Clown in the Moonlight

3

Rain pours down and there's death on the road. Flares burn around an accident, cops halt us and wave us through slowly as rubber-neckers check out the damage, searching for pieces of shattered bodies. A harsh crimson glow makes everyone look like they've dragged themselves out of intensive care burn units. I can't shake the feeling that I'm being followed by crows. Rain washes in across the back of my neck.

Linda's straightened herself out. She lights two more cigarettes, and goes to place one in my mouth. I block her arm and she pulls a face and says, "Oh, you're one of those. Can't kiss a girl after you cum in her mouth? Won't smoke a Marlboro if my lips have been on it first?"

She hands me the pack and I clamp a filter between my teeth and push in the lighter. It pops thirty seconds later and I raise it to the cigarette and puff heavily behind the wheel. She sits there brooding, smoking. I'm no longer quite as deviant or dangerous because I don't want to eat myself.

Paramedics are placing a sheet-covered gurney into the back of an ambulance. The contours are all wrong. There's no way to tell if it's a man or a woman or a kid. The faces lined up on the sides of the road are nearly featureless. We clear the area and I gun it, back wheels chirping on the rain-slick tar. The windshield wipers thunk in perfect rhythm with my heartbeat.

She says, "There's a party at Gwen's tomorrow night. Ricky will be there."

It's a dare. A taunt, a challenge. It's a summons. I ought to drop an anonymous tip and call in Gary's body, but I'm a little worried it'll somehow get back to me. I don't need cops bracing my ass again. I don't need more violations. I don't need more time in the stir or in the bin.

Besides, I want to meet him.

"There's going to be mescaline. Have you ever tried it?"

I have. I didn't like it. I don't understand how anyone can. I've tried all the psychotropics. Most of us on the ward have. They leave their fingerprints behind on our brains.

"I thought he was the king of acid?"

"He'll have plenty of LSD too, if you prefer that."

She knows I don't. She knows I don't partake. I haven't had so much as a beer in two years. I'm clean. I have to stay clean. Liquor and drugs only loosen the chains of my rage. I'm not going back to the stir. I'm not going back to the joint.

She's at my ear, nibbling. "Don't be upset."

I'm not. This has all happened many times before, like a well-rehearsed ballet. It's the thing I fear the most, if I fear anything at all. That I won't be able to fuck a chick in a park without her showing me a satanic sacrifice. That I can't walk up a dirt path without a member of some group like the Knights of the Black Circle turning up. That I can't stand at the fridge of a convenience store buying beer without a murderous girl with razor wire in her hair asking me to take a ride. It happens in smaller or larger form, everywhere I go. They find me or I find them, often in my dreams.

Even in juvie there were mutts with infernal or angelic script tattooed across their chests and backs, phrases in ancient Arabic or Assyrian they'd found on the Internet. In Bellvue there were entire wings devoted to the whack jobs who claimed to have made love to the Devil, or been raped by him, or who'd had their children eaten by him, or who'd murdered their babies in the name of him. And there were twice as many who said the same things about Christ.

Group therapy was something else with that bunch.

I think of my old man when he was in prison. One again I wonder how he survived. He's a tough prick but not nearly as tough as he thinks he is, and overestimating yourself is what brings the animals to your flanks. They must've smelled the terror he tried to hide beneath his hard man exterior. I know I do.

My father has no apprehension about telling me what he had to do to survive. He goes into great detail about shanking Aryans and Mexicans and blacks. He hates queers but explains without irony how he raped new fish. It's all true and all half-true. Most of what he did he did because he was a bitch. I imagine him face down on his bunk while a D-Block train formed behind him, his hate a living thing within him that ten or twenty other men try to dig out of his guts, inch by inch.

My father's fists are like steel. My father telling the doctors and teachers and truancy officers how clumsy I am. My father explaining how I trip over skateboards. How I run into fences trying to catch left field drives. My father, lying his ass off, still afraid of the world. And worse, looking at me when I'm nine and fully understanding that by the time I'm nineteen, he will tremble when I enter the house.

Linda talks about Gwen. They're best friends even though we've never hung out with her. I sense more than a little jealousy and rivalry. So that means Gwen's a looker. They've fought over boys, they've traded lovers, they've done their best to ruin each other's reputations. Linda sounds like she wants to share me with Gwen. I look at her and can't even remember how or when we met.

From second to second, even as I stare at her, I can hardly recall her face.

"Have you ever killed anyone?" she asks.