Aught to be Clowns

The microphone smells like vomit and whiskey. I don’t know that, of course. I am making sweet love to it. I am Nora Jones; I am convinced of it. I am Fiona Apple, seducing the men sitting at the bar. Maybe one of them will pay my seventy-three dollar tab.

After my cigarette break, I will become Alicia Keys. My voice will carry out in to the alley and the locals will come flocking. There won’t be much room to flock too. Juan’s place is small and cozy. Some call it stuffy, I prefer to think of it as charming. It is no wider than the alley next to it. Juan even named it so. Jazz Alley… they love me here. This is the peak of my musical career. Here in this stuffy hallway of a bar, I am Aretha Franklin; I am Billie Holiday.

I sit in my stool at the bar and light a Camel. Juan pours a fresh drink. Double Crown and Coke. Sammy casually pokes me in the ribs and I turn to blow my smoke in his face.

“Take it easy, kitten,…” he says as he fans the smoke from his eyes. I don’t know why he cares; he has not been without a lit cigarette for the last 10 years. “You look beautiful tonight, doll…”

“Thanks, Sammy,” I say, impatiently. I slide from my stool and walk toward the front, and only, door. The current karaoke singer is attempting “Carry On My Wayward Son” and he is making a fine mess of things. I say something out loud about how a band should never name itself after a shitty state. Someone says, “Fuck you!” but I am already out the front door and into the November air.

The concrete out front seems slightly unstable, so I settle for leaning against the side of the building. Something is wet on my hand and it takes me a minute to notice how cold it is. I have spilled some of the whiskey and coke on myself.

“FCKiiiiiiiiiiit,” I say, only realizing I have said it out loud when someone responds.

“I’m Sorry??”

“I spilled.” I say, swaying a bit, “I said FUCK IT!!!” I laugh merrily to myself. The man sitting at the table, chuckles.

“You remind me of those old V8 commercials,” he says.

“Why?” I ask.

“You know how all of the people were kinda’ leanin’ to the side, like?”

Processing… processing…

The information takes a minute to compute, but I realize that I am leaning, significantly, to my right hand side. I shimmy my way up the wall, in to an upright position before I set my drink on the table. I try to light a new cigarette… I can’t seem to find the one I just had.

He asks me, “How long have you been singing?”

“Dude… only since I was a fetus,” I mumble this through a cigarette and cupped hands. I succeed in burning myself slightly with the flame of the lighter, but I won’t notice it until I see the blister in the morning.

He raises his eyebrows, “You don’t say!” His face is full of laughter, although we are not laughing.

“Yeah, man.” I am all too eager to share my history with this complete stranger, “My mom has had us on a stage since before grade school.”

“Us?” he seems genuinely interested now… and who wouldn’t?

“Me and my brothers.” I say, “They would dress us up and parade us around like little show ponies. Ever since we could memorize a song together she had us entered in all the little talent shows and shit.”

“Well, that’s pretty neat.” He says. I wonder why he has used the word “neat.” What a dumb word. It should only be used when ordering a drink.

“Well, it wasn’t, really,” I say, pretending to be slightly irritated, “It sucked a lot sometimes. You know any John Denver songs?”

“Can’t say that I do…”

“Well, I do! I know them very well.”

“He sang Rocky Mountain High… or whatever it was,” he contributes, valuably.

“Yea!” My mood immediately shifts. “John Denver was a pothead!” I laugh and laugh.

The man is laughing with me now. Later I will amend that to say that he was laughing at me.

“So what else do you sing?”

Disregarding his actual question I say, “Dude, my fuckin’ mom used to make me sing Celine Dion for company at home and for talent shows… I even sang it in church once. We changed the words so that it was about mothers on mother’s day. I mean…. What is that about, man? Celine Dion? What kind of fucked up shit is that?! I was like, thirteen, and singing all about the power of love…What kind of parents do that kind of fucked up shit, man?”

I have his full attention at this point. I am baffling him with the dreadful experiences of my past. He is fascinated that I survived such a psychologically damaging childhood.

“Lemme tell you another thing, dude. My mom was the first person to ever make me stuff my bra!” I say, eyebrows alert, ready for the certain look of shock from my audience.

He laughs, abruptly, startling me a bit.

“Awesome!”

“Not to me! They made me look like I had old saggy tits so I could sing about the bucket.”

“So you could sing about the bucket?” He asks through his continual laughter.

“Yeah, the hole in the bucket dear Liza. Dude! I was Liza!”

“Oh yeah?” Still trembling with amusement.

“Yeah, and my kid brother had a corn-cob pipe. He always got the cool props and shit! I just got saggy tits.”

“That must have made you bitter.”

“What are you, my shrink?”

He shrugged and continued to chuckle.

“They did that shit to me until middle school, when I started to make the rules!” I jam a thumb in my sternum.

“What happened in middle school?”

I try to think through a fog of liquor. Making a mental note that I am cut-off, I push the existing drink away from me.

“I sang a song. One they didn’t know about. I was encouraged to try out for a solo in choir and I got it.”

“What was it?”

I can’t hear his question. I am remembering the day I tried out for that solo.

My heart was pounding. I asked the teacher if I could face away from the class when I sang, so that my voice wouldn’t crack....

“Hellooo in there,” I see a hand wave in front of my face and am abruptly aware of my drunken reality. I can hear my friend, Scott, in the middle of his locally-famous Prince rendition.

“Dude, I gotta go.”

I leave my drink on the table and go inside. A group of people is in the front of the stage, singing along. All I want is your extra time and your….. Kiss!!!

I scribble on a piece of paper and hand it to the DJ.

“Let’s bring Amber back up here. Amber?”

I am situated on a barstool in front of the mic when the music starts and I soulfully begin….

“Isn’t it rich? Aren’t we a pair?......”

Two intoxicated couples slow dance. I sing with my eyes closed, picturing a time when my I wore a teal cumber bund. My hair was longer and my lungs pinker. Within the choir was my support, my motivation. I sang goodbye to my childhood, and to being a show-pony and started to sing for myself.

“I thought that you’d want what I want. Sorry, my dear.”

Juan is grinning behind the bar. Sammy is paying my tab. The man from outside is standing in the doorway, listening.

“But where are the clowns? There aught to be clowns.”

I open my eyes to look around the room. The drunk and desperate are here. The lonely, the depressed, and the hopeless sway over their drinks. This will be my final number.

“Don’t bother. They’re Here….”