The Pilo Family Circus (5 page)

Rufshod and Doopy were with him. They’d been there for the acquisition of Steve, too. The blood in Steve’s room had in fact been Rufshod’s, just spilled for effect. The three of them slid Jamie into the body bag they’d brought along. Gonko liked the idea of a man waking unexpectedly inside a body bag; his mouth slanted sideways as he zipped it up. The other two clowns picked up the bundle and hauled Jamie out to the road. A ute was parked beside the house, its motor running, the only sound on the moonlit street. They put the bag down on the tray. Doopy and Rufshod battled fiercely for the shotgun seat, their clown shoes scuffing the roadside. Doopy won. Rufshod jumped up on the tray with Jamie. Gonko sped off, swerving on the way to annihilate two stray cats. Doopy told him it wasn’t funny.

One kilometre away they pulled up next to a construction yard on which an apartment block was being built. It was from here Gonko had borrowed the ute. He jumped from the driver’s seat, opened the bonnet and pulled a hatchet from his pants. He gave the engine a few cleaves, just for the fuck of it, the metallic clang of his blows shooting out into the still night like gunshots. He pulled a birthday card from his pocket and wrote on it:
Thanks for the loan, Bob
. The owner of the ute was named Bob. Bob didn’t know Gonko and Gonko didn’t know Bob; the purpose of this exercise was to fuck with Bob’s head. Gonko placed the card on the dashboard, plucked a rose from his other pocket and set it down beside the card.

The three clowns climbed the fence, manoeuvring Jamie gently down with them. Doopy complained about his back, but Doopy was full of shit. The clowns headed for a portaloo
in the corner of the yard. They entered, holding the body bag upright. It was a tight squeeze. In Gonko’s hand was a plastic card, which he held over the lock. A small red light flashed and a lever dropped from the ceiling. He yanked it to one side, and with a creak the floor descended like an elevator, for that’s just what it was. There were several in this city alone, thousands more across the world. Above them a platform slid across to replace the floor on which they now stood. The lift lurched violently. It was a very long descent.

Finally they stopped, not before Doopy let rip a fart plaguing the small space with a stink so foul everyone burst out coughing.

‘Nice one,’ said Gonko, eyes watering. Doopy apologised profusely, but Doopy was full of shit. The lift doors opened.

It was night time in the circus. Around them the silhouettes of the gypsies’ hunched shanties sat like rough cardboard cut-outs on dark paper. The Ferris wheel loomed above against the starless sky, like the hunched skeleton of some huge animal. Far away, something howled. The clowns went home, dragging their newest recruit by the feet.

JAMIE regained consciousness very slowly. A sense of claustrophobia had haunted his last hour or two of dreamless sleep. His mind tried to start as normal, booting up like a computer, but something was blocking the progressions of thought. In his mouth was a horrible dryness and the faint aftertaste of something chemical.

Something else did not feel right; he seemed awake, but everything was black. Gingerly he felt around his eye with a finger — it was open. There was a rustling sound when he moved his hand, like canvas. For a traumatic moment he was thrown into a flashback: a camping trip by the lake with his family, when he woke from a bad dream of a snake inside his tent, only to find a green tree snake really was slithering over his feet. With just a touch of panic he thrashed his arms and groaned.

There was the sound of footsteps right beside his head. Next came a ripping noise, very loud and very close to his face. Suddenly light poured into the small dark space, flaring painfully in his eyes, and the last thing he expected to see was right above him: Steve. ‘Jamie?’

‘Huh?’ was all Jamie could manage.

‘You’re here too?’ said Steve. ‘I thought I saw something move in there. Man, you gotta come see this. It’s a carnival or something. Get up. Come on!’

Jamie sat up and stared uncomprehendingly at the body bag he’d slept in. The black canvas lay open like a split cocoon. He blinked; it simply didn’t compute. He wiped sleep from the corner of his eyes and tried to remember what had happened before he slept. Lying down in a body bag was not on the list.

‘What the hell were you doing in there?’ Steve asked, as though he could possibly answer. ‘Ah, here it is.’ Steve picked up his jumper from the ground. ‘You’re lucky I found you, I only came back to get this. Come on. You gotta see this.’

