Clown Girl - Monica Drake [49]
The kids danced alongside me as I walked, all whispers and giggles. I was breaking the Clown Code of Ethics, on the street in costume but not performing. All I had to do was tie one balloon animal, toss an invisible ball, trip on a bump or even a bum on the sidewalk. Squirt the sunglasses, and I’d be up to code.
I didn’t have it in me.
“Do a trick!” a kid with a crusty nose shouted. He was right beside me. “A joke!”
“No need to shout.” I stopped at a phone pole, slammed six staples in around the edge of a Missing Plucky poster, then drove another six staples home for Chance. “Say, kids, have you seen this chicken?” I held out a flyer.
The boy chipped at the snot. His arm was scarred and thin. He said, “I got one—listen. What did the vampire say to the clown?”
By all rights, I should’ve given this refugee of a kid a free red rubber nose.
Another kid cut in and answered. He said, “Something tastes funny! Get it? Tastes funny.”
Crusty Nose made to bite my arm. I jerked my hand away and said, “Nice joke, kids. Now, have you seen this dog?” I held out a second flyer.
The boy laughed, teeth jagged and flashing. A second kid pulled on my shirt tail. The taller kids squinted. One girl reached for the flyer. I let it go into her dirty fingers, pulled out another flyer, held it against the pole, and punched staples in around the edge, each time with the loud pop of the staple gun.
“What you doing out there?” A mom’s voice drifted through the screen door. “Get in here now,” she said, and held the door open. The biggest girl turned away first, let the Missing Chance flyer fall to the ground, and the others followed her back to the porch; the snot-nosed kid walked backward, waving.
I yelled, “There’s money in it, if you find her.”
The older boy poked his head out. “How much?” A hand grabbed his shoulder. Then he was gone, and the screen door clattered.
On a side street, a yellow rubber nub poked up out of a garbage can. A rubber chicken-colored yellow nub! Plucky? I pulled on the nub, and it grew bigger, kept going, growing longer and stretched out—something held it from below—and then it snapped and slapped against my hand. It wasn’t Plucky at all, but rather was the tip of an old rubber glove covered in motor oil stuffed under a stack of catalogs mixed with porn. I wiped my hand on the ground, over gravel, bottle caps, and new grass.
THE PHOTO SHOOT WAS IN THE BASEMENT OF THE BALONEYTOWN Lucky Strike bowling alley, Featuring the World-Renowned Strike and Rake Lounge! A photographer Crack knew was doing the photos for a cut rate, some kind of favor. I didn’t want to know what kind. I stapled flyers to a nearby pole. Out the open doors of the Lucky Strike, already I heard the smash and clatter of pins.
Inside, a cluster of drunks in the Strike and Rake Lounge started rubbernecking, like I was the freak on the scene. They were bar refugees hiding from sobriety.
“Well, bowl me over with a rubber nose,” one called out. His skin was green, his eyes red, and his hair a thin collection of well-greased strands. He gave a big tongue wag. Ghouls.
“You must be the Rake,” I said, and kept going. I followed Crack’s directions, through the lounge and past the cigarette machine…I headed toward a narrow set of dimly lit, industrial-green cement stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs, the basement was dark. I crossed a storage space. One light was on in the far back, and in that light I saw a handwritten sign taped to a nearly hidden door: Pssst! Sniff and Matey—In Here!
I pushed that door open, stepped in.
Inside the room glared bright; it was a nest of draped white sheets and photographer’s lights, full of smoke and with empty bottles on the floor. An old toilet was hooked up in the back corner, no stall. Crack sat on a chipped office table and puffed on a Swisher Sweet. A man swiveled in a swivel chair. His eyes were hidden under folds of skin, drooping lids, and dark circles, like an old sea turtle. He had a camera, two or three lenses, and rolls of film scattered in front of him. The man ran