Clown Girl - Monica Drake [88]
He nodded and shrugged, then leaned the door back against the shelves. “I was working.”
I followed him down an aisle. “So you could’ve been shot?”
“Had my vest on. But that doesn’t protect a guy’s head, I guess. Weed whacker?” He grabbed a plastic-wrapped bundle.
“Ah, now there’s a civilized weapon,” I said. “The great weed-whacker massacres.”
“You’d be surprised. But think about this stuff. It’s the real deal. People’s lives, death. Yard work. Somebody could write a book about evidence and the stories behind it.” He picked up a plastic-wrapped golf club and swung, following through, then looked up toward the fluorescent lights as though watching a ball sail. “Everything turns up here.” Under an opaque sheet, there was the gleam of chrome. He pulled the plastic back to show star-shaped hubcaps glossy as the liquid roll of mercury. “Your punk neighbor Willie’d love a set of rims like that.”
The burns on my arms hummed with the buzz of the fluorescent lights. I was tired, bleary-eyed, and fevered. I asked, “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Not for hours.”
We passed racks of stereos, a shelf of TVs, answering machines, and car parts. “California King.” He pushed one hand against a mattress that rested against the wall. “Try it out.” He dragged the mattress to an open space. The mattress hit the linoleum with a smack that echoed through the warehouse. “Go ahead. You look tired.”
“Exhausted, even.” I bent, ran a hand along the plastic, and pressed the plastic flat to look through for the rest of the evidence of whatever crime had brought the mattress to that warehouse—bullet holes, blood. All I found were tiny blue flowers embroidered into fabric and an ordinary white tag, the old Do Not Remove Under Penalty. “What’s a mattress in for?”
“Could be anything,” Jerrod said. “It’s a pillowtop,” like that was an explanation.
The mattress was inviting as a hammock. I’d been up all night. Gravity called, with its own unbreakable law. I stretched out. The mattress was solid and springy, better than a hospital mattress, better than my futon. Still, it was strange to lie flat in a warehouse without a sheet or blanket, with no right place for my hands. It felt like a visit to the acupuncture clinic before the needles started. One hand was stiff, under blisters and the IV gear taped to my skin.
It was strange to lie down in a room, a big room, with a man who wasn’t Rex.
Jerrod sat on the mattress and bounced up and down. He said, “Look. You’re hardly moving.”
“Rock me to sleep.” I closed my eyes.
I didn’t notice he’d gotten up until his voice came from farther away. He said, “Maybe you need a teddy bear.”
Something slapped me gently on the shoulder. I opened my eyes to a flash of yellow. Plucky, the rubber chicken! There she was, in all her glory, with her tattered red comb and the black indelible ink heart on her bumpy yellow chest, unmistakably herself, mine. Ours. I sat up and held Plucky in both hands.
“Where’d you find her?”
He shrugged, looked away, then back. “The first time I met you. On the street. Some kid dropped it, and I picked it up after you left. I tried to tell you, but you ran.”
“I never thought I’d see her again.” I held the chicken by her slender neck. Her yellow feet dangled, and I swear her rubber beak showed an open smile like a crow on a hot day. “You get the reward.”
He waved a hand. Laughed. “Nah. It’s nothing. And hang on—”
He headed down an aisle.
I sank into the mattress, curled up with Plucky, and sang her a little chicken song, all clucks and trills.
Plucky, that souvenir, me and Rex, our first real date. Our useless rubber, a shared joke. Between clowns, a shared joke is a shared prayer. Jerrod had given me a little piece of Rex back.
“Behind door number two…” The tools on Jerrod’s belt jostled. He jogged down the aisle and pushed a lawn mower. I sat up. He stopped in front of Plucky and me on our raft of a mattress. “Take it home.”
“My lawn mower?” I hardly recognized it. “Don’t they need it,