Too much input too soon.
Last night …
he thought.
Went to bed on the floor. Before that …? Cops. Watch house. Yeah … Caught streaking …
And what next?

He peered around. They were inside what seemed to be a big lofty marquee. The floor was of trampled grass, battered with large misshapen shoe prints. There was a table in the corner with playing cards and empty bottles scattered over it. On the floor were dozens of boxes stuffed with trinkets and colourful rags. A suit of armour lay on its side, covered in obscene crayon graffiti of phalluses and misspelled swearwords. Tinted sunlight filtered through the high canvas walls, lending everything a slightly sick tinge of red.

Then it hit him: Steve was alive. He was right there, standing by the marquee entrance, sunlight pouring in around him. ‘Steve …?’ Jamie croaked.

Steve looked back at Jamie with a glint in his eye — his boyish face looked more boyish than normal, as though the pair of them were in their eighth or ninth Christmas morning.

‘Weren’t you …?’ said Jamie, shaking his head. ‘The clowns … I mean, I looked in your room and there was blood …’

Steve ignored him. ‘Will you
hurry up
, man? Take a look out here.’ He bounded through the tent flaps.

Jamie noticed for the first time the sound of a marching band playing carnival music, and the babble of voices from a crowd. He went to the tent flaps, poked his head through, and the colours outside hit him like a splash of cold water in the face. It was all so bright he had to shut his eyes. When he opened them again he saw a crowd marching past, families, old people, parents, kids dressed in bright colours, babies in prams or in their mothers’ arms, balloons tied to wrists, floating in the air like leashed pets. There were tents and stalls set up like a miniature city, manned by olive-skinned gypsies hawking baubles. The crowd wandered in a procession through them, talking animatedly amongst themselves. Jamie gazed around for the source of the carnival music, but he could see no band; the sounds seemed to drift like the breeze, a natural extension of the colours and the smell of buttered popcorn in the air.

He stepped out of the marquee. From the look of things, he was the only one with no idea what the hell was going on. Steve beckoned impatiently.

Jamie rubbed his eyes. ‘Steve?’

‘Fuck ya,
what
?’

‘Are we …’ He’d been about to ask if they were dead. ‘
Where
are we?’

Steve grabbed his arm. ‘Will you come
on
? I heard something about a magic show over at that tent. Let’s go.’

Jamie let Steve drag him down the pathway. Over in the distance he saw a painted sign:
FUNHOUSE
. Beyond that, a banner he could barely make out was stretched across the top of a tall tent. It said:
FREAK SHOW
. They passed another giant marquee, on the side of which was painted
MAIN STAGE
. Back over his shoulder there was a wooden archway, and behind it
many flashing lights and carnival sounds: bells ringing, mechanical rides starting up, screams and cries. He could see no sign, but guessed somewhere over there was one that said
SIDESHOW ALLEY
.

To answer his own question, where they were was obvious: a circus. Which circus, why and how he didn’t know. But suddenly none of that seemed very important; he sniffed the buttered popcorn scent, and felt a light- headedness creep into him, as though he’d inhaled some kind of narcotic perfume.
No, it’s not important where you are,
said a friendly voice inside.
Just relax! No questions. It’s the carnival. You know, the CARNIVAL!

Indeed it was. A sudden burst of good cheer stole through him, and now he felt like he’d used to feel on a Friday night in the city, around about the second or third bourbon of the night, when the jukebox played a song by Talking Heads and the bar was packed with women. He paused to gaze about himself in wonder, and Steve snapped: ‘Jamie! Are you coming to this magic show or am I going to kick the shit out of you?’

Jamie looked at him and grinned the grin of a happy idiot. ‘Sure!’ he said, and followed.

A chalkboard outside a medium-sized tent read:
MUGABO THE MIGHTY MYSTIC
. Steve yanked Jamie inside, where they saw a small stage loaded with magician’s props. There was an upside down top hat, out of which a rabbit was to be pulled, no doubt; a black wand with white tips which probably drooped when picked up; bundles of coloured ribbon; and interlocking silver rings. Steve and Jamie sat in the front row of plastic seats while the audience settled in around them, and soon the tent filled with drowsy conversation. At the back of the stage was a curtain primed to be parted for a grand entrance. The audience hushed as harsh whispering
could suddenly be heard behind it. ‘
Bunny treek
?’ a strangely accented voice yelled. ‘I’ll do your
bunny treek,
peeg!’

