Clown Suite. (excerpt)

“You turn into a clown because you feel more and more like putting on a clown suit.”
– Chelsey Minnis

“There ought to be clowns.”
– Stephen Sondheim

“No…no…no…no…no…”
– from “Clown Torture” (Bruce Nauman, 1987)

CLOWN #1: And what do we think about sex?
CLOWN #2: God, please, let’s not.
CLOWN #1: And men in shorts?
CLOWN #2: We should send them to a country. Greenland.
CLOWN #1: And lollipops?
CLOWN #2: I’m in pain.
CLOWN #1: We’re both in pain. How could we not be in pain?
CLOWN #2: When are you going to come by the house and check out the trampoline?
CLOWN #1: Our face practically says it: “We are clowns. We are pain.”
CLOWN #2: All four of my grandparents were clowns.
CLOWN #1: I went to college for it.
CLOWN #2: All eight of my great-grandparents were clowns.
CLOWN #1: My parents were dentists.
CLOWN #2: My whole life, I’ve only seen one kind of shoe.
CLOWN #1: Clown shoes.
CLOWN #2: We just called them shoes.

CLOWN #1: The number of people I’ve spoken to increases every day.
CLOWN #2: Clowns don’t speak. We think about speaking.
CLOWN #1: I smile at babies. I feel like the president.
CLOWN #2: We’re the presidents of laughter.
CLOWN #1: No, we’re the presidents of something else, but not laughter.
CLOWN #2: We’re the mayor of an abandoned town in the middle of the desert.
CLOWN #1: Yes. Okay.
CLOWN #2: We run the amusement park.
CLOWN #1: Yes. Even if no one comes: there it is.
CLOWN #2: There it is. The amusement park. Someone should make a movie about us.
CLOWN #1: Yes, a movie.
CLOWN #2: A movie that makes lovers stroke each other’s necks.
CLOWN #1: Or strangle each other.
CLOWN #2: No kissing.
CLOWN #1: Never kissing.
CLOWN #2: We only kiss pies and pie product.
CLOWN #1: We ask very little of the world.
CLOWN #2: The smallest amount one could ask for.

Sebastian Castillo lives in Philadelphia, PA. He makes pop music at tigerinmytank.bandcamp.com. @bartlebytaco.