by Coop Kirby
Praise for Coop Kirby’s The Last American Circus
“Hits like a ton of bricks!”
“An enjoyable, angsty, emotional, sweet romance read.”
“The emotion, angst, and depth of this short read is phenomenal!”
Other Titles by Coop Kirby
The Last American Circus Duet+
YA Intersectional Romance
Blaze
Poet
Weaver
Dru - iGen Gumshoe Series
Middle-Grade Mystery
Making Tracks - June 2020
Making Wave - July 2020
Making Stars - August 2020
Contents
Praise for Coop Kirby’s The Last American Circus
Other Titles by Coop Kirby
The Last American Circus Playlist
Big Cat Problems
My Father, The Drama King
Hometown Heroes Are Overrated
Gotta Love A Mama’s Boy
All My Friends Suck
Worst First Date Ever
Graveyards Aren’t Creepy AF
Broken Down On Rollercoaster Road
Where I Ditch Brick
The Thing About Playing With Fire
Oops
Gigi The Great
This Will Hurt, A Lot
Way Too Much Information
So Not Okay
How I Walk Away
The Ride Back
ARC Reader Giveaway
Weaver
About Coop Kirby
PulpBoom Imprint
Coop Kirby has provided this eBook to you for your personal use only. You may not make this eBook publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this eBook you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the author: [email protected]
BLAZE and The Last American Circus Duet are works of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright © 2020 by Coop Kirby. All rights reserved. AISN B085LSH2MF
Published in the United States by PulpBoom.
The Last American Circus Playlist
everything i wanted - Billie Eilish
Rewrite the Stars - Zac Efron and Zendaya
Formation - Bey0nce
I Gotta Feeling - The Black Eyed Peas
Sixteen - Ellie Goulding
7 rings - Ariana Grande
Liar - Camila Cabello
Graveyard - Halsey
Dark Horse - Katy Perry
Dear Reader,
The magical world of the Wild Big Top is my favorite sandbox to play in. The Last American Circus is my offering to young adult audiences who don’t find their heroes inside comic books, for teens who know a diverse identity is their superpower. I appreciate my readers more than you know, and humbly request the favor of a rating/review!
,
Ever yours,
Coop Kirby
For Mia
Big Cat Problems
FORD
Blaze.
I'm soaked to the bone in a cold sweat induced by the sheerest of panics. My pinkie toe pulses to the beat of my insane heart rate. My girl makes me stupid brave.
Blaze.
Her name is everything. For a minute, I forget I'm crouched mere inches beneath a caged lion. A sleeping caged lion, still. The things I'll do when I'm stuck on a chick.
Blaze.
She rocks my senses raw, incurably sweet and insatiably spicy. I'd like to kiss her again before I die. If the big cat doesn't kill me, Cannon will.
"I'm telling you he's here. Find him!" Footsteps boom outside the train car, the worst place in the Wild Big Top for Blaze to stash me. It won't be long now before the door slides open, and the angriest of angry fathers drags me out by my ankles and tosses my butt in the dirt. The big cat yawns, drool drips down a fang into my mouth.
If you're ever lucky enough to meet the girl, literally, of the same dream you've had since you were eight, taming a lion - or her father - is without a doubt worth it.
Guys don't crush has been drilled into my psyche for all eighteen years of my good ole boyhood. I know better. My chest hurts when I think about Blaze's hands in the back pockets of my Levis. My heart splinters when I remember she's taking off in a few days. I'll be stuck here, picking orchard dirt from under my nails, ignoring the stench of stale beer on my buddies.
I belong to my hometown of provincial prejudice the same way Blaze belongs to magic and mystery, to a place flooded with bright lights and shaking with roars of a lion. The precise lion in the cage suspended above me, now awake, slowly opening and closing a lid over an enormous eyeball.
Blaze.
If I melt into the floorboards, maybe I'll survive however long she plans to hide me here. At least the kitty's purring. My head pounds, filling with putrid fog, and I dive into a swirl of darkness - emerging in the dream. The one about Rollercoaster Road.
I feel the girl before I see her. My palm matches hers, our fingers intertwine, and she falls into step with me. Together we stride forward along the chunks of gravel, the world opening up in tangerine sunrise. Her face is not blank, merely unknown to me. When I meet the girl outside the dream, her spirit will call to me like an introduction. A welcome. A beginning.
My Father, The Drama King
BLAZE
My name is Blaze Morgan. I am the daughter of Gigi, the greatest flow artist in the last American circus, and I play with fire. Okay, not officially. Not yet. The ringmaster’s got this annoying commitment to over-protection, and over-reaction, when it comes to me, my mom, and fire. Most sixteen-year-olds get to scream, You're not the boss of me! at their parents. I can't because Cannon actually is, though I want to tear apart his office in the 16 wagon with my bare hands.
