By Ben Leib
Soso the Clown was born Soren Sodegren, and his rise to clownsmanship was one fraught with complex and troubling emotions having nothing at all to do with laughter. Motivated by disdain, by fury, Soren was driven to become the best clown that he could be. And he was able to achieve success. He was known and coveted by circuses worldwide for his edgy routine, which managed to be dark and seamy without being crass, which succeeded, time and again, at bringing children and adults alike to share in the common merriment of laughter, pure, easy, pleasurable.
There was a time in his life that Soren could partake in this simplest of pleasures, a time at which innocence remained relatively uncomplicated, unadulterated by life’s undiscerning allotment of cruelty. Although Soren’s parents passed away when he was quite young, he had never really known them, and he had the bountiful love of his grandparents to nurture him. Despite bouts of mournful curiosity about his parents, Soren remained an uncommonly happy and curious child. Until, that is, his tenth year of life.
—
The Sodergrens were farming folk. Soren’s paternal line was of Swedish descent, and his mother, a decent, hard-working, all American lass. Soren’s parents lived on the family ranch with the elder Sodergren’s, who had moved to Iowa decades before with a dream, a dream that the land could provide them with a means of self-sufficiency, which their more intemperate home climate precluded. Soren’s paternal grandparents had built up their land together. They worked the days away, sought meaning in the work, and, without much more in mind, the diligent Swedes, over time, found themselves the owners and operators of a lively and thriving agricultural enterprise. They grew corn. The Sodergren’s also raised a small amount of livestock. Agriculture was the business and the animals were much more a result of the Sodergren’s grand philosophy of self-sufficiency: if they wanted meat, by God, they’d have to raise their own. No different, milk, eggs, butter, cheese, etc. But, as time went on, even the animals came to garner a not insignificant supplemental income. Local butchers seemed to prefer the home-raised fowl and livestock that the Sodergrens easily provided over the suspect products supplied by their corporate counterparts.
The one regret that the senior Sodergrens were plagued with during a life of good luck and good blessings, was that they had waited too long to have children. Locally, members of their small, rural community speculated amongst themselves about the possible causes for the Sodergrens’ childlessness. “They’re actually brother and sister. The marriage is a sin and they had to flee to America after being excommunicated by the Swedish Republic.” “He was maimed during the Great Swedish Uprising, brutalized his parts. That’s why he has so much vigor for the fields – he can only reap what he can sow.” “They do things different over there. They’re heathens, and their marital practices rarely lead to new additions.” The fact is, there was a shortage of passion in the Sodergrens’ household. They, of course, celebrated their marital bliss on regular occasions. But some women, or possibly the contributions of their men, are lazy and unmotivated. It takes more work, more discipline than semi-regular monthly couplings to ensure that their household will grow. That isn’t to say that the happy couple did not mutually cherish their intimacy. They just didn’t have the libidinal drive to practice their marital rights so frequently.
When Mrs. Sodegren finally found herself with child, she was approaching her thirty-seventh birthday. Mr. Sodegren, who, as tradition stipulates, was the older of the two, was more than half way through his forties when his one and only child was born. They loved their son desperately, but were not destined to have more than one child. And, although Mr. Sodegren considered himself secular, with socialist political leanings, he would state, when friends or guests commented on the “quietness” of his home, “Tis God’s will.”
Soren’s father grew to be a local celebrity. He was a stellar student, both in school and on the farm. He was a large child, had inherited the ruddy strength of his Nordic ancestors. He played the line on the local high school football team, was considered one of the all stars, and helped lead his team to a regional championship for the first time in nearly two decades. Furthermore, it was unarguably because of his power on the defensive line that the team was able to beat the spread at State. Soren’s father married his high school sweetheart, who shared the love for farming that he had inherited from his own parents. The new Mrs. Sodergren, Soren’s mother, was far more maternal than her mother in law, and therefore had a passion for the simple domesticities that were otherwise foreign in the Soldergren household.
Soren’s parents also possessed a surplus of the passion that his grandparents seemed to lack. They mutually agreed that they would populate the Sodergren household as quickly and as bountifully as possible. Soren’s mother became pregnant with him when she was nineteen, just weeks after their wedding day. And Soren’s birth marked the most monumentally happy moment in an otherwise very content household. But that serenity was short lived. Within months of his birth, Soren’s parents were involved in a gruesome mechanical accident, the likes of which continue to be the subject of whispered lore and porch side gossip in their old community. The young couple, so happy, so full of potential, died and left Soren’s grandparents to raise him. It seemed as if the elder Sodergren was correct, as if the household was simply destined to remain limited to a trinity.
Soren lived a happy life. He was raised with the same discipline for manual labor as had been his father. His grandparents, for all intensive purposes, treated Soren as their own son. Life was good, and Soren was so like his late father in every way that his grandparents came to think of him as the incarnate of their only son.
—
Like many children, Soren developed a fixation on the circus, all the more fervent that the travelling carnivals rarely passed through his rural community. He loved the acrobats, the elephants, the lion tamers, the ring leader, but, most of all, he loved the clowns. They were so funny, so unarguably entertaining in their caricatures of the most basic of human emotion and interaction. Soren collected everything clown related that he could get his hands on: coloring books, figurines, rubber noses, face paint, postcards, etc. His room was a mausoleum enshrining the simple entertainment of circus life. His grandparents, who had a propensity to spoil Soren in a way they never had his father, happily purchased these trinkets and collectables without question, possibly contributing to the unrealistically high expectations that Soren had when he finally got an opportunity to go and see a real circus.
