There are some stories that we learn to stop telling others. Enough blank stares and puzzled reactions will teach you what you need to hide from people. This is one of those stories. I have shared what happened to me in the 23rd summer of my life on three separate occasions: once to my girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend), to my parents (who now ask me about drugs every time I see them), and to the police -- which I'll get to soon enough. I understand that what I'm about to tell you sounds completely ridiculous... but... I need to tell someone about this. I need you to hear this. Even if you think I'm crazy. Even if you don't believe me.
I had graduated from Portland State in the spring with a degree in communications -- so, naturally, I was feeling incredibly prepared for my new career title: Professional Ice Cream Scooper. After a shaky 5 years at college and $30,000 in student loan debt, I'd been adequately prepared for an entry-level job in the food service industry. But, honestly, I wasn't complaining. Until that one night, it was the best job I'd ever had.
The shop was located a few streets down from Pioneer Square, right in the heart of Portland. The place was tiny, but almost always had a line extending down the block. Even though we were almost always slammed, the store was manned by only me and one other guy, Chuck, the owner.
Chuck... oh god, how is it even possible to explain Chuck? In the history of the universe there has only ever been, and there will only ever be, one Chuck. Imagine a 6'4" Canadian expat with a great big bushy ginger beard, a wild mass of thinning red hair, sparkly blue eyes, and a fat expressive face that said, "I am as likely to hug you as I am to choke you, maybe even at the same time," -- but in the good kind of way. Whenever he introduced himself to a new person, he would lift them in the air with a massive bear hug and boom, "HELLO. I AM CHUCK THE CANUCK. WE ARE FRIENDS NOW." Some would say that Chuck always reeked of marijuana, but he would say that he had "taken years to cultivate a fine Cannabis bouquet." He had the special charm of being so obnoxious that it became endearing.
The success of Chuck's shop was no accident. Chuck's genius for ice cream was extraordinary. It was like the guy never stopped thinking about ice cream. I will always remember how he'd stare off into space during closing hours, dreaming of ice cream, endlessly stroking his beard.
Life at the shop followed a familiar pattern. The second I walked in the door, Chuck would burst in from the back room and begin excitedly yelling about the flavor he'd thought up the night before. Usually punctuated with highly unnecessary profanity. "MAPLE FUCKING WAFFLES WITH HONEY CANDIED BACON IN FRENCH FUCKING VANILLA" he yelled on a Monday, "GODDAMN CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE BLACKBERRY FUCKING CHEESECAKE," the day after, "MARSHMALLOW REESES PEANUTBUTTER FUUUUDGE... FUCK" that Wednesday. When we finished set-up, Chuck would then wave me into the back room, where we smoked more weed than I'd ever smoked in college. This was, as Chuck explained, "Getting full-on-Canadian-baked," and it was a requirement for the job. The actual service that followed was madness. The weed sent us into an almost trance-like state that turned us into ice cream scooping automatons. Hours would pass without either of us stopping for a second. When Chuck finally got fed up with the customers, he would simply go to where the line started at the edge of the door, and politely say to the first person in line, "I'm sorry but we're going to lunch. Please inform the rest of the line."
Chuck would buy me lunch at this diner a few blocks down. We would sit on the sidewalk, eat, usually share a joint between us as we watched the street performers. On one particularly hot summer day in July, I saw him for the first time. I couldn't help it. Maybe he had been there before, but on that day, I had the strange feeling that the only thing I should be doing, the only thing I was ever meant to do, was watch the mime on the corner.
There was just... something about him. He was dressed in all black theater clothes with white gloves. Instead of face paint, he wore a white mask with a red smile neatly painted on, gleeful looking upturned eyes painted in black, with bright rouge on the cheeks. It reminded me of one of those "comedy masks" from ancient Greece. I found myself completely absorbed by his performance. He moved with a weightless grace -- like a man underwater. His arms were difficult to follow with your eyes. They rotated beyond 360 degrees and back as he moved, writhing with impossibly timed jerks and convulsions. Other people simply walked past him. But he didn't seem to notice. He didn't seem to notice anything at all.
