Two Legs 3rd draft

Two Legs

“Listen, just keep your eyes on the freaks, kid! That’s why we hired your educated ass! You’re supposed to know the difference!” The middle aged producer Mr. Fetterling, liked reminding Mark, who had just turned 21, that “we”, that is, the financial team of the Great Canadian Shriner Circus, were the people in the front part of the caravan and everybody else was in the back. He referred to anyone who didn’t count money on a regular basis as a “freak”. Mr. Fetterling leaned forward, grasped the turnstile, spun it round, and watched it jerk to a stop. He seemed to ponder it, as if it was a wheel of fortune and he couldn’t figure out what he had just landed on. “Well, at least these damn things are working! Ching, ching, ching! Showtime soon, the high school kids should be here soon to take the tickets! Just watch out for the freaks, will ya! He jerked his head and rolled his eyes towards the empty parking lot and said, “like that freak, he’s been here all morning.” And let’s make sure everything is in the right place this time!” The last two words stung Mark, knowing himself to be blameless, but he remained silent, again, as usual. Mr. Fetterling turned toward the back door of the box office trailer and walked up the creaky tiny steel steps. Mark cringed when he remembered the letter he had forgotten to put away on the desk in the box office a few weeks before. In it he had written to a friend, “The guy is a funny pear shaped man, forked with two stubby little legs, in plaid pastel pants that are far too tight for a guy his age and he’s got a pair of white shoes to match his big white Elvis belt. He wears the same gaudy orange silk shirt from hell everyday”. But to this day, he still wasn’t sure if Mr. Fetterling had actually read it.

Mark unfolded the layout of the circus grounds and flattened it on the rickety turnstile, one of six in a row that resembled a hastily built barricade between humanity and the travelling world of the circus. He looked up slowly and followed his lanky shadow up to where his head was. Having short hair made him feel uncomfortable. He then surveyed the scene before him, his eyes darting around for anything that might be out of place.  The giant circus tent was taking shape, amongst roadies scurrying between clanking steel and wood planks knocking into place, with all the cables and wires stretching like arteries and nerves around the steel frame. The yellow and red canvas was hoisted, puffed suddenly then bloomed into shape, while the electrical crew zapped the final connections and the lights began to hum. Soon there would be the usual long silence before the first matinee show, with only the slow roar of tigers and the grunting of elephants providing a muffled sleepy afternoon soundtrack just as it must have sounded on the plains of Africa 10,000 years ago. Only this was the landlocked prairies of North America and the soft golden breezes that came across the SuperStore Mall parking lot, always promised relief but only left another clump of wheat dust sticking to the top of your mouth. Some days it was almost unbearable.
 

Mark leaned on the turnstile and the soft underside of his forearms recoiled suddenly from the heat of the steel. He wondered when the next snide comments would come from Mr. Fetterling. He looked out over the parking lot up and then awkwardly up at the sky and then back down at the man sitting in his pickup truck, because, it was the only thing he could look at in the empty parking lot. He had a sensation but if it were translated into a thought it would read something like how can you avoid looking at the only thing there is look at and pretend you are not looking at it? Just a dark silhouette, framed by a car door window, but it was a dark silhouette that was definitely looking at Mark.  He had on a baseball cap and his dusty old tincan truck with old style rounded edges, looked like a chariot almost floating in the sun soaked ocean of the parking lot. There was an Indian head with feathers on the door and the words Native American art stenciled on the side. Just to seem normal, Mark looked back up again at the Prairie sky. Mark admired the hugeness of the sky which always made him feel like he was seeing with the whites of his eyes. He imagined the same scene before there were big scientific discoveries or revolutions resulting from telescopes. He saw himself an ancient member of the earth and the sky suddenly seemed to be a very real and present god who had watched over these fields of golden wheat, and its roaming wild and raw horses, from long before horses were called horses because language had not been invented yet.  “We” to Mark meant men who had stolen this land from the Indians in search of gold and money.

The Circus had been under siege now for months. Mark hadn’t counted on that. The ad at the summer employment office was listed under the Marketing Section. He had split up with his high school girlfriend and he was generally bored with classrooms and essays and the books that were now strewn around his dorm room like dead butterflies. However, now, that he had become the producer’s personal scapegoat, he slightly regretted his last conversation with his mother.

What would your father have said, it’s only been a year since…..and now you’re running away with the…..

Dad would have loved it! He had lots of wacky jobs when he was young. Besides, it’s a corporate consulting company! They manage the tour. They’re all a bunch of suits.

They’re all a bunch of ex-convicts, drug addicts, and roadies and, and performers!

Come on, Mom, we’re all performers to some degree, aren’t we? I’m only missing a semester!

For the initial interview, he cut his hair and bought the same light blue button down and beige khakis, he was presently wearing.

