Clown Girl - Monica Drake [115]
I couldn’t stand up. My eyes watered, my chin trembled. Since when was a miscarriage about blame? That was so like Rex, to make it adversarial. I said, “Where were you, Rex? When I was bleeding? I called you, needed to hear your voice. You never called back.”
Rex rolled his eyes. He said, “I called you back.”
“Once. After it was over. Way late.” I stood up. Put a hand to my head. I said, “And now your big concern is that you want ‘your’ money back?” I used my fingers to make quotation marks in the air. It was a jab—Rex hated the quotation mark gesture. He turned away. We were almost to Herman’s. “That money I gave you? I’ll give it back, right now.” I kicked off the high heels and ran the last block to the ambulance.
“Don’t be melodramatic,” he said behind me.
“Don’t be an idea thief,” I yelled back. I flung open the ambulance doors, hitched up my big skirts, and climbed in. I wiped tears from my eyes. The ceramic Rex-head stared from a dark corner with empty eyes, with that slight smile—Rex, immortalized as stoned and trying not to get a hard-on.
I put the head under my arm and climbed back out. “Who’s the whore now, Mr. Galore? Come get your cash, if that’s what you care about.”
I pulled the pair of socks from the bottom of the clay head, threw the socks back in the ambulance and took out a fistful of dollars. “Does that keep you from stealing Kafka?”
He walked on past, to Herman’s. “Jesus, Nita. You’re so over-the-top.”
I said, “Take it. I don’t want to be in debt to you.” I followed, and pressed the money up against him.
“That’s great.” He pointed at the bust under my arm. “You keep your slut money in my head. What’s that, irony? Art and ideas, sex, money and commerce. That’s so, so like you.” He brushed me away with one big hand.
“What, you’re too big for money now?” As I sidestepped his brush-off, barefoot, I teetered. The heavy ceramic head slipped in my hands. Rex’s head smashed on Herman’s sidewalk. Dollars scattered like spent tickets.
“Shit. Pick that up, would you?” Rex said. “Someone’s going to hit us up, or think we’re doing a drug deal.”
Nadia-Italia’s laugh screeched from the darkened porch like a bad gag gift. I wiped my eyes again and said, “It’s your money. You pick it up.”
“Whatever. Forget it.” Rex kept going up onto the porch. He said, “Guess I’m on my own.” He was a king, head held high. He was a prince, a dog, a man I didn’t even know, and he didn’t look back as our future, my hours spent in clown wage-slavery, rustled like garbage in the gutter.
23.
Harsh Medicine; or, My Strabat
REX COULD DO WHAT HE WANTED, BUT WHEN A BALONEYTOWN wild child swooped out of the dark and nabbed a twenty, I chased the kid off, got down on my knees, and picked up the cash. Let Nadia-Italia laugh, but no way would I watch the fruits of my clowndom drift like yesterday’s lottery tabs. My bad leg whined with the motion. Rex triggered Herman’s floodlight and made himself the star of a one-man show. His curls caught the high beam, his muscles were sculpted with shadows.
Nadia-Italia, still hidden in the dark, said, “Hey, superstar, how’s’bout a smoke.” She giggled. Stoned. Rex’s dream audience. Three little pigtails poked up where she slumped on the couch.
Rex stopped to dig through his pockets.
He said, “How’bout a trade. A little more of that smoke you got for a few of these,” and shook a cigarette out of the pack.
I tried to ignore their production. “Jee-zus,” Italia said. “Check this shit out.” She giggled again. I looked up then.
“This shit,” as she called it, was Chance, on the porch. Chance sat up and begged for nothing, looking at nobody. She stood up and did her soon-to-be famous hula dance, pawed the air, and bounced left and right.
Nadia-Italia snorted and laughed and said, “Hey, baby, Momma’s got your treats!”
Momma? Chance wobbled toward Italia’s outstretched hand.
“Munchies,” Italia said. “Yummy.” Chance ran in a mad scramble, the length of the porch and back.
Chance, my drug-sniffing canine, so easily swayed!
I said, “You’re