A night at the circus:

...That night I hustled the two little barbarians off to the Moscow Circus where we were to have the added treat of meeting an English-speaking clown from our town's "sister city" backstage after the show...

...In Russia, true, we are crowded into apartments with huge families and we want more space...

...No, dumb Daddy, Lincoln was the tallest," corrected Ducky...

...That this thinking lurks somewhere in my integrated, lower-middle-class community disturbs me-especially during these miraculous times when the far reaches of the world are experiencing freedom in practically unlimited dosage...

...I know why black people are so pushy...

...A groggy Duck reached for my coatsleeve asking why the man was so mad...

...Taft...

...I pictured this hatemonger as a small, mean-spirited, lonely man, much like the miserly speculator that drove Jimmy Stewart to take to the bridge in It's a Wonderful Life...

...They used to call him 'Too Tall Taft' back when your grandma was a kid...

...She thanked me for taking Jesse to the circus, and I left as Jesse began bubbling embellishments of our "other" adventures...

...Our people are poor, but they are not lonely...

...Suddenly I felt a nudge...

...I had to turn it off because its name-calling content was almost within the kid's grasp-that's how low its messages aimed-appealing to a seven-year-old's mentality...

...But it rang out all too familiar to have originated in Ducky's neophyte cranium...

...important questions...

...The only activity down at the plant is its gradual canni-balization by cranes and bulldozers...

...The modesty of this Soviet circus might have been a shock to the average American customer used to glitz and hype of the Barnum variety...

...but we've been through many hard times together and taken care of each other...

...He stopped half way up the street and threw his car in reverse...

...KIKE...

...Having been a college wrestler, I wasn't worried about any fair fight, but a rabbinical student had been gunned down in cold blood in the same neighborhood within recent memory...

...This was a simple one-ring affair of the highest possible artistry where a hush-toned ringmaster would whisper "attention please" to warn us of a particularly difficult attempt...

...It's one of the oldest mistakes in the world...

...And the drunks shut up...

...The understatement rankled some drunks balconied behind us who, perhaps suffering withdrawal from the dearth of the usual hockey violence under this arena's dome, began a chorus of inanities like, "Miss one for Gorbachev" and "Hit the ground for perestroika" breaking the respectful hush of the 10,000-plus audience anticipating the aerial feat...

...I slowly patrolled homeward, imagining frightful "adult" scenarios if I happened upon a certain sports car...

...As I raised it in the night air, my approaching attacker switched gears and peeled away...

...I've seen many Americans so caught up in the hustle for success that they are maybe feeling lonely...

...Out reached Jesse's little hand presenting me with Duck's T-ball bat for reassurance...

...I answered the question...

...After gushing over all the wonderful American advantages he hoped one day-soon!-his country would enjoy, I asked him what he would give us of the Russian experience that we could use...

...Nuh uh," repeated Jesse...

...Not another peep for the rest of the night...

...That's a Cal Ripkin bat, Daddy" offered Ducky...

...Together over someone's crowded kitchen table, maybe we should grapple with some important questions...

...My mom says Reagan was the sleepiest," piped the Duck...

...Don't shoot at shadows, Duck," I said...

...I got out and closed the door on the kids and continued to silently repeat the challenge...

...The three of us had a fun time trying to guess which clown might be ours, the juggler, the acrobat, the guy that catches hats on his head...

...When they were freed, they got too much freedom and too much for free and that's why," he announced...

...Nuh uh, it's a Darryl Strawberry," came the voice from the backseat...

...As we drove on, Ducky grew uncharacteristically quiet, then looked up to me with a slightly mischievous, I-don't-know-if-I-should-say-this glance...

...in no uncertain terms...

...And what was formerly a proud "working class" town now houses mostly immobile retirees and welfare families...

...I thought: "How ironic, I'm a blue-eyed, blonde-haired Welsh/German about to take on a white supremacist who thinks I'm Jewish because of a corner synagogue...

...The school sits majestically atop a hill overlooking a rusted out, closed down factory that once was the main source of the town's jobs...

...Dropping Jesse off at home, I had the rare opportunity to see his mom...

...We were commissioned by the local "sister city" chairwoman to fetch him to a postperformance party...

...He started back...

...Reaching down the front of his sweater and retrieving a string hung around his neck bearing his "latch" key, Jesse uttered another signature "nuh uh" to one more of my crackpot answers and disappeared down the dank hallway of his crowded apartment building...

...At 2 A.M., I was the last to leave the happy gathering...

...I know his teachers well enough to know that the source of this ditty wasn't the faculty...

...Maybe duller but not taller," I said...

...I met him and his best chum Jesse exit-ing their cozy little neighborhood school at the end of another gray winter week...

...He mimed a brain scan on this question, then answered seriously, "I'd give you our Russian family...

...Like so many in this neighborhood, she's a single mother working two part-time jobs while her ex-husband, after losing his mill job (as Jesse explained), "got some job down in Florida...

...I turned on the radio and caught some braggart right-wing talk show host railing away at the black and Hispanic menace, decreeing perestroika a KGB plot to lower our guard, lamenting the liberals, so-called, proclaiming that unions were the next to go after the fall of communism...

...During the trapeze, he matter-of-factly said, "Attention please, what you're about to see has never been performed outside of the Moscow Circus...

...Then he gave me a look of self-satisfaction, as though he had just passed on something you don't learn in school...

...I was speechless, but I was also motioning for the chicken shit racist to come back...

...Nuh uh," chirped Jesse, "Ronald Reagan's taller...

...We met our clown...

...He was the acrobat who could walk steps on his hands and he was a big hit at the party, performing and conversing with his dozens of new friends...

...DIRTY, GOD DAMN JEW...

...We bantered like this through other Presidents' Day trivia gems, until we found ourselves in front of Jesse's place...

...I seethed...

...Our friends and family don't go in for such simplifications...

...Maybe we need a dose of the "Russian family...

...Neither did it come from his regular babysitter, a black college student...

...Duck had long since fallen asleep so I bundled his carcass up for the trek to the car...

...Freedom's not the problem-it's usually the solution...

...As I seat-belted Jesse into the back seat, headlights flashed on us and a speeding red sports car suddenly screeched to a halt dangerously close to me...

...Duck and a half dozen other kids in the audience spontaneously did likewise...

...This night has prompted me to think that perhaps the real problem of my community lies in our isolation from one another and ignorance of the real lives of the rest of the block...

...As they kept it up and I was readying myself to go back there and negotiate with the rowdies, Jesse bounced up on his chair and bellowed, "Shut up...

...I whipped around only to catch a glimpse of the young contorted white face as he snarled more insults while laying rubber all the way up the street...