Free Clown Girl by Monica Drake; Chuck Palahniuk Page A

They leaned in close, as though to kiss themselves as they painted their eyes and lips with tiny brushes. The air was a sickening war between the bathroom’s sanitizer and an army of cheap perfume. Crack, in her black suit and white shirt, pushed dresses aside and wedged her way into the line. Prom girls cackled and fluttered, hens in a henhouse.
    “Hey,” a hen girl clucked. She had lipstick on her top lip but not yet on the bottom, one bright red lip, the other dry and pale. “You can’t be in here. This is the women’s room.”
    Crack tipped her hairpiece. “You must be the housemother, yes?” She grabbed her own boobs through her oversized, rumpled men’s dress shirt. “Want to go over my credentials, cupcake?”
    Matey moved in behind the girl, hands flat on her flat chest. She stuck her tongue out to one side and let her eyes roll. “Me next, me next!” She pressed up behind the prom queen.
    The girl backed off, wobbly in high heels, and found a place between her friends, body guards in tulle and crepe. Matey and I wedged into the girl’s spot. I tipped my plastic bowler and smiled, clown sign language for Sorry . To say, We’re all friends here .
    To Crack I hissed, “What is this, West Side Story ? You give these birds reason to hate us.”
    Crack said, “Aw, you’re going soft.” She snapped open her hot pink shoulder bag. The shoulder bags were the matching part of our costumes, bought at Ross to look like a team and to hold props while we worked. She poured trays of makeup on the counter, along with triangular sponge applicators, makeup pencils, tampons, a kazoo, and a washcloth. Our makeup came in kits like grade school watercolors. Each color was a small round cake. A paintbrush snapped in place to the side.
    Crack spread white makeup on her cheek. She said, “Chaplin. Hop to it,” and she looked at me. “Well, step on it, Sniff. Get your Chaplin on, girl.”
    “All of us?” I asked. “So, we’re all the same?”
    Matey nodded, twisted sideways and crowded in beside me in the mirror. “We’re all Chaplin.”
    I said, “We’re all Chaplin. Bejesus. That’s so redundant. Like three Mickey Mouses in the Macy’s parade, or three promotional Snow Whites at the same video store.”
    “Or ten prom queens in the same john,” Matey said, loud. Painted eyes flickered our way and glared in the mirror.
    “What’s redundancy got to do with the price of eggs?” Crack said. “Fetishism is the key. Tap into a fetish, we’ll make a fortune, see?” Her face was white now, with no color at all: Lips, white. Eyebrows dusted white. Only her brown eyes, moving fast, were still dark against her face. Her eyes sized me up in the mirror. “If you’re not interested in cash, let me know.” She looked at me in the mirror, then at herself, then at Matey, then at me again. “If you’re keen on small potatoes and Food Fairs, that’s your trip. Fine. I’ll find another clown girl, read me?”
    I twisted my hair into a high topknot. “‘Greed has poisoned men’s souls,’” I said, and slid a bobby pin in.
    “ Hell-o ?” Crack said. “Say what?”
    “…has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.”
    Crack painted on her tiny Chaplin mustache. “Look, I’m not exactly taking it out of your hide. I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’m here to make a buck…”
    I said, “Just quoting Chaplin. I’ve sure you’ve seen The Great Dictator .” I tucked in more hairpins to keep my hair off my face and flat under the bowler.
    Matey piped up: “Like, how do you quote a silent flick? Riddle me that one.”
    I finished pinning my hair and said, “You’re doing that on purpose, I hope.”
    “Don’t count on it,” Crack said. With her tiny mustache and the slick hairpiece, Crack looked halfway to her own dictatorship.
    I said, “So, what kind of fetishes are we selling tonight? Chaplin and hairbrush spankings, for the prom crowd?” I pulled my makeup palette from the bag and