Goody One Shoe

by Julie Frayn

  As usual, God ignored her.

  Maybe it was time to update that agreement. After all, she wasn’t a frightened little girl anymore. She was a chicken-shit woman.

  Roger the Clown

  “I AM SO SICK of fucking toddlers. Man, I need a beer.” Roger yanked his rainbow wig from his head and scratched his bald scalp.

  “Maybe birthday clown wasn’t your best career choice, you stupid fuck.”

  Roger kicked Colin in the butt of his oversized polka dot pants. “Shut yer trap.” Roger lit a cigarette and watched a group of four boys ride by on their bikes. “The work sucks, but you can’t beat the side benefits.” He tapped Colin with the back of his hand and pointed half a block up the street. “Ready?”

  “Always ready.”

  Roger dropped his cigarette to the pavement and ground it out with the toe of his giant, red shoe. He set his wig back on and tugged it over his ears, his eyes trained on a fifth boy, a straggler who kept falling farther back from his friends.

  “Come on, Alan, pedal faster.” The volume of the boys’ calls dropped with each block of distance they put between them and the slowpoke.

  Roger grinned. There was always one left behind. The weakest member of the pack. Easy pickings. No marines, these kids.

  Semper fucking fi.

  Roger scanned the street. It was long past suppertime, the sunlight waning. Families were inside prepping for lights out. The neighbourhood was quiet, almost in stasis. The perfect hunting time. No one to hear the muffled screams of the sole weak link.

  He stepped into the road and tossed a glance over his shoulder. Where the hell did Colin disappear to? And why wasn’t the van door open and ready? “Colin,” he hissed. “Haul ass.” He ran his hands down the apple pattern that dotted his pants and strutted his wide-legged clown walk diagonally down the street toward the boy.

  The kid had dismounted his bike and was walking it up the inclined sidewalk. Ten yards away, he stopped and smiled at Roger. Then he smirked. “Nice wig.”

  Little shit. Mocking the clown. He’d soon learn.

  Never. Mock. The clown.

  A guttural moan cut through the silence, then a dull thud. Roger eyed the boy, his groin throbbed and ached. He looked back at the van. Through the passenger window, Colin’s rubber baldhead and polyester spun hair hit the windshield. A scream split the night.

  “Colin!” Roger turned back to the boy and mentally groped his untouched, soft, naïve flesh. “Damn it.”

  The kid’s smile had melted into a look of wide-eyed horror, his eyes pinned on the van. He put his feet on his pedals and found the adrenaline-fueled strength to speed his bike up the sidewalk.

  Roger grabbed his wig with both hands and ripped it from his head, watched his victim put too much distance between them to catch up. He couldn’t race after him. Not in clown shoes. “Shit!” Kid was right there, a sitting duck. So close he could taste him. Fucking Colin, probably just a clap scream. Another painful piss.

  Roger spun around. “Damn it, Colin.” Roger lifted his knees high and managed a comical jog. He stopped short at the front of the van. Colin’s wig was on the ground, red stains marred the pavement. Man, that was a bad case of gonorrhea. He needed to get to a doctor.

  The van jostled and rocked. Roger slid the door open. Colin was inside the darkness of the windowless van, face down. His checkered pants looked like they were soaking wet. The idiot had pissed himself.

  Roger kneeled on the van floor, rolled his partner over and slapped his cheek. “Colin, what the hell, man? We had the kid. He was right there.”

  Colin’s head lolled to the other side.

  Roger sat back sharply and gasped. He returned his eyes to his partner’s pants. It wasn’t piss, it was blood. His pants were cut and —

  Roger opened his mouth to scream. Nothing came out but a gurgle.

  Pain shot through his back. His body convulsed and flopped like a fish on the boat deck before it gets nailed in the head with a hammer. He fell on top of Colin’s legs, his face in Colin’s crotch. The coppery blood that soaked his clown pants filled Roger’s nostrils with the smell of welds he spent his working days burning onto pipes under strangers sinks and behind their piss-stained toilets.

  A hand grasped his shoulder and rolled him over. An imposing figure loomed above him. Heavy set, broad shouldered, hunched like the guy had seen his share of time in the boxing ring. He pulled a knife from his coat and brandished it in the dusk. He held it above his head. The sunset glinted off the edge as he swung it at Roger’s pants.

