The Pilo Family Circus

by Elliott, Will

  Winston’s mouth went dry and his knees buckled under him. ‘Yes, Mr Pilo,’ he whispered.

  ‘Good man,’ said Kurt. ‘Off you go then. Enjoy the wedding.’

  Winston wandered away from the trailer in haunted shambling steps, looking as dazed as the tricks who wandered through on show day. Shalice passed him without a word, feeling justice had been partially served, which was about as much as she could hope for in this charade. But now there were more pressing matters, among them a certain chain of events she had to quickly reconsider. To secure the Pilos’ help in retrieving her crystal ball, she’d stressed to George that if she had it she could be monitoring these vandal attacks. To emphasise the point, she’d set about staging an attack of her own. The dominos were toppling already, she could see this as she walked through the showgrounds. Two carnies passed her carrying a crate of fireworks to the funhouse, as per a written order fraudulently signed in George’s name by Sven of the acrobats, who intended to use the fireworks in an attack on the clowns. Shalice had set this up the night before by watering a patch of ground on the path outside the acrobats’ tent until it was slippery. A dwarf passing the tent had slipped, dropping a glass cabinet he was carrying to the freak show. Investigating the noise, Sven had presumed the clowns were up to something, and conceived the fireworks plot as a shooting star streaked across the sky.

  Like the shooting star, the dwarf’s role in this had been destined, part of a natural chain of events Shalice had hijacked by watering the ground. It was that complex and that simple, like switching a track lever at a train intersection; all that was needed was a map of the future’s landscape to see what went where, and when. It had taken her three hours of meditation, examination of the tarot cards and consultation of her star charts and fate-webbing charts. Had anyone seen her watering that patch of ground, would they have been in any position to accuse her of an untimely explosion?

  She probably had time to alter that train of events and stop the conclusion, but now that she thought about it, she owed the Pilos no favours. Besides, she had other fish to fry — or one other at least, and his name was Mugabo. She had some courses of action ready to roll for the magician but she was holding off, waiting for more clues to shed some light on this business. What was his beef, for heaven’s sake?

  As yet no more visions had come, but no matter — the ball was hers again. She would be watching the magician like a hawk.

  Him and, for the moment, no one else. The rest of the circus could burn to the ground for all she cared.

  Chapter 22

  The Wedding

  ‘NO, Goshy, you can’t see the bride before the wedding, you just can’t. It ain’t tradition, Goshy, it ain’t tradition!’

  ‘HMMMMM! HMMMMM!’

  He had one hour to wait.

  The dwarfs and carnies set up the clowns’stage tent for the wedding, with Doopy overseeing it and making a nuisance of himself by complaining that it wasn’t ‘purty enough’. But they got it as purty as they could at short notice, and it seemed to satisfy Goshy. He’d acquired a suit from somewhere and his brother led him through the tent, asking his opinions on this and that. He wasn’t upset, that was all anyone knew for sure.

  Doopy had never seen the bride so radiant. He’d lured Goshy out of his room and convinced him to stare out the parlour window for twenty minutes while he’d decorated her. He’d put on some tinsel, Christmas lights and bulbs.

  By midafternoon all were gathered. True to his word Kurt brought the priest, who stood before the plastic seats with wide haunted eyes. He held in his shaking hand the marriage vows. On a table before him Goshy’s bride sat in her pot, thin yellow-green fronds swaying gently.

  Goshy was coaxed into the tent, waddling like some kind of mutant penguin in his suit. Some bridesmaids had been found among the gypsies, and they stood waiting like everyone else; sullen, staring in silent revulsion at the plant and at Goshy. All who were able to decline their invitations to the wedding had done so, and the acrobats were certainly nowhere to be seen. Fishboy, Gonko, Nugget, Yeti and Kurt Pilo were the only guests who were there voluntarily.