He did all of the normal mime routines you would expect, but there was something about each routine that was just... off. As I watched him, it was like all the noise of the street had faded away, until only we were left. He pulled against an invisible rope that must have been lifting the heaviest object known to man. I could almost see the rope in my mind. He leaned all the way back, his head practically scraping the pavement, before wildly letting go. I flinched as the invisible object hit the ground. The way he rose to his feet, it was like he was being pulled up by strings. He walked to the edge of the object, stood over it, and stared down. I don't know how, but I could feel him... I could feel him mocking it. He stood. And did not move. I could sense the pleasure he took in staring down at the fallen thing beneath him. Before he turned, and began staring at me.
My stomach dropped. By then I had finished my burger, and was hurriedly slurping up the remains of my shake. He began walking towards me, but then suddenly stopped, slowly extended his white gloved hands, and turned his palms to face me. He began to trace the outlines of a box. He did this over and over, each time the outline shrinking smaller and smaller. I was so busy watching his hands trace the outlines of the box that I didn't immediately notice the rest of his body. His hands traced smaller and smaller, closer and closer, faster and faster. It was then that I noticed his spine had bent and twisted in two, curled over and around itself, and the white mask was peering out from between his legs, swaying back and forth like an owl about to swallow a mouse. Before I knew what I was doing, I felt my legs stand and begin to walk towards him. I could feel my heart against my rib cage. But I was drawn to him. He unfurled and stood straight. I could feel tears welling in my eyes as I got closer, my face burned. I felt myself reach into my back pocket, and clutch at the tip money from the day before. I went to put it into the hat, box, or whatever he was using for collections, but there was nothing there. There was no way of collecting money. I watched myself reach out and place the money in his hand. He looked down at it as if it was the first time he had considered the concept of money before.
I snapped out of it, immediately turned, grabbed Chuck, and began quickly walking back to work. Never turning back. I could feel him watching me. "Did you see that mime?" I frantically asked Chuck. "Mime?" He said, stroking his beard pensively, before looking at me and murmuring, "What do you think about white chocolate pretzels, salted caramel, with some pie crust mixed in? Maybe rocky road could be the base."
Say what you will about Chuck. The guy really knows his ice cream.
The rest of the day passed normally. In retrospect, I even began to laugh at myself. A stoner's life is more or less made up of paranoid overreactions, I thought. Since Chuck usually opens the store an hour before I get there, it was only fair that I finished the closing duties after he left. During the summer, this was around 10:00 at night. I wiped down the counter, closed out the register, and began the long business of hauling each tub of Chuck's exotic ice creams into the back freezer. I had only gotten through a few before I saw him standing there. The mime at the counter, patiently waiting for me.
The store was never completely quiet. There was always the noise of the traffic outside, the sound of people enjoying summer, and the faint hum of the refrigerator that housed the ice cream. But now.... I heard absolutely nothing. I couldn't even hear myself breathe. Finally, my voice managed to crack out,"Wh-- what are you doing in here? Can't you see that we're closed?" The mime did nothing but stare. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave," I said, trying to hide the panic clawing at my voice. The mime did nothing but stare.
Eventually, he held his hand above the counter, and let go of the wadded up ball of cash. The money I had given him earlier. He pointed randomly at one of the remaining bins of ice cream without shifting his painted gaze from my face. Thinking he might leave if I served him, I scooped the ice cream into a cone and handed it to him. His fingers caressed my hand as I gave him the cone. He lifted the cone to the lips of the mask, and began smearing the ice cream across its edges. "Mmmmmmmmmm," came a muffled moan from beneath the mask. "Mmhhhmmmhhmmhhmmm," he quivered with a broken voice.
Suddenly, he dropped the cone on the counter, pivoted towards the door, and walked out.
I stood, frozen with the expectation that any minute now he'd return and take more than just ice cream. But he never came. That night I finished cleaning up faster than I ever had before.
The next day did not follow the usual pattern. As soon as I showed up that morning, I knew something wasn't quite right. First of all, the door was still locked. When I unlocked the door with my copy of the key, I was eager to see Chuck so I could tell him about what happened the night before. The door to the back room remained closed. "Chuck?" I called out, meekly. "Do you have some ice cream to scream at me about? Chuck?" I checked the back room. No one was there. I flipped open my phone and called his home number. No answer.
