The Happy Clown

								

was no millionaire.
Harriet said to Richard when they were alone, "Dickie, he isn't
outgrowing it, he's getting worse! What are we going to do?" It was a
special tragedy, since Harriet was unable to have any more kiddies, and
if this one turned out wrong ...
Richard said firmly, "We'll take him to the clinic. They'll know what
to do."



       *       *       *       *       *
The first thing they did to Steven was to talk to him. The psychiatrist
made him lie down on a foam rubber couch, kiddies' model, with the
Happy Clown motif on the slip-cover, and said with a beaming face,
"Now, Stevie, what seems to be the trouble?"
The boy turned his head away from the psychiatrist's shining teeth and
said, "My name's not Stevie. It's Steven." He was a thin little boy,
rather undersized. The baby fat had melted away fast when he began
to be exposed to kiddie-garden. He had dark hair and big eyes and an
uncommonly precise way of speaking for a child of five.
The psychiatrist said, "Oh, but we're going to be friends, Stevie,
and friends always use nicknames, don't they? My name's William, but
everybody calls me Willie. You can call me Uncle Willie."
The boy said politely, "I'd rather not, please."
The doctor was undismayed. "I want to help you. You believe that, don't
you, Stevie?"
The child said, "Steven. Do I have to lie down?"
The doctor said agreeably, "It's more usual to lie down, but you may
sit up if you want to. Why don't you like kiddie-garden, Steven?"
The boy sat up and regarded him warily. The doctor had a kind face, a
really kind face in spite of all those shining teeth, and Steven was
only five years old, after all, and there was nobody to talk to, and he
was desperately unhappy. Perhaps.... He said, "You'll tell them."
The doctor shook his head. "Nothing goes farther than this room,
Stevie--Steven."
The child leaned forward, pressing his knees together, hugging himself
with his arms, bowing his head. His position was almost foetal. He
said, "I'm never by myself. They never let me be by myself."
The psychiatrist said reasonably, "But nobody can live by himself,
Stevie." He had apparently forgotten Steven, and the boy did not
correct him again. "You have to learn to live with other people, to
work and play with them, to know them, and the only way you can learn
is by being with them. When you can't be with them personally, there's
always television. That's how you learn, Stevie. You can't be by
yourself."
The boy looked up and said starkly, "Never?"
The gleaming teeth showed. "But why should you want to?"
Steven said, "I don't know."
The doctor said, slowly and with emphasis, "Stevie, long before you
were born the world was a very bad place. There were wars all the time.
Do you know why?"
The boy shook his head.
"It was because people were different from each other, and didn't
understand each other, and didn't know each other. They had to learn