The Day the Clown Cried

What did I do wrong? I didn’t understand it. I watched people run about the room in a panic. Mothers and fathers were ushered out, the children were all taken into the playroom. Two men in purple grabbed both of my arms, and took me to the safe room. I didn’t struggle. I walked myself to the backroom without question. But inside my mind, I couldn’t help asking.

Why?

I was guided to a bench, next to a table. The purple men said “Sit down,” and I obliged. The bench was able to support my weight, even though I’m over five hundred pounds of machine. A speaker buzzed on a wall nearby, and the taller, slimmer  man touched a button on it. He pulled away a phone. And listened to it. I could hear a man’s voice coming from it, but I wasn’t sure what he was saying. He was loud, though. I could see that the shorter man felt sympathy, watching the receiver recoil and hold the phone away from his ears. After the voice lowered, the taller man moved closer to the speaker, and spoke to it.

“Alright sir, we will,” the man said. He put the phone on the hook, and turned to the other man.
“Where’s the hose?”, he asked.
“It’s in the janitor’s closet.”
“Okay, let’s go.”

They left, and closed the door. I saw and heard the lock click. I was left alone. I could hear the pandemonium outside,  the stomps of shoes on the floor tiles. I was stupefied by how sudden this change happened. Only five minutes ago I was with the children, distributing balloons and cake to all the boys and girls. Ice cream was being served. And then the screaming started.

I didn’t do anything wrong, did I? Doubt festered in my mind as I ruminated on the situation. I don’t remember doing anything wrong. I watched the camera blink green and turn to and fro in the corner of the room, directly across from me. After a while it stopped moving, and stayed angled in my direction. I stared at it for a while longer, until I heard the door being unlocked. Light came in from the outside, and I could see that the room outside was empty and quieter than when I entered. As far as I could tell, there was nobody outside.

The men returned, pushing a wheeled water cooler attached to a hose, on a janitorial cart with various other supplies. The “Sit still”, said the man who talked on the phone.  His voice was stern, though it did not have much attachment in it’s tone. The shorter man spun a faucet on the tank, while the taller pointed the hose at me. Icy  shot out of the nozzle with surprising force, and sprayed me from my head to my shoes. As the water drained down my face and seeped into the cracks, some of the liquid fell over my eyes, leaving various streaks of crimson in my vision. The faucet man  put on some blue, latex gloves before he moved towards me, and reached out a hand clutching a sponge. He wiped the red away from my sight, and continued wiping other parts of my face for a few more seconds, before withdrawing his arm and dropping the sponge on the table. He slipped off the gloves, and dropped them into a trash bin near the door.

The two men turned, and began walking towards the doorway with the tank and hose when the speaker buzzed again. The taller man obviously did not want to answer it, as he jolted when he heard the electronic ringing.  He was going to answer when Faucet looked at him and shook his head, pointing his thumb towards himself.  He then stepped forward to answer the intercom.

The voice was nowhere near as aggressive as it had been before. I still couldn’t make out what the voice was saying exactly, but I had realized that he was giving them instructions. And rather than leading them, as Freddy or Ballora had led us in our performances, he was commanding them. Demanding they do this or that.

“Yes, we did it, sir.”, Faucet said. There was a beat of two seconds, as he listened to the reply. “We cleaned it off, sir.” The reply was five seconds. Faucet put two fingers to the side of his head and turned towards Spout. He poked his thumb out, forming an L with his index finger as he mouthed ‘boom’ to the other man, flicking the hand and his head, while  closing his eyes. It got a smile out of both  men, reducing Spout’s stressed appearance.

Immediately after his joke, Faucet’s skin turned pale. He turned to the other man, and pointed at the water cart, jerking a thumb towards me.  Spout unhooked a sponge from the tank’s cart, and wet it in a water bucket before walking towards me.

Faucet held the phone away from him, as he said  “And the soap”.
Spout returned to retrieve a bottle of soap, which had a spray nozzle. He scrubbed me clean, better than the hose had done. I could see more of the red stuff coming out of my cracks; somehow it had gotten into my endoskeleton as well.

“Alright, I’ll go get the stuff,” Faucet said, still talking to the voice.  “Take the stuff back,” he said to Spout. Spout dropped the sponges in the buckets, and started wheeling the cart out of the room; the hose tucked under his arm. “Stay put,” Faucet  said to me. “I will,” I said. Faucet followed Spout out the door, and locked it once more.