  Roger screamed like a little girl afraid of clowns and tried to cover his dick.

  The knife cut through his hands and stuck in his crotch. He screeched and cursed and kicked at the guy’s leg.

  The man didn’t flinch.

  Roger rolled over and tried to drag himself further into the van. It was like some lame-ass movie, a crappy slow-motion scene. All he could hear was his heartbeat thrumming in his ears. All he could smell was sweat and blood. Pain ripped through his ass. He screamed, his voice gaining volume. Why didn’t anyone hear him? Why wasn’t anyone trying to save him?

  He dug his fingers into the van’s smooth, metal floor. His pants were hot and wet but his legs like ice. His eyes lost focus and his head felt like a balloon floating above him. Blackness descended.

  Roger blinked against the glaring fluorescent light. The stink of antiseptic and anaesthetic with the underlying sulphur of stale urine seeped into his consciousness. He tried to sit up. Metal clanked against metal. He tugged on his right arm, opened his eyes wide. The room was stark white. He lay in a bed with little-kid bars. What, were they afraid he’d fall out like a fucking baby? He scanned his body. Bandages covered his hands, his wrists handcuffed to the bars. Blinding pain seared between his temples and ached between his legs.

  At the end of the bed stood a uniformed cop, one hand on his sidearm, the holster unclipped. The cop smirked, turned to the door. “Hey. He’s up.” He turned back and sneered at Roger, one side of his upper lip lifted and quivered. Elvis would have been proud. “Or should I say awake. You’ll never be up again.”

  The blood drained from Roger’s head. “What the hell does that mean?”

  The cop jerked his head at Roger’s crotch. “It means your days of sodomizing little boys are over, you sick fuck. He castrated you. Hell, he did one better. He lopped your entire package off.”

  “What?” Roger craned his neck and stared at his groin. All he saw were bed sheets. “You’re full of shit.” He dropped his head to the pillow.

  A tall reed of a man swept into the room, a white polyester coat open and flapping behind him. He lifted a chart from a hook on the end of the bed and came to a stop near Roger’s cuffed wrist. “Mr. Roger Graves?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “You lost a lot of blood. We cleaned up the wound and closed.” He flipped a page up. “We couldn’t. Couldn’t —” The doctor kept his eyes on the chart.

  “Couldn’t what, for fuck’s sake?”

  The doctor shifted his gaze and looked directly into Roger’s eyes. “Couldn’t reattach your penis or testicles.”

  The room spun. The bed opened up and swallowed Roger’s body whole. “No, that’s crap. You’re just fucking with me.”

  The doctor smirked too. “Well, fucking isn’t something you need to be concerned with anymore.” He snapped the paper back down and tossed the chart onto a side table. It landed with a crack. “Whoever did the honours of castrating you and excising your, shall we call it ‘manhood,’ didn’t leave the offending pieces behind.”

  “Must have kept ‘em as a souvenir,” the cop said. “Personally, I’d have chosen a postcard.”

  The doctor huffed a short laugh out his nose.

  Roger shot his eyes between the smug, bastard cop and the holier-than-thou doctor. “You think this is fucking funny? I’m mutilated. Maimed. Did they catch the guy?” He jangled the metal bracelet against the bar. “And why the fuck am I cuf
fed?”

  “A, nobody is looking for the guy.” The cop shifted his feet and fingered his trigger. “And B, your partner is dead. Bled out in your van of horrors. We searched it. You know, for evidence in the attack of two clowns. And guess what we found, you moron?”

  Roger swallowed. He knew what they’d found.

  “Yeah, your little Polaroid collection. Not the one we already have, the one that got thrown out of court. No search warrant, what a joke.” The cop’s face got redder as he spoke. “No, this is a new batch. Fourteen shots. Two boys. You dumb fuck.” He came around the other side of the bed. Bent down until his face was just inches from Roger’s. “We canvassed the neighbourhood. Another little kid identified you as the clown who was approaching him while he rode his bike. Whoever attacked you, well I’d say he got there just in the nick of time.” He stood at attention. “Right, Doc?”