Soren’s grandfather came in from the fields at dusk one evening. Soren had helped his grandmother to set the table, and was waiting patiently for the meal to be served. “Got some good news for you, boy.”
“What’s that, Pop?”
“Bjurman and Bjorn’s Travelling Circus’ gonna be coming through town.”
“Really!?!” The great Swedish circus promoters were among Soren’s greatest heroes.
“Sure are. I got us front row seats.”
—
Soren arrived at the circus so early that they were still setting up the smaller tents, arranging game booths, cleaning out the concessions equipment. But Soren was fascinated by this process, by the labor spent in preparing the carnival. He wandered the fairgrounds like a scholar in a library, like a baby-faced artist touring the Louvre. On the perimeter of the dirt lots and flattened, dried fields, Soren came across a series of trailers which housed the transient circus performers and employees. When he spotted a large, elaborately polka-dotted double-wide, Soren knew that it must belong to clown royalty. He mustered the courage to knock at the door, and a makeupped man opened. His natty hair was pinned back against his scalp, held in place by metal burettes. He wore a white tank top under broad red suspenders, which were attached to his too-large, polka-dotted undershorts.
Soren recognized the performer immediately. It was Yibi the Clown, Yigal Birtrovski, the brilliant Russian emigrant. “Yibi, is that really you!?!”
“Yeah kid, in the flesh. Now I gotta get ready for the big show, whadaya want?”
Soren stammered, “I just can’t believe it’s really you.”
“A fan, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, tell you what. Since you were so eager to come out here, to the modest little structure that I call a home, found it important enough to interrupt me while I put my game face on, I’ll do something special for you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Sure, kid. Where are you sitting in there?” Yibi gestured to the big top.
“My grandpa and I have front row seats.”
“Front and center, huh? Well, there is an important moment during my performance when I need a volunteer to come on stage with me. I would like you to volunteer. I’ll pick you out of all the other little boys and girls.”
“Really!?!”
“You bet, kid.” With that, Yibi slammed the door to his double wide, leaving Soren speechless, attempting to process this glorious turn of events.
His grandfather was waiting for him back towards the carnival proper. “Well, did you meet any clowns, Boy?”
“I just met Yibi the Clown!”
“He a big one?”
“The biggest, and he asked me if I wanted to be part of the performance. He said to raise my hand when he asks for volunteers and that he’d choose me.”
“Well, congratulations Mr. Charming, you just talked your way into the circus.”
—
Soren and his grandfather watched the elephant parade, the acrobats, the high wire act, the lions growling and jumping through flaming hoops. Each act of the performance was punctuated with interludes, during which Yibi and his counterparts clowned their hearts out. Yibi was a genius. Soren watched with an academic attention to detail. Yibi’s skills were impeccable. He was a master juggler. His pantomimes were brilliant, expressive and emotive without being too flamboyant. He could squeeze his compact frame into impossibly small spaces, was a king of pratfalls and other cartoon-like violence. Not Scaramouch, not Pagliacci, none of the greats held a candle to Yibi.
The only thing, through the performance, that put a damper on Soren’s immeasurable pleasure were his grandfather’s reticent complaints. “I’m not used to such a crowd, Son. I’m a country man. Got my heart all a flutter, it does. Got me sweating, boy, I’m soaking wet. Never heard nothing so loud. Boy, those big cats are terrifying. Lord, it is hot in here. Is your heart beating real fast, Son? ‘Cause mine’s wantin’ to jump clear out from my chest.”
Finally, as the performance reached its climax, Yibi reappeared center stage. He took hold of the microphone. “Now, boys and girls, I’m going to need a volunteer for the next portion of the performance.” It was the first time he’d spoken during the entire show. Yibi’s accent was Midwestern, but Soren could still detect a trace of his Soviet roots. “I need one of you little boys or girls to raise your hand as high as possible, and one lucky child will get to come up on stage with me.”
All of the children in attendance screamed at once. They flagged their hands with hysterical abandon. Soren, despite the fact that he’d been promised the volunteership, screamed louder than all the others. After a moment of assumed deliberation, Yibi locked eyes with Soren, shot out a rigid finger. “You there! You, Son! Why don’t you come on out here and take a bow.”
Soren ran to where Yibi stood, in the center of the ring.
“What’s your name, Son?” Yibi asked, holding the microphone out for Soren to speak into.
“My name’s Soren, Mr. Yibi.”
“Alright folks, let’s have a big hand for Soren!”
The crowd went wild. While this ado was taking place, a pair of clowns ceremoniously appeared carrying a life-sized horse costume and set it behind Soren and Yibi.
“Okay, Soren, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to put on this here horse costume. Do you folks out there want to see Soren and I dress up as a horse?” The crowd again erupted into applause.
Yibi climbed into the head of the fabric horse while Soren tucked himself into the rear. All the while, Yibi maintained a constant and unerringly hilarious soliloquy about the perversities of men becoming horses. Finally, tucked away inside the horse costume, Yibi screamed, “Alright Soren, I’ve got a question for you.”
“What’s that, Mr. Yibi, sir?”
“If I’m the horses head, then what does that make you?”
“I don’t know sir.”
“That makes you the horse’s ass!!!”