I don’t blame them for what they did. They’re workers, and they’re just doing what they’re told. I can’t blame them for doing their jobs. They do their jobs well, yes. But I don’t think they relish it. Hosing me down must be boring work.  I think they’re even more scared of whoever’s on the other end of that speaker than they are of me. And I think I can understand that. I can even relate to that, sometimes.
Though they hadn’t said a single word to me about whatever had happened, neither confirming nor denying anything; and though they had scrubbed me clean with soap and water, I still felt dirty. I had done something wrong. I must have. I saw the looks the people gave me. I saw the way Spout and Faucet had stepped to the safe room. Gingerly, as if they thought a wayward movement might agitate me. As if I was some sort of beast. I did something. I’m not sure what exactly, but I did something.

The two men returned, opening the door. Faucet was wheeling some sort of cart. It was metal, and looked very durable. As they stepped into the room, the intercom rang once more. Faucet answered the call again.

“Yessir. We did it.” Faucet rubbed his face, clearly exhausted. The voice said something that made him stop, and caught his attention.

“Yessir, Mr. Afton. We’re bringing it to you now.” He put the phone back on the wall, for the final time.

Mr. Afton! Something inside of me ballooned with joy. I was elated. That was my dad! I had a feeling that he would explain what’s going on. He would rid me of this guilt. I had never met him, but I had good faith in him. I thought about what would happen when I would meet him, as Spout walked towards me.  He held a familiar black baton in his hand, and memories flooded back as he swung it towards me. A shock overloaded my systems, and I couldn’t see or hear anything for the longest time.


CHAPTER 2


My visual and auditory senses returned as the darkness dissipated, revealing the man in front of me. He was sitting at a long wooden desk, hunched over. His posture relaxed when he saw me moving. The lights were turned off, the only light coming from behind him, through a window. It was the afternoon, and he was drinking something. It wasn’t soda, but rather some amber-colored liquid.

“Do you know why you’re here, Jerry?”, Mr. Afton asked. He spoke with a rough American accent, his voice stern and commanding. Yet it wasn’t too threatening; it was more like a father’s. The purple dress shirt accentuated his pale skin color. In the silhouette formed by the sunshine I could just barely see that man’s eyes were narrowed. He looked angry, but he spoke with a calm voice.

“I did something, didn’t I?” I asked. As I looked around me, I could see that I was seated on a cart, having been wheeled into Mr. Afton’s office. It was a small room for a tall man.

Mr. Afton straightened his posture, and pushed away from his desk, moving the chair back. His eyes seemed alert and his voice attentive, but the rest of his body language contradicted with it. He was slouching again, and his hands were on the back of his head, as if relaxed.  “Yes, you did do something. We don’t know what, though.”

“If you’ll excuse me sir, may I ask  what’s going on?” I asked. “Everything’s so mysterious.”

“We’re trying to piece together what happened with the incident, Mr. Grimaldi. What do you remember?”

“I remember helping my sister with the party. Then the kids moved into the next room over, and I went with them.”

There was a brief silence. It was small, lasting only a few seconds, but it was noticeable. I tried to figure out what Mr. Afton was thinking, and what he was feeling. But it didn’t make sense. His tone, his movements, and what he was saying were all disjointed and contradictory. He was like a jigsaw puzzle that didn’t fit together right.

Finally, Mr. Afton asked, “What do you think happened to your sister?”

“I don’t know. It was like a blur. I don’t remember anything between going to the next room, and then stumbling off the stage while people are running around.”

“What was your routine? Give me an example of your partnership.”

 I tried to think of the past hour, and remembered our comedy routine . “Baby would ask for my hat. I would give her a paper replica. She would then  turn it upside down, and use it as an ice cream cone. Then she would pour ice cream in it. Kids loved it.”

“So you two weren’t very argumentative,” Mr. Afton said. His voice was deadpan. There was no emotion to it. It was a statement. There was some layer to this man, but I couldn’t find it.

“We weren’t,” I said.

“If she asked you to do something for her…” Mr.Afton trailed off. “If she asked you to do anything, would you do it?”
“Probably. I trust her, Mr. Afton.”

“Do you remember a little girl”, Mr. Afton said. His voice was emotionless again. I was confused by his behavior. I couldn’t read him. I couldn’t understand what he was feeling. He was different from most people. I wasn’t sure how. “This is very important,” he added. “We have high standards here. We don’t want any unsolved mysteries.”

I was going to say “No.” But I remembered. As if on cue, the memories came back to me.
“Yes,” I said. “I remember her.”

“What did you do to the little girl?”, he asked.
“I did nothing. I only watched her…”
“Watched her do what,” he stated.
“I watched her walk up to Baby.”

Afton leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his face. He raised his glass, leaned back, and knocked back his drink.. He reached under his desk for a rectangular bottle, filled with more of the amber liquid. He took off the cap, and filled the glass to the brim before returning the bottle to the office floor.

