Marvin is a clown. Is he a happy clown? Of course he is. Is he a happy man? Hard to tell, the makeup obscures so much. He is a stand up kind of guy. Marvin loves balloons. How the chewy rubber swells up so quickly. Elastically flexible so it can fit anywhere. Balloons are terrific. Marvin even gave a kid a balloon. He wanted to make people laugh. What a shame about coulrophobia. Why fear clowns? Can’t be his unnatural smile stretched wide showing his chipped teeth from biting too soon on hard candies or his painted on face that never changes. Definitely not when he forces an artificial cackle to spread the contagion, laughter is contagious.
What could be hidden beneath the mask? Marvin isn’t hiding much. He is not a scary clown. Marvin is an outside guy. He would take strolls through a neighborhood. He helped some kids. Marvin found a lost one. He saved another from choking on their toy. Marvin even showed up at a birthday party once. He is very understanding. Marvin gets humor. Comedy and tragedy are linked. You can’t have one without the other. As Marvin says, “Time to tickle your funny bone.” The punch line is the funny bone isn’t funny until hurts. No laughs without the ache. Pack the wallop to feel the tingling. It’s not even a bone, but the hurt lies on the humerus. A necessary combination of absurdity and woe, to switch from waving a rubber chicken in front of their face to swinging one at their face. You have to have a club in one hand and a bugle in the other.
Tragedy and comedy are two masks interlocked unable to exist without each other, a couple of Muses to go by. You ever can’t tell if someone is laughing or crying? You can’t have one without the other. Like how Marvin collects rubber duckies for when they cheered him up after his mother berated him for being an idiot. He is sympathetic. Marvin knows pain as well. So go easy on the guy. Clowns had it rough back in the day. If they were unfunny, the muscles that enable one to frown were removed. Marvin wanted to be the happy clown. He wanted to cheer people up. Such a shame he will be known as the creep who murdered four kids by stuffing balloons down their throats and inflating them.
