The Clowns

by Tim McBain

  Chloe vaulted over the bed and wrapped her arms around her friend.

  “Greg doesn't even know my name!” Faith wailed. Faith had been in love with Greg Moffit since their first day of sixth grade. Chloe didn't personally see the appeal. His eyebrows connected in the middle and he had a tendency toward bullying. She hugged her friend tighter.

  “I'm sorry, I really didn't mean it like that. I just meant that... sometimes the attention might seem nice, but it's not nice when you can't turn it off.”

  Faith sniffled.

  “Besides,” Chloe said, picking up the stuffed panda she'd given Faith for her birthday. “I bet Greg has a matching one of these named Faith.”

  Faith had named the stuffed panda Greg after her crush and snuggled with it every night before she fell asleep.

  “He does not!”

  Chloe nodded.

  “Yeah, and every night he confesses his love for you.” She gazed into the bear's shiny black button eyes. “Oh, Faith, my love! I can't bear to be without you any longer.”

  She pretended to furiously make out with the stuffed animal, and they both laughed.

  The rest of it was forgotten. Or so Chloe thought.

  The bell rang, signaling the end of third hour. Chloe shuffled to her locker and traded her five-ton biology textbook for a beat-up paperback of Lord of the Flies. As she slammed her locker shut, the box of Lemonheads that served as her breakfast fell from her hand. Tiny yellow candy balls spilled from the open end, bouncing and rolling over the tile floor.

  “Shit!”

  She dropped to her knees, trying to catch the candies before the Five Second Rule expired.

  Noticing a pair of feet loitering nearby, she traced the legs upward to find Kyle O'Brien gazing down her shirt. She stood up, stepped closer, and hugged her arms to her sides to further emphasize her cleavage.

  “Like what you see?” She'd perfected the throaty voice over the years. Just the perfect blend of sexy and menacing.

  Kyle stumbled backward, like if she got too close, he might catch some kind of infectious disease.

  “Fucking dyke!”

  She smiled to herself as he retreated. Pulling a small notebook from her bag, she flipped open to a page and drew a line under the heading, “Dyke.” Next to that was a heading that read, “Slut” with more hash lines underneath.

  “Ooh, and dyke pulls ahead by a nose,” she said to herself.

  Keeping track of the names she was called and the rumors that circulated was one of her hobbies. A little something to pass the time.

  She was reviled as both a dyke and a slut by her classmates, which she had never figured out. While she was certain there were plenty of promiscuous lesbians and that the two weren't mutually exclusive, she knew the rumors. If the things the kids at school said about her were true, she'd blown half the senior class, had three abortions, and got caught giving Mr. Barnes a handjob during his prep hour.

  Of course, none of the stories were true.

  So far this month, she'd racked up an impressive eleven Dykes and ten Sluts. Naturally, her peers used a bit more variety than just those two terms. If she were called queer, faggot, carpetmuncher, or lesbotron, she counted it as a Dyke vote. Whore, skank, and human cum dumpster were filed under Slut. For a while she'd kept track of bitch, witch, freak, etc, under the heading “Misc,” but Dyke and Slut always won out, so she'd let counting the rest fall by the wayside.

  Rick was different in that way, at least. He didn't judge her or call her names. He wasn't superficial like most of the assholes she went to school with. And deep down, under the Mr. Punk Rock exterior, she knew he wasn't really a tough guy. That lurking under the shellacked hair and bleach spattered t-shirts, he was vulnerable. Like her.

  And despite her little performance with Kyle O'Brien, she would never actually allow a neanderthal like him to get within ten feet of her. She'd just learned that most guys freaked out if she responded to their leering like a psychotic nymphomaniac.

  Maybe that was what she liked about Rick. Chloe had power over him. She let him touch her, and that gave her control. She knew somehow that despite the Rick Dagger act, he would never hurt her. He may have been twenty numerically, but underneath it all, she didn't think he had much more backbone than a high school freshman.

