Under the Big Top: My Season With the Circus (38 page)

“Come on, I want to show you something.”

Khris came to my door after the firehouse gag during the 7:30 show on Saturday night. His mood was subdued. His face tightly drawn. It was almost exactly twenty-four hours since the first cub was born, and since that time he had hardly slept.

“I came to check the tigers after the first show,” he said. “The local media were busy filming a story. I transferred Barisal to an empty cage so I could clean up her mess and examine the babies. One by one I removed them from the hay. They were very soft, like little stuffed animals. Each one was pliable. Their eyes were closed, and will stay so for about two weeks. Their faces were all scrunched up. Their umbilical cords were already drying up and beginning to scab.

“After taking three cubs I realized one was missing. I searched through the hay. It was wet and bloody. It had a lot of defecation in it. I began to clean it out and that’s when I discovered the missing tiger. I picked it up and rolled it over. The head was in the shape of a wet sack, almost like a water balloon. It had been born with a severe deformity. It wasn’t breathing. I knew Barisal had rejected it. Maybe she buried it after it died; maybe she buried it alive. Either way, I still felt bad. I looked at the photographers and said, ‘Okay, you have to leave now. The mother’s getting upset.’”

Arriving in front of the tiger compound, Khris turned off the overhead light. He went to the last cage on the right and opened the door. Without speaking, he pulled out the cub—caramel in color with dark vertical stripes—and placed it in a blue laundry basket lined with hay, then covered it with a pink-and-white dishtowel. Even at this moment he was thinking of the cub. The music from the hair hang drifted from the tent. A chilled moisture clogged the air.

Khris shut the cage and carried the basket behind the tiger truck, alongside the tattered bumper sticker:…
AND ON THE 8TH DAY GOD CREATED TIGERS
. Moving quickly and with glazed determination, he set the basket by the right rear tire. He kept his eyes focused on the towel, mumbled something to himself, then carefully lifted the tiny bundle from the basket and placed it into a small, coffin-like box. He was crying by now. The light drained from his eyes. All around him the sound seemed to dim. Even the music from the tent couldn’t be heard on that side of the truck. The heavens, at that moment, seemed far out of reach. The circus had lost a star.

“Barisal might look for the missing cat for a minute or two,” he said, “but then her mothering instincts will take over and she’ll turn her attention to the surviving babies.” His voice was a whisper. His hands had started shaking. Later he would have to calm himself long enough to give the cub a proper burial. “I numbed myself,” he said. “I really did. I tried to be prepared. I know that the remaining babies will be better cared for. I know it’s what Barisal wanted. But still it hurts. Maybe I could have done something different. For all I know this could be something that will get me to hell. I tell you, this is not one of the better parts of animal care. But when we took cats into captivity we knew we couldn’t control everything.”

“Do you think most people understand?”

“My mom understands—I called her a few minutes ago—but she said she was sad. The truth is, when you go down to the very core, it’s still the end of a life. That’s something I hold very valuable. In a way I consider animals more valuable than humans, because I know what humans have done. That’s strange, but it’s true. I can care for animals better because they’re straight up. They don’t stab you in the back. They let you know: ‘Okay, it’s time to play with me. Okay, now it’s not.’ They don’t connive and scheme to hurt you. They aren’t negligent of the world around them. In fact, they go along with it. They are a part of nature. And look what happens…. Sometimes I hate my job.”

I rested my hand on his shoulder. He started back toward the tent. The final acts were just beginning. It was Halloween night.

Later that night we climbed the tent.

The generator as usual went off at midnight and with it the lights on the center poles and in all the trailers down the line. Earlier, Khris and I had gone to have a drink and returned just in time to be summoned as judges for the annual Halloween costume party in the center ring. Kris Kristo had brought a girl from town. Marcos was listening to his Walkman in the seats. Blair was waiting to throw up in ring one from a bout of midnight morning sickness. With the party over, the candy put away, and the lot under cover of darkness, we decided to fulfill our last rites as graduating First of Mays and climb to the top of the World’s Largest Big Top.

