It’s not all good.
I mean, I adore being a clown, regardless of anyone else’s feelings about it. But there are times when it wears me down to a flat‑out nub. Makes me wish, at least for a moment, that my heart had picked anything else to love.
First, there’s the issue of money. Clowning is cost prohibitive for people like me who live paycheck to paycheck. Like most creative arts gigs, you start off doing stuff for free, hoping to get picked up by an agency. And once you start getting paid for clowning jobs, you’re lucky if you manage to rake in enough to cover the time you took off from your actual job. Plus, there’s the matter of your agency’s cut, which can sometimes be as large as 20 percent. I’ve never met somebody well‑off who decided they wanted to get into clowning. Stand‑up comedy, sure. That’s all focused on the self. It’s the I, not the you.
Most clowns, myself included, are struggling to pay off one bill just to have four more crop up in its place like someone poured water on a Gremlin, or they’re retirees who genuinely love kids and want to spend their golden years feeling like they finally gave something back to society. I enjoy that stuff too, don’t get me wrong—if you hate kids, you’d be better off driving Lyfts than donning the greasepaint—but it’s deeper than that. When I clown, I become something bigger than myself. And hey, I know what it’s like to have to work harder for what I want than anyone else. I’m a queer person living in Florida, aren’t I?
To clown, you need lots of things: clothes and makeup and props and, above all else, you need time. Large, uninterrupted swaths of it. That’s when you can plot and plan and polish your craft. Try out those pratfalls without anyone watching. Perfect your gags. That way when you get out onstage, all the audience sees is your persona. No visible seams.
Of course, there’s the other obvious clowning hardship: you’re universally despised.
Grown men will cry out for Mommy when they see me walk down the street. Kids often run screaming. They do this because they’re frightened by the lore that’s been built around my profession. To them, I’m the boogeyman: something that crawls out of their closet in the middle of the night, intent on devouring them whole. Many of the things I love about clowning—the swagger of it, the slyness, the bold colors and absurd shapes my body makes—are, for some, the exact behaviors that fuel their worst nightmares.
You need very thick skin. Clowning requires a kind of steeliness that I associate with my coming‑out process: the knowledge that there will always be people in life who will hate you for who and what you love. There are women who won’t date me once they find out what I do for a living. I’ve lost friends over it. My own mother nearly disowned me the first time she caught me in full clown gear. I had wanted to surprise her with how good I had gotten, to show off my act. Tumbling, juggling, magic tricks. Dwight had already seen me perform back when I was first starting out. He’d liked it fine, he’d said, but it wasn’t exactly his thing. That I understood—my big brother was never going to be the kind of guy who’d admit that I was funnier than him. But my mother, that was different. I’d wanted her approval. The look on her face, I’ll never forget; it was as if I were the most revolting thing she’d ever seen. Like she couldn’t believe she’d given birth to something so foul.
“Cheryl,” she’d said, after several agonizing seconds had passed, “What do you want me to say?”
That was the first and last time I ever performed in front of my mother.
But you get used to it. Much like you hone tricks for your act, you devise the necessary skills to remove yourself from sticky situations. You learn to spot trouble before it happens and therefore avoid it entirely. Eight years into clowning, I can easily recognize the guy who might deck me if I get too close. Men get violent when confronted by the things that scare them. I watch their fists. Are they balled up, knuckles white? If so, I keep to the opposite side of the room. I twist my act, like I’m turning the wheel of a car, and completely change direction. I’ll tell jokes they already know. No surprises.
Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?
When it comes to moving through the world in this particular suit of flesh, I have to be careful. I don’t get to make the same kind of jokes my brother would make. I can’t prank people and expect not to get punched. If I’m not careful, if I don’t watch what I’m doing, I could get hurt.
I’m remembering being chased out a window when I pull up to the woman’s house. My heart is thumping like it wants me to let it out, free it from the prison of my rib cage so it can take off down the street and away from this terrible decision. It’s smarter than me, I think. If I were paying attention, I’d recall that not even a week earlier, a man tried to brain me with a shampoo bottle at this very house after he caught me fucking his wife in their bathroom.