The audience erupted into laughter. Soren wilted under the derisive pleasure of an audience that, he could now see, was so willing to turn on him. Humiliated, now frightened, Soren struggled to break free of the horse costume, and his struggles served to humiliate him all the more. He felt like he was suffocating which caused him to panic, wrestle with the fabric of his moist, claustrophobic bondage. He emerged to the sight of Yibi pointing that long finger at him, howling derisively, thrilled at successfully having demeaned this young boy. When Soren turned to his grandfather for some sort of emotional assistance, guidance in this unorthodox situation, he saw his elderly guardian clutching at his chest, struggling painfully. The audience members around Mr. Sodergren, each of them standing and pointing and laughing, were too occupied with their own entertainment to notice this flailing old man. Soren tried to run to him, but Yibi caught him by the collar, held him in place on stage to linger in his humiliation. Soren struggled and eventually escaped from the clown’s grasp. He ran to his grandfather, but by the time Soren reached him, his limp body was slumped forward on itself, resting, hunched and motionless. Mr. Sodergren, after a lifetime of hard work and familial devotion, died in the circus that day.
It was a day that Soren would never forget. He made a vow, then and there, that stuck with him thorugh life, guiding every waking decision he would make from that day on: “I’m gonna get that fucking clown!”
—
The funeral was a somber affair, but Mr. Sodergren was mourned by the entire community, as well as many business associates from around the state. Attendance at the funeral totaled over one thousand. Soren allowed himself just until this day to grieve. He accepted the genuine sympathies of those around him. He cried uncountable tears. But, once Mr. Sodergren was buried, once that loose clay sealed him in his deathly conveyance, Soren hardened himself. He remembered his declaration of vengeance, and he vowed to make good.
Mrs. Sodergren seemed to lose her zeal for the work after she buried the love of her life. She had never possessed excellent managerial skills, was never so good at politicking as her late husband and business partner. Now, without the will to exert herself any longer, without a clear and focused long-term picture that she could drive toward, she was forced to make some difficult decisions about the running of the business. It was ultimately decided that she would set up a small board of business men and lawyers, who would run the farm and manage her properties. A sizable trust was set up for Soren, wills made out, percentages allotted, all to ensure that Soren would be comfortable, for Mrs. Sodergren no longer had the conviction to teach her young grandson the family business. She retreated more and more into herself, until the time came that she barely left her room at all.
That being the case, it was not difficult for Soren, as he approached his thirteenth birthday, to enlist his grandmother’s support when he chose to apply to a French boarding school. He had a special school in mind. Ever since his grandfather’s death, Soren had been studying the various clowning arts, and, in the course of his research, had discovered the best clown school on the planet. It was a performing arts academy located in Marseille. L’Academie Lumiere emphasized a grounded education in all facets of performative theater: acting, singing, dancing, comedy, along with the more conventional high school curriculum. Classes began at seven AM, and ended after the sun set. The most dedicated students did even more: scriptwriting, live performances, rehearsals, promotion. Soren knew that L’Academie was the perfect place, the only place, for him to lay a true foundation in anticipation of his emergence into professional clowndom.
“But that would mean that you’d be leaving me here all alone,” Mrs. Sodergren protested.
“I know that, Nana, but if I’m not going to learn about the family business, it’s a good idea for me to go to school some place where they can teach me about a different kind of job.”
“But performing arts?”
“It’s my passion. You know it’s what I’ve loved my whole life. And Grandpa left us with the money that I can do these things. I can find out what I love.”
Mrs. Sodergren remembered leaving her own family as a teenager, embarking on an adventure and a new way of life. She knew that she couldn’t keep her plucky grandson from exploring his own sense of destiny. He was growing just as quickly as his father had. She could see this unique, almost adult personality already emerging, and she knew that it would be a sin to stifle such individuality. It would have been selfish to keep Soren from pursuing a real education. After all, how long could he be expected to stay out here, in the middle of nowhere, to play nursemaid to his mourning grandmother?
“Of course you can go my darling.”
—
Despite a rigorous admissions process, despite the staggering level of competition, Soren was accepted to L’Academie. He moved to France at thirteen. Soren quickly became the pride of his French boarding school. He excelled in all of his courses, but emphasized theatrical acting, improvisation, makeup, and, of course, the more traditional clown arts. His slight of hand rivaled that of the most skilled pick pockets of the Parisian café districts. He could balance, fall, jump, and tumble–his physical acting was extraordinary, prodigal. By the end of his first year, Soren was choreographing and orchestrating some of the best received performances that L’Academie sponsored. His comedies were entirely nonlinguistic; they relied on the emotive brilliance of Soren’s gestural acting. They were simultaneously hilarious and tragic, and all the more funny in the bravery with which they acknowledged life’s profound unfairness. In his most remembered first year performance, Soren and one of the more seasoned clowns played hobos, stuck on a railroad track, waiting for a boxcar that would never arrive. The two clowns incited gales of audience laughter as they fought over their limited supply of Sterno, struggled to keep a small fire smoldering in the rain, were duped by a stealthy dog out of their small ration of bones, et cetera. Needless to say, Soren became a point of pride, a beacon of success in his prestigious academy.
Soren would return for short holidays to the family farm several times a year. His grandmother fell ill during his third year abroad. Soren was sent for. He took a leave of absence from L’Academie to see his grandmother through her final days of consciousness, and then to see to the affairs of her funeral. He met with the board responsible for the maintenance of the family business, and was assured by them that his property remained in good, capable hands. Though Soren mourned his grandmother, he returned to France even more embittered. There was nothing now to deter his unswerving desire for vengeance against Yibi, the clown who had catalyzed all his disillusionment, all his honest despair about the nature of humankind.
