NEON ASYLUM

Chapter 1: Padded Rooms

According to the Gotham Mental Health Outreach Center website, Coulrophobia is the irrational and sometimes debilitating fear of clowns. This fear can manifest in a multitude of different ways. Mine came from my mother's favorite shitty, antique, Harlequin doll. She loved that damned thing.

There it sat, perched on a rickety aluminum stand on the old wicker shelf she found on the sidewalk on her way back from her job at the cigarette stand… remember those? The brackets that were barely hidden by its ruffled, black satin costume at its sides that kept it from falling. Those piercing glass eyes seemed to follow me around the living room. The wind-up music box lilting through the house on a dark, rainy day. Nightmares of her crawling around my room as I pretended to sleep; I was so terrified that I had to sleep in mom's bed for weeks.
   
When she was fed up with my pathetic fear of that damned thing, she locked me in the closet with it. I screamed bloody murder for hours until my voice went horse, and the cops showed up at two in the morning.
   
Then it was her turn to scream as they threw her and her junkie boyfriend into the back of a police car.

Turns out locking your kid up in a closet is a mommy no-no, and you definitely shouldn't be dropped out your got-damned mind when they kick your door in.

Needless to say, Mommy went to jail for a long time. I went into the system, a ward of the state; and after a lot of foster homes and a lot of therapy, I decided to go to college and get my PhD. I became a psychiatrist and did good for myself thanks to a lot of grants and a scholarship.

I came to understand mom's problems and forgave her for what she did. I even sort of appreciated her intentions for locking me in that closet with that frickin doll. I still refused to see her and talk to her, but I understood. Jesus forgives, not me.

But then I saw him. The Joker. The so-called clown prince of crime; clown being the operative word here. His face plastered on the television, painted in white with that bloody red smile. Arrested by Gotham's finest for the murders of nearly a dozen people and some deranged plan he had hatched to bomb the Gotham Square Garden with a gas that made people laugh themselves to death.

I was terrified of him. A clown being so close to me as we processed him into Arkham Asylum. So, I did what mom tried to get me to do so long ago. I faced my fear. I locked myself in the proverbial closet with the clown themed, criminally insane, textbook narcissistic, sadistic, psychopath.

I begged for that job - pleaded to be his court appointed therapist. Not like folks were beating down the door to work with the guy, but I wanted to, needed to... all to prove to myself that I was over that childish fear, but how was I supposed to know just how… beautiful he was?

****

The alarm went off at 6 a.m. like it always did. I pushed the duvet away and groaned when the cold air of my apartment hit me.

“The cold front is early.” I muttered to myself and sat up, kicking my legs off the bed and slid my feet into my house shoes, making me into a living pair of those walking wind up chattering teeth as I shuffled to the thermostat and turned on the heater.

The first day of autumn came with a winter chill, and I wasn’t complaining. Summers in Gotham were fairly mild most years, but this one had been a scorcher. Hottest on record according to the weather man and several other sources, including my own recollection. The forecast called for temperatures in the low 50’s all week with lows in the 30’s. I groaned again when my back and knees popped and cracked as I stretched. I was a living barometer thanks to years of gymnastics, cheer, hip-hop, ballet, and jazz classes. My foster mother insisted I keep my body and mind limber and disciplined, and all I had to show for it was a PhD and a life of chronic pain. I managed it with yoga and a couple of really good painkillers from my sports doctor.