County fair: Lancashire, England 1987

Raucous children ran about underfoot, and the smell of fried foods floated heavily on the air. The jeering taunts of the clown at the dunk tank cut through the noise and the smells like a siren: a wheedling, irritating, obnoxious siren. A sign painted in garish turquoise and magenta hung next to the tank, with the words "Dunk him and WIN!" emblazoned boldly across it in large print.
"Come on up, slugger! Have a go!"
"Hey stretch, if your ears get any bigger, you're going to blow away!"
"Muscleman! Hey, Muscleman! show that pretty lady what you're made of!"
One by one, the marks on the midway stepped up to hurl that tiny white sphere at the even tinier target of red and white in hopes of sending the abrasive fellow into the ice cold water that waited below his precarious perch.
A slender young man with barely a wisp of a beard stepped up to the table and handed the man behind the sign a wrinkled and damp one pound note, and received three small balls in return.

"Ooooh! Look out ladies and gentlemen, we got Goliath in the house this evening!"
Without responding, the young lad rolled the ball back and forth in his hand for a second, and then, without a warning or windup, he whipped it toward the far end of the range, where it rang soundly as it smacked into the minuscule target, snapping it back and sending the clown plunging into the chilled tank.
After the splashing and applause stopped, the clown climbed back out of the tank, reset the mechanism, and climbed back onto his perch.
"Lucky shot! Lucky shot! I hear lightning never strikes twice in the same spot. Let's see what you've got there, Zeus!"
Whiz! Clang! Sploosh!
The clown went swimming a second time as more cheering and laughter erupted from the onlookers.

The mechanism was reset, the ball thrown again, and for a third time, the icy water doused the red wig perched atop that heavily made-up face as the ringing sound of leather on metal echoed across the field.
The man behind the table leaned toward the rack of prizes and began to pull one of the smallest stuffed animals from the bottom shelf, but the boy shook his head, reached into his pocket, and pulled out another badly beaten one pound note and handed it to the sweaty faced vendor. He took the three balls, and one by one, used them to send the now soaked clown plunging into the water again, and again, and again.

Again, he shook his head after being offered his choice of prizes off the middle shelf, handed in another pound, accepted the three balls in return, and thrice more sent them hurtling accurately toward the target eliciting three more angry splashes from the man on the mechanism, who now had thick white make up and bright red lipstick running down his face in rainbow-hued rivulets.

Again the choice of prizes was declined, despite the offer of those elusive treasures housed on the top shelf, seldom liberated by any hand.

Again, the exchange of money for three more white spheres, and again they flashed, straight and true to their target. Silence had fallen over the gathered spectators by this point, the clown had stopped his heckling and was struggling simply to stay afloat and breathe, while the man behind the table watched with a mixture of awe and anger. After the fifth encore performance, the ire of the man behind the counter was clearly roused, and he refused to sell the young man any more missiles. He simply waved his hand toward his wares and mumbled "Whatever you want..."
The slender young man looked for a second, and carefully pointed at the old balding man's beautiful young daughter. "Her." was all anyone heard him say. The old man didn't even lift a hand to stop her as she walked toward her champion, took hold of his hand, walked past her father, past the sodden clown, past the stunned and silend onlookers, and out of the fairgrounds. They were never seen again.