Soren graduated at the head of his class, indeed, he was the number one student in all of L’Academie. He costarred in a performance that headlined the end of the year production. He wrote, choreographed, and casted a thirty minute routine, which featured three clowns trapped in a flaming building and ended with the revelation that they were, in fact, suffering in purgatorial castigation. Despite the obviously macabre content of the performance, Soren again managed to elicit the glee, the hilarity of this arguably distasteful circumstance. He was rewarded with a standing ovation, bowed to the audience, but all the while repeated the mantra, “I’m gonna get that fucking clown.”
—
After graduating L’Academie, Soren found that he had made a name for himself in the avant garde clowning and miming circles. He toured briefly as an adjunct to, then headliner for various experimental performing arts troupes, always to great critical acclaim. But, despite his successes, he knew that he needed more professional tutorship before he could market himself as experienced and capable in the profession. Because no true clown colleges existed–those offered in comic books, on late night radio, being shallow mirages of formal institutions–Soren found himself compelled to seek the mentorship of an established clown, someone willing to pass along the knowledge of experience to a young student. Soren needed an apprenticeship. He decided to track down the most famous clown alive, the undisputed master of physical comedy, a genius envied and admired the world over, Yojimbo-Bo.
Unfortunately, Yojimbo-Bo, the Japanese master, was also the most elusive clown alive. Soren spent a full year searching the globe for his coveted tutor. Soren drew on his significant trust funds as he skulked through the opium dens of Nanking. He adopted the shrewd entrepreneurial savvy of Hong Kong’s manic businessmen. He hobnobbed with anorexic artists in the SoHo district of Manhattan. He toured the juke joints of the southern US, and landed in the wild flamboyance of San Francisco’s subcultures. Soren’s abilities to adopt the idiosyncratic nuances of any character allowed him to adapt to the various cultural circumstances in which he found himself. He so seamlessly adopted nuanced, complex personalities that he himself was barely aware of the schizophrenic nature of his existence. Soren’s search led him through South America, where, word had it, the master made a rigorous study of various indigenous theatrical traditions. Back in Europe, Soren’s inquiries led him through to traverse the gamut of the most developed countries’ red light districts. If nothing else, it became clear to Soren during his travels that the honored Yojimbo-Bo made a lifestyle out of partaking in all of the hedonistic vices humankind has to offer.
Soren would get a fresh lead. Yojimbo-Bo had been performing at smoky hash parlors in Amsterdam. The master was busking on New Orleans’s Canal Street. Someone had seen a hunched Asian man in ill-fitting robes doing ingenious pantomimes of unsuspecting passersby on Haight Ashbury. At times, Soren felt he was on the heels of his fabled hero; he could almost smell the lingering sweat, the unmistakable fumes of cake makeup. And at other times, it seemed to Soren that Yojimbo-Bo was a thing of legend. He felt he was following a trail years, decades, centuries cold, long after the old clown had made his mark. It was impossible to discern myth from truth. The only optimism that Soren could glean from his hunt were the constantly renewed reports that someone had spotted Yojimbo-Bo at this place and at this time. Descriptions of the performer followed a general pattern, evidencing the existence of a man known to his audience as Yojimbo-Bo. Though often robed, the master was unassuming, blending anonymously into any crowd. He was monastic in his vow to silence. Everywhere he went, he was mistaken for a vagrant or a harmless lunatic until slipping into one routine or another, at which point all who witnessed the master roundly agreed about his brilliance, his genius.
The trail ran cold in Perth. Soren felt he was so close as he worked his way through Okinawa. He could barely contain his excitement as his plane landed in Australia, convinced, as he was, that he would at last cross paths with Yojimbo-Bo. But, after spending a week in Perth, Soren had not come across a single account of the aged performer. On his tenth afternoon in Australia, Soren was more discouraged than he had been at any point over the past fourteen months of travel. He was considering returning to Japan in order to begin afresh, a gloomy prospect, as he ambled along Saint Georges Terrace.
He passed the Concert Hall and the Government House, barely aware of the newness, the unfamiliar cultural significance of his surroundings. As he came across a series of kangaroo statues marking the Council House, Soren noticed an unassuming elderly man inspecting the stationary marsupials. Soren instantly forgot his woes, if for but a moment. The intensity with which the old man gazed at the statues was funny. Soren willed himself not to laugh aloud, so as to avoid embarrassing this simple old tourist. When the man began petting the critters–reticent as he approached them with outstretched hand, recoiling nervously as if they might bite–when he began attempting to endear himself to these inanimate objects, Soren nearly choked. The old man was so innocent in his desire to befriend these representations of kangaroos, that he seemed almost to converse with the statues, as if brokering some primal compromise, all without speaking a word.
By the time the old man developed the courage to mount the largest of the sculptures, Soren himself was climbing the spire statue in the lawn, not twenty feet from the old man. Soren found himself, almost without forethought, a ruddy, salt-worn seaman, climbing the mainmast, working, step by step, into the crow’s nest. Soren, the sailor, felt the icy gales, the intensity of the headwind, the frozen spray of parting swells, and he climbed the mast in search of light, in search of some distant shores toward which to set the ship’s sails. He plotted a course in hopes of survival, in hopes of rescue. Unfortunately, there were also pesky birds up there, obstacles which he had to dodge, had to swat at and take cover from. The wind became a character, taking Soren’s hat over and over from his head, causing him to lose his balance and his focus. In this spontaneous performance, comedy came in the form of obstacles. But there was an odd hilarity in simply watching Soren focus on those unseen distances, hypnotically swayed by an imagined ocean. Upon descending the statue, Soren’s audience of one, the lone Yojimbo-Bo, applauded slowly.
