by Annam Manthiram
\n
<\/br>
\nWhen we made love, the white never came off his face.<\/p>\n
I met him after a rodeo in Kansas.\u00a0 He was the clown that got himself bucked Christopher Reeve style and had to be taken to the hospital; my mother was his bed-mate.\u00a0 The two got along well, though my mother said it frightened her that he never cared to wash away the clown parts.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t ask him to of course, that being his livelihood and one wouldn\u2019t ask a member of the NRA to put aside his guns.<\/p>\n
It was my mother\u2019s second day in the hospital; she\u2019d been admitted for a quickie hysterectomy.\u00a0 She told me that they didn\u2019t take their time with a woman\u2019s vagina once you were old, so she was in and out of there in less than a week.\u00a0 During one of her naps, the clown had asked me for a drink of water.\u00a0 Both of his arms were in casts, and he explained that he was tired of bugging the nurses for help because all they wanted to do was laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey see a lot of sadness around here,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cI suppose they get to needing some cheering up, but I\u2019m too tired for all that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I shoved the curtain aside, I saw that he was fully dressed in the manner of a stereotypical clown, complete with a red bulb nose, pasty white makeup, and a curly yellow wig.\u00a0 He looked more like a pastiche of a clown than an actual clown.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Dolores,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDolores.\u00a0 I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
I stood, holding the plastic tumbler of water to his lips, feeling awkward that I was a party to something so private.\u00a0 The act of drinking seemed so naked.\u00a0 After he was done, he asked me, \u201cDolores, would you like to go out sometime?\u201d<\/p>\n
That was how it started.<\/p>\n
After his casts were off, I saw that his forearms were large and tender like the premium meat my mother went bonkers for at the deli down the street, and once he and I figured out how our joints fit, we spent most of our time at my house.<\/p>\n
He was a patient but passionate lover: always asking me if I was satisfied, and if I wasn\u2019t, he tried his best until I was.\u00a0 To be with a clown wasn\u2019t in the scenarios that got me hot in those romance books I read, so I usually closed my eyes during sex.<\/p>\n
When I visited with my mother, she\u2019d ask me, \u201cWhat does he really look like, under all that?\u201d\u00a0 I told her he was handsome, but I never spoke the truth: that I had yet to see what he really looked like.<\/p>\n
Several months into our relationship, I grew tired of being the girl who was dating the clown.\u00a0 I was a plain girl with average brown hair and cat-like eyes.\u00a0 No one had ever stared at me before, but now everyone stared at us wherever we went.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t like the attention; he seemed oblivious to it.<\/p>\n
At first, I liked how he\u2019d create balloon animals for the kids who smiled at us.\u00a0 Later, it annoyed me, and I was annoyed at myself for disliking the parts of him that were so selfless.\u00a0 It was hard to separate who he was from what he was.\u00a0 The two blended together, and I wasn\u2019t certain it was a bad thing.<\/p>\n
I came clean to my mother about his permanent disguise, and she said it wasn\u2019t respectable and likened it to those freaks who made their way through town from cities like Los Angeles or Seattle.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake him show himself.\u00a0 It\u2019s not right,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Still, I waited.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t the right time to ask that of him, and I was unsure of where all of this was going.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe makes me laugh.\u00a0 He\u2019s useful,\u201d I said, when my mother pestered me again.\u00a0 Earlier that morning, he\u2019d changed the light bulb in my kitchen without a step stool.\u00a0 He was tall.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes he wake up that way?\u00a0 What does he look like coming out of the shower?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 He never showers at my place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDolores, you sure have a way of catching them.\u201d
\n
<\/br>
\nOn our six-month anniversary, he took us to the best restaurant in town: a faux-authentic Italian eatery run by Indians.\u00a0 The food had a slight curry taste to it, which I liked.\u00a0 It gave it an edge.<\/p>\n
I wore the blue-green blouse he said reminded him of kelp, and he wore the clown suit with the brass buttons, but we were declined seating because of his clown face.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cIt was supposed to be a special night for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s order pizza,\u201d I said.\u00a0 We drove to his place.<\/p>\n
I had come to appreciate his house, for it was completely opposite of who he was.\u00a0 He said the house had originally belonged to his grandmother, who\u2019d had a disdain for anything embellished or garish.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe didn\u2019t believe in furniture,\u201d he said.\u00a0 As a result, there were expanses of empty space intermingled with Technicolor clown gear, kind of like a modernist art exhibit.<\/p>\n
