Clown Girl - Monica Drake [113]
“Him?” Rex said, and smiled a thin lizard smile. “Who is ‘him,’ exactly, that you’re not dating?”
“Anyone. I’m not dating anyone, except you.” I tried again to touch Rex, to find the comfort of our bodies. He shook me off, stepped away.
“Is it the cop I saw you with out front?”
There was no good answer. I said, “While we’re on it—what about you and Crack? How’d she know about the rubber-chicken sex jokes? I thought that was our thing, private.” I grabbed his arm, and this time got a good hold.
He sneered. There was no love in the way he looked at me. None.
“Tell me,” I said. “Is love just an act with you? A big show?”
He turned on the sidewalk, stared at me. He said, “Sheesh, chill, OK? Listen, babe, you’ve got problems. I care about you, and you’re a mess. But I’ve got bigger things on my playbill than your messed-up tricks. Even the cop doesn’t matter, ’cause I take the long view, and my big deal right now is Clown College, whether you’re on board or not. I’ve got the scholarship gig in less than a week. That gives me five days to put together some award-winning shit.” He put his big hands on my shoulders, pulled me close. He ran one hand over my burnt hair. “We’re wasting our creative juices, arguing.” His voice was soft. The sneer was gone. Was this an apology?
“I don’t want to fight either.” I leaned into his chest, and breathed his skin through his shirt. He ran his hand over my hair. I was a kitten, ready to purr.
He said, “What I could really, really use is your help, with the application.”
I’d helped him before as a test audience and a prop, a sidekick, and a judge. “You can do it, Rex,” I said. “You’re a showstopper.”
He said, “Nita, you don’t get it. Sure, I can do the club thing, wow the drunks and underage druggies. A little fire, a handstand, the one-wheeled bike tricks… ”
“You can wow anybody.”
“This is different. It’s for…culture. For older people. Real people, at the Cultural Center. There’s a lot at stake, you know? I want to make it, to be one of the Community Arts Advancement scholars. The money would mean something, but I’m after the recognition. Nita, it’s been fifteen years of stage shows, talking myself up, always proving and promoting. Now, an Emmett Kelly Award…that’d do the talking for me.”
We’d had variations on this conversation before. I was the audience, there to give prompts. I said, “So, what’re you going to do? I can help, any help you need. We’ve got all kinds of resources.” I held on to his elbow and felt a rush of love.
He let go, started walking again. He said, “First, you have to pay me back that bail money.”
I trotted along at his heels. “Of course. I always pay you back…But didn’t I just give you that money to go to San Francisco? For Clown College, all that?”
He whipped his head around, looked at me, then looked away again. The edge was back in his voice when he said, “I didn’t plan on spending it to bail you out.”
“All right, all right, so I’ll pay you back my own money. No reason to be uptight.” Again I took his elbow, laced my fingers around his arm, and held on. I said, “I can make more money.”
He said, “Don’t whine like I’m your pimp, it’s just that I need that cash. If I didn’t need it, I wouldn’t’ve taken it in the first place. But listen, there’s another way you can help me. I’m working on this thing, Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’…”
I stopped fast, and his elbow tugged against my folded-together hands. He jerked away. I said, “‘The Metamorphosis’? Rex, that’s…That’s my thing. I’ve been working on my ‘Metamorphosis’ sketch for years. You’ve watched me develop it—watched me practice the transformation into vermin on my back, seen me work out the surrealist confusion, the naturalist horror. The modernist angst.”
He said, “Sure, I know you’re into it, but mine’ll be different. In this one, it’s like the guy’s job is as an office executive…”
In my version, the woman was an office assistant. I never did think big enough.
“…and he turns into a snake instead of