Is That a Lasso?
And other questions we asked at Bushwick's immersive queer clown party.
“I shoulda gone shopping today,” Allicia says to me.
Her chin is angled down, her eyes gazing up. We’re surrounded by a thousand garments with different black-and-white patterns—checkers, stripes, polka dots, swirls—accented with reds, pinks, blues, yellows. Several people are wearing ruffled tulle collars around their necks.
“I mean, it’s our first time,” I say, shrugging. “We didn’t know what the vibe would be.”
Lips are painted into hearts, eyes into diamonds. There are conical hats. Someone walks by wearing LED string lights wrapped around their body.
“Right,” she says. “But if I’d known…”
Allicia Lawson has not been underdressed for a single moment in her life. Usually, when she walks into a room, you can hear necks snapping. Everyone wants a closer look at her. Where did you get that is a constant question; who is she an ever-present whisper on the air. Intrinsically, she’s a celebrity.
But not tonight. Tonight, for the first time, Allicia Lawson is a civilian. And she is bothered, uncomfortable, preoccupied.
Magda, by contrast, is having the time of her life.
“I wanna go on the slide,” she says, turning to us, her whole body loose like a puppy off its leash. She’s smiling bigger than I’ve ever seen her at a party, her whole face wide open.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Magda bounds off, little baby Tanaya (Allicia’s partner) close on her heels. Magda’s nearly a foot taller than T, which gives their friendship a Great Dane/Chihuahua vibe—two opposite-sized queer peas in a goofy, bizarro pod. They disappear behind a gathering of folks building balloon animals together.
“I just,” Allicia continues as we position ourselves beside the slide, a safe distance away from the balloon-animal wranglers. “I didn’t know everyone would be in full clown.”
I’m dressed in black-and-white striped pants, checkered sandals, and a neon-patterned 80s blouse. Fairly clown, I thought when I’d chosen it. But I’d underestimated everyone’s commitment to the bit. Allicia, in full black, even more so.
“Right?” I say, leaning closer. “I love it.”
“I could be a clown,” she says, almost defensive, still looking at everyone.
“What would your clown look be?” I ask, loving this.
We’re both looking around now, chins down, eyes up, assessing everyone’s outfits.
“Well, goth,” Allicia begins. Duh.
“Obviously, same.”
“Like, all black.”
“Maybe some metal accents?”
“Oooooh,” she says, into it. “Chrome.”
“Matrix clown,” I breathe.
“Yes.” She nods emphatically.
“I think my goth clown has neon accents,” I say, considering.
“Oh, for sure,” Allicia agrees.
“Like, I’m the 90s carpeting at the roller rink.”
She bursts out laughing, almost spilling her drink.
“Look!”
Magda’s deep voice interrupts us, bellowing out over the crowd. We look up.
“Hey, guys!” Tanaya’s little voice warbles out alongside hers.
The two of them are seated at the top of the slide, Magda in front, Tanaya just behind her, waving.
“Oh my god, look at the babies,” Allicia cackles.
I whip out my phone, ready to document.
They slide down together, smiling like two dogs hanging out of a car window.
“Magda’s loving this,” Allicia says, laughter in her voice.
“Because there’s so much to do.”
The backyard of Rubulad—the venue hosting Clown Cult, the party we’re attending—is like a playground. This is Magda’s dream.
“That was so fun,” Magda beams.
“You guys should try it!” T says, a few steps behind her.
“Not for me, babes.” Allicia shakes her head. “Not tonight.”
“Is that a lasso?” I ask, incredulous. There’s a very long length of rope wound around Magda’s right shoulder.
“Yeah!!” she screams, jumping as she does. “I found it!”
“Where did you…?”
“There was a saddle,” she says, pointing back to a space behind the slide that I can’t see. “I was talking to a baby.”
“You were what?”
But there’s no time to dwell on that, because—
“Is that a freak show?” Allicia says, squinting into the distance.
Without another word, she’s leading the way, on a mission.
“Excuse me,” she says, weaving between clowns.
One of them is wearing a raccoon tail as a hat, another towers above us on stilts. The three of us follow Allicia through the crowd, toward a little shack in the corner of the yard that is indeed labeled FREAK SHOW on its wooden door. A small gaggle of clowns are loitering in front of it.
“Are you…is this a line?” Allicia asks, pointing at the door.
“Nope,” they all say, shrugging, stepping aside.
Allicia’s eyes are on fire as she steps up to the shack, one hand on the doorknob.
“Can we just go in?” T asks.
The windows are dark. No light escapes from under the doorframe. But Allicia does not hesitate. She opens the door.
“Hello?” she says, stepping inside.
There’s only darkness inside. I step in behind her, a little more gingerly than she, the two bois trailing behind us.
“Is anything in there?” T calls from the little stoop.
Magda’s silent, bringing up the rear. She does not like the unadulterated dark.
“I don’t think so,” Allicia says.
