“State-sponsored ID,” one cop said. “Put that joke away, cupcake.”
I said, “I’m not a hooker, I’m a union-registered, dues-paying clown. The ID proves it.”
The woman writing up the paperwork said, “Clown, hooker—are the two mutually exclusive or redundant?”
“Or oxymoronic,” I said. “Ever think of that?”
Somebody snickered, in the sidelines. The woman cop said, “OK. Say you’re not a hooker. What’s the story, just all dressed up with no place to show? Lonely and looking good?”
Another cop, passing through, said, “So how come clown whores make so much money?” He face was blotched and red, his ears big. His neck…well, he had no neck. After a moment’s dramatic pause, complete with wheeze and whistle, he said, “A trick up every sleeve. Ha!”
I said, “You’re about as funny as a cry for help.”
“My pleasure.” He went back to huffing and puffing his way across the room.
I said, “This is prejudice. You don’t like clowns, I’m a clown, and I’m getting the shaft.”
Another cop leaned in close. He said, “Righto…We don’t like clowns. We don’t have to. We put up with a lot a trouble from clowns around this precinct.”
I asked, “Where’s Crack?” She’d been in the Ruins too, on her own paid date.
The cops looked up from their paperwork shuffle. Eyebrows raised. A few met each other’s glances. One guy said, “Come again—what’re you looking for?”
I said, “Crack. My boss.”
They all laughed, together, leaving me adrift in a sea of heads tipped back, hair tossed, flabby chins. A woman tried to catch her breath long enough to say, “So what’s your official title, ‘Crack Whore’?” She broke herself up again.
The fat man with the circus jokes said, “First crack whore we’ve seen that admits it up front.”
“I’m not a crack whore! I’m a clown. I work for Crack, my agent.”
They laughed harder. “That’s rich, that’s rich. Will work for crack. You got a sign proclaiming that?”
I said, “Speaking of Rich, where’s he?” They’d taken him down a hall. For all I could tell, they let him out a back door. The money was gone, confiscated as “evidence” or spent to buy his freedom.
“A clown crack whore,” the woman said. “We don’t get many of those through here.” She shook her head.
I said, “It’s not a crime to be a clown.”
“Ah, Jerry! Get a load of this one,” the woman called out.
Jerrod walked through the room, hands full of manila files, with a giant peanut-butter cookie on top of the stack. When he saw me he looked twice, tripped against a trash can, and did a stumbling dance. The cookie slid across his files, dropped, and broke.
“Shit.” He ran a hand over his forehead.
“Check this out,” a cop called.
“I’m busy,” Jerrod said, straightened up and kept going. Crumbs lay in a circle on the floor, a mini crime scene.
“Jerr,” the woman cop called after him. “You OK?”
He didn’t look back.
WHEN I COULD, I CALLED REX. REX WOULD BAIL ME OUT. He’d know I was innocent. We’d get the charges reduced in court—I didn’t need Jerrod’s help. They left me in a holding cell big as my mudroom, only air-conditioned, with a cot and a view of the hallway. It was good as any room at the YMCA.
After forever Jerrod came by. He cleared his throat. Nervous and jumpy, he said, “Well, I want to apologize. I was wrong… It was presumptuous, to think I understood anything about where you’re coming from.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
He said, “I thought you were different.”
I was different. “This is not me, not here.” I pointed to the floor beneath my big clown high heels.
He looked into my eyes. I took a breath. We both knew the question left unasked: if this wasn’t me, who was I? He touched my hand where my fingers rested around the bars. I pulled my hand away, didn’t want to touch anybody.
“Society?” he said.
I didn’t answer.
He said, “I can’t get you out of here. Couldn’t if I wanted to. Maybe if I’d been first to the scene…”
“That’s all right, I know.” With Jerrod’s help, it’d definitely look like I was dating cops. “Just do your job. That’s all I was doing, was mine.”
