Drunk Dracula

If you’re reading this, then we agree: Clowns are scary. They smile, slither, lunge and laugh at us in and out of our nightmares with an unsettling mix of mirth and murder. And if the recently released trailer for the feature-film version of IT tells us anything, we better learn to deal with it because they’re here to stay.

Clowns have always tight-roped a thin line between entertaining fool and devilish lunatic

Since the bygone days of court Jesters and the fools of Kings, the Clown has been with us. Acrobatic men in funny costumes and makeup have cajoled and cavorted before an audience of all ages for centuries, bartering for humanity’s curiosity, attention and laughter. When we think of the clowns of ancient Greek and Roman theatre, of merry-old England, dressed in their harlequin bells and pointed hats, faces painted in exaggerated smiles of endless merriment we tend to believe their primitive routines earned smiles and giggles from the audience of history. But did they? Or is Coulrophobia — the fear of Clowns — a modern day phobia born when the devilish fiend Pennywise pranced from the pages of the 1986 Stephen King novel? If a brief examination of history teaches us anything, Clowns have always tight-roped a thin line between entertaining fool and devilish lunatic like they do today. Because whether it’s Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty or Stephen King’s fifteenth novel, the Clown has had it rough. So, put on your red nose, slip into those floppy shoes and grab your sharpest knife. We’re stepping into the fun-house.

“Dangas” were the first Clowns. That was the word for the short-statured African pygmies who would entertain royal families and Pharaohs in ancient Egypt, circa 3000 BC. Next came the fools and jesters who delighted the aristocracies and emperors of Rome, China and even early Native American chieftains. In Clown history, these acrobatic pranksters were many times the only ones able to defy Kings and ridicule Lords without fear of responding torture and a ghastly death. For centuries, the mirrors which clowns bravely held up to the violent and tragic societies they existed within, have been and still are, the very shields which protect them. The same rings true today, because whether we experience Clowns as children or adults, they represent a life-size version of the two-sides of Man–Love and Death–and they do this wrapped in cheerful benevolence behind a mask of paint and a permanent smile, asking the question: Do I represent love? Or insanity?

Before the 19th century, clowns were tricksters, entertainers and theatrical showmen who had more in common with actors than buffoons, performing biting humor and pantomimes intended to lampoon and satirize. The Clown we imagine today, with its funny red nose, bright costume and pancake makeup is a fairly modern invention, far-removed from those early performers. Best represented by Britain’s Joseph Grimaldi and France’s Jean-Gaspard Deburau, these men became international sensations in their prime, only to have their careers take tragic and dark turns at the end. Grimaldi’s included a failed suicide pact by poison between he and his son while Deburau, the master of Pantomime and a known Opiod addict, brutally murdered a young boy with a walking stick. By the late 19th century, both in Europe and a growing America, clowns had become mainstays at a new venue: the Circus. It was here where clowns essentially lowered the artistic bar while raising the risk, combining chaotic performances with death-defying acrobatics, wild animals, and fire. What ever could go wrong?

The 20th century saw the Clown grow up, but strangely enough lose whatever maturity it once had. The television-age saw celebrities like Bozo the Clown, Clarabel and Ronald McDonald become living, breathing franchises, portrayed by multiple actors whose on-air and off-air performances were marketing pieces for children’s toys, fast-food and breakfast cereal. Clowns were no longer thought of as people with stage-names performing zany plots and story-lines; they had become commercial representations whom adults dismissed as shallow entertainment, but whom children were left alone with. In other words, Clowns had become things.

"“You know, Clowns can get away with murder” "  -- Pogo the Clown

Instead of painting rounded corners on the mouth of his clown makeup, John Wayne Gacy, one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history, drew sharp ones. He blatantly ignored a traditional guideline of the modern-day Clown: rounded corners tend not to scare children. The fact that this simple suggestion was commonplace among Clowns in the mid-1970s highlights the hurdles faced by those who chose a profession as old as the Pharaohs. Clowns knew they were scary and by this time had taken steps to minimize that dark and inescapable fact as much as possible, but the damage was done. Although the vast majority of the men and women who performed for the masses as Clowns were no more harmful to the public than the wigs on their heads and the noses on their noses, any tenuous hold Clowns ever had on innocence was lost. Enter the Horror story.