  Under the close and affectionate scrutiny of Kurt, the priest — who had parted company with his two front teeth — began reading the vows. From the look on his face it was clear he was holding onto one last thread of hope he’d wake from this nightmare. His voice trembled as he began. ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today … Ah, to witness the union, ah … between …’

  He shook himself and peered around at everyone. Kurt laid a hand gently on his shoulder as though for moral support. The priest flinched, shut his eyes and with difficulty continued. ‘To witness the union between, ah, Gosh … Goshy? And …’ Doopy bustled over and whispered something in the priest’s ear. ‘And this Athyrium filix-femina. Uh, the importance of love is … all through God’s teachings … and, ah …’ The priest swayed on his feet, about to faint. Kurt whispered something in his other ear, evidently a prompt to cut to the chase. ‘If anyone here can see why these … these two shouldn’t be wed, may he speak now or forever hold his peace.’

  The silence was the loudest thing JJ had ever heard.

  ‘I pronounce you …’ said the priest, ‘oh God help us.’

  Kurt slapped his paws together in hearty applause. Gradually the rest of the gathering joined in. Doopy nudged Goshy in the ribs. Goshy had seemed confused and startled throughout the ceremony, arms locked at his sides, eyes wide. As the applause wound down everyone held their hands to their ears; a single burst of high-pitched sonic assault shot from Goshy’s mouth, a note that rang out for no longer than a second, striking all ears present like a bullet. ‘What’s that one mean?’ said Rufshod as the clowns lowered their hands from their ears.

  ‘I think it means he’s happy,’ said Gonko, ‘but that’s a guess.’

  The gathering dispersed much quicker than they’d coalesced. JJ ran ahead of the others. He’d broken into Rufshod’s room earlier to steal some powder, as he had something in mind for young Jamie. He went into Goshy’s room, opened the cupboard, perched his backside on the bag of fertiliser inside and frantically scrubbed off his face paint. He slid the cupboard door shut — it was a tight fit, and his knees were pressed up around his chin. With some difficulty he melted the stolen powder and wished for exactly two hours sleep.

  When the bride and groom entered the room, he didn’t stir.

  Jamie woke right on time in the cramped confines of Goshy’s cupboard. He wondered where he was, why he was here, and why he could smell fertiliser. He clutched at his lower back, grimacing. Straight lines of light marked the outline of the closet door. He held his eye to the gap, trying to work out if he was in some kind of immediate danger, but could see nothing outside.

  Before he could remember what JJ had been doing up until he slept, he heard a noise close by. Strange noise, too, possibly made by a human throat, but it was hard to tell — a kind of high-pitched chortling, a mix between a whistle and a throat gargling water. There was a papery, rustling sound in the background.

  As quietly as he could, Jamie slid the cupboard door open. Lantern light flooded in.

  He saw two bulbous fleshy pads, wrinkled and pink, skin that looked like it had never seen sunlight. There was a trail of stubbly hair running down the middle, as was a single drop of sweat. It was a backside, sitting atop two creased fatty thighs, connected to calves, to ankles, around which a pair of clown pants sat in a bunch. The whole package was moving in a grotesque steady rhythm that could only be sexual, were there not something so unearthly about it. Jamie’s eyes travelled upwards and he saw that waist high to the apparition was a table with a plant sitting on it, the species Athyrium filix-femina, feathery yellow-green leaves. It was decorated with tinsel.

  Jamie understood then that JJ had locked him in the honeymoon suite. Payback.

  Forward and back Goshy’s backside plunged and withdrew. His throat made that horrible gargling whistle sound as the plant’s leaves shook with his thr
usts. The buttocks loomed over Jamie larger than life. The chirping sounds became more urgent as Goshy upped the pace. Oh Jesus, Jamie thought. Shivering, he slid the door back in place. The wood creaked.

  Goshy turned around, his face pulled back into fleshy rings, eyes bulging. His penis, six solid purple-pink inches of it encased in a condom, wobbled from side to side. His face flashed with livid alien fury. Then came the screams.

  The noise pierced every room in the tent, short jabs of violent sound, each outburst louder than the last. Jamie huddled back in the cupboard, shivering, while above him Goshy loomed, pants still down, erect and wailing. The plant sat mute on the table. Someone pounded at the door. Goshy stopped hollering and seemed to come to some kind of decision. He reached for something on the floor then took a step towards Jamie. It was a wood saw.

  ‘HELP!’ Jamie screamed.

