your color

by Evan Rehill

The place is full of clowns. Her husband proposed to her in this bar. She has celebrated all of her friends’ birthdays here. When she feels restless she shows up here to play pinball and listen to the jukebox. She knows all of the bartenders’ names, not because she is a drunk but because it is that kind of atmosphere. And she has never seen a clown in the place.

She approaches the bartender and says "Hi Doc" and he says "Hey there’’ and she says “What’s going on?’’ and he says ‘’Clowns all over the place.’’

Her husband is meeting her here so she settles into a booth with her drink. She looks around. They are everywhere. Wigs, makeup, loud horns. Some of them are lighting firecrackers with the ends of their cigars and throwing them to the floor, where they explode into smoking confetti. They are all drinking martinis. She has always hated clowns.

She looks at her watch (he’s late) and takes a long sip from her drink before heading for the bathroom. To get there she has to wade through the clowns. One of them twists a balloon into a giraffe and hands it to her. When she gets inside the ladies’ room she has a hard time focusing her image reflecting in the mirror. They are dancing and throwing firecrackers when she comes back out. They surround her yelling “clown attack! clown attack!’’ and she says “excuse me, excuse me.’’

They hand her a martini.

“I’ve really got to get going,’’ she says. If she closes her eyes now she sees elephants sauntering beneath trapeze girls who go on spinning, endlessly. She feels dizzy and sits down on the couch.

They’ve got the makeup kit out and are powdering her face.

“I’m thinking pink is your color,’’ says an enormous clown smoking a cigar. She feels he must be three hundred pounds without his costume. She pictures him standing on a scale naked. He pulls a pink wig out of his bag and hands it to her. They finish applying her makeup and she places the wig on her head. The clowns applaud.

“My husband is meeting me here,’’ she says. She sees herself crammed into a tiny car with all of them, driving into the night. “He better get here soon,’’ the three-hundred-pound clown says, “I’m almost out of wigs.’’

She watches her husband enter the bar, a look of amusement spreading across his face. She wonders if she should stand up, knock the clowns out of the way and yell, “Here! I’m over here!’’

Her husband talks to Doc at the bar. The enormous clown is standing beside her, “There’s a private clown party happening down in the cellar, you want to come?’’ He gestures toward a closed door.

She wants to see what is behind that door, any door, just put a door in front of her and she will open it.

“No.’’

“O.K.,’’ he says, and walks off.

She stands up and follows him. He stops at the cellar door and turns toward her, his hand resting on the handle.

Her husband is sitting at the bar smoking, looking around for her. She wants him to look her in the eye, a clown he does not recognize, and spill his drink all over himself.

The clown opens the door saying, “Pink is definitely your color.’’

Down in the cellar, ten or eleven clowns are standing around smoking a joint. One of them starts coughing smoke out his nostrils as they descend the stairs, pointing, “Who are you clowns?’’ Everyone laughs and honks a horn. She is handed a horn. The spontaneous, fleeting music is intoxicating.

She smokes the joint and passes it around. One of the clowns throws his martini glass across the room and it shatters against the far wall. The horns sound off and the dancing starts up again. Everyone is yelling and firecrackers are exploding all across the floor. The clowns pull booze from storage racks and begin to juggle, bottles flying through the dark cellar in a maelstrom of colors. There is the sense of someone about to be fired out of a cannon, into the air.

She wants to kiss the three-hundred-pound clown smoking a cigar. She wants to take his martini out of his hand, drain it, and smash the glass on the floor. She wants to run her hands through his wig and try not to ruin his makeup. She approaches him through the noise, honking her horn. He turns and makes a face like she is a car about to run him over. He looks around in mock terror and holds up his hands as she gets nearer. His eyes search for a trap door to open, an escape hatch hidden anywhere. Her horn is either a signal to open up the gates or a warning to get out of the way. At the last minute, as she is about to arrive, he covers up his eyes.