Despicable Me

I apologize in advance because this essay is basically going to bludgeon you over the head with some miserable episodes from my life.  I am not reliving them to garner sympathy, or to cry or be a drama queen.  I seem to like examining and reexamining my life, and I also seem to enjoy doing it in public. The reason I like to do that is because I can, and I sincerely hope it might help others dealing with the same issues.  When I was younger, and even today, reading helped me understand that I wasn't alone in the world and others shared my problems and fears. I want to return the favor. I have nothing to hide from anyone, and in the end I don’t really care what people know or think about me or my inner workings.  Or do I?
I am pretty confident when it comes to my writing and how I express myself.  I know who I am, and I don’t have any fear of others knowing it either. In fact, many people I know think I am very confident, and though I may appear that way to some, I’m not sure it’s really the case.
So let’s take a tour of my past and the inner workings of my mind, if you can stand it.
I spent the first 12 years of my life growing up in a small town in New Jersey, living on a quiet, dead-end street.  I generally like to remember my childhood during this time as pretty happy and normal, but I’m not sure why.  My best friend during that time was a horrible, violent, mal-adjusted bully named Timmy.  I spent nearly everyday with him, and it was time mostly spent in apprehension and fear, all the while worried that Timmy would be hitting me, or come up with some crazy idea that would get us both hurt or in trouble.  It’s not really much fun spending your childhood laying in bed at night dreading what the next day with your best friend would bring.
More than all the fear and the beatings that Timmy brought into my life, I think the worst thing he ever did to me damaged me on a level he never dreamed of.  I need to tell you a quick story first:
When I was in Kindergarten, I had a classmate named Nancy.  I’m not sure what was different about Nancy.  She was what we called “slow” at the time, but I don’t know if it was Down’s Syndrome, Autism, or what.  It doesn’t really matter which it was.  The other kids would pick on Nancy once in a while, probably because it was easy to make her cry.  I was never one of the kids that picked on anybody, I was the kid who kept quiet and hoped they wouldn’t notice me.  At five years old I was already becoming adept at blending into the background.  I had quickly learned from my life with Timmy that the easiest way to avoid torment was to be as quiet and inconspicuous as possible.  I acted timid around everyone and the other kids picked up on it too, and while none of them tormented me as much as Timmy did, I got bullied and picked on a lot.
One day I arrived at school just as the bell rang for everyone to come inside.  The playground was almost empty, and I noticed Nancy sitting outside the fence and crying.  Usually I would just ignore it and not want to attract any attention to myself by going near her, but there was nobody really left outside to see me, and I didn’t want Nancy to get in trouble by being late to class.
I went to her and asked her why she was crying.  She pointed at the ground, to her lunch bag, which had been smashed on the sidewalk.  I asked her what had happened and she told me how she had helped her mother make her lunch that morning, and she was so happy that she had helped she was telling her friend about it.  The other kids must have overheard her, and they had taken her lunch and played keep away for awhile.  Getting bored, they smashed her lunch, the lunch she had made with her mother, on the sidewalk.
I did a pretty grown up thing, then.  I gave her half of my lunch and I told her it would be okay and not to cry.  She stopped crying and I can never forget the look on her face when she must have felt that someone her own age cared about her even a little bit.  We went to class, and I don’t think Nancy and I ever spoke two words to each other ever again.  We just went on in our separate lives, back to trying to go unnoticed and hoping everyone would just leave us alone.
The thing was, I always felt good about myself for that one nice thing I did.  Most of the time I felt I was worthless, at five years old.  All I had was Timmy and a bunch of kids that made fun of me when he wasn’t around to do it. My brother was six years older than me, so we weren’t that close growing up.  He had his friends and his life and he had a way of making me feel like I was intruding anytime I wanted to spend time with him.  My parents were always there, and always loving, but they weren’t out there in the real world, and besides, they were supposed to love me no matter how disappointing I was.
Up until third grade, I still held on to that small moment with Nancy to tell myself I had some self-worth, that I was good and didn’t deserve all the shit I got from Timmy and the other kids.  It might have been enough to hold me over until I got older and realized that the other kids were wrong, but it wasn’t to be.  The worst things Timmy did to me didn’t involve getting beat-up or tormented.  The things that hurt most were when he would force me to do something I knew was wrong, but I was too afraid of him to stand up to him and tell him no.  Helping him shoplift at Highs drugstore, which was bad enough, but the day we got caught and I lived in fear for months afterward that my parents would find out.  I remember the owner shaking Timmy by the collar and all manner of things falling out of Timmy’s shirt.  I remember most of the things he stole were things no little kid would ever need: a paperback novel, razor blades, bobby pins, things that he stole just to steal them.  He would keep all his contraband behind the tree at the front corner of his house, alongside the steps leading up to the porch.
Timmy would also have me help him vandalize things, just for the fun of destroying other people’s possessions out of spite.
The worst thing he did, though, was when we were walking home from third grade class after school.  A young girl from public school (Timmy and I attended St. Joseph’s Catholic) was rushing down the sidewalk towards us.  Timmy blocked her way and asked her what the hurry was.  He was like a predator that way, he could sense an opportunity to torment and cause pain in any situation very quickly.  She was a first grader and she explained that she had gotten a gold star on her paper that day and wanted to get home to show her mother.  My stomach tightened into a knot because I knew what was coming.
“Can I see?”  Timmy asked, smiling.  The girl held up her paper proudly and Timmy snatched it out of her hands in a flash.  He held it up out of her reach while she leapt for it and bawled hysterically.  Then he handed me the paper and held the girls arm and he told me to throw it in the sewer.  I could have just given it the paper back to the girl and she could have run away, but I was too afraid of Timmy.  He noticed my hesitation and made a fist and that was all the persuading I needed.  I dropped it down the sewer grate and the girl ran home crying.
From that moment I felt what I did to that girl cancelled out anything good I had done for Nancy.  I lost the one good thing I had in my life to make me feel worthwhile.  After that, when ever I felt bad about myself, I was no longer able to look back at giving my lunch to a sad girl without thinking about making that little girl cry over her paper with the gold star.
The funny thing is, both Nancy and that little girl probably went on to live normal lives, barely thinking about either incident.  If I met them now and recounted the profound impact those events had on my life, they would probably ask me who the hell I was and wonder what I was talking about.
As a result of the kids picking on me, I spent a lot of time playing alone if I could.  I developed a rich fantasy life, full of imaginary friends and most of my toys had their own personalities with extensive back stories.  I spent a lot of my time by myself in my room or the basement with a whole cast of invisible pals.
Don’t get the impression that my life was all bad, though.  I had a lot of fun with my parents.  I always felt older than I was, and my parents didn’t really baby me or talk down to me.  They used to include me in a lot of their adult life and I enjoyed that.  My parents enjoyed it, too.  They really seemed to get a kick out me, some of the things I came out with.  If they were having their friends over for a party, I got to stay up a little later to meet everyone before I had to go to bed, which I suppose was normal for parents to do.  For me, though, it was a chance to be with people I knew weren’t going to tease me, or push me, or tell me I was stupid or ugly.  They would actually praise me!
Again, that did little to help my own self esteem though.  Adults were supposed to do that, I figured.  Kids my own age hated me, and their opinion mattered more.
Then my father got sick and was in and out of the hospital for what seemed like a couple of years but was in reality from Memorial Day Weekend until the end of the summer.  He had diverticulitis, which resulted in him having several surgeries and was in intensive care sometimes, so there were some long stretches when I didn’t see him at all.  I can only remember going to see him in the hospital one time and it really scared the hell out of me.
I spent that period terrified that my father might never come home from the hospital.  My biggest fear was of him dying.  I remember coming home from school one day and my mother sitting me down and telling me she had some bad news.  I freaked out thinking that my father had died, although my mother told me that the only thing I did was say very matter of fact “Dad’s dead.”
She quickly corrected me and explained that she had to put our dog Max to sleep.  I only replied “Okay”, and started to walk away. She stopped me and explained that it was alright to be sad and I could cry, but I told her it was alright and went to my room.
I remember feeling very guilty that I was so relieved to find out that Max was dead and not my father.  I hated myself for it, I loved our dog, but I couldn’t grieve for him.  That summer of anxiety and fearful apprehension is why I probably still have anxiety attacks to this day.  After my father got sick I used to hear about how it might be hereditary and I had to watch what I ate and I might have to go through the same thing someday. I spent a large part of my life living with that hanging over me, and my anxiety manifested itself in stomach problems that persist to this day.  It’s all nerves, and I have gotten over living in fear of diverticulitis, but it has been replaced by fear of other things.  I am not a hypochondriac, but my mind does always go to the worst possible outcome at first.  It does with everything, but in a way that has helped me. It’s why I’m so good in emergency situations.  I immediately imagine the worst possible outcome, and then I decide if I can handle that, and when I make my peace with it I can proceed calmly.
I also realized at that point that others people had a lot on their plates, and I developed this weird idea that if I could handle all the crap that life was handing me, I could take on other people’s problems.  Whenever anyone in my family got upset, I would try to shift the focus to me.  If my father and brother got into an argument (my brother was a teenager at that point, with all the obnoxiousness that goes with it)  I would get in the middle, sometimes misbehaving just so I got yelled at and took the onus off of him.
Growing up I was close to my cousin John, and when he slept over or I slept at his house I had a much better time of it.  He was my age, and we had a lot of fun together.  Unfortunately, that didn’t last either.  He had friends now where he lived, and he didn’t want to come over to sleep at my house.  I had to go to his place for weekend sleepovers.
I enjoyed hanging out with John’s friends too, at first.  John lived a block away from the Garden State Plaza, a bunch of stores that was a fore-runner to malls.  It had a movie theater and a Geno’s hamburger place, so it was a lot more fun than my neighborhood.
It soon began to lose its appeal, though.  Some of John’s friends started to give me a hard time and John didn’t really do much to stop them.  It was around this time I realized that John had his own situation with his friends to deal with.  John was kind of low man in his group and he had his own Timmy in the form of a friend named Rudy.  Rudy was bigger than the other kids and while not as much of a terror as Timmy, he was definitely the alpha male.  Rudy didn’t like me so nobody could like me; although sadly on a few rare occasions John’s other friends would stick up for me more than John would.  That really hurt, but looking back now I realize that John was trying to please Rudy and he had to live there the rest of the week when I wasn’t around.  It still hurt at the time, and it just further proved that no kids anywhere really liked me and no one was on my side.
In fourth grade I got glasses, but that just gave the kids something else to pick on.  I would sit in class with my glasses hidden in my desk.  If we had to copy anything off of the board I would pull my glasses out, hold them up to my eyes and read as much as I could before shoving them back inside my desk and writing my notes from memory.  Sadly, I thought that no one would notice, but I got teased for that too.  I finally just resigned myself to wearing my glasses and getting shit for that too.