  ‘Goshy!’ Doopy cried.

  Gonko and Doopy kicked down the door and surveyed the scene: Goshy, armed, aroused; Jamie cowering at his feet. Goshy turned to face them and Jamie seized the moment, scurrying out like a rabbit and sprinting through the door, the parlour and out into the showgrounds. He ran till his legs could carry him no further, then he bent over, retching.

  After a time, he took in his surrounds and found he was near the fence plank, the exit to that odd space outside the showgrounds. Not knowing where else to go, he pushed on the board until it loosened, then stepped out there.

  Back in the clowns’ tent Gonko lay on the floor of Goshy’s room, mildly concerned. He was concerned he would soon die of laughter.

  As directed by the bogus orders, the crate of fireworks was left by the funhouse, where Sven had believed no one would stumble across it since, to his knowledge, hanging around the funhouse was not anyone’s idea of a good time. The fireworks were covered by an empty potato sack, and after Sven’s visit out here earlier in the day the load included five extra sticks of dynamite. He was considering nuking the entire clown tent in one blast, but he wouldn’t get his chance this time around, thanks to Shalice and a carnival employee known as Slimmy the smoking dwarf.

  It was Slimmy’s habit to sneak out of his house every evening at six and enjoy a cigar in the shadows of the Funhouse, away from his enemies amongst the short folk. Slimmy’s bad habit included throwing his lit match at the discarded tyre lying on its side four feet from the crate on which he sat. He’d been keeping score — so far he’d dropped the match into the tyre 12 566 times, just better than 50 per cent. That afternoon Slimmy’s daily routine, which had gone unchanged for sixty years, would prove costly. Slimmy lit up, tossed the match and watched it fly through the air, glance off the tyre’s rim, and land just out of sight. Slimmy grunted with annoyance and marked a notch in the Miss column in his mind.

  The match landed right on top of a fuse trailing out of the box of explosives like a tail. Slimmy heard the faint hissing noise as the fuse burned, but still had time to enjoy three- quarters of his cigar before the blast. He died doing something he liked.

  The blast ripped away one of the funhouse walls and roared through the carnival. Every head except Shalice’s turned towards the sound. Flying debris shot skyward and fell as lethal missiles onto roofs and paths, ripping holes in tents and smashing windows. Two dwarfs who’d been on the verge of fisticuffs over a game of dice had their dispute settled for them as they were flattened beneath a section of airborne roof.

  In the clown tent Gonko sat up, muttered ‘Goddamn’. then ran out into the parlour just in time to see a brick land in the doorway. He had a sudden impulse to check up on Winston.

  He went round to each of the clowns’ rooms, knocking or pressing his ear to the panels and listening. Winston and JJ were both absent.

  Part 4

  Freedom

  Roly Poly

  Topsy Turvy

  Hang upside down

  Fall to the ground

  CAROUSEL

  Chapter 23

  Shockwaves

  IT was moonless and starless in the artificial carnival sky, helpful conditions for the freedom rebels sneaking out to their emergency meeting, and in the circumstances one of few blessings they were able to count. Their mood was mournful as they could see their brief and long overdue resistance coming to a close, relegated as they were again to utmost secrecy, never able to know when prying eyes were watching. None of them had expected Jamie to appear tonight, and when he found them, sitting in a mood of grim silence, their glaring looks made him wonder if he’d have been safer taking his chances with Goshy. One push, one push …

  Randolph stood up. ‘And just what are you doing here?’ he said. ‘Come to gloat now that we’re all dead?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Jamie, moving as far as he could from the edge of the chasm.

  ‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault,’ said Fishboy, laying a restraining hand on Randolph’s shoulder. ‘Have a seat, Jamie.’

  Randolph backed off, spitting and cursing under his breath. ‘Not anyone’s fault, but Randolph is quite right,’ said Fishboy. ‘We are as good as finished now. The Pilos have their eyes and ears back. There’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘We could take it again, couldn’t we?’ said Jamie. ‘We took it once already.’

  ‘Any volunteers?’ Fishboy said quietly. ‘Winston, show him.’

