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ALEXIS, AKA THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
My clown costume designfalls somewhere between Harley Quinn and Pennywise. Unlike many lady performers, I de-whore the outfit with flats rather than heels. No hooker clowns here! I’m a professional entertainer for children’s events.
“You look weird,” Juno tells me as I paint a purple heart on my nose after hiding my freckles with white foundation. “How do you plan to seduce that large man when you look like Ronald McDonald’s rainbow bastard child?”
“West knows what I look like without the clown stuff.”
“Sure,” Zelda mutters as she stands in the hallway since there isn’t enough room in the bathroom for three people. “What’s this guy’s deal anyway?”
Juno explains, “Our family claims his entire bloodline is tainted by hickory.”
“By what?” I ask.
“Like hick and history as one word.”
“I don’t get it.”
Juno rolls her brown eyes. “His family’s full of hicks.”
“Sounds like projection,” I reply as I start my cheek paint.
Frowning now, Juno mumbles, “I don’t know what projection means.”
“But you knew hickory, huh?”
Juno sits on the toilet and pisses as my punishment. I ignore her behavior while adding shiny white color to my eyelids to prepare for the rainbow design. The sisters watch me intently.
“I could be a clown,” Juno insists. “I’m friendly and shit.”
“Not me,” Zelda says and sticks out her tongue.
“There isn’t enough clown work for us all to do it. We’d end up bogarting each other’s cash. Just find your own shit and let me do what God put me on the planet to accomplish.”
“Do you mean making very little money while enduring other people’s shitty kids?” Zelda asks.
“Yes, and I do it with a smile.”
Soon, my hair is styled in pigtail buns with double top knots. I’ve finished the cloud-and-rainbow design over each eye. Bright colors on a clown are the key to not mentally disfiguring kids.
My purple-and-white outfit was sewn by a trailer park chick in exchange for walking her wild dogs.
I paid for the material by waving a sign in front of a business on cloudy days when I wouldn’t burst into flames.
The shoes were paid for by picking up trash around a motel.
The makeup was a gift from my dad. So, it was likely stolen or, at least, the funds for it were.
“Nothing in life is free, Alexis,” Gary Toomey would tell me. “Unless you steal it. But only if you don’t get caught. Though jail does offer free food. The point is work is important.”
Gary isn’t a wise man. Or an honest one. But he is a man. In the trailer park, that was the only quality a person needed to be considered a prophet.
Despite his many flaws, Gary did show me how even the dumbest, laziest people could survive if they lacked shame.
That’s why I wear my clown outfit with pride, even though my cousins gawk at me as if I might unlock my jaw and consume their heads.
“You’ll haunt my nightmares,” Zelda says.
“You have tame nightmares,” I reply and grab my supply bag. “Which of you supportive freckle factories plans to drive me to Penny’s Best Pizzeria? Walking isn’t an option unless I want to sweat off all this makeup.”