I kick over a box of vibrant neon posters advertising the Wild Big Top's roster of shows in whatever random Midwestern town we're camping in this week. Seven days from now we'll pack up our battered retro sets, exotic rescue animals, and ride the rusty rails to the next random Midwestern town, and the next, and the next. The Wild Big Top is on never-ending tour, starring a troupe of runaways from life. They are beyond my friends, beyond my family. But, I want to get the hell away from them. Living at no fixed address has exhausted me.
"I am not a sideshow, Cannon." My messy bun falls, tangles of turquoise-dipped curls tumbling into my face. "I refuse to stay parked out on the Midway. My fire act is ready. I'm good. Ask Poet. Ask anybody.”
Cannon's a faded king, pacing behind a two-legged card table rigged as a makeshift desk. He grips his hair by the roots, shot through with sprouts of gray that visibly grow during our convos. "Blaze, I have met every obligation as your legal guardian. Food. Shelter. Education. Medical care. You're welcome."
His eyes glitter with a mix of regret and frustration, and I meet them with the same. Not once have I asked him to love me like a daughter. I shouldn't have to. I stamp my foot like the normal teenager I’m not even close to being. "I am meant for more. I have Gigi's blood in my veins."
“Yes. The same blood I washed off your body when I took you from her dead arms.” Cannon’s palm smacks the surface of the table, his wiry frame taut with the tension of carrying the weight of my mother’s death on his conscience.
"I just can't with this anymore," I wail. Cannon is such a drama king. My eyes could not roll farther back in my head. The entire camp knows the script of this argument by heart, and almost on cue my best friend Poet pops her platinum blonde head into the 16 wagon, to defuse the situation. Cannon ignores her, which most people find impossible.
Poet's covered in ink, the quality of which ranges from How trashed
was I when I got this? to I probably won't hate this when I'm 80. She wears her short lifetime of triumphs and tragedies for all to see. She is the picture gallery attraction of the Wild Big Top, and our only licensed medic.
"Tell Cannon I'm not going to waste away reading palms and cards. No one really wants to know their future anyway. If they did, they'd have to do something about it. Why change your fate when you can just complain about how doomed your destiny is?"
Poet tucks loose pieces of hair behind my ears, the only affection I can count on. But I am nowhere near done with Cannon. "Thank you for teaching me to style and smile, even if I'm standing in a pile of manure." Plastering a grin across my face, I bow low in a theatrical curtsy, giving Cannon the finger. Less than ten seconds after I storm out, he slams the door shut behind me.
I seldom forget and never forgive. I swear, like a scar, I'll wear my grudge against Cannon forever. Poet says most girls live their days pretending not to notice the scars they wear, so she covered hers up with tattoos. If you ask me Poet's seen, or done, too much.
The humid night air does nothing to chill me out, which is the entire point of this walkabout. It's impossible to clear my head with the fetid stench of farmland on the unrelenting breeze. The closest thing to home I know are the railroad tracks I'm walking across, without so much as a wobble in my platform heels.
The quaint soda fountains, Piggly Wiggly markets, and single-screen cinemas dotting the heartland were the comfort food I devoured as a little girl. After the Great Recession, main streets housed fewer mom n' pop joints until all storefronts vanished. Looks like this place saw the worst of it. Part of me briefly worries about zombies - this town is so devoid of sound, color, or texture. The newsstands aren't empty, there are no newsstands - or people, or cars, or streetlights.
A glint of neon lures me to the opposite side of the sole intersection. Zillions of staples pin the Wild Big Top poster to the dull post of an illegible street sign. I rip it down. Squinting, I make out the Barnum-style boasts of magical Midway acts, my own veiled face dwarfed by aerialists and acrobats. The only attraction missing is the fire act, which put my mother and the Wild Big Top on the map and ended Gigi's life.
I crumple the poster in my hands with satisfaction, kicking the ball of paper down an uneven sidewalk through a block of dilapidated houses. A weathered placard designates the neighborhood as a historical Antebellum site. Good to know. Around the corner, I stop and stare.
An improbable cathedral of a gym towers above, gleaming white pillars and framed double doors vibrating with barely-contained energy I recognize instantly. The roar of a crowd is my least favorite, though nearly native, sound. The cheering reaches a different key than the throngs of Wild Big Top patrons, giddy from overpriced big beers and a rainbow sugar rush.
Shoving open the gym doors saloon-style, I swagger inside - where at least two hundred folks worship the church of basketball with an evangelical froth. Stamping boot heels shake the stands in rhythm with a legion of pom-pom girls twirling across the parquet floor. Fists thrown into the air pump with vigor. Hearts and minds raptly focused on a cluster of brawny boys in freshly-pressed, white jerseys. The scent of starch wafts from their huddle, blending with the pungency of small-town patriotism.
I climb the clattering metal bleachers to the topmost perch, soaking-in the overwhelming vibe of pure normal. A whistle shrills, cheerleaders bounce to the sidelines, all eyes turn to the digital scoreboard. Digits flash like sirens, though I have zero understanding what they mean, also the exact number of times I’ve attended any sporting event, ever. Cannon considers sports a waste of money better spent on art.
