I park the van outside the Senior Center at seven minutes to twelve. I'm running late. I usually like to arrive a half-hour early, to get a feel for the location. But the traffic on Niles Avenue prevented me from doing this. I remember impatiently drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I waited for the other drivers to hurry up. My professional reputation makes no allowances for being late.

I'm wearing the magician's costume today. If this were a performance for children, I'd be wearing my clown suit, but this show is for senior citizens, who usually like having their attention diverted with magic tricks instead of jokes and squirting water. During my career as an entertainer-for-hire, I've found that older folks feel clowns are childish.

As I begin taking the boxes that hold my gear out of the van, a tall man exits the Senior Center and approaches me.

"Hi! Are you with the Performers Service?" He holds one hand over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight.

"Yes, I am," I reply. "Marvello is my stage name, although you can call me Phil."

The tall man nods. "I'm Fred Johnson, director of the Senior Center." He does not offer to shake hands.

I stop for a second to wipe perspiration from my forehead. I turn and size him up. He's rather old; he looks as if he should be a resident of the Senior Center rather than the man who runs it.

"We've got everything set up for you in the cafeteria. It's the largest room, it'll hold everyone." He frowns. "They said you'd be here about a half-hour earlier."

I look at him and shrug. "There was a bad accident on the road earlier," I lie. "About seven cars slammed into each other."

He mumbles something to himself. I hear the plates of his false teeth clack as he moves his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Now that is too bad," he says, more to himself than to me. I finish unloading the van. He takes my arm and escorts me into the building.

As I struggle to maintain control of the boxes, I'm stuck by how clean the place is. The lobby is drenched in the odor of antiseptic cleansers. No false pine smells here; the overall impression I get is one of clinical attention to detail.

More natural odors become apparent, however, as we pass through a side entrance and walk down a long hallway. These scents are not easily masked by cleansers or detergents. The hallway is illuminated by fluorescent lights, which create a dreary institutional atmosphere.

As we walk down the corridor, I notice side doors that lead to rooms. Some of the doors are open. The smells originate from these rooms: bedpans waiting to be emptied, bodies resting in damp patches, musty old belongings and mementos that reek of damp cellars.

I cheer up only slightly as we enter the cafeteria. It's painted a bright white. Long windows take up one entire wall, providing plenty of natural light. Johnson leads me to the folding table that is set up for my act, like a fiberglass and metal dais. I look out towards the rows of folding chairs where the audience sits. There are about fifty in all. The elderly men and women look stiff and uncomfortable, as if their bodies had been squeezed into the chairs against their will. Johnson looks at me apologetically.

"Some of our folks are bedridden or severely handicapped," he offers by way of clarification. "And some of them flatly refuse to leave their rooms." He folds his arms and shakes his head. "Like Goddamned children," he mutters.

I turn to face him as he claps his hand on my shoulder. "I'll leave you to it, then," he says brightly. He turns on his heel and walks out the double doors and is gone.

I turn back to the elderly congregation, who sit expectantly, packed in their unyielding steel frames. Usually, in shows I perform for elderly or handicapped people, an attendant or nurse is present in case medical attention is needed. But there's nobody fitting that description here. It's just me and them.

I sense a distinct feeling of hostility coming from the audience. I'm flustered; I haven't had time to ready my props, which sit in disarray inside the boxes. I begin rummaging around for a wand. When I finally produce it, the wand has already triggered. Fake, colorful flowers hang feebly out of one end. The old people sense my despair and are not forgiving.

A haggard old woman seated in the third row speaks to her neighbor, a drooling woman two chairs to her left: "Can you believe it, Margie? They're paying a hundred bucks for this crap?"

Margie says nothing, just drools absently onto her faded yellow sweater. An old man directly behind them farts; not a hint of expression crosses his face.

The rest of the old people titter at his flatulence. I try another trick, even though I sense it's going to go over about as well as the first one: I pull several brightly colored handkerchiefs from my mouth. They come forth in a dazzling display, first red, then blue, then yellow, then several other shades, then back to red.

