door. The glint of a freshly sharpened hatchet is reflected in the brass doorknob. Cherry opens the door. She is naked and screams as the hatchet hacks its way easily through her make-up.
As she falls to the ground, the camera zooms in on her face, the camera momentarily losing focus, but sharpens on her tongue as it stops in mid-swipe across her bloodied lips. The voice of the cameraman is heard in a distorted, breathless growl as his own lips press into the microphone.
“
Fade out.
Wicked Wire
Whenever William Farini became aware of himself, when he took note of his existence, it was always here. High above the strewn sawdust, the canvas of the ceiling close enough to smell, the silhouettes of crows perched outside, as if waiting for his cries of pain. How often had he found himself here, staring at the tightrope, the razor wire gleaming, waiting for him to step across, waiting to slice into his tender feet?
He grabbed the wooden pole off its perch, sweat-stained indentations from countless performances where his hands clutched it, the pole’s ends splintered and cracked, red paint flaking off in spots.
He looked out across the tightrope, at the hungry razor blades, the thin, taut wire. The other side may as well have been on a different planet. How many times had he performed this? Each time, the other side — a mere fifty feet — looked miles away. Whoever said the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?
The Ringmaster’s voice echoed off the bleachers in a strong practiced cadence.
“
The crowd roared.
The crowd. Every performance brought new faces, yet the crowd as a whole remained the same beast.
William took a deep breath, tightened his grip around the balance pole and stepped onto the wire. He winced as his weight pressed his flesh onto steel. He’d stopped wondering why he never developed calluses long ago. Each time he began his performance, the soles of his bare feet were fresh and tender as baby skin.
A razor blade sliced into his middle toe. He kept his mouth shut, sucking the pain in, and took another step. His blood dripped through the air, becoming tiny round globes as it fell, splashing onto a webbing of net before continuing its journey to the floor. The pain remained as sharp as the razor blades he stepped on.
A new weight on each end of the balance pole pushed him further into the wire. Painful, yes, but a weight he’d been expecting. A weight he welcomed.
“John! Frank!” he called.
His sons clutched desperately to their respective sides of the pole. Although their weight pressed him forcefully onto the sharp, hungry wire, it also lowered his center of gravity and made balancing easier.
“It’s good to see you, boys.”
He took a second step. Felt his foot press hotly onto a razor blade, his weight pressing until the razor sliced through to the bone. He held in a scream, beads of sweat popping on his forehead. He forced himself to smile. His sons didn’t need to know the pain he was in. They had their own problems.
Johnny looked so frightened straddling the end of the pole, so shaky and unsure.
“It’s alright, John.” William nodded. “Don’t look down. Look at me, John. Look at me and take your time. Pretend you’re in the barn playing on the rafters.”
And Frank, the fearless one, who’d leap from the barn loft down onto the back of the hay wagon like a young Tarzan. Yet here, he was frightened, too, although he put on a brave face. There was a tremor in his voice as he inched his way toward his father. “When can we see Mom?”
“She’s here,” William said. Can’t they see her? “On the platform.” Waiting just as he remembered her.
But Frank squinted toward the platform and said, “It’s so dark over there. Are you sure it’s her?”
“Yes, Frank. She’s waiting for us.”
Drops of blood fell through the net to the sawdust below. He would’ve preferred that there was no net. Not like the one beneath him.
Concentrate. Look straight ahead. You’ve done it before. So many times before.
He smelled the farm, their farm, the freshly thrashed hay, the sweet aroma of manure (and yes, it was a sweet smell, especially in memory, especially now) and the smell of the barn and the corn bin and the hen house and the fields — the whisper of corn stocks on a breezy summer day. The memories were strong. Painful. Sometimes he wished he could forget.
He looked out at the upturned faces of the audience, like baby birds waiting in their nest to feed. The tin echo of calliope music mingled with their communal hum. Sunlight radiated through the tent canvas making their skin glow orange. The light and heat made William dizzy. Nauseous. The taste of a dry cigar had grown stale and bitter on his tongue.
He remembered when he’d been part of the audience. Connie was the one who got so excited about the circus coming.
“Oh, let’s go. Please Bill. The boys will love it. We’ll all love it so much.”
It was the first time in his thirty-six years that a circus had traveled to their small town. Maybe the spectacle would lighten their hearts. Let them forget the hard times, if only for a few hours. They could barely afford milk and bread, but how long had it been since Connie smiled?
He saved pennies and nickels in a Prince Albert tobacco tin hidden behind a wooden crate meagerly weighted with rations of sugar and flour and coffee. On the day the circus rolled into the barren fields on the other side of town, he had barely saved enough, and counted it twice to make sure he wouldn’t be embarrassed by coming up short at the Big Top’s ticket booth.
They traveled on foot for five miles over a dusty road, through the failing heart of Riverbend. The winding river that gave the town its name had dried up only two years earlier, leaving behind a bed of coarse gravel and widening fissures.
Dirt stung their eyes. Small funnel clouds of topsoil danced in the outlying fields. They wore handkerchiefs over their mouths and noses to keep from breathing in the dust, yet they still tasted it, a thin glue on their tongues. As William and his family neared the huge red and orange tent, the large entrance flaps snapping and whipping in the wind, they saw other families fighting their way through the blowing dirt.
They stepped inside. The wind stopped. William looked up slowly, carefully, pulling the handkerchief down as if he didn’t trust his senses. The smell of popcorn made his mouth water. A woman in a blue leotard and pink boa walked by carrying a tray full of beer. She stopped and turned to William.
“You look parched, mister. Have a beer on the house.”
“I can’t—”
“Oh, c’mon now.” Her smile was big. Wet. “Course you can.”
“Thank you.” He took the bottle of beer and sipped, closing his eyes. Nothing had ever tasted so good. He handed the bottle to Connie, then let each son take a sip.
He counted out his change at the ticket booth. The ticket teller slid back a nickel and winked. “The missus gets in free.”
William eyed the rows of available seating. Plenty of open space on the tiered metal benches. They ascended the rickety steps to a spot just left of center, and when they sat, only a moment passed before trumpets blared and the Ringmaster stepped into the center ring. His uniform was bright crimson in the hot spotlight.
William looked at his sons, their mouths agape, hands gripping the edges of the bench. He looked at Connie. Excitement and anticipation filled every pore on her face. For a moment, it was impossible to take his eyes off her. He soaked in her happiness as best he could, because he knew that when he told her the bank was foreclosing on their farm in the morning, it would be a long, long time before her face shone this brightly.
He blinked away tears, rubbed his eye, pretending a bit of dust had lodged there. He turned away. When his vision cleared, he saw a figure cloaked in shadows staring at him from the other side of the center ring.
