Carnie Wife

A couple of weeks ago, Michael and I attended a showing of Cirque du Soleil’s Dralion. This is my best attempt at an account of what transpired.

Having been ushered through a series of tents and passed along a string of handlers, we find our seats just off the aisle. Settling in, we celebrate our proximity to the main stage and, preliminaries dispensed, Michael sets off back toward the concessions stand. I give a friendly nod to the couple sitting to my left and then turn my attention to deciphering the pre-show entertainment – three or four clown-like characters let loose in the audience administering minor embarrassment and a shock of spotlight as they gambol and cavort up and down the aisles, jumping in the laps of the unsuspecting and engaging in one-sided games of tag with the less-than-enthused among us.

Thus engrossed, I do not apprehend the rogue clown skipping down the aisle behind me, shaking hands in exaggerated fashion as he goes, until he seems to materialize beside me, and I make the fatal error of meeting his gaze. I watch as he tips his bowler, takes my hand and issues a barely decipherable mix of Spanish and Italian, which I interpret as something along the lines of “Alone this evening? Such a tragedy!” and then in English, “I get off at 11.” Ha. Ha. Whereupon, he yanks off his hat, bows deeply, kisses my hand and high-steps his way to the next victim.

I breathe a sigh of relief at having avoided further spectacle and relay to Michael – just now returning with a bucket of cotton candy in hand – all the fun he has missed, to which he responds, “Wow, I’m impressed. You really don’t like clowns.” It’s true. I really don’t like clowns. I’m not liable to just haul off and belt a clown in the mouth without warning or provocation, but I will cross the street or engage in more complicated evasive maneuvers to avoid coming in contact with a clown. I cannot trace my aversion to clowns to a single traumatic event in my childhood, but I do find the make-up deeply disturbing and, ever since reading Stephen King’s “It,” I always suspect clowns of being a hairsbreadth away from conduct unbefitting a children’s entertainer.

A few minutes later, the lights go down, an exotic flavor of jangling music rolls through the crowd, the curtain goes up, and then, suddenly and inexplicably, I find myself bathed in a white, hot light. Looking around, I notice that the edges of the light seem to encompass only me. There is a jostling up the aisle, and there before me, once again, the self-same clown of moments before. And that is when the real horror sets in. Exposed by the spotlight in front of a thousand hungry eyes, I consider the possibility of making a run for it, but decide, ultimately, that whatever this clown has planned is bound to be more humane than being chased by a spotlight while scrambling for the nearest exit.

So this clown takes my hand and escorts me up the aisle, to a higher vantage point – as I flip through my karmic rolodex to discover what it is I’ve done to possibly deserve this – and, having reached the apex, we turn to fully embrace this blinding and relentless light, poised to reveal the next chapter in what is sure to be a source of shame for years to come. The clown procures from his vest a bridal veil, which he jams on my head. The band explodes in a swooping, circus-y version of a wedding march. And there I am, walking down the aisle on the arm of a clown, the audience throwing confetti and shrieking with laughter, delighted at their participation on the fringes of this fiasco.

It is a surprisingly accurate facsimile of my own personal version of hell.

Somehow the clown and I reach the bottom of the aisle – a fact of which I am only semi-aware, having devoted the entirety of my attentions to not falling down or crying. He turns to face me all googly-eyed and mugging for the audience and I struggle for a moment against the impulse to throttle the life out of this clown, thinking of all the terrified children who would thank me. But, undaunted, he plunges ahead, holding forth, again, in indecipherable Esperanto, a speech, the cadence of which loosely approximates traditional wedding vows. I again consider the possibility that I may have to kill this clown to get out of this with my sanity. At which point I realize that the speech has stopped, a hush has fallen over the crowd, and the clown is leaning toward me with his face screwed up in full pucker. He’s leaning in for a kiss – with no idea of the violence he is inviting.

Again it is the exposing knife of the spotlight – and the potential myriad witness statements – that mitigates my natural response. I pause a moment before I kiss the clown once on each cheek, congratulating myself on my temperance and my ability to be a good sport. But this clown truly has a death wish because he balks, gushing gibberish and gesticulating wildly, stomping his feet and pointing at his lips. I am, frankly, considering slugging him full in the face because, while I’ve been the very picture of grace under fire up to this point, I am well and truly done with clowns and public humiliation and circuses in general, thank you very much.

It is in this moment of furious internal debate, while the crowd waits in anxious anticipation, that I hear the voice of a jocular Aussie bloke ring out, “Just do it!”

So I do. And we very much enjoy the rest of the show.

However, even weeks later, I must admit I am haunted by the dreadful memory of my carnie wedding and the possibility that, by virtue of some unwritten circus law, I have actually somehow married a clown.