Clown Girl - Monica Drake [77]
Juggling is like dancing, and it’s a form of self-hypnosis. The balls were my partners, caught in our rhythmic swing. When I juggle, I can’t help but tell a story as I watch the balls move; I individualize and anthropomorphize. The balls touched my hands and flew on their route again as though I had little or nothing to do with their trajectory. And as they bounced, they were kids on the playground, running and jumping. They were little goats, leaves in the wind. A green ball was the leader and two reds followed, in a circle. Or the two reds were friends and green tagged along in opposition. One moved right while the other two swung left. Two kids got along, one was an outcast. Then they all turned around, followed the rebel, the renegade.
I bent my knees and did a booty-swing as I juggled. The Fabulous Ass swung away, then back, and gave my tush a comforting pat-pat-pat.
When I gained grace and quit slapping my arms into the flop of the Pendulous Breasts, I switched to batons. Batons in the night air were pure magic. The ivory sticks lifted into the dark sky, waved to their brothers the stars, and twirled close without touching each other; I barely touched each one. They sprang from my hand. Slivers of the moon.
With my confidence up, I went for the fuel—a can of turpentine from my room, meant for cleaning brushes.
Like pouring drink in a drunk, I poured turpentine down the aluminum throat of the torch, where it would fuel an asbestos wick. The torch was a solid thing, elegant in its slim curves. I filled two more, wiped them down with a rag, tossed the rag in the grass, and set the fueled torches aside unlit.
One thing about juggling fire : keep your fuel in a juggler’s fueling bottle with a narrow, EZ-Pour nozzle and a Safe-T- Snap lid. They make the bottles for a reason. I couldn’t find Rex’s fuel bottle. I used turp straight from the turp can, and rested the can to the side on the long matted grass.
I snapped the lighter, and the familiar whoosh told me who was in control: It was in my hands this round. Not Rex. Not some other clown. Me. I swung one burning torch into the air and it was a comet against the sky. Like a well-trained bird, the torch landed back in my open hand.
And I was the Statue of Liberty.
I was the Clown of Liberty, and claimed my freedom with a new show. The yard danced amber and blue in the firelight and the distant edges closed in, darker than ever against the blaze. I was protected from eyes by hedges, protected from the world by my Kevlar ta-tas. I threw back a shot of my own fuel, valerian tincture down my open throat, then lit a second torch from the first.
Two torches crossing in a perfect arc overhead was the dance of white ghosts, leaving tracers. Beautiful ! It was hypnotic, the fire shimmering and wild against the tranquil black background of deep night.
Adding a third torch was tricky. I had to manage two in one hand, with the first two already burning furiously their eternal clown flame.
With three torches lit, I adjusted the pink wig, turned up the radio a smidge, and gave the first serious, dangerous toss of my new career. For rhythm, I sang along with Stevie Wonder. Very superstitious… I shook my Fabulous Booty. The weight of it was like a conga line, hands against my hips, shaking back. Wash your face and hands… I swung the Bodacious Melons… when you believe in things that you don’t understand, and you suffer…
The batons overhead crossed in their arc like a magician’s trained doves, my ghost relatives. There’s a power in fire and I had that power harnessed. I was transfixed. Transformed. In my zone. I was an angel lost in a dream in the wilderness of the yard, a conqueror with the whole world ahead of me. The air was soft as water. The moon smiled down. A falling star answered any questions I had and the answer was Good Luck, Fellow Star ! The message from a kindred spirit, a falling scrap of fire that burned out, light years away.
The torches, those harnessed meteors, danced at my command.
A voice cut through the dark, over Stevie’s song: “What’re you doing