*
The neighborhood is one that looks like all the others in this particular area of Central Florida: an expanse of perfectly manicured lawns with expensive sprinkler systems that are undoubtedly depleting all the water from our state’s limited aquifers. The woman’s house is painted buttercup yellow with perfectly clean white trim and large windows bracketing the front door. There’s a hand‑painted mailbox beside the curb that features a twined pair of pink flamingos in dark sunglasses and wacky striped bow ties; the wallaces is scrawled above them in bright green calligraphic script.
For a moment I consider parking on the street because my car has been leaking coolant, and their driveway is made up of a patchwork of dun‑colored bricks that I know must have cost a small fortune—but the need for a quick getaway overrules my worries. Why should I care about what these people think? It’s not like we’ll meet up at their country club or chat over dirty martinis at Hillstone; it’s doubtful they’ll ever set foot in the dingy, grunged‑out bars where Darcy and I spend our weekends, bumming drinks off drunk tourists. They live in the kind of neighborhood that has made it impossible for anyone from Orlando to own a home, transplants from up North who’ve decided to help gentrify the parts of Central Florida that used to belong to the locals. My mother owns a house, sure, but it took her years of scrimping and saving to manage that, and it was before the housing crisis began in earnest. Unless you work in finance or real estate or were born with money, your odds of owning property in Central Florida are remarkably slim. Dwight never owned a home. I doubt I will either.
I pull in behind a shiny black Range Rover and make my way up the walk. When I ring the bell, the chime inside plays the opening notes to the University of Florida fight song. I completed only three semesters of community college, but the reason I know the Gators fight song is because I used to date a woman who was really into football. I finger comb my hair, and my elbow connects with the tray of a hummingbird feeder. Syrupy water slicks around my elbow and trails down my wrist.
The woman who eventually answers the door is not the woman but looks significantly like her, only older. Must be her mother, I think, and my mommy issues flare to sudden bright light.
“Is Marcia home?” I ask. “Could I speak to her, please?”
She stares at me awhile longer, no real expression on her face, and I find myself squirming under her scrutiny. She’s my height but for some reason appears taller. Blue eyes stabbing into me like she knows I’ve done something awful.
It’s intensely erotic.
“Marcia,” she suddenly yells. “Someone at the door.”
She disappears down the hall, leaving me alone. I try to wipe the liquid from my arm, but my fingers stick in the tackiness of the drying sugar. It’s like someone chewing Bubble Yum decided to spit on me.
“Can I help you?” Marcia says.
She doesn’t recognize me, but that’s understandable. She’s only ever seen me dressed in full clown gear, and this afternoon I’ve shown up in my work clothes with no wig and my face completely naked, not even a lick of tinted ChapStick to give my mouth some color. She’s wearing a pair of lavender joggers, and her short blonde hair is pulled back into a barely contained ponytail that sprouts from the back of her head like pineapple leaves.
“Hey,” I say, suddenly shy. Sometimes that happens when I meet someone without the added layer of protection provided by my clown ensemble. It’s as though all my confidence comes from the greasepaint. “I was hoping I could pick up my stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“That I left here.” When her expression doesn’t change, I continue in a hurry. “An olive‑colored duffel bag with brown leather handles? I stashed it behind the sectional sofa in the living room.”
She drinks me in, and there it is, the sudden knowledge that I’m the person who had a magic wand up her pussy. Disappointment clouds her features. “Oh. Hi.”
“Hi.” I kick at the front mat, which reads welcome, you, and the grammar is so weird and bad it makes me want to turn and leave. “I need my stuff. For work.”
“Right.” She turns around halfway to see if anyone is behind her in the hall, then leans in close—much closer than expected. Her breath is hot and scented with traces of wintergreen‑flavored gum. “Check the garbage, out back. My husband tossed it. You know . . . after.”
Looking at her now is a miserable experience. There’s disgust in her
eyes, sure, but there’s also pity. This woman with her expensive car and her homeowners association and her neat little family of three and her good‑looking mother. It doesn’t matter that I did an incredible job entertaining her guests with my clown work (I’d juggled lit candles, for Chrissake, thrown actual fire) and possibly did an even better job fucking her. To this woman, I’m simply a minor inconvenience.