By the time fifth grade rolled around, I was starting to distance myself from Timmy.  Most of the kids who had teased me were starting to dislike Timmy and accept me somewhat.  The day I finally felt I belonged a little was the day Harold, a kid on the fringe of popularity himself, gave me the nickname “Doofus”.  From that moment on Harold moved up a rung and I became low man on the totem pole, but at least I was accepted on some level, even if I was called Doofus.  I actually felt kind of close to Harold because of that, that’s the strange place my life was at.
It was about that time I developed my first real crush on a girl.  Her name was Diane, and she was in my class, and she was one of the cooler kids, so I didn’t have a lot of interaction with her.  I thought if she got to know me she would see how different I was and fall in love with me and we’d end up getting married, but in a cruel twist of fate, she soon started dating Harold.
One afternoon we were all up at Harold’s because his family had a pool, and the boys and girls were at opposite ends of the yard.  The other boys were getting on Harold about whether or not he had felt under Diane’s shirt yet and he was describing all the things he had done with her in vulgar terms.  I was sure he was lying because we were all only about twelve, but it really upset me.  Then the girls came over and Harold started trying to kiss Diane and grab at her a little to impress the other guys.  The fact that Diane didn’t seem to mind made me rethink my whole future with her.  In a very childish way I decided I didn’t like her and I hated Harold, and most of the other boys for that matter.  I was stupid to think she would ever like me or that I would ever fit in.  I didn’t spend a lot of time with those kids after that.
Then we moved to Texas, and I was right back where I started.  I moved to Texas right before sixth grade, so I went into my first situation where I was the new kid, the outsider.  The kids picked on me because I was the new kid, and I talked funny, but they weren’t the worst part; the teachers were.
My first period class was Mathematics with Mr. Sharp, a weasel-like bald man with gold rimmed glasses.  It was as if he took over for Timmy.  On my first day during roll call he stopped on my name.
“Ferraris?  What the hell kind of name is that?” He asked.
“Italian.” I told him.
“Wait a minute, you sound like a Yankee.  Are you a Yankee?  Where you from?” He demanded
“New Jersey.”
“New Jersey?”  He snorted.  “I tell you what, Mr. New Jersey, why don’t you come stand up in front of the class and tell us all how stupid Yankee’s are.”
And that’s what I had to do, several times a week for the whole year, get up in front of the class and explain how stupid and worthless I was.  He would make the pretty girls in class sit on my lap to embarrass me, and tell me how there were no pretty Yankee girls like that where I came from.  He made Timmy look like an amateur.
I also had a science teacher named, and I swear this is true, Jerry Derryberry.  He was less interested in teaching science and more into sports and the football team.  In fact, he demanded that the kids call him “Coach” Derryberry.  His class was basically a period of being ignored or put down if you weren’t on the football team or interested with the football team.  I was much too insecure to ever try playing football, but I secretly thought I could because I was big and somewhat athletic.  I could always run like the wind, but I seldom did around the other kids because I was afraid they would notice me and pick on me, so in gym class I would always hold back in the middle of the pack.  Being good at something or bad at something was a sure-fire way to get yourself picked on.
Even in Texas, though, the good times where with my parents.  My brother and I even got a little closer.  I started taking art lessons and I enjoyed painting and drawing and the attention it brought, but only from my parents and adults.  I don’t think I ever told kids my age I was an artist or let them see my work.
I got fat in Texas.  I didn’t do much.  I came home from school and ate and watched TV.  I had been a little pudgy as a kid, and I had gotten teased about it back then, but in Texas I gained too much weight, and it hung around until after high school.  I would lose some here and there, but it always came back.  One more reason to hate myself.
After two years in Texas(that seemed like a lifetime) we moved to Pennsylvania.
For eighth grade I went back to Catholic school, and I was the new kid again.  The only kids that would talk to me were Tim and Jeff, the two poor kids that everyone picked on.  I remember for most of the year that recess consisted of a game called Battlestar Galactica.  Tim, Jeff and I were the Cylons and the other boys would chase us around and kick us in the shins until we hit the ground.  I have no idea where the nuns were during all this.
Then it was off to high school.  It was back to public school, and of course I was the new kid again.  I was picked on from the first day, and I did nothing to stick up for myself.  By this time I was resigned to my fate in life, to be picked on by everyone besides my parents or the few friends I had.  I was ugly, fat, useless, different; a freak that didn’t really fit in anywhere.  I probably could have just trudged through high school the way I had the rest of my life, trying not to be noticed, but that was not meant to be either.
In 9th grade I had a cute girl for a lab partner.  Karen was about the best looking girl I knew, but I knew nothing about her other than she was my lab partner and she tolerated me. Tolerating me was the closest thing I knew to affection from anyone outside my family, so I was smitten with her.
There was a dance coming up, and one night I confided in my mother that I liked her and wished I could go with her. It was then that my mother unwittingly gave me the worst advice in the world.  I can’t blame her, countless sitcoms and movies perpetrated the myth that informed her advice.
She said “The pretty girls never get asked out because all the guys are afraid of them.  They sit home at night crying because they think nobody likes them.”
“Really?” I asked excitedly
“Yes”, she reassured me, “She would be so happy if you asked her to the dance!”
So the next day I couldn’t wait for science class.  I don’t know why I forgot all the lessons I had learned about keeping your head down, not trying, not getting noticed. As soon as I saw her I asked her to the dance and to her credit she didn’t laugh in my face.  She was flustered, probably shocked that I would even ask and disbelieving that I didn’t know my place.  She told me she was going to her aunt’s house this weekend and wouldn’t even be around to go to the dance.  I was sad, but I felt okay about it.  I asked her, she declined, and not because she was sickened by me, just because she wasn’t going to be around. The world didn’t end, and nothing horrible happened.  Not that day.
The next day it was all over school that I asked her out, and it turned out she was going to the dance with Scott, a jock and our class president.  I was ridiculed and from that day on. Scott and his jock buddies bullied me, threatened me, and pushed me around.  It sealed my fate for the rest of high school.
I had made a few friends with some of the other outsider kids.  Thank God for them, or I never would have made it through those times.  I became friends with a girl named Jennifer, and she above everyone else in high school saved my life.  She was a goth kid before there was such a thing.  She even brought tarot cards to class!  She was also super smart, knew everything about music and was really cool outside school.  She drank, smoked pot, snuck out of her house at night, went out with older guys … you name it.
Unfortunately, in school she was just as popular as me.  The other kids started calling us “Pugsly and Morticia” from the Addams Family, but she really didn’t seem to care.  She had a whole life outside of school, with cooler people than I knew, or so I thought.  I heard stories, but I never met them.  Sadly, what I came to realize is that she dated a guy in his 20’s that was basically a drug addict and a loser who blew her off most of the time and treated her like shit when he didn’t.
I didn’t know or care about any of that, all I knew is she liked me and hung out with me no matter what the other kids said. Of course, I fell in love with her, but she only wanted to be friends.
Why would she want to by my girlfriend?  I was so ugly and unlovable no girl would.  I can remember lying in bed at night, asking the universe to just let me be good looking for a couple of years, to let girls like me for just a while, then I could go back to being ugly and alone for the rest of my life.
Everything else was going to hell.  I just stopped taking gym because I was tired of being picked on, by the kids and the teachers.  My grades all started falling.  I had been in the academics program, preparing for college, but I couldn’t even pay attention in class anymore. I was missing more school than I was attending by 11th grade.  I would wake up in the morning and my stomach would hurt so badly from all the anxiety.  I dreaded going to school and ended up staying home in bed all day more often than not.  I was smart enough that I still barely passed most of my classes without being there a lot of the time or doing much homework, but I knew college was out of the question.
In twelfth grade I finally snapped.  I just couldn’t take it anymore.  One day I was walking down the hall, my head down, fast as I could, hoping no one would notice me.  I glanced up to see Scott and two of his jock friends coming towards me.  I couldn’t turn around and escape, so I just hurried along hoping that they wouldn’t see me.
As I walked, I got more angry, mad that I had to deal with this everyday.  I hated school, I hated my life, I hated myself.  I was ready to snap.
As they started to say something to me I just swung my books and hit Scott in the face.  He was more stunned than hurt by it, and his buddies were too.  My books flew everywhere, but I just didn’t care anymore.  I yelled at them that it was enough, to knock it off because I wasn’t going to take it anymore and I would beat the living shit out of them if they ever bothered me again.
It seemed to work.  They never picked on me after that, but school was already ruined for me. I just steadily declined until I dropped out with only a few left months to go.  I was informed that even if I passed my classes I couldn’t graduate because I didn’t have enough gym credits.  I would have to go another year to make them up.  For gym! So I quit, went and got my GED and never looked back.  Oddly, something like dropping out of high school made me feel better about myself, which is completely backwards, but I was just so relieved to get out of there.
Sometimes I regret that I missed out on college, but it hasn’t really hurt me as far as I can tell.  One of the things that appeals to me about higher learning is that it can impart you with critical thinking skills, but I was lucky to have a few friends that were outsiders like me, and that in itself can help you develop your own way of critical thinking.  You didn’t fit in any category, so you sat alone examining the world around you and your own feelings trying to figure out why the world worked the way it did and why it wouldn’t let you in.  It gave me a special set of tools and criteria to use to examine anything I came across.  It also helped to give me a sense of self-awareness (even if it took me awhile to realize that some of my self-worth was based on faulty data and to adjust it) and more empathy towards others.  In examining why people hurt me I came to realize that it was because of their own shortcomings and problems, and I found I could pity them.  Not so much at that time, but as the years went on.
After high school, things got better.  Right around the time I dropped out Jennifer and I became boyfriend and girlfriend.  I was ecstatic!  I couldn’t believe a girl actually liked me, I couldn’t believe I was finally having sex!  Jennifer and I had a really good, deep relationship, helped by the fact that we were friends for years first.  Oddly, I was the only one of my friends now with a girlfriend, and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how that happened.  A small part of me could never just enjoy what I had with her, though.  I was constantly terrified she would just change her mind and leave me some day.  She would figure out what everyone else knew, that I was ugly, fat, and useless.  Despite my worrying she never did, but it wasn’t my insecurities that eventually did us in.
