Clown Girl - Monica Drake [110]
Money fluttered like the drift of confetti.
“Stay right where you are,” a voice boomed across the Ruins.
One remaining Pendulous Breast hung out like a Cyclops. The other was a drained sack.
“Nobody move!” the voice said. “This is an arrest.”
Rich put his hands up like he knew the ropes. I followed his lead. We squinted into the glare. Cops came over the edge of a low, broken wall. One stumbled.
“Jerrod?” I said, hopeful, nervous, in need of a safety net. There was no answer, no Jerrod. No friendly officer waiting in the wings.
THE CHARGES: SOLICITING SEX, SEX IN A PUBLIC PLACE, trespassing, indecent exposure, and no proper I D. PLACE,
Down at the station, I said, “Indecent exposure? These boobs are fake.”
A woman cop, filling out forms, said “Many are. Doesn’t make ’em legal.”
I pulled my sweaty clown ID from inside my bra. The stack of family photos fluttered out, and there were my parents. I grabbed for the photo fast and tucked it back against my skin, didn’t want my folks to see me at the cop station. I pushed the clown ID across the desk. Nobody would touch it.
“State-sponsored ID,” one cop said. “Put that joke away, cupcake.”
I said, “I’m not a hooker, I’m a union-registered, dues-paying clown. The ID proves it.”
The woman writing up the paperwork said, “Clown, hooker—are the two mutually exclusive or redundant?”
“Or oxymoronic,” I said. “Ever think of that?”
Somebody snickered, in the sidelines. The woman cop said, “OK. Say you’re not a hooker. What’s the story, just all dressed up with no place to show? Lonely and looking good?”
Another cop, passing through, said, “So how come clown whores make so much money?” He face was blotched and red, his ears big. His neck…well, he had no neck. After a moment’s dramatic pause, complete with wheeze and whistle, he said, “A trick up every sleeve. Ha!”
I said, “You’re about as funny as a cry for help.”
“My pleasure.” He went back to huffing and puffing his way across the room.
I said, “This is prejudice. You don’t like clowns, I’m a clown, and I’m getting the shaft.”
Another cop leaned in close. He said, “Righto…We don’t like clowns. We don’t have to. We put up with a lot a trouble from clowns around this precinct.”
I asked, “Where’s Crack?” She’d been in the Ruins too, on her own paid date.
The cops looked up from their paperwork shuffle. Eyebrows raised. A few met each other’s glances. One guy said, “Come again—what’re you looking for?”
I said, “Crack. My boss.”
They all laughed, together, leaving me adrift in a sea of heads tipped back, hair tossed, flabby chins. A woman tried to catch her breath long enough to say, “So what’s your official title, ‘Crack Whore’?” She broke herself up again.
The fat man with the circus jokes said, “First crack whore we’ve seen that admits it up front.”
“I’m not a crack whore! I’m a clown. I work for Crack, my agent.”
They laughed harder. “That’s rich, that’s rich. Will work for crack. You got a sign proclaiming that?”
I said, “Speaking of Rich, where’s he?” They’d taken him down a hall. For all I could tell, they let him out a back door. The money was gone, confiscated as “evidence” or spent to buy his freedom.
“A clown crack whore,” the woman said. “We don’t get many of those through here.” She shook her head.
I said, “It’s not a crime to be a clown.”
“Ah, Jerry! Get a load of this one,” the woman called out.
Jerrod walked through the room, hands full of manila files, with a giant peanut-butter cookie on top of the stack. When he saw me he looked twice, tripped against a trash can, and did a stumbling dance. The cookie slid across his files, dropped, and broke.
“Shit.” He ran a hand over his forehead.
“Check this out,” a cop called.
“I’m busy,” Jerrod said, straightened up and kept going. Crumbs lay in a circle on the floor, a mini crime scene.
“Jerr,” the woman cop called after him. “You OK?”
He didn’t look back.
WHEN I COULD, I CALLED REX. REX WOULD BAIL ME OUT. He’d know