Some people are terrified of clowns, but they have never scared me much, well, except for a moment or two in childhood. Mama was determined I would not be afraid of them.

My bedroom walls were made of the traditional light wood paneling common in the late ’70s, and two larger-than-life framed and matted paintings of clowns hung together in a “grouping” with two ceramic clown figurines catty-cornered on a brass shelf. It was all quite fancy, copied precisely from Aunt Avis’s Home Interior decorating catalogs. After making her purchases, Mama borrowed the catalogs to get the placement just right on my walls.

The other half of the room had a cowboys and Indians theme, but that is largely irrelevant since that was my brother Tony’s side of the room. Like North Korea and South Korea and their demilitarized zone, I was never allowed on the other side. The unmarked border was nonetheless well known by both parties and strictly enforced. He even set booby traps since he did not have tanks and bombs.

I remember lying awake in my twin bunk bed that Daddy separated to keep us from jumping up and down and hitting our heads on the ceiling, maybe just so that Mama would stop nagging him about the possibility. Lying in the black dark of night, I stared into the eyes of those clowns lit only by the tiny sliver of light sneaking underneath the door from Mama’s “alone time” in the bathroom. With four high-maintenance boys and an equally demanding husband, hiding in there to read her magazines kept her sane, I am convinced. She sat for what seemed like hours, and all I could do was lie there with those creepy eyes on me, imagining her flipping through the pages of her JC Penney catalogs.

One of the clowns wore a red plaid sport coat, an awkwardly shaped tie, and a brown straw hat that seemed a bit too small for his bald head. His face was painted with exaggerated red lips, and his unnatural grin made me uneasy. The other clown that Mama had nailed to the wall just inches away, and slightly higher as Aunt Avis instructed, was better. Adorned in pastel colors with a much more inviting aura, I thought of them as bearing a peculiar resemblance to my Uncle Wayne and his wife Laverne. I won’t say which relative resembled which clown.

Perhaps it helped knowing my brother was only a few inches away in his version of the Wild West, or maybe I knew that eventually Mama would spritz on some perfume, flip the bathroom light off, and the gaze of the clowns would dim for the night.

Maybe I will dress as a clown for Halloween this year. Maybe not. I have also been considering Loretta Lynn since Chris seems determined to be Tammy Wynette. But regardless, you can send in the clowns. They don’t scare me — well, not much.

Contact David at beautifulwithdavid@gmail.