CIRCO

by Tara Ellis

  “Okay everyone,” shouted Artemis. “Meal times over, I want this show back on the road.”

  Vanessa scooped in every last bite she could as people around her were putting up the chairs and folding the tables. When everyone finished she rushed back inside her train car. They continued on for Atlanta.

  The summer sun had made Vanessa’s skin sticky and she hadn’t the opportune time to shower since boarding the train. She asked Freddy where to shower and he directed her to the back of the train car. What she saw with her displeased eyes was what the train had to offer.

  “What is this,” asked Vanessa. She was in a dank room that reeked of body odor. Lockers were off to the left. This was a small little compartment to the train where crew members took their showers. It resembled high school locker rooms but it was more compact. No more than five people at a time should shower there.

  “This is what we call the locker room,” said Freddy. The walls were dingy. The light bulbs were growing dim and of course there weren’t any windows so the area was dark. She peeked her head around in the shower section and she was baffled to see moss budding from the tiles. Well actually it was really mold that’s been growing for years, no one had the decency to clean it up, but in her mind she thought it was moss. It was a large dark green patch of mold that started from the back of the shower floor and thinned out as it crept its way to the ceiling. Mist was in the air, so she assumed a few had already gotten their morning showers out the way.

  “Does anybody ever….”

  “Clean in here,” said Freddy. He shook his head. “It’s quite repugnant; a lot of us don’t use the showers here. We usually wait until we stop in a city, when we have our own hotel.”

  “When do we stop in Atlanta?”

  “We will get there tomorrow morning.”

  “You know what, I could wait.”

  “Can’t blame you.”

  They walked out the locker room. As she walked through the isle way Vanessa peered out the window watching the earth shift before her eyes. She noticed how Freddy dragged his feet as he walked ahead of her, just like her father. Glancing at his sunburned back, she saw the wife beater, the basketball shorts and the fluffy purple slippers he shuffled along in. He looked like somebody that was comfortable; she wondered when she was going to feel the same way. “So how long have you been working here,” she asked.

  He turned back to her. “Too long… way too long.”

  Vanessa smiled, her head slightly bobbed as if she was giggling but a sound didn’t leave her. That smile of hers melted him just a little.

  “What’s too long?”

  “Six years.”

  Vanessa’s eyes popped. He saw those glossy baby brown eyes hit the sunlight just right. And he became a little warmer.

  “It wasn’t all bad; I’ve seen all of America by four folds.”

  “Really,” she said. “How was it?” As she spoke she stepped a little closer and he wouldn’t let his eyes leave hers. He only thought of one word to say.

  “Gorgeous.”

  “Really? Did you make a lot of friends along the way?” Vanessa noticed the way his blue eyes really stood out from his tan face.

  “They come, they go, every now and then.” Vanessa noticed the little softness in his voice when he spoke to her.

  “I’m sure you have a lot of friends here with you on the train.”

  “I have some very interesting associates.”

  “I bet there’s nothing like having circus performers as friends.” That was when he broke his gaze.

  “Most of the performers here are a bunch of tools,” he said. They were both quiet for a moment.

  “A lot of the crewmembers don’t get along with the performers, and vice versa. Too many people who work crew get treated worse than the help. They’re B-list celebrities with C-list talent but have the arrogance of movie stars.”

  She couldn’t see why he was being so negative; Joyce, Andre and Jake had none of those qualities even though she only sat down with them once. She could tell they were at least sociable.

  “I seen you sit over with them during breakfast,” he said. “Did you tell them you worked in the crew?”

  “Well, um…” She paused trying to remember. “I didn’t exactly tell them I was part of the crew. But I think they knew.”

  “If you would have told them, I bet they would have made you sit somewhere else. Some of them are cold like that.” She wasn’t sure of what he was saying, but she still second guessed their character. This was too much like high school drama for Vanessa. She almost shrunk before his eyes, how the way she put her head down and spoke under her breath.

  “I don’t like where this is going,” she said, with her arms crossed holding both elbows like she was cold. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “I’m. Sorry… I…,” he said, stuttering a tad, a little displaced over Vanessa reaction. “I just thought to tell you before someone hurt your feelings.”

