Clown Girl - Monica Drake [78]
And I flinched, the dream broken.
Nadia-Italia. Her voice came at me from nowhere, from everywhere. I lost the rhythm. One torch fell from the sky like a dead bird. I caught the other two, second and third. The first lay still, a broken-necked dove burning in its own quiet pool of orange and blue flame against the roots of dry, matted grass.
Crap-ola !
I didn’t have time to look for Italia, but instead held the two torches in one hand, bent low, and ran fast to collect my fallen friend, my trained pet. The sand-filled sacks of the Pendulous Breasts swung forward as I stooped. The momentum pulled me faster, with the weight of the funbag-sandbags at my shoulders. I kicked a leg to find my balance, but the Fabulous Ass bounced against my own ass and pushed me ahead in my crouch. I couldn’t see the radio underfoot below the flopping boob bib ; the radio rolled under the swing of a leg, and a muffled Stevie Wonder sang into the dirt. I stumbled. My oversized shoe hit the turp can and knocked the can into the grass. I tried to catch myself, but the weight of the boobs ! The oversized shoes ! My bad hip called my name, and laughed in a crackle of ligaments. One knee went down, into the damp ground, and the torches in my hand smacked mother earth. I skinned my palm. My pants ripped at the knee.
The first torch down doubled its quiet flame, like an accident victim vomiting blood into the roots of the overgrown yard. The flame seeped and grew, and fast-formed a line fed by the spill of the tipped-over can—then the can of turpentine itself was touched by fire ; fire bloomed from the spout like a sight gag, and in a loud whoosh the can swelled. The sides blackened and bent.
“Jee-sus !” Nadia-Italia said, behind me, from the window upstairs.
Grass smoldered under the torches in my hand where they too lay along the ground. The turp rag leapt in its own quick fire.
I picked up the torches, stomped on the flames, and gave myself a hotfoot. The rubber on my shoes curled and darkened. Still stepping in fire, I reached to straighten the can.
“It’s OK,” I called. Burn shit up. Audiences love it.
“Chick, like, it’ll explode !” Italia’s voice was a sharp screech, her own ambulance wail. “Herman, wake up !”
Didn’t sound like my audience loved it.
“Calm down, calm down,” I said, and stomped faster. “No need to tell Pop. Show’ll be over in a minute, and panic will get us nowhere.” But was she right? Would the can explode? I was shielded only by the false security of the fake boobs.
I took seventh-grade chemistry. “It won’t explode until it creates a vacuum,” I said. I shoved the unlit ends of the burning torches into loose ground. “It has to burn through the fuel first.” I inched forward, one hand out. My voice cracked as I yelled, though I tried to sound confident. My hands shook, and my heart was a rush of blood washing veins, chemicals. Nerves.
“What the hell?” Herman’s voice at the window joined Italia’s panicked song.
“She set the yard on fire !” Natalia shrilled. “I saw her do it.”
“Under control,” I said.
Nothing was under control. The yard burned in three places.
I grabbed the can in one fast move, like the can was an animal ready to run. I grabbed it, and caught it. But that can was more than an animal. It was Loki, God of Fire. Unleashed. The sides of the metal can sizzled under my hands. I yelped and flung the can far away from me, into the tall grass of the yard, and a streamer of fire followed the can like a comet. A shimmering line of yellow-white flame fell on the grass like a rope, like the tail of a kite. The flame snapped and hissed and fast grew into a wall.
Then my short pink hair was a flash of flame too, as fire jumped to the nylon strands and dabs of superglue. There was no time to think. I beat my hands against my head, against the burning wig. The world smelled like melting Barbie dolls, the burned breath of a Christmas toy dropped against the Yule log. I pulled the pink hair off and flung it, but too late. My nylon sleeve was in flames.
“Crapola ! Crapola !” I ran in