Clown Girl - Monica Drake [111]
After forever Jerrod came by. He cleared his throat. Nervous and jumpy, he said, “Well, I want to apologize. I was wrong… It was presumptuous, to think I understood anything about where you’re coming from.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
He said, “I thought you were different.”
I was different. “This is not me, not here.” I pointed to the floor beneath my big clown high heels.
He looked into my eyes. I took a breath. We both knew the question left unasked: if this wasn’t me, who was I? He touched my hand where my fingers rested around the bars. I pulled my hand away, didn’t want to touch anybody.
“Society?” he said.
I didn’t answer.
He said, “I can’t get you out of here. Couldn’t if I wanted to. Maybe if I’d been first to the scene…”
“That’s all right, I know.” With Jerrod’s help, it’d definitely look like I was dating cops. “Just do your job. That’s all I was doing, was mine.”
Jerrod said, “They have twelve-step groups for all the compulsions. The addictions…”
“It’s not a compulsion! I’m an artist. I wasn’t doing anything—”
He said. “I’ve heard a few different ideas about art…conceptual stuff…self-expression, sexuality—”
“I’m a performing artist!”
“Performance?” he said, and looked at me straight on. A big question.
I said, “Not some kind of sex art. Not that kind of performance.”
He said, “You might consider this as an addiction, and like any addiction it’s out of control, running your life.”
“Addicted to clowning?” I asked.
He said, “Addicted to making poor choices, putting yourself in a bad way.”
I said, “Come on, you can’t hang a clown without a trial. I’ve got it under control, it was just a little slipup.”
“Ever feel like it’s easier to act the part of a person than to just let yourself be one?”
“I’m not sure I know the difference.”
“Ah,” he said. “Right. Well, that explains a few things. For me, most times, I know what I should do as a cop, what I’m supposed to do. Same as if I had a script. But once in a while I don’t want to be the cop in the picture. I want to drop the act, break scene…be a civilian, a citizen, a bozo…The deal is, you’re building a record,” Jerrod said. “Same as the rest of Baloneytown. I’d like to believe that you’ve got a handle on your actions, you know I would, but here, now, booked on solicitation, caught half-naked outside a van, in an empty lot with a known john…it makes it hard for me to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
He had all the details.
“You read my file,” I said softly.
He nodded, looked down, and his lashes danced over his tired skin.
I said, “Sheesh. With a write-up like that, how can I even hope you’ll see my side of it?”
He shrugged. “If it helps, I hear the conviction in your voice. That’s one thing.”
“Conviction,” I said. “How about acquittal? That’s what I want to hear. Acquittal in my voice and everyone else’s.”
I still had big plans, plans to make myself into somebody special, talented and altruistic. “Once I patch this up, maybe it’s time for me to skedaddle, get serious, join a real circus or Clowns Without Borders or go—”
“Or time to quit running away,” Jerrod said, and offered a hint of a smile. “Your friend the landlord hasn’t pressed charges, so that’s good.” He touched one of my fingers again, ran a calloused thumb over my skin. “Life is so short. People waste it. I see it every day on the streets. You don’t want to get stuck in Baloneytown on parole.”
After a minute he said, “‘Man is what he believes.’”
“What about women?” I asked. “And clowns.”
He sighed. “I’d say the same goes, all around. It’s a quote, from Chekhov. I like to believe in the essential goodness of human nature. And I’d believe in you, if you’d give me half a reason.”
This time, I didn’t pull my hand away.
22.
Bailing, Bailing …; or, Kafka is Mine!
REX WALKED LIKE I WAS A STRAY DOG HE WANTED TO shake. My long-toed, pointy, clown