his eyes. Another swig of whiskey burned his throat, and he spotted the boy in his yellow shirt, munching popcorn with his family in the back bleachers, their gazes fixed on the show. Flower Boy, he snorted. Benny strode by, blocking his view and flipping him the finger. Gus squeezed his plastic flower, its last dribble of water splattering Benny’s boots, a petty stroke of defiance.

He turned to leave when Goliath’s hoot echoed from the entrance. The program had swapped—tigers on delay, just the elephant for now to avoid the clown chaos from yesterday. Curious, Gus stayed, watching his old friend lumber in. Suddenly, Goliath roared, a hidden shard of glass from that midnight bottle, unnoticed by his handlers, piercing his foot deep. He charged, trunk swinging, handlers shouting. The Carters’ father leapt up, cane flailing to shield his boys. Drunk and dazed, Gus stumbled forward, meaning to calm his buddy. Waving his flask like a paintbrush, he sprayed whiskey in a wild arc, hollering, “Over here, lug!” Goliath wheeled, the animal’s trunk slamming Gus’s chest. He crumpled, a staggering groan escaping as consciousness briefly faded, whiskey soaking his clown outfit in a reckless stroke.

c C C c

Gus’s breath scraped, each gasp a wound. He lurched upright, ribs cracked, blood’s tang on his tongue. His left eye, swollen shut, hid half the world; his right saw chaos—patrons fleeing, Carters escaping. The elephant had hurt Gus badly and was still on a rampage towards the back bleachers, where Flower Boy’s family stood trapped. The father braced, fear and defiance in his eyes; the mother clutched her son’s yellow shirt, dragging him back, cornered by the beast’s rage.

Now a palette of grief and ruin—the last gasps of a shattered body, a fool’s blind jest at redemption, and the need to spare another child his orphan’s grief—had fueled Gus Harper’s forsaken heart. The child returning the flower, a petal of mercy from eyes bright with innocent grace, had kindled the final spark. To that boy, Gus was a stinking, broken clown, yet deemed worthy of a small kindness—the last he’d know. No more lost fathers! he thought. Now, he’d shield the boy and his family, a final act to redeem a life long shadowed.

He rose, trembling, his left hand cradling the scratched portrait, his right, numb as dead wood, fumbling the pink Zippo. Gus swayed forward, a drunkard’s weary shuffle etched in years of ruin, yet graced by a frail purpose. Come on, you stupid shit, he thought, sparking once, twice—Light, for one good thing. A faint flame flickered, lost in the tempest’s wail. His breath faltered—trying to yell, only a bubbling rasp emerged, his voice silenced. Goliath, blind to his efforts, thundered on. Ain’t that a bitch, my spark’s worth nothin’? Gus mused, alone in his faltering step.

c C C c

Defeated, Gus grasped a desperate idea—sacrifice Pa’s painting. A trembling hand fanned it, offering its oil to the flame. It bloomed into fire, Mama’s face melting, her smoke rising like a soul unbound. Farewell, Mama, he thought, mesmerized. Goliath, too, stood spellbound, eyes locked. During that trance, the Flower Boy’s kin slipped free, his yellow shirt fading out of sight.

But then, the clown glove, steeped in whiskey’s curse, caught fire—a conflagration roared up his sleeve. This expanding blaze ignited primal fear in Goliath’s eyes, who raised his trunk in a wail and fled as a dwindling shadow. Sorry, ol’ buddy, tell ’em I tried to make it right, Gus thought, flames devouring his coat, his frame, a pyre of ruin. He fell, sawdust his cradle, lungs stilled, body twitching to rest on his back as his wig ignited, smoke trailing heavenward before his eyes.

Above, on the trapeze, Lila appeared to sway, her white dress glowing, beckoning Gus to join her. Flames danced below, their heat gone, and he rose, weightless, to meet her, smoke curling around him. Cigar smoke, but I ain’t lit one, he thought, confusion softening into a quiet dream. Lila drifted from the swing, wings unfurling, alabaster feathers catching light from the flickering fire, and took his hands, lifting him through the tent’s round opening, into the expanse of night.

The sky bloomed, a canvas of black, stars scattered like forgotten tears. At its heart, Mama’s portrait shone, uncreased, her brown hair flowing, eyes sparkling with childhood’s clarity—no folds, no scars. Gus stared up into her heavenly gaze. See, Mama, this is Lila—the girl I told ya ’bout! he beamed with pride. Mama looked down, her smile a quiet dawn.

F I N

"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me"

- Bruce Wayne