Jennifer had been picked on just like I had, and her mother probably criticized her more than any kids did while growing up.  She hid her insecurities well, but they were always there, just underneath the surface.  Ironically, the confidence boost I got from her loving me was starting to make her insecure.  We never fought, but we would have these discussions where she would morosely tell me that I was going places and I was going to figure out how much I had going for me and I would leave her behind.  It all seemed very dramatic, but in her case it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.  She kept drifting away from me, pushing me away before I could hurt her, which I was never going to do.  In the end it just kind of fizzled out.  She was always sad and afraid I didn’t want her anymore and nothing I said or did would change her mind.  It was shocking that she seemed to be dealing with all the insecurities and low self-esteem issues that I was all this time.  In the end she let those fears dictate her life and our relationship.  We remained friends but didn’t talk much.  She drifted into relationships with abusive guys ended up turning into what she hated others for.  It makes me sad to this day.  The things she dealt with growing up dictated her life now.  She never got past them, and I guess few of us do.  It set me back too.  All I knew is that the girl that loved me was gone, so maybe all the things she saw in me weren’t really there.  It also seems to have set a pattern with me and my relationships with women.  I haven’t spoken to Jennifer in 20 years, but I hope she is doing well and loves herself.
I also had a new best friend, Bryan, and his friendship really went a long way to getting me to a better place.  Bryan was kind of an outcast too, but it was like he chose to be one.  He honestly never seemed to let others opinions of him reflect the way he felt about himself.
One of the first times I ever spoke to Bryan was towards the end of 11th grade in high school gym class.  The period was over and we were all standing around the gymnasium and out of the blue some jock came over and shoved him, looking for a fight.
Bryan just looked at him and said “hey, don’t shove me, you don’t even know who I am.”
The guy just looked at him and didn’t know what to say or do.  Bryan just kept looking him in the eye as he tried to figure out what just happened.
“Eh, you’re not worth it” he finally managed and slunk away. Bryan just went back to talking to me like nothing happened.  I was amazed though.  He just handled it and shrugged it off when it was done.  Whether or not he was scared or tormented inside, no one noticed any of it on the outside.
We would talk once in a while now and then throughout the school year, but we weren’t really close.
After school we somehow became better friends and started hanging out more.  I started getting out and doing more now that I had someone to do things with.  He had a car too, which was nice.  He helped broaden my taste in music, and he would actually try to pick up girls.  He had long hair in high school, and I had started to let mine grow once I dropped out.  I needed a new look, well, lets face it, any look other than whatever it was that I had up until that point.
I started dieting and lost a lot of my extra weight.  It was working, but not fast enough. I could never be someone worthwhile as long as I was fat.  I had been teased about it all my life and I was desperate to get rid of it once and for all.  Maybe a little too desperate.
I ended up starving myself, and if I broke down and ate a meal I would make myself throw it up afterward.  That started months of the binge and purge cycle.  People tend to think of anorexia and bulimia as problems women have, but I know plenty of guys that have had it at one point in their lives.
I was just so desperate to be thin, to not be the scared little fat boy from my youth anymore. I’m 6 feet tall and have a big build, but I got myself down below 160 pounds.  I still thought I was fat.  I would wear jeans that were too tight and complain how my fat would hang over the top of them. I remember my mother was so worried about me she sat me down one day and showed me pictures of models and how their skin above the waist of their jeans looked the same as mine. It didn’t matter though, I still saw myself the way I perceived others did, based on kids treatment of me from my childhood.
When I turned 21 things really started to change.  All my life growing up a lot of my parent’s stories involved bars.  My parents are very social people, and growing up they and their friends hung out in bars.  They aren’t alcoholics or anything, they were social drinkers and still are.  I couldn’t wait to go to bars.  All my life I imagined them to be this fun and amazing place.
Once I started going to clubs I realized that I had a chance to reinvent myself.  No one knew me here.  I had long hair, nice clothes, contact lenses, I was skinny.  These people had no idea I was a pathetic loser!  Around the time I turned 21 the music scene in my area seemed to explode.  There were bands playing every night of the week and I got to know quite a few of them.  I was in the clubs 4 or 5 nights a week, I was getting girls, making friends, and everyone accepted me.  I was popular.
Inside, though, I was still that scared, intimidated boy.  I could push him down and ignore him most of the time, but he was always there whispering to me, telling me that this will all come crashing down someday when everyone realizes how ugly and disgusting I really was.  Inside I was a mess of insecurity and anxiety, but outside I was playing a role and playing it really well.
A good case in point: There was a club I used to go to all the time called Lupos, and when you had to go to the bathroom you would have to walk along the whole length of the bar between the people and the dance floor and stage.  Everyone was looking your way as you strode past them.  It was like being on some horrible catwalk.  I felt so self-conscious making that walk, like every eye in the place was on me.
I would sit there and steel myself, tell myself that I would stand up straight, and walk in an even, measured stride like I belonged there and those people weren’t even in the room.  Then I would get up and start walking.
I would be acutely aware of every step I took, I would hold my head up, look at anyone right in the eye if they looked my way.  I was anxiety ridden the whole way and felt ridiculous, like everyone knew I was a pathetic phony.
The crazy thing is, it worked.  No one ever caught on, and years later when I would tell this story to people that were there they would tell me that they too got nervous making that walk sometimes.  One girl even told me that she always noticed the way I walked past everyone and always seemed so confident and how she was always jealous of me.
The sad reality of it is, no one really cared.  Sure, a few people would make a crack now and then at someone if they were wearing something ridiculous or they didn’t fit in with the crowd, but for the most part people were living their lives and watching the band.  It was all in my head, and apparently the only people that did notice were people as unsure of themselves as I was.
Bryan and I hung out in clubs for a lot of years.  I dated a lot of women in an effort to prove to myself that I wasn’t that same ugly kid anymore.  It was like my plea from years earlier had been answered, I was finally good looking enough to get girls.  Of course, in my mind that meant that the second part of the plea would come true, that I would go back to being ugly and unlovable someday, and I actually lived in fear of that day arriving.
In the end I just got tired of bars.  It started to seem like the same old thing.  Bryan got tired of it before I did, but I wasn’t far behind him. My friends and I started to just hang out together at home.  It was more fun, and safer.  Sadly, though, nothing else has really replaced clubs in my life.  Sure, I do other things.  I still love music, and I am still social.  I just don’t have a scene or a thing that helps define me.  I guess that’s okay.  I’m still a completely different person in a bar though.  It’s like I never left.  I’m outgoing, I feel like I’m in my element and I kind of take over the place.
I had gotten over the anorexia/bulimia thing after a year or so, but I was still acutely aware of my weight.  Then, like a switch flicking off, I stopped caring.  Well, not exactly.  I still felt fat and hated my body, I just stopped worrying about every little thing I ate and if I gained weight.  As a result, my weight goes up and down with my moods.  I hate being heavy, but I feel kind of liberated because I don’t care about it.  Until I do, then I strive to lose the extra weight, feeling horrible about myself the whole time.  It’s a vicious circle that I suppose I might have to live with the rest of my life.
I have had a lot of relationships, and even though I try to pick women that I think are strong and together, they seem to be saddled with the same damage and insecurities that I am.  I don’t really have a problem with that, everyone has shit they have to deal with.  The problem is, they don’t deal with it.  I am determined to not let my own bullshit interfere with the people I love.  I face it everyday and don’t let it dictate my actions.  I think that’s why some of these women are attracted to me.  They think it will rub off on them.  I am very supportive and very thoughtful and caring.  I know what it’s like to feel unlovable and inferior.  These women respond to that at first, but it doesn’t last.  Their fears and insecurities always seem to win out.  They want to punish themselves, the same way I used to berate myself.  I have to be careful when a relationship ends because I will spiral into self pity thinking that all the good things they saw in me while we were dating were all in their heads and I am a repulsive mess.  I’m just fortunate that I got over a lot of it.
One of the good things it has done for me is that it made me very sensitive to children’s feelings.  I am very good with kids, and I always try to make them feel good about themselves and let them know that some things don’t matter.  I will tell them things that happened to me at their age and how horrible I thought it was then and how it didn’t really matter at all in the grand scheme of things.  I get great joy when I see whatever weight they were carrying around life off their shoulders.  In turn, I am a very free spirit around them, and it is probably the only time I don’t obsess on my own feelings.  They respond too.  I am always encouraging them to live to the fullest and not worry about what others might think.
It’s why I write and post these things, really.  I hope it helps when I talk about all this.  I think that the only way the world has a chance is if we all share the experiences we internalize and show that we all have a lot of the same fears, unfounded or not.  Then we can feel closer to each other rather than push each other away.  It’s easy for me to do, to expose myself like this.  I don’t know why, I guess it is a strange form of self confidence that comes with knowing who you are.  Most of my insecurities are about looks, not thoughts.  I know who I am and I am very sure of that.
It’s always there though, just below the surface and I have to be careful.  I still always feel extremely self conscious walking through the store for a few moments before I catch myself.  I feel like people are looking at me or judging me when I take the trash out.  It’s a really strange byproduct of being teased and picked on by people I hardly knew growing up.  I feel perfectly confident talking to a perfect stranger face to face, but if they are 15 feet away I feel isolated and inadequate.
That will be with me the rest of my life, and while I still try to work on it I have realized that there will never be a way to undo it entirely.  I will never have closure.  Everyone that picked on me will never call and admit it was just their own insecurities and fears manifesting themselves and taking it out on me.  Even though I know that now, it doesn’t really make it better.
Even with a loving family telling me how I wasn’t all those things I felt, ugly, different, useless, it didn’t really matter.  Most damaged people are like that. You need to hear it from the people that made you feel that way.  It’s the only way you will ever feel validated, and sometimes not even then if the damage is too deep.  That’s why it’s so hard to help someone that is holding onto some past hurt or trauma.  You can’t provide the closure no matter how much you try, no matter how much you love them.  All your love and feelings are discounted and tossed aside, made small by some weird filter in their heads that tells them you don’t see them the way the rest of the world does.  If you only knew who they really were, how unlovable and horrible they are at their core then you would run from them screaming.  A lot of people have had to deal with much worse than I have, so I can’t even imagine what it was like for them.
It’s all in their heads of course.  It’s in mine, and will be until the day I die, but I have learned better.  I have taught myself to trust the people around me that love me.  I realize that my self image is warped and I can’t trust it.  I have to ignore that and look at the facts, look at how the people in my life see me and what they tell me.  I have to look to the fact that I haven’t been shunned, I have dated many girls that apparently found me attractive, I have helped people, I have made lots of money for my various bosses over the years so I must not be stupid or useless, I have many friends so I am not unlovable.
I know all these things now, but the initial impulse is still that of a picked on little boy, even if just for a second.  I am still repulsed at the sight of myself in a mirror.  I can’t stand seeing a picture of myself, and that’s why you will probably never see any new photos of me on Facebook.  In my mind I am still a hideous troll.  Reason takes over then and I remember that it’s my warped psyche telling me these things, and I push the feelings back down and face the day.  I know I’m not stupid, I know I’m not ugly, I know I’m not repulsive.
I know I am not worthless.
But knowing all that is not the same as feeling it.