Jerrod said, “They have twelve-step groups for all the compulsions. The addictions…”
“It’s not a compulsion! I’m an artist. I wasn’t doing anything—”
He said. “I’ve heard a few different ideas about art…conceptual stuff…self-expression, sexuality—”
“I’m a performing artist!”
“Performance?” he said, and looked at me straight on. A big question.
I said, “Not some kind of sex art. Not that kind of performance.”
He said, “You might consider this as an addiction, and like any addiction it’s out of control, running your life.”
“Addicted to clowning?” I asked.
He said, “Addicted to making poor choices, putting yourself in a bad way.”
I said, “Come on, you can’t hang a clown without a trial. I’ve got it under control, it was just a little slipup.”
“Ever feel like it’s easier to act the part of a person than to just let yourself be one?”
“I’m not sure I know the difference.”
“Ah,” he said. “Right. Well, that explains a few things. For me, most times, I know what I should do as a cop, what I’m supposed to do. Same as if I had a script. But once in a while I don’t want to be the cop in the picture. I want to drop the act, break scene…be a civilian, a citizen, a bozo…The deal is, you’re building a record,” Jerrod said. “Same as the rest of Baloneytown. I’d like to believe that you’ve got a handle on your actions, you know I would, but here, now, booked on solicitation, caught half-naked outside a van, in an empty lot with a known john…it makes it hard for me to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
He had all the details.
“You read my file,” I said softly.
He nodded, looked down, and his lashes danced over his tired skin.
I said, “Sheesh. With a write-up like that, how can I even hope you’ll see my side of it?”
He shrugged. “If it helps, I hear the conviction in your voice. That’s one thing.”
“Conviction,” I said. “How about acquittal? That’s what I want to hear. Acquittal in my voice and everyone else’s.”
I still had big plans, plans to make myself into somebody special, talented and altruistic. “Once I patch this up, maybe it’s time for me to skedaddle, get serious, join a real circus or Clowns Without Borders or go—”
“Or time to quit running away,” Jerrod said, and offered a hint of a smile. “Your friend the landlord hasn’t pressed charges, so that’s good.” He touched one of my fingers again, ran a calloused thumb over my skin. “Life is so short. People waste it. I see it every day on the streets. You don’t want to get stuck in Baloneytown on parole.”
After a minute he said, “‘Man is what he believes.’”
“What about women?” I asked. “And clowns.”
He sighed. “I’d say the same goes, all around. It’s a quote, from Chekhov. I like to believe in the essential goodness of human nature. And I’d believe in you, if you’d give me half a reason.”
This time, I didn’t pull my hand away.
22.
Bailing, Bailing …; or, Kafka is Mine!
REX WALKED LIKE I WAS A STRAY DOG HE WANTED TO shake. My long-toed, pointy, clown high heels clattered on the pavement as I tried to match his pace. With Rex giving me the icy treatment, ours was a long, hostile walk through a short town. Out of sight of the cop station, finally he looked back over his shoulder and said, “Shit, I try to stay away from the slammer, Nita.”
I said, “Not a big deal. We’re still doing O K. A little glitch.” I waved it off with one hand. I wanted to hug Rex, to hold him, make him stop walking. I almost caught up to him, then reached for his elbow. He swerved away and shook out his arms. He seemed loose after the station. Maybe too loose. He wouldn’t catch my eye. I said, “Dahlink. Are you stoned?”
He looked over his shoulder again, like somebody might be coming for him. Then he looked me up and down, in my ripped dress, as I tried to match his fast clip with my one good Caboosey boob jostling. He said, “Enough to take the edge off. Wouldn’t hit the pig farm any other way.”
Myself, I wouldn’t go to the cop station any way but sober.
“Nita, what’s happened anyway? I’m gone for three weeks, come back, I’ve seen you two days. First you’re at the tavern for breakfast and now you’re a hooker, busted, and ask if
I’m
stoned, like that’s the glitch in the gig.” He shook his head.
“I’m not a hooker,” I said, and linked one finger through his belt loop to pull myself close to him.
