Clown Girl - Monica Drake [48]
“Jester, juggler, acrobat, Pierrot, or Harlequin,” I’d say, and cock an eyebrow. Clowns in the Schools was government-sponsored for about ten minutes. Then we lost our funding. Still, we practiced.
“Getting dressed is all about calling on the other world—the underworld—to find a spiritual patron, an inspiration,” I said out loud, to myself now.
Rex Galore was my inspiration.
Maybe he wasn’t in the underworld, but he was a long ways away, even as his spirit surrounded me. I kissed the tip of my index finger and touched my finger to the lips of the red clay head, where it hovered in the closet. My bank, my love, my heart. My future.
There was only one detail left: my nose.
I lifted a barrel-shaped wooden clown doll from a shelf. With a twist, the clown fell in two halves, and a smaller clown fell out. I gave the second clown a twist and an even smaller clown fell out. When I turned the third, one more appeared. A final twist, and there it was. My prized red rubber nose, lovingly made at the Red Rubber Nose Factory.
Those Clowns Sans Frontières ran the factory. So noble! Every penny of income from the Nose Factory went to kids in war-ravaged countries. Kids without limbs, without homes, without rubber noses. Once, Rex and I talked about starting up a chapter of Clowns Without Borders right in Baloneytown, a neighborhood bad as any other.
Bottom line, though—I wasn’t a red nose clown. For the photos, my rubber nose was a talisman.
I slid on my big-frame, squirting, daisy-rimmed sunglasses, dropped the jar of Chinese pills in my bag, chose my best hand-painted Keds, and grabbed the staple gun.
My orange hospital jug was a glowing harvest moon that looked down from the top of the bookshelf. Harvest, the moon of a jug said. Harvest that urine!
I still had no urine in the urine bank. I had no urine funnel.
Now, after a night of looking for Chance, I was completely confused. When was the first piss of the morning in a night without sleep? When was the last piss of the night?
I put down my pink bag and carried the orange jug into the bathroom. I slid down Rex’s striped acrobat pants, held the jug above the toilet, bent my knees, and hovered. My groin muscles burned. I could barely sustain the pose. I gathered up my shirt, held it out of the way. A sloppy stream ran toward the narrow jug opening; urine ran warm over my hand. It ran fast. A mess. I cut the flow, then let it go again. My ripped groin shook. A cold sweat cut across my forehead. Tiny yellow lakes decorated the toilet lid and the worn white linoleum floor.
But I had piss in the jug. Bingo! I was on my way to a urine harvest. Finally.
I screwed the lid on the jug and wiped the outside off with toilet paper. When I gave it a shake, the jug had new weight to it. The bottom of the jug was warm from urine inside. Time to get it on ice.
My designated shelf in the fridge was a narrow middle space, second down from the top. The jug was too tall for my shelf, though. It fit instead on the shelf in the door, a shared area crowded with soy cartons, white wine, weight lifter’s shakes, and organic juice.
I closed the fridge and wiped my hands down my striped-clad thighs, satisfied.
ON THE WAY TO THE PHOTO SHOOT, I COPIED MISSING Chance posters. I copied Missing Plucky posters too. To hell with Herman and house rules; Plucky, Chance, Rex—I needed them all to come home.
“Cha-ance,” I called as I walked. “Here, Chance! Here, girl!”
“Nope,” some joker with a nasal whine called out an apartment window. “Not a chance, baby.” He giggled, coughed. Then giggled again.
A group of kids hung out on a porch. “A clown!” one kid said. As a mass, they tumbled off the porch, arms and legs in full swing.
Already late, I waved the kids back with one big blue glove. “I’m off work, kids. Not a clown.” I showed them the palm of my open hand. In my other hand I waggled the heavy-duty staple gun. I kept walking and called again. “Chaaa-a-ance.