© 2015 David Ferraris

That One Time I Tried To Kill Myself

So there was this one time I tried to commit suicide.  Some people that know me might say I have been trying to kill myself on a steady basis since my teen years.  I have not really lived a cautious life, but I don’t think I have a death wish. 

Eh, if I die, I die.  When I take a cold hard look at life in general, it is pretty pointless, but there are enough things to hold my interest and keep me here.  The world is full of beauty and wonder, love and amazing people, a million little things to make life worth living.  On the flip side, there are people.  They are aggravating, they are stupid, they are rotten to their core, and it gets to you.  The smarter and more aware you are the more intolerable life can be. 

Unless you’re rich.  Your only other option is to be completely delusional, which might not be so bad, but I’d rather be rich.  There are people that say money isn’t everything, but those people are stupid or have just given up on the chance that they themselves might be rich someday.  Which you should.  The odds of you being rich some day are pretty astronomical.  I’m not saying don’t try, but don’t get mad when it doesn’t happen.  It might get you so frustrated that you will try to kill yourself, which is what this is supposed to be about anyway. 

People try to kill themselves in all manner of ways.  Sometimes it is just a cry for help or attention, and that’s a valid thing.  If your life has gotten to the point that attempting suicide seems like a good idea, even if deep down you know it probably won’t work, someone in your life should notice and give you that attention.  If no one does, you should either get new people in your life or take a good hard look at yourself and stop being such an unlovable asshole.

I remember reading in the paper one time about a guy that committed suicide.  One sunny day he was standing on the sidewalk and a big truck stopped at the light in front of him.  According to witnesses he simply lay down on the road with his head in front of the rear tires and when the light turned green … splat. 

Now that was not a cry for help.  That guy had just had enough.  To this day I wonder what he was thinking.  Did he go out looking for a truck that day?  Did he just decide on the spur of the moment?  Did his girlfriend just break up with him, or did he come from the doctor after some dire prognosis? 

Probably not.  More than likely his life was just miserable, either because it just was or because of a chemical imbalance in his brain.  He probably just saw a quick way out and took it.  Who hasn’t thought about it at one time or another, to some degree?  If you haven’t, chances are you just haven’t been paying attention.

There’s a lot of shit you have to deal with on a daily basis, and while usually no one thing makes you think you should end it all, everything does add up.  I’m sure a lot of suicides happen just by the random ebb and flow of the good and bad things that occur in your life.  Hit a bad stretch for too long, like a bad run at the blackjack table and you might just off yourself.  Given one more day something good would have pushed the needle back the other way.

I’m not saying everyone is walking around hanging by a string.  Life is not that bad all the time and the will to live is strong.  Most people are relatively happy and have plenty to live for, thankfully. 

