Sometimes, You Can See What Clowns are Thinking

The Swan Song Circus was small. It traversed the South in a caravan of happy-looking campers and trucks decorated with pictures of swans and loaded with performers and equipment - a colorful orange and blue big top, folded wooden audience benches, machines for making cotton candy and popcorn and for dispensing soda, high wire apparatus and trapeze, rings and hoops and blocks and ropes, costumes, and everyday living necessities like camping tents, cots, pots and pans, pillows, day clothes and mementos from home. The owner, a retired veterinarian who had the dream of owning a circus, didn’t believe in the cruelty of big animal acts. He hired a dog act costumed in lion headdress, a cat that played the piano, a trapeze duo, a high wire act, a baton-twirling flame thrower, a woman who twirled on the cord lisse, a muscle man, an archery act, a one-man band and his dancer wife, and a pair of clowns named Benny and Lulu. 

Benny was the clumsy clown in the act, the silly sidekick to Lulu’s elegance. He painted his face in the tradition of an Auguste clown, a buffoon, a joker - white grease paint smeared around his eyes and around his mouth, his lower lip painted in red. He exaggerated his already thick eyebrows in black, curving each end up in a way that expressed perpetual doubt, the doubt he felt from inside, and he smeared the rest of his exposed skin with flesh-colored grease paint, all the while watching Lulu’s reflection in his mirror. He never smiled once his grease paint was on, the bright white around his mouth made his own white teeth look yellow. The red plastic nose would stretch over his own, two prongs in each nostril to keep it secure, but for now, he held the nose in his hand.

He wore a white tee shirt, suspenders, and baggy patchwork pants. A baggy patchwork jacket that hung over his chair, would go over his white tee shirt during the performance. He twirled a tweed newsboy cap up to his head, to sit on top of his real hair, cut short. Real hair was less scary than wigs. Benny and Lulu agreed.

“I love watching you put on your color,” said Benny, pulling up a side chair, like he always did, next to Lulu. She wore a black leotard, pink tights, and a blue tutu. Black lines followed the inside curve above each of her eyes to form half arches high on her forward. Benny had never shared the thought, but he saw these eyebrows as manifestations of her innocence, a hopeful generosity in an often-disappointing world, her genuineness. Although, the irony wasn’t lost on him – that her eyebrows were the mask of a clown - he thought of her paint as her insides out, like how his own painted face, shy and worried and introspective, like he felt.

“I know,” said Lulu. Benny didn’t smile back.

The tip of Lulu’s nose was outlined in a black circle. Another heavy black line followed the contour of her lips, narrow at the top, full at the bottom, with the traditional circle outlines in the corners of her mouth. Everything outside these black lines was white, stark white. She was a full white-faced clown, the top of clown hierarchy. Benny could hear himself sigh.

Lulu grabbed a brush and dipped it in red. She filled in the circle on her nose. She painted inside the black line around her mouth. With a new brush and sky-blue paint, she colored beneath the black line of her right eyebrow. She colored beneath the exaggerated eyebrow of her left eye with celery green. She dipped a narrow brush back into black paint and painted swirls at the corner of each eye. She painted one long black line on each side of her face that ran from her eyes’ lower lids down her cheeks. She dabbed on a swirl of pink cheek color. The effect was porcelain. It was angelic.

Lulu washed her hands and laced up the ribbons of her red ballet slippers. Benny pulled his big red rubber cartoon shoes over his feet. He pulled on his red nose. Lulu placed a white cloche hat on her head. Her soft brown curls peaked out from beneath. Benny had been content to watch Lulu from afar, happy just to be in her company, but today his stomach fluttered. He was breathless.

When they entered the ring, the audience gasped. They’d been performing together since clown school. Four years? Five years? And always, he heard the gasp. An involuntary “oh” from the audience, who’d been expecting clowns, but not her beauty.

He watched her put the audience at ease, sliding her cloche off her head, letting it flip into her palm. It was Benny’s turn. He looked at her, befuddled but hopeful to imitate, sliding his own hat from the top of his head, missing a catch with his hand, hooking his hat with his big red shoe. The audience laughed.

Lulu shook her curls in mock exasperation. She twirled her hat gracefully back to the top of her head. Benny tried to do the same again and again, but each time, his spin landed his hat on the ground. Finally, bouncing his legs while looking up in the air, he plopped the hat on the top of his head. The audience clapped and laughed.

Benny lifted a china teapot from a table and handed Lulu a cup and saucer. Lulu juggled the cup and saucer. Benny handed her another, and another, and another. While Lulu juggled, Benny tried to catch a cup to pour tea. The audience went wild when they stopped. Benny’s heart pounded. He’d been afraid of ruining their friendship, his timidity kept his feelings inside, but he was also a clown. He could do this.

He bent a knee. From beneath his jacket, Benny produced a dozen real red roses. The bashful and romantic clown, he handed Lulu the bouquet. In her eyes, he saw a glimmer of something he’d never seen before. He saw the possibility of something more. Benny stood. He took the bouquet from Lulu, he laid it on the ground, and he lifted his hands to dance with her. As they danced and twirled together around the circus ring, Benny felt joy. He didn’t feel shy.

At the end of the show, Benny took Lulu's hand and led her to a quiet spot in the circus tent. He told her how much he loved her and how much she meant to him. He poured out his heart to her, hoping she would feel the same way.

Lulu was surprised at first, but then she smiled. "I love you too, Benny," she said, taking Benny’s hand. He felt as if he was airborne, hanging onto balloons.

From that day on, Benny was not just the Auguste clown to Lulu’s elegant white-face, he was also the man Lulu loved. Lulu and Benny continued to perform and make audiences laugh, but now they did it with the knowledge that they had each other's love and support. To their fellow Swan Song performers, and to audience members, Benny and Lulu’s story became legend, a reminder that sometimes taking a chance on love can lead to the happiest of endings.