Clown Girl - Monica Drake [117]
“Still have to wait in line, though,” a drunk, wobbling woman hiccuped. Her hair was spun asbestos, her nose a withered apple. She spoke from experience.
Baloneytown was crowded with worn-out clowns, good intentions, and bad choices. The mistakes were easy and I’d made them all, sure, but the Lucky Trucker vaudeville team testified to Matey’s truth: S&M and clowning dovetailed into one and the same.
And the lives? Dog years.
Yes, I should’ve waited in line at the Lucky Trucker, and I would have waited if Chance weren’t digesting Herman’s pot as I stood there. I slid a bill on the counter next to the Turkey Jerky, and way overpaid in the hope that the dollars made up for my rudeness. Out in front, by the overflowing trash can and broken pay phone, I tipped Chance’s head back. She took her medicine, a harsh cure for an easy mistake, and as she foamed at the mouth I tried to come up with a cure for my own mistakes aplenty.
Chance’s steps were sloppy as we started back to the ambulance. She vomited white foam laced with dabs of pot like green sprinkles on snowy cupcakes. I opened the box of baby wipes, ran one over my cheek, and wiped makeup away. I tucked the used wipe in my bra and got out another. One swipe at a time, I cleaned up my act.
Near Herman’s, there was a fast glint and flicker of a UFO, and just as quickly the UFO crashed in a scatter of broken glass. Herman’s voice came out of the dark: “Fuck.”
A shadow ran, the soft pad of tennis shoes. I matched Chance’s tipsy stride. From somewhere, the ice-cream truck song started up in fast gear. It was either a late night sweet tooth emergency or a giveaway of a getaway car. Nearer, I saw Herman, soaking wet in the street on the ground, surrounded by glass, a hand to his head.
“Ah,” I said. “Another bashing? I thought clowns were the only fools targeted on the street.”
Herman muttered, “Never should’ve diversified… ” Chance waddled and vomited, weaving and slow. Herman said, “You know this is about…your piss…harassment.” His forehead sported a goose egg.
Like his bad deal was my fault? I said, “Drugs, urine, and ice cream all in one vehicle—a regular Baloneytown variety store.” I kicked a piece of mason jar glass. “It cut your head, Hermes. And God, it reeks.”
He pulled his fingers away, squinted at the blood. I reached inside my bunched-up dress to unfasten the boob bib, the only thing more battered than Herman looked at the moment. I slipped the top over my head, and when I let go the single Pendulous Breast fell to the ground.
“We’ve got to get you out of the street before a car comes. You can rest in the ambulance. Put your arm over my back.” I bent to pick him up. As I brushed against him, pee seeped onto my dress.
“No.” He climbed to his feet. I offered a shoulder. He said, “If I’m going…to die…” He had to catch his breath. “I want to be …not in a clown-bulance.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“Not yet, anyway.” Like a cowboy into the sunset Herman staggered toward the glow of the porch light.
I stayed where he left me, in the dark, outside that circle of light, and listened to the ice-cream truck ramble far away with a sound tiny as a music box, oddly optimistic, almost cheerful. The sidewalk was dotted with Chance’s pot-laced vomit, each tuft white and reflective as the moon, marking the path I’d walked like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs, except in my story every dollop was a single-sized serving of pot soufflé laced with incriminating evidence. If the cops traced the path to Herman’s grow operation, we’d be cited with distributing a controlled substance through dog puke.
We? Yes. It was Herman’s operation, but the lot of us would go down. It’d be the Big Bust, starring Herman, front and center. I’d be a bit player blinking into the footlights. Then, voilà! Curtains! The co-op would fall into a Baloneytown real estate deal: confiscated, put up for silent auction, and sold back to B-town Barons for chump change. We’d all be in stripes. Not the fun-loving stripes of clowns, Pixy Stix, and