Clown Girl - Monica Drake [112]
I said, “Not a big deal. We’re still doing O K. A little glitch.” I waved it off with one hand. I wanted to hug Rex, to hold him, make him stop walking. I almost caught up to him, then reached for his elbow. He swerved away and shook out his arms. He seemed loose after the station. Maybe too loose. He wouldn’t catch my eye. I said, “Dahlink. Are you stoned?”
He looked over his shoulder again, like somebody might be coming for him. Then he looked me up and down, in my ripped dress, as I tried to match his fast clip with my one good Caboosey boob jostling. He said, “Enough to take the edge off. Wouldn’t hit the pig farm any other way.”
Myself, I wouldn’t go to the cop station any way but sober.
“Nita, what’s happened anyway? I’m gone for three weeks, come back, I’ve seen you two days. First you’re at the tavern for breakfast and now you’re a hooker, busted, and ask if I’m stoned, like that’s the glitch in the gig.” He shook his head.
“I’m not a hooker,” I said, and linked one finger through his belt loop to pull myself close to him.
He reached a hand to his pocket. His elbow pushed against my chest. “Then what’s this about?” He came up with a piece of paper, folded up small, and started unfolding it, still walking fast. I let go of the belt loop. My heart sank. “Trixie, Twinkie, and Bubbles!”
I snatched the paper from Rex’s hand.
“Where’d you get this?” I unfolded the page the rest of the way. It was a picture of me, between Crack and Matey, clown shirt unbuttoned low, red hair lacquered. Matey’s hand grabbed my boob. Crack kneeled on the floor in her fishnets, lips pouted.
Compromising clown porn.
“Clown Union Hall. The place is plastered with ’em. And it’s not art.” He spit on the ground. “Maybe that’s what tipped the pigs off, huh?”
“Just wait, Rex. We need to talk. I can’t talk when you’re walking so fast.” He kept going. I said, “I was working a clown gig, like a birthday party or a corporate deal, only smaller, that’s all. A private show. One-on-one.”
“A private show,” he said, and scoffed as though I’d claimed to be joining a convent, working on a cure for cancer, raising Chaplin from the dead. “Go ahead, con yourself, but don’t bullshit me, Nita.”
“It’s true,” I said. “What I thought was—”
Rex cut me off. He said, “I’ll tell you what’s true. I’m busting my ass in California to set up our future and you’re a hooker, and a drunk.”
“But Crack said—”
“The truth is you’re out of control.”
I said, “We need money to get—”
“You’ve lost your way as an artist, Nita. You’re getting nowhere. I can’t keep doing this.”
“This?” The icy hand of Dread fingered my insides, knotted my spleen, my gut. My heart. “Doing what?”
He waved a long arm my direction and said, “Supporting you. Encouraging you, trying to set an example. Hoping you’ll make a clown of yourself.” He started walking fast again.
I ran alongside him. “I thought we were supporting each other, Rex. That’s why I gave you the money for Clown College. Why I’ve been working hard to make more.” I put a hand out to stop him from walking, to hug him, to talk to each other. I said, “Crack said you’ve been on clown dates before too. She said that’s how you paid for—”
“Oh, bull,” he said.
“—the unicycles. Is it?” I wanted to see in his bleary eyes.
He looked away and said, “Crack? How reliable is Crack?”
“Is it true?”
Then he glared. “I bail your ass out, and you interrogate me.” He stomped up ahead.
I trotted behind.
I said, “She knew about the rubber-chicken sex thing, the jokes. Plucky.”
He didn’t answer.
“Rex, tell me. Have you done clown dates?”
He bit off the end of my sentence when he snapped, “Don’t make this about me. I’m not the bad guy here. I’m not the one fresh out of the slammer, posing for porn.”
Then he added, “I’m not the one dating cops.”
Dating