The Toe Monster

When I am eight and ten I join the circus.

One of the first circus families I meet is Otto Krippen and wife Shirley, with their son Kevin.

He is the elephant boss; she's one of the showgirls; and Kevin is a little boy with a mop of straw hair. Nice traditional family.

Otto brooks no nonsense with his assistants. They show up late or drunk and he minces no words with them but gives them an immediate knuckle sandwich, so they either quit or learn to behave. His temper, except with his family, is formidable. Facing a Sherman tank would be preferable to facing Otto when he's in a huff.

Shirley is rather homely; one of those girls that 'have a pleasant personality'. The only reason she gets to be a showgirl is because Otto won't work for any circus that doesn't use her as a showgirl. He's still madly in love with her after eight years of marriage. She is also blind as a bat without her glasses, which of course she can't wear when performing. So she always grabs a hold of the chorines to her right and left during the dance routines to keep from getting lost and wandering away.

And Kevin nearly gets me murdered after I introduce him to the toe monster.

There's very little private showering with the circus. We play sports arenas which feature half a dozen locker rooms with showers. The stars get their own locker rooms to themselves, but the rest of us share locker rooms and showers. So Otto and Kevin are in the same locker room as I am. One evening after the show I jokingly tell Kevin to watch out for the toe monster that lives in the shower drain. Get too close to it, I warn him, and it comes out to bite a toe off. The other clowns, sadists all, back up my fanciful claim with a chorus of affirmative moans and groans. Then I go about my business, thinking nothing more about it.

Until I overhear Otto a few days later telling someone that when he finds out who's been scaring his kid about some damn toe monster so much that now he won't take a shower at all, he's going to push his face into his buttocks. Or words to that effect.

Ulp. That's me.

Kevin is bound to rat me out sooner or later, I'm sure. So instant action is called for. Gathering my clown cronies that evening, I take the blunderbuss we use in the show out of the prop wagon. We wait for Kevin to come into the locker room, where I solemnly announce that tonight we will hunt down and kill the toe monster. Kevin's eyes get as big as pizza platters. I caution him to stay well behind us as we begin to scour the locker room.

When we get to the showers I give a yelp, which cues my pals to bunch up around me so Kevin sees nothing.

"I got him!" I cry, and then let loose with a blast from the clown blunderbuss -- which is loaded with black powder and wadding. The explosion is deafening and produces enough smoke to birth a modest cumulus cloud.

We all proudly march away, clawing each other on the back with bloodthirsty bonhomie and saying rather loudly that that is the end of the toe monster for sure.

The hardest part is to keep a completely straight face as Kevin looks searchingly at me and the others to make absolutely sure he is rid of this nightmare from the drains. Clowns are not good at poker faces, but we all manage to stay solemn enough until he runs out to share the good news with mom and dad.

Whew! That's over with.

But it's not. The next day Kevin seeks me out and asks shyly to see the carcass. He wants to show it to his dad.

Oh oh. The jig is up. Otto will now undoubtedly beat me to a pulp with his bull hook as the prime instigator of his son's nightmares.

I mumble something about how the creature dissolved into a dirty froth and slid back down the drain after I ventilated it, which seems to disappoint the child. He runs off to inform dad, and I sit down to calmly await my doom

Otto shows up a few minutes later, with Kevin in tow. Otto's face is grim, looking like five miles of bad road, before he suddenly begins to laugh, saying "Boy, you clowns never stop with the jokes! That was a good one on Kevin." I give a watery grin and nod agreement, wondering if this is how homicidal maniacs lull their victims into a false sense of security. But Otto just gives a few more barks of laughter, tips me a wink, and leads Kevin out to help him water the pachyderms.

And that, boys and girls, is how I first learned that circus clowns can get away with anything. After that, I was unstoppable -- pulling gags on all and sundry with complete impunity.

One time I even . . .

But those stories can wait for another day . . .