Clown in the Moonlight Read Online Free
not wearing panties tonight either. It's not because of me. Or Lowers's corpse. I know she's got her heart set on fucking Ricky Kelso tonight.
The kids who are tripping wander around staring at their hands or the lights, laughing wildly, talking gibberish or crying because they see ghosts. Nobody else notices them much. Someone switches the tape and a heavy beat bangs on the walls and the mood of the house shifts. The party gets a little angrier.
The liquor dwindles. Mescaline, mushrooms, and acid pass from hand to hand. Ten pizzas show up and the delivery guy at the door gets stiffed. The garbage pies slide into the crowd and everybody starts eating. He drifts around bitching, trying to collect money. Someone yanks his hat off and flings it across the room. He makes an effort to collect the boxes and pull slices from greasy hands. Cheese and sauce hit the carpet. He's considered a drag. A couple of mutts punch him, lightly. A couple of girls kiss him, sloppily. The pizza boy begins to dance, clumsily. Punks doing keg-stands topple into the wall. Framed prints of Van Gogh's Starry Night and Self-Portrait In Straw Hat shatter.
They laugh. The talk grows louder. Lowers's name goes around the room again, passed from one to the next like a virus. Everybody's getting sick.
One girl nearly drops into my arms, tripping, trembling as if suffering from chills brought on by pneumonia. I hold her for a second before she shakes out of my hands. Gwen brings her a shot of tequila and they giggle and French kiss.
At my shoulder Linda says, "Do you want her?"
"Which one?"
"Gwen, of course."
There's no right answer. She doesn't care anyway. Maybe she's just pawning me off. I don't really mind. I was expecting it even before our poisonous clench in front of Lowers's body. We can't hold onto each other because we can't hold on to ourselves.
The breeze is stiff and the house groans. Windows rattle. It's raining again. I need some air and slip through the throng to the back door and out into the wet yard.
It's everything my father would kill for. For a bitter, ex-con, Neanderthal prick he's got a highly romanticized notion of what a happy home life should be.
This is his dream. A four-bedroom house in an upper middle-class neighborhood on a full acre with a perfectly trimmed lawn and some mature landscaping. He talks in his sleep. He covets with a fury. He hates the well-to-do, college-educated man. He hides in dark alleys. He keys cars. He lurks behind garbage cans. He waits in the bushes. He watches the rich through their well-lit bay windows and jacks it to adolescent girls climbing out of the shower. He destroys tiny tokens of a better life. He takes a bat to fancy mailboxes. He stamps on those little micro-lamps that border stone walkways. He cuts Christmas lights. He scatters lime around rose gardens. He pisses in ponds and kills koi.
My old man, I listen to him confess in his stupors and I deny him the absolution he doesn't want anyway. He hated being married but wanted a wife. He hates me but wanted a son. He jabbers on drunkenly night after night. I imagine how his cellmate must've stuffed sock or cock in his mouth to shut him up.
I lean back against the stoop railing and smoke a cigarette. The hot night is full of the smell of sex and sea and sap. The sky is the color of a blacksmith's hearth. Wind plies the trees and they sway and stoop. Black birds are thick in the branches, leering intently. Pellets of rain scratch at my face. Torrents overburden the gutters. The storm is back. I imagine Gary Lowers, faceless, turning over and drawing up his blanket of dead leaves, and shuddering in loneliness beneath them.
5.
I finish my cigarette and peer in through the screen door. Ricky Kelso walks into the living room and a hail goes
The kids who are tripping wander around staring at their hands or the lights, laughing wildly, talking gibberish or crying because they see ghosts. Nobody else notices them much. Someone switches the tape and a heavy beat bangs on the walls and the mood of the house shifts. The party gets a little angrier.
The liquor dwindles. Mescaline, mushrooms, and acid pass from hand to hand. Ten pizzas show up and the delivery guy at the door gets stiffed. The garbage pies slide into the crowd and everybody starts eating. He drifts around bitching, trying to collect money. Someone yanks his hat off and flings it across the room. He makes an effort to collect the boxes and pull slices from greasy hands. Cheese and sauce hit the carpet. He's considered a drag. A couple of mutts punch him, lightly. A couple of girls kiss him, sloppily. The pizza boy begins to dance, clumsily. Punks doing keg-stands topple into the wall. Framed prints of Van Gogh's Starry Night and Self-Portrait In Straw Hat shatter.
They laugh. The talk grows louder. Lowers's name goes around the room again, passed from one to the next like a virus. Everybody's getting sick.
One girl nearly drops into my arms, tripping, trembling as if suffering from chills brought on by pneumonia. I hold her for a second before she shakes out of my hands. Gwen brings her a shot of tequila and they giggle and French kiss.
At my shoulder Linda says, "Do you want her?"
"Which one?"
"Gwen, of course."
There's no right answer. She doesn't care anyway. Maybe she's just pawning me off. I don't really mind. I was expecting it even before our poisonous clench in front of Lowers's body. We can't hold onto each other because we can't hold on to ourselves.
The breeze is stiff and the house groans. Windows rattle. It's raining again. I need some air and slip through the throng to the back door and out into the wet yard.
It's everything my father would kill for. For a bitter, ex-con, Neanderthal prick he's got a highly romanticized notion of what a happy home life should be.
This is his dream. A four-bedroom house in an upper middle-class neighborhood on a full acre with a perfectly trimmed lawn and some mature landscaping. He talks in his sleep. He covets with a fury. He hates the well-to-do, college-educated man. He hides in dark alleys. He keys cars. He lurks behind garbage cans. He waits in the bushes. He watches the rich through their well-lit bay windows and jacks it to adolescent girls climbing out of the shower. He destroys tiny tokens of a better life. He takes a bat to fancy mailboxes. He stamps on those little micro-lamps that border stone walkways. He cuts Christmas lights. He scatters lime around rose gardens. He pisses in ponds and kills koi.
My old man, I listen to him confess in his stupors and I deny him the absolution he doesn't want anyway. He hated being married but wanted a wife. He hates me but wanted a son. He jabbers on drunkenly night after night. I imagine how his cellmate must've stuffed sock or cock in his mouth to shut him up.
I lean back against the stoop railing and smoke a cigarette. The hot night is full of the smell of sex and sea and sap. The sky is the color of a blacksmith's hearth. Wind plies the trees and they sway and stoop. Black birds are thick in the branches, leering intently. Pellets of rain scratch at my face. Torrents overburden the gutters. The storm is back. I imagine Gary Lowers, faceless, turning over and drawing up his blanket of dead leaves, and shuddering in loneliness beneath them.
5.
I finish my cigarette and peer in through the screen door. Ricky Kelso walks into the living room and a hail goes
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