The Clown in the Tree

Portrait of a Clown

The three of us continued on to the community center, Gino and the clown both dragging their feet. When we arrived, it was quiet and empty out front; no older kids hanging out smoking cigarettes by the fountain, no tiny kids in tutus being shuffled in by grown-ups. A place looks different when you get there late, the silence thick and heavy with the ghost-impressions of people you missed—their movements and chatter and smells.

The hallway leading to our classroom seemed unusually long and dark. When we finally reached it, I could see our teacher Mr. Wendell talking through the narrow glass pane of the closed door. The clown stood close behind me, with Gino close behind him. My heart was pounding in my ears.

"Can we please go home?" Gino whispered from around the clown's leg.

"We can't!" I said. "We'll make Mommy sad."

Gino moaned and leaned his head against the clown. I held my breath and opened the door. Mr. Wendell was in mid-sentence. He turned to face us with his mouth open. I could hear the kids shifting on their stools at their drafting tables. They were all looking at us, but I couldn't look at them.

"Hello there!" Mr. Wendell said. He had white hair and a bushy white mustache. He always had charcoal on his shirt and under his fingernails.

"I can guess why you're late," he said, looking up at the tall clown. "You found a friend." The three of us stood pressed together. I could hear some kids quietly giggling.

"We were just getting ready to draw some triangles," Mr. Wendell continued, picking up an extra stool from along the wall. "But now," he set the stool down at the front of the room, "I've got a better idea."

He gestured to the clown. "Would you be so kind as to have a seat?" The clown looked at me. I nodded to him and he went ahead. Mr. Wendell gave a kind but firm nod to Gino and me, which meant it was time for us to go and join the rest of the class at our drafting tables.

Mr. Wendell extended his hand to the clown. "Thank you for coming," he said. The clown shook the teacher's hand.

I gave Gino his sketchbook and pencils and we each climbed up onto our stools. The clown sat perfectly straight in his chair, his eyes sparkling, his white-gloved hands folded neatly in the lap of his brilliant jumpsuit, his smile a perfect purple heart.

Mr. Wendell held his hands out like a magician who'd just made the clown appear. "'Portrait of a Clown,'" he said. "Now open your sketchbooks and begin. You have about an hour before we reconvene to share our interpretations. I look forward to it."

The room buzzed with shuffles and murmurs as kids rustled papers, sharpened pencils, and accidentally dropped things on the floor.

"Does anyone have any questions?" Mr. Wendell yelled over the noise, like he'd forgotten to ask.

"Would anyone rather draw triangles?" he said and laughed.

"I have a question," someone said. Mr. Wendell hushed us and the room became quiet as heads turned to see who was talking. It was the oldest girl in the class, a seventh-grader who was always talking about being in the gifted program at her school.

"Amber?"

"Can we just do triangles if we want to?" Amber said. "I had this really neat idea for playing with form. Clown portraits are just so kitschy."

The fourth-grade boy in the baseball cap who sat in front of me groaned. "What is she talking about?" he whined at the ceiling.

Mr. Wendell placed a finger over his lips and looked down at his sneakers. "Kitschy..." he said, "perhaps. But couldn't you play with form in drawing a clown just as you would in drawing a triangle? Think of what Picasso did with the women in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon."

"Okay..." Amber said, nodding and looking up at the ceiling (I had no doubt she knew what he was talking about). "Then could we wash the makeup off of half of his face to show the man hidden underneath? Then we could explore different themes, like 'Why would an adult dress up like a clown?' Money? Escapism?"

A small, high voice shouted from the other side of the room. "Can I please go to the bathroom?"

Mr. Wendell pointed urgently to the child, a little girl who looked about Gino's age. "Yes," he said, and she ran out of the room with one hand covering her bottom.

"Amber, I think you've hit on something brilliant." Mr. Wendell stretched his arms out to all of us." This is how we should be thinking as people, but especially as artists. It's called 'thinking outside the box.' So now let's everyone use our imaginations to try to see the clown in a new and interesting light."

The clown sat still in a pleasant-seeming daze.

Mr. Wendell directed Amber to the big, paint-splattered wash basin that stood against the wall near the door. Amber moistened a paper towel and tried to give it to Mr. Wendell.

"You do it," he said. "But you have to obtain his permission first."

Amber went up to the clown.

"Hi, so... I would just like to... wipe your face a little... like this, okay?" She made slow up-and-down motions in the air in front of one side of the clown's face.

"Okay?" she said again.

The clown gave her a little smile and a nod. Amber turned to the teacher, then back to the clown and touched one of his cheeks with the wet paper towel. The clown twitched and his eyes widened. He looked like he was about to laugh, but he gathered himself and straightened his posture. Amber wiped his cheek.

Several moments passed until Mr. Wendell said, "Alright Amber, I'm sure that's enough. "

"But...it's not..." Her voice sounded shaky. "It isn't...it's not coming off! It's not coming off at all!"

Amber scrubbed the clown's face harder, treating the purple star on his left cheek like it was a piece of old food stuck to a plate. The clown stopped smiling. I rose up slightly from my stool.

"It doesn't come off!" She sounded panicked. "I think it's his skin!"

A chorus of "ewwwww!" filled the room as kids scrunched up their faces, stuck out their tongues, and covered their eyes.

"Look!" Amber shrieked, scratching his cheek with her fingernail. "It's definitely his skin!"

The clown jumped up from the stool and it crashed down behind him with a clang. Amber ran back to her table. The clown remained standing at the front of the room, frowning and holding his cheek. He was shaking.

"He's weird!" a kid yelled out. "Yeah, he's weird!" echoed another. "He's yucky!" said a girl who pretended to vomit into her hands, as others joined in with grossed-out fits of laughter. An older boy rolled up paper bits and tried to launch them at the clown with a rubber band. The clown walked backwards toward the darkened part of the classroom by the locked supply cabinets and stacks of old canvas. He was hitting at the air again.

Mr. Wendell frowned at the class. "You all are being very unkind!" he said. "You should be welcoming and friendly! This clown is our guest!"

He didn't try to stop me as I ran to our clown.

"I'm sorry," I said when I reached him. "Don't pay any attention to them. They're just being brats because they've never even seen a real clown!" But the clown didn't seem to hear me; he just kept hitting at the air. Gino ran up and hugged the clown's legs. The clown looked down at him. A purple tear fell from his eye.

"Why don't you two go take care of your friend?" It was Mr. Wendell, speaking quietly like we were having a secret meeting. "We'll be here for you next week, that is, if you'll have us." He leaned in and spoke out of the side of his mouth. "It looks like we'll be doing triangles after all. If you want to practice at home, just do some triangles."

He patted the clown on the back. A rainbow of light from the clown's costume danced across Mr. Wendell's hand. "You take care," he said to the clown. "Sorry about the rugrats."