Anthony Marrall walks to work every day and puts on his uniform — a Statue of Liberty costume — then dances, juggles and makes balloon animals as a tax-service employee.
He considers it good practice for the career the 46-year-old Marrall really wants — being a clown.
It’s a far cry from prison, where he spent nine months before coming to Conway a year ago in March.
“I don’t do the same things that got me into jail,” Marrall said. “It was drugs; I got busted.”
A native of Hot Springs, he said he was a rebellious teenager.
“I drank too much,” Marrall said. He attended Lakeside High School and joined the Navy when he was 17. He stayed three years.
After he got out of the Navy, he did several things — worked on a shrimp boat, did construction and was an over-the-road truck driver.
Marrall said he was living with his mother in Hot Springs in 2011, and within one week, his divorce was final and his mother was diagnosed with cancer. She died four years ago on April 4.
“She set me up very well,” he said. Marrall, who has four siblings, said the money just caused problems within the family. Shortly after his mother died, he said, he visited his daughter in Missouri. He said he gave her “a bunch of money” and stopped at a casino in Oklahoma.
“I started drinking and stayed like a rolling party animal for three years,” he said. Then he was arrested for drug possession.
“The judge said, ‘We’ll put you away.’” Marrall said he served nine months of a five-year sentence.
Marrall said he was given an academic test in prison, and he scored high enough to be one of six detainees in Arkansas who was taken by bus each day to Arkansas Baptist College in Little Rock.
“That was a great blessing,” Marrall said.
He took basic courses, including English composition and algebra, and he realized he was good with numbers.
“I was on the president’s list with a 4.0,” he said. After Marrall finished the courses, instead of hanging out with the inmates, he entertained them.
“They gave me three racquetballs,” he said of the prison staff. Marrall recalled how he would zing all three balls off a concrete wall and that he juggled them. “I just juggled forever for hours until my hands would bleed.
“I was entertaining 150 criminals.” Marrall, who is a father and grandfather, really wanted to entertain children, though. “I was always the one in my family who entertained people,” he said.
He met a man in prison whose stepfather had been a Shrine Circus clown, and the older man had died. “I bought his [clown] trunk,” Marrall said. Marrall also took the man’s stage name, Antsy the Clown.
Marrall said that when he got dropped off in Conway after prison, he had only an extra set of clothes. He worked with a Little Rock painting company, but those employees were using drugs, he said, so he quit.
He applied for the position as a “waver” at Liberty Tax Service on Harkrider Street in Conway, and he was persistent. He doesn’t have a vehicle, so he put on a tie and walked to the business — again and again.
Rita Birch of Morrilton, marketing director for the business, said she was impressed with him yet reluctant to hire him.
“He put his parole officer as a reference; he was very honest with me,” she said.
Birch said she called the parole officer, who said Marrall was fine to be around women, children and families, so she took a chance on him. She said Marrall has been a stellar employee.
“He’s a godsend,” Birch said. “He even came in the snow and had to be sent home,” she said.
Eve Barber of Greenbrier, who co-owns the business with Greg Massey, also of Greenbrier, couldn’t be happier with Marrall, either.
“He is the best waver we’ve had — the best — in 15 years,” Barber said, punctuating “the best” in the air with the pencil she was holding.
“We’ve had so many phone calls and positive feedback on him,” Barber said.
Birch said that when she asks people how they heard of the business, the response is often that they saw “that guy doing balloon animals, that guy juggling out there.”
He walks to work and stands outside from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4-6 p.m. six days a week. His job as a waver will end April 15, but Barber told Marrall he could mow the lawn at the business during the summer.
Birch said Marrall deserves a chance. “I think he realizes he does have a purpose,” she said.
Marrall is sure of that. “I hit the streets running, wanting to be a clown,” he said. “That’s my whole objective.”
Marrall said he has entertained people in the hospital and has performed at a few birthday parties. He taught himself to make balloon animals since he’s had the job, and he has music going the whole time. “I didn’t know I could dance for nine or 10 hours,” he said.
Everyone — from kids to senior citizens — does a double take when seeing him, he said. “I’ve seen two school buses turn around and come back, and [the students are] all waving,” he said.
On this particular day, he’d donned a rubber clown nose and a red wig to add to his Statue of Liberty costume. Marrall said he had a big garden at another place he lived in Conway, and he once traded a blackberry pie for some clown shoes.
Birch said all she required for the job was for an employee to wear the costume and wave, and Marrall has gone above and beyond those duties.
“I’m making napkin roses for people walking down the street,” he said. “It’s fun.”
Marrall said he knows some people will judge him, but he maintained that he has turned his life around.
“I wasn’t a criminal my whole life; I had one felony. One was enough for me,” he said. “I worked my whole life, but I didn’t know how to live. Now I’m susceptible to doing whatever God wants me to do.”
Marrall also said he thinks about his two daughters and grandchildren that he’s let down, and he’s doing whatever he can to earn back their trust. He has a daughter in Conway with whom he hopes to rebuild a relationship. Marrall said one day as he worked, he held a sign on which he had written, “Carmen, please talk to me — your dad loves you.”
His goal is to save enough money to buy a vehicle so he can get more jobs entertaining as a clown.
“It’s tough without a vehicle,” he said. “I’ve been working day and night ever since I got here.”
Marrall said he wants to go to the Ouachita National Forest and spend time learning to ride his unicycle — and he wants to learn to breathe fire. “It’s not that hard,” he said, laughing.
That news alarmed Birch. “I want you to be around for next year,” she said.
“This is really what I want to do, and when you find out what you want to do, you do it the best that you can,” Marrall said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.