by R. E. Rose
The child sized doll came together as a horrible creature, with one tiny arm for a leg, a head attached to a belly, a shoulder for a nose. People screamed and cheered.
The hideous assemblage fell in pieces to the ground. The pieces crawled together to reform the doll. It sat up and began to cry, “Mama, mama,” and then a small explosion in the audience distracted us. The original child walked out from her seat to retrieve the doll, waved at the crowd while Malcolm picked the girl up and put her on his shoulders. She held up the doll whose arm flipped up to salute the audience. Malcolm flipped his cape so that it covered them both and when the cape fell to the ground, they’d become two birds that flew into the rafters. Even I was mesmerized.
Lady Lucilla continued her contortionist movements in the center ring. She was more difficult to watch than the plummeting diver or the magician who sawed a child into cubes. She twisted her body into impossible positions.
Then, Gaia, the white elephant, and Lady Lucilla finished their contortionist routine and started a new, softer act. Beneath Lucilla, the white elephant morphed into a huge round ball, the planet Earth, and his mistress slid down off the planet. She bounced the ball high into the air where it began to orbit the inside of the big top, definitely the most amazing feat ever!
The planet Earth, once Gaia the Elephant, slowly descended back to center ring. Lady Lucilla caught her elephant planet, still a gigantic beach ball, and carried it around!
I lost track of Lucilla and Gaia because the music shouted for my attention as a new act entered the empty rings. The two smaller rings filled with the running, tumbling bodies of the Silver Bullets and the Razors: the gangsters.
These two gangs were dressed as crazy clowns, but their physical skills impressed the audience. They spilled out of their rings, and both teams entered the center one. Two clown referees, whom I recognized from the deck as the Fool, Joseph Seer, and the kid, Bobby Bentley, on a skateboard to boot, came out and ran around and skateboarded around, pretending to blow their whistles. The teams shot soft, spongy little footballs from guns they pulled out from under their shirts.
Devon provided running commentary as the two teams went through their antics and the audience roared with laughter. I thought I’d had enough and wanted to head to the lady’s room until I saw the next group that entered the big top.
The black stallion and his handlers trotted in while the gang members finished with their crazy clown routine and exited.
Even though I knew the horse had to be Shane, I didn’t want to believe it. He pranced around the ring, led by none other than Drake Hellman and Cassandra Baranova, still dressed in their fiery, acrobatics costumes. Out of the darkness appeared a golden chariot. The two acrobats harnessed him to the vehicle and Cassie climbed in. Shane pulled Cassie in the golden chariot, and Drake chased in after them. They played out at an ancient battle scene.
I couldn’t watch. To see Shane whipped by Cassie, even if they only pretended, disturbed me about as much as watching a bad car accident. As I got up to leave for the washroom, I glanced once more and saw the nimble and very athletic Cassie as she scrambled from the chariot and walked across the horse riggings, then hopped effortlessly onto the stallion’s rump – my cue to get out and find the toilets.
As I made my way down the row, forcing people to pull in their knees and feet, I heard Devon announce the arrival of the Strong Man. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Barkman Moore, bad ass owner of Voodoo Tattoos, come in stage left, carrying giant barbells that had to be faked! He wore a traditional Strong Man costume, the onesie, with an over the shoulder strap. This light attire exposed his body tattoos.
Even from a distance, the sight of Barkmen’s tattoos made me sick to my stomach and yet, strongly desirous of him. I wanted to run down there and touch them, but I’d learned six months earlier what that would do to me, so I resisted by continuing to remove myself from the audience.
I ran to the ladies room to vomit.
Except that no ladies room existed, only a lineup of port-a-potties, each with its own long lineup. What could I do? I really had to go, and I struggled to choke back my regurgitation. While weighing my options, I noticed a sign, a poster, actually, with a very tattooed lady pictured there. I recognized the woman’s picture in the poster. Jamie, the triple-X shop clerk!
