The Adventures of Captain Clownman

The things we do for love...

     It’s amazing the stupid s**t I would do just to impress some chick, even when I was six years old.  A couple of blocks over from where I lived was this little blonde tomato named September. And, man, did I have the hots for September. At least as much as a guy can have the hots at six years old.

     The problem, two of my buddies also had the hots for September. One summer morning a bunch of my friends and I were all playing together near September’s house. My two buddies were putting on a great show trying to impress her with their Big Wheels skills, their ability to fall off a bike at full speed like they were shot, etc. You know… important stuff. I needed another angle. Jackass skills didn’t seem to impress the sophisticated September. So as we were watching Timmy bust his a*s on the sidewalk for the third time, I casually leaned over and whispered a little something in September’s ear. “You know, there’s going to be a parade here today.” September squealed with excitement,”A Parade! Here! Today!” And it was loud enough that everyone heard it. Loud enough to make everyone stop and take notice. The next thing I knew everyone was gathered around me and excited about a parade. The questions were fast and furious and I was making up s**t left and right. . Man, I sure didn’t expect such a huge response from something I just pulled out of my a*s two seconds ago.

     After the excitement died down, I realized I was screwed. I had to come up with something and something fast. I now had eight other kids, not to mention my beloved September, expecting a parade to come marching down September’s street at noon. In desperation, I figured I could confide in a couple of the other girls in our group. Surely a couple or three girls would like to get dressed up and put on a show. No chance. They were too pissed that I had lied about the parade to help bail me out. But they did promise not to tell anyone, so I still had time to come up with something. That something was going to have to be me.

     I raced home and got to work. I still had about an hour until show time. Thank God I was a borderline hoarder as a kid so I still had every Halloween costume I had ever worn, all four of them. Two clowns, a Batman and a Captain Kirk should do the trick. I snuck them into the bathroom for a dress rehearsal. The only costume that would still fit me was Captain Kirk. The rest was pure inspiration. It came together like a dream: yellow Captain Kirk shirt with black pants roughly four inches too short, huge polka-dot clown shoes, blue vinyl utility belt, dark blue polyester cape and a plastic Batman mask topped with a rainbow clown wig. I looked in the mirror and thought I was the s**t. I was going to rock this parade, Baby! September wouldn’t know what hit her.

     By some miracle, I got out of the house unnoticed and started making my way the two blocks to September’s street. People were driving by and honking and I was just waving away like an idiot. I kept thinking,”Man, this is pretty cool. I’m like a celebrity.”

     I finally made it to September’s street and all my friends stopped and started staring at me as soon as I turned the corner. I was walking and smiling and waving and they were just standing and staring. Total stunned silence. Someone yelled out, “What in the hell are you supposed to be?” I didn’t respond because I didn’t want to break character and blow the mystique, so I just kept walking and waving. It was quickly dawning on me that this wasn’t going as well as I had hoped.

     Just then, September’s mom came walking out of her house with a camera and saved my a*s. She started snapping pictures left and right and made a big fuss over how great I looked. Slowly everyone started coming around and wanted their picture taken with me. After a few minutes, September’s mom said something like, “Wow, it was so great you could come and visit us, but I’m sure you need to go now to entertain some other lucky kids. Thanks for coming by.” I turned and made my way back down the street, smiling and waving all the way to the corner. I turned the corner and ran like hell the rest of the way home.

     I laid low for the next day or two, mostly because other six year old boys could be ruthless about this kind of s**t, but eventually I made my way back over to September’s street. I was shocked when nobody razzed me about the costume. Nothing, not one comment from anyone. After a couple of hours, I got up enough nerve to ask September if there was a parade or anything the other day. “You were wrong,” she stated, “There was no parade, just some weirdo walking around in a messed-up clown costume.”

     I was safe. How they didn’t recognize me had to be some sort of divine intervention. But I did learn two important things that day. One was a valuable lesson about lying and, two, that September’s mom was a saint.