Under the Big Top: My Season With the Circus Part 14

Circles are hallowed in the circus: even life is lived in rings.

For the final trick the troupe unites. Little Pablo, who started walking on the wire at the start of the year in an effort to expand the act, grabs an eight-inch stainless-steel wheel and sets it on the wire. Holding the wheel by its two small handles, he tucks his feet underneath Angel's arms and lowers his head just inches from the wire. To make this human wheelbarrow even more complex, Mari climbs onto Angel's shoulders and raises her arms in the air. The trick is ready. The band stops playing. With heart-pounding accompaniment from the ba.s.s drum, Angel takes up a twenty-foot pole for balance and begins to step across the wire-pus.h.i.+ng his brother-in-law, carrying his sister, and inching ever so carefully toward his wife, who stands at the far end of the wire gesturing anxiously at her family and trying to lure them home.

In the middle of this odd family portrait Angel Quiros remains calm.

"When I'm on the wire I'm a different person completely," he said. "I've got to show the people: I'm Angel Quiros. That means something to me. I want people to remember us. Sometimes they are a little tired. They've seen so many acts. I don't want that to happen. I want the people to wake up and say, 'What's going on? What is he doing...?'"

And down below they are saying just that.

"Can you believe it?"

"His feet are so small."

"Oh my G.o.d, he's going to fall."

But Angel isn't going to fall. He's never even considered it.

"People always say to me, 'Look, you're crazy.' But I'm not crazy. I know some people who are. They don't practice. They don't know what they're doing. But they go out and work anyway. And they fall. If you know what you're doing, if you know how to pull everything together, even the most extraordinary act is just doing your job."

And what a job it is: before 3,000 people, thirty feet in the air, with your sister on your shoulders, your brother-in-law around your waist, and your wife welcoming you back home with a kiss on the cheek and a thank-you to G.o.d. All jobs-all stories-should end so happily...twice a day, seven days a week, every day of the year.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Quiros Troupe!"

12.

At Heaven's Door Marty came running into the Alley just as intermission approached.

"Bruce, come quick. It's happening."

"What's happening?" I asked, standing up to go. At this point, could there be any surprises left?

"It's Barisal," he said. "Her water broke."

The answer was a resounding yes: tiger births on Halloween eve.

"Hold on," I said. "I'm on my way." I slipped on my floppy shoes.

The show arrived at the Gulf of Mexico just as the calendar tipped into fall. Now that we were starting our eighth month on the road, signs of aging were everywhere evident. Fabio Estrada, a newborn in March, was already beginning to walk. Georgi Ivanov, a teenager in August, was already sporting an earring. And Esmeralda Jamaica Queen, the baby Burmese python that Pat and Mike of the horse department purchased in Forest Park, had already increased her infant diet from one mouse a week to four. Susie, the ticket seller, meanwhile, had slashed her diet in an effort to lose her baby fat and had pa.s.sed her maternity clothes on to Blair, who was one of four women on the show to get pregnant since the season began.

In Clown Alley the strain was beginning to show. In late October my beleaguered trunk finally collapsed, and in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, I spent nineteen dollars on a replacement at Wal-Mart, another reminder that we were back in the South, along with Krispy Kreme doughnuts, NRA b.u.mper stickers (MY WIFE YES, MY DOG MAYBE, MY GUN NEVER), and nineteen different kinds of chewing tobacco in the aisles of the Starvin' Marvin convenience stores. As the weather got steadily chillier, the boys in the Alley replaced their cans of cheap generic cola with cups of cheap generic tea, and supplanted their Sat.u.r.day-morning games of pickup softball with Sunday-afternoon games of touch football. Moreover, in the most conspicuous sign of general fatigue, the number of "d.i.c.k in the a.s.s" jokes declined from a testosterone peak of five an hour to a mere one or two feeble attempts a day. I knew it must be getting late in the season when the boys in the Alley couldn't even get it up for one another anymore.