He reached a hand to his pocket. His elbow pushed against my chest. “Then what’s this about?” He came up with a piece of paper, folded up small, and started unfolding it, still walking fast. I let go of the belt loop. My heart sank. “Trixie, Twinkie, and Bubbles!”
I snatched the paper from Rex’s hand.
“Where’d you get this?” I unfolded the page the rest of the way. It was a picture of me, between Crack and Matey, clown shirt unbuttoned low, red hair lacquered. Matey’s hand grabbed my boob. Crack kneeled on the floor in her fishnets, lips pouted.
Compromising clown porn.
“Clown Union Hall. The place is plastered with ’em. And it’s not art.” He spit on the ground. “Maybe that’s what tipped the pigs off, huh?”
“Just wait, Rex. We need to talk. I can’t talk when you’re walking so fast.” He kept going. I said, “I was working a clown gig, like a birthday party or a corporate deal, only smaller, that’s all. A private show. One-on-one.”
“A private show,” he said, and scoffed as though I’d claimed to be joining a convent, working on a cure for cancer, raising Chaplin from the dead. “Go ahead, con yourself, but don’t bullshit me, Nita.”
“It’s true,” I said. “What I thought was—”
Rex cut me off. He said, “I’ll tell you what’s true. I’m busting my ass in California to set up our future and you’re a hooker, and a drunk.”
“But Crack said—”
“The truth is you’re out of control.”
I said, “We need money to get—”
“You’ve lost your way as an artist, Nita. You’re getting nowhere. I can’t keep doing this.”
“This?” The icy hand of Dread fingered my insides, knotted my spleen, my gut. My heart. “Doing what?”
He waved a long arm my direction and said, “Supporting you. Encouraging you, trying to set an example. Hoping you’ll make a clown of yourself.” He started walking fast again.
I ran alongside him. “I thought we were supporting each other, Rex. That’s why I gave you the money for Clown College. Why I’ve been working hard to make more.” I put a hand out to stop him from walking, to hug him, to talk to each other. I said, “Crack said you’ve been on clown dates before too. She said that’s how you paid for—”
“Oh, bull,” he said.
“—the unicycles. Is it?” I wanted to see in his bleary eyes.
He looked away and said, “Crack? How reliable is Crack?”
“Is it true?”
Then he glared. “I bail your ass out, and you interrogate me.” He stomped up ahead.
I trotted behind.
I said, “She knew about the rubber-chicken sex thing, the jokes. Plucky.”
He didn’t answer.
“Rex, tell me. Have you done clown dates?”
He bit off the end of my sentence when he snapped, “Don’t make this about me. I’m not the bad guy here. I’m not the one fresh out of the slammer, posing for porn.”
Then he added, “I’m not the one dating cops.”
Dating cops. So Rex had talked to Herman. I said, “I’m not dating him!” How many times could I defend myself?
“Him?” Rex said, and smiled a thin lizard smile. “Who is ‘him,’ exactly, that you’re not dating?”
“Anyone. I’m not dating anyone, except you.” I tried again to touch Rex, to find the comfort of our bodies. He shook me off, stepped away.
“Is it the cop I saw you with out front?”
There was no good answer. I said, “While we’re on it—what about you and Crack? How’d she know about the rubber-chicken sex jokes? I thought that was our thing, private.” I grabbed his arm, and this time got a good hold.
He sneered. There was no love in the way he looked at me. None.
“Tell me,” I said. “Is love just an act with you? A big show?”
He turned on the sidewalk, stared at me. He said, “Sheesh, chill, OK? Listen, babe, you’ve got problems. I care about you, and you’re a mess. But I’ve got bigger things on my playbill than your messed-up tricks. Even the cop doesn’t matter, ’cause I take the long view, and my big deal right now is Clown College, whether you’re on board or not. I’ve got the scholarship gig in less than a week. That gives me five days to put together some award-winning shit.” He put his big hands on my shoulders, pulled me close. He ran one hand over my burnt hair. “We’re wasting our creative juices, arguing.” His voice was soft. The sneer was gone. Was this an apology?
