Clown Girl - Monica Drake [100]
I rubbed two uninflated balloons together between my thumb and first finger. My career was calling, loud and insistent. I sipped the cool, thin beer. My heart beat fast.
I’d hone the da Vinci trick until it was irresistible. Once I had a following, I’d pull out the Kafka interpretation, because that’s what it was really all about—resisting a world that wanted to change me into vermin, into a madly typing secretary, all elbows and sweat on the brow. I’d been a secretary back before I found the clown circuit. Kafka was the voice of my resistance, my own religion, my grand opus.
As I stared out the top of the tavern windows, above the red and white curtains, I saw a person, a head, move into view and for a moment block the sun. Long brown curls, a strong jaw. It was a head too high up for any mortal.
Rex Galore!
Who else? Like a vision, a god, he swam along, gliding, high outside the tavern windows. He floated against the sun, turned the whole world into a stage.
I didn’t mind being audience to Rex.
I left Jesus the Lamb on the bar, grabbed my urine jug, bag, and toothbrush, and ran to the door. Rex was far down the sidewalk, moving fast on a unicycle with a backpack on his back.
“Rex!” I yelled, and ran after him. The urine in the jug sloshed as I ran and the beer in my gut did the same. I ran and sloshed and ran and sloshed, and yelled again, “Rex!”
He made a tight turn on the nearly empty sidewalk, then pedaled one swipe back, one forward, one back, one forward, to balance in place, and squinted in my direction.
Poor Rex—were his eyes failing? I waved the hand with the toothbrush in it. Finally, he seemed to see me. Again I ran toward him, sloshing inside. He pedaled slowly back my way.
I laughed when we met up, my head tipped up to look up at his face. Rex cast a shadow where I stood, and he was in the glow of the sun, every split end and curl illuminated.
“Get down here,” I said. I needed to touch him to know he was real.
He looked down at me and said, “ What happened to your hair?”
I laughed again, and shrugged. “Oh, Rex. I burned it up.” I ran my fingers over the singed ends. I couldn’t quit laughing. My hair would grow back, but everything inside, it tickled. Luscious. Delightful. My knight on his horse was home. He climbed off the unicycle. I put my orange jug on the ground, threw my arms around him, and pressed my face into the heat of his chest.
“You smell like a tavern,” he said, and sniffed my burned hair. “Or a barbecue.”
“Hoagies and Stogies,” I murmured. The cotton of his T- shirt caught on my lip. I wanted to tear that shirt off, feel his skin. Hold him forever.
He pushed me back to look at my face. “Who’re you drinking with this early?”
I smiled up at him. “Don’t be jealous. I was by myself.” I cuddled against him. He smelled like summer. I said, “Unless you count these two old men,” and I giggled again.
“I’m not jealous,” he said. “Just, I’ve never known you to hit the taverns for breakfast. Or solo.”
I pulled the toothbrush from my pocket. “I needed a place to brush my teeth.”
We walked together toward Herman’s. Rex put an arm over my shoulders and steered his unicycle in the other hand. We were a family then, the three of us—me, Rex, and the unicycle, that skinny metallic child.
“Plumbing out at Herman’s place?” Rex asked.
“Ah, well,” I said. “No, the plumbing’s not out. But we are. We’re kicked out, Rexie.”
He said, “How could I be kicked out? I haven’t even been in town all month.”
I walked along beside him and cradled the orange jug of pee in one arm. “I lost Chance, for days, but got her back yesterday. Can you believe it?”
He didn’t let me change the subject. “Where are you staying, if you’re kicked out?”
I said, “And I lost the rubber chicken. But look, voilà!” I pulled Plucky from my bag. She came out of the bag squished and folded in half, then found her shape. Resilience was the beauty of