In the midst of this communal death watch-three weeks and twenty-five shows to go-a parallel watch was taking place around the tigers. This one involved a birth. Since Kathleen left in early May, Khris Allen had been confronted three different times with what he thought was a pregnant tiger. The first, Barisal, proved to be a false alarm. The second, Fatima, suffered a miscarriage. Still, acting on Josip's orders, Khris continued to mate the cats-during pre-show playtime in the ring; overnight in their cages-and by early fall he seemed to have scored. "It happened somewhere in New York," he recalled, "probably in Queens. Again it was Barisal. She's a tabby, so I mated her with Taras, another tabby. The general idea was to have a tabby-tabby litter to see what type of colors she would have. In her first litter, with a standard male, she had a snow white and a white. In her second litter, with another standard, she had a tabby and a white. By mating her with another tabby-pale custard in color with dark sienna stripes-we could learn if the tabby is an actual gene or just an aberration."

By early October the signs of pregnancy were apparent.

"Her belly got bigger, much bigger than before," Khris said. "This time when her nipples dropped they were as big as grapes. Also this time she seemed proud. When I took her into playtime she would march around and say, 'Yeah, look at me. I'm pregnant. Come scratch my belly and feel my baby.'"

By the end of the month her anxiety increased. During the last week of October, Khris took her out of the act. Twice a day he checked her nipples to see if they had started producing colostrum-a mixture of antibodies and hormones that's a sign she's about to deliver. On Thursday she started defecating a lot, another sign of imminent birth. On Friday she didn't eat her dinner at all. "For the last few weeks she's been wolfing down her food," he said, "then suddenly she only picked and played. I was pretty sure today was the day."

And it was.

Marty and I arrived at the tiger compound just as intermission was beginning. The sky above the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds in Mobile was mottled with clouds and an impending storm. The general buzz inside the tent mirrored the murmur around the tiger cages. Khris was pacing nervously, running his fingers through his hair, which was now even thinner on top and longer in back.

"I was at home when I heard it," he explained. "Actually I was in bed..." He winked. The previous night, in a rare moment of bravado, the normally shy Khris had succeeded in breaking the rules of the Roosters nightclub and inviting one of the young female "dancers" back to his compound for a private show. "I was rather proud of myself," he said. "Score one for the balding men of America.... Anyway, I was taking a nap when I heard Barisal scream. She has a moan that sounds like 'Aaaoom. Aaaoom.' But this time it sounded like 'AAAAAAhhhoooowwww.' I was like 'Oh, s.h.i.+t. She's gone into labor.'" Khris threw on his clothes and ran outside. By the time he arrived a small a.s.sembly had gathered-Marty, me, and Khris's friend Bushwhacker from the mechanics department.

Rocking back and forth in her cage, Barisal was agitated. Her rear end was covered in brownish fluid. The hay at her feet was clumped on one side. For a few minutes she walked around in a circle unsure what to do. She would lie down for a moment, writhe uncomfortably, then stand up again. Seconds later she would repeat the routine. Finally, at a little after 8:30, as intermission was drawing to a close, Barisal stood up for one last time, roared with a slow, almost mournful yawn, and arched her subtly striped back as the head of a cub-like a large sticky bun-first appeared between her legs.

"Holy s.h.i.+t!" Khris exclaimed. "The first one's coming already."

The cub's head was moist, still coated in brine; its legs were hidden from view. Barisal squatted down in her cage, strained the muscles in her brawny legs, and with a rather indelicate pop deposited her plump little bundle of life in the six-inch pile of hay. Almost immediately Barisal turned around and began chewing off the umbilical cord that dangled limply from her baby's belly. Then she started cleaning her cub-lapping up the afterbirth to stimulate her own milk production; licking the nose to clear it for air; and finally nudging the infant's mouth to encourage it to breathe. Within minutes the baby began to squirm, and the mother pulled back to observe her cub. An unspoken creation had made the world fresh. The circus had new life.

Within minutes of the birth, it began to rain. And Khris was starting to panic.