She’s literally pushing aside black curtains, which are hanging chaotically from the ceiling like cobwebs. I’m one step behind her, looking at everything she’s already discovered—which is mostly nothing but shadow and space—half expecting a lone clown to appear from the furthest, darkest corner, eyes wide and unblinking, a frozen smile plastered on their face. But Allicia is unafraid.
“Dang,” she says, turning back from the final curtain. “I wanted a freak show.”
Alas.
“What about a puppet show?” I say, pointing to another little shack on the opposite end of the yard.
“A what?”
Now I’m leading the way, grabbing Magda off a rainbow, cement tongue that she’s climbed on top of. A balloon animal hat has also appeared on her head. It’s pink and vaginal looking.
“Come on,” I say, tugging her down. “We’re going over there.”
She hops down right away, eager to explore.
We pass several tents on the way there—little hideaways where clowns are engaging in various acts of debauchery, partially obscured from view. All of our eyes are darting, eyebrows raising, lips parting. There are a few things we each see that we’d like to partake in ourselves. But, later. Right now, they’re following me, and we’re headed toward a weird little room in the back corner.
“Step right up!” the clowns inside call to us.
We step into the room.
“Take a seat!”
In the corner, beside a window, there’s a row of upholstered seating that looks like it’s been swiped directly off a commuter bus from 1995. Outside the window, there are more rows of plastic folding chairs. Clowns are seated in them as if they’re at the theater.
“What is happening,” Allicia says.
All around us, sound. It’s both ambient and musical, too chaotic to identify. Behind a small puppet stage, someone wearing animatronic puppy ears is DJing.
“Catch!” another clown yells.
A barrage of soft toys rains down upon us. Stuffed animals, a baby doll.
“This is mine,” Magda says, grabbing the plastic infant.
She unhooks one strap of her overalls—she’s wearing nothing underneath—and cradles the baby against her chest.
“Mother of the year,” I say, elbowing her in the ribs.
Across from us, a clown is talking into a microphone incomprehensibly. She’s thin and petite, her hair stringy, her makeup fading and smudged. I can’t understand what she’s saying.
Another clown—the one who threw us the toys—seems to understand, though, because he’s responding to her, also incomprehensibly. The two of them are just sound and movement, chaotic, unpredictable, while a handful of colorful puppets bop around on the little stage behind them.
“What is happening,” Allicia says again, laughing now, we’re all laughing, everything is happening all at once.
Crash.
We all jump, startled. Magda clutches the baby doll closer to her chest, one protective hand shielding its face.
The toy-throwing clown has just pulled a canvas painting from the wall behind us, and is now plunging a puppet through it, screaming.
We’re all laughing. At what? I don’t know. The absurdity, I suppose. The freedom.
Hours later, sweating and tired, Magda and I are finishing our drinks, scoping out a ride home. A pipe-cleaner tail has appeared around her waist, a loop of rainbow scrunchies around her neck. She’s swinging her lasso around.
“You’re a rodeo clown,” I say to her as she swings.
She winks, still swinging. The lasso keeps hitting the balloon-vulva hat on her head, until finally, it drops off, hitting the ground. Behind me, an LCD Soundsystem cover band called LSD Clownsystem is playing. Gaggles of bedraggled clowns are spilling out of the very-hot room where the stage is, gasping for air, staggering for drinks. That’s when I see her.
For a brief moment, Chuckie Sleaze is among us.
“That’s her,” I say, jerking my head back towards the crowd, one very specific clown among them.
“Who?” Magda squints.
“The clown who organizes this whole thing,” I say.
Chuckie’s radiant in white face paint and glitter, her outfit giving ringmaster.
“She’s hot,” Magda says, which is true.
Chuckie Sleaze has been much talked about in Brooklyn Magazine and Hyperallergic. She is a nightlife queen, working at after-hours holy places like The Stranger and House of Yes. But this is not a gig, not a job—this is her creation. I’m a little starstruck.
“I wanna be friends with her,” I say, staring.
But as quickly as she appears, Chuckie is gone. She turns back from the crowd of dehydrated dancers and disappears, back into the neon, black-lit chaos-oasis that is Clown Cult.
Meanwhile, a ring of rope lands around my body, startling me. I spin.
Magda’s standing there, smiling. One tug on the rope, and she’s pulled me in. Lassoed.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go home.”
I agree. Allicia and T left an hour ago.
“Next time,” I say. “You need chaps.”
“Yes!” she screams, so excited about this. “Brown leather.”
And with that, we’re out the door. I’m calling us a car; we’re crossing the threshold; we’re back on the streets of Bushwick; we’re no longer revelers; just pedestrians, navigating the cracked, buckling pavement, dodging rats skittering out of open dumpsters, passing chain-link fences with barbed-wire crowns.
Everything outside Rubulad is the same: gray, crumbling, in various states of decay.
But we are not.
Tonight, we’re clowns.
This sounds utterly bonkers! Glad you had fun!