My audience is not impressed in the least. The old woman who spoke to the drooling Margie just grunts in disappointment. The old man behind her echoes her noise with another trumpeting fart.

Everyone laughs again. I smile weakly. The room feels hotter. I try one more trick, which involves three interlocked rings. After much to-do about how tightly the rings are clasped together, I set them on the table and pass my hand over them three times. When I pull them, the two end rings release the middle one, which lands with a bright tink on the tabletop.

A few of the old ones clap then, somewhat excited by my sleight of hand. The old woman who spoke to Margie merely makes a farting noise with her tongue. The old man behind her is only too happy to supply the real thing in response, and everyone sniggers once again, spoiling the mood I've created.

I sigh, exasperated. Usually, old folks are happy for any little recreation to take them away from the harsh realities of the nursing homes they inhabit. In that regard they're like children, or mentally handicapped people: they appreciate the little treats I give them that take them out of their lives for a short time.

But this audience is different. They seem angry, almost totally offended at me, like I'm wasting their time. The old woman who spoke to Margie seems particularly unfriendly towards me. She stares at me. I feel an unpleasantly familiar sensation pass through my body. With a shudder, I control my voice, and make a request of the meager crowd before me.

"At this time, I request a volunteer from the audience." I'm planning on doing the trick where I pull coins from various parts on my volunteer's body. Nobody moves. The woman who spoke to Margie says in a distinctly clear voice:

"This shit is boring. I hope we're not paying for this." The sound of false teeth and empty gums fills the air as the others mumble their agreement.

I walk down to the old woman's seat. She frowns up at me. I smile warmly down at her. It takes a great effort.

"It seems I have a volunteer," I announce loudly. The desired effect is achieved: she turns bright red, and the rest of the old people turn on her, egging her on and laughing at her.

"Nancy's scared," the old man behind her cackles gleefully, punctuating his announcement with a fart. The fart smells of digested vegetables. I struggle to hide my disgust. I kneel down in front of Nancy.

"Look, Nancy, I've got something to show you." She recoils as I put my hand near her ear, then relaxes slightly as I produce the quarter. She smells of talcum and dried perspiration. Her white hair is unkempt, like a wild cotton patch. Then her eyes narrow, and she looks at me, her noxious sarcasm returning.

"Boy, didn't you ever want to be something other than a shitty traveling magician?" Before I can respond, she says something else, something that sends the nasty feeling of familiarity through me again:

"Didn't you ever think about doing something serious with your damned life?"

Her voice triggers something familiar in my mind. Memories rush through me. I will them to stop. They don't. Neither does Nancy.

"You come here and waste your time. Which would be fine, if you weren't wasting our time too! We don't have much of it left for you to throw away on bullshit magic tricks!"

My memories crystallize. I'm in a wide, dark space. My parents' house. In the house, my mother lectures me about wasting my time. She holds up a comic book. A clown is the main character. Mother tears the comic up. Nancy's voice blends into hers.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" they both ask me. She holds up another comic, this one featuring a magician as the lead character. She rips this one up, too.

"If you want to play the fool, go do it somewhere else, you useless little bastard," mother/Nancy says devastatingly.

Then I show my mother something which causes her to scream. Nancy is still droning on. I hear her voice separately now. My mother runs out of the room. She returns with a butcher knife. She is stopped by my father. My mother screams.

She screams as she is dragged out to the ambulance the next day. She is screaming that her son is evil. That I am something horrible. Her screams drift away to the recesses of my mind. I return to the real world.

Nancy continues her caustic diatribe. The old people laugh, clearly entertained by the verbal destruction Nancy is causing. It's better entertainment than any I've provided. Then Nancy delivers the punchline to her cruel joke:

"Didn't your mother ever teach you better? She must be pretty Goddamn ashamed of you."