A lattice of arms thrusts skyward, accompanied in unison by, “Let's get this!" and the guys rush the court to take their positions. In the circle marking center court, a lanky player wearing #22 on his back wipes his palms on his shorts and raises his head under the brilliant lights as the whistle blasts.
Time has no hold on #22. He's a blur, pivoting right then left then right again, searching for an open pass until he stops. His attention snaps up to the stands, landing on me. My eyes lock with his, the squeaking of Jordans playing like a soundtrack to whatever this is. A moment? A connection? Then he smiles and I know exactly what this is, who he is. The dream I never knew I wanted.
Hometown Heroes Are Overrated
FORD
I look for her every practice, every game, every season. No matter what team we play, arch-nemesis or legacy rival, I search for the girl in the bleachers overhanging the boys' locker room. Not a soul sits there, ever. Still, I check the empty seat like a habit I refuse to kick because one night, the seat I mentally reserve for the girl of my dream won't be empty.
One night is tonight. Like, right now. Urgent relief circulates through my body when I recognize her instantly. Her level of fire I absolutely could never have imagined. For sure this sprite is perfectly capable of kicking serious butt. Her hair is a flame turned up so hot it's tinged with teal. Those eyes, though, staring me down and daring me to blink, as if anything could make me turn away from my destiny.
I’m legit shook. And, I’m everywhere else but deep in the final quarter of the last of four consecutive County Championships I’ve led to victory in back-to-back, undefeated seasons. Also, I’m basically a sitting duck for the opposing guard, built like an Avenger, who slams me to the floor with a resounding thud that echoes through the gym. “That'll leave a mark," Avenger dude snorts, mere seconds before my wingman, teammate, and bro since birth, Brick, tackles him.
I pop up, whistles and curses ricocheting around me. It feels like the temperature jumps thirty degrees. My socks squish in my sneakers. Stepping to the free throw line, I shoot and score both penalty baskets, tuning out the relentless chanting from the stands. The final moments of the game tick away like water torture. I don't trust myself to look at her again without walking right off the court so I don’t waste another minute without her.
"Ford!" Brick passes me the ball at the buzzer, and I hit a three-pointer with a season-ending swish of victory. Around me, faces erupt. Coach balls his fists, pulling an air punch with a holler. Brick grabs the back of my neck. "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEES, SON! That is how it is done!"
Every soul in Louisiana, Missouri - parent, teacher, sibling, farmer, cop, waitress, mechanic, politician - rushes the court. I surf the crowd to the victory hoop, hanging on the backboard, searching for the girl among the throngs of folks. Brick hands me the jack-knife I gave him for his tenth birthday, and I flip it open to cut down the game net. He loops it around his neck like an Olympic medal, leading the charge out into the night.
I'm still standing alone in the gym, staring at her empty seat when the fluorescent lights shut off and the custodian tells me it’s time to bail.
Franny raised me to believe in things. Every heart is kind, all beings are connected, life is figure-out-able. True love, however, is not a core value Mom taught me. I made the mistake more than once of telling her my father would come back home to us some day. That's when she started calling him The Myth. As in: "Your father is a dangerous myth, kiddo.”
Mom built me a desk when I turned thirteen, constructed from reclaimed train ties. “Let's keep it down here. You can study while I cook and engage in other maternal pursuits."
"Yeah, right." I slid open the center drawer, finding a cream envelope addressed to me, the F scribbled with Franny's flourish.
"Just The Truth, son." The hippie in Franny frames all things this way. The Myth. The Truth. The Universe. The Garden Hose. The Plow.
I waved the envelope. "Pretty light for The Truth."
"Shut up and read it when I'm not around,” she admonished, before serving my favorite meal of breakfast for dinner. That night I did read it alone, and immediately wished I hadn't.
Dear Ford,
I could tell you I had too much to drink. That I met your father at the Harvest Dance and you were conceived under an apple tree in full bloom. But apple trees don't bloom in autumn and the rest
would be a lie, too.
I don't lie to you, kiddo.
By blood and destiny we are bound to this land. We inherit the work of generations of caretakers… men of our land, and women of our men.
When your grandparents passed, I was seventeen and scared. Not of what I faced, but of facing it my way. My way did not include a husband. I wanted a baby and, no part of a man raising my child. Turns out, he didn't either.
Know you are loved like no other.
Mom.
Happy Birthday to me, I thought. There's no such thing as true love, or destiny. That was the first night I had the dream of Rollercoaster Road, of the girl who smelled of jasmine.
The post-game vibe is strong at 2 a.m. I'm laying on a rusty bench, wishing I was anywhere but the brown scrap of park in Town Square. It’s easier to avoid the swarm of bugs hovering around the sole light post than to ignore Brick. Holding court with the rest of our buddies, he’s trash talking Kendra, a chick who's also my lab partner and way too decent to date him.
"She put up a fight, sure. For, like, a minute.” Brick’s voice is thick with bootleg bourbon and toxic masculinity.