  She slumped lower in her chair. Was that all it was about? Control? She was fooling herself after all. She didn't care about Rick, and he didn't care about her. She knew that. It was all a game of cat and mouse. She tried to tell herself that at least she was the cat in this situation, but she couldn't help think that maybe they were actually more like two dumb chickens, pecking at each other in a pathetic attempt to make themselves feel superior. A pointless and endless power struggle.

  Chloe's daily ritual was to sneak her lunch under the B Hall stairwell. Eating there eliminated the need to find a non-hostile table in the cafeteria. There were people she could sit with, of course. Other outcasts and rejects. Nerds and dorks and even a handful of genuinely kind people who didn't judge her, or at the very least, pretended not to.

  But sitting in the cafeteria with the all of the sounds reflecting off the whitewashed cinderblock walls – trays slapping against tables, chairs scraping across floors, talking, shouting, laughing – always overwhelmed her. She felt like a zebra at a watering hole in the Sahara, too nervous to lower her head to drink for fear that a lion might sneak up behind her.

  As her molars pulverized a mouthful of Chex mix, she overheard two girls talking in the hall.

  “He said he saw a clown.”

  “Ew. What?”

  Chloe's jaw froze mid-chew. Had she heard that right? Had the girl said clown?

  “I know. That's what I said. Clowns are gross.”

  “Ew. So gross. But what was he doing?”

  “Phillip Burkholder? Or the clown?”

  Chloe set the Ziploc baggie of Chex mix on top of her paper lunch bag and crept closer to the girls, still concealed within the shadow of the stairwell.

  “Ew. You didn't say it was Phillip Burkholder. He's gross.”

  “Yeah, I did, but you keep interrupting.”

  The two girls entered the bathroom across the hallway from Chloe's vantage point under the stairs. Their voices reverberated off the tiled walls, distorting and elongating their voices.

  “Sorry! Well, what was the clown doing when Phillip saw him?”

  “Just standing there, I guess. I mean, that's if you even believe him.”

  Shit. They were all the way in the bathroom now, and the echo made it hard to understand what they were saying.

  Chloe debated for a moment before deciding to go in after them. She had to hear the rest.

  She strode into the bathroom, and the girls stopped chatting for a beat. But once they saw that it was just a nobody – just Chloe the Lesbian Slut-Witch – they went back to their conversation.

  Chloe sidled into the handicapped stall and locked the door behind her. Being a nobody did have its perks sometimes. No one seemed to care if she overheard them, and she'd eavesdropped a lot of juicy nuggets over the years.

  “Ew. But wait. You think he made it up?”

  “I don't know. Probably. Who just walks around dressed up like a clown?”

  Chloe held her breath, thinking of the clown she'd seen the night before. Who does that, indeed, she thought.

  “Maybe it was someone from, like, a birthday party. When I was five, my mom got a clown for my birthday party. He did magic and made everyone balloon animals.”

  “Oh my god, that's hilarious.” The girl snickered, as if a five-year-old having a clown-themed birthday party was the lamest thing she'd ever heard.

  “I know. So gross.”

  Chloe remained cloistered in the stall even after the girls left, absorbed with what she'd heard.

  The shriek of metal on brick – like a grown-up version of nails on a chalkboard – sounded in her memory, and then she saw it again in her mind's eye. The clown with his dead eyes and de
mented grin. It had been too dark and too great a distance to know for sure if the eyes were dead and the grin was demented, but she just assumed.

  What were the odds that she and Phillip had seen the same clown? Pretty high, she thought. It wasn't like there was a whole troop of deranged clowns randomly lurking around town.

  And she knew why people were saying the kid made it up, too. If she hadn't seen it herself, she would have thought he was a loony, concocting stories for attention or something.

  She had a vague idea of who Phillip Burkholder was. Enough to know that most people called him Turdholder. He was a nerd. One of those guys that may have hit puberty but was somehow still half a kid. He seemed like he might still watch Saturday morning cartoons and play with Lego blocks and let his mom pick out his clothes. Utterly at the mercy of jerk-offs like Greg Moffit.