Now, it was midsummer and nobody knew what to expect from town to town. To be fair to Mr Fetterling, the puddle of sweat that sat permanently on his forehead was not unjustified. The animal rights protestors could show up at any time. The new Cirque de Soleil had created a seismic shift in the circus world: big theme shows, collaborations with pop stars and, above all, no more animal acts. The big top would never be the same again. Adding to this was the constant tense and volatile air found amongst the performers, the concession people, the producers, and the roadies, which was fueled by the exhaustion that comes from nine weeks on the road. Fist fights were normal and sometimes there were even knifes involved. But they all were united in a common distrust for the people in the box office trailer which also served as Marks mobile home for the tour. The accountant and producer drove in from a local hotel in the nearest city. One time they showed up in a helicopter. The circus folk had all stared. The producer played each group against the other and ended up blaming Mark, the corporate gopher, for anything that went wrong on the tour. By this time halfway through in the season, it was hard for Mark to tell who to trust anymore.

https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/bKDMacTxFlu/circus-troubles/#/

 

Can we have the map now? said Tommy, the balloon man’s son, wiping his unkempt blonde hair from his eyes. He was surrounded by five other children, all at different heights. These were the little people of the Big Top who inhabited the air between the trailers and scaffolding and who knew all the hidden places around the tent. Too young to work, they hopscotched all day over cables and wires and popped the occasional balloon. They knew all 23 animals in the back by name, including Bella the new baby monkey. Cindy, the acrobat’s daughter, now had her hands on her hips. Her face was knotted up in a little scowl and her little  left purple hightop sneaker was on the verge of tapping the pavement. Mark pulled out the photocopy of the layout, he had prepared earlier from his back pocket and handed to Tommy. They all leaned in as he unfolded the paper.

Where are the dragons this time?  said Tommy.

Why do we have to find the dragons, said Jose, the jugglers son, the youngest and newest one.

Cause that’s where the treasure is, stupid, said Cindy.

Mark leaned forward and let his finger hover a while, then he tapped the paper firmly and said in a mock pirate voice, “Right here, there be the dragons”. He touched the box office this time.

They looked at each other and scurried away, with empty popcorn boxes jammed onto crooked sticks, frayed bungee cords and water guns clinking and clanking as they ran. The map was flapping like a pet butterfly at the end of Tom’s arm. In their wake they left the soft scent of cotton candy and buttered popcorn.

What are you doing talking to those little brats? growled the producer, his head poking outside the box office window

They’re just bored.

You think, do you? I think we’re going to have to have a little talk about your job responsibilities pretty soon.

I think everything looks ok for the show today.

Showtime!, barked Mr. Fetterling at some imaginary audience while staring straight at Mark and ignoring his reply at the same time. “Let’s get the show on the road! Can’t we have just one show without a hassle?” gripped the producer.  The list of things that had gone wrong so far this season looked like runaway train with all the crimes and incidents stenciled like ads on the side of box cars.

“Let’s put the mirrors and posters out”, shouted the producer. Mark started propping up the plywood signs and nudging them open and so the distorting mirrors which faced each other, created a kind of gauntlet for the customers to line up within. The mirrors were the producer’s “big” new idea of the season. “This will keep the twerps and rug rats busy in the line.” Ten signs later and Mark was about 30 yards away from the pickup truck and could feel the man in the old truck watching him. He walked back slowly through the signs watching his body as it distorted and ballooned into a chubby little toddler then reappeared in the next sign as a tall skinny guy with stilts for legs then bursting into endless reoccurring reflections of himself in the next one. Tom and Jose were huddled under the box office trailer, whispering. “You find it yet”, hollered Mark with a smile. Even if he was the lowest man on the totem pole, nothing the producer could say or do to Mark diminished the genuine delight he got from watching the children’s endless imaginative scenarios.
 

He positioned himself at the turnstiles and the vendors were in full commotion. The cotton candy kiosk grinding out pink sugar clouds and the popcorn man was scooping and stacking small bags of bouncing particles. People had began handing in tickets to the local teenagers Mark had hired, the day before, to man the turnstiles. People shuffled in slowly with kids tugging at their parent’s arms and gesturing wildly like little weathervanes. Cindy hopped and dodged among the customers in the opposite direction. The producer popped his head out of the trailer repeatedly.
 

The man from the pickup truck was now walking slowly towards the turnstiles. Beside him was a little kid with a long shaft of wheat in his mouth. The scrawny stick of wheat looked stronger then the bony arm he used to pluck it out of his mouth to spit occasionally. As they got closer the producer stuck his head out the back door and jerked his thumb in the direction of the man. They bypassed the box office and approached Mark.  The man had deep lines surrounding the features of his face. It was a hard face and his eyes reminded Mark of the sky above them.  His huge hands looked like they were made from leather baseball gloves.

Wondering if we can have a look?

You have to buy a ticket, sir.

How much?

10 dollars for adults and 5 for children.

Don’t got it, kid.

I’m sorry, sir..

Mr. Fetterling was not perched and watching from the slightly opened back door of the trailer.

We won’t be long. Just want to see what this here show is all about.

The man said then he looked down at the boy.

Sorry, sir. Everybody has to pay. The box office is right there.

 

Mark could feel the producer’s eyes on the side of his head. The man leaned slightly to the left of Mark’s shoulder.  Mark gently raised his hand and brushed his hair back out of habit even though it was too short to need brushing back. But the man was just looking into the mouth of the tent. The music had started and the dancing elephants with hula hoops around their trunks were lumbering in circles around the ring. The circus theme music was pounding from the tent.

The man cocked his head and said,

I don’t get it, kid.

Don’t get what, sir?

What’s with making animals walk on two legs?

The producer let out a long exaggerated grunt of impatience. “What the hell is going on over there? “ The back door of the box office smashed open with a violent metallic clang. There was a sudden pathetic yelp. The producer’s foot was tangled in a bit of the bungee cord the kids had tied to the lowest step. Before his four limbs could reach the ground, the children had scattered in various directions from under the box office. Their eyes were huge with shock and a little bit of the surprise that comes from unintended success. Mark wanted to run too, but only for a moment. His two legs remained rigid and the shadow they cast looked like a geometric instrument poised on a map. It was time for their little talk.