I turn on my heel and walk stiffly around the side of the house, all the way to the back garden with its rosebushes and flowering citrus trees. You’re doing this for the audition, I tell myself. You’re doing this because you’re always willing to get your hands dirty in order to achieve your dreams. Opening the garbage cans produces some of the most unholy, stomach‑churning smells I’ve ever encountered, odors akin to sour milk and formaldehyde and rancid pork. One of the bags splits open as I shove it aside, unearthing what looks to be the remains of a seafood boil, busted crab legs and shrimp shells and gray, mealy potatoes and gnawed corncobs nestled in a damp newspaper wrapping. At the very bottom of the bin, I finally find it: the faded duffel bag that holds my most treasured possessions.
Crowing with delight, I yank it free, unearthing the remaining Hefty bag, which rolls down onto the freshly mown grass and ejects wadded toilet paper and several used tampon applicators. My bag stinks to high heaven, but it’s still the sweetest sight I’ve ever seen.
I set it on the ground and unzip the top. The relief I feel is palpable; I’m giddy in a way that’s nearly post‑orgasmic. I’ve conquered my cowardice, and I’m reaping the benefits of facing my fears. Here, I think, is my reward.
Everything is there, my creative life stuffed in a single bag: pants and shirts and ties, my miniature accordion, the ventriloquist’s dummy I’d named Velma after getting stoned and watching too much Scooby-Doo, bike horns and kazoos and glitter bombs and extra wigs and a bag of red noses and Hacky Sacks for juggling and spare packs of balloons. But I keep digging, suddenly frantic, because I’ve realized that the most important thing isn’t here. My makeup kit is missing. The expensive greasepaint that I’d spent six months saving up for, in order to perfect the visage of Bunko: a clown cowboy whose dream is to compete in the rodeo, but he’s never going to make it, is he? Not with that debilitating horse phobia.
And I know exactly where I’ll find that missing kit. Marcia, you sneaky bitch, I think, as I march around the side of the house, this time forgoing the doorbell with its goofy college football chime, and instead banging the side of my fist repeatedly against the wood.
When she opens the door, I’m ready for her.
“If you don’t give me my shit back, I am going to come inside your house.” I widen my eyes and smile my wild Bunko grin. My voice goes up an octave, turns giggly. I pull one of the red noses from my kit and jam it onto my face. “And I’m going to stay here, rolling allllll around on your sofa, until your husband gets home.”
Marcia puffs up, ready to scream at me, but then we both hear a voice. It’s her son, calling for her from inside the house. She immediately deflates.
“Can’t I keep it?” she whispers. She clasps her hands under her chin, like a child reciting a bedtime prayer. “Please. I just . . . I’m begging you.”
And I can see that she really does want the makeup. Wants it badly enough that she’s willing to hide it from her husband, who is exactly the kind of guy I’d avoid at a gig: a dude who’d punch me not just because I’d fucked his wife, but because I’m a clown and I scare him. I’m queer, but she’s not. All she’d seen was the clown, and she’d wanted that. Nothing to do with gender. Everything to do with performance.
“I can’t afford to replace it,” I say. “And I need it for work.” Her face lights up. “I can pay you.”
The thought of going back out and having to buy the stuff makes me pause again. “It’s expensive.”
“That’s fine, I’ve got the money. Wait here.”
Of course she has the money. These people always have the money, don’t they?
She disappears down the hall. I take off the clown nose and stuff it back in my bag. There’s a food smell wafting from the open doorway, air redolent with sautéed onions and butter and garlic. My stomach growls, loudly, and I slap a hand to it, as if I might be able to shove the offending noise back inside my body. I haven’t had anything to eat since my breakfast coffee, though Darcy is always quick to inform me that coffee does not actually constitute a meal. She’s one to talk; she never fixes anything for herself, content to live at home with her mother, who packs her some of the most incredible lunch spreads I’ve ever seen. Back when I regularly saw my mother, I was lucky if she’d reheat me leftovers scrounged from the back of the fridge.