"I was excited when I saw the baby," he said later, "but also nervous. I was like an expectant father whose wife was in the hospital. I didn't know what to do. It was starting to rain harder. We had another show to do, but I still had to keep an eye on her. What if she rejected the cub? What if she started to eat it? At first I thought: What the h.e.l.l. I'll just take her into the tent and won't put her in the ring. Then I realized: What the h.e.l.l am I thinking? She's going to be having other babies. She'll start screaming. People will think she's dying or something. I decided to load her into the truck. Then Royce came and told me the second show was being canceled because of the storm. That raised a new set of problems."

Now freed from the show but burdened by the long jump ahead, Khris moved quickly. He ordered his grooms to tear down the awning and prepare the tigers for the move. One by one he winched the steel cages up the wooden ramp and into the back of the tiger truck, No. 78. He put Barisal's cage in last so he could monitor her during the night. By 10:15, with only one cub born and the rain starting to muddy the field, he was ready to leave for Panama City, Florida. If he was lucky he could make it to the next lot in under three hours and be there for most of the other births. Unfortunately, he didn't make it five miles before his truck broke down.

"I was numb," he said. "I was really frightened. The whole thing was happening so quickly, and there I was on the side of the road with a truck full of tigers, a mother in labor, and no one else around."

Over the next three hours, as Khris waited for the show's mechanics to arrive, Barisal gave birth to the rest of her litter. By the time they reached Panama City it was 3:15 in the morning and Barisal had a total of four cubs, all of them tabby.

"I was tired," Khris said, "but very proud. This is one of the reasons I'm here. Doing a good performance is like performing well in sports. You feel confident in your abilities. You feel proud that the cats responded well. But this was an experience of a lifetime. It's a true miracle, more so than a human baby, because human babies are born every second. This is an endangered species that I'm helping nurture. She's doing all the hard work, of course. But I have a lot to consider. When she had the first baby I had to walk away for a moment because I was too emotional. I was at the point where I was ready to cry. I was very proud of her..."

"So who did you share this with?"

"Who do you think?" he said. "When Barisal was having her babies by the side of the road I called my dad, my mom, my brother, and my grandmother. They were all excited and wanted to know what was happening. Then I called Kathleen. She's the only one who really understands how this feels. After that whole experience between me and her it's really good now because we're talking again. She understands about the babies...and what might happen tomorrow. After all the bulls.h.i.+t that has happened-the jealousies and the intimidations-our friends.h.i.+p is starting to overcome it all. It's funny, isn't it? The tigers are originally what pulled us apart. Now they're bringing us together."

"Come on, I want to show you something."

Khris came to my door after the firehouse gag during the 7:30 show on Sat.u.r.day 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 b.l.o.o.d.y. 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 b.u.mper sticker:...AND ON THE 8TH DAY G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l. 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 s.h.i.+mmied 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 gra.s.s 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 h.e.l.l?"

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. citizens.h.i.+p, 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 s.p.a.ces; 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 cla.s.s and racial structure of the circus and formed a curious friends.h.i.+p that catapulted them to freedom up and down the modern Mississippi, 1-95. Douglas Holwadel-a wandering w.i.l.l.y 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 G.o.d. 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 mo!" 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 G.o.d," I said, when I finally saw. "Danny's come home."

The three of us rose to our feet as Danny Rodrguez 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 s.p.a.ce 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 s.h.i.+mmering like a torch with red and blue star-studded racing stripes, Sean Thomas looks taller than G.o.d.

"Introducing...the Human Cannonball...Seaaaaan Thomas..."

As Sean salutes and waves to the crowd, the seventy-five or so members of the cast line up just behind the back door and prepare to stream into the tent like apostles at the second coming. The atmosphere backstage is ripe with excitement, though slightly tinged with rue-another season pa.s.ses safely, another year is borne by the body. As the performers inch into position most are busily saying goodbye; as soon as the show closes tonight in Palm Beach the cast will scatter in a dozen directions. A few are thinking of retiring-Venko Lilov, Dawnita Bale, even Jimmy James himself. Many more are thinking merely about going home-Mich.e.l.le and Angel are heading to Spain; Sean and Jenny are going on a honeymoon; and Danny Rodrguez, who in the end said he didn't like the pressure of earning money and missed being a performer, is returning home to Sarasota with his mother and father.

