Schooled at the Ringling Clown College in the virtues of silence, I was always loath to give voice to anything except an occasional roar or howl of pain during clown gags. I even went so far as to leave the show for one season to study pantomime down in Mexico with Maestro Sigfrido Aguilar -- after that refining experience, I took a vow of silence like a Dominican friar.
Imagine my horror and chagrin, then, years later, when circumstances placed me on a small but very peripatetic mud show racing through the wilds of Nebraska -- in which I was required to speak! It was like Harpo Marx being asked to give the Gettysburg Address.
It came about this way -- Dave Royal, the ringmaster for the show, who doubled as a magician, offered to let me share his trailer when my elderly van, in which I lived, dropped a piston and became just another piece of wayside junk on Interstate 80. His kindness saved me from having to invest in another vehicle -- something I desperately needed to avoid if I was to keep sending the weekly paycheck home to the wife and kiddies. I told him how much I appreciated his kindness and hospitality -- and that’s when he sprung his trap . . .
He had noticed, he said, that my silent clown gags were not going over very well. Before I could puff myself up like a blowfish and dispute his heinous charges he blithely continued on as if nothing was amiss; he was prepared, out of the goodness of his heart, to share the spotlight with me with some surefire comic patter that would bring the house down.
What could I do? I needed a place in his trailer so I could keep the dingoes from my family’s door -- so I swallowed my pride (and a good deal of bile) and consented to his demands.
His routine was so ancient it must have been exhumed by an archeologist. It’s called ‘Pencils’, and here is the version we fobbed off on unsuspecting circus audiences for the next several months:
The ringmaster begins an important announcement when I come bumbling into the ring and interrupt him with an importunate request for money.
“Been gambling again, hey?” he booms at me. I meekly nod, then hold out my hand for some baksheesh.
“Tell ya what I’m gonna do . . “ he says to me, all the while winking at the audience like a randy owl, “I’ll give you ten dollars if you can answer all my questions with the word ‘pencils.’”
“You’re on!” I howl gleefully. The contest begins.
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Pencils!”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Pencils!”
“What do you use for brains?”
“Pencils!”
And so on . . .
I’ll give Dave this -- the kids ate up the routine like it was cotton candy laced with opioids. I used a high-pitched voice, somewhat like Ed Wynn’s, mixing in a little Pinto Colvig and Mortimer Snerd. After a few weeks of this my tonsils began to constantly throb and I had to gargle with buttermilk to keep them from going on strike.
The denouement of this fossilized piece of Vaudeville comes when Dave holds out a ten dollar bill to ask me “Well, looks like you’ve won -- do you want the money now or later?”
“Now!” I shout eagerly -- thus losing the bet. As Dave smirks I pull my derby hat over my face in extreme chagrin and trip over the nearest ring curb as I exit. To applause, usually.
I might have gotten used to becoming a talking clown, except that Dave became just a wee bit jealous of the bigger laughs I was getting with my lines than he was getting with his. I mugged shamelessly, of course, and did everything within my power to keep the attention focused on me. I juggled foam rubber hot dogs during the routine and balanced an ostrich feather on my nose -- none of which had anything to do with the routine. But what else is a clown supposed to do -- stand around with his hands in his pockets?
Dave began stepping on my lines, killing the laughs, and then he stopped putting the mike in front of me so my lines could not be heard beyond the first four rows of bleachers. I didn’t complain -- I was still sleeping in his trailer every night. But at last I got fed up and retaliated, even though I knew it would end our cozy living arrangements.
The boss rigger had a bullhorn he used during teardown, when the crew were rather deaf from exhaustion and the local moonshine. I asked if I could borrow it for the show. He agreed, and so the next matinee when Dave began cutting me off I simply pulled out the bullhorn and blasted him and the audience with my comic gems. The crowd thought this was hysterical, but Dave, as I had strongly suspected, was extremely teed off. After that matinee he gave me an ultimatum -- either lose the bullhorn or move out of his trailer. I had been expecting this, and steeled myself to call his bluff. No, I said calmly, the bullhorn is a natural laugh-getter -- I’m going to keep it in. I’ll just have to find someplace else to bunk for the rest of the season, won’t I?
I didn’t have to wait long for his response. It came in the form of a series of interesting anatomical descriptions of me and my ancestors as he threw everything of mine out of his trailer. There wasn’t much, just a sleeping bag, some socks, and a paperback edition of Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Everything else of mine was in my clown trunk, which was carried on one of the tent pole trucks.
There is not much more to tell. I was allowed to sling a hammock in the cook tent, which was kept up overnight so the roustabouts could be served coffee, tortillas, stale donuts, and refried beans early each morning. Dave suddenly decided that the Pencils routine was beneath his dignity as a ringmaster and part-time magician, so I went back to all my old silent routines. Truth to tell, they never did get quite the shouts of laughter that Pencils had generated. But somehow I felt more comfortable without words when I was in makeup. The best comedy comes from the heart, not from the mouth.