—
Over a steaming cup at the Indiana Tea House, Soren explained to Yojimbo-Bo his need for a tutor. “Master, I have been developing my craft since I was ten years old. I am a graduate of Marseille’s L’Academie Lumierre. I left the school top of my class. I have received numerous accolades for performances that I both wrote and starred in. I am fit, as it stands, to join any circus touring today, but, more than fame, I want to improve my craft. I believe that only you, the undisputed master of clownsmanship, can educate me in the true craft of clowning. I would be utterly devoted to you, would willingly abide all instruction without question, suffer the drudgeries of physical labor and the torments of despair, if you would agree to accept me as your apprentice.”
By the way that Yojimbo-Bo stirred his tea thoughtlessly, by the way that he refused to meet Soren’s pleading gaze, Soren knew that he was being snubbed. “But you must take me!!!” Soren arose violently. Yojimbo-Bo looked up at Soren with an exaggerated look of shock, an expression of confusion that seemed to say, “Now where is this passion coming from?”
Soren looked the master dead in the eyes. “I know a man named Yibi the clown. He conducted the performance at which my grandfather died. He humiliated me onstage while my grandfather’s stout heart failed him. I must avenge my grandfather’s death. I will make Yibi pay. I’m gonna get that fucking clown.” Soren was composed as he said this. He spoke in a near whisper. But the vehemence of his words, the palpability of his emotions hung in the room like the earthy vapors of some rich and intoxicating brew.
Yojimbo-Bo motioned Soren back into his seat. He stared at the young clown, as if those wizened old eyes could decipher the very substance of identity. As if the hidden mysteries of the human unconscious unfurled themselves before him, he gazed, first hard, then questioning, then, softening, he took one of Soren’s hands in his own. Yojimbo-Bo had accepted his first apprentice in over three decades.
For the next three days, Soren and Yojimbo-Bo worked a duet in the various public spaces throughout Perth. Soren had never busked for money, had always possessed the sufficient means to fund his education, his travels. But his master wordlessly refused Soren’s offer of payment in any form. He insisted that an apprentice could not pay his master, that the bounties of the educator were reaped in loyalty and transcendence through the talents of another. Busking gave the duo an opportunity to play off of each other’s idiosyncrasies, to challenge each other. Soren was competitive by nature. He was unabashed in his willingness to take risks during public performances. But he could also tell that his new master was unimpressed by these cavalier and blunt comedic decisions. Soren could sense that, while working in a partnership, Yojimbo-Bo had also been making a study of his new student, scrutinizing his every movement. That said, the silent pair were nothing short of genius. After three days performing on the streets, they had begged enough money for airfare and travel expenses to the Hyogo Prefecture of Japan.
—
Yojimbo-Bo’s studio, a remote and monastic edifice that seemed to grow from the northern mountains on which it stood, could only be reached by foot. Once stuck on the mountain top, Soren found himself encumbered by an all-encompassing aloneness, the likes of which he had never known. Villagers made random appearances from time to time. Knowing that the famed clown was back in residence, they came to pay homage bearing armloads of food stuffs and other supplies, and through such charities Soren and Yojimbo-Bo were able to subsist. In this mutual isolation, gratified only by a mutual love for their craft, Soren and Yojimbo-Bo survived for the following seven years without any report from the world at large.
Within two months of arriving in the Hyogo Prefecture, the winter season set upon them. It seemed to arrive with the intent of driving out the two spiritually sustained artists. The snow isolated them, secluded them within the master’s studio for weeks at a time. During this period tutorship was focused entirely on meditation. Yojimbo-Bo stressed a life without spoken language, and insisted that this was only possible through serenity. If the self was at odds to express aloud its fragile desires, then the self had not been mastered, had not been emancipated truly, could therefore never approach genuine artistic excellence. Soren at first fought against his mentor with an internal savagery that brought him to the brink of madness. But as he relinquished his will, though slow and begrudging it may have been, he began to attain an internal peace mirroring the whiteness of the landscape in which he dwelt.
As winter gave way to spring, as the snow melted, as the colors began to return to the mountainside, so too did Soren find rebirth. Yojimbo-Bo found it appropriate to begin a more concrete mentorship of his apprentice. Class took the form, primarily, of educating Soren in the arts of wordless performance. Of course, there were the physical trials of balance, strength, endurance, climbing, falling, flailing, diving, rolling, but these more obvious slapstick elements of performative comedy were considered base by Yojimbo-Bo. They were begrudgingly perfected and utilized by the old clown as essential stock tools of the trade, but were considered crass, inferior to the true brilliance of subtle emotive expression.
The years passed. Soren became so enraptured by the old clown, that he almost managed to forget his own family. After three years had passed without communication with the board of trustees, Soren knew that he had forfeited his right to the family fortune. He trusted and liked the members of the board, but they were all ruthless business men at heart. They could have Soren declared legally dead after three years without contact. Soren had travelled the world before disappearing. The board would search, but they would never find him. They would dismantle the family farm, sell it in parcels, and divide the proceeds amongst themselves. On the anniversary of their third year together, Yojimbo-Bo performed for Soren. It was a comedy in which a young monk, who had inherited a great property, was murdered for his fortune. The decipherable moral of the tale: a fortune not earned is only an encumbrance. And Soren had come to so trust his mentor that he took this advice as irrefutable. He did not mourn the loss of his property.