The sandwich board promoting, Nature’s Eccentricities, showed a picture of Jamie in an alluring pose; beyond the board, an alley of every kind of tent imaginable stretched out before me, each claimed a better peek-at-a-freak than the next.
The port-a-potty way down at the other end, beyond all the tents, with no line, caught my eye! To get to it, I had to run the gantlet of Nature’s Eccentricities, and that really kinda creeped me out.
I ran.
Once I’d done my thing in the john, I took my time on the way back to the big top. I strolled through Nature’s Eccentricities and forced myself to get over my creeped out feeling and looked at every single eccentricity.
I started with the tattooed lady, Jamie’s tent. Each cubby or tent had a darkened entrance to add mystery and a lot of tension to the experience. Jamie had black lights, and suddenly, every little piece of lint on me began to glow as I entered. A recorded voice played softly by my ear. I walked slowly because the darkness got worse the further in I went. As my eyes adjusted, I heard a woman’s voice.
“Welcome to my lair of lines. I have over a million tattoos on my body-scape. Most people think that’s impossible but many of my tattoos are invisible and lie one over the top another. In regular light, you can see only my ink tattoos but in black light, or other spectrums, you can see the many fantasy lands displayed across my skin. I’m a veritable map of the mythical universe.”
Once my eyes adjusted to the black light, I saw a dark form in the middle of the small space. A few spectators inside shuffled around to make room for me.
Jamie stretched out on a chaise, naked; her tattoos glowed brightly, purplish-white in the black light. As the light spectrum slowly changed and switched over from black light to daylight, so did the display on her body, at one point the upper tattoos exposed in ultraviolet light showed, while on the lower part of her body only the regular-inked tats were visible.
I decided I’d seen enough and left, feeling very disoriented as I stepped outside into the darkness. I could see only soft garden lights that lit the way down the long lane of eccentricities.
One sign said, “The Hermit” and that seemed harmless enough, so I headed into it. There, a very short and tiny woman, pretty and dressed like a genie greeted me.
“Welcome to the Hermit’s Hollow,” she said. “My name is Hecate.”
“Ah, thanks. I’m Jane. No offence, but a hermit seems like a kind of lame display,” I said in what I hoped sounded like a joking tone.
“The Hermit is the least lame of all the higher arcana. He’s a seer, more psychic than the Psychic herself.”
“Oh,” I said, not sure at what I’d gotten myself into. “Where is he?” I asked as I looked around the darkened tent. I stepped a bit deeper into the place, and the beautiful genie that had greeted me seemed very, very far away.
“I’m here,” a voice said. Blackness engulfed me. Out of the black, on the floor, appeared a circular walking labyrinth, like the kind I’d seen in Celtic lore books.
“Walk the meditation circle,” the voice said. “Take your time and time shall take you. In the blackness watch for your visions.”
I began at the beginning of the circle and tried to quickly make my way through, but the more quickly I attempted to get by the circle, the more wrong turns I took, until finally, I settled into a pattern that got me through the labyrinth and out the other side of the tent! I stood there a moment and stared at where I’d just come from, but the labyrinth had deposited me outside of the Nature’s Eccentricities alley, and that worked for me! I needed to get back to the main tent.
Clearly, I’d experienced some kind of time warp while in the Hermit’s tent. By
the time I got back to the big top, everything had ended. The crowds disappeared. The garbage all picked up around the seats, and no one hung around. Outside, the fairgrounds buzzed with crowds and activities, but inside the big top, there seemed to be a vacuum. I went back to my seat and sat there to think about this place. I hadn’t sat a minute when Devon, still dressed in his white tuxedo came out from somewhere and walked toward me.
“You lost, Janey?” he asked.
“You have no idea,” I said.
“I’d like you to meet someone.”
“No, Devon. I want to be alone a minute.”
“Not possible,” he said and chuckled. “No rest for the wicked.” He snapped his fingers. He annoyed me so much. Out from behind the bleachers at the other end of the tent, a huge black panther crept.