  Without speaking Winston lifted his shirt, and Jamie had to hold back a scream. A burst of glowing red light poured out like blood, and it looked as though the middle of his chest had been dug out and replaced with hot coals. The skin around it was smoking and blackened. There was a smell of cooking meat.

  ‘Hurts,’ Winston said in a quiet voice. ‘You know, the pain was pretty bad. The matter manipulator said I could come back in a week, get it put back to normal. Used the powder, asked for the pain to stop. Didn’t make it stop completely. Less, though, just feels hot now. It’s the smell that gets me. The smell’s a bit much.’

  Jamie felt a sting in the back of his throat; this could so easily have been him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, putting a hand on Winston’s shoulder.

  ‘Not your fault,’ said Winston. ‘I think … fortune-teller had a vision, that’s all. It’s okay, though, she doesn’t know about the rest of us.’

  ‘What’s next for us?’ said one of the dwarfs. ‘Show day tomorrow. We can still stop it.’

  ‘No,’ said Winston in a distant voice. ‘I think maybe we should forget about all that. If you decide to stay in the show, make the best of it, get by. There’s worse things than being here. If you want out, you know what to do. Not worth fighting them. World’s survived them so far, thousands of years … Not worth fighting them.’

  Fishboy’s strange face was set like stone. ‘No one would blame you, Winston, if you chose to bow out. But I won’t. Doing nothing would hurt worse than fighting them.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure of that,’ said Winston. ‘They went pretty easy on me. Could’ve been worse. Should see the sorry bastards he keeps up there in his studio …’ Winston trailed off and stood to leave. ‘See you all later. Need some sleep. Need another dose of powder. It’s starting to warm up a bit more.’

  They watched him leave in a slow, shuffling stupor. The lion tamer ran after him to help him cross the narrow path safely. When he was out of sight, Fishboy spoke: ‘Can anyone here surrender the fight after you’ve seen what they did to our friend?’

  ‘No,’ said isolated voices in the audience — without much conviction, Jamie thought.

  ‘You see what they do to rebels,’ said Fishboy. ‘We’ve got to keep pushing. The Pilos have their eyes and ears back but they can’t watch everywhere at once. I am willing to risk myself to strike them. Are any here unwilling to do the same?’

  ‘No,’ said Jamie. Randolph looked at him with surprise and contempt. Jamie met his gaze. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ he said.

  ‘Prove yourself,’ said the acrobat.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Come now, Randolph …’ said Fishboy.

  �
��What?’ said Jamie, and now his temper was kicking in. He stood up, fists clenched. The dwarfs watched him with interest, as though anticipating a fight. ‘How can I prove myself?’ he said.

  ‘What we have to do,’ said Fishboy, talking over the top of him in tones of laboured patience, ‘is shock Kurt Pilo to his core. He’s never had anything but fawning obedience. We need to make him feel the rug is being pulled, even if it’s just an illusion.’

  ‘How?’ said Jamie, still eye to eye with the acrobat. ‘I’ll do whatever you want. The riskiest part of the job. Whatever it is. Name it.’

  Fishboy peered at him, gills puffing in and out. ‘Are you quite sure?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well, Jamie. You can have the job I was going to assign to Randolph: the break-in.’

  ‘A break-in? Okay, fine. Where?’

  ‘Kurt’s trailer,’ said Randolph, and he smiled. Here’s where you back out, the smile said. ‘Break into the trailer, trash it. The job’s all yours.’

  Before Jamie could respond, heads turned towards the narrow path; Winston was running towards them. His steps were unsteady and he looked in imminent danger of dropping over the edge; dust and pebbles kicked up by his shoes scattered over the side of the cliff, lost forever. When he made it around the narrow bend many of them sighed with relief. He leaned one arm on the fence and struggled to catch his breath. His eyes were wide.

  ‘What is it?’ Fishboy said, jogging over to him. The others followed.

  ‘Something happened,’ said Winston. He gulped in some air before continuing, panting between words: ‘There’s been an attack. On the funhouse … explosion. Everyone get back there now, everyone … got to account for themselves. Hurry.’

  ‘But this wasn’t any of us?’ said one of the dwarfs, cocking his bushy eyebrow around at the others. ‘Was it?’