  “I’m just over the drama.” He didn’t expect to trigger that emotion from her. He wondered if he brought it out of her or something else haunted her entirely. You didn’t have to be a psychic to sense something was troubling the young woman, and Freddy certainly wasn’t one. There were going to be tears at any moment he saw the little twinkle in her eyes. Freddy felt out of place and seemed awkward. He was trying to think of something quick. Before her left eye could shoot the first round, he grabbed her hand.

  “Follow me.” And that’s what she did. They ran together all the way to the back of the train car. He tugged on a latch opening the back door. The sound of the train went monstrous. He stepped down on the coupling. Vanessa saw the earth rolling beneath his feet, one false step and he could have been a goner. She saw the wind tussle through his hair. He still had her hand trying to tug her down with him. Vanessa was of course scared, thinking how she got involved with this mad man. He looked back at her, jumped back on the train car. He kissed her hand and said “do you care for a little excitement.” She nodded her head. The train was too loud for him to hear but he saw the words “all right” form out of her mouth.

  He stepped back on the coupling and she went down with him. The train blared its horn and Vanessa shook nearly off her stance, her back hand swung wildly trying to regain her balance. He caught her, he held her tight, and she felt his wide chest and pronounced biceps on her body.

  “I got you.”

  He came to the other train car’s door; he took a key from his pocket and stuck it in. He first stepped inside and told Vanessa to jump. She jumped inside with him but it was mostly his one arm that hoisted her in. He shut the door.

  “Where you taking me,” she said.

  He smiled with so much expression one couldn’t possible resist smiling back. He told her “you’ll see.”

  They ran all the way to the back of that train car which was a cookie cutter version of theirs. He opened the back door and they both jumped down on the coupling. Vanessa noticed how the next car had an oval shape to it, it didn’t have a door but it had a ladder heading to the top. Freddy started to climb and Vanessa followed.

  Vanessa peeked over the top still holding on to the ladder, she watched the wind gust on to Freddy. He held out his arms like wings. “Come here,” he shouted over the whoosh of the wind around them. “You’re going to love this!” She thought that he was absolutely crazy. A mad man riding on top of a train. The scene was crazy, she felt crazy for following him till this point. She told herself to go back. So this is how this bizarre man gets his kicks and thrills, she thought. She saw that smile of his, the smile that he could give that would make her want to smile right back. Freddy hollered a whoop. Vanessa started to laugh, still hanging on to the ladder, watching him.

  It was the rush that gave him his freedom, freedom from all the B S. He was addict
ed to excitement, getting high off his own adrenaline. All his worries would vanish instantly, when he stood onto the moving train that sped 80 miles per hour.

  Vanessa first stuck her arm up into the gust, she saw her hand flap like a flag in the wind. She knew this was crazy, it felt crazy. The crazy felt good. At that moment crazy felt like a pit of warm goodness to soak in. She got up with him. He saw her hair push over hiding her face. She held out her arms. She felt like she was flying. She turned around so the wind could hit her face first. Vanessa hardly kept her balance, she was blown closer to Freddy, she reached out to him and he grabbed her. Vanessa noticed the ripples on the man’s face, he was still handsome. For that moment she felt something wonderful. She felt free of all the problems with the family and the disdain caused by Timsley, those were all tossed by the wind. Most significantly she was free from herself.

  “Where are we now,” said Vanessa. They had gone down another two train cars passed the one they rode on. Freddy took her to a car that was dark and smelled of unchanged kitty litter. It was like someone was assaulting her nose. She couldn’t see much of anything but as she held onto Freddy’s hand in the darkness, it seemed like he knew where he was going. She thought to herself “oh please don’t rape me.”

  He stopped.

  “What… um. I won’t,” he said.

  “Oh my god, did I just say that out loud?”

  “Yeah, you sure did. But I didn’t bring you here for that.” Freddy stuck his arm out in the middle of the room. Vanessa saw his fingers twiddling at something and then the lights came on. She found herself in the middle of a room surrounded by wild beasts.

  “Welcome to the cat den,” said Freddy.

