Another Clown

I wrote this a few years ago for the McSweeney's 20 Minute Stories contest, which I did not win. Still, I think it's pretty okay for something written in 18 minutes.

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Another Clown

“You fucked another clown?” Sparky’s voice broke as he said it. Pinky sat silently on the couch, eyes fixed on her enormous red shoes. Sparky walked in tight circles in front of her, eyes twitching, hands fisted—an animal dressed in rainbow wig and spinning bow tie. They had just made love that morning. At the time, he thought nothing of the tension in her frame as he held her. Now it seemed so suddenly obvious to him. He clenched his jaw and repeated the question, his voice hard now like a juggling pin, cold now like seltzer. Ever so slightly, she nodded.

He squeezed his eyes tight, suppressed a tremble. He asked her where. He asked her when. He didn’t have to ask who. She began to sob, laid her face in her hands, put her elbows in her lap. Loudly, Sparky told her to tell him where, when. He wasn’t a violent clown, but in his anger, he became aware of the fragile boundaries of slapstick. He scared himself, asked again—this time quieter.

It was in Blinky’s car, two nights prior. They'd had too much to drink. They were dancing. Things got out of hand. Sparky closed his eyes, collapsed into the love seat across the room. Pinky was looking at him now, tears streaming, big red nose running, her face paint a mess. It was a mistake, she said, a stupid mistake! Please! she sobbed.

Please what? thought Sparky. For a long while he looked at the carpet. Pinky sniffed, wiped her eyes. He had always told himself he would never stand for this; he would never be made to look like a fool. He tried to imagine tonight with Pinky... He would sleep on the couch tonight. But tomorrow? The next day? He wondered how long until he would look at her again and not imagine her sprawled out across the back seat of Blinky’s tiny automobile, silk coveralls wrinkled and undone, the make up he’d put on her face that morning reduced to a sweaty, post-coital smear of grease paint. Could he love her again the way he had loved her yesterday?

Not knowing, afraid, he let her come to him, let her cradle his curly, rainbowed head in her arms, let her say the soothing things.