In Muncie, Indiana, Clyde Sutter, 52, died behind the Plaza King Lanes bowling alley after calling three friends, one cousin, his ex-wife, and the owner of the lanes to say he had been stabbed.

He had not been stabbed.

He had been struck by a reversing delivery truck while kneeling behind the building, attempting to retrieve a set of decorative antlers he had hidden there earlier in the evening as part of what witnesses described as “one of Clyde’s things.”

Clyde Sutter was a sheet-metal salesman, karaoke finalist, former youth hockey assistant coach, and self-declared “regional character,” a title no region had formally granted him. He owned two snakes, both named Captain; a framed photograph of himself with a former lieutenant governor who appeared not to know he was in the photograph; and a red satin jacket from a chili cook-off he had not won but had helped judge after one of the judges left in tears.

Mr. Sutter was known for practical jokes whose ambition exceeded their design.

In 2011, he covered his brother-in-law’s lawn with plastic forks and called it “aerospace.” In 2014, he told the Plaza King Lanes bartender he had inherited a minor league baseball team, then maintained the lie through three rounds of drinks and one phone call to a man named Dennis who agreed to pretend to be general manager if Clyde paid him twenty dollars. In 2018, he arrived at Thanksgiving with his arm in a sling and let his mother believe he had been injured saving a child from a parade float. The sling, his niece later determined, was from a production of Annie Get Your Gun at the Civic Playhouse.

Clyde was not generally cruel.

This made him harder to stop.

Cruel people create opposition. Clyde created fatigue. His jokes were not mean enough to condemn and not funny enough to forgive easily. They arrived wearing a hopeful face. They asked you to participate in your own irritation. They made the room responsible for his disappointment when laughter failed.

His ex-wife, DeeAnn, said that living with Clyde was “like being married to a smoke machine with feelings.”

She also said he once drove forty miles at two in the morning because her sister’s car had broken down, then spent the entire drive home pretending he had been recruited by federal agents at the gas station. DeeAnn filed for divorce six months later, not because of that night, she said, but because of all the nights surrounding it.

The antlers belonged to the Plaza King Lanes.

They had hung above Lane 12 since 1978, decorated seasonally with tinsel, plastic shamrocks, tiny flags, or sunglasses. Earlier this week, the owner, Gail Morasco, had announced that the antlers would be removed during the January renovation. Clyde objected. He said the antlers were heritage. Gail said they were dusty deer bones above a nacho machine. Clyde said there was no such thing as a nacho machine. Gail said that was not the point.

At 9:40 p.m., during mixed league, Clyde unscrewed the antlers from the wall using a pocket tool and a bar stool. He carried them through the back hallway under his coat, though the antlers extended at both sides in a way that made secrecy theoretical.

He intended, according to friends, to stage a “ransom situation.”

At 10:08 he called Gail from behind the building and said, in a muffled voice, “If you want to see Buckminster again, bring two pitchers and no cops.”

Gail hung up.

At 10:11 he called his friend Ricky and said he had been stabbed. Ricky said, “No you haven’t.”

At 10:12 he called his cousin Dale and said, “This time I’m serious.” Dale said, “That’s what you said with the raccoon.”

There had been no raccoon. That had been part of the problem.

At 10:14 he called DeeAnn.

She did not answer.

The delivery truck arrived at 10:16 from Hoosier Beverage Supply. The driver, who has asked that his name not be broadcast, backed toward the rear entrance in light snow. He felt, he told police, “a bump that was not a dock bump.”

Clyde lived for seven minutes after the impact. During those minutes he called Gail once more. She answered because the bartender said Clyde had stopped laughing outside.

On the recording, which police have not released but which Gail described to our desk, Clyde said her name twice and then said, “No, really.”

Gail went out back with Ricky, Dale, and the bartender. They found him beside the antlers, one hand still gripping the phone, the other resting on the wooden base where a plaque read PLAZA KING LANES / HOUSE CHAMPIONS / 1982.

It was not the right plaque. Clyde had apparently stolen that too.

Clyde Sutter is survived by his mother, Bernice; his ex-wife, DeeAnn; one daughter, Kayla, who asked that nobody tell funny stories at the service unless they were actually funny; his brother Alan; his cousin Dale; the two snakes named Captain; and a storage unit containing fog-machine fluid, baseball cards, and one box labeled ABSOLUTELY DO NOT OPEN, which his family opened this afternoon.

It contained hats.