Outside the big top, we tightened the laces on our shoes and shimmied up the now dingy yellow ropes to the outer lip of the tent. The vinyl was moist and clammy, like a fillet of raw fish. It was slightly cold to the touch. As we were resting for a moment abreast of the outer poles, a layer of dirt came off on our bodies from the previously pristine blue and-white fabric that had been rubbed through the asphalt, dirt, and grass of nearly a hundred towns. Up close the brilliant background of the circus was sullied by a palette of multicolored sludge, almost the opposite of an Impressionist painting—swirling mud lilies that disappeared in the light and shone only in the dark. Now soiled ourselves in a layer of grime, we groped to our feet and started up to the top of the tent.

Wavering on the Jell-O-like surface, we slowly waded up a streak of white to the first crest of the quarter poles. My heart was pounding like the drums in the show—partly out of fear that my feet would give way, partly out of the thrill of this forbidden flight. Clowns are supposed to stay on the ground, not presume to walk on the air. Now already twenty-five feet in the air, we had two more layers of tent to go. Between each crest, like slippery dunes, the vinyl sagged in a sad sort of valley, so it felt as if we were sliding into a quicksand pit and had to grope for the next solid ridge. The last leg of the ascent was the most treacherous. The vinyl got suddenly slicker. The stripes grew gradually narrower. And the whole tent seemed to shake like a cartoon magic mountain with a sinister laugh that wanted to prevent us from reaching its peak.

We pushed ahead. The summit was near. My heart was beating behind my eyes. In the last few steps I nearly lost control as the tent soared upward to its final crest, making it nearly impossible to stand. I collapsed to all fours and crawled to the peak, grabbing desperately for the red center pole that held the promise of steady footing. For a moment the sky was spinning as I settled my body onto the bail ring and adjusted my eyes to the height. Then, in a moment, the earth was still. The tent stopped shaking and relaxed into place. The breeze was surprisingly calm. The flag above me—
CIRCUS
in bold letters—hung limply from its mast. The show was fast asleep for the night. Its dreams had turned toward home.

Alighting beside me, Khris surveyed the scape. “So this is the top of the world,” he mused.

“The doorway to heaven.”

“The entrance to hell?”

We started talking about the season, together making an informal tally of the range of events we had witnessed since the start of the year. The list was circuslike in its scope. In the course of eight months on the road with the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus, one person had a baby, four people got pregnant, two people got engaged, one person got married, one couple was separated, two people died, three people got arrested, one person was imprisoned, six people converted, one person gained U.S. citizenship, two people broke bones, one person chipped a couple of teeth, two people had knee surgery, one person had back surgery, one person lost a parent, one person aborted a child, dozens of people got fired, and at least one person got hired, fired, rehired, and all but refired. Plus, in the previous day alone, four tiger cubs were born and one was summarily abandoned. The pot was at full boil.

From the ground the circus often seemed to be a cauldron on the verge of bubbling out of control. There were few restraints, even fewer restrictions, and seemingly little recipe for concord. But from our vantage point atop the tent that mix seemed remarkably well balanced. From above, the circus looked like a well-ordered town. There were homes and families; private neighborhoods and public spaces; parents, children, animals, clowns. And hovering over all of them stood the silhouette of the tent like the ghost of a church the town couldn’t forget and indeed carried on its back wherever it went. When I first saw the tent that initial day in DeLand I thought it looked like a whale—big and bloated with a kind of distant charm, a beast so large it couldn’t help overwhelming and would be impossible to grasp. Now, instead of just the body of a whale, I also saw the character of that creature and the story of its life.

It was an enduring story of a group of people who came from various lands in pursuit of a common dream—a dream to do what they wanted in a place that was free, a desire to carve out a little corner of the world where they could be themselves. And as I imagined that story in my mind, I began to see a flood of images from recent days. I thought of Little Pablo and his wife, who had just purchased a new home to pull behind their truck but didn’t have enough money to buy any furniture for it. I thought of Sean Thomas, who had given up liquor, forsworn women, and even sold his gold Florida Gators necklace for the promise of a better future. I thought of Khris Allen, now silent beside me, whose experience in the previous twenty-four hours had forced him to confront the sad underside of animal care.

