by Benjamin Drevlow
Here I am with my clown face on and hacking away at this bloody corpse and immediately you’re making assumptions.
You think this is child’s blood, this blood I’m splattering across my happy clown face.
You think this big clown smile is my big smile.
That I’m enjoying this.
Well I am but that’s not the same.
You can’t imagine the years it’s taken me to realize who I am. The clown classes. My childhood on the pig farm.
You don’t know the first thing about clowns raising pigs. Oinky oinky, that’s what you know. Squeal pig squeal. Those cute little bathtub-scrubbed piglets people raise like puppies.
You haven’t seen them turn on each other. Little Piglet goes down with some disease and Miss Piggy, Wilbur, et al start in on him without even blessing the loss or praising their found meal. Catch their own disease.
It’s all about keeping things clean, you and them, and keeping everyone happy long enough to feed the masses.
You don’t want to think about the stun gun, the throat slitting, bleeding out in the blood bucket. My happy clown face the whole time.
You want to think about fatback and bacon and sausage and pigs’ feet, a delicacy for some. My happy clown face as I treat you to all such delights in between the balloon animals.
John Wayne Gacy was no pig farmer.
You think I wanted to be a pig farmer?
You think I wanted to be the clown son of a pig-brained pig farmer?
Some things you’re born with and some things you’re born into.
My father would’ve rather had a daughter than me.
His parochial sexism giving him the excuse to sell off the family farm to somebody else’s son when it was time to give up the pigging ghost.
If I’d’ve been gay, at least Daddy’d’ve been able to put me out of my misery with clean conscience. Feed me to the pigs, the cycle of life, only the strongest survive, the sun comes up tomorrow.
Well here I am and here he ain’t no more and clowning’s more of a hobby anyway, an art form if you do it right.
To clown full-time for any given kid’s party or circus or blood drive is to lose your clown soul.
If not for John Wayne Gacy and Stephen King’s IT, clowns like me might be up there with David Copperfield and Cirque du Soleil.
What makes for performance art if not for art and the performance? You think I pay somebody to put this makeup on me? You think you can read a book on how to work a crowd of pissy little savages and their drunk mothers?
What comes first–the coulrophobia or the clown killer?
I’m the scary town clown and yet who’s gonna be ripping the tender juicy meat off the ribs of ol’ Wilbur here tomorrow? And with all the hijinks, the laughter and giggles and mm-mm-mm… Instead of pie, how about a pig plate of sweet saucy pulled pork to the face? The balloon pig theater–this little piggy cried all the way home…
Me doddering around in my clown-foolery while the kiddos paint their big clown smiles in barbecue, laughing it up and never a mention of the things I did to poor poor ol’ Wilbur who didn’t do anything in his life other than snuffle up whatever I fed him trying to live his best life.
Got a middle school class trip coming on over tomorrow to learn where their food comes from and enjoy its fruits.
Did anybody ask for a clown show?
That’s just the special bonus I throw in to make my pig farm experience stand out from your standard pig farm experience. What my father, rest his soul, could never see. A little ‘cue and a clown show. All the possibilities.
To disarm even the biggest skeptics, the jumpiest of coulrophobes.
Regular Ronald Fuckin’ McDonald.
Some clowns do magic. Some clowns do comedy. Some clowns do balloon bicycles.
I do clown barbecue, I do clown rodeo, I do for clowns what John Wayne Gacy did to clowns.
Show me a kid with a saucy rib and I’ll show you a smile.
Show me a kid with a saucy rib and a clown in a little cowboy hat and lasso and I’ll show you a future he never dreamt of.
Of course the secret to clown ’cueing is patience.
It’s waiting for that tender meat to fall off the bone, for all that dry rub to seep in. It’s waiting for your time to shine. Putting in the time to learn your craft. Waiting for your old man to lose that grip he had on the shocker, the butcher knife, the lid of the smoker.
Waiting to show him who you truly are, waiting until he’s ready for it. And oh boy you’re ready for it.
Honka-honka, your clown horn goes.
Daddy playing the straight man as always. What the hell, boy—thumpa-thumpa, thunka thunka. The screaming of the bandsaw–almost like the sound of a happy kazoo.
