Most people are freaked out by clowns. Me, not so much. True, seeing the box cover to “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” as a kid in my local Mom’n’Pop video rental store made me shiver with disgust. But thanks to something that happened in my childhood, I’ll always have a strong affinity for them.
I grew up in Indiana. I was about 4 or 5 when this took place, and bog standard in every way- brown hair, buckshot of freckles across my nose, and socks that were perpetually one-pulled-up-, one-puddled-around-my-ankle. I tell you this in hopes you understand how perfectly ordinary I was. I was the opposite of standing out of a crowd. Further, the event took place at a birthday party, held by one of the other kids in my 1st grade class. The party was held at a restaurant with an outdoor play area. His mother had decorated the place in streamers and balloons, brought a cake, and hired a clown. It wasn’t a large restaurant and a lot of parents, including mine, stuck around. But as a guest at this party and not, in fact, the birthday girl, I blended in with the other kids as the NPCs of the event. Like the bystander effect, I think when several kids gather to be noisy and raucous and behave like hyperactive goblins, there’s a sense of “ah, one of the other adults will see to them.”
That’s how I think the man in the blue shirt finally picked me out of the throng of kids. Or maybe, I was just the first one who locked eyes with him as he glanced around, casting his gaze across the playground like a fishing lure. Regardless, it was me who returned his gaze. And when he motioned me over, I trotted to him obediently. I assumed he was someone’s dad and thus, had that sort of Delegated Parent Authority to summon me like babysitters have.
When I approached him, he bent down and asked me, “Hi sweetie, are you having a good time?”
I nodded yes. Wanting to get back to my friends, I looked over my shoulder and didn’t see the hand he’d used to motion me to come to him close over my own hand. I looked back to the man, surprised.
He told me, “I have a big present for the birthday kid- can you help me carry it? It’s in my car trunk, it will just take a second. Come on, be a good helper, it’ll make her day.”
Well… he was someone’s Dad. Or maybe Uncle, right? He didn’t seem creepy or dangerous. He’d been mixed in with the group of parents standing near the picnic tables, and none of them had tossed him out. And as a kid, you’re kind of in this mode of “if an adult tells me to do a thing, I’d better do it, or I’ll be in trouble.” How could I get in trouble for being a good helper? While I was reluctant to leave the party and my friends, this nice man said it was to get a gift out of the car and we’d be right back to the party. That’s why, shooting only a couple of glances back, he began to lead me from the restaurant to the adjacent car park.
But then, I saw the clown coming back out from the kitchen area, holding a stack of paper plates and a long, silver knife. He began to cut the cake, and this is when my kid brain interjected. I was in danger… of missing out on cake. That’s what had me stopping and trying to pull my hand from the man’s grasp.
“They’re cutting the cake, let me go,” I told the man. The man turned, but his placid, normal expression from before was gone. I can still see that mask of rage when I close my eyes and think about it. The other details are a bit fuzzy due to trauma and kid memory, but that only serves to drop his snarling face into Uncanny Valley territory. It always gives me the shivers thinking back to his face at that moment.
I screeched, beginning to cry in surprise and fright from his angry face. I jerked my body like a dog playing tug-of-war, trying to look at the party, looking for anyone who turned in our direction and could see what was happening. The first glance back to the group was a blur, reds and navy blues of the restaurant’s exterior. Then, an equally blurry swing of the camera back to my captor, who by this point was clenching his teeth, re-steadying his feet from my frantic jerking and flailing. He was trying to hook his free hand around the hand holding me. It was clamped so painfully tight on my wrist it left me sobbing.
With both hands now firmly clenched on mine, he tugged me towards him. I was pulled towards him so hard I nearly lost my balance, but I managed to catch myself, replant my feet and fling my body back and away from him to get another chance to look back at the party. But as I looked back to them, desperate to catch someone, anyone’s eye? All I saw were their backs. They were all facing the cake cutting.
I was losing steam fast. I remember my lungs beginning to hammer in my chest, pain there mixing with the pain of my wrist and now shoulder. My shoulder felt like it would pop off of me like a doll with detachable arms. My dismay at missing cake had been squashed by the tardy red alarms of Stranger Danger. The realization that this man wanted to take me was setting in. Beyond that? I couldn’t even imagine. It was just this repeat of he’s going to get me take me get me going through my head, because at that age? It was the worst thing I could imagine. Getting got.
