(no subject)

Jul 20, 2006 00:12

I've been trundling merrily along with this story and I'm just having the best time.


It was some years before Carlita realized that she did not grow up in a family, but rather in a madhouse. Several years after that, she accepted the fact that it was not, after all, a madhouse, but simply a circus. Literally. One ought to say it was 'literally' a circus. Once during her quest for self-discovery, she looked up the word ‘circus’ in the dictionary, just to be sure that the definition corresponded correctly to her situation. It was quite a good dictionary and listed several possibilities, the best of which Carlita decided was ‘a public spectacle.' Of course, spectacle was a very good word to describe the whole affair-- that is, if one were describing it to someone who had never grown up in a circus. But as Carlita had, it was not spectacle so much as it was routine.

In a certain way it was a privileged existence-- at once exotic and provincial. The sounds of her mornings, for instance, were as follows: Jacko the Strong Man cracking his whip at the tails of their two tigers (Cleo and Tony) as they learned repeatedly to jump through fiery hoops, the bearded woman (Henrietta) rehearsing Italian operas over coffee and rum, grandfather shouting in a dizzying mixture of French and English about the history of war (his favorite being the War of 1812, which he was delighted to explain, in excruciating detail, to as many people as he could make listen), and the general hustle of people and animals which is singly peculiar to circuses. While other girls might have woken up to the sight of dolls in lace dresses, Carlita's first vision every morning was her mother's trapeze gown (which was usually being worn by her mother)-- a frenzy of sequins in every color. As other children might have climbed trees, Carlita scramble up and over miniature clown cars (belonging to several second and third cousins) and elderly elephants (belonging to no one in particular) with the greatest of ease. And while some days Carlita would suddenly look around and find herself in awe of her surroundings, as if she had only ever given them the briefest glance before, most days they presented a terrible monotony (albeit a monotony of amazement).

In the backwaters of the Deep South (which is where Carlita's circus dwells and, by some miracle or other, remains perpetually)-- in these backwaters, a circus is sometimes considered an art and art is sometimes a little like life-- so that the two (either art and life or art and circuses or else life and circuses) are like neighbors whose telephone lines are continually crossed and neither the electric man nor the telephone company can ever manage to sort either out and so, no matter what one does, the other can always listen into the conversation, whether one (or the other) desires it or not. To Carlita, it was more often not. No indeed, she did not desire that circuses and life should ever cross lines-- not because growing up in the circus was such agony (it was), but because there was nothing else. Outside the family, the world stopped-- like Columbus sailing off the edge of the world (as he probably despaired of, eventually), Carlita could find no new world, no land beyond the big tent.

Until.

It was an especially rainy afternoon and the ducks had gone for a paddle about in Cleo and Tony’s food bowls-- grandfather having defied nature and raised all the circus animals in a communal sort of way, “tout ensemble” as he would have it. The lions were not strictly vegetarian, of course. They enjoyed Cajun barbeque and the occasional veal cutlet, but anything still breathing was safe from harm (mostly). In fact, grandfather made a bit of a hobby out of defying nature. Cleo and Tony had not been kept in cages since they had outgrown cubhood (and scaling the outside of the big tent-- which is a costly habit for lions to keep, cubs or not). Many speculated that grandfather had flipped his lid after the first world war (which he never actually fought in, a fact which some assumed to be the problem, incidentally). As a man, he was quite striking-- extraordinarily tall, with a short, pointed beard of gray. He had dark eyes, which had mastered several impressive looks-- one of which could stop a raging hippopotamus dead in its tracks (an old story, from his time in Africa). Additionally, grandfather wore the same exact thing everyday: his old army uniform, which had been patched up and let out and continually mended over the years. Carlita once addressed the issue of hygiene in a philosophical conversation with a 3rd cousin clown by the name of Mickey. Mickey suggested that grandfather kept decently clean by sheer willpower and the might of God. Carlita thought it more likely that he washed his uniform at night and slept naked. She found both theories, however, somewhat disconcerting.