Throughout the 1980s, the influence on Horror that Gacy and the brightly colored, faceless beings that Clowns had become was apparent. Pennywise, the demonic clown-form favored by an ancient evil in Stephen King’s 1986 novel, IT encapsulated the evil clown archetype perfectly, one that preys on the naive hopes of children in Derry, Maine, a town where evil lurks just below a friendly facade. That very same decade saw multiple Horror films join the party: Funhouse (1981), Poltergeist (1982), Funland (1987), Out of the Dark (1987), Clownhouse (1989) and of course, the hugely successful ABC television series of King’s novel in 1990. The next two decades would further cement the Clown’s place on our list of cultural monsters, as these evil pranksters appeared in even more films, books and television shows. Even our own neighborhoods were and are not immune from Clown horror as social media has helped accelerate the rise of “Clown Sightings” in the UK and America as recently as this year.

So, when did Clowns get so scary? Turns out, they always were. Clowns have forever represented a form of anarchy and rebellion, with none of the required consequence. And they do it all inside a body we recognize, but with a contorted face and an apparently forced and permanent smile. Historically, whether we experience him as adults or as children, we have always hoped for the best from the Clown, but we cannot deny he is a mystery all the same. Clowns represent the unknown. And if there’s one thing we have always loved about Horror novels, Horror movies and Horror in general, it’s the celebration of that unknown.

“Come in”, Doctor Burgos said. He was a Doctor, but it had been years since he had spent any real time with a real patient. He was the Senior Director of Hospital Operations at Clivemore Regional Hospital, a sixty-year old, three hundred bed hospital, fifty minutes North of downtown Baltimore, and today was the day he was hiring his replacement: a younger Physician named Echols who was standing in the office doorway, composed and slim, wearing a blue suit and dark tie.

“Congratulations by the way”, said Doctor Burgos, “I haven’t formally said that to you since you accepted our offer, but I have been following our process since your first interview. It’s the board that hires you, but it’s my job to seal the deal, so to speak. And soon, it will be your job”.

Echols stepped in while Dr. Burgos pushed up his glasses, smoothed his suit and did something that the young Doctor Echols did not notice. 

He locked the door.

“Thank you”, said Echols, “I’m happy to join the team”.

“You know”, said Dr. Burgos, “In addition to your resume, it was your handling of the Havenfield suit that made this job yours. That filthy business must have been hard — on you, your wife and your family. But you persevered, didn’t you?” Echols was about to respond, but instead paused. It wasn’t a question.

Burgos opened a folder on his desk and continued.

“I have your job offer in writing, as well as a few additional documents for you to sign. You’ll report to Dr. Johnathan Pitwell, our CEO. He liked you”. Echols grinned in reply and began to initial and sign documents as Burgos chatted on.

“I remember when I interviewed with him. We talked about our wives love of cooking. My wife, she loves — well, she loved to cook”. The Doctor paused, then continued with their business. “Your base salary will be $250,000 per year, with guaranteed annual bonus, ten percent minimum. Cell phone, car allowance, family plan, pretty typical stuff. You’ll have a reserved parking space. It’s not in the letter, but you’ll just take mine. Yes, initial here. And there. Great. This next letter covers standard malpractice, all of that. Initial there. Great, now sign here, and I sign there. Good. And these copies are yours”.

Dr. Burgos gathered the paperwork together, tapped them against the top of his desk and set them aside. Then he reached over to another small stack of papers and slid them in front of Dr. Echols.

“Now, this one is our confidentiality agreement. It is fairly lengthy, and the majority of it is standard. Yes, initial there. Sign there. Thank you. Now...” Burgos hesitated. “There’s one more.”

The Doctor paused and then reached into a drawer of his desk and brought out a single sheet of paper. The paper seemed faded and stiff and Burgos continued, holding the delicate piece of paper between two fingers as if it might break.

“This next page. I go over this page with everyone. You will too. You’ll have to”.

At this point, Burgos almost laughed, but then didn’t. He hadn’t meant to laugh, he’d meant to breathe. He leaned backward into the leather of his chair and spoke.

“It’s strange. I’ve had this job for thirty seven years. A long time”. A long time without his wife. “And now someone else will have to do this. Explain page six of the agreement”. Echols nodded back, whatever impatience he had was now replaced by a curiosity.

“How much do you know about Clivemore Hospital? The history. Its beginnings”. Burgos paused but didn’t wait for Echols reply. “No, you don’t know”, said Burgos, “You couldn’t. I didn’t. But I’ll tell you now what you need to know”. He took another deep breath.