Soren’s talents grew immeasurably. He had been egoistic as a young man, fresh out of L’Academie. Had he been asked at the time whether he knew all there was to know about clowning, he would have responded, “Damn near.” While he recognized the importance of an apprenticeship, he’d thought of it primarily in strategic terms–no one could ever rebuke the student of Yojimbo-Bo the Clown. But now he saw that he had known nothing, nothing before he began that arduous mountaintop training. Up there he learned to speak without words, conveying, non-linguistically, a fluency of performed language that was related to speech in its capacity to represent narrative, but also fundamentally different from it. Acting required audience interpretation. His spectators had to decipher this performed language in the moment of its articulation. Soren had to learn to preempt, assume, and manipulate his audience into feeling just what he wanted them to feel, all the while ensuring they retained a sense of freedom that they could feel special, unique in their privileged understanding of the performance taking place. Performance became interactive. Soren could never again be the professional standing before his spectators, separated from them, elevated above them onto a different and unbridgeable plateau of existence called the stage. With the crook of a finger, a twitch of an eye, Soren could make the most stoic observer break down in tears, erupt into laughter, break all standards in the etiquette of public professionalism. He could convey epic narratives wordlessly.
During the seven year apprenticeship, Soren and Yojimbo-Bo rarely performed for a crowd. Occasionally, once or twice a month when weather permitted, they hiked into the local village where they busked on the streets for an impromptu audience. They became almost folkloric locally, and dedicated artists would make pilgrimages to their unpopulated end of Hyogo Prefecture in hopes of catching a glimpse of the brilliant duo. These unrehearsed performances sometimes lasted for an entire day. By their end, every member of the community would be in attendance, laughing in unrestrained pleasure. As payment for these semi-regular performances, the villagers provided Soren and Yojimbo-Bo with all of their basic necessities and their survival was ensured.
After seven years as a mentor, Yojimbo-Bo performed a private and unexpectedly personal routine for Soren. The performance had obviously been rehearsed to perfection. It was a story of a talented, up and coming clown, beginning to make his way in the world, only to be stifled again and again by the jealous cruelty of one of his competitors. The young clown had approached the world bright eyed and bushy tailed. He expected men of talent to embrace him, to work with him towards a common goal of entertainment. But the resistance he met in the form of very young Soviet prodigy was astounding. He had never met such a man, a man so driven by envy and greed and selfishness. At first, Soren believed Yojimbo-Bo’s tale to be a parable for Soren’s own experiences with Yibi, but, as the plot thickened, he realized that his own mentor nursed a long-standing grudge against the famous Russian clown. In an act of drunken jealousy following a particularly embarrassing showing, the Soviet expatriate succumb to drink and set fire to his rival’s circus trailer, knowing that its occupant was still out celebrating his success. The Russian doused the trailer in gasoline and struck a match. Unintentionally and unknowingly, he was about to commit murder. There was a young Gypsy child who had been employed by their travelling circus to help clean and care for the animals. The protagonist of Yojimbo-Bo’s story, clearly Yojimbo-Bo himself, had taken in the young child, had begun teaching him the clowning arts. That child had grown under Yojimbo-Bo’s mentorship, and, as the boy entered his teenage years, he came to prove himself something of a prodigy. The boy was sleeping peacefully in the trailer when Yibi set it ablaze. Yojimbo-Bo’s first and only apprentice perished in the fire. Soren, who had begun to know peace, found renewed in his mind a promise that he had made years before, “I’m gonna get that fucking clown.”
Yojimbo-Bo’s private performance, despite being the most melancholy he had ever enacted, was also the funniest. Soren, as the only audience member who would ever witness this masterpiece, found himself torn by his ambivalence, his simultaneous need to laugh and to cry. He was so enraptured by the genius of Yojimbo-Bo’s work that he couldn’t help but memorize every second of it. Soren’s sense of bittersweet privilege at having witnessed Yojimbo-Bo’s finest work was exacerbated by the fact that it was the final performance enacted during the life of the old master. Within days of the performance, Yojimbo-Bo fell ill. The old man refused medical attention, refused even to let his young mentee out of his sight. Soren had to sit and watch over the following weeks as his teacher, his spiritual advisor, wasted away from pneumonia. At least Soren assumed it was pneumonia, which made the waiting, the watching, all the more devastating that the sickness may have been easily treated. But the old man felt it was his time to go. He would not allow Soren to persuade him otherwise. With his final breath, Yojimbo-Bo broke his decades-long vow to silence, “Because the path will never be clear to you, because revenge only contaminates the very art that you’ve spent your life perfecting, because you will never genuinely participate in the laughter you evoke, you will, from here on in your life as a performer, be known as Soso the Clown.”
—
Let us not speak of Soso the Clown’s hike back to the village, bearing in his arms the fragile and withered body of his beloved mentor. Let us not mention a community ravaged by grief, the tears that marked the end of a life dedicated to laughter. Let us forget the months that followed, defined by a melancholic vagrancy, during which Soso the Clown spoke not a word, lifted not a finger to perform, took his nourishment from soup kitchens and charitable souls, as he inched his way back to his country of birth. And let us not speak the words that drove him every step of the way, the mantra that he had striven, for a fleeting and brief period, to transcend, “I’m gonna get that fucking clown.”
