Chapter 5: The Death of A Professional Clown
Camera: Sony A7C / Lens: Sony G-Master 25-120mm / Location: Yellowstone National Park
About two months ago, I got the news that my friend had died of cancer. At 30.
It happened 5 minutes before I was going up to give our end of the year awards (“The Mookies”) on the balcony of the 5 O’ Clock Bar outside the unofficial home away from home of Pali Adventures: The Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. I was preparing to entertain the overworked counselors in a rousing roast to cap off the summer when my friend whispered in my ear: “He’s gone.”
At the moment, my body was already primed full of gin and sodas and a few substances that shouldn’t be repeated on an open forum, so the immediate reaction time was a bit slow - the synapses had a bit more separation than you’d find on a sober-minded man.
I stared at him, blankly. Words you thought might come to mind when presented with this situation evaded my smoothed brain, and all I felt was a dull pain wash over my already dulled body.
“He would have wanted you to do the awards. Keep the party going.”
Cut to - walking up to that balcony. Body alive, eyes lifeless. Thankfully no one could see my grief-stricken pupils from 10 feet away on the street below me - even if there were 100 of them, all staring right at me.
If you’ve ever worked in the entertainment business, you ought to know as well as I do - the show must go on. So I mustered up the energy that was deep inside me, brewing from the gin soaking my liver, delivering these jokes i’d written for these fine people while the lifeless face of my friend was imprinted in the frontal lobe of my brain.
Through a broken smile I got through my lines to the unbeknownst crowd. Make ‘em laugh, and maybe you’ll feel less of the pain - I thought.
After walking off the improvised stage, I gathered with the old-heads of Pali, that all raised a toast to the memorial of our dearly departed friend.
And then the night continued. Like it was us mournfully taking a shot to our losing football team during the playoffs, and skirting off to the next bar to shake off the loss.
I tried my best to put it in the back of my mind like my fellow friends were doing (all in their completely validated form of grief), but the only thing I could think of was reaching for the closest bottle of anything that burned and flirting with the closest thing that had a skirt on so I could dull the thoughts that encumbered my altered mind:
“Holy shit. He’s actually gone.”
“Is this how it would be if I was suddenly gone? A shot then off to the next slot machine?”
“What the fuck am I doing with my life?”
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At first when I kicked everyone out of my room at 6 in the morning as I knew there was only so much energy left to keep the demons away, I was angry. Like, cursing every version of God i’ve ever known angry.
And then came the overwhelming depression.
Maybe it was the come-down from the various things I had assaulted my body with, or maybe it was the feeling of feeling again.
I shook awake in my hotel room while the morning light crept in like a cruel joke to my restless, crust-ridden eyes. Thank god for Vegas blackout curtains. They know their clientele.
At about 3PM the next day, I was dragged out into the pool to get some Vitamin-D. Thank God I did, because I would have been sunk halfway into the bed and maybe half a vein open if they hadn’t. But even surrounded by my friends and fellow counselors drinking in the Nevada sunshine, I couldn’t shake the cold, frosty embrace of depression sinking it’s claws right back into me.
“Fuck, I’m gonna have to process this at some point”, I thought as slugged my 4th slightly-warmed Coors Light to chase the sweet burn of the Jim Beam I just shot.
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It all came to fruition the day I had to send my video message to his family in Australia. They wanted his camp friends to send in messages for his funeral. I held off as long as I could - the minute I pressed record, I knew it was going to finally be real.
And so I did.
That’s when the true, chest-heaving tears came flowing. The ones where you can’t get enough oxygen in to cry as hard as you want to.
And I felt a release. A shatter in the universe that I had been living in - a warm blanket in a desert of freezing wind that eased my bitter, chapped skin into a sweet surrender.
I knew he was there. Somewhere. I couldn’t place it, like anyone else can’t. He was just… there.
And I felt peace.
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Death comes for us all. In both the actual, physical sense, and in the metaphorical sense. I’ve felt death in it’s many forms, but the one I’ve recently been coming to terms with is the death of a previous life.
I’ve been a professional clown for the past 2 years. My official title may have been “Entertainment Director”, but when you live long enough with that title, you see the sheen slide off after you drive it off the lot and witness it for what it really is - the professional fun maker and good-time creator - which comes with it’s own physical and emotional tolls.
That day at the Flamingo bar was the last time I knew I would put on that make-up. I had made the choice to move on from my vagabond lifestyle for a chance at an adult career again - working in San Francisco at a start-up company as employee #1.
For all of you reading this that are younger than me and aren’t staring down the barrel of 30 years old, i’ll tell you something that I’ve learned over the past year - there will be a point where the road doesn’t go on forever and the party finally ends. (Don’t judge me, Robert Earl Keen.) You’ll start to feel like it’s time to get to settlin’, and no matter how hard you try and shake the feeling, you’ll know deep down that it truly is that time. The time when your body just can’t take the sunrise nights and the violent come-downs of what a select few consider a damn-good time.
You’ll start to dream of the day that you come home in your grass-stained New Balances with a bag of ice and a six-pack of a local brew to a few kids in a modest house with a grill pre-heating in the backyard, where your wife greets you with a kiss that makes you feel like there’s never been a home before she came along.
I’ve lived a few lifetimes over the past years. I traveled and lived across the country, drank enough beer to drown a small village, lost enough sleep to put a horse in an early grave, worked every job you can ever imagine, fell in love with a woman who lived 5,000 miles away from me, and gained and lost a few too many friends along the way.
All of those things made me exactly into the man I am today. I rise, slowly with aching bones, from my new apartment in the heart of the Mission District of San Francisco, to a new life i’ve created for myself, and one that my loved ones have supported and lifted me into. I’ve got a future to finally look forward to, and not one I just daydream about while dancing to The Wobble for the 47th time in Huckleberry Hall (the Pali cafeteria).
When death stares you in the face, whether as a bystander or an active participant, you have to make a choice. Do you go for what you may think is fun in the moment, chasing the high that will always have an expiration date, or for what you truly yearn for before your door is finally knocked on?
All I know is that I will continue having fun, but with a path ahead of me that I really can’t wait to see while it unfolds before me. There may be some twists and turns, but if you follow your own GPS (with maybe a few cheeky detours along the way), you’ll get to the finish line with a smile on your face as you pass that checkered line.
Here’s to you, Voyage. I raise an ice-cold Coors Light to you out the window to your view from across the great divide as I try and make this life as worthwhile as I can. As you would say, “We’re not here to fuck spiders”. I’ll be seeing you when I see you, and you know damn well that when my kid turns 21, he’ll finally know the transcendent joy of a Roadie For Brodie.
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ALBUM RECOMMENDATION:
Jason Isbell: Southeastern
If you haven’t listened to Jason Isbell, then you’re missing out on one of the best songwriters of our generation. This album has brought me to tears just about as many times as i’ve screamed it in the car.
Just do something for yourself: Listen to “Cover Me Up” on a mountain-side and feel exactly how I felt that one hot day in September (for reasons i’m going to keep to myself - you already got enough out of me in this post).
