Clowns of Enchantment, Part III
Mike Smith
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This is part three in a three-part series. (For parts one and two, click here and here, or just scroll down.)
One by one, the clowns emerge into the open air.
There’s one, staggering beneath a sack of onions.
There’s—there’s one, no, wait, there's two more!
There’s another, doing the chicken dance. Be quiet or he’ll see us!
And there’s—oh, please be a mirage.
They’re—they must be multiplying. They can’t— They’re— There’s too many. This can’t be, this can’t be right! Oh no. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no, they’re coming closer! They’re coming closer. They’re—oh please, oh no—they’re—they're—they’re going to perform!
In Portales, near New Mexico’s east-central edge, something both tragic and terrifying is afoot. In Portales, there is a children’s home—the New Mexico Baptist Children’s Home—where a group of approximately twelve children and teenagers are being led to do things no truly sane or loving guardian would ever suggest their children consider engaging in.
Technically, no laws are being broken, yet the feelings of terror and revulsion invoked by the actions of these children and their sadistic guardian seem to suggest to onlookers that what is wrong here is wrong on a much deeper, much more primal level.
According to objectivity-challenged writer Janet Bresenham, in the May 8, 2008 Portales News-Tribune:
When Toni K. wants to share God’s love, she puts her hands and heart into her musical message.
The 15-year-old, ninth-grade student is a member of a new clown/mime ministry troupe made up of about a dozen children and teenagers who live at the New Mexico Baptist Children’s Home in Portales.
“With me, I’m kind of shy, but when I put on the mime makeup, it’s good because no one knows it’s you,” Toni K. said. “So it’s like this isn’t my face up there, it’s God’s face. I really, really love music, too, but I don’t sing, so when I sign and act out the songs, that’s my way of singing.”
Using a combination of sign language gestures, dramatic interpretive movements and passionate emotion, the young people communicate God’s messages set to various Christian worship songs.
If a more terrifying combination of words exists in the English language than “new clown/mime ministry troupe,” please refrain from saying it. If a worse idea for a performing group could possibly come to mind, please stop yourself from ever telling anyone, ever.
The article is prefaced by an editor’s note, stating that the Children’s Home tells the media only the first names and last initial of the children who live there—a precaution the children will no doubt be grateful for when they inevitably run away to begin frantically trying to erase every shred of their unfortunate pasts.
The article continues:
Dressed in big white hats, white gloves, white socks, white face paint, black slacks and black and white tuxedo-style, long-sleeved shirts, the group of young people range in age from 7 to 16.
Members of the older group call themselves “Fire Fighters” because they are “fighting back the fires of hell” by sharing God’s message of love and forgiveness, Toni K. said.
The younger group, known as the “Silent Knights,” are “warriors of God, but they don’t speak with their words; they speak with their hands,” she said.
“Clowning is about more than makeup, more than the signs, more than songs,” Alexis W. said. “It’s about what you feel. You’re putting your own emotions and passions into your interpretation of the songs.”
The clown/mime troupe travels to minister throughout the state.“Clowning is a way for you to really get in touch with God,” Toni K. said. “It’s also a really good way to witness to other people and share God’s love.”
Did you catch that detail about three sentences back, folks? They travel throughout the state. They could be coming to your town. They could be there right now, right outside your house. You might be walking your dog in a park, and come face to face with a tiny black-and-white mime aping scenes from the New Testament. You might stop to buy a newspaper, and be confronted by a dozen silent mime-clowns reenacting the fall of the Tower of Babel.
You really might. The danger is remote, but it is real.
They exist—they are a weapon that fires pure, distilled creepiness—and they are evidently wielded by a madwoman with no connection to reality, and no conscience when it comes to inflicting humiliating, warping horrors upon still-innocent hearts and minds.
One final quote, from the News-Tribune:
They hope to minister in more churches, schools, parks and other locations, said Frances Moore, director of the clown/mime ministry and one of the house parents at the children's home.
Moore said she remembers joining a similar ministry at her church when she was a young girl.
“White faces? White gloves? Sign language? Music and God? Wow! What a curious and interesting way God used to bring me closer to him,” Moore said. “Little did I know that God would use what I was taught over 20 years ago to again reach shy, hurting children today.”
To reach them...and to give them a valid reason to remain shy forever.
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Reader Comments (8)
Unfortunately bulls are not at all afraid of men in makeup. Believe me. I was a apprentice rodeo clown one season. I think bulls find it attractive - in the worst way imaginable!!!
Honestly, although my fear of clowns never quite abated while writing these pieces, I did form a bit of respect for the rodeo clown guy, Timber Tuckness. He's a seriously tough individual, who does some really brave things, and that you actually did any of that sort of thing--rodeo clowning--leaves me genuinely impressed.
I'm still not impressed by the child mimes, though. Just frightened.
I mentioned this subject around the dinner table with my parents-in-law, and was startled to be met with only blank looks and comments, all about how being a mime is a form of art.
(That, coincidentally, is a defense often used by serial killers as well.)
All I could say was, "There is a gulf between us, and it is widening."
By contrast, I do admire the rodeo clowns. At least they're useful.
I think he was one of the first professional rodeo clowns to follow the circuit.
I have to admit unintentionally developing a grudging respect for rodeo clowns when I wrote this. They really do some crazy stuff, for real.
Does that mean I am no longer uneasy around them? No. Or that I find them funny? No, I really don't.
But I will give them credit for risking death for the sake of entertainment.
I agree wholeheartedly with you!
But, would rodeo clowns be as effective if they didn't have the makeup and the silly costumes? Seems to me I read an article once by a rodeo clown who stated flatly that each part of his costume was carefully planned to look outrageous, but would break away should he get hung up on the bull's horns or something else. I don't know, but as I said, the rodeo clowns are useful, but I hate the so-called clowns from the circus. They aren't funny, and I have seen far too many children frightened by them. One of the worst things I have ever seen concerning a clown was one who approached a very small girl at a local county fair. He leaned over and spoke to the child who looked at him, then literally climbed up her mother's body, screaming at the top of her lungs. The clown turned out to be her daddy, but I doubt if he ever convinced her.
By the same token, if one should wish to look at it that way, is when locals try to perform some scene from the old days. One year in Holbrook, Arizona, the locals were performing a skit representing a bank robbery that happened sometime in the 1800's in Holbrook. One of my acquaintances was playing the part of the bank robber who got shot. Everything was going very well, the bank was robbed, the gunfight started, ladies screamed, it was very impressive. Then, the robber got shot and he "died" quite elegantly in the middle of the street. There was dead silence for an instant, then a horrible shriek went up when the "robber's" two-year-old daughter realized what had happened. She tore out into the street, crying and sobbing frightfully. She flung herself upon the "dead man," who had to come to life to comfort the stricken child. Ruined his great moment, but the crowd loved it!