Life Expectancy

issued between teeth set edge to edge like the jaws of a nutcracker:
        "Every circus must have clowns to draw the weak-minded and silly little children."
        "Ah," said Jimmy. "So you don't have as many clowns as other circuses do."
        "We have all the clowns we need and more. We are infested with clowns.
        But no one comes primarily for clowns."
        "Lorrie and me, all our lives, we're crazy about clowns," Jimmy said.
        "Or is it," I proposed, "that all our lives, clowns have been crazy about us?"
        "Crazy is in there somewhere," Jimmy said.
        The aerialist blustered on: "Our biggest draw is always the immortal Flying Vivacementes, the greatest circus family in all of history. In all three of my shows, every member of every aerialist troupe is a Vivacemente, related by blood and by talent that makes lesser performers weep with jealousy. I am the father of some, the spiritual father of all."
        To me, Jimmy said, "For a man who has achieved so much, you might expect his pride to be overweening, but how wrong you'd be."
        "Humble," I agreed. "Remarkably humble."
        "Humility is for losers!" Vivacemente thundered.
        "I've heard that somewhere," Jimmy said.
        "Gandhi?" I suggested.
        Jimmy shook his head. "I think it was Jesus."
        Eyes glazing again with the conviction that we were idiots, Vivacemente said, "And of all the Flying Vivacementes, I am supreme. On the trapeze, I am poetry in motion."
        Jimmy said, "Poetry In Motion," Johnny Tillotson, top ten, back in the early '60s. Good beat, you could dance to it."
        Ignoring him, Vivacemente boasted, "Transiting the high wire, I am moonlight walking, the love of every woman, the envy of every man." He drew a breath, expanded his big chest, and continued: "And I am rich enough and determined enough always to get what I want. In this case, I am certain that what I want is what you will want, because it will bring wealth and great honor to you as you otherwise would never have known."
        "Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money," Jimmy said, "but it isn't wealth."
        Vivacemente winked to the extent that his trimmed eyelids were capable of completing a wink. "Fifty thousand is just earnest money, proof that I am sincere. I have calculated the full sum to be three hundred and twenty-five thousand."
        "And what do you expect in return for that?" Jimmy asked.
        "Your son," Vivacemente said. } immy and I could have left the big top and driven home without another word to the maniac aerialist. Having walked out, however, we would not have understood his reasoning, and we would not have had peace, wondering what his next move might be.
        "His name is Andy," said Vivacemente, as though we needed to be reminded of our only son's name. "But I will create a better name, of course, something classic, less plebeian. If I am to shape the boy into the greatest star of his generation, I must begin instructing him before his fifth birthday."
        As darkly funny as all this might be, it had also become too scary to play his game any longer.
        I said, "Andy, which will always be his name, has no talent as an aerialist."
        "He must. He has Vivacemente blood. He's my Natalie's grandson."
        "If you know about that, then you also know he's Konrad Beezo's grandson, too," Jimmy reminded him. "Surely you'll be the first to admit he's too much clown for the high wire."
        "He is not tainted," the patriarch said. "I've had him watched. I've studied the films of him. He is a natural."
        Films of him.
        Although the night was mild, my heart had gone cold.
        "People do not sell their children," I said.
        "Oh," Vivacemente assured me, "people do. I myself have bought the children of certain Vivacemente cousins in Europe, whose family lines were strong enough to produce fine aerialists. I have bought some of them from the cradle, some at the age of two and three, but always before the fifth birthday."
        With revulsion that no doubt eluded our host as much as did our humor, Jimmy pointed to the box on the ground. "We brought your money back.
        That's the end of it."
        "Three hundred seventy-five thousand," Vivacemente offered.
        "No."
        "Four hundred thousand."
        No.
        "Four hundred fifteen thousand."
        "Stop it," Jimmy demanded.
        "Four