“On the books, Clivemore Hospital opened February fifth, 1972. But in truth we were treating patients almost a decade before that. Patients from six neighboring clinics, and three regional penitentiaries. Most of our funding came from the state back then, so we did our part with prisoner treatment, therapy. Surgery. Fairly pedestrian work with the occasional trauma or serious event. One of the prisons had a maximum security wing, and it was there that they did executions. One of these executions concerns the agreement we have today. The one in front of you. In 1968, there was a prisoner. His name is Ian Darling. Was Ian Darling. He was a murderer. Sentenced to die for killing six people. Four of them his own family. The other two were people, neighbors who heard the screams. Came to help. Something like that. He also maimed two guards, almost killed a third”.

The Doctor paused again, watching Echols listen, watching him process.

“On the day of his execution”, Burgos described, “Ian Darling presented with labored breathing, chest pains, and ended up collapsing in a prison hallway. He lay there for over an hour before they transported him here to Clivemore in full arrest. I’m sure they hoped he’d die there in that hallway. But he didn’t. He died here. In open heart surgery. The Coroner’s report stated Ian Darling died from abdominal complications resulting from defect of the pericardium, and resulting mediastinitis. In truth, they cracked him open and let him die there. On the table. They were all there that night. Surgeons. Staff. Guards. Even the Warden watched. It was his execution”. This time Burgos watched the young Echols, who could not hold his gaze. Instead, Echols looked down at the Confidentiality Agreement searching for some answer that would not come from that stale piece of yellowed paper.

“You’re wondering what this has to do with you. I did too. And so will everyone you tell this to when you do this job. Your job. You will have to tell this story to everyone we hire at Clivemore. Everyone. Whether it is a Doctor or a Janitor. It is part of your job. The most important part. You will tell this story and you will have the person you tell this story to sign our agreement. That piece of paper. Everyone who has been hired at Clivemore since August 3rd, 1978 has signed that piece of paper. That very one”.

Echols looked again at that piece of paper. He hadn’t really noticed before, but now he did. It had hundreds of signatures on it. Some were in print, some cursive, some in pencil, some pen. Some signatures were faded, others new. They overlapped, they were sideways, on the margins, anywhere that could fit a name there was a name. Echols looked up.

“Why?” Echols asked.

Dr. Burgos leaned forward and laid a pen in front of Echols.

“Because since the day he died Ian Darling has, and will haunt this hospital, and each and every one of us in it, unless we sacrifice one heart from one patient each and every year, on the anniversary of his death”.

At this, Dr. Echols just stared. His expression froze for a breath, as he accepted what he just heard.

“This is not a joke”, Burgos declared. “I know it is disconcerting, but please understand that this is real. It is happening. It is fact. Separate yourself from what you knew when you walked into my office and process this one truth. There was an Ian Darling, there is an Ian Darling. We do not know why this happened, but it did and does. And now we do this at Clivemore. Every year. We remove one heart from one patient, and we give it to him. We place it on a table, in the South Wing, in the room where he died, and at 2:14 AM it is gone. We are all a part of this. And now you are too”.

Echols sat back and managed a stare. A stare that eventually broke into a smirk. A silent reaction of incredulity, bordered with an anger. Dr. Burgos did not react. Instead, he repeated what he had said.

“This is real, Doctor Echols. We do this. You will do this”.

At that moment Echols cellphone vibrated. A call was coming in. He glanced at the number and silenced it. He exhaled. “It’s my wife. Should I tell her this? This truth you say? This idiocy? I’m supposed to be calling her with good news. Now I guess I’ll be calling her to say I declined your offer; there’s no job honey, no job because I said No to those lunatics”.

Burgos sat silent for a breath and then said, “You will be calling her with good news, Doctor. You will. We want you here. We picked you for good reason. After the Havenfield suit, you were untouchable in Washington, untouchable everywhere some might say, but we knew you were right for Clivemore. You would fit in. And you will. You’re here. This will pass. You will understand us, you will sign this agreement and you will join Clivemore. You need not think of this but once a year. In fact, most of this business will be handled without you. But you must know. You must sign. We learned that decades ago. It took years to know what to do, what he wanted. He told us in his way. First by taking them himself. Hearts. From our staff. And from the — the families of our staff. At that point, the previous Director of Clivemore involved the Police. But that, well …it had its consequences. It led to tragic outcomes”.

