THE PERCENTAGE OF SUICIDES AMONG CLOWNS
A person is a trusting being requiring an ideal and in need of stereotypes, surrogates, and satisfying facsimiles of things. Men tend to be more trusting, women—less so; however, it is women who suffer most from trust, perhaps because male trust is given only to males, it is not extended to women. As an example, I would like to share this story.
Everyone knows how secluded and isolated actors’ circles are. No one hides from the world within their fantasies and rituals as passionately as actors do. And thus, in the mid 1990s, in those difficult times, when the national currency was not considered to be currency at all, a group of male actors from a certain independent theater received an invitation to a festival in Lublin that was dedicated to the idea of erasing borders. The concept of erasing borders itself could have applied to almost anything but this particular group of actors was offered a proposition to perform a circus-themed act. At first the actors were offended, but then the abovementioned trust and the satisfying facsimiles kicked in. The actors thought to themselves—well why not, maybe this is our big chance, perhaps it’s the start of something new? And they sent a reply to the organizers stating that they could bring an act entitled “Clowns on the Beach.” Bystanders immediately came to understand that this was not the start of something new but, more likely, the continuation of something old and endless, a continuation that, for that matter, was rather shitty. And so they found a clown kit, bought a big rusty tuba after selling off some booze they had, and set off for the border. There were five of them. Four of them believed in the power of art and were hoping to make some coin. The fifth one believed in show business and was just looking to hang out.
In Lublin they were settled in a dormitory. Donning their clown garb, they set off for their performance. The last of them, the fifth one, managed to score some weed and was happily dragging the tuba along behind them. The concert was attended by municipal authorities, representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora and a few feminists, who looked at the tuba with open aggression. After their performance, they were immediately dragged off to the after-party, not having been given the chance to change clothes. At the party, the actors immediately got drunk and struck up a conversation with the feminists. They ashed their cigarettes right into the tuba. Four of them, those who believed in the power of art, immediately became testy and got into a serious argument with the feminists. And then they began arguing with the representatives of the diaspora, who refused to pay them because their piece “Clowns on the Beach” had lacked the necessary national call-to-arms and ethnic coloring, not to mention that they had also precariously omitted the concept of erasing borders in their act. On the other hand, the fifth one managed to meet a representative of the municipal authorities who was responsible for international relations and even managed to share a few drags with her. She was a young woman with hair dyed red and dressed in a short black dress and black fishnet stockings. After the first joint, they switched to a more informal manner of speech and, after the second, they switched to English, which neither he nor she really knew how to speak.
Meanwhile, the group of four clowns, having had a serious argument with representatives of the diaspora and, having beaten up two municipal clerks, abandoned this esteemed gathering in disappointment, remembering to take the tuba with them. “Assholes!” they shouted in the direction of the organizers, “Fucking feminists!” And right then and there, without even taking off their clown makeup, they got on the first bus heading for the border.
On the other hand, their forgotten colleague, managed to switch to Polish, a language which he did not know, and, together with the chick in the black stockings, set off to go club-hopping. Sometime between three and four a.m., they stopped the car and started making love, right in her car, tearing clothes off of one another and smearing makeup off of one another. By morning they fell asleep—he at the steering wheel, she—on the back seat.
And at this time, the foursome of clowns, drunk and pissed off at the world, made it to the border town. The clowns immediately decided that they needed some booze and traded the tuba for three liters of moonshine.
The Polish customs officers, having seen at the border crossing four clowns with an unfinished, three-liter container of moonshine, started flipping through their customs declarations and suddenly noticed that the tuba, which had been listed as an object of art in the declarations, was missing. The customs officers decided to play it safe and placed the four of them in a cell, so that they could sleep it off. The clowns were placed on beds in their giant clown shoes.
Meanwhile, their buddy, whom they had left behind, woke up—in a strange car and in clown makeup; he pulled out another cigarette, woke up his partner, had a smoke with her, and asked her to drive him to Ukraine. The chick, gazing at him with dreamy and loving eyes, agreed to help him. And thus, on that bright sunny day, they approached the Polish border.
The customs officials, having now seen at the border their fifth clown that day—one who was sitting next to a chick in torn pantyhose and with diplomatic license plates—decided not to test the patience of the heavens and let this odd couple cross the country’s border without further delay.
Arriving at the nearest set of kiosks, the clown procured some booze, and then, later on, said the following to his girlfriend: “You know,” he said, “what it is that I don’t like about contemporary art? It lacks the spirit of tragedy, that all-encompassing play, of death, the way it really is. We all live with illusions, surrogates,” he said to her, drinking his booze straight out of the bottle, “most of us are simply afraid to look reality in the eye, but instead look away, and don’t say the truth. And the truth is that real clowns don’t wear wigs—they’re born with such hair. Like my hair, for example, you see?” And she sat there and agreed with everything. And so we have this story which, if you think about it, isn’t really all that extraordinary, because chicks always love real clowns. But they end up marrying acrobats.
Translated by Mark Andryczyk