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skonen_bladesI grew up in a circus. I ran away to join the city.
Thinking about the circus, I remember the starry-eyed, just-turned teens that we’d inevitably gather from the cities we passed through. Small towns, mostly. They were simple kids who wanted to escape from the drudgery of back seats, small classrooms, ignorant minds, and parent’s greedy wishes.
They soon found out that driving tent stakes into the ground, feeding tigers and shoveling elephant shit into wheelbarrows was no picnic. The transient boys would try a few moves on the contortionist girls or the trapeze ladies or the conjoined twins but they'd get rebuked. Harshly, if necessary, by Kristo the strongman and the clowns.
It was only a matter of time before the police caught up with us a few towns down the line and took the adolescent away, tears running down his or her dirty cheeks. We pleaded ignorance, the cops let us off, all was well. Maybe a bribe or a beating and we were on our way. It was a cycle.
Sometimes, though, one of boys or girls that joined us would never be looked for. Their parents wouldn’t even alert the authorities. They’d stay with us for months. If they managed to not steal or run away for two years, we’d let them become part of the family. There’d be an initiation party and we’d grow one member stronger.
Some of the kids that joined us never dimmed. Whether they stayed or were collected, you could see that they were thrilled to be here every second. Idiots.
We were like gypsies, really. Some family ties but mostly a collection of folk tied together with thief’s honour and frontier justice. I was one of the few kids there who had been born on the road and had grown up on the fairground.
There was nothing fair about it, in my opinion.
I couldn’t wait to leave this place.
My dad was a skinny mute. He was one of the mimes. My mom was a tightrope-walking juggler. She said that she did literally what most people did figuratively.
I didn't know what she meant by that.
I say that they were my parents but I was raised by the entire troupe, including the men that smoked, played poker and hammered tent pegs.
I lost my virginity to one of those men when I was twelve, which is a flowery way of stating what happened. I had an eyepatch, an alcohol problem, and a twenty-a-day habit by the time I was sixteen. Just other examples of why I hated this traveling freak show.
I heard tales from the city kids that I’d strike up conversations with. Stories of laws, stories of knowing hundreds of people for years, stories of becoming familiar with one’s surroundings.
Once and for all, outside Cincinnati, I packed some clothes and fifteen dollars from under my mother’s bed into a handkerchief and just like in the talkies, I tied it around the end of a stick and headed into town.
That was twenty years ago. No one came looking for me. I know hundreds of people now, I am familiar with my surroundings, and I depend on the law to protect me. I am married and I have children and a career.
Now I know what my mother meant.
But I don't miss the circus in the slightest.
tags
Thinking about the circus, I remember the starry-eyed, just-turned teens that we’d inevitably gather from the cities we passed through. Small towns, mostly. They were simple kids who wanted to escape from the drudgery of back seats, small classrooms, ignorant minds, and parent’s greedy wishes.
They soon found out that driving tent stakes into the ground, feeding tigers and shoveling elephant shit into wheelbarrows was no picnic. The transient boys would try a few moves on the contortionist girls or the trapeze ladies or the conjoined twins but they'd get rebuked. Harshly, if necessary, by Kristo the strongman and the clowns.
It was only a matter of time before the police caught up with us a few towns down the line and took the adolescent away, tears running down his or her dirty cheeks. We pleaded ignorance, the cops let us off, all was well. Maybe a bribe or a beating and we were on our way. It was a cycle.
Sometimes, though, one of boys or girls that joined us would never be looked for. Their parents wouldn’t even alert the authorities. They’d stay with us for months. If they managed to not steal or run away for two years, we’d let them become part of the family. There’d be an initiation party and we’d grow one member stronger.
Some of the kids that joined us never dimmed. Whether they stayed or were collected, you could see that they were thrilled to be here every second. Idiots.
We were like gypsies, really. Some family ties but mostly a collection of folk tied together with thief’s honour and frontier justice. I was one of the few kids there who had been born on the road and had grown up on the fairground.
There was nothing fair about it, in my opinion.
I couldn’t wait to leave this place.
My dad was a skinny mute. He was one of the mimes. My mom was a tightrope-walking juggler. She said that she did literally what most people did figuratively.
I didn't know what she meant by that.
I say that they were my parents but I was raised by the entire troupe, including the men that smoked, played poker and hammered tent pegs.
I lost my virginity to one of those men when I was twelve, which is a flowery way of stating what happened. I had an eyepatch, an alcohol problem, and a twenty-a-day habit by the time I was sixteen. Just other examples of why I hated this traveling freak show.
I heard tales from the city kids that I’d strike up conversations with. Stories of laws, stories of knowing hundreds of people for years, stories of becoming familiar with one’s surroundings.
Once and for all, outside Cincinnati, I packed some clothes and fifteen dollars from under my mother’s bed into a handkerchief and just like in the talkies, I tied it around the end of a stick and headed into town.
That was twenty years ago. No one came looking for me. I know hundreds of people now, I am familiar with my surroundings, and I depend on the law to protect me. I am married and I have children and a career.
Now I know what my mother meant.
But I don't miss the circus in the slightest.
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Date: 3 Jan 2008 09:17 (UTC)I deliberately left the main character sexless. Did you see the main character as a girl? Just out of curiousity.
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Date: 3 Jan 2008 09:22 (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 Jan 2008 09:24 (UTC)no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2008 02:52 (UTC)