In any case, grandfather was the sort of man who could engage an audience-- and marry and divorce them-- all within a weekday afternoon show (which, if you happen to know show business at all, is pretty remarkable). While in the ring, he managed to separate himself from the world, separate the circus from life-- when you ducked your head under the tent flap, you were ducking out of reality and into a new, magical land-- a land where people were just a little stranger, a little more fantastical. Grandfather knew just how to make the circus as unreal a reality as they come. It was a sortof gift he had and one which he was glad to bestow on the world. It was during one of these spells, on that particular rainy afternoon, that two men entered the tent about ten and half minutes late, just as the trapeze act was beginning. They were very similar in appearance, if looked at from far away or if one happened to be squinting or in a hurry or slightly drunk. But on closer scrutiny, you would find that they were, in fact, very dissimilar. One was about ten years older, early thirties, with dark hair that rose to a disheveled peak and fell off about the sides like blackened vines. He had light eyes, though, which seemed always to be smiling jovially at some great private joke. He was not uncommonly tall, but neither was he short-- in fact, he had a carriage about him that made him seem taller than he actually was. He held his chin high, at a jaunty, daring angle, which many men found offensive, though they’d never admit why (and granted, some men could never even figure out why for themselves). This man’s name was Michael.

The other man, early twenties, had hair the color of cut wheat, eyes the color of trees and a sideways smile which made him look a little awkward-- as if it had accidentally slipped out of place and he had not yet noticed and put it back right. He was taller than the first man, but it was hard to tell because his shoulders slumped a little as though he had been carrying something very heavy and just let it off a moment before. He had a very fine aquiline nose, which lent him an air of unassuming dignity. On very close inspection, though, his finest features would be his hands, which were clean and neatly kept, slender and long-fingered like those of an artist or a pianist. He kept them in his pockets a great deal of the time because he felt they were too feminine and he was ashamed-and also, he was very proud. His name was Raphael, but he could never stand being called it, so instead he said it was Rafe. Despite these differences, however, they were generally mistaken for each other-- as if neither had enough of himself to make a whole, but together they were just enough to make something noticeable, if vague.

Their coats were both a little damp with the drizzle because they had just walked from the train station, which was a good six-mile walk (although in that day it was not thought too far). They had no exact reason for wishing to see the circus, except they had been riding the train for nearly three days straight and they wanted to stretch their legs and catch a breath of air. It was the station porter that had told them of the circus and the minute they heard of it each agreed it was just what the other needed.

It seemed, however, that this was an afternoon destined for coincidences. Carlita’s mother had taken to napping every third afternoon (she was not so young as she used to be and trapeze work is a vigorous business), which left Carlita on the swing, in a gown that was a little too loose for her. At the same time the circus handyman (a mute who preferred to be called Zebra-- with a short e, as the British might pronounce it-- though no one was quite sure how they had ever found that out for he was exceedingly illiterate, too), at any rate this circus handyman (Zebra) had an irresistible weakness for peanut butter and it just so happened that Jacko (the strong man, you recall) was coincidentally a closet artist-chef and as a result he used an obscene amount of peanut butter to create giant food sculptures-however, for the past three months there had been a drought which was extremely detrimental to a number of orange groves in Southern Florida. These very groves happened to be the Deep South’s single source of orange imports, and as Jacko had been in the midst of a brilliant orange phase in his artistic career, the drought crushed his creative genius with a merciless and dry fist. He therefore refused to touch a jar of peanut butter until the next rainfall (which was coincidentally this very particular afternoon). In Jacko’s joyous frenzy of creation, he lost track of all his peanut butter and did not notice that a jar had gone missing. This jar, as surely you must have already guessed, was nicked by Zebra right before the afternoon show. Amongst all this, grandfather had been bellowing alternatively about the state of equipment in the ring and Ancient Troy, drawing various comparisons between Trojan Horses and mutinous employees (on the whole he loved both and was always delighted to discover them in his midst, which, by turn of point, soundly deflated both surprise and mutiny). At a fortuitous instant, Grandfather caught sight of Zebra wandering furtively away from the kitchen trailer and demanded of him that something be done about it all. As Zebra was not sure what he could do about the horses being Trojans, he instead headed to the big tent to maintain things and generally appear handy, while surreptitiously licking peanut butter from his fingers. It just so happened that every third afternoon coincided with Zebra’s unofficial day for checking the trapeze swing.