“I don’t want to fight either.” I leaned into his chest, and breathed his skin through his shirt. He ran his hand over my hair. I was a kitten, ready to purr.
He said, “What I could really, really use is your help, with the application.”
I’d helped him before as a test audience and a prop, a sidekick, and a judge. “You can do it, Rex,” I said. “You’re a showstopper.”
He said, “Nita, you don’t get it. Sure, I can do the club thing, wow the drunks and underage druggies. A little fire, a handstand, the one-wheeled bike tricks… ”
“You can wow anybody.”
“This is different. It’s for…culture. For older people. Real people, at the Cultural Center. There’s a lot at stake, you know? I want to make it, to be one of the Community Arts Advancement scholars. The money would mean something, but I’m after the recognition. Nita, it’s been fifteen years of stage shows, talking myself up, always proving and promoting. Now, an Emmett Kelly Award…that’d do the talking for me.”
We’d had variations on this conversation before. I was the audience, there to give prompts. I said, “So, what’re you going to do? I can help, any help you need. We’ve got all kinds of resources.” I held on to his elbow and felt a rush of love.
He let go, started walking again. He said, “First, you have to pay me back that bail money.”
I trotted along at his heels. “Of course. I always pay you back…But didn’t I just give you that money to go to San Francisco? For Clown College, all that?”
He whipped his head around, looked at me, then looked away again. The edge was back in his voice when he said, “I didn’t plan on spending it to bail you out.”
“All right, all right, so I’ll pay you back my own money. No reason to be uptight.” Again I took his elbow, laced my fingers around his arm, and held on. I said, “I can make more money.”
He said, “Don’t whine like I’m your pimp, it’s just that I need that cash. If I didn’t need it, I wouldn’t’ve taken it in the first place. But listen, there’s another way you can help me. I’m working on this thing, Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’…”
I stopped fast, and his elbow tugged against my folded-together hands. He jerked away. I said, “‘The Metamorphosis’? Rex, that’s…That’s my thing. I’ve been working on my ‘Metamorphosis’ sketch for years. You’ve watched me develop it—watched me practice the transformation into vermin on my back, seen me work out the surrealist confusion, the naturalist horror. The modernist angst.”
He said, “Sure, I know you’re into it, but mine’ll be different. In this one, it’s like the guy’s job is as an office executive…”
In my version, the woman was an office assistant. I never did think big enough.
“…and he turns into a snake instead of a bug. It’s hilarious, and it’s sad. It’s really something.”
“Turns into a snake?” I said. Somebody had turned into a snake, right there in front of my eyes. I felt a wave of nausea.
“I think mine’s pure, undiscovered genius,” he said. “Besides, if mine’s different, or the same, what’re you worried about—you’re not using it. It’s just an idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen.”
My throat was tight, my head a scream of swarming bees. I couldn’t believe my ears. I staggered, clutched my one fake breast. The rash of panic in my brain broke into all-out cerebral hives. I said, “I am using it. I work on it all the time. I just can’t get it into production, because I’m trying to make a living. Trying to pay your way to Clown College.”
He laughed. “Looks like you’re making a pretty fast living to me.” He shook his head. “Those johns need Kafka?”
“I’m not a hooker,” I said again. “There’s just not the same fast cash in Kafka as there is in the corporate work. Not yet, not until I get ahead.”
“Get ahead, or give it? And since when is whoring corporate?”
If Jerrod was right, if clowning was my addiction, then this—not jail—was as low as I could sink; watching my gilded savior, Rex, tarnish. His brilliance was nothing, not even his own. Actually, this round? The ideas were mine. “Rex, you haven’t even read Kafka.”
He said, “I’ve seen you practice the skit like a hundred times, right? And you just said you’d help. Give me a little more of the structure then.”