In the living room (the area most sparse), he fed me slices of cheese, and I licked his fingers afterward.\u00a0 He tickled the insides of my ears when I drank soda and told me how much he cared for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m starting to love you a little,\u201d he whispered.\u00a0 We held each other close, the puffy sleeves from his outfit grazing the inner parts of my elbows until his stomach gurgled and he reached for another slice.\u00a0 Halfway through eating it, a round of tomato sauce squirted over his face.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrap,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere,\u201d I said, extending a napkin. \u00a0He dabbed at it lightly, but the sauce was already starting to crust.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo use the bathroom, rinse it off,\u201d I said.\u00a0 He shook his head no.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s okay, it\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, it\u2019s disgusting.\u00a0 Wash it off,\u201d I said, my voice starting to get a little louder.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is your problem?\u00a0 It\u2019s not right.\u201d\u00a0 I found myself using my mother\u2019s words, unable to stop.<\/p>\n
When we became more concerned with the volume of our voices than the substance of our sentences, he locked himself in the bathroom.\u00a0 I waited and waited and waited for him to come out.\u00a0 Finally, I dozed off on the floor next to the pizza box that was already starting to gather ants.\u00a0 When I woke, I saw that he had fallen asleep in his bed, the crazy kind where your legs twitch and your mouth moves.\u00a0 His face was white like a chocolate moon, the sauce completely gone.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I tried to call him, but he didn\u2019t answer.\u00a0 I went to his house, but either he wasn\u2019t home or he didn\u2019t want to come to the door.\u00a0 After two weeks, he called to say he thought it was best if we didn\u2019t see each other anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause you want to change me, and I don\u2019t want to be changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even know what you look like, for real.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo!\u201d\u00a0 I shouted.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re not a real fucking clown, okay!\u201d\u00a0 I waited for a response, but all I heard was silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoodbye,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I felt our breakup like a broken bone.\u00a0 For six straight months I cried.\u00a0 Only in the mornings, when I realized he was gone and that I was the reason he had left.<\/p>\n
<\/br>
\nA year later, my mother died from complications related to her hysterectomy.\u00a0 In a small town like ours, there wasn\u2019t much I could do in the way of filing a malpractice suit.\u00a0 I accepted her death the way I accepted most things that were difficult in my life.\u00a0 I slept a lot and watched the junk TV my mother was fond of.\u00a0 It made me feel like she was still here.<\/p>\n
At the funeral, the clown showed up.\u00a0 He was dressed in black this time, no cartoonish garb, but his face was still painted and his wig still yellow.\u00a0 Angry that he\u2019d ignored me for over a year and now chose to make a statement after my mother\u2019s death when I really had nobody at all, I moved to tell him to leave, to fuck off.<\/p>\n
When I drew closer to him, I noticed he was crying.\u00a0 The tears were coming down faster than he could wipe them away.\u00a0 And as he rubbed at his face, harder and harder, trying to get at the tears, his face was still white, the tissues still clean.\u00a0 I then touched his face, kissed his lips.\u00a0 While we hugged, I pulled at the back of his wig, but it was rooted solidly in place.\u00a0 We separated, and I looked at him for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s you,\u201d I finally said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDolores, it\u2019s always been me,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n
I nodded, and we held hands as we went to say goodbye to my mother. Annam\u2019s fiction has also been nominated for the PEN\/O\u2019Henry Prize and inclusion in the Best American Short Stories anthology. A graduate of the M.A. Writing program at the University of Southern California and a 2010 Squaw Valley Writers Conference scholar, Ms. Manthiram resides in New Mexico with her husband, Alex, and son, Sathya. So far, she is quite enchanted.<\/p>\n You can visit her online at AnnamManthiram.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Annam Manthiram When we made love, the white never came off his face. I met him after a rodeo in Kansas.\u00a0 He was the clown that got himself bucked Christopher Reeve style and had to be taken to the … Continue reading
\n
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nANNAM MANTHIRAM<\/strong> is the author of two novels, The Goju Story<\/em> and After the Tsunami<\/em>, and a short story collection (Dysfunction<\/em>), which was a Finalist in the 2010 Elixir Press Fiction Award and received Honorable Mention in Leapfrog Press\u2019 2010 fiction contest. She is proud of the fact that her work has been published (or is forthcoming) in many cool places.<\/p>\n