  “Not my area. But I must agree.” He strode toward the door. “He’s yours anytime you want to lock him up, officer.”

  Roger glared at the cop. “Don’t you want my statement? A description of the prick that, that …”

  “Cut off your prick?” The cop threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, sure. Tell me all about it.”

  Roger swallowed. “He wasn’t that tall, but he was big. Or at least, his clothes were big. Had a hoodie, like he was wearing his dad’s clothes. He was all in black. With giant pants. Like he was a clown too, but a mafia clown or something.”

  The cop nodded. “Is that it?”

  “Aren’t you gonna write any of it down?”

  “Got it all up here.” The cop tapped his temple.

  “Sure. Sure you do.” Roger turned his head and looked out the window. Like hell would he let this ass-wipe see him cry. “He hid behind the hood, I never got a clear look at his face. He didn’t say anything. Not one fucking word.” He squinted. “One other thing. And it’s weird.”

  “What?”

  Roger turned and looked at the cop. “He smelled nice.”

  Tuesday, June 9th

  BILLIE SLAPPED THE SNOOZE button for the fifth time. She opened one eye and glared at the red digits. Almost six o’clock. Time to get out of bed already.

  She sat up and stretched. An ache shot through her shoulder and down her back. She arched her spine and turned side to side. A lovely crack eased some tension. She rubbed at her eyes. They just didn’t want to open fully. It was as if she hadn’t slept at all.

  She reached for Peg Leg but he wasn’t in his usual place. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, grabbed the horse-head cane that rested against the wall next to her headboard, and stood. She yawned, her mouth so wide open that her jaw cracked too.

  Coffee. That would fix her.

  Her foot caught on something and she pitched forward, flailed the cane in front of her and grasped the edge of the dresser. She righted herself and inspected the floor, which should be spotless. She never left anything out that she could trip on.

  The carpet was littered with clothes. She prodded a mound of black material speckled with cat hair with the brass tip of the cane. She snagged one of the garments and lifted it in the air.

  It was her father’s hoodie. She gasped, dropped the cane and sat on the carpet. She gathered his favourite hoodie, the one with his alma mater emblazoned on the back, into her arms and cradled it next to her cheek. She inhaled and squeezed her eyes shut. That hoodie used to keep her warm at night, but the remnants of his scent, British Sterling cologne and Irish Spring soap, had been overtaken by her own cocoa butter body lotion and vanilla bean deodorant. She’d tucked his things safely in the bottom of her closet hoping to make the smell last forever. Even after it had disappeared, she couldn’t bring herself to throw them away. It would be like burying him all over again.

  She turned to the cat. “Peg Leg, you naughty boy. Spent the night digging in the closet, eh?” Maybe she should have put them up high and out of reach of three-legged cats that can’t do vertical jumps. “His clothes smell like cat litter. And something else.” She sniffed again, scratched at a dried stain on the sleeve. Probably cat spit or snot. “Maybe I should wash them.” She bit her lip and stroked the hoodie. If she did that, would every bit of him be gone? Eliminated? He’d been eliminated once too often.

  She wagged a finger at Peg Leg. “You stay out of my closet, young man.” He purred and ran his body against her stump. She sighed and rubbed between his ears. It was impossible to be mad at him. He was the only one who stayed with her, alive and in the flesh. He hadn’t meant any harm. And she and the Lord knew the cat had no boundaries.

  She ran a lint roller over the clothes and folded them into a neat pile. She tucked them on the top shelf of the closet and went to find caffeine.

  New members at the gym always stopped and stared. Billie was so over it. She used to look away, blush, explain her circumstance so they’d stop looking at her. Now they could just flap in the confused wind. Maybe they weren’t confused. Perhaps they were totally freaked out. Whatever. They weren’t the first. And they wouldn’t be the last.

  She wiped sweat from her brow before it dripped into her eyes. Her reward for marathon gym sessions was the saline trail of her own exertion that dangled from her chin before dropping into her cleavage to tickle her breasts. The puddles of perspiration that soaked her underarms and dampened her crotch. Sweat was her gold medal in long-distance running. Proof that her heart still beat. But getting that salty liquid in her eyes burned like hellfire. The one time she wore a headband to prevent it, the regulars teased her about listening to Olivia Newton John and doing the Jane Fonda workout. The vague eighties references barely registered. She knew what they were talking about, but she was only a baby in that decade. Far more involved with Rainbow Brite and Teddy Ruxpin than leotards and aerobics.