I sit awkwardly on the floor. Tears are running down my face. I look at Nancy's harsh visage. She rambles on. The old people laugh. It sounds like my mother's distant screaming. I can't take any more. The noises press tightly against my skull. I scream:

"Shut up! Everyone just shut up!"

I press my hands against my face. I remove them only when the sound of a falling body hitting metal breaks through my wall of sobs.

I look up. Nancy is on the floor, sprawled among several jumbled chairs.

Her face is white. Her hands are drawn in rictus claws towards her throat, her jawline, her chin.

Her face has. . .her face has no mouth. Just an immaculate fleshy space, like the orifice never existed. It reminds me of a cartoon where the artist erased a character's mouth, even as he spoke. For some reason, this comforts me.

I look up. The room is silent. All the old people have no mouths. Their eyes are wide with fear. The farting old man makes a clutching gesture in the air before twin jets of blood shoot out of his nostrils and he too collapses. His pale, thin blood spatters on my white tuxedo shirt. I stand up and back away.

I remember everything now. I remember my mother's horror at the revelation of my abilities, and my self-imposed repression of those abilities. I immersed myself in the pursuit of false magic for the next twenty years as a sort of surrogate, forgetting my own capabilities as the years went by.

I smile and laugh loudly. It resonates in my ears, a high-pitched, jagged sound. Why did I waste my time learning fake acts of legerdemain when I could have performed tricks that were uniquely my own?

I laugh louder. I look at the horrified, silent crowd. Their mouthless faces shine in the midday sun. I feel I deserve some attention for my efforts to bring joy to their fading lives.

"Applause, applause!" I shout. The old people begin numbly smacking their hands together. I bow several times. When the applause dies down, some of the wrinkled and wizened hands are bleeding.

"This place is too gloomy," I proclaim. "Let's cheer up a bit, everyone, what do you say?" I laugh at my little joke.

They nod, as I will it. They stand. I hear the protesting creaks of old joints. It sounds like rusted hinges moving back and forth on some ancient door. With strength they weren't capable of prior to my arrival, they heave the steel chairs around, clearing a space. Several of the chairs clatter against the far walls; one of them bounces off a giant window.

I laugh. The mastery of my skills is complete; the old people begin to dance stiffly, like marionettes. I manipulate their old frames into positions they hadn't assumed in many decades, if ever.

Johnson enters the room, no doubt alarmed by the noise created by the flinging of the chairs.

"What's all the-" he begins, but his eyes bulge in shock as he witnesses the party I've created. He turns to me. He starts asking questions.

"Never you mind," I tell him. He immediately sags to the floor, a vacant look on his face. He simultaneously urinates and defecates. His eyes are blank.

I frown at his lifeless form before I remember what I said, and laugh some more. In fact, I laugh louder and louder as the burlesque of the whole scene strikes me. I bend over laughing, my ribs sore with the delicious irony of it all. Never you mind, and pouf! That's rich.

I stand up as my laughter dies down. I look at the old people. I will their stilted capering to cease. I smile at them with a vulpine grin. Then inspiration hits me.

We stream out into the hallway, my new followers imbued with potency they never enjoyed in the heady days of their youth. They seek out the staff and other occupants of the Senior Center and begin the task of repainting the sterile corridors with decidedly unclean colors.

I move around the halls, dipping into the various palettes that stain my followers' hands until my face is covered in shades of red, painted like a demonic harlequin's. Even though I wore the magician's outfit today, I've always been the clown. I've always played the fool, from the time my mother saw my true nature and screamed that I was an abomination. My whole life has been one big joke. Now I plan to deliver the payoff, the punchline to my existence.

I go out to the van. I return moments later, dressed in the clown suit. I'm ready to play the fool on a bigger scale, with my faithful and soundless troupe of elderly mimes behind me.

I gather the members of my company together. I wonder what heights of folly we will soon achieve. I lead them out of the center, bloody and voiceless, into the unforgiving light of the sun.