  She felt a small wave of relief. What she'd seen was real, that was confirmed. She wasn't seeing shit, and she wasn't insane.

  Following the relief, she got a twinge of guilt that Phillip would get no such reprieve. She almost considered finding him between classes. Saying something. She felt bad, people talking about him like he was making it up. More fodder for the bullies. But she didn't stick her neck out. There was a reason she ate her lunch under the stairs. Chloe Trepper kept a low profile.

  Some might argue that her dyed hair, eccentric clothes, and dramatic makeup were the opposite of a low profile. She thought of it more like being a poisonous snake or one of those tree frogs in the Amazon rainforest. Don't touch, her look said, or you might regret it.

  She sighed. Poor Phillip. Kid needed to toughen up.

  She tried to imagine him with a Rick Dagger costume on – steel-toed boots, a few facial piercings, and a screen-printed bum flap. She didn't think the guys at school would be so hot to fuck with him then.

  A memory came to her. The time they'd been at a show, and Rick had bemoaned all the kids from the suburbs in crusty attire.

  “They're all posers, man. They don't actually need those bum flaps.”

  “Need them?” she had asked.

  “You think I wear this as a style choice?” He flicked the Crass patch that was attached to his belt and hung over his butt. “It's because I make my home on the streets. I don't always have a cushy chair to sit in. It protects my pants from getting too worn when I sit on the curbs and shit, man. It's about a lifestyle.”

  Chloe had thought that was just about the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. First, because she didn't see how some flimsy scrap of cotton was going to protect his jeans. And second, because it was absolutely, one-hundred percent a style choice. Rick was so full of shit.

  No. No, she would not get sucked into another why-am-I-with-Rick vortex of confusion and misery. She didn't want to think about him right now.

  Her gaze wandered as she made her way down the hallway. She turned a corner and there was Faith. Their eyes met for a brief moment before Faith looked away. There was not a trace of recognition in her eyes, which Chloe knew was phony, but it hurt anyway.

  One of Faith's new friends said something Chloe couldn't make out, and they all laughed. Even though she was pretty sure they hadn't been talking about her, to see Faith laughing and joking with her friends tweaked an old wound. She had not uttered so much as a syllable to Chloe in over three years.

  Chloe didn't generally admit it to herself, but she was lonely. The kids at school thought she was a freak. Even her parents seemed to want to keep her at arm's length. She had no siblings.

  She slid into the chair closest to the door of her History class.

  Aside from Rick, she had barely anyone to talk to.

  Rick.

  Oh god.

  She let her head fall forward and hit the desk.

  It was the first time it dawned on her that she was partially with him out of loneliness. That was the real reason she let him get close. Let him touch her and use her. She wasn't some powerful Amazonian goddess, toying with her subservient man-slave. She was bartering with him. Trading her body for something resembling affection.

  Well, that was it then. She'd have to break it off with Rick.

  The sooner the better, too. Before she lost her nerve. Today. After school. She'd go to the squat and tell him she couldn't see him anymore. Maybe she'd make up some story about her parents finding out about him. Her dad threatened to get out his shotgun and go after the scoundrel that was corrupting his young, delicate flower of a daughter.

  She wasn't sure if that was more or less likely to keep Rick from poking around. Would he try to get her back? Would he even care? They weren't even really dating. She didn't think they were, anyway. He hadn't, like, asked her to be his girlfriend or anything.

  She tried to imagine Rick getting down on one knee, sliding a promise ring onto her finger, and saying, with his voice wavering and full of emotion, “Chloe Trepper, will you be my girl?”

  This got a little snort out of her, and Gretchen Peters, who sat in front of her, turned around and gave her a dirty look.

  Chloe licked her lips salaciously and blew Gretchen a kiss. Gretchen whipped her head around, scoffing as if completely scandalized by the whole ordeal.

  OK, so maybe she had an inkling of where the lesbian rumors came from. Really, the kids in this school were so gullible and easy to manipulate. It was pathetic.

  Someday she'd get out of this place. Go somewhere exotic. Europe, maybe. She'd never been, but she had a sense that people were less judgmental there.

