CUT AND DRY
By Charles E. Kraus
Sometime in 2010 ......
For a while there, say the first twenty minutes, when the blood was seeping through the towels, I was the least happy clown since Emit Kelly played the Garden. Until the accident, I never knew you could use Mehron Clown White grease paint as a coagulant.
You may not consider my show business career very high end. When I'm not writing, often, I'm performing. Just a kid's act. Clown, magician, more clown than magician now because the make-up reduces comments about my age.
Kids-show people either stay in town and entertain at birthday parties or they move from school to school, library to library, recreation center to state fair, from festivals of the arts to festivals of the darts. It's quite a circuit. They get in their cars, drive three hundred miles, unload, set the stage; the "stage" might be a field, a room, or just a portion of a busy library with the kids seated on the floor. They amaze, possible amuse, strike the set, drive to the next gig or find their motel, then dine at McDonald's. OK, make your demeaning comments. Just keep in mind, during my summer road trips -- if I do a show or two a day, I can make a living.
I hit the motel in San Jose one night late summer. I'm about fifty-five years into my career. Not many "new" customers. But the regulars still like me. They phone my wife, and using just enough tact to avoid direct questions such as, is he still alive and vertical, ask if I'm available for a performance. San Jose calls. I respond, and so here I am yet again.
I'm scheduled for the Cambrian Library, on Hillsdale Avenue. The program is not going to attract Silicon Valley's affluent tec-tots. Most likely I'll face a room full of Hispanic and Asian children from hard working everyday families. Deal me in. Doing shows is my therapy, my self esteem, possibly my ticket to a Heavenly venue.
I reach the motel the night before, coming in from two library performances in San Francisco. Shows are easy, but you try parking within blocks of the Chinatown library. You try the 101 South during rush hour. Hitting San Jose feels like a milestone. Before exiting the car, I glance at the dashboard temperature gage -- the one estimating how things are doing outside, beyond mobile air conditioning. Hundred and twelve. Hundred and twelve? Naw ... Chinatown was in the eighties. I open the door. Hundred and twelve. Confirmed. By the time I reach the room, nothing much is left in me. Uncle. Enough. You win. Go away. Leave me alone. See you in the morning. We are currently closed for repairs. Lights out. Is the unused portion of the day returnable for a full refund? I'm think the Motel Six air conditioner was purchased from a bankruptcy sale at the Motel Four and a Half. The only thing cool about it is the retro 1980's design.
Cambrian is a 10:00 a.m. appearance, meaning I have to arrive by 9:00. Such arrangements are stupid, always. Libraries DO NOT OPEN until 10. You'll find me pounding on the door at 9:30 hoping my paradiddling will remind staff I'm not some street guy asking to use the facilities.
Actually, the setup begins the night before.
Motel Six, at least this one, does not provide an ironing board. You free a pillowcase or two from other responsibilities, spread these on what passes for a nightstand, apply your travel iron and perfect your costume. Ironing a clown outfit on a two by two table, you assume that each time you rotate the pants, the pillowcases will shift, bunch up under the garment, or fall on the floor. You are correct. Don't forget to prepare the scarves for the flag trick. "Here I have a red scarf, a blue scarf and a white one. Bingo Presto .... what's the magic word? READ! The silks blend into a genuine American flag!" The scarves are a little threadbare. I've taken to waving them around; in motion they look just fine.
Not trusting the front desk, I set my cell and the radio-alarm clock for Seven. No. Seven sounds awful. Seven-thirty. Plenty of time to wash, shave, load the car. Breakfast. Not McDonalds. Not again. Subway has the egg thing sandwich. Not so much "egg," sort of a flat, circular yellow disk microwaved into edibility. The route has been looked up on Google Maps. No printout. No printer. This is before GPS. I write the route down and put the scrap of paper into my puppet's mouth. I take the puppet, I have the route with me. Unless Biscuit The Dog eats it.
Next it is morning. Man I hate early shows.
I have a laptop. A cheap one. Acer. Its old enough so the battery is permanently deceased. If you hook the unit to the wall current, you can still run things. I plug it in, navigating to NPR.com. The bedside radio only picks up Country stations. Also revival meetings. The Acer, even when it was in its prime, full blasts audio by whispering. You listen standing still, devoting your attention. The cord is short and the only working outlet over by the TV. I want to hear the news and shave. Simultaneously. From the bathroom, NPR sounds like a trace element. I catch the gist of stories, but need to fill in details with imaginary facts.
I retrieve my razor and dollar store foam. Let's light up the place so we can catch a glimpse of the old unvarnished -- pre-clowned - face. Little stubble removal before applying the white. Clown makeup is my version of a reality distortion field. Eat your black heart out, Steve Jobs.
Turning on the bathroom's florescent creates its own distortion field, a sort of hum/crackle further degrading NPR's meek audio feed. Strangely, the Acer can broadcast the static at a much greater volume than mere conversation. So, OK, I'm flexible. The military taught me how to assemble an M16 while blindfolded. Surely, I can shave without benefit of the bathroom light. Despite my fading memory, I recall where I put my face.