I am truly going home: this show will be my last. Earlier, feeling celebratory, I asked Fred Logan if I could ride an elephant during spec of the last performance. With a silent nod and a gruff thumbs-up, he led me to the end of the elephant line and called for the last bull in the herd to kneel down. I placed my left foot on her right front leg, and without so much as a hint of strain she hoisted me almost ten feet in the air and all but flung me onto her back. Upon landing face-first on her shoulders, I was so surprised by the scratchiness of her skin and the intense heat from her neck that it was not until I tucked my legs behind her ears and dangled my shoes beside her face that I looked down to pat my three-ton chauffeur and realized that I was sitting on Sue, whose fort.i.tude during surgery a year earlier had drawn me into this circus and whose strength this final night would carry me out.

By the end of the evening as the moment approached for me to walk into the finale, I was feeling more nervous-more excitable and tense-than I had felt on opening day. At that time all I had noticed were the bodies and props of all the nameless people around me; now I felt the devotion and faith that ran throughout the company-more congregation than corporation, more cult than cast. Indeed, I felt a bond with this community that was greater than any I could recall feeling with any other group outside my family. The feeling is what I imagined military camaraderie to be like: the people on the show may have come from different backgrounds, we may have had different aspirations, but for nine months on the road we traveled to h.e.l.l and back together and emerged in the end slightly wounded for sure but almost fanatically devoted to one another and to our near-religious cause. Onward, circus soldiers: the world needs your message of hope. And on that final night of the season the mood of fellows.h.i.+p was everywhere ascendant. Just before I stepped through the door with all the other clowns, Marty tapped me on the shoulder and offered his arms in embrace. "Well, Bruno," he said, "you did it. I don't know what kind of writer you are, but I know you're a h.e.l.l of a clown."

"And the stars of the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus..."

At last I step into the lights. The ground seems light beneath my feet. With waving arms and beaming face I dance to the lyrics "Join the circus like you wanted to when you were a child..." In a moment I arrive in the front of ring three and stand beside the pa.s.senger door to the cannon, where the silver lettering announces GUN FOR HIRE. In ring one the giant yellow-and-blue air bag is being filled by means of portable fans. In between the bag and the barrel the cast slowly arrive at their places and stand solemnly at attention as if pointing the way for the gun to fire.

"All eyes on the giant cannon..."

The music changes to a fearsome dirge as the mouth of the thirty-foot silver barrel slowly rises into the air. At the top of the barrel Sean surveys his path. His face is etched with well-worn concern. His eyes squint in the manner of a ten-year-old boy trying to remember the answer to a test. His whole body seems remarkably slight.

"Lieutenant Thomas prepares to enter the gun barrel..."

With one last tuck to keep his hair in place, Sean slides a white helmet over his head, removes the temporary foam lid from the mouth of the cannon, and flings it almost casually in my direction. At the start of the year, when I was still unsure on my feet, this manhole-sized cover would often hit me in the head and knock me from my place. By the middle of the season, much surer-footed, I started trying to catch it in the air. By year's end, I was nearly fleet of foot, and Sean's throws became more challenging. I would often snag the lid with an artful flourish, as I do on this final night of the year. The audience flickers with applause: the Human Cannonball is jamming with a clown. The ringmaster beckons us back to our tasks.

"A final farewell..."

Sean positions a pair of lemon goggles over his eyes and scampers into the open barrel. Before his head disappears from sight he waves goodbye to both sides of the house and gives a final thumbs-up to the crowd. Then in a sequined flash he is gone. The music suddenly skids to a halt. Only the pulse of the tympani drum disturbs the spreading silence. The pause is almost painful to bear. The tent is dense with fear. Jimmy James augments the alarm.

"With an ignition of black gunpowder, combined with the chemical lycopodium for safety, he will blast off at a safe speed of fifty-five miles per hour..."

Ta-dum! The drumroll grows even louder. Oh no! The children cover their eyes. Please! I whisper to myself even after five hundred shots.

"Countdown!" Jimmy calls, and all the performers raise their hands in salute. With each booming call from his proud ba.s.s voice the audience joins the cry.