The thing is, there are a whole other group of people that aren’t very happy and don’t have much to live for.  They run the gamut from people stuck in unbearable life situations filled with abuse and neglect to people that can’t get good cell phone service that morning.  Seriously, from one extreme to the other, there are a multitude of things that send people over the edge. 

There are a lot of people comforted by the thought of suicide.  I have been upon occasion.  When life gets really bad and intolerable I actually am relieved to think that it is always an option.  I have spoken to many people that have felt that way at least once in their lives.

Of course, there is always the situation where someone decides that their quality of life was so diminished that they didn’t want to live any more.  I am all in favor of assisted suicide.  If you are in a situation where a disease or disability is too much, I believe you should be able to go out on your own terms.  Some may think that course of action to be irrational, but I think it is as rational as you can get.  Why put yourself through some horrible treatment that’s worse than the disease if the odds are it’s not going to work?  Why live if you are in constant pain or misery?

Oh well, back to me and my attempt. 

It wasn’t a cry for help, I was truly miserable and did not want to go on.  I was 22.  I’m not sure of the exact circumstances in my life that got me to that point.  I know I had been through a really bad relationship, I didn’t have a very good job or any prospects for any career in the future.  I had no real direction in life, and comparing against my parent’s life at my age I should have been married with kids by now.  I was starting to feel like a disappointment and a failure.  These feelings were all in my head. Everyone in my life was very supportive, I just didn’t care. 

I was living at home at the time(another check in the failure column in my head, 22 and still living with my parents) and at the time part of the house was under construction as we were building an addition.  No, not for me to live in, smartass.  My parents were away on a trip, and I had spent the last few days feeling extra miserable.  Drinking, sitting in the dark and listening to Pink Floyd, replaying every bad thing in my life over and over in my head.

Then I decided I had enough. 

I went out to the half finished rooms and found some wire.  I tied it over a beam, climbed up a couple of steps on a ladder, tied the wire around my neck and stepped off.  I didn’t drop enough to break my neck, I just hung there slowly suffocating.  I didn’t really feel any panic, just felt like it would all be over soon and a little relieved.  I wish I could say that I thought of my family, or my friends, the people I would hurt and leave behind.  I didn’t think about all the things I wouldn’t get to do, the songs unsung and all that.  I didn’t think of anything at all really, and that’s hard to even imagine as I type it. 

People have a hard time fathoming why people kill themselves and what could have been going through their heads and how they could be so selfish and not think of the people they hurt.  In my case, and I’m sure many others, your mind just disconnects you from those things. You’re not thinking rationally, so you cannot apply logic or reason to the situation when you’re on the outside looking in.

At any rate, there I was, dangling by my neck, a foot off the floor and waiting for peaceful oblivion.  I was vaguely aware that I was spinning slowly.  My eyes were closed and it felt very relaxing.  There was no thoughts of teaching anyone a lesson, imagining how everyone would regret that they didn’t treat me better.  Nothing.

Suddenly I felt my foot touch something.  My feet were pointing down and now my other toe also brushed against something.  I moved my feet and I could feel the ground.  What the hell?

Okay, so here’s what was happening.  The wire I used to hang myself turned out to be the four copper wire phone line.  It is not very thick and the copper was stretching with the weight of my body hanging from it.  Now it had stretched enough that my toes was on the ground.  I was dangling there like some sort of grotesque ballerina.  Once my toes were on the ground there was not quite enough pressure on my windpipe to kill me, but I still hadn’t gotten my feet on the ground so I could free myself.  The ladder was to the side and I couldn’t get back on that either. 

All my dark feelings were gone now, I just felt foolish and it was hurting my neck.  I reached up and grabbed the wire and tried to take some of the pressure off my throat.  I pulled my feet up so the cable would stretch more and finally I got it so that I could get my feet on the ground enough to free myself. 

So there you go.  I wanted to live after all, I suppose.  Did I know in my mind ahead of time that the wire would stretch and I wouldn’t die?  I don’t think so, but who knows?  It wasn’t a play for attention because no one would have found me for days.  It was as if something in my brain just shut down, the rational part, the survival instinct, whatever. I just calmly strung myself up because I wanted to stop living.  I’ve only told a few people that story, and I never went into great detail about it, so I wasn’t being a drama queen either.

There are many aspects of it that make me feel embarrassed, and that’s interesting.  Why anyone should feel like they did something wrong or foolish and feel ashamed or guilty about it is precisely why more people don’t discus their feelings with other people.  Writing it I felt a twinge of shame at many points in the story.  I felt embarrassed that I would do it over a relationship.  I felt lame because I was 22, as if doing it as a teenager would have made it less embarrassing.  I felt horrible because I did not think of my loved ones.  I especially think about how horrible it would have been for the people that loved me.  I can’t even imagine what it would have done to my parents if they had come home and found me there.

The list goes on and on. Sadly, I never once felt sorry for my younger self, and still don’t.  I feel foolish and angry and disappointed. So if I feel that way about myself from three decades ago, why would I expect anyone to have compassion for someone else who contemplates or commits suicide?  Why do others react with rage and disappointment instead of empathy for the suffering?

The most important thing to take out of all of this is that I have never thought about doing  it since.  I’m happy and (relatively) well adjusted.  Everything worked out fine and I wouldn’t trade the last 28 years I would have missed out on for anything.  I am even writing about what must have been the lowest point in my life on a meaningless blog in a seriocomic manner. 

So if anyone reading this is having any thoughts about doing something drastic, please don’t.  It will get better, I’m proof of that.  It is especially tragic whenever a young person commits suicide with their whole life lying in front of them.  All those possibilities, all that promise gone in an instant.

Don’t ever think that no one understands or no one else could have possibly gone through what you are going through.  No one’s problems are unique, there is always someone out there that has felt what you’re feeling now.  You have the internet at your fingertips, do a search on your problem or feelings and you’ll find a whole community of people feeling the same way.  You’ll also find plenty of places to get help dealing with it. 

If someone is tormenting or bullying you, understand that those people are assholes.  Many of them have their own problems; shitty parents, insecurities, unresolved issues with who they are.  You can feel a little sorry for them, but don’t let their shit ruin your life.  Find someone to talk to that can help make it stop and help you get to a point where you don’t care what others think of you.

I think most people could just go on if they knew they weren’t alone.  That’s why art; books, movies, music, is so important.  If you’re stuck in a miserable situation, you can find kindred spirits in those stories and songs. Just maybe stay away from Pink Floyd for the time being!  You will see that there is a whole world of people that feel just like you, and if you’re in an area or a family that makes you feel bad for who you are, go seek out people that accept you as soon as you can manage it. It may seem scary, but trust me, it’s much better than being dead.

I realize also that there are some people who suffer from depression, and it’s not a matter of just saying “buck up pal, you’ll be okay”.  I can’t even begin to understand how if feels to be a slave to body chemistry, to not even be able to help yourselves at times.  It must be scary as hell and I feel bad for anyone in that situation.  People suffering from depression don’t need anyone telling them how to feel.

Those people need support more than anything else, so if you have someone in your life that suffers with it, be kind and patient with them.  I know it can be frustrating at times, but imagine what they are going through.  A little understanding goes a long way.

So, to sum up, like everything else in life, kindness and empathy can go a long way to making the world a better place for everyone.

Oh yeah, and try not to kill yourself.  At least not all at once.  Do it the way the rest of us do it, slowly with alcohol, drugs, stress, cigarettes,  risky behavior, processed foods and obesity.  You know, like a normal person.

