Alexandra, the lady clown, stared at herself in the mirror. With a puffy gloved hand, she wiped the thick white make-up off of her face with one of those make-up sponge things, revealing a series of horrible knife scars underneath. She pulled the curly orange wig off of her head and tossed it on the nearest wig mannequin.
The end of the circus day was the only time she had to herself anymore. Between the families and children who bothered her during the day and the unruly circus roadies who threw rocks at her trailer at night, there was no rest anymore, just solitude. But judging by the heavy footsteps she could hear approaching outside, even that was a lost cause tonight.
The rusty tin door crashed open, letting in a burst of stinky elephant poop wind from the big top. Alexandra’s father, Sergei, stood in the door licking a knife and pointing at her a lot, in the way that infers that you, the person being pointed at, are next. She was the only person in her trailer, so the pointing was basically unnecessary, but he seemed to enjoy the theatrics.
“How many people did you make laugh today, Alexandra?” her father asked between licks.
She told him fourteen. The licking stopped abruptly.
“Fourteen. Pitiful. That is but five percent of our daily ticket sales, Alexandra. What kind of shitty clown can only muster five percent of laughter?”
She assumed it was a rhetorical question and continued smearing the last splotches of white from her neck. Sergei hiked his sagging pants and lumbered over to her, pointer finger fixed like a laser. He slid the dull edge of the knife’s back down her cheek, leaving a trail of slobber as it moved. She refused to give him the satisfaction of looking at him, even though he was now trying to do that obnoxious double point from his eyes to hers in the mirror.
“We know what happens when we don’t reach our daily laugh quota, don’t we Alexandra?”
She totally knew, but obstained from nodding. He flipped the knife in his hand and nicked her cheek in one fell swoop. A slight string of blood trickled down her cheek, diluting in the saliva tracks her father’s knife had left behind. It didn’t hurt, really. Not anymore than the others. She calmly lifted one of her gloved hands and used the thick foam lycra to wipe her cheek.
Sergei licked the blade clean of his daughter’s blood and awkwardly slid it back into his fanny pack, even though the knife was slightly too long and had to go in at a diagonal. He zipped it as far as he could and then turned his attention back to his daughter.
“There is nothing funny about what I do to you, Alexandra. You know this. Tomorrow, be better. It is the only way.”
The trailer buoyed slightly as he stepped back out into the night, leaving Alexandra with her quiet. The cut on her face started bleeding again, and she held the sponge to her face to soak up the last few drops. The banging of rocks landed on the roof of the trailer, and she could hear some derogatory yelling and a pick-up squeal off in the distance.
Alexandra flipped the switch on the side of the mirror and the make-up bulbs blinked off. She looked pretty good in the darkness, the same way she looked pretty good with all that clown make-up on. She smiled at the shadowy reflection in the mirror, stood up from her stool and went to lay down on the burlap cot that she called a bed. As she lay there staring at the dented tin ceiling of her ramshackle home, the dull pain in her cheek throbbed just enough to provide a little internal rhythm to lull her to sleep.
That night, she dreamed of what her life would have been if she’d just finished that last semester of med school.
Never laughed at anything so cruel or found anything this cold to be romantic. Until now. Like passing by a sexy carwreck.