By Dave Donelson

I dressed in my clown suit for the funeral. Complete with red-rubber-ball nose, yellow floor-mop hair, and white polka dot suit with blue pom-pom buttons, I walk down the aisle of the sacristy looking for a seat among the black-clad mourners who stare at me open-mouthed and speechless. Not often you see a clown at a funeral. 

But why not? When you cut us, do we not bleed? When you slap us, do we not cry? Even if our fans are but six years old and just learning to read—Dick and Jane, see Spot run—do they not wake up one morning suddenly rotting on the inside, then die mercifully fast in the mind of time but horribly slowly in the reality of the world? They do and we do and none of that changes just because my big shoes make obscene flapping noises as I stride with dignity down the center aisle, looking in vain for an empty seat or at least a friendly face willing to scrunch over to make room for one more.

Getting here wasn’t easy, although it wasn’t nearly as hard for me as it was for little Benjamin. He screamed through nights and days of red-hot coals in his stomach sac and scalding bile that boiled up like lava through his esophagus, acid-etching his tongue and sizzling out his nostrils. Little six-year-old Benjamin’s belly swelled and then shriveled, his tiny penis blackened, his skinny legs contorted into pretzel cramps. Sunken, his eyes searched his desperate parents’ faces for a clue as to when God would turn the final page in his plan book and let little Benjamin die. My trip, starting at my apartment in Brooklyn and ending at the church in New Rochelle, was easy by comparison.

I must admit, though, that traveling in full clown regalia presents certain daunting discomforts. The sunny children on my street come running whenever my white-painted face comes out the door of my building. Today, they laugh and dance seeking favors and tricks, ignorant of the solemnity of my journey. “Gimmee! Gimmee!” they cry, until I do the flower-bloom trick and toss a scant handful of candy into the air to distract them long enough for me to disappear down the stairs into the subway. They are so easily pleased and willingly fooled. The people in the subway station near my home are clown-friendly, too, used to seeing my wide lips and pom-pom buttons, but the riders passing through from stops deeper in Brooklyn aren’t my friends. Most of them avert their eyes and hide behind their phone screens or stare into vacant space six inches in front of their nose and hear only the beat-beat throbbing through their head phones. A few look daggers at me. They’re getting ready to repel my shtick, to rebuff a plea for spare change they know I am going to start soon. But I disappoint them, today at least, and sit demurely trying to keep my over-sized shoes out of people’s way. I busy myself re-arranging the loaded handkerchief so the flower-bloom trick will be ready for the funeral. Little Benjamin never tired of that gag, and neither do I.

Going down the subway stairs in my floppy clown shoes was tricky but not hard; going up the stairs from the subway at Grand Central station was very difficult, though, so I rode the escalator with my protruding feet sideways on the stair. That ride was brief, as was the walk through the sky-topped terminal and the mercifully short train ride to New Rochelle. It was after rush hour and I rode against the tide, too, so there were few other passengers to distract me from my meditation with pesky questions about how long it takes to put on my makeup and isn’t it hot in that polka dot suit? Gee, do you make any money doing that? I bet the tips are good, though, huh? 

Who do these people think they are? Do they expect me to show them my tax return just because my face is painted wide-eyed and permanently surprised? Why can’t they suspend their worship of prosperity for a short while and enjoy the show?

I walk the few blocks from the New Rochelle train station to the old church with its even-older graveyard full of pilgrim mothers and historical soldiers and rows and rows of dead babies tucked beneath the well-kept grass and crumbling markers. The crowd mills quietly around the church door, murmuring, murmuring among themselves. Stiff-backed policemen in shiny-button coats cluster near the door, pasty-faced and blank-eyed from fighting back tears; little Benjamin was one of their favorites. 

Purple police veins pop and eyes rage when they see the tall sunflower on my hat bobbing its way through the people on the sidewalk who look nervously from me to the cops, silently pleading for intervention and a quiet execution. “Show some respect, for God’s sake. This is a funeral!” the murmurs grow louder until someone says, “Shhhh! The family’s in there” and a little girl pipes up with “That’s the birthday clown!” She is wrong, but the crowd lets me pass. I turn at the door and toss a handful of candy in gratitude to the little girl.

I stand and blink my giant eyes, adjusting them to the dark and rustling church. An organ chord moans; a mourner sniffs unseen. My gloved fingers close around the rubber squeeze bulb of my honk-honk horn, but I resist, deciding instead to wait for just the right moment. An usher guides me into the aisle so the people behind can get in. My shoes flop-flop on my way down the aisle. All the pews in back are packed and the people in the middle ones close ranks as I approach. 

The pew right behind little Benjamin’s parents is completely vacant, no one willing to sit that close to such sorrow lest it be infectious, so I slide into it with a swish of my polka dot suit across the polished oak. I carefully maneuver my big floppy shoes under the pew before me, but the bulbous toes inadvertently nudge the ankles of poor little Benjamin’s black-veiled mother. She turns to see who had so rudely intruded on her grief and gasps at the sight of my white clown face perpetually grinning behind her. Her stolid husband gasps, too, and starts to rise, but the minister steps to the pulpit just then, so the husband sits back down and pats his wife’s clutching hand. As the minister drones on above their weeping, they soon forget the clown sitting behind them. 

Little Benjamin doesn’t, though, I am sure. Even in his tiny box, he giggles knowing I am about to dazzle him with razzle and honk-honk the horn to call forth the flower-bloom trick he so loves. I endure the scorn and stares of the funeral crowd in hopes the memory of his singing laugh will echo in their hearts forever as it does in mine.

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Dave Donelson is a freelance writer and artist whose work has appeared in dozens of publications as diverse as American Atheist, the Christian Science Monitor, Plum Creek Review, Inkwell, and Stoneboat Journal. The author of 16 books of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and memoir, Dave was honored in 2023 by the NYS Council on the Arts for his collection of graphic poetry, Visions of a Certain Age. An overview of his work can be found at http://www.davedonelson.com.