The two men, Michael and Rafe, quietly sat down in the second row. Carlita climbed the wooden tower to her platform. A hush fell over the audience as she reached the top. Her sequins sparkled. Her hands shook. Her eyes glittered. The swing swung and-- Carlita jumped, hands outstretched. The audience gasped as a collective, multi-headed beast... and then several of the younger heads began screaming and some of the older ones fainted dead away and a couple just stared disbelievingly, with their mouths hanging wide open like forgotten fly traps. But of course, Carlita did not remember any of this because she was, definitely and most undeniably, unconscious. Indeed, she woke up several hours later in puzzling and bizarre state-- flat on her back, with peanut butter on her hands and a young man (early twenties, she supposed) with hair the color of cut wheat and eyes the color of trees, standing over her and yelling furiously (which made his shoulders unslump quite pleasantly and his cheeks flush prettily). As Carlita got more and more of her wits back, she realized he was gesticulating wildly at another, taller man-- grandfather. And still, a third man was standing off to the side, smiling gleefully at everyone and nodding whenever called upon.

“Look at this child; why, she’s skin and bones!” the angry one said.

“No, no, it’s her mother’s costume. It's loose!” Grandfather hollered back.

“She doesn’t even get her own costume! It’s a travesty, isn’t it, Michael?”

“Sure it is, Rafe. Sure it is.” Michael grinned.

“She doesn’t want to perform!” Grandfather shouted.

“So this is slavery, is it? You’re forcing this poor child to work in a three ring circus and you don’t even clothe her.” Here, the one called Rafe gesticulated to Carlita and she took the opportunity to try and tug at his pant leg.

“I’m alright, really,” she called hoarsely. He trundled on without regard.

“She works willingly, young man. She volunteered for the afternoon show, like a soldier for the battle. And we have five rings, actually, it’s an outstanding innovation that allows us to combine different aspects of the show in ways that no other circus-“

“Wait, you said she doesn’t want to perform, but that she volunteered.” Rafe said, pausing momentarily.

“Yes.” Grandfather said.

“Well, which is it?” Rafe asked.

“Both.”

“I think you misunderstand the meaning of volunteer, sir.”

“I’m really fine, thank you,” Carlita called out again, beginning to sit up.

“This would make a fantastic story!” Michael scribbled feverishly in his notebook and looked eagerly back and forth between them all. “Well, go on. Have at it.”

--
In other news, I got an A on my film midterm... y'know, with the 'uh' professor (who apparently has a PhD! what sortof travesty is that?). I tried to write my paper for that class tonight (because I'm leaving for Santa Barbara for the week-end, hray!), but I got caught up in other things.. like trying to make a CD out of my newly composed 'wake up' playlist for my alarm clock. For some reason or other, I'm having the worst luck with it. In yet other news, I'm in love with the Gene Kelly of Singin' in the Rain fame (but mostly because he reminds me of Ewan McGregor). We're due to be married anyday now, even though he was apparently so horrible to Debbie Reynolds that Fred Astaire found her crying under a piano. Also, the only person at school who has commented on my new hair is the woman who makes my coffee. I feel utterly neglected. I should probably quit wasting time now. Procrastinators always get it in the ass. I hate that. I also hate having to put aside what I'm reading to convenience the faire de mes devoirs.
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