Maureen Foley

m
Circus
mmmn(a section from Scenic Overlook, a novel)
m
m
m
LATE AFTERNOON
m
m
mmmnStop everything when the Circus comes to town. Lay down your arms and sell the farm. Find stuff cheap for dress up and go there, go there, go there. The Circus makes you drop everything. They wake up in the dew-pissed morning when the cobwebs are still hanging earrings and they see the tents and they know that something special arrived in the night. They arrive to see their dreams play out with a musical accompianist.
mmmnEverything is dictated by who you fall in love with. The contortionist, the clown, the juggler, the acrobats, the singers, the twin trapeze artists, an usher with a fake French accent, the woman sitting next to you holding a rose. The Circus is a backdrop, an excuse, a theater of imagination. It travels through and everyone in the circus is a nomad from another land. Let's go, let's leave, let's abandon the commonplace and join the spectacle.
mmmnBut the dark mistake is thinking the specatacle will transform you. Everything becomes common once you do it enough. Ten performances a week, twice a day for four days every week, then living in hotels and the performers become your family and the crowd replaces your lover. The Circus, the Circus, the Circus. The Circus brought these two lovers together finally. They'd been trailing each other for years, they'd met and lost touch, loved and lost, lost and found. They're looking for their final release. They are not on stage.
mmmnThe Kid stands six foot nine with curly brown hair. He takes tickets at the fourth entrance. America walks in and notices instantly the mole on his left cheek, his large hands, his fake French-Canadian accent. America's perfume announces her arrival. She wears white fishnet thigh-highs over another pair of black fishnets. She wears things torn from her closet twenty minutes earlier.
mmmnAmerica knew she would meet The Kid tonight. She found a brown jersey skirt covered with tiny cream-colored stars. She found a spangly torquoise top covered with sequins and fake jewels. She found dangly gold earrings with tiny hearts suspending into the ether. She found too much make-up on her face and magenta lipstick puckering her lips into an exclamation.
mmmn"'Ow are you?" said The Kid, oozing with fake French-Canadian goodness.
mmmn"Very well. Are you with the Circus? Are you from Canada? Comment t'allez vous?" she smiled, handing him her ticket to ride.
mmmnHe punches the ticket twice, then looks for her seats. They are in the section he will usher once the show begins.
mmmn"Jeh suisse bonne, merci. Yes, ey ahm from Mone-tree-al. I travel wid dee Cercus. You are een my section. Door seex, to your left. I 'ope you weel be having a good show," The Kid lies through his teeth, before winking.
m
m
m
EARLY EVENING
m
m
mmmnThey meet again during intermission. A ring of ushers circles the stage, to protect drunk spectators from rushing it. The Kid stands, as instructed, with his hands behind his back on the second aisle, stage right, near the middle of the stage.
mmmnHe sees an older man holding a glass of champagne lean onto the stage.
mmmn"Excuse me, sir. Please don't touch the stage." The man raises his eyebrows in surprise. Ushers can disappear, cloaked by invisibility. The old man obeys the request, steps back to his seat, to his ailing wife.
mmmnDuring the intermission, The Kid counts sixteen people dressed up in circus clothes. He sees Carlos Santana and his family in the VIP section. He remembers stroking his cock during his shower that morning. He sees America, remembers her perfume as a visceral experience from earlier in the day, tumbling in a wave.
mmmnShe approaches. They've met before. In India. In Colorado. In San Francisco. Their past lives are negotiating the distance. Past lives are now. A child together. Or not. They've healed each other and now there's nothing left to lose. This time he drops the fake accent. He looks directly at her face and then over her head.
mmmnThe other ushers all watch, exchanging the details during the second act, later. The way she touches his shoulder. The way he ignores the child who begins climbing onto the stage a few feet away.
mmmnThey're kissing lightly by the end of intermission, just like that, holding hands and lips enmeshed. Just like that, they've hijacked the performance. As she talks he bites his lower lip. He fancies himself the ghost of a famous dead writer. She pretends to be a trapeze artist from a 1930s circus. But the year is 2005 and the lights are dimming and they're making out.
mmmnHe takes her hand and they rush behind the bleachers and open each other up and swim inside. Everything's possible in the Circus. Their energy is so magnetic that it throws the performances off. The twin acrobats miss their cue and one of them hits the cables that hold up the tent. The juggler drops the ball. The Chinese tumblers fall onto the stage.
mmmnDuring a brief silence in the action on stage, as the crew runs onstage to pick up the 6 year-old Chinese brother with his broken arm, America screams into the silence, orgasmic, like a trapeze artist who misses the cue and falls three stories onto a cushion of dead writer's yellowing pages torn.
m
m
m
NIGHT
m
m
mmmnA Circus only works at night, when the light is artificial. The ushers all cover The Kid's ass. They take the blame, clean his aisles, sweep his rows, punch his timecard out. It's all so that he can sneak out into the parking lot and into the freedom of Santa Barbara with the woman he's known for years. They're rooting for him. They've got his back. They found each other and this is it. The Circus leaves town tomorrow.
m
m
m
Back