Chasing

            The circus is dead. Everyone says. No one says it more, nor with more theatrics, than Yoris Adler, owner of the Amazing Adler Circus. He says it again over breakfast in the big tent, banging the plastic table with the side of his fist. Our cutlery protests and caffeine sloshes, but we don’t take much notice.

            “This circus has been in the Adler family for five generations. Now it’s going to die with me: Yoris Adler, the Adler who saw the circus crushed.”

            Yoris is also our ringmaster. He’s skinny, short, and ridiculous in the role, but who of us is going to tell him?

            Only Marvin looks like he’s listening, like he might lower his face into his bran flakes and wail. He’s the monkey trainer, and should sweat. The animal acts will be the first to go. It’s only right. As a kid, the animals were my favorite part of the show. Now, I’ve seen what really goes on. I won’t miss their smells and noises, the way they sometimes look at me like in another life I’ll come back as one of them.

            I’m a magician: Melinda, the amazing magician. My real name’s Bette. Yoris came up with Melinda. He’s always coming up with stuff, his ideas getting wilder as he gets more desperate. His latest brainchild is to further sexualize the acts. He wants us all to wear less, the parrots to talk dirtier, and Marvin to get the monkeys to kiss longer, dress sexier, and perform lap dances on each other. He never says it, but I know if he thought he’d get away with it he’d incorporate an act where the trapeze ladies and I body dance with him. “Sex sells,” is something else he likes to say over and over.

            I’ve always loved magic and the idea of travel, and knew from early on that I wanted to work with the circus. Such aspirations earned me more ridicule than having three noses would, but helped me develop the armor I needed to survive in this business. It’s one thing to be a gifted magician, another to be a gifted woman magician who most everyone wants to, as the song goes, “reach out and touch.”

            And they don’t want to stop there either. I’ve been propositioned more times than a workaholic prostitute entering her third decade on the beat, everyone from teens to end-stage geriatrics of both sexes. Even “Stavos,” our male lion, has looked at me in that certain way.

            The one guy I like I can’t get to notice me is “Zeppy” the clown. Which is bizarre, both because I’ve always found clowns stupid and, well, Zeppy’s not all that good-looking. At least as best I can tell. None of us have ever seen Zeppy without his make-up. Freddie, the elephant trainer, swears it never happened once, not in the eleven years Zeepy’s been with the circus. By day and night I wonder about Zeppy’s face, what he looks like underneath all that paint.

            From the end of the table, Zeppy’s brown eyes meet mine, lashes as dark and long as our elephants’. I look away.

            Yoris snarls. “What are you smiling at?”

            My neck snaps up; he’s talking to Zeppy.
Zeppy pulls his painted lips down, raises his palms defensively, and sways from side to side.

            We suppress giggles.

            “You think you’re so funny?” Yoris barks. “Wait until I’m handing out pink slips.”

            With a flourish, Zeppy pulls a blue felt nose out of nowhere and pops it on his face. I laugh, drawing an outraged look from Yoris.

            “You lot are pathetic.” He stomps toward his trailer.

            Zeppy and I grin at each other for too long, and then we’re just looking at each other, holding each other with our faces. Marvin’s gaze jumps back and forth between us like he can sense the charge. I lift my mug and plate, and move around the table, sitting down next to Zeppy.

            The others watch, but I’m done caring.

            I take a deep breath, and just ask him. “I’ve always wondered what’s your real name? Who’s underneath that mask?”

            He searches my face, and then leans close, his breath warm at my ear. “Ned.”

            My eyes widen. He nods. We laugh, his blue nose brushing my cheek.

            There’s the distant sound of Yoris’s trailer door banging close. He hurries toward us, a pink sheet of paper in his fist.

            The shouting match is over in minutes. Zeppy takes off toward his camper van, Yoris screaming after him.

            I follow Zeppy into his camper van.

            “Best thing that could have happened,” he says.

            “Where are you going to go? What are you going to do?”

            He smiles. “I’ll figure it out.”

            I nod, keeping my face blank. He follows me out of his camper, and hesitates before getting into the driver’s seat.

            I hook my thumbs on the back pockets of my jeans. “You take care.”

            He pecks my cheek. “You too.”

            I watch him drive off, the camper’s wheels spitting dirt.

            Suddenly, I’m running after him, flagging him down, but it’s too late. He’s disappearing into the distance. I keep running, waving, shouting; if he’ll only see me, stop and take me with him, I will have performed my greatest magic yet.

Raised in Ireland, Ethel Rohan now lives in San Francisco. She has a will of steel that chains her to her writing desk. Whenever she does break away the sun hurts her eyes. She's grateful to have published widely, in elimae, PANK, Wigleaf, >kill author, Monkeybicycle, Keyhole Digest, (So New) Necessary Fiction, and many others. Her blog is www.straightfromtheheartinmyhip.blogspot.com

SHELFLIFEMAGAZINE : issue #008