The woman reappears, clutching her pocketbook. “Smells good in there,” I say. “You guys cooking dinner?”
She dismisses the question with a wave of her hand, unfolding her billfold to reveal a wad of cash. “How much?”
Incredible that a person could simply say “how much” and not worry about the amount effectively bankrupting them. I could say any number, but I figure I should keep it close enough to the actual price that she won’t realize that I’m gouging her. “Two fifty.”
“Fine.” The fat stack of cash in her hands is obscene. As she’s filling my open palm with crisp twenty‑dollar bills, she assesses me again, taking in the dusty work polo, sweeping her gaze down my wrinkled, ill‑fitting jeans, which house a fair amount of hip but sadly not all that much ass. I suddenly remember the Wite‑Out Darcy put in my hair. I must look like a skunk.
“Aquarium Select III?” she asks. “What’s that?”
“Oh.” I hold out my shirt and look down at the embroidered logo.
It’s gone fuzzy from repeated washings. “That’s where I work.”
I can see that she regrets ever letting me touch her. I’m not a kinky, horny clown, fucking her in a bathroom. I’m a random dirtbag who works part‑time at an aquarium shop for only slightly better than minimum wage. She stares forlornly at my face: my slender blade of a nose, my dark eyes with their even darker circles beneath them, my thin slash of a mouth with the barely‑there chapped lips. She’s judged me, and the verdict is in: nothing all that great.
“You’ve got some white shit in your hair.” She slips the last bill into my hand. “Thought you should know.”
The rejection hurts worse than I’d thought it would, even though the woman’s not really my type. How can there be such a gap between the people who have nothing and the people who have something? Sometimes, like now, the divide feels like an entire gulf, wider than Florida itself. I laugh, and it doesn’t sound all that funny. It feels a little like I’m drowning.
When she goes to put the rest of her money away, I clear my throat and wiggle my fingers.
“Restocking fee,” I announce. “That’ll be an extra hundred.”
Her mouth screws up in distaste, but she doesn’t argue; she just counts out the extra twenties and hands them over. I let myself focus on the money, and it helps numb the sting of her dismissal. When she’s done, the door is unceremoniously slammed in my face.
I shove the wad of cash in my pocket—$350, more than enough for greasepaint and even enough to buy some stuff I’d put off acquiring because it was too expensive, plus easy admission to the audition and money for gas and lodging on the overnight drive out to Tampa—and I toss my gear kit in the trunk. As I climb back into the front seat, the woman’s husband pulls up. He rolls down the tinted window of his Lexus and peers in at me.
“Nice car,” he says. “Seventy‑nine Firebird?” “Seventy‑seven.”
He whistles, long and low. “Love that paint job too. American muscle. A real classic.”
Truthfully, the man reminds me of my older brother. Dwight had the same kind of bulky block head perfect for a crew cut, tailor‑made for the army. Pouch at his waist threatening to turn into something serious from consuming too much alcohol. But unlike this man, Dwight’s been dead for five years. He’ll never have to worry about a beer gut again.
The man’s got his hand on the window frame, and his gold wedding band glints in the late‑afternoon sunlight. I nod congenially, and he gives me a brief wave before exiting the car, hauling his black leather briefcase behind him. Tasteful gray suit and a crisp white shirt with a loosened tie dangling around his thick neck. Lawyer, maybe. Or something that has to do with finance. He doesn’t give me a second thought, this stranger idling in his driveway. He looked only at the car.
As I reverse, I take in the neighborhood: speed posted twenty miles per hour, a bright yellow drive like your kids live here double‑sided sign propped at the edge of a violently green lawn. Zero traffic or pedestrians in sight. I rev my engine and back directly into that god‑awful flamingo mailbox.
Carefully, of course. Wouldn’t want to scratch the paint.
__________________________________
From Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One by Kristen Arnett. Used with permission of the publisher, Riverhead Books. Copyright © 2025 by Kristen Arnett.
