by Monica Drake
BURN SHIT UP. REX’S STAR PERFORMER’S ADVICE RATTLED in my head. Ever since talking to Rex on the phone, I was more agitated than ever. I was desperate and, worse yet, guilty. All else had failed—especially my willpower when facing down the lips of the law. Now my only recourse was fire. Burn shit up. No way could I practice fire tricks in the slim space of my tiny room. I needed to practice. A new clown skit was the only ticket I held, the only train I’d ride.
I had skit ideas aplenty: The Beef-Brisket Dance, Two Clowns in a Shower, a soft-porn balloon routine called Who’s Hogging the Water? I could pull out the old silent version of Kafka for art lovers in the crowd. And then there was Everything Sisyphus, the quintessential clown act, struggle sans redemption. Now I needed a new routine that was bigger, hotter. On fire. Darkness would transform Herman’s overgrown backyard into a stage.
In a world of clown whores and virgins, I’d cling to the integrity of art.
I waited until after midnight. The house was quiet. I waited longer. After one o’clock, I mixed a highball of valerian tincture on the rocks, rolled Chinese pills over my tongue, and braved the blank canvas of a rehearsal space in the open backyard. From the yard I looked up to the converted attic room Herman shared with Nadia-Italia, where the pale blue-white light of a TV flickered behind the curtain; Herman slept with the TV on, which was entirely wrong in a Freudian feng shui kind of way. Freud said that for every couple having sex there’s always at least six people in the bed, counting both sets of parents. With Herman, there was a whole laugh track, a news report, commercial breaks. There was product placement, right through climax, through dreams, through the morning alarm. There was a focus on ratings, but zero award nominations.
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? I got down on my knees in the pile of costumes, new jugs swinging low, and kept up the search. Soon enough, my hand found the curve of the Fabulous Fat Ass. The matching partner, the bottom half of a two-piece ensemble. And just like that, a new idea was born : Hello Juicy Caboosey Show !
It all made sense. I’d be a sassy, busty clown girl juggling fire. Of course—why not? I’d play to crowds high and low. I’d find the fine line between Crack’s clown whore and my own comic interpretation, work both sides and move easily from the comedy of burlesque to striptease, slapstick to sexy. I’d graduate from Clown Girl to Clown Woman.
I stood on my knees in the world of costumes, slid down the elastic waist of my striped satin pants, and sang quietly, I’m every woman… The Fabulous Fat Ass snapped on in front. If getting dressed as a clown is about tapping into spiritual guides, finding history in the clothes and makeup, well, my spiritual guide for this show was one big girl—sexy, round, and ripe. Who wants to be a skinny, orphaned, emancipated clown bruised by a miscarriage? No, I’d transform myself into a fertility goddess. It was the Venus of Willendorf calling me out.
Other than a little camel toe as I stretched the formerly loose pants back over the Ass, it all came together so easily! I’d invent my own show, self-promote, and move from clown lackey to star performer.
I pulled the valerian vial from my long pocket and shot a few more drops of valerian over the tumbler of melting ice to calm my thrilled nerves, mitigate my fear of success, fear of failure. I could do this. I could bust out in my own newly busty way.
And the key to success was Rex’s tip: Burn shit up. Light anything on fire, audiences love it. I swung the melons left and right, shimmied my shoulders, and on my knees did the Grand Teton Jiggle Dance.
I’d do a new silent, sexy version of Kafka: Gregor Samsa wakes up, finds he’s metamorphosed into a woman with an hourglass figure—where every second counts !—and his world’s on fire. I’d do a busty Beef-Brisket Dance, on fire. Two Clowns in a Shower on fire. And Who’s Hogging the Water?—that’d be mixed genre, soft porn plus fire. Even an ordinary juggling show with a bodacious bod and the pins on fire would be a new show altogether.
I found a tin of face paints in the medicine chest. In the cabinet’s mirror, I patted white on my cheeks, drew stars around my eyes, and lined my lips deep red.
A narrow cabinet opposite the cot, near the ambulance’s back doors, had once held an oxygen tank and hoses. I crouched down in front of that cabinet and rested on the Ass like it was a beanbag chair. Soon as I opened the slim cabinet door Rex’s spare fire-juggling batons, his best maple-and-asbestos-handled torches, fell out—like a sign that I was on the right path, the torches fell right into my new mondo bazookas, right into my ripe casabas, bounced off, and landed in my lushly padded lap.
AS I STOOD IN MY HOMEMADE CROP CIRCLE IN HERMAN’S backyard, I saw the first complication : Juggling with boobs demands a whole new skill set, with a new center of balance and an increased
sense of self. In short—the boobs were in the way.
I started with practice tosses. Three balls in the air. My arms smacked the sides of the heavy, swinging nylon sacks. I knocked into one gazonga and missed a catch, first try. The boob barked out its duck call. But the Fabulous Ass kept me grounded and I gave it a shake-shake-shake, like maracas, as I tossed the juggling balls.
I had a small tape player in the backyard, and played Stevie Wonder in a whisper as I warmed up. When the summer came… One ball, then two, then three in the air, quick and easy tosses; I grew accustomed to moving with the Pendulous Breasts. It was great to be up and working so early. Shadows moved in the hedges that lined the yard. The tall grass rustled. This was the clown equivalent of farmwork. I tossed two balls up into the night sky as one came down, then reversed the pattern. Two down, one up ; two up, one down. Milking the Cows, I’d call it.
Simple stuff, child’s play.
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 ? Shit, is that you, Clown Girl ?”
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 fa
st 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 a circle and threw myself down. I rolled on the grass where the grass wasn’t on fire, but the Pendulous Breasts resisted my momentum, and everywhere I rolled sparks flew. The Pendulous Breasts duck-quacked and chirped a cacophony of party sounds. I was guilty, and now I was on fire. Who would’ve known hell was so efficient? A few mistakes and hell came to me faster than room service.
Stevie Wonder’s voice melted, then ground to a slurry, low halt.
A fist came at my face in scattered blows. I was blinded. No—not a fist. It was a hard blast, a bitter stream, a fire extinguisher beat against me.
“Coulrophobia !” I sputtered. The fire extinguisher gang !
The blast moved from my face down my arm, then was gone. I blinked until my vision cleared.
The first thing I saw was Herman’s naked muscled butt, his pants in one hand. He sprayed a white blast of fire extinguisher foam, but the extinguisher was small, and here size definitely mattered ; it sent a stream light as piss dancing over the sizzling yard.
“Get the hose !” He yelled. “Spray down the house.”
I tried to breathe.
When I didn’t move, he yelled again. “You’re out, OK? You’re out. So help with this shit.”
