Carl spent his mornings
at the Community College
studying to be an accountant.
His Aunt Maude, with whom he lived,
had recommended accounting.
"You can always get a job as an accountant,"
she said every morning
before heading out to Arlene's Beauty World,
where she spent most of her day
putting perms in old ladies' hair.

In the evenings Carl worked
as a cashier at Lou's Discount City.
Lou had hinted more than once
that a man with a degree in accounting
could have a future at Lou's.

But in the afternoons,
between the Community College and Lou's,
Carl would put on his baggy pants
and his Hawaiian print shirt
and a pair of really good Groucho glasses
that he'd bought at an acting supply store,
and he'd stand on the corner
of 15th and Belview - downtown by the deli -
and he'd juggle for the lunchtime crowd.
Behind his back, under the leg,
cascade and shower and columns.
Two balls, three balls, even four.
Clubs, knives, hammers, fruit, and eggs.
He was even saving money for torches,
at the same acting supply store
where he'd gotten his glasses.
The more dangerous it was,
the more people would stop and watch,
and sometimes they'd even applaud,
and every once in a very great while
they'd throw money into the hat
that he always set on the ground
before he'd begin his routine.

Now all good stories
have to have something happen,
and this is it:
Carl's Aunt Maude ran off with Eugene,
the maintenance man in their building.

The note was rather hard to read.
It said something about Keno in Reno;
the bills are paid to the end of the month;
there's leftovers in the ‘fridge,
and don't forget to feed Lester.
Lester was the dog.

Actually, Carl wasn't very upset at all,
since he paid most of the bills anyway,
the maintenance man was never around when you needed him,
and the leftovers weren't really that good to begin with.
It's just that he didn't particularly care for the dog.

Lester came from a long line of dogs,
none of which was over two feet tall,
but he mostly looked like a very rough cross between a poodle and a terrier,
with a face that looked kinda like
a collie with an upper bite.
But Carl had nothing against ugly little dogs,
even ugly little dogs with loud little yaps
so shrill they made your teeth hurt.
What Carl hated
was ugly little dogs with shrill little yaps
that needed to be walked,
because there was no good time
to walk the shrill, ugly little dog,
except in the afternoon.
So Carl took Lester with him
when he juggled downtown.

Lester mostly sat there,
not being shrill or loud
and not really being very ugly.
A few people even said,
"Oh, look at the cute little dog."
These were usually the people
that never left any money.

Then one day Cal dropped the rubber fish
that he was trying to juggle
with the rubber chicken and the rubber banana
and the real stalk of celery,
and Lester got up and got it,
and be brought it back.
And he jumped up and gave it to Carl
so that Carl didn't even have to break stride.
The crowd was really impressed.
A lot of them actually applauded with enthusiasm,
and more people than ever before
left money in the hat Carl had left on the street.

As the days went by,
Carl found out that whatever he dropped
Lester would get,
even the knives and hammers and the torches
that Carl was finally able to buy.
In fact, Lester got so good
that he'd usually get whatever Carl dropped
before it ever hit the ground.
The crowds got bigger and bigger,
and Carl started dropping things on purpose.
And when he didn't,
when he was doing something really tough,
like juggling five avocados or six pieces of really fine china,
the people in the crowd would always yell,
"Hey! Go ahead and drop something, already!"
So he would.

Then one day a man came up after the show
and offered Carl an incredible amount of money for Lester,
so Carl sold him.
The man took Lester to Hollywood,
changed his name to Flash,
and even got him on the Arsenio Hall show.
The crowd loved him.

Carl still went downtown in the afternoons,
but fewer and fewer people bothered to stop,
and hardly anybody even politely clapped,
and nobody at all left any money in Carl's hat.
And then one day Carl stopped going downtown altogether.

Pretty soon after that
Carl graduated from the Community College
with an Associates Degree in Accounting,
and Lou kept his promise,
promoting him to Assistant Manager in Charge of Accounts,
which was a day job,
so Carl would've had to have stopped juggling anyway.

from Ballads and Other Excuses for Poetry, by Michael Soetaert