The panther walked casually toward us. As it approached, I noticed the panther had an odd gait. It limped slightly, missing one of its front paws
“Meet Silvio,” Devon said. As the cat came close, it settled by Devon. He stroked the big cat’s neck.
“What happened to his –?” I pointed to the missing paw.
“Maisie took it.” He said, matter of factly, like the taking of a panther’s front paw happened as a daily occurrence.
“She did?” I acted like I knew nothing about that little fact.
“Yeah, she controls him with it,” he said.
“How’s that?” Now, I really wanted to know about this. I was more than a little nervous about this encounter.
Devon smiled. He wasn’t going to tell me anything. “Do you know who Silvio is?”
“Sure, he’s Temmie’s boyfriend.”
“Yeah, he is, but he’s more than just a boyfriend.”
“Don’t tell me – he’s a panther.”
“He’s the Devil,” Devon said.
“Sure, and I’m Goldilocks,” I said.
“Well, he’s almost the Devil,” he said.
“Almost?”
“Yeah, without his paw, he’s only Silvio, the sometimes panther.”
“I thought being a panther made him Cheshire?”
“Oh, he’s Cheshire, all right.”
“I never associated the Cheshire dimension with – Hell!”
“The Devil’s got nothing to do with hell,” he said. “There is no Hell!” He laughed then.
I pressed the heels of my palms to my head. The conversation gave me such a headache.
“Silvio needs his paw,” he said, giving me a sharp, narrow eyed look.
“I can see that.”
“You know where he can find it.”
“Is that a question or an accusation?”
“You have Silvo’s paw.”
“No.”
“Yes,”
“No.” Before I did anything, the panther jumped at me and knocked me down. His weight didn’t crush me as I’d expected, but he hovered over me, unable to really get at me. Some type of force field kept us separated even though he trapped me under him.
“I must have the paw, or a sacrifice must be made. While the paw and panther are separated, the panther must eat someone,” he growled at me. And even though I saw the saliva slip off his very pink tongue, it never did land on me.
Then Silvio, the monstrous panther, disappeared. But he hadn’t been gone a moment when, from the corner of my eye, another dark shadow shot out from the bleachers, and the next thing I knew the three-pawed panther had reappeared to tackle, and tumble, and fight with another like him: William!
“That damned boyfriend of yours,” Devon said, hissing, while bits of popcorn flew out from between his teeth. Devon and I watched the panther’s rumble.
The panthers made deep belly growls. Eventually, Silvio, at a disadvantage with only three paws, ran off. And William chased after him, leaving Devon and me alone.
“So much for the Devil.”
“He’ll be back!” Devon said. “And he’ll want that paw.”
21.
Boobs, Belly and Butts
After a moment or two, Devon followed Silvio and William, the two panthers, which left me alone in the tent. My heart skipped a beat as it dawned on me that William, even as a panther had come to my rescue.
I stood there all alone reveling in that thought, but not for long. I got a call from Emi. She wanted me to come and watch her throw her knives for her act. I agreed but only if she promised that I didn’t participate in any way, except as a spectator.
Her location at the other end of the fairgrounds took a good ten minutes to find. By the time I entered the tent that housed her, and a few others, she had already started to throw her knives.
Thwack, thwack, thwack! I clapped when she finished. She turned and bowed.
“Finally,” she said. “I want you to meet your replacement.” She ran to a small curtained off area and disappeared behind it. She returned in a moment, and under her arm, she carried a life-sized blow up doll!
“Here she is,” she said and grinned at me. “Meet Czarina, my death defying assistant.” She held the doll’s hand out for me to shake, but I refused.
“Very well,” Emi said, nonplussed. “We will get straight to work.” She set the doll up against the target board and velcroed the doll’s wrists and ankles into place. She set an apple on top of her head and a lit cigarette between the plastic fingers, the cigarette already pre-burned to half its length.
“I have to hit the cigarette before it gets to her plastic flesh or she pops!” Emilia said this with a laugh in her voice. She backed up and threw the first knife at the apple.