  She was standing before a whole gallimaufry of exotic felines. Each individual creature had its own cage to itself. The cage closest on her left held a tiger inside, after that contained a jaguar. On her right was a panther as black as pure ebony stone. Following them were two long rows of cells holding many felines; it almost resembled a prison, not only because of the way it was set up, because the animals looked downtrodden. She saw most of those creatures, which are known to be fearsome in the wild, kept their heads down, not even paying attention to Freddy or Vanessa.

  “This is,” said Vanessa. She couldn’t hoist a sentence out from herself; she was dumbfounded to be in a place like that. She never in her wildest dreams ever thought she would be in a room with the Kings and queens of the animal kingdom.

  “Yeah, I know right.” Even though Vanessa couldn’t find the right words, somehow, someway Freddy knew exactly what she meant.

  “I want to show you my favorite people here.” He walked forward through the isle, and Vanessa followed. Vanessa was honestly terrified of this situation.

  “This is Solomon,” said Freddy. Solomon came up to the bars and licked Freddy’s palm like a very large dog. Freddy stuck both arms through the cage and Solomon leapt up into him. The bars were thin and spread out far enough to let Solomon throw his paws over Freddy’s shoulders. Vanessa couldn’t believe her eyes, of what he showed her. Stuff like that only appears in dreams. The creature was so docile and loving towards Freddy. Freddy hit her with another smile, and of course she smiled back, it worked every time, like magic. Vanessa realized of course this was a dream, it was Freddy’s dream, and he had the power to take her along for his adventure. It was funny to Vanessa in a sense that domestic cats were kind of the arrogant jerks of the domesticated animal world. Her baby sister had a cat, it never showed one ounce of appreciation or gratitude of the times when Brenda would feed her. Her cat would also have a smug little gesture when Brenda would brush his fur, it would keep his eyes closed as if it was too good to look in her direction. She hated cats, she felt cats were lazy and they never really try to earn the owners affection, but she always saw it the other way around; she noticed the owners were always trying to earn the cat’s affection.

  “Come over here,” he said. “I would like you to meet him.”

  Vanessa didn’t want to stand an inch closer to the beast.

  “I see him,” she said. And that was all.

  “You’re scared of him,” he said. “I can understand. He really is a gentle giant. There are a scarce number of creatures like Solomon. He is a white lion. Hardly ever found in the wild. And here he is before us both locked away in a cage.” Solomon had a coat as white as vanilla cream. He was gorgeous. The most valuable possession Artemis had owned before he died.

  “Let’s try something more of your speed.” He then winked at her.

  He took her to the cage on the far left corner. She saw little tigers, lions, panthers and etc, frolicking about with one another. She saw them tussling balls in their paws, tackling one another and practicing their roars that would one day be ferocious. Freddy loved the way Vanessa’s eyes light up. He took his key and unlocked the cage. Freddy nodded his head over and said come one. He pulled the cage open enough for Vanessa and him to slip through. He shut the cage behind them. He kneeled down and a dozen of those babies anxiously went to him eager to play. He scooped up the smallest of the bunch; it was a tiger that could fit in both of his hands. “This is Akma, she is from Malaysia.” He rocked her for a moment like a baby. “Would you like to hold her?” She took Akma from him. The baby tiger let out a little roar. She touched Vanessa on the nose with her small paw, and roared once more. She held Akma awkwardly with two hands; she glanced over at Freddy like she didn’t know what to do with it. He showed her how to rock it like a baby. And that was what she tried. Akma went from restless to timid in a matter of seconds. Vanessa was surprised to feel the warmth coming from such a small creature. Akma was like a fresh baked loaf of bread.

  Freddy sat down against the wall with a baby panther in hand. He saw the little youngsters take a liking to Vanessa as they scampered around her feet. His eyes were studying Vanessa’s form. She was tall, she was gorgeous, something was different about her though, from all the other females that he had ever befriended, he couldn’t really articulate how and why to himself but he sensed that she was a new and unusual creature. He knew he liked her; he was unabashed about his feelings. He was going to tell her how he felt but then figured it was too early. After all, she just met him, and he was smart enough to figure not to scare her off.

