Night Of The (Unfortunately) Living Clown

In all my twenty years of working at 7-11, I had never seen some shit like this. Seeing the reptilian-looking corporate owner in the scaly flesh came close. I hated that dude. Bro really filmed and sent me a mere dancing TikTok for my twentieth anniversary. Capitalism these days. However that worked.

Anyway, it all started one night. During an overnight shift; which I always dreaded. There was nothing to do but ring up irregular customers. All night I’d have to put up with late night partiers, crackheads, sketchy soon-to-be serial killer dudes, and whoever the hell else. But at least I could doom-scroll on Facebook. I looked forward to admiring those cool plastic-looking images depicting almost impossible feats and architecture. I’d always comment ‘wow!’ with heart and thumbs up emojis under those posts. And I extremely looked forward to—beyond forward to—liking those Jesus pictures and sharing them to five of my friends out of fear that whatever the image caption threatened would come to fruition. The world had changed for the better (and worse-er, as you’ll see) thanks to those individuals spam-posting.

But around two or so, my night started going downhill.

The entrance announcing thingy dinged, and I looked up from my Facebook reels… only to be greeted by a dinosaur who had walked in. Didn’t think much of it at first. Given I was in Cali. We’d get the occasional visit from cosplaying weirdos or not-cosplaying-but-being-for-real weirdos. Dressed in those furry anthropomorphic costumes. I’ve gotten used to it. The Facebook groups I’m in—where we reminisce about the old times and hate on the new ones—have also desensitized me.

But this… this abomination made me do a double-take. He—or it—was dressed in a white KFC-owner suit. And his skin… god. It was disgusting. The fact someone birthed this creature was beyond wild. And the fact it was living, breathing air, in my 7-11… that was insane. I pinched my hairy arms. Yes, this was reality. 

The creature’s large glistening eyes darted about. In constant motion. They were the only thing remotely normal about him. I mean, his skin was literally breaded. Like a personified dino chicken nugget. I’m about 99.9% sure that isn’t possible. Not even one of those Facebook posts could conjure such a being.

Loose bits of the thing’s retching skin trickled down on my tiled floor like sand in an hourglass. He had about one percent of an hour before I called the police on him for being an eyesore. Holy shit. How could a living being be this fucking putrid? Whatever could this thing have done in a past life for God to punish him so?

The bright white light hanging around the store coupled with the aisles of merchandise made it look as if he were in a human-sized terrarium. He kept walking. Deeper in my store. Making a fucking mess. And scaring customers that unfortunately happened to be out at the same time as that thing. They literally ran out. Without paying. But I was too focused on staring at it for anything else to matter at the moment.

Why’d it ever leave its cave or museum or wherever beings like this are hidden? Maybe a freak show circus? It made sense why he would be sloshing through here at night though. This thing, in the daytime, would have—and evoke—a worse experience than Quasimodo. 

It walked down the chip aisle. Out of view physically. But I continued watching him through the camera monitors behind the front counter. That, coupled with the bulletproof glass shielding the front counter, wasn’t nearly enough protection for my eyes. Yet I kept looking. Looking at this thing was like smelling something bad, being disgusted, but smelling it again because you’re intrigued. Like used bandages. Holy shit he was ugly. How can he be allowed to exist? Honestly. I myself am ugly; I could admit that much. But this thing was the kind of ugly that should be put out of its misery and not have to go through life with the shitty cards it was dealt. I felt a pang of sympathy for the creature as it grabbed a Doritos bag, hands shaky, eyes still darting about as if dreading the possibility of someone rounding the corner and spotting him and getting terrified at the sight. I’m so happy God gave me the normal kind of ugly. Not whatever that was. Looking like a personified T-Rex chicken nugget. Left out. On some porch, surely. Growing mold; the closest that it would ever come to a genuine hug.

I was willing to bet talking to the thing was as unpleasant as it looked. What would he even say? ‘Hey, look at me—or probably don’t, to save your eyes from melting—I have many hobbies. Like, uhh, running around scaring people. It reminds me of the good ol’ days where my kind did the same to cavemen.’

He walked towards the register, coming into view. A bad view. For me at least. Nah, for anyone. When’s the last time he cleaned himself up? Probably never. There were years of stress on its face. And even more years of dirt in its hair. Hair on a dinosaur? That looked about as weird as hair on an elephant. 

At long last, after him bracing himself and, more importantly, me bracing myself, he arrived at the register.

I rang him up, looking at him the whole time; disgust clouding my entire soul. Before realizing that it’s living and unfortunately harboring human emotions. I masked the disgust it deserved with a forced smile. It was the same smile I gave to the reptilian corporate owner after he had sent me the TikTok of himself dancing for me while flaunting his worth. Only, this thing in front of me had zero worth.

He was overly nice to compensate for his existence. Must’ve said “thank you” about twenty times. Thankful I didn’t scream at the sight of him and dash as far away as possible. I was thankful it was about to leave. I nodded once to acknowledge the thankfulness. And was happy that it left my store. Exit bell dinging. That sound was definitely gonna make me flinch for the next few weeks. Welp, now, it was time to sweep up the mess it made. 

As I was doing so, I looked outside the glass front door, at the thing sitting in its car. The car was about as ugly as him; paint all chipped. The light from inside was barely enough to illuminate his face, just enough to see 1) the ugliness, and 2) the fact that it was crying. I felt the urge to do the thing a favor and blow it’s fucking brains out for existing…

***

…That, and worse, was what he was thinking, I thought, sobbing in my car while speeding away from the store. Tears streaked horizontally across my face. I’m never leaving my room again. And this? I looked down at my suit. Why the fuck did I wear this? What was I thinking? I might as well paint it red at this point.