Clowns are people. Real people.
No bullshit.
Believe it or not, our lives don’t begin and end under the big top. We have homes, wives, parents, children, friends, and ups & downs. Just like you, we have lives.
We have names, too. Brace yourselves, but Bozo, Blinky, and Clarabelle are stage names. For example, my name is Samuel Pitts. You may call me Mr. Pitts.
See this hand? Yep, the one holding a cigarette. (I’m a smoker. Oh yeah, and I drink occasionally, too.) It’s not a fake hand. I was born this way. It kept growing long after the other one stopped. It’s not funny, trust me. Sometimes I don’t feel like using it in my act to make people laugh. Sometimes I feel like taking the stupid glove off and making each and every one of you look at it, long and hard. But, I would never do that.
I’d get fired.
We’re not always stupid, crazy, or silly either. News Flash: It’s an act. Yes, and act. You know, like make-believe? We are educated human beings. Some of us even have degrees and “real” jobs.
True, some of us are full-time clowns/entertainers, but for many of us it’s a side job, a way to earn some extra bucks.
And then, of course, there are a few, like me, who know no other way. We’re clowns because that’s the way things worked out. I grew up in the carny. Mom was a trapeze artist and Dad was a clown. We traveled with whichever carnival or circus would hire us. That was my childhood. When I turned 18, well, what else was I prepared for?
Another thing that might surprise you is that clowns have feelings. Cut us, and we bleed. Hurt us, and we cry. We suffer from depression, anxiety, PTSD, and a host of other conditions, just like other people.
Clown stress is difficult for a civilian to understand. Can you imagine dressing up like this every day and acting like a goofball in order to make people laugh when your life partner/lover just dumped you, or your child is ill, or a parent is in hospice?
It’s no wonder some of us snap. And people wonder where scary clowns come from. Hah!
I’ll tell you where they come from: right here.
The Abject Muse 
Excellent Susan. I almost felt sorry for Mr Pitts, until I read your October 2018 prequel!
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Clowns are still one of the more creepy things ‘out there’ IMHO. I remember when I was in my late teens, going to the local State Fair, which in those dusty old days, boasted an actual Freak Show (I bet they’d get closed down now for calling those folks “freaks’ but it was a different time). Anyway I paid my money and went in the little trailer place they had the differently abled people set up. There were a couple of long tables, and ordinary seeming folks just sitting there (like your clown), smoking and yakking. It was the first time I had consciously seen ‘beneath the mask’ so to speak and I realized that there were actually REAL PEOPLE behind those labels. I left immediately. I’ve never been able to abide ‘freak shows’ ever since either.
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