By Scott F-Slater

There are two things in life that give me the shivers, Frankenstein and clowns. I don’t know what it is about clowns, but Frankenstein gives me the creeps because of what my father did to me at age 10.

It was Christmastime and my father tacked a life-size poster of Frank on my bedroom wall. I spent all day Saturday watching horror movies, you know the kind where giant dinosaurs set cars on fire and eat people, so I was already on edge. The final movie of the day starred Boris Karloff dressed as the tall guy with bolts in his neck. Karloff’s version of Frankenstein scared me so much I went to the bathroom excessively. After the movie my mother, in on trauma about to take place, said there was something in my bedroom I needed to see. She should have been an actress because she did a fantastic job of feigning concern.

My bedroom was as dark as a closed coffin because of the stained oak paneling on the walls so that added to the horror of what was about to happen. At the door of my bedroom, with my mother standing next to me, I hoped God would snatch me before I went any further. As my eyes adjusted to the pitch black before me and my blood turning cold, I saw Frankenstein standing in farthest corner of my room. My mother encouraged me to make certain my eyes weren’t deceiving me and gave me a nudge through the doorway. Bad nerves and a scolding bladder froze me next to the foot-end of my bunk bed. My mind was telling me the whole dramatic touch was silly but what if my brain was lying? I’m a grown man people had been telling me since my tenth birthday – it wasn’t lost on me that I was only a man when I was being forced to do something I didn’t agree to- so in-spite of the pressure welling up in the southern region of my body, I moved closer. Then it happened! My friking father was under the bunk and grabbed me by the ankle while letting out a blood-curding shriek. At ten years-old I peed my pants and had cardiac failure at the same time; the double-whammy if you will. The thing in the corner was a life-size poster of Boris Karloff dressed as Frankenstein- but its biological effect on me was profound anyway. That’s been 45 years ago now and the site of clowns and Frankenstein still give me….well you know, that sudden urge down below.

 Then it happened again two weeks ago! I was watching the evening news on Fox when all of a sudden I saw a clown, shadowed by the seven foot Frankenstein, walking down the driveway of the Whitehouse to a podium and microphone. The clown with a freakishly stretched smile across her face now had a full-time government job as a speaker of some kind and Frankenstein was the clown’s assistant. The clown announced she and her friends were delivering a Christmas present to the American people- something to do with their health care. I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention because that sickly feeling of long ago was happening again. I know the clown looked directly at me hoping for the expected results but she was wrong, the bathroom is nine feet away. Ha Ha