As each story flickered through my mind, I thought of a parallel in American myth. Khris Allen—a modern-day Huck—and his friend Bushwhacker, former soldier and convict, who together somehow transcended the class and racial structure of the circus and formed a curious friendship that catapulted them to freedom up and down the modern Mississippi, 1-95. Douglas Holwadel—a wandering Willy Loman—who walked, talked, dressed, and drank like a salesman and who bought into the circus because it was the ultimate home for a traveler and who, by year’s end, was slowing down with what he called “old man’s disease.” And eventually myself—a watered-down whaler?—lost at sea in a personal quest to comprehend and ultimately confront some grand, elusive dream of the circus as an allegory for American life.

And in the exaggerated rush of that moment my search finally seemed to reach its natural end. This
is
America, I thought again, this time much more at peace with the thought. It is the circus. There is sin as much as splendor. There is grit as much as glitter. But at that moment, on top of it all, there was no place on earth I would rather have been.

Two days later one more ring was closed.

Kris Kristo, Marcos, and I were at the Ruby Tuesday’s at the Oaks Mall in Gainesville, just around the corner from the hospital at the University of Florida where Sue the elephant had been operated on at the beginning of the year. The bar was having a Monday Night Football special, whereby each person won a free seven-ounce beer every time their chosen team scored. I was single-handedly serving the entire table courtesy of the Buffalo Bills. Kris, meanwhile, ordered Buffalo wings and tried to pick up the waitress, the bartender, and even the woman vacuuming the floor. Marcos wasn’t eating because of a religious fast, but he was drinking Tequila Sunrises, smoking Marlboros, and complaining about how boring the circus had become now that half the people had turned to God. End-of-the-season malaise had sunk in, not to be confused with the middle-of-the season slump, or the beginning-of-the-season blues. The performers needed a break. The circus needed a lift.

“
¡Dios mío!
” Marcos cried, pointing at the door. “Look who’s coming.”

“That’s Pablo,” said Kris.

“No, you fool,” Marcos said. “Behind him.”

“Is that really him?” Kris struggled to see.

“Yes, it is,” Marcos said, setting down his drink.

“Oh, my God,” I said, when I finally saw. “Danny’s come home.”

The three of us rose to our feet as Danny Rodríguez came sauntering into the bar just behind Big Pablo. He was wearing a Chicago Bulls light winter jacket. His long hair had been cut short in the back, bringing even more attention to his narrow face and bucktoothed grin. He reached toward Marcos and gave him a hug. Kris moved forward and slapped his back. Big Pablo looked at me.

“Before you say anything,” he said, “I want you to know: he’s blood. What else could I do?”

Finally Danny stepped toward me and we embraced.

“Welcome back,” I said. “We missed you.”

“It’s good to be back,” he said with a sincerity well beyond his eighteen years. “It’s nice to be home.”

We ordered another round of drinks and, when they were gone, headed back to the lot.

“So, you didn’t know he was coming?” I said to Pablo during the walk home. It was the coldest day of the year so far. The central Florida newscasts had called for a freeze and ran stories urging people to read the instructions on their space heaters before using them that night.

“No, I didn’t know until I saw him. He came close to me, then stopped. He was about four feet away. I saw he was crying. That’s all I needed. I knew something had gone wrong out there. I knew he wanted to be let back in. I didn’t wait for him to come to me. I went to him. I hugged him. Then I said, ‘I don’t care why you left. I don’t care why you came back. You’re here, that’s all that matters. When you’re ready, you can come tell me yourself. That’s what brothers are for…’”

Arriving back at the trailer line, Danny hugged Little Pablo, who was out walking his dog. Kris offered Marcos a piggyback ride. Big Pablo faked shooting a basketball. For a moment the circus was made whole again. The dream had been revived.

An American Dream

The dream, in the end, begins with flight.

“
Ladies and gentlemen, our featured attraction, the World’s Largest Cannon
…!”

Inside the big top the anticipation soars as the back door opens for the final time and the world’s largest cannon slowly rolls into view—its siren wailing, its flashers beaming, and its barrel growing foot by foot with every gasp from the audience and every camera flash. Standing atop the silver barrel is the newest American daredevil himself. At first he looks like Elvis, only blond. Then Superman, only shorter. But when he finally arrives in the ring, with his blue eyes and blond hair aglow in the light and his white rhinestone suit shimmering like a torch with red and blue star-studded racing stripes, Sean Thomas looks taller than God.