  She suddenly wished Rick had a phone so she could break up with him via text. It was a total dick move, but she couldn't shake the worry that she'd get there and chicken out. He'd get that look in his eye, that total and complete hunger for her, and she'd get weak. God, what was wrong with her? How could she be so simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by someone?

  Chapter Six

  October 29th

  5:29 PM

  Moffit slid the latex mask over his face, the rubber flaps folding his ears on the way down. Christ, it already felt moist inside. Dank and sweaty. He exhaled and his breath blew back into his face. It smelled like Pringles. And ass.

  “Well… How’s it look?” he said, his voice muffled and strange.

  “Looks good,” Danny said, chuckling. “Holy shit. This is going to be hilarious.”

  Moffit turned his head, the edges of the eyeholes partially obscuring his friend’s face. The red-haired kid swung into view, cords standing out in his neck as he grimaced and smiled at the same time. Moffit returned the smile, and his taut cheeks pressed balls of flesh into the latex.

  “Does it look scary?”

  “Uh, yeah. Creepy as hell. Jesus, dude. I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

  Moffit detected a hint of real doubt in Danny’s voice and moved to snuff it out right away.

  “Don’t be a pussy. Turdholder has to pay. Piece of shit wants to lunge at me like that? Pair of scissors or whatever? Fuck that.”

  Danny nodded, lips pulling down to expose his teeth in a grimace again, those cords reappearing on his throat.

  “Try yours on.”

  Danny shook his mask a few times as though that might loosen it up, and he pulled it on. Moffit laughed. The initial flash was pretty creepy, he thought, but the baked-in expression killed the effect quickly.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “What? You don’t like it?” Danny said.

  “It’s a little stiff is all. Looks pretty fake. Out in the dark, in the shadows, I think it will work, though. Turdholder is a little bitch, you know? He’d be scared of Ronald McDonald.”

  They walked to the bathroom and looked at themselves in the mirror, two clown masks staring back at them. Moffit’s was fairly low-key as far as creepy clown masks went. He looked like a normal clown with just the vaguest hint of aggression around the edges of the lips and brow.

  Danny’s mask was far more over the top. Stitched up gashes formed seams from the corners of the mouth up past the forehead, as though th
e mask were made of a real human face pulled apart and sewn back together. The chin and jowls sagged in a realistic manner, and the clown makeup was pretty understated – a painted on brow, a little blue around the eyes, and a brownish red ring around the mouth that Moffit thought looked the shade of dried blood. The rest of the face was plain white paint. Most creepy clown masks were angular and tight, but he liked the way this one was soft and saggy and incongruent. Flaps of skin that could just slide away.

  Turning his attention back to his own visage, Moffit moved his jaw around to get a feel for the amount of articulation the mask gave him. Not much. Probably better to keep quiet and mostly motionless, anyway. More tension that way.

  “Are we gonna… you know… beat… beat him up?” Danny said.

  “What? No. We’re gonna be laughing so hard once he pisses himself, you know? I doubt we’ll be in a violent mood.”

  Danny laughed for a second.

  “What do you think he saw?” the red-haired boy said. “For real, I mean. People dressed up or something?”

  Moffit shrugged.

  “How should I know? He sure as shit didn’t see evil clowns, though. It’s ridiculous.”

  Moffit pulled the bottom of his mask up to free his mouth, and the fresh air sucked into his lungs all cool and nice.

  “Let’s do this,” he said, his voice sounding clear and bright for a change.

  With the masks balled up under their arms, the boys trudged through the woods and the brush behind the apartment complex where Turdholder lived. It was subsidized housing, Moffit remembered his mother saying, though he didn’t fully understand what that meant. He knew enough to know Turdholder was poor. Of course, everyone in this neighborhood was poor, Moffit and Danny included. But the people living in this apartment complex were the poorest of the poor, the way he understood it.

  The dusk faded quickly to dark, and the shadows swelled up to fill in the spaces all around them with blackness. Trees and foliage swathed in gloom. The dead leaves rasped under their feet.