Now, I think it's fair to say that I'm a little more paranoid than the average person, but even I knew that this wasn't necessarily cause for alarm. Chuck might have been an ice cream genius, but that didn't make him the most stable or reliable person I'd ever met. He'd been late before, so, after I'd talked myself out of an anxiety attack, I did my duties, and opened the store. That day I took no lunch. I certainly wasn't going back to the diner -- and besides, I wanted to be there when Chuck finally decided to show up. But... he never did. As the sun started to fall, I could feel the dread rising in my throat. "Where the fuck is Chuck?" I said to myself. It was almost 10:00. I practically shooed the last customer out the door, and immediately locked it behind him. I definitely wasn't finishing up with the door unlocked like last night.
I could hear the front door rattling from the back room. When I walked out, he was outside the window, his white gloves pressed up against the glass.
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?" I yelled, the locked door between us giving me a sense of confidence. He shrugged, innocently. With a theatrical flick of his wrist, he began stroking at something invisible at the edge of his chin. Stroking, endlessly stroking at a beard that wasn't there, as if lost in thought... in a way that seemed all too familiar. He looked down at an invisible object as he did the first day I saw him. He tapped on the glass and pointed at his feet, gesturing for me to do the same. When I looked down I couldn't believe what I saw.
Between Chuck's creative ice cream creations was a flavor I had never seen before, and certainly wasn't there during my shift. The label simply read "Chuck." I saw the blue eye looking back at me. My legs dropped beneath me, and I caught myself on the counter. The mime raised his one hand to his mouth. His body rocked with silent laughter. He produced a key from behind his ear like a magician pulling a coin. I knew whose key it was. I knew what it was for. He raked it across the glass, let it screech, put it into the lock, and turned. One CLICK and the door was unlocked. And then, he simply turned around, and walked away.
I wasted no time before calling the police. I can't explain to you how long it felt like I was waiting for them. I can't explain to you how relieved I was when I finally saw the red and blue lights flashing outside. I can't explain to you the look they gave me when I described what had happened. I knew that I had inherited the very same "fine cannabis bouquet" that followed... used to follow... Chuck everywhere he went. When I pulled them into the shop to show them what was left of Chuck... there was nothing there.
Between laughs, they told me to check up again if I saw any more phantom mimes in the area.
I don't really trust the cops anymore.
That night I checked every lock in the house multiple times. Every door, every window. The last thing I remembered was looking at the clock and seeing 4:00 AM in bright red display. When my eyes opened, I found it strange that I didn't hear the box fan that I always had blaring next to me on the highest setting.
I hadn't heard the door open.
I didn't hear him standing at the foot of my bed.
I felt my toes brush up against something solid.
In the dark, I saw a white mask looking down at me. It seemed to hang in empty space, dangling senselessly. He dropped on all fours and began to crawl onto my bed. The sound of the bedspring was deafening in the absence of all noise.
CREAK
CREAK
CREAK
He was over me.
He raised up, put his hands on the edge of the mask, and lifted.
His eyelids were red where the stitches had sewn them closed. His mouth was grey and dead where the stitches had sewn it shut. The noise he made at that moment, could only have been interpreted as sobbing. If you could call it sobbing. He shook. The noise that tried to escape his mouth was like it came from some ruined animal as it was being dragged into some place dark and hidden.
He began to claw at his mouth. As the stitches opened his white gloves stained red.
He pressed his lips against my cheek. I could feel the sharp edges of the opened stitches.
In a voice as innocent as a child's, I heard the words, "You were the only one who ever stopped to look at me."
As he began to lower his torn opening of a mouth over mine, my instinct to run finally kicked in. I ran until the sun came up.
That night was nearly 10 years ago. I never went back to the ice cream shop. I thought about contacting Chuck's family, but... what could I possibly tell them? There are stories that we learn to stop telling others. I haven't seen the mime since that night. Some nights, I wake up in a cold sweat, before the loud noise of my fan lets me know it's okay to go back to sleep. Sometimes I think I see a white face peering out at me from the opening of my closet door, but it's always a shirt on a hangar, or a blanket I'd forgotten about.
Most people are afraid of the noises they hear in the night. But not me. What I fear, is silence.
Submitted March 18, 2017 at 01:25PM by PassyWassy http://ift.tt/2mTdmPN nosleep
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