If there’s one thing all New Yorkers can agree on, it’s that life offers no pleasure so simple and stress-free as riding the subway. From the pleasant smells of the platform to the spacious, welcoming cars, it’s an experience that is definitely not a living nightmare from which there is no escape.
So imagine having that relaxing experience interrupted by a man dressed as Pennywise, the evil clown from Stephen King’s novel Itand its twin movie adaptations, ambling through the Manhattan L train. At one in the morning.
New York has magician Alejandro Torres (of course it’s a magician) to thank for the terrifying performance, the New York Post reports. A video of his performance made its way to Instagram on Monday; it shows Torres creepily walking through a subway car, holding Pennywise’s trademark red balloon, saying, “We all float down here.”
“When I first boarded, everybody was freaked out,” Torres told the Post, but the subway riders in the video seemed utterly unfazed by his presence, which says some unfortunate things about how scary the L train must be on a regular basis.
The second installment of the film adaptation of It is scheduled for national release on Sept. 6. If you’re planning to see it at a theater in Manhattan, you might want to consider taking a cab.
Michael Schaub is an Austin, Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