© 2015 David Ferraris

The Clowns

     Donald had always hated clowns.  More than hated them, he feared them.  The things that brought amusement and laughter to other kids had terrified him, had struck some chord in him that he did not care for.  Their smiling, greasepaint masks seemed to hide something sinister, something not real.
     Laughter too, wasn’t laughter used to cover up anything unpleasant, and weren’t clown’s laughter the phoniest laughs around?  Whatever clowns were, they were not amusing to Donald.
     His parents discovered that on his fifth birthday, when they took him to the circus.  In his seven years on the planet Donald’s memories were few, but one stood out more than any other.
     Sterling’s Traveling Circus it was called.  Not much of a circus, really.  They set up in a field on the edge of town, but the circus was kind of a big deal compared to the mundane day-to-day small town life most of the people in the area led.  So his parents took him, a birthday treat, and he liked the sights, the smells, the food, and the animals.  He sat rapt as the trapeze artists flew overhead and when acrobats rode the horses around the ring.
     Then the clowns appeared, and he froze.  Lots of clowns: big clowns, little clowns, fat and skinny, all painted with those jeering smiles, dressed in baggy clothes which held no real shape beneath them.
     His parents hadn’t noticed his apprehension at first.  They laughed along with the crowd at the clowns antics.  Buckets of water that turned into confetti, vaudevillian pratfalls, ridiculous pantomimes.  Donald and his parents had seats in the first row, only the best for Donald’s birthday.  He was close to them, but he still felt a little reassured between his mother and father.
     Then, one of the clowns came his way.  It stopped right in front of him and looked at him.  He sat frozen.  The clown made some motions with his hands and then – POOF – a bouquet of paper flowers appeared.  Donald screamed as everyone around him ooohed and aaahed.   The tears that streamed down his face got his mothers attention and she tried to soothe him, tell him it was all in fun.  The clown made a mock sad face at him, and put his finger to his lip and shushed him.
     The clown was still right in front of him, and looked directly at him and smiled.  Donald started to calm down a little and thought it might be alright for a moment.  Then the clown did something that apparently no one but Donald noticed.  Its lips parted slightly and one long, jagged tooth slipped out.  It slowly pierced the clown’s lower lip and a small trickle of blood ran through the white greasepaint, down its chin.  Then the clown was laughing and running through the sawdust to join his friends.
     Donald’s parents finally had to take him home; he couldn’t be quieted at the circus after that.  The trickle of blood haunted his dreams since that night.  Right after the incident the nightmares were frequent, almost nightly, but now, two years later they only occurred once every two months or so.  Donald was getting too big to get hysterical at every little bad dream.  Some nights though they were true night terrors, and he would wake up sweating, tears streaming down his cheeks, and he would curl up tight beneath his blankets and wait for sunrise.
     What Donald didn’t know was that when the clown was near he had put something in his mother’s purse, something small that Donald’s mother hadn’t even noticed until they got home.
     “Look honey,” she said to her husband, showing him the small rubber clown she had found in her bag.  “That clown must have stuck that in there when he was playing with Donny.”
     “Well don’t give it to him now.” Her husband replied. “It’s liable to send him into another fit.”
     So she put it away in her dresser, and thought that someday when he was older she would give it to him and they would laugh at how silly he had been.
 
     Children are curious.  Donald, now six, was playing in the house while his mother was in the backyard talking to the neighbor.  He was exploring, and had already exhausted all the mysteries in the rest of the house, so he ventured into his parents bedroom.  He looked in the closet, but that was just clothes and shoes.  The nightstand contained only papers and booklets that he had no comprehension of.
     His mother’s dresser however held all manner of things.  Her jewelry box, which held the silver dollars his grandpa had given him before he went away, the ones his mom was keeping for him until he got older.  Some teeth the tooth fairy had taken.  How did they end up here?  Donald was beginning to figure this one out, and soon the tooth fairy would go the same route as Santa did, into disbelief.
     He opened a drawer.  Nothing in there but bras and underwear.  He opened the next one and froze.  A clown!  He had to stifle a scream when he saw the small rubber doll.  He slammed the drawer shut.  What was a clown doing in mommy’s dresser? He wanted to run from the room, but he didn’t want that thing in the same house as him.
     He summoned up all his courage and opened the drawer.  He looked at the clown, not sure what he wanted to do, but knowing he had to do it soon.  His mother would not be out back much longer.  He wished he had gone out to play in the yard near her instead of insisting on staying inside and watching cartoons.
     He finally snatched up the doll and closed the drawer.  He made his way to the front door, and as he did he could swear he felt the clown move in his grasp. He squeezed tighter and bolted through the house and out the front door.  The only place he could think of to dispose of it was the sewer in front of the house.  He hurled the clown through the grate, and it landed in the storm drain four feet below.  Its brightness contrasted sharply with the black muck, and Donald could see it clearly, lying on its back, staring up at him. Then it raised its arm and waved at him.
     Donald ran back into the house.
     The next day, playing on the dead end street where he lived, he peered into the sewer.  The clown was not there.  ‘Good” he thought, ‘it had been washed away by last nights rain.’  At least that’s what he hoped.
     A couple of weeks later he finally got the nerve to look in his mother’s drawer again.  He grabbed the handle and slowly pulled it open and peeked in.
     The rubber clown lay on its back, a small trickle of blood running down its chin.  Donald did run screaming from the room this time, into the backyard where his mother had a hard time calming him down.  He wouldn’t say what had him so upset, but he would never stay in the house by himself again after that.

     In a small tent, miles away from where Donald lay sleeping, six figures sat around a table.  The interior of the tent was bathed in the dull glow of a gas lamp.  They were clowns, gathered about the table, laughing as perhaps you might expect clowns to do at night, when no one was around.  Except the laughter was not jovial, it came more like a hyena-like, high pitched squealing outburst.
     The clowns were still in full make-up, or rather, they were clowns.  A clown is only a clown when made up to be a clown.  These creatures were always clowns; they could never be ordinary men.  They weren’t human at all.
      The object of their amusement was a small child, a boy approaching his fourth birthday.  One clown, in his baggy, polka dot outfit held the boy up in front of him, his face close to the child’s face, mocking its terror stricken look.  The child started to cry and then scream while the clowns laughed, amused by the fear they were causing.
     “Come on kid,” the clown holding him said, “don’t cry.  You need to be quiet.  Here, I’ll help.”  With that he grasped the little boy’s tongue and twisted in free of his mouth and threw it on the dirt floor, where another clown pounced on it.  Blood welled up from the boy’s mouth, vomiting down his chest.
     “That’s better!” The clown smiled as the others howled.
     Then the clown started to drink …

     Carl Russell couldn’t sleep.  He tried night after night, but he couldn’t do it.  Here he was again, over near the clown tent.  No one came near the clown’s tent, not at night anyway.  The clowns always kept their lodging as far from the rest of the company as they could, and the other workers were fine with that.
     When you worked in a circus you stayed to yourselves anyway, in your little group.  Even now he should be with the other laborers in their trailer, sleeping.  The clown’s business was the clown’s business and that was that.  Besides, what he was suspecting the clowns of was absurd.
     What did he care anyway?  52 years old and still wandering around with the carnivals.  He had left home at 16 and soon the found that the only place he could get work was in the carnival circuit.  Lousy pay, no family, no love, no life outside work.  He didn’t even feel he fit in with the circus people.  Most of the other workers, performers or sideshow freaks felt close to one another, like some sort of substitute family, but Carl never felt a kinship and he never stayed at one circus very long.
     So why was he so worried about these goddamn clowns?  In a few weeks he’d be out of here and working some other traveling show.  Screw this circus and its clowns and everyone else in it.
     He shuddered as he thought back on the night a couple of weeks back.  He couldn’t sleep that night either, but just because he had indigestion.  The food you got in his line of work often did not sit well with him, especially now that he was older.  He went for a walk in the night air, hoping he would feel better.  He hadn’t realized he had wandered close to the clown’s tent until he thought he heard what sounded like a child crying.  More like screaming, a horrible wailing scream.  He heard the clowns laughing maniacally, and then the child’s screaming stopped.
     He had hurried back to his trailer and tried to forget the sounds and go to sleep, but the cries stayed with him and he could not block it from his thoughts.
     So every night since found him near the clown’s tent, and on two other occasions he heard what seemed to be a child crying and then silence.  It couldn’t mean what he thought it meant, the clowns couldn’t be murderers, could they?  The thought seemed ridiculous, but what else could the sounds he was hearing mean?  He needed to look into the tent, but the thought terrified him.
      He was getting nearer to their tent when he suddenly heard a child screaming again.  He made his way as quickly as he could to just outside the tent.  The child’s cries had stopped, but his heart was racing in his chest and he had broken out in a cold sweat.  He had to admit, he was terrified.
     He wasn’t sure what he should do.  He couldn’t just burst in there and demand to know what was going on, cold he?  He felt helpless and weak, but his fear could not be surmounted and he stood frozen.  Then he thought he heard something, a small noise, like muffled crying.  The child was still alive!
      He tried to gather his thoughts, to try to get the sick feeling to leave him, but he still felt nauseous and was still trembling. Then the clowns started howling again.   He could make out the faint shadows of the clowns on the walls of the tent, they seemed to be in a frenzy.  They were making strange guttural sounds, and seemed to be skirmishing over something, like a pack of wolves fighting over a meal.
      He had to move, had to do something, so he quickly circled his way around until he noticed a small tear in the side of the canvas tent.  The clowns had settled down now, so he had to be careful.   He tentatively put his eye up to the hole, as if expecting a clown’s finger to suddenly poke his eye out with a giggle.
     He peered in and saw the clowns sitting around the table, and in the gaslight they seemed harmless enough, like some cheesy painting they sold at flea markets.  They were laughing good-naturedly, sitting around the way you might sit at a picnic table with friends in the backyard on a summer night.  He slowly let out his breath, unaware he had been holding it in.  No child, just clowns relaxing at night, perhaps planning tomorrow’s show.  
     Then he noticed on the ground, a child’s pajamas, crumpled and torn.  He looked at the clowns again; his heart racing like it would explode.  Now he noticed the clown’s greasepaint had run, smeared down their chins, their necks.  It was red greasepaint, that was all, he tried to tell himself.  No, it was blood, he knew it, and he saw one clown hold up something small and white, then crunch it between his teeth and suck the marrow out.
     He pulled back from the hole in the tent and tried to control his nausea, if he vomited now they would hear him and he’d be done for.  He steadied himself and looked back into the tent.
     The clowns were still seated, laughing and joking, and it sickened him to realize that this was polite after dinner conversation.  Suddenly their attention was drawn to the entrance of the tent.  The flap opened and he saw something very small move into the tent.  It was a tiny clown, not more than ten inches tall, almost like a small doll.  It capered and danced its way across the floor where it ceremoniously bowed at the clown’s feet.
     “Peebo!” the clown wearing the polka dotted suit exclaimed, “You’ve returned.”
     “Yes.” Replied the tiny clown, “It has taken a little longer than usual, but the child is ready.”
     “Good, good,” The clown smiled , “Tomorrow night little one, bring him to us!”
      “Yes master.” And the tiny clown bowed again and trotted out of the tent and into the night.  Carl backed away from the tent and made his way back to the trailer.  What the fuck had he just witnessed?

