Clown Girl - Monica Drake [50]
From above came the rhythmic rumble and smash of the bowling alley: Th-th-th-th-ump! Kaboom!
Crack took the stogie out of her mouth. Her jaw fell open. She said, “What the hell is this?” She came at me fast, put the Swisher Sweet back in her mouth, unbuttoned my collar, and roughed up my clown hair. “You look like Bozo.”
“Bozo!” I said. “It’s the cloth of the trade!” I flinched when her hand came at me. “You said go all out. This is my best stuff. High Clown.”
“High on something, all right! Now let’s fix it up.” The cigarillo jumped between her lips. She tugged on my wig. The wig was pinned on with bobby pins and the pins clawed my skull. She squeezed one long-lashed eye against the smoke of her own cigar. “This is way too Ronald McDonald.”
I tried to pull away. “We’re clowns! This is all-out clown stuff.” I pressed my hair back into a round poof. “I’m dressed to find my spirit leader.”
“Well, ain’t that a fine kettle of fish,” Crack said. “Plan to do kids’ gigs forever?” Crack was dressed like a hooker Harlequin, in a dark wig, loud fuchsia lips, a fake fur-trimmed polka-dot dress, and fishnets sturdy enough to catch a marlin. One glance at the photographer, and it looked like she’d caught a shark.
“‘All-out’ as in, like, let’s sell ourselves, right? Not all-out jokers.” She had a cobalt blue heart drawn below her right eye. Her nose was big, but that was her real nose, nothing she could do about it. Her wig was a bouquet of tight curls.
She patted me down, then reached up and pulled the red rubber nose from my face. She tossed the nose over her shoulder.
“Hey,” I said. “That’s bad luck.”
In a halo of smoke, Crack said, “No, it’s tough luck.”
The nose rolled across the table and fell off the far side. She reached for my ruffled collar and gave it a shake. “Slut it up a little, you got it? Think audience.”
I pulled away from her, climbed under the table, over the white sheets.
Crack crouched down beside the table and said, “Ask yourself—who do you want to engage? Who’s got the cash? Who’s going to pay your way, see?”
My nose was a red sun setting on the horizon of the sheets, guarded by the photographer’s tapping foot. “Parents? They cut the check.” A guess. I grabbed the nose. As I stood, my head knocked on the edge of the table. I slid the nose in my pocket and reeled back, a hand to the knot on my skull. The bees took up their swarm in the distance. A strike crashed in the alley above.
Crack dropped her stogie and ground it out under the heel of one Mary Jane. “You want to throw strikes, or you going to throw balsa at them pins the rest of your life?” She unbuttoned two buttons on my striped satin shirt. “Got anything like a push-up bra?” She dug in my pink bag. Missing Plucky posters fluttered to the floor. “Maybe a couple balloons. Blow these up.” She shoved two balloons at me.
“Those are banana style,” I said. “Twisters, long as my legs.”
The photographer gave an eyebrow raise that lifted the folds of his puffy eyes; a stirred sea turtle, he murmured, “There’s a thought…” He checked his watch. “When’s the other skirt getting here?” His voice was gravel, like he drank whiskey out of an ashtray. He dropped a pack of smokes, hands shaking.
It was hard to think of Matey, all bones and fists of muscle, as a “skirt.”
Crack said, “Matey’ll be here any minute.” She turned to the photographer, pulled me by the shoulder and said, “Now you tell me. Would you pay for this?” She pointed to me like I was merchandise, straight out of For-Salesville.
He stuck a bent cigarette between his teeth, shrugged, and smiled out of half his mouth—a smile I didn’t like at all. He ran the back of his thumb over his bottom lip, hand trembling, and swiveled in his chair. “She’s a real trouser-crease eraser,” he said. His moustache jerked under the words. “I just might.”
“Oh, lovely,” I said. “You two are a fine pair.” Over the crash of pins and a cheer upstairs, I said, “I’m a good clown. This is a good clown look. It’s classic.” I took the balloons back and put them in