As we head into the wonderfully spooky month of Halloween I thought I would share my recent encounter with one of the most terrifying literary characters of all time…
Hopefully, many of you are familiar with Pennywise the Clown, from the groundbreaking 1986 novel “It” by Stephen King, which tells the story of a group of kids from a small town who encounter a clown named Pennywise, he preys on his victims by using their individual fears against them. Newline Cinema decided it was high time to make a movie based on the book and it is due out this month. A few weeks ago my colleagues and I were at the shop discussing just how scary the trailer looks, how petrifying Pennywise appears with with his mantra of “We all float down here” referring to the sewer tunnels under the town and how that creepy balloon accompanies the clown like a talisman. We then discussed how much of a giant baby I have become in my dotage and confessed I will most likely be skipping the film despite my fond memories of the book. So imagine my absolute horror when the next morning I awoke (imagine SnowWhite as she politely yawns while birds put a bow in her hair and drape a lovely robe on her shoulders and you’ll have a vague idea of what I looked like when I glided from my bedroom) and walked into the darkened living room to see a balloon float down the front hall way…
To say the little hairs on the back of my neck rose would not be an exaggeration. You see I was alone in the house, I have no children and I have had no recent parties involving balloons. I consider myself a fairly rational human being, but for the life of me I could not figure out where that creepy balloon came from. To make matters worse we had just discussed the dang movie and that damn balloon the day before! So I did what most logical people do in this day and age, I took a photo of the unholy thing, posted it on Instagram with a pithy quote and got the hell out of the house, but not before shouting a quick, “I am leaving the house!” You know just in case anybody was listening…
By the time I got to the shop my deployed husband called to check in. I explained I might be disappeared by the time he got home and even though he was abroad fighting terrorism I was possibly fighting for my life with a homicidal clown. He took my encounter in stride by saying it was nice knowing me and how there’s always something crazy happening to me once he leaves town, like the time I had to evict a hobo who took up residence in our crawl space…
I went to the shop a few hours early which proved fruitful as I happen to have the perfect book in stock for research. It’s called, “When Clowns Attack”. I skimmed through it, gathering the pertinent information, and opened up the shop feeling more uneasy than ever and relayed my concerns of my impending doom to almost all of my customers. I took my time closing up shop, girded my loins, and went home to walk my fearsome protector Dodge, and by fearsome I mean my 110 pound dog is currently trying to overcome his fear of his new shiny food bowl…
When I met my friend Lindsay for dinner that evening she enquired about my creepy balloon Instagram post. I relayed the timeline of events and after patiently listening to my epic saga, she suggested I immediately move in with her as there is no reason a balloon should just appear in a house. I thanked her for the offer but assured her there was a rational explanation for the balloons appearance. However, upon returning home it did seem more quiet than usual. I shrugged it off, and almost convinced myself into thinking I made the whole thing up. I looked into the trash just to double check. Sure enough the offending balloon lay innocently in the bottom of the can. I spent days working the problem over and over in my head to no avail. Finally, two days later I got a photo text from my buddy Mike Murphy with an image of the exact same balloon in his house! My first thought was oh no, Pennywise is on the move! Mike then followed up with an apologetic phone call explaining that while he was over at my house the week before for a Sunrise Board meeting, he found a balloon in his pocket from his kids party earlier in the day and blew it up (out of some sort of Dad instinct I guess). He then went on to say, after blowing up the balloon he didn’t know what to do with it; so he placed it on one of the steps of my spiral staircase and forgot all about it until he saw my frightened Pennywise Instagram post. The relief that swept threw me upon realizing I wouldn’t be Pennywise’s next victim was glorious. I always knew there would be a logical explanation…OK like 80% of me knew, the other 20% however, wreaked havoc… my irrational brain visualized a million ways in which I would l meet my maker at the hands of a fictitious character. Such is the genius of Stephen King. He writes characters that are so real they’re palpable. Paul Edgecombe or John Coffey in “The Green Mile” or “Dolores Claiborne” are just a few of my faves. Pennywise however, is the catalyst that pushes every button and brings every fear into the light. So as he comes to life on the big screen this month and if you are brave enough to sit through the nail biting horror of “It” remember me and my near death experience with a balloon. “We all float down here”… right here Under the Pines.
mockingbirdonbroad 