76-year-old Otto Griebling never had his trunk next to mine in clown alley. I was just a First of May – a brand-new clown – and didn’t rank a spot next to such an iconic comic figure, or his cohorts. There was Swede Johnson, also in his seventies; Mark Anthony and Prince Paul, in their sixties; and Kochmanski, the noted Polish clown, was in his mid-fifties and starting to feel the effects of arthritis. They all complained about the grind of clowning for Ringling Brothers, but when I asked them about retirement, they just shook their heads. Everyone knew what had happened to Emmett Kelly – he’d made good as a clown, had retired down to Sarasota, Florida, to go fishing, and was nearly stir-crazy. And his money was running out. No, these old and middle-aged clowns were not going to retire any time soon – not if they could help it, and not as long as circus management let them come back to work each season. Otto no longer had a voice – throat cancer had silenced him forever; he lived in a world of pantomime and notepads. Swede had been a former lion tamer, and had legs with scars that still oozed like raw hamburger. Prince Paul had hypotension, low blood pressure, and would faint suddenly right in the middle of a clown gag – someone would drag him out of the ring over to the side, where he’d rest until fully recovered, and then rush right back out into the ring, arms waving like windmills. Mark Anthony suffered from diabetes. They were all, to some extent, ill and in pain. Most of them had saved like misers all their circus careers, so they’d have something to live on when the circus finally went broke, as rumors said it would every year. Yet you could not get them to retire; they still felt useful, and didn’t want to give that up no matter how disabled they might become. As long as they could pull a funny face and drop their pants, they wanted to be out there in the spotlight, acting the grotesque for a living. Back then I thought they were all fools (forgive the pun!) My own plans called for me to save my money just as they had done, but to quit the game as early as possible and take it easy somewhere like Thailand, where the cost of living was about a third of what it was in the States (I’d lived there as a missionary two years out of high school.) I did make it back to Thailand in my late forties, and stayed until my late fifties, when some unfortunate business investments and teaching jobs fell through. I came back to the States, still working for a company in Thailand, until that, too, evaporated in the general financial malaise of the Great Recession. I’ll be sixty next month, and have been unemployed, or working for just room and board, for nearly two years. This past spring I contacted every circus in America, from Ringling Brothers to Tarzan Zerbini’s Shrine Circus, to see if I couldn’t get back on board, if not as a clown then maybe as a ticket taker. Circus owners have short memories; no one was interested in hiring me. I then took what most circus folk consider to be a definite step down – I applied to carnivals for a job, any job. I heard back from one carnival, but they were headed down to Mexico and could only use Spanish-speaking personnel – I don’t habla Spanish that well. At last I understand just how wise those old buffoons were. I’d rather not live the rest of my life on welfare; I want to die with my clown shoes on and a red rubber nose glued to my face. To be able to complain to my colleagues about work, while still working – a cliché, perhaps, but one that I could really cherish now. But that doesn’t look to be happening. I’m still hoping to prove F. Scott Fitzgerald wrong, that there ARE second acts in American lives, in my life, but just to be on the safe side I’ve put my name down on the waiting list for a bed at the Hilda M. Barg Homeless Prevention Center. Woodbridge, Virginia. 7/29/2013
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 16:02:39 +0000
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