Clowns were dancing up the street again today.

I didn’t make the same mistake twice.

Just because clowns are dancing, it doesn’t mean there is a party going on.

I learned this lesson the hard way on a recent weekend.

The recent procession that passed in front of my house from Parroquia San Antonio de Padua was a funeral. Not a celebration.

It was two funerals. For two young children, gunned down in what is being called a horrific act of retribution. I didn’t see the two white caskets pass by. I only saw the dancing clowns and the phalanx of motorcycles and scooters that followed them.

The white shirts and white balloons ought to have been a clue. White symbolizes youth and innocence.

I made assumptions that I had no right to make.

Today was different. The cohetes were exploding over San Miguel long enough for me to grasp that they were headed my way. I walked up to the Ancha just as the three men firing rockets were passing by.

Behind them was the steady beat of bass drums and a retinue of indigenous dancers in head-dresses, tribal paint, and Indian garb. 

A hearse followed with a white coffin inside. Then came the mourners, many of them shockingly young. A lot of them. 

And as I’ve now come to expect, a contingent of dancing clowns and a very loud sound system. It was a tough trek up the Ancha. Very few were responding to the pulsing beat from the sound truck. The sound was almost drowned out by the revved-up motorcycles that took up the rear of the procession.

One bike had a color picture on the handlebars of a shirtless young man. A handsome fellow and doubtlessly, the boy in the coffin.

(According to San Miguel News: ”Miguel Gerardo, a young traditionalist from San Miguel de Allende who died due to an accident, is farewelled at his funeral with Banda de Viento, Danza de Apaches y Locos. He was a member of “Los Jonas Locos” and the dance “San Miguel Arcángel”. Rest in Peace Miguel.” Thank you, C.C. Stark for sending this along.)

I did not take photos today. I will probably never shoot photos of a funeral again, no matter how joyous a celebration of life it seems to be. Like the difference between religious processions and celebratory parades, I’m only beginning to understand the culture and it is not always mine to appropriate for “likes” on social media.

A couple of weeks ago, I waxed excitedly about the energy of the dancing clowns as they passed by the front door. I didn’t see the two coffins pass by.

Although, I was well aware of what a shitty week it had been for murders around town. 

On January 17, two men were shot to death while sitting inside a car in Barrio La Palmita.

Two days later, the body of a man was found near Presa Allende. Another body was found on Avenue of the Americas, near the ballparks, on Jan. 23. The same day, a man was shot down in the middle of Avenue Guadalupe in Colonia San Rafael.

And then, on January 25, a 17-year-old boy and his 14-year-old sister were gunned down while preparing to open the young man’s new barbershop in Colonia Adolfo Lopez Mateos. Some say it was an act of retribution.

It was their funeral that passed by my house recently.

Did the murders of two children slow the bloodshed? Probably not. Even as I write this, a live feed is showing police cars and yellow tape across a street in San Miguel and I’m pretty certain from the comments that at least one more body can be added to the count.

Meanwhile, I reached out to my friend Efrain Gonzalez. The mixture of fireworks, dancers and music, and mourners is confusing to a gringo like me.

As always, Efrain knows: “Robert, the cohetes are used to signal the celebration of life to the deceased,” he wrote to me. “They indicate where the celebration is at.”

That makes sense. You follow the sound to find out where to pay your respects. If we seem to be having more fireworks than usual in San Miguel, maybe some of it is tied to more executions than usual.

The presence of the Krazy Klowns gives you an inkling of the background of the kids.

Says Efrain, “The people dressed like the ones in the Locos parade indicate that the family forms a big part of that celebration of the Locos parade. They paid homage and honor to the teenagers who died by dressing up like that, just like when they were alive.

“The teenagers must have really enjoyed that part of their family’s tradition.”

Horrible to think that they will never enjoy those truly glorious celebrations for which San Miguel is so famous. There will still be parades and religious processions and the Klowns will cavort and the Indigenous will perform their ritual dances. And the tourists will take photographs.

But like so much of Mexico, underneath the quick facade is always a deep wellspring of sorrow.

Just one of those contradictions that make Mexico precious to those who live here.