—
If Soso the Clown’s despair seemed immeasurable, then it might come as a surprise the momentum, the inertia of his rise to stardom. It began when he first stepped foot back on his parents’ old land. Now a vagrant, having worked fleeting and often degrading jobs for sympathetic men who would put up with his ineffectuality, with the inevitability of his abrupt departure, Soso arrived home a broken man. During his travels, he worked only until he could afford the next leg of his return trip, then he moved on. Back in Iowa, in the rural community that he had grown up in, he returned to the childhood experience, however fleeting that may have been, of working on the land. Because of his upbringing, he was perfectly capable of laboring on a local farm. And because he was a local boy, many of the landowners went out of their way to find work for Soren. He rebuilt strength, rediscovered his vigor, on the very same that soil had brought his own family success in a new land.
As news spread locally about the return of Soren Sodergren, a man who had been presumed dead, a man whose land had been sold out from beneath him, more and more folks offered their condolences. Locals went out of their way to make Soren feel at home. He was never short a room to rent or a home cooked meal to nourish him. And the same folks, being themselves so unused to outlandishly dramatic happenings in the neighborhood, had endless questions for Soren. “We were told that you’d died, what happened?” “Where have you been?” “Your parents died in that awful thresher accident, am I wrong?” “Shame about your grandfather. You two were really close, right?”
Faced with questions about his absence, Soren was compelled to reveal details about the past decade of his life. Because he had seen the world, because of the unbelievable nature of his experiences, he became a local eccentric. Folks couldn’t believe that the young boy who’d been subject to so many family tragedies, who had now returned to work the fields, that this young man had travelled the world entire, that he had studied with a master in the snowy heights of Japan, that he had willingly let a fortune fall from his fingertips in pursuit of a passion, the intensity of which was foreign to all who dwelt in those parts. The demand for Soren’s labor shifted, from a need for able hands in farming duties, to a desire for entertainment. Soso the Clown’s reemergence into public performance came at the behest of the community that had raised him. And to rediscover his passion before their eyes seemed a fitting arrival.
For over a year, Soso performed locally. He made appearances at carnivals and festivals countywide, he entertained at private parties, when demand was slow, he even busked in the town square, and in this way, Soso made a content living. But, news travelling the way it does, from mouth to mouth, from town to town, on the leaves of newsprint from a quaint lifestyle section, Soso’s notoriety gained momentum. His existence had not been a secret. It had been known, whispered about among circus promoters, the subject of drunken reveries between devoted performance artists, that Yojimbo-Bo had taken an apprentice. When the mysterious new talent disappeared in the wake of Yojimbo-Bo’s death, mourning had been the common assumption, and a curious, expectant, devoted audience waited patiently for Soso to resurface. So, upon discovering Soso’s humble existence, the devotees descended upon his sleepy Iowa town in droves.
Soso’s local performances became a thing of legend. The county fair couldn’t nearly accommodate the number of attendants that had made the pilgrimage to see Soso perform. He had been bombarded with offers from promoters, but it wasn’t until the wooden bleachers of that county fair nearly collapsed under the weight of the revelers that Soso realized he could no longer sustain a lifestyle of relative anonymity. He accepted a job offer with none other than Bjurman and Bjorn’s Travelling Circus.
—
Soso’s humble biographer will not bore the reader with details of Soso’s years with Bjurman and Bjorn. The clown was a success. From the beginning he was a headline act. He was brilliant and he could draw a crowd. He choreographed routines. Soso took to studying music. He learned to play the organ, and began composing the soundtrack that accompanied his routines. With a seemingly limitless budget, he could afford the sets, the special effects, the visual spectacle that other clowns only dream of. And Soso was more than a clown, he was a genius, a true artist of historical brilliance.
But there was another, more pressing explanation for Soso’s employment with Bjurman and Bjorn. All these years after the fact, all this time since that one defining and life-altering moment in Soren’s youth, Yibi the Clown was still in the employment of Bjurman and Bjorn’s Travelling Circus. Soso got his first look at the now decrepit, arthritic, dyspeptic, alcohol-jaundiced cretin within a week of joining the circus. Yibi had not been a young man at the time when he’d pulled a youthful Soren out of the audience. He was now determinedly old. But Yibi’s fame and his stalwart ruthlessness in the face of competition had ensured him a place in that renowned circus for life. Yibi adapted his routine over the years to better suit his ever advancing stages of life. At the time Soso entered into employment with Bjurman and Bjorn, Yibi’s performances began with the clown hobbling into the center ring at a snail’s pace, aided by his tennis-ball-shoed walker. He then played the caricature of an embittered, demented old coot, bossing and cajoling a fleet of bumbling worker clowns as they attempted to landscape his yard or perform simple maintenance around the house. Soso watched the act and was forced to admit through gritted teeth, despite himself, that Yibi’s routine was funny.
But Soso had something else in store for the elderly clown. He immediately began choreographing his special routine, the revenge act, in which Yibi would play a decidedly integral role. Of course, no one would see the true performance until the day came when he could enact it before a live audience, but, to achieve that, Soso had to find a way to enlist the support of the circus’ promoters and the participation of Yibi. The former was not difficult to gain. Soso had constituted such a revitalization to the lifeblood of the circus’ dwindling popularity that its promoters would have done anything for him. He had only to mention to them the notion of uniting their two stars into a single show, and they promised him the world in support.
Yibi was a harder sell. The old clown, not having any idea that he’d met Soso once before, in the long and distant past, hated his new rival. He was indignant, reproachful, cruel, even conniving and in his dealings with this competitor. He spread rumors about Soso. He whispered in barrooms about Soso’s allegedly syphilitic delirium. He told elderly patrons about Soso’s rumored proclivity for a special brand of teenage Vietnamese lady-boys. He insinuated that inhalants were integral to Soso’s creative process. Yibi let the air out of Soso’s trailer tires, literally. He slipped laxatives into Soso’s breakfast cereal. But, somehow the younger clown’s popularity never waned, his performances only continued to grow in their brilliance and hilarity.