Burgos stopped for a breath and he composed himself. “Once we knew what he wanted, we tried to keep this obligation to a select few here at the hospital. We thought that was best. But it was not. We quickly learned that everyone must know. Every employee of this hospital must know what we do, and must sign that agreement. It keeps a peace, Doctor. Without it, and I know you have yet to comprehend everything I am telling you, but without it, we all face a certain kind of Hell. A Hell, Doctor. Those are my words. Others call what we do here something else. Each of us has his or her own views of our mortality on this Earth, and our place in it. But I have no other words to describe it, and once I embraced that Hell, it offered a kind of comfort, a peace. Three hundred and sixty four days of the year this peace helps me not to think of Ian Darling. But on one day, that one day a year I must think of him, and I do. And I do so, so he will not think of me”.

Echols’ cellphone vibrated again. And again. “It’s my wife again”.

“Go ahead, answer her”, Burgos replied. Echols picked up and started to talk, but the person on the other end must have cut him off. “Wait, slow down honey. Who’s there, who’s knocking? No, I don’t. Honey, slow down. There’s no one — I’m still at the hospital. What does he want?”

Then Dr. Burgos spoke calmly, but directly to Echols. “Tell me what she is saying, Doctor”.

Echols gripped his phone. “Honey, calm down. Honey. Ok. Jesus. Call 911 on the house phone. Yes, do it now”.

“Tell me what she is saying Doctor”, said Burgos, almost demanding now.

“She’s saying someone is at the door”, Echols described, “Someone is pounding on the door”.

Burgos leaned forward. “Can she see him?”

Echols stood up. “Call the Police, honey. Call them now. I’m coming, I’m coming right now. I’m on my way”.

Burgos, still seated, directed a request at the departing Echols. “Doctor, sign the agreement”.

But Echols wasn’t listening. He was straining into his phone, pleading to his wife. “What?! Honey, run. RUN. Take the phone upstairs and lock the bedroom door, I’m coming”. Echols gripped the knob of the locked office door, trying to shake it open. “OPEN THIS!” he shrieked.

“Sit down, Doctor, and sign the agreement”, Burgos demanded.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Echols yelled. “Fuck you and your agreement. Open this door!”

“Sign it, Doctor”, Burgos stated loudly, “It’s him”.

But Echols wasn’t listening. “Patty, run. Run upstairs. Are they on their way? Patty?!”

But Patty was screaming. Screaming for help, screaming for her life, her wails of terror tinning through the tiny phone. “Patty!!”

Burgos slid the agreement forward at Echols. “Sign it, Doctor. Sign or he will kill her. He will kill her like he killed my wife. I didn’t want to sign, I didn’t sign and I left this room and I went home and I found her ripped in two. He tore her open and her heart was the heart he took that year. We decide here, Doctor. The elderly. The addicted. The lost”.

“PATTY!” Echols screamed.

But Burgos went on. “We decide whose heart he gets, not him. Not him. Don’t let him choose. SIGN. Sign and it will stop. Sign and he will leave”.

“Patty!” Echols cried. “Give it to me!” Echols lurched forward, snatched a pen and signed the Confidentiality Agreement.

“Patty?! Patty?” Then there was a crying. A sobbing sound came through the phone, even Burgos could hear it. Echols collapsed back in his chair, gripping the phone. “Patty, oh Christ. Are you Ok? You’re Ok. Jesus, honey. What? What did you say? — Say that again. What do you mean? Slow down. A man. A man came in and… He was a what?”

Echols slowly brought his eyes up to stare at Dr. Burgos and repeated what his wife had told him. “He was a prisoner?”

Dr. Burgos leaned forward from his chair, gripped the Agreement between his fingers, opened a drawer of his desk, then placed it within.

“He’s gone now, Patty”, Echols said to his wife, trying to calm her even though his own voice shook. “I’m on my way. Wait for the Police and — I don’t know, I don’t know what to tell them. Tell them what you told me. I’m sure they, they will try and, I don’t know, to try and find him. The prisoner. But you’re Ok. They’ll be there. I’m coming. I’m coming now. I have to go, honey. I have to go”. Echols clicked off his phone and stood up, his brow sweating, hands trembling. He gasped and then spoke quietly, barely above a breath, barely able to meet Burgos’ eyes.

“She says a man, a prisoner she said, broke down our door and — she ran upstairs. She said he — she said he reached through the floor and he grabbed her and he pulled her through the floor back downstairs. He grabbed her and he — he tore her shirt open and he had a scalpel, and then — he just disappeared. He was there, on top of her, straddling her, staring at her, about to kill her. And then he just wasn’t. He was gone. He’s gone”.

Dr. Burgos stood up from his desk, slowly crossed the small office, and unlocked the door.

“Welcome to Clivemore, Doctor”.