     The next night as Donald was in bed trying to fall asleep, he heard a noise coming from somewhere in his room.  He peered into the darkness but saw nothing.  He waited for his eyes to adjust to the moonlight streaming in through the window, and he wondered if he should just bolt from the room.  He couldn’t.  His parents were getting tired of him trying to crawl into their bed at night.  He was seven and a half years old now, too old to be scared all the time.
      Suddenly there was a slight movement on the floor, something in the darkness.  Then he saw something dance into the moonlight.  Donald saw what it was: the clown!  The clown doll was in his room, dancing across his bedroom floor.  He wanted to scream, but he sat frozen, unable to take his eyes off the clown.  It cart-wheeled and spun, tumbling about on the carpet.  Donald started to sob.  There was a rising fear in him that told him he would never see the inside of his bedroom again, his mother would never hold him and fuss over him, all that was lost.  Still he sat, transfixed by the doll on the floor, feeling himself becoming entranced by it’s movements and soon that’s what he was.

    This night Carl was back outside the clown tent, and earlier than usual.  As soon as the others had gone to sleep, he slipped out of the trailer and made his way here.  Earlier that day he had spoke to one of the other workers and bought a gun, a cheap .38 caliber pistol.  Unregistered weapons were fairly easy to come by in his line of work.  He wasn’t sure how much good it would do against these things, but he felt better having something for protection.  He didn’t even have a plan, and he was still holding onto some faint hope, telling himself that there was some other explanation he hadn’t considered, but he knew the truth.  Still, something in head could not accept that clowns were eating children.
      His thoughts were interrupted by a rustling sound and he saw something even harder for his mind to acknowledge.  From the night sky came the little clown, gliding down on the wind.  Behind it sailed a small boy wearing pajamas, and they landed gently in front of the entrance to the tent. The boy stared blankly at the small figure, which danced forward through the flap.  The boy followed, disappearing into the tent.  Carl stood there, holding his breath, frozen in disbelief and fear.
     Then he heard the boy scream.
     Without thinking he rushed into the tent, and he realized immediately he had made a huge mistake.  He stood in the doorway, the gun still uselessly in his pocket.  The clown in the polka dots held Donald with both arms pinned to his sides, off the ground and staring in wide-eyed terror into the clown’s face.  The other clowns looked at Carl, seemingly amused, and he suddenly realized that there were only five of them.
     The sixth clown grabbed him from behind, and placed one of his hands over Carl’s mouth.  The clown hugged him tight with the other arm, and seemed much stronger than he should have.  Carl tried to struggle, but he couldn’t budge.  Then he felt breath on the back of his neck and heard the clown whisper in his ear.
     “Watch.” It said.
     Carl watched the clown lower his face, almost touching Donald’s nose.  He saw the clowns mouth open wide, then even wider.   He saw a mouthful of wicked teeth, too many teeth, sharp and twisted.  The mouth opened still wider, as if the clown’s jaw had become unhinged and his whole head opened up.  The clown’s mouth enveloped the entire lower half of Donald’s face.  The gas light seemed to intensify, and fire burned in the clown’s eyes.  The other clowns were braying and howling, a bone chilling, primeval sound.  The clown then closed his jaws, and Carl heard a horrible crunching sound and the boy’s legs were thrashing the air frantically.  Then mercifully the body went limp.  Blood was running down the front of the clown’s polka dotted suit, and the other clowns were approaching him, licking their lips.
     Carl passed out before he even noticed that the clown was no longer holding him.

     Pain.  Applause.  Bright lights.
     Carl opened his eyes and looked around him.  He was in the main tent, on his back and looking up.  The stands were packed, and he realized where he was.  He was in the main ring, it was show time.  He was in a large box, being wheeled out into the center ring. His feet protruded from one end and his head from the opposite end.  His whole body felt like it was on fire.  His face felt funny and hot, and he realized it was covered in greasepaint.  He tried to open his mouth and the pain was unbearable.  He could feel the wire, the wire that was stitched through his gums, holding his mouth shut.  He started to cry.  He knew what would happen next.  He’d seen it a dozen times, but only now could he appreciate the trick.  How many murders had people witnessed and never knew?
     It was like sawing the lady in half, and the clowns had done it often.  He imagined he was painted like the others that had gone before him.  The clown in the box was always made up to be very sad, as he was now.  Then the clowns, with much pomp and circumstance, would present the long knives to the crowd.  The clown in the box would look on in what the crowd assumed was mock terror and then the big surprise would come and everyone would cheer.
     ‘If they only knew’ thought Carl helplessly.
      At the center of the ring the clown with the polka dotted suit, after he was sure the crowd was quite satisfied that the knives were genuine, plunged them into the top of the box.
     Carl felt the blades pierce him, one at the groin and one through the heart and he strained to scream against the wire holding his mouth shut.  Then a large spray of confetti spewed form the box where the knives had entered, and Carl watched it fall to the ground like tears as he died.

© 2011 David Ferraris

AmazingMan

     Mary eased her car off the side of the road, in the little gravel pull off next to Joe and Ellen’s car, which was already parked there.  She rolled down her passenger side window and asked if they'd been waiting long.

     As they said their hellos and discussed which trail they would be hiking, she was suddenly startled by a knock on her window.  She looked out and there he stood: AmazingMan.  In his green tights and yellow cape, his muscles bulging, the perfect male specimen.  She rolled down her window.

     "Can I help you?" she asked.

     "The question is, can I help you?"  He replied.  It sounded like he had said it too many times already in too many other situations.  Not exactly rehearsed, but still the way a smarmy barfly lothario might deliver a line designed to pick up a girl but was destined to fail.

     “No, not today AmazingMan, I’m just meeting my friends to go hiking.”  She told him.

     “Oh, okay” He replied, sounding disappointed.  “No kidnap ransom being delivered?  You can tell me, you don’t need to be afraid of them.” He scowled in Joe and Ellen’s direction.

     “No, nothing like that.” Mary assured him.  “Just, you know, going hiking.”

     “Hmmm.” AmazingMan furrowed his brow.  “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of drug deal?”

     “You have x-ray vision AmazingMan, you would certainly see if there were any drugs here.”

     “Yes, that’s true.” He agreed.  “Okay citizen, be secure in the knowledge that AmazingMan is always on the alert, watching out for the good people of this fair city …”

     “I know AmazingMan, She cut him off, “thanks and all, but my friends and I really need to hit the trail, so …” 

     “So …?”

     “So, could you please move so I can get out of my car and go hiking?”

    “Certainly.”  He stammered, “You have a good day and be sure to observe all the rules posted along the trail.  They are put there for your safety”

     “Okay.”  She answered, short and terse.

     She finally just opened the door against his thigh and he got the message and moved back. 

     “I’m off then, unless there’s something else you need me to help you with.”

     “Nope.  We’re quite okay here. Bye.”  She went around the car to her friends.

     AmazingMan walked away, looking dejected.  He would usually fly of course, but he secretly hoped walking would drive home his unhappiness and make them feel guilty.  It didn’t.  As he got a distance away from the cars, he trained his super hearing on them.

     “It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”  Ellen was saying, “There’s really no crime for him to fight anymore.”

     “Yes, but he doesn’t have to pester innocent people all the time, does he?” Joe asked.

     “Shhhh!” Warned Mary, “He might hear you!”