  He caressed the little panther in his hands as Vanessa giggled and played with the cubs. He thought her laugh was goofy; an unusual type of laugh he didn’t expect a girl with this amount of beauty to have. And that gave her more of an appealing charm.

  “You’re a funny little thing.”

  She replied with a ‘what’, the most exaggerated ‘what’ he ever heard.

  “I know. I got a goofy laugh but I can’t help it.”

  “Don’t worry; you got the type of laugh that makes others want to laugh.”

  He smiled and then along went hers. She picked up a lion cub and took a seat right next to Freddy. She peered into his eyes, this time from up close, as he glanced into hers. His eyes were bluer than before, like electricity ran through them.

  “I forgot to ask you,” she said. “What is it exactly you do here?”

  He spread out his hands and told her he was the caretaker for the cats. He told her a few things the job detailed and she listened intently like they were the most fascinated things she heard. She asked him if he ever got scared handling such animals.

  “No,” he said. “Besides Solomon, with the bigger cats it’s all about respect. As long as you treat them like you would want to be treated, I don’t think problems will occur.”

  “You think?”

  “Well their wild animals. So I can’t predict everything. It would be foolish to say I have them completely figured out.”

  “Well at least you’re honest.”

  “I feed them, give them a bath and try to keep them busy.”

  “Do you change the
ir litter box?”

  They both laughed, he thought it wasn’t funny but he wanted her to feel like she was funny.

  “I’m kidding. I think it is brave that you work with wild animals.” She saw his chest rise; it was being puffed with flattery. She leaned in closer to him as he did to her. They sat there for a moment absorbed into each other’s embrace. She leaned her cheek on his shoulder as he rested his chin on her head. The little cubs were crawling over their legs and growling trying to obtain their attention.

  A few minutes have past in silence; Freddy wrapped Vanessa in his arms while Vanessa held a panther cub in her hands. He had something pondering and he had to get it off his mind. “Selena, I’m curious,” he started. “It takes a special type of person to want to live the circus life. What made you leave?”

  She gave him the most formal answer.

  “In today’s economy I took what I could get.” She had rehearsed a few answers if anyone asked anything about her life.

  “I bet you have a lot friends and family that’s going to miss you?” She didn’t think of an answer for that one, so she went with honesty instead.

  “Well to tell you the truth, I have… somewhat…. antisocial tendencies; I keep to myself a lot. I never really gave away too much of my trust to anybody; except for a few of my family members, who I am still even leery about.” As she continued on he felt honored to have been shared the inner workings of this girl he barely knows. He held her a little tighter.

  “But for some odd reason,” she continued. “You seem trustworthy?”

  He chuckled just a little and Vanessa was taken aback by that.

  “I’m sorry to laugh,” he said. “But it is like you stole the words from right out of my mouth. See I don’t have too much of any family. Growing up in foster care meant I always had to watch my own back. So naturally I am biased to most people. I believe… well it’s kinda silly but I don’t want you to laugh at this okay.”

  “I won’t ever, I promise.”

  “I believe I can read people. Like their air around them, you know, what’s it called? The aura. For me it is like another sense. Most people read the same to me though. If I get a bad feeling about them I stay away. And sometimes there comes a person that really shines with a lot of energy. When those types of people come along I always get into a situation where I never forget about them.”

  “It’s hard to picture you without any friends, you’re so articulate.”

  “Well I do have friends…. Most of them are behind bars though.” She looked around the cages and saw all the wild felines glancing in their direction. And then she knew exactly what he meant about his friends.

  “So what are you some type of cat whisperer.”

  “I can read animals just like people. How else do you think I can walk up to a beast like Solomon and give him a hug?”

  “That was one of the most incredible things I ever seen,” Said Vanessa in the tone of a child. The flattery swelled his chest once more. “So, can you tell me what I’m thinking about?”

  “I’m not a psychic; it’s just a trick I taught myself. To help me adapt in….” She silenced him with a kiss.

  The crazy felt good, with him, the crazy felt oh so damn good.

  Introduce A Little Anarchy.