“And you did nothing,” Afton said. There was derision in his voice. A genuine contempt. I was comforted by this display of emotion, though the familiarity would be cut short by the response to my next statement:

“I saw no harm in letting her go.”
“There was an elevation, it was higher Someone had to help her up on stage, it was too high for her to reach herself. Was it you?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Afton stared at me. I was unsure what he was thinking.  I didn’t know why I couldn’t read him. I noticed his tics and body language, but I couldn’t explain him as a whole. He was like a picture that was out of focus. I couldn’t find what set him apart from other people. I couldn’t find a definitive explanation for what was wrong with him. Or for what was wrong with me, perhaps. I had thought that talking to Mr. Afton would relieve my worries. Instead, he’s intensified them.

“Do you know what’s unique about you, Jerry?” Mr. Afton asked. He walked to the front of his desk, and leaned against it.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You have a heart. You sympathize with people. You understand them. You’re a genuinely good person, Jerry. You can read them like a book, and pick up on clues nobody would ever notice. You’re more passive than the others. You don’t mean to do these kinds of things.”

“What do you mean?”
“You don’t mean to hurt people.” William Afton said. “You have a conscience.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“You can make yourself forget what you’ve done.”
Afton slipped a small, black device out of his breast pocket, and displayed it. “You can fool yourself into thinking you’re something you're not..” The device had grey buttons dotting the surface.

 “You’re not perfect.” he said. William pointed one end of the remote at me. “You’re too good to be true.” He pressed down on a button, his arm relaxed and casual in doing so.  He took a deep sip of his drink.

I froze. I felt my body stiffen, and harden.
“That’s the thing about life, Jerry.”
He pointed the remote at me, and pressed another button.
“There’s always a catch.”

My vision began fading. I could hear things just fine. I could hear Faucet and Spout grumble and moan as they wheeled me down the hallway, and took me down an elevator. I could hear them stop, and the sound of shifting metal. I could feel myself be dumped onto a concrete floor, and pushed further into the room.

When my vision returned, I was in a chamber.  It was small, about 5x5 feet. I was slumped, facing the floor. There was a circular drainage grate. As I stood up, I looked for some sort of nozzle that would surely be hanging from the ceiling, or attached to the walls. I only saw three slits of metal in the tiled wall, just below the ceiling. As well as a security camera.

There were no doors and no windows on these walls  It was a box.  My survey was interrupted by the sounds of sobbing. I looked down, and saw three children in the room with me. They were sitting against the wall in two different corners of the room, with two boys nestled in one and a girl sitting across from them diagonally. They were curled up, with their hands on their feet and their face in their knees.

“Hello”, I said to nobody in particular.

The smaller boy looked up, and got to his feet. He was about five or six years old, and was the size of my leg. His eyes were red, and swollen with tears. “Where are we?” he asked. “I want to go home.”
I thought about my answer. “We’re waiting,” I said. “We’re waiting for your parents to come pick you up.”
“When?”, the kid asked.
“Soon.” I said.
The younger boy went back to sitting with his older brother. The older boy looked up as well. He didn’t seem convinced, but saw that the younger boy accepted this answer so he didn’t debate.

I considered removing my hat. It was hard plastic, and attached to my face. So I squeezed my rubber nose, trying to make them laugh. They didn’t.

“What did the monkey say when he cut off his tail?” I asked.
Silence.
“It won’t be long now,” I said.

“What do you call a monkey that wanders into a minefield?” I asked.
The younger child looked up.
“A ba-BOOM”, I said. I put emphasis on the explosion.
He stared at me for a few seconds, before returning his head to his knees.

“Why was the clown sad?” I asked.
“Because he broke his funny bone,” I answered.


“Do you smell that?” the older brother asked his brother.
“Yeah,” the boy said.
I turned, and faced the girl. She jumped up, and looked at the ceiling, walking forward to get a better view. I followed her movements, and looked up. The four metal hatches were open, and a gaseous substance was being released. She looked at me, wide-eyed. The girl backed into the corner, as I advanced upon her. She struggled to move out of the corner, but my size blocked any exit. I moved forward, and raised my hands.

Darkness.

There was gurgling from behind me. I was facing the boys. They were screaming.  A red liquid was swirling down the drain beneath my feet. The older boy pushed his younger brother behind him, and charged at me.

Darkness.

The floor was red. The younger boy ran around the room, slipping on the floor and getting redder and redder. After thirty seconds of this, I reached out with a red hand and grabbed his arm.

Darkness.

I am walking outside on a bright blue summer’s day. I feel bloated. I don’t remember why. I don’t remember how I left the red room.

 As I pause in front of a sewer gutter, I do remember something.

There is something wrong with me.