      Joe and Ellen were right though.  Since he had come here a year and a half ago, the crime had really dried up.  When criminals realized there was an invincible flying strongman that could see through walls, hear you from blocks away and move faster than sound they either gave up on crime or moved to another part of the country.  He thought perhaps some super villain might arise to become his arch nemesis, but it turned out that there were no super villains.  Most criminals weren’t that smart, and the ones that were knew enough not to challenge a very powerful crime fighter from another planet over and over again. 

     Nor were there any super criminals from any other worlds.  It turned out that space was immense.  The only reason he had arrived from earth was because his father, with his great intellect and his civilization’s vast technology, managed to send him here directly and on purpose.  The chances of another person from another civilization doing the same thing were astronomical, let alone someone from beyond the stars just happening upon Earth randomly.

     With no crime to fight, he was basically useless unless there was some kind of natural disaster to help with, but even they were few and far between these days.  He could blow a hurricane or tornado off course before they even did any damage, and that only took a half hour at most.  If there was an earthquake somewhere he couldn’t do much to stop it, and humans had gotten surprising good at responding to disasters and rescuing and rebuilding.  He was mostly in the way in those situations. 

     He supposed he should go assume his alter ego Sam Smith, and get back to his job.  He thanked his lucky stars that he had the ability to produce AmazingMan any time the TV station wanted an interview.  It was true though that there wasn’t as much of a call for interviews with him anymore.  

     That was another thing.  Why didn’t his boss even figure out why he could even get in touch with AmazingMan?  He helped and protected humans, but they sure were stupid.  Take off his glasses and put on a cape and nobody even looked twice.  Not one of his so-called “friends” ever noticed him long enough to put two and two together and figure out that he was AmazingMan.  He sighed.  People sure knew how to be a disappointment.

     He suddenly felt foolish to realize that he was still walking.  He half-heartedly leapt in the air and took off, making his way to channel 19’s studio.

     When he first arrived here from the family farm, he had figured on getting a job at the local newspaper.   Where better to keep your finger on the pulse of a busy metropolis?  Alas, there were only two papers in town and the same out-of-town conglomerate owned them both.  Most of the stories in the papers came from the wire service and there was very little news left in them.  The daily edition was mostly entertainment news, local sports and classified ads.

     The closest thing he could find to a city news desk was the local television news, but even that was a joke.  Still, they were on top of breaking crime stories because sensationalism sells.  He wanted a job writing copy for the anchors, but with no college degree or any real experience, he was out of luck.  He finally took a course at the community college learning to work a camera.  He got an unpaid internship at he station and even then they weren’t looking to hire him when he graduated.  He finally just started crime fighting and used the “getting an interview with AmazingMan” angle to finally get a job operating the camera.  Truth be told, though, he wasn’t really very good at it.  He hardly worked the camera much anymore; he mostly just tried to stay out of the way.  He was just grateful that his AmazingMan connection would ensure that he always had a job. 

     He landed behind the studio and quickly changed and snuck inside. 

     “Anyone been looking for me?”  He asked everyone on set.

     “No” half of them replied, not even looking up from whatever they were doing.

     “Okay, well if anyone needs anything …” he added

     “NO!” said the same people.

      AmazingMan, who was now Sam Smith again by virtue of his glasses, walked down the hall to Lori Lund’s office.  Lori, like everyone else here, pretty much ignored Sam Smith.  She was the evening co-anchor, and she was also AmazingMan’s girlfriend.  Well, kind of.  She was always flirting with him, finding ways to be around him, he would catch her mooning over his picture.  At least she used to. She was always happy to talk to Sam, if for nothing else to ask if he had spoken to AmazingMan lately, or if he asked about her.   Lately it seemed the bloom was off the rose for her.

     He poked his head in her office door. 

     “Hi Lori.”  He called out, “How’s it going today.”

     “Fine Sam” She answered without looking up.  “I’m really busy right now, okay.”

      “You know, if you wanted, I could see if I could get a hold of AmazingMan, tell him to stop by or call.”

     “No, that’s okay Sam.” She replied, still not even looking up from her desk.

     “Oh, yeah, alright.  I’ll be working tonight if you want to talk or anything.”  He stood there for a second.  “Tonight.  At work.”  He added, and felt foolish for doing so but it was all part of the Sam Smith act. 

      It used to be, but now he was starting to feel like Sam most of the time and more like the made up act was AmazingMan.  He really had spent the vast majority of his life being Sam Smith, not AmazingMan anyway.  Who was he really? 

      Questions like those made his head ache so he left Lori’s office and headed off to find a nice spot out of the way of everyone that was actually doing work.

      Lori was thankful Sam left.  He was nice enough, and she knew he had a little crush on her, but so did a lot of guys.  She was on the evening news every night, so she had her fair share of men fawning over her.  Now it was uncomfortable though, with him knowing AmazingMan and all.  It wasn’t that she didn’t care for AmazingMan, she did, but … oh she didn’t even know these days. 

      It was all very exciting at first; he was so big and important and seemed dangerous fighting all those criminals.  AmazingMan really got her juices flowing when he first arrived, but now it didn’t seem so new and dangerous, it felt like a routine. 

      In addition, it was all a lot of flirting that never seemed to go anywhere.  They never really dated or went out to a restaurant or club, but how could they?  Was there in reality any future with AmazingMan?  Besides, where did he go when he wasn’t flying around town fighting crime?  Did he have a bunch of other girls all over town?  Or the world for that matter?  He could go anywhere at any time with anyone, and enough girls would swoon wherever he showed up.  Perhaps not so much anymore.  She thought it funny that the fact that girls not swooning now diminished him a little in her eyes, but when they were swooning it made her miserable and jealous and that made her want him more. 

     Maybe he was gay.

     Sam was standing against a wall watching the crew tape off the marks on the floor for tonight’s broadcast when his boss came over to him. 

     “Sam, can I talk to you in my office?”  Maury Brown asked.

     “Sure thing” Sam replied.  Maybe someone wants an interview with AmazingMan.  Perhaps Lori even put him up to it so she had an excuse to see him again.

     “Looking for an exclusive with AmazingMan, chief?” Sam asked hopefully.

     “Not exactly Sam.” Maury told him. “It’s never easy to say something like this Sam.  Things aren’t going real well around the station; we’re trying to cut costs.  We’re going to have to let you go.”

     Sam stood dumfounded. 

     “Excuse me, what?” He managed.

     “It’s not me Sam, it’s the higher ups.  They’re always looking to cut the budget.”

     “But … but … what if you want to talk to AmazingMan?  I can get in touch with him if you need a story.”

     “Well Sam,” Maury said, “There’s really no story there anymore, is there?   AmazingMan’s yesterday’s news.  There’s no real crime anymore.  Hell, we have to lead with stories from other cities these days.  Nothing sensational happens around here anymore.”

     “Maury, I need my job.  Where would I go?  Besides, Lori’s here …”  He stopped and looked at Maury, realizing what he had just said.

     “Exactly, she could probably get in touch with him if we needed.”

     Sam just stared at him.  Wow, he was a moron. 

     “Please Maury,” there must be something you can do”

     “Well, maybe I could knock you back to part time.”

     “Okay.”  Sam agreed immediately.  “I can work part time.”

     “And being part time means no more health benefits.  Obamacare and all that.”  Maury pressed further.

     “That’s fine.” Sam replied sullenly.  Truth be told, only working part time gave him more time to fight crime … well, to look for crime.  He didn’t need the health care.  Still, it stung him to have to accept the demotion and loss of benefits. 

     He had resorted to squeezing coal into diamonds long ago to supplement his income so money really wasn’t a problem.  His job was just one more area that he failed at, but there were ways around it.

     He left the studio after shaking Maury’s hand and actually thanking him for the pay cut. 

     He didn’t like being Sam Smith anymore.  He could live with it because he got to be AmazingMan some of the time, adored and celebrated.  Those days were behind him now, apparently. 

     He had thought about packing up and moving to a new town, wiping out crime there.  That wouldn’t work.  People were stupid, but eventually they would start figuring out what was going on whenever Sam Smith shows up to work with his AmazingMan connections.  Besides, Lori was here.  He felt foolish and impotent even thinking that.  He supposed he could just stay Sam Smith here and head out to another city when he could, but he had done enough commuting in his life already.

     No, there was only one answer.  He had no purpose, no life, no girl, nothing really.  He couldn’t even tell people who he really was.

     He ducked into an alley and took off as AmazingMan.  He couldn’t kill himself here on Earth, nothing was strong enough to harm him.  Perhaps if he flew directly into the Sun, that would burn him up and this torturous life would be over. 

    Outward he flew, leaving the Earth behind, past Venus and Mercury before he plunged into the Sun.  At first, the flames and then the roiling mass of the Sun engulfed his body, and he waited for it to be over.  Then it came to him as it always did at this point.  This alien star only made him stronger.  There would be no peace today.

     AmazingMan sighed heavily and slowly headed back to Earth.

© David Ferraris 2013