I'm scraping the razor through the lather as Bob Edward's replacement -- many replacements, years of them, but each time I listen, I'm still expecting Edwards, helps me feel I'm informed. It's early. Not paying much attention to my facial maintenance, I'm alternately catching the news and taking a mental inventory of my puppet routines. "These kids are members of the Summer Reading Club." "Oh," says Bones The Dog, "I though they were part of the summer eating club." I'll use that.
As I rinse away the lather, instead of a harmonious complexion, I'm finding blood. Not, Oh, I cut myself while shaving blood. I'm talking about a massive, serious, unnerving gusher. Several of them. My face, my neck, my chin; I thought I was listening to the radio, but it appears I was actually participating in a knife fight.
A quick examination of the razor indicates that after years of using these devices then throwing them into my toilet kit, sans the little plastic sleeve you are supposed to slip over the blades, I've finally run out of lazyman's luck. The edge is mangled, contorted, jagged. It's become miniature dagger. Under protective cover of hot water and foam, the device silently shreded my face. My neck is sliced. My cheeks peeled. My chin suddenly has a cleft. I'm Kirk Douglas, in red. Dad told me clowning was a cut throat business, but I don't think he had this in mind.
Using tissues and toilet paper faster than you can say 'bleed to death," I'm making absolutely no healing progress. While applying pressure, I'm also thumbing through my belongings just in case I still have the first aid kit. Also, I'm eyeing the clock. Show time, or at least arrival time, is less than an hours worth of bleeding from just when I've run out of paper compresses and begun working the towels.
I have to get to a drug store. Calling on skills I never knew I had, I manage to load my props into the car without dying, and head for a nearby strip mall. Part of me is face focused, another aspect of my consciousness wonders how the Motel Six housekeeper is going to react to the cheery cherry accents that have been added to the bathroom walls, the counter and especially noteworthy, the Jackson Polk blood red treatment on the linoleum. Does she call the authorities? Perhaps I should have left a tip.
No pharmacy, but thank Heaven for Seven-Eleven. At only twice the price of a case of beer, I become the proud owner of a package of gauze. Damn. It is so late. This is when I should be pulling up to the library, not sitting five miles away grinding assorted dry goods into my face.
After a while, I'm either out of blood or have induced coagulation. If I don't move at all, I don't bleed. I blast the car heater hoping to dry the evidence. A union man who loves scabs. Reaching Cambrian, I sit in the car applying massive doses of Clown White, power it, and repeat the process until I've built a grease barrier that discourages bleeding while hiding the more grotesque aspects of my current effigy. I create lips, redden my nose, add colorful freckles, draw a large heart on my left cheek, and blue arches over my eyes. I take a red scarf from my prop case, twist portions around my neck, teasing the silk higher and higher then tuck the ends into my collar. If you didn't know what had transpired back at the motel, you'd merely suspect I had applied my clown persona with my eyes closed.
There is little point in trying to explain my new look. If the librarian suspects I'm camouflaging the results of a bar fight, or even a mugging, she's going to report me to some committee. Not only will I never again perform for her, I'll probably never again perform for any library in the San Jose Public Library System.
The children's librarian is not a morning person. She looks worse than I do. At first she barely nods hello. But as we walk to the community room, I catch her assessing her guest artist. To distract, I point here, there, waving my arms, telling funny stories, remembering the program I presented last year with the kid who raised his hand in the middle of the show and asked, "where do I pee?" To which another kid responded, "in your pants." All of this is met with silence.
I am left alone to set the stage, a glance in my hand mirror reveals several of my wounds have uncoagulated. Nothing exotic, but lots of oozing. More dabs, more white. Will the dam hold? Will the show go on? Will I succumb to iron deficiency anemia?
The kids enter. Fortunately, their focus is on the balloon comedy and the puppet routines.
"Here we are, Bones, in the library."
"I thought we were in a strawberry."
You had to be there. Unfortunately, so did I.
It was not my best performance. It was also not my worse. You might say it was a cut above the usual. And then, it was over.
Exit the kids. Enter the librarian ... my check in hand.
She spends a moment staring at me.
"That's amazing."
I wasn't sure how to respond. What exactly was amazing? My disfigured, slightly swollen face? My show?
"Very creative," she continues, handing over the fee.
Exit the librarian.
I dare not de-clown until I've left the premises, or perhaps the state.
I cram my props into cases, load the car, pull out with all deliberate speed, driving just far enough to park in privacy. Am I a wreck? Does my face look as bad as it feels? No. I'm more or less OK.
Interestingly, blood has mixed with grease paint forming designer swirls, multicolor, iridescent, textured patterns on the clown white.
Centered on my chin, appearing as if by magic, most likely droplet by droplet during the course of the show, a bright red star.
Wipes and makeup remover at the ready, a Motel 6 towel standing by just in case. Let the de-clowning process begin.
