Tonopah, Nev. — Just beyond the reception area where thrill-seekers or merely the clown-curious can check in at the Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nev., a (mainly) former mining town of about 2,000 in the middle of nowhere, there is a room infested with clowns. They are not for sale, but they line the shelves, sit on the floor, and hang from the ceiling. Please do not touch. What madman would?
Many look bland enough in a simpering, smiling, “tears of a . . .” sort of way; others are sharp of tooth and mean of eye, not bothering to conceal the darkness that coulrophobes will suspect must lie within. Had Chucky (not a clown, to be a doorman about it) crashed the party? Certainly, his portrait was just outside (the motel has a Chucky room, too). And there is another sinister figure, Ronald McDonald, still waving, still confident that RFK Jr. will leave him untouched. Clown.
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