I know I was trying to scream, but top volume wasn’t an option with my lungs, battered by my crying and frantic, animal-in-a-trap body spasms as I tried to hold on. I couldn’t be loud enough to be heard by the party. I felt the soles of my shoes drag as he successfully hauled me farther and farther from the party.
Then, over the man’s low, angry voice saying things like “Be quiet!” and “Stop that!”, I heard it. A loud, clear voice cut over the din of the crowd, the excited kids clamoring for cake, my own fading cries, sudden and clear as a trumpet blast.
“HEY! WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THAT GIRL!”
It must have caught my would-be kidnapper off guard. He didn’t let go of me, but my shoes stopped skidding as his pulling at me stopped. I launched myself backwards once again, turning to see who’d finally noticed. It was the one person facing our direction, as he’d had his back to the restaurant to face the crowd and cut the cake. His face was white, save two spots of color on his cheeks, blue half-circle eyebrows and his big, red-lined mouth painted into a wide smile that looked bizarre with his mouth as wide open as it was. And thank God- he was looking. He was looking right at us.
I remember trying to cry out for him to help me. But by that point, I’d be surprised if I could have managed a normal speaking voice. Everything hurt. My chest felt locked, crushed, my lungs tapped and struggling to refill. My arm was in agony, a line of Christmas tree lights burning pain in every muscle from shoulder to wrist, my neck strained from trying to both jerk away from the man and crane to see the crowd behind us, as though my eyes could communicate what my voice and whole body couldn’t- help me, please.
And maybe it worked. Because before the man could gather himself enough to explain it away, do that grownup thing of somehow always being right and the kid always wrong, the one person to see me was already strafing around the table, rushing towards us.
Still holding the long silver knife, the party clown charged.
I felt the man freeze as the hand locked on my wrist loosened. I assume he’d released his other hand from atop it, holding it out as though he was a cop directing traffic, warding the clown away with a “Stop” gesture. But that’s a guess- I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my hero, running full tilt to us, baggy silk costume flapping, big blue shoes making a ka-thwack sound as his heel hit the ground, followed by the flipper-like toebox.
Have you ever tried to run in flippers? It’s hard as hell. And that explains how he tripped, falling forward, his hands coming out in front to catch himself- one hand empty, the other still armed with a knife now coated in cake frosting. Like a guided missile, the blade connected at the juncture of the man’s hand and my wrist, topside, on the forearm. It was dull, but the weight of the tumbling clown drove it to cut, and blood flew.
The man released my wrist with a cry. I fell towards the party, no longer supported by his pull. An angry red line welled up blood on my arm, but I couldn’t feel any of it. My eyes were locked on the bright rainbow-costumed body colliding with the man as they both fell to the ground.
Someone was yelling. A lot of someones were yelling. Then, I felt two hands clasp on my waist as an adult- my adult, my mom- picked me up, pulling me away from the man and the clown now tussling on the ground. Then a rush of more grownups blocked my view as they joined the fracas, and my face was turned to my mom’s. Her face looked like the clown’s, is what I remember: this was the early nineties, so her blue-green eyeshadow, hot pink blush and matching lipstick were more in line with fashion than the circus. But her face was pale, eyes wide, lips looking impossibly wide as she gaped at me in terror. Then, I buried my face in her shirt and just sobbed.
I don’t remember much else about that day. The police were there at some point. A nice lady, either an EMT or a cop, bandaged my arm after telling my mom I was lucky, the cut wasn’t as deep as it could have been. Kids kept coming over to peer at me, clumsily pat at me, saying sorry you got hurt over and over.
The man was arrested and taken away. For all of this, I was clamped to my mom, legs and arms unwilling to let her go. But when I saw them taking my hero, I sprang away and bolted to him, afraid that they were also arresting him for the cut on my wrist. The policeman explained that the clown was not in trouble, and they just needed to talk to him. They made a big show of not putting the clown in handcuffs. By now, he’d removed the frizzy blue wig, and his makeup was surely smeared, but- little kid memory- he looked perfect in my mind.
So, there you have it. A story about a clown armed with a knife who wasn’t the bad guy. I’ve asked my mom about this since, but there wasn’t much to tell- the man who tried to take me had a record, he pled guilty and went back to jail. And to this day, when I think about a hero or guardian angel? I picture a clown.
Knife optional.