Clown Girl - Monica Drake [75]
The long grass of the backyard whispered over the satin of my clown pants. A briar clutched my clothes ; the valerian highball spilled as I stopped fast, and with one hand pulled the clutching briar away. The thin line of a perfect circle where the dry grass parted was Rex’s welded metal wheel hidden in the yard. The grass had grown so long since he left, the long grass seemed a sign that Rex had to come home soon. This couldn’t go on forever.
He’d come back to failure : our missing Chance, cops, the urine collection and constant near-eviction.
I lay down in the grass, rested my drink in a nest of its own to one side, and rolled like a deer making a bed in an open field. My weight pressed the grass into a tatami mat of bent stalks. Sticks and rocks pressed into my back, but still I rolled. The edges of the flattened grass would mark the finite reach of my makeshift stage.
OUT FRONT, OUR BATTERED AMBULANCE SLEPT IN THE glowing halo of its own white rusted roof and reflected the buzzing streetlight. I called, “Chance,” in a whisper as I walked out to the ambulance. “Here, girl. Come on home.”
My hands shook, one wrapped around the valerian highball. A car crawled slowly down the block. Something creaked on a neighbor’s porch. I moved fast, swung open the ambulance’s back doors, climbed up and let myself fall into the lush pile of props and costumes ; the darkness was haunted by the ghost trace of Rex’s body, the air filled with sweat and kerosene.
It was warmer in the ambulance than outside. I kicked a foot through loose clothes on the floor until I felt something solid, then reached down into the clothes. It was an empty can, labeled Canned Laughter. A sight gag. I threw the can back into the pile. Fished again.
Every space inside the ambulance opened into storage. There was storage in the ceiling and floor. The single cot folded open like a trunk. There was a medicine chest attached to the wall and when I opened the latch, face paint, body glue, fake eyelashes, artificial scars, and latex ears tumbled out.
Below the medicine chest was a single backward-facing chair, where an EMT would sit. The chair opened up, like a wooden box with a padded top. None of these compartments had what I needed.
Under the costumes, swimming in the clothes, were bean-bags and juggling balls, angel and devil sticks, fake cigar boxes, spinning plates, and rubber rings. I toe-tapped the edge of a diabolo and pulled on a short pink wig. The pink hair had been bunched into fat tufts with dabs of super glue.
I was a toy in a toy box, one plaything among many.
Then my hand, deep in the props, slid across the broad nylon curve of the Pendulous Fake Breast Set. Aha ! Rex hadn’t used the Pendulous Fake Breast Set in ages, but still I recognized the shape and texture before I pulled its weight to the surface. It was a peach-colored bib, with sand-filled nylon sacks like water balloons that hung in front. I slipped the bib over my neck, on top of my clothes. I gave one boob a squeeze and it let out a duck call. The other side chirped like a dog toy. Voilà !
Those boobs were practically Kevlar, a bulletproof vest. They were the leaden apron a hygienist makes you wear at the dentist, the body armor of the Army Reserve. Safe. That’s how I felt behind the Pendulous Fake Breasts—safe, sexy, and funny. What more could a clown want ?
Guys aren’t the only clowns who can play the Big Girl suit. Why limit myself to fake ears and noses?