Clown Girl. Monica Drake

       1.

       The Clown Falls Down; or, Sniffles Stumbles

      BALLOON TYING FOR CHRIST WAS THE CHEAPEST BALLOON manual I could find. The day I bought it, it was hidden on the lowest rung of a dusty spinner rack down at Callan’s Novelties, snuggled alongside shopworn how-to guides: Travel Europe by Clown Circuit!, Rubber Vomit Skits for Beginners, and Latex: The Beauty of Cuts, Bruises, Scars, and Contusions.

      Want to tie the Virgin Mary? Start with a light blue balloon. For Jesus, use Easter green. There are tips on tying a crucifix, a lamb, even a Sacred Heart in two sizes, big or small. Ooo la la! These tricks are simple but smart. The grand finale is the pietà, Mary with a grown Jesus sprawled across her lap in a four-balloon extravaganza like a tangled link of sausages, or a Japanese bondage trick. The pietà or bondage, sacred and profane; in balloon art the two are that close together, one thin twist.

      I studied all twenty pages of the flimsy, hand-stapled booklet. And so, ta da! By the chance of cheap pricing I’d come to specialize in religious tricks, clown iconography and chicanery extraordinaire! Most people, though, looked at my balloon art and saw what they wanted to see instead. It was Interpretive Art, abstract and expressionistic. The big plan? I had one. Someday I’d be able to tie all the great works, starting with da Vinci’s Madonna of the Rocks complete with Baby Jesus, John the Baptist, and a little balloon-twisted angel clustered together on a rocky perch. Already I’d invented my own version of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s image of God giving breath to Adam. Two balloons linked formed their famous outstretched fingers.

      Saturday afternoon, in the thick of a street crowd, I tied a crown of thorns and handed the crown to a tiny girl in a fake leopard sundress. She put the crown on her head as a tiara. “Lovely, lovely,” the girl’s mother murmured, and tapped the crown with one jeweled hand.

      Pure princess, in a crown meant for a martyr.

      The mother pulled her tiny daughter away from the spill of day care overflow, five-year-olds out to celebrate the King’s Row street fair. The pack surged forward. My makeup was sweating off and my feet hit flat and hard against the cement in cheap, oversized shoes. The summer sun was hotter than I’d ever welcome in the city even on a Saturday. Unused balloons clumped together in the hothouse of my pink vinyl shoulder bag alongside juggling balls, a sleek silver gun, and the gentle rub of a rubber chicken. I pulled out a handful of balloons like gummed spaghetti.

      It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God…That’s the biblical quote, but in the world of balloon art the old Camel Through the Eye of a Needle trick is easier than it sounds. Start with one balloon, underinflated. Make the camel really small. Twist a long balloon around the camel’s back—that’s the needle—and cinch it like a girdle.

      I passed the camel and the needle to the dirty fist of the highest bidder, an anonymous reaching hand with a five-dollar tip crushed in it. Bingo! A five-year-old with a five-spot was rich enough for the temporary kingdom of balloon heaven on earth. I shoved the cash in the sleeve of my striped shirt, pulled out another balloon.

      Once balloon tying starts you can’t get away. There’s always a river of kids. I was hired as a roving clown, but no way could I rove. Kids had me corralled, pushed to the side of the Do-Your-Own ceramics place, what used to be the Wishy Washy Laundry with all-day breakfast and off-track betting. Next door was the Pawn and Preen, our little local hockshop salon, but the P and P had been turned into a dog biscuit bakery, and for this King’s Row celebrated. Street fair vendors filled the air with the grease of Wiggly Fries. I whistled, tra la la, and tried to sidle. Kids blocked my path like little sentries, hands up, demanding balloons.

      Matey and Crack were team-juggling. Crack balanced on a fire hydrant. I waved a hand. Ah, yoo-hoo! I pulled an automated plastic wolf whistle from the sleeve of my shirt and gave it a go. With the press of a button, the whistle let loose the loud up-and-down bars of a sexy call.

      They looked my way. I waved again.

      They stopped juggling and froze. Matey drew fast from her old Creative Incompetence routine; she turned to Crack, looked over her shoulder, past the purple stuffed parrot sewn there, and made herself comic-style confused, head tipped, one hand scratching. Crack leaned back and shook a long, striped, stocking-covered leg at me, a floozy on the fire hydrant in her version of a high-wire act. They mirrored each other’s shoulder shrugs and went back to juggling.

      I was on my own. There was no room for sidling, running, sneaking off. No way out but on with the show. To tie a wise man, start with yellow, a knot at his neck like a collapsed artery, head like an engorged penis. Yellow is all about wisdom. It doesn’t say that in the Christian book, but Buddha was yellow, every good Buddhist knows it, and in the nineteenth century some big psychic seer announced that a wise person’s aura is mostly yellow too. The Hopi Indians, they believe in the wisdom of yellow clowns. I tied a skinny sheep for a greasy-haired kid and another took his spot like water rushing in.

      With the tip of the toe on my oversized shoe, I pantomimed a line on the sidewalk, a place not to cross, and the kids crossed it.

      Hands to my hips, balloons in a fist, I drew the line again. One kid pushed three others over the line, and they laughed. I squirted the squirting daisy pinned to my frayed lapel. A spit of water hit a child’s face. “Hey!” he said, and wiped a hand down his cheek. Another kid pushed him forward.

      I squirted again, still smiling.

      Those kids, the beasts, vigorous in their balloon lust, were God’s constant audience, according to Balloon Tying for Christ. But for the moment they were my audience, my bread and butter, and they grabbed my clown pants, my shoulder bag, my hot, limp balloons.

      The rubber chicken fell out of my prop bag. I dove for the chicken, chased off a pudgy dumpling of a child, got up and fast pantomimed the line again.

      The problem was, by my own self-imposed rules I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t yell. I don’t believe there is a good clown voice except maybe a helium breather or some loud, fake Italian braying. Any human voice spoken from a clown face ruins the illusion. My kind of clown says nothing. If we were the Marx brothers—Matey, Crack, and me, I’d be Harpo. If we were in mime gear, what I do might look like mime. The result? Kids don’t listen, but on the up-side—I’ve never been asked on so many dates in my life.

      I tied another sheep and broke a clown rule by making two of the same animal in a row. While I tied the sheep and drew the line on the ground to hold back the pack of tiny, sticky hands, a man passed me his business card. Who are you? he’d written on the back. Can I get your number?

      He was an architect, the card said. A Spatial Use and Planning Consultant.

      A clown fetishist. A coulrophile. I put the card in my bag and gave a fresh balloon a quick, professional snap. Blowing up balloons made me dizzy, but it was only a passing moment of dizziness. Learning to blow a long, tight, and skinny balloon is a trick in itself—it’s all diaphragm, no cheek action. Maybe that’s what the fetishists like, the lip work. I smiled at the architect sweating in his summer suit. His face was flushed. His hands ended in a row of rubbery pink fingers like underinflated balloon art.

      A second man gave me the dancing-eyebrow