What’s that they used to say about Ginger Rogers? She did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.
Look Daddy, I can do it just as good as you and I can do it in clown makeup and clown nose and clown shoes and my clown shirt with my squirting clown flower and these white white clown gloves.
Watch me break down the body quick as you, Daddy. Tenderize the meat like you always showed me. Wrap it up nice and tight for the deep freeze. Oh what a treat you’ll be, I rhyme. Because that’s what clowns do. They make people smile. They make people feel good deep down inside.
And that’s what clown ’cuein’ does too.
And just imagine the possibilities, Daddy. Oh if only you could only be here to see what I’m doing for the family legacy.
If only you were here to see how far I’ve come, Daddy, I’m thinking to myself as I round the corner with my mini-chuck wagon, my two sows pulling the way, me slapping the leads. Yee’ah, yee’ah, I yell as I pull up in front of the school bus full of middle-schoolers.
What? I say. Haven’t you ever seen a clown car before? Well, this here’s my clown-covered wagon.
And with that I pull the sheet off the back and four little piglets in clown makeup and clown faces come jumping out of the back squealing and squealing and pretty quick all those little brats are squealing squealing along with it.
You wanna see a trick? I ask.
Yeah! they yell. Not a coulrophobe among them.
Well watch closely, boys and girls because I’m about to make this sweet, tender three-hundred-pound pig disappear before your very eyes.
I’m not a magic clown. And this is no David Copperfield routine when I put the sheet over the pig.
This is just what I’ve come up with. The safest way to make the kiddos okay with eating the poor poor innocent Wilburs and Miss Piggys of the world without any unnecessary trauma. Without having to feel bad about how good it feels to consume that sweet sweet pig.
Because that’s what clowns are here for. To make you smile. To make you forget your worries about the big world outside that don’t always seem fair and never really makes sense.
And because that’s what good clown ’cuein’ does too. It puts a big old sloppy smile on your face.
And that’s what Daddy and his old ways of thinking just could never see. No matter what I did to try to make him see it.
After the kiddies’ve had their fun with the piglets, it’s time pull out my washcloths and bring out my paints. Who wants me to make them look like the Joker?
That’s the trick, after all, give the kids what they want.
Even if what they want is a deranged clown that wants to create anarchy by killing the men who don’t see him for the genius he is.
I get it. It’s all performance art with the kiddos.
Give them the Joker and suddenly clowning is cool.
Feed them bacon and pig-farming’s not so backward now, is it?
This is what I always inherently understood. Yet, this is what I could never convince Daddy. Darwinism isn’t survival of the strongest. It’s survival of the fittest—survival of the one who truly gets it.
Kids always ask me why I call myself Darwin the Clown.
And I always tell them, You see that pig? That pig’s one of the smartest animals in the world. That pig’s smarter than your dog. And now you see me. And ain’t I enjoying eating that smartypants pig? Well what does that make me? What does that make you?
I don’t get it, they’ll say. All whiney and snotnosed.
There’s nothing to get. It’s not survival of the smartest. It’s not survival of the strongest. It’s survival of the fittest, and that’s me The Clown King Darwin of the Pigs.
That’s always when I do the old sleight of hand: switch out my clown nose for a pig’s–not a real pig’s nose, heaven forbid.
Oinka-oinka-oink, I say. My Kingdom is a pigsty.
Get all the kiddos laughing. The teachers and chaperones too.
Size them all up. The juiciest to the leatheriest. The best fatback, the best ribs, the best porkchops.
Oh you think I’m funny? Funny how? I’m funny like a clown? Funny like I amuse you? Get the heck out of here, I’m funny.
All the kids rolling now. Teachers rolling.
This is it, this is my skill. My finger on the pulse. What it takes to make clowns funny. What it takes to make people lower their guards, let them give their kids over to me.
Dinner and a show.
And dessert.
Oh you should taste my rhubarb pie. It’s to die for.
Ha!
To die for.
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Drevlow is the EIC of BULL. You can find his other bullshit at thedrevlow-olsonshow.com and on socials @thedrevlow on twitter, bluesky, insta, threads, and face.
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