  It was oddly comforting to be chided, as if she were one of the gang. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt part of a group. She secreted her pleasure at being teased for something other than missing a foot, for being stared at for wearing a headband instead of a running blade. At least she had control over her wardrobe. Though she never wore the headband again. Even gentle teasing from people that had grown accustomed to her presence shone too bright a spotlight on her. She’d rather be as invisible as possible in baggy, grey athletic gear, her hair in a ponytail high and wrapped into a bun so it didn’t bounce between her shoulder blades. Sweat-soaked hair became as sharp as a leather whip at seven miles per hour.

  Her shoulders ached through the run, her back tight. She almost didn’t bother. But it was Tuesday, and that meant she went to the gym before facing the subway, the office, the weasel, and the witch. That damn six-hundred-page behemoth of shit had already screwed with her schedule. Cost her four workouts and ruined the first Sunday sermon she’d attended in months. She had to get back on track. Back to ordinary. For Billie, ordinary meant strict adherence to the plan. To her daily outline. Her story and plot. She knew the narrative of her life. She knew the outcome. And vampire dreck and distractions like Bruce What’s-his-name didn’t fit. Freelancing. That was the new plot. Freedom from the manacles of Katherine’s employ and undesirables on the subway. That was her happily ever after.

  Her earbuds slid against the sweat that pooled at the entrance to her ear canals. She wiped the sweat, poked the buds back in, and flipped through the early morning gym-TV choices. She’d loved the day the gym popped for new machines with personal screens. No more satellite soaps or being forced to watch Dr. Phil. She scanned through national news, music channels, and old sitcoms — too old — before finding a local news broadcast. She didn’t need the big, wide world. She wanted to know what was going on right here. Right now.

  A picture of two clowns popped up behind the newscaster. The two who had raped that little boy. The ones from the newspaper article. The same guys she saw outside Doc Kroft’s office.

  Billie turned up the volume and slowed her pace.

  “Colin Jenkins was murdered. Roger Graves, with t
he rainbow wig, was castrated.” The news anchor cleared his throat.

  Billie turned the treadmill off and stared at the tiny screen.

  “Police are looking for a man wearing a dark hoodie and dark, oversized pants.” The man seemed to be struggling to keep his serious newsman face on. “If you have any information, please call the tip line at the bottom of your screen.”

  A lump in Billie’s throat refused to go down no matter how many times she swallowed. She ran to the locker room, raced to remove her running blade, and hastily returned her flat-shoe prosthesis to her stump. She tossed her gym gear into her locker, snapped the lock over it, and ran out, hurrying up the block to her apartment.

  Once inside, she pulled the recycling container from the pantry. She ripped empty takeout containers, all washed and dried and stacked neatly, out of the bin and tossed them on the table, followed by a wine bottle and the flattened and stacked empty boxes her favourite chai tea came in.

  Peg Leg mewed at the mess, backed away, and slinked under the couch.

  About halfway down she found the newspapers. She flipped through them until she came across the one she was looking for. She ran her fingers over her red-ink edits.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

  The anchor’s story matched her edited version of what happened. Though not castration. Full on penile excision. But no one was supposed to die. She fell back onto a kitchen chair and ran her hand over her damp hair. Nausea rolled up her body. She dashed to the kitchen sink and vomited, her hands gripping the counter’s edge. She ripped a section of paper towel free from its roll and wiped her mouth. She rinsed the sink, stared at the chunks of her breakfast swirling in a vortex of puke-water and disappearing down the drain.

  She wiped the sink dry, gathered the newspaper, ripped it into tiny bits and tossed it into the stainless-steel tub. Matches. Where were the matches? With the emergency candles in the cupboard over the microwave. She found two packs, lit one match after another after another and threw them on the paper. She watched the evidence of her imagined justice burn. Flames danced and black smoke curled into the air until each red mark was devoured and turned to char.