If I went along with him, I’d be an enabler, a participant in my own defeat. “There’s all kinds of material, pick something else. Pick, like,
Pride and Prejudice
, or
Romeo and Juliet
.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
. Anything, OK? Kafka’s my deal.”
He said, “No need to be possessive. We’ve got enough to go around. We’re doing OK, you said so yourself.”
“Sure, but I was feeling a surge of love for you then. Hopeful.” I’d been noting his humanity, not his greed.
He shrugged. Smiled. “You’ll feel another.” He was so confident!
“Rex, could you just please lay off my material, until I get it together?”
He said, “Nita, cultivate some professionalism. You don’t have the rights to Kafka. Just because I haven’t read the dude doesn’t mean I can’t do my own thing with it. You know what Gold-digger the Great said—‘Cheap clowns scrounge, great clowns steal.’”
“Sure, Rex. I’ve heard the phrase, but I don’t subscribe to it,” I said. “Great clowns have a little integrity, I’d say. What about the Clown Commandments?”
He stopped walking then, stood on the sidewalk, and blocked my way. “So, what’re you saying—I bail you out, and you won’t help with the most important act of my career? This is the thing that’s going to get me past the club circuit.”
“You bailed me out with my own money, and I’ll pay it back. I didn’t sell the Kafka sketch.”
“Jesus,” he said. “That was our money when you gave it to me. Knock off the bullshit generosity next time.”
“It’s not bullshit generosity,” I said. “I wish you weren’t stoned right now. You’re impossible. You make it impossible.”
Rex laughed then, a mean, sharp snort. “Impossible? You want to talk impossible? This is all bullshit, babe. You want to think you’re not a hooker, just a clown on a private date. Think you’re an artist, working a new car lot? I’ll tell you something—that’s not art. It’s just a story you’re making up. Maybe the same story you’d tell our baby, if we still had a baby. Mommy’s not a hooker, she’s a corporate party girl. No wonder the kid bailed. Christ, maybe the thing’s lucky you dumped it.”
I stopped fast. My boob swung forward with momentum, then slapped against my real boob underneath, a thump to the heart. “What’re you saying? Like the miscarriage was my fault?” I held my torn dress like a sari wrapped around me. He shrugged.
“You haven’t exactly been leading a healthy lifestyle, have you?”
I crouched on the sidewalk. It was either that or fall over. The bees, the bees! I could barely hear. “I can’t believe you’d say that.” I whispered, “You’re blaming me.”
“Well, it wasn’t my fault.” He towered over me. His pants billowed in the night air. “My part worked out just fine.”
I couldn’t stand up. My eyes watered, my chin trembled. Since when was a miscarriage about blame? That was so like Rex, to make it adversarial. I said, “Where were you, Rex? When I was bleeding? I called you, needed to hear your voice. You never called back.”
Rex rolled his eyes. He said, “I called you back.”
“Once. After it was over. Way late.” I stood up. Put a hand to my head. I said, “And now your big concern is that you want ‘your’ money back?” I used my fingers to make quotation marks in the air. It was a jab—Rex hated the quotation mark gesture. He turned away. We were almost to Herman’s. “That money I gave you? I’ll give it back, right now.” I kicked off the high heels and ran the last block to the ambulance.
“Don’t be melodramatic,” he said behind me.
“Don’t be an idea thief,” I yelled back. I flung open the ambulance doors, hitched up my big skirts, and climbed in. I wiped tears from my eyes. The ceramic Rex-head stared from a dark corner with empty eyes, with that slight smile—Rex, immortalized as stoned and trying not to get a hard-on.
I put the head under my arm and climbed back out. “Who’s the whore now, Mr. Galore? Come get your cash, if that’s what you care about.”
I pulled the pair of socks from the bottom of the clay head, threw the socks back in the ambulance and took out a fistful of dollars. “Does that keep you from stealing Kafka?”
He walked on past, to Herman’s. “Jesus, Nita. You’re so over-the-top.”
I said, “Take it. I don’t want to be in debt to you.” I followed, and pressed the money up against him.