WACK! The apple split in two; one half fell while the other remained perched on the doll’s head. The face on the doll looked ridiculous with its large open mouth. I refused to let my imagination visualize the long cylindrical things that might fit that mouth.
WHACK! She hit the apple again.
“Emi! The cigarette,” I said, certain the doll’s doom was imminent.
“Never fear.” She whipped out a small, thin knife and the burning tip of the cigarette fell to the ground.
“Amazing!” I said, truly awestruck.
“Why thank you, madam. You should hang around for the naughty part of my act.”
“Naughty part?”
“Oh, yeah. I put a cigar in a few places out of the ordinary on Czarina, and I throw a lit knife and set them on fire and then cut them off all before my assistant can even feel the heat.”
“It’s a good thing I didn’t volunteer. You couldn’t do the naughty portion of the act with me.”
Emi raised an eyebrow and leered at me.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Oh, but I do.”
“Alright, I need to rehearse too, so I guess I’ll go do that. How much of a take does Maisie get?” I asked.
“No take,” Emi said.
“None?”
“Nope, she gets it all.”
“You jest,” I said.
She shook her head and pulled out a cigar, clipped the end and lit it. I left the tent before she could put the cigar anywhere but her mouth.
As I walked quickly away from Emi’s tent I thought about what she said, Maisie takes it all! That thought really burned me. I mean who does she think she is?
Then I had a thought. She probably takes all the money earned from the tarot characters because they owe her. She can’t take my money. I don’t owe her a thing. I wondered what I’d get paid for my cooperation in the burlesque tent.
I hadn’t gone far when from the tent entrance when Emi called out after me.
“Hey, don’t leave. I’ve got a few other things to show you. I need your opinion.” I looked at my watch. I had an hour before my rehearsal in another tent, but Emi’s act gave me the willies. Did I really want to spend the next hour with her and her blow-up puppet?
“Come on. I don’t bite, and neither does Czarina and besides, you’ll want to meet the rest of my crew, Czarina’s eastern European circus family. Her brother Maximus and her twin sister, Ka
trina, and then there’s her cousin, Batty.” Emi pulled me by the hand back into her tent.
“A blow-up circus family, huh?” I said, playing into her act. “I can’t miss this, all the way from the darkest reaches of Eastern Europe. My, my.”
I followed her back inside. In that small amount of time, between me leaving the tent and her coming to fetch me, Emilia’s act looked ready to go. The whole blow-up family had taken their positions, but oddly enough they lay folded and flat on the ground. I took my seat on an up turned bucket and tried to get comfortable.
Emilia did a really cool costume change. She had a series of hung bathrobes hidden on hooks only a few steps from where she performed. She stepped into a dark shadow then stepped out and appeared to have done a complete change of clothing. I made a mental note of that trick. Then when she did her introductory prattle and while she showed off her showmanship, her blow-up circus did a slow inflation. Emilia regaled us with her words as she described all the impossible things about to be performed.
“And for my final moment,” she said, dramatically, my assistants will come into the audience and give you each a gold coin.” She held up a coin. One that looked exactly like Devon’s, old, ancient coin, like it came from a pirate ship. I clapped as the blow-up family became completely inflated; now they looked more like wax dummies under hot lights. And Emilia ran amongst the stock-still figures, positioning them and interacting as if the figures whispered directions in her ears.
Emi’s superb sword fighting skills left every blow-up figure still standing, if a little wobbly, her knife throwing raised a few of the hairs on the back of my neck, but her final performance knocked my socks off – fire swords which she swallowed and twirled like batons.
At the end of her show, she disappeared off stage for a beat, and the blow-ups became animated, real people who picked up all the props for Emilia’s act and carried them off stage. Emi came out of the shadows with the entire family. She stood in the middle, and the crazy blow-ups stood at either side of her, me clapping and cheering from the bucket I sat on. She pulled a pin from her turban and walked down the row of blow-ups sticking each one with the pin. They popped and deflated as they shot in crazy directions, one landed at my toe. I picked it up in total disbelief.