Soso, for his part, focused on the big score, ignored the incremental vengeance that seemed to drive and give meaning to Yibi’s waking existence. He nevertheless took immeasurable pleasure in knowing the discontent he was causing the old clown. Yibi was infuriated by Soso’s fame and success. Soso’s reputation as a prodigy perpetuated a flurry of raving reviews. His popularity had a momentum of its own. He could do no wrong. But, with such a competitive relationship mounting between the two clowns, how could Soso ever enlist Yibi’s willing participation? Yibi would never agree to a costarring role. He would never agree to participate in a performance, to which he was not the accredited choreographer. Soso plotted. He knew that he would have to appeal to Yibi’s narcissism.
To recruit Yibi, Soso presented him with a script in which Yibi’s character would be so selfishly dominant and Soso’s character so servile, that Yibi wouldn’t be able to resist. The old sadist wouldn’t be able to turn down an opportunity to publically subjugate his prodigal competitor. Furthermore, Soso based this mock-script on the very performance in which Yibi had first inalterably redefined the trajectory of Soso’s life–the horse’s ass routine–thereby obligating Yibi an authorship credit. In the proposed script, Yibi and Soso begin the routine standing center-ring. Two clowns would approach them, carrying the old horse costume like it was the sacramental garb, embodying the spirit of renowned and enduring genius. Soso would enter the rear end of the horse and play the fool, attempting to operate that two man costume entirely on his own while Yibi stood aside and silently mocked him through acts of caricature violence. Yibi must have thought Soso a true fool, and he was so entertained by this foolishness that he agreed to participate in the performance. Of course, Soso had plans of his own.
—
On the opening night, Soso’s script was billed as “the collaboration of the century.” The souvenir playbill that the circus published referred to the duo as the “meeting of the mumblers.” It boasted that, “never before have two geniuses collaborated so selflessly, shared the stage so cooperatively.” It promised to present, “the most brilliant and unique comedic performance art in recent history.” The featured performance was to take place during the final minutes of the show, directly preceding the acrobats’ stupendous finale. As was always the case, the big top was full, the room was sold out. As Soso applied make-up, as he painted himself the hapless fool, he saw, in his reflection, the eager cruelty of vendetta. Had he the opportunity to sacrifice Yibi on stage, in front of thousands of cheering spectators, he would eagerly have performed the role, done so with gusto.
The lights were blinding as Soso made his way into the big ring. He was energized by thunderous applause. He saw the silhouette of Yibi, arms raised, basking in the glory of an ill-achieved fame. Soso submerged, always controlled, into the character of the fool. He was a buffoon as he tripped and plodded his way into the spot light. Together, he and Yibi hammed it up before being presented with the ceremonial horse costume. Yibi played the exasperated old mentor clown, while Soso, the dimwitted apprentice, failed to grasp the directions provided. Yibi silently demonstrated the art of their shared craft. Soso the fool could physically mimic the instructions that he was given, but he could never grasp the comedy, and therein lay the humor of that opening bit. Soso’s character was so nuanced that he could express these hapless and good-intentioned attempts at comedic mime in a way that garnered audience-wide laughter while he failed.
Then, as Soso knew it would, came the moment of truth. Two clowns, dressed in monkish regalia, stepped forth from the darkness bearing the horse costume. They laid it respectfully, delicately at Yibi’s feet. After solemnly giving that tattered costume the silent respect that he felt it deserved, Yibi lifted its rear portion and motioned for Soso to enter. Up to that point, the act had gone according to script. But now came Soso’s opportunity. He scanned the crowd, blinded in all directions by the glare of the spotlights, but feeling the presence of those thousands of expectant spectators. He could smell the hay, the elephants, the stale popcorn, the dryness of the earth beneath foot, the vaporous moisture of thousands of human bodies. His mind raced. He knew what he had to do. He hadn’t lost his drive. He remembered his first trip to the circus, his humiliation at the hands of Yibi. He remembered his grandfather’s death, and, years later, that of his grandmother. He remembered the single-minded drive that he felt all through school. He remembered Yojimbo-Bo, that revered and well-deserved genius. He remembered Yojimbo-Bo’s own solemn narrative, remembered that old clown’s indomitable spirit, his will to laughter despite profound personal trauma. Soso remembered his own experiences travelling the globe, first in search of an elusive mentor, then as a broken man returning home. He recollected the cultures in which he was welcomed, the adventures he had. Even as a poor and broken man, his hermitage had been, not only a healing experience, but a growing experience. He’d had expansive, irrepressible life in him. And he hadn’t even known it existed. He’d known success and he’d known devastating impoverishment. He remembered the support of his hometown, those good, simple folks, who were so eager to lend encouragement to Soso’s strange and barely recognized art form.
A tear came to Soso’s eye as he allowed his mind to wander. Then he raised his gaze once again to that crippled, rheumatic old villain. Yibi tensed, gestured evermore urgently for Soso to step into the costume. Soso gritted his teeth, overcome by a rage known only to those who have experienced a sense of unadulterated helplessness. In front of all of those fans, in front of a world of spectators who had unwittingly agreed to witness a brilliant and inspired act of revenge, Soso pointed a saber-like finger at Yibi’s hunched form. Having forgotten the details of a meticulous and elaborate plot, without knowing what he was about to do, Soso screamed, “Fuck you, Clown!!!”
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