‘Mugabo, we’ve been through this,’ said another voice. ‘Sticks and stones, for Christ’s sake. You’re not going to let Rufshod —’

‘That clown peeg! You friend, huh?
Bunny treek!
I can light ze fucking sky, does he know zat? I can —
GET YOU HAND OFF —’

There were sounds of a scuffle; a slap, a grunt, a body falling to the ground. The audience watched with interest as the curtain tugged on its frame. The apparent brawl went on for a full minute before the curtains parted, and far from a grand entrance, the magician stumbled and sprawled onto the stage as though he’d been picked up and thrown. An uncertain round of applause greeted him.

A puff of white smoke rose belatedly from the floor. When it cleared, a surly-looking black man in a turban was trying to straighten his robe with shaking hands. Mugabo the magician cut a tall gangling figure, taller still with the white turban he wore wrapped around his head like a giant egg. A jewel sat in its middle. He peeled his lips back and snarled at the audience with teeth that seemed to glow white against the blackness of his skin. He flung his arms at the rows of seats and spat on the floor. ‘Stop your clapping!’ the magician screamed. The applause ceased. ‘Okay, you fucks. You want ze
bunny treek
?’

The audience was clapping again, egging him on with jovial catcalls. Mugabo nodded his head, the turban flopping back and forth. His deep voice was scathing. ‘All right. I geev you your
bunny treek
.’ He stalked over to the table, gave one glance back over his shoulder at the curtain, then grinned as he rolled back his sleeves. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I am Mugabo ze
mighty mystic … or sometheeng. I will dedicate zis treek to zat fuckpig of a clown. Zis
all
for him.’

He reached into the hat and, as Jamie expected, out came a pair of long soft white ears. The rabbit kicked its legs at the air. There was a brief round of polite applause. ‘Yes, you like ze bunny?’ Mugabo crooned. ‘How nice! They like ze bunny. So … how do you like …
ZIS
!’ Mugabo’s face ruptured into a scowl. He jerked his fist and the rabbit towards the audience. The rabbit flopped around for a moment or two, little legs pumping the air, before it exploded in a white and red cloud. There was a sound like fruit being squashed. Blood and shreds of rabbit meat splattered over the first two rows of the audience. A small pile of gore spilled at the magician’s feet.

‘HA HA!’ Mugabo yelled. He bent over at the waist, thumping his fist on the table, shrieking something between a laugh and a howl. The audience went completely silent.

Two figures burst through the curtains. Jamie recognised one of them — it was Doopy the clown, who Jamie understood to be an old acquaintance from somewhere just out of memory. The other was a burly dwarf wearing an eye patch. ‘All part of the show, folks,’ said the dwarf as he threw himself at Mugabo, tackling him around the ankles. Then Droopy and the dwarf wrestled the kicking, flailing magician off the stage.

The show appeared to be over. The audience clapped uncertainly. Jamie picked some white fur from his shirt and wiped blood from his face. A baby in the arms of the woman beside him had its face covered in rabbit blood; she didn’t seem to mind, or even to notice. She and her husband stood, waiting for a path to clear to the exits.

There was a faint sound Jamie recognised, like marbles clinking together. It came from below his feet. Looking down, he saw tiny little crystals scattered thinly through the grass.
Where had he seen these before? He couldn’t remember. He knew this much: the crystals had not been on the ground when they entered the tent. Now they gleamed around people’s feet as they made their way down the aisle to the exit, like coins dropping from their pockets.

As they left the magic show, the curtain behind the stage was jerking in accompaniment to the sounds of slaps, grunts, cracks. There was a thud as a body hit the floor. All part of the show.

Outside, through the smell of buttered-popcorn came something stronger, the scent of incense like an invisible finger beckoning him with a long manicured nail. Without a word he followed the scent, Steve on his heels. In the crowd he saw others from the magic show passing by, oblivious to the smears of rabbit blood on their shirts and faces as they chatted and laughed. Steve promptly announced he was going to Sideshow Alley and ran off, shouldering his way through the crowd and nearly bowling people over. Jamie let him go without a care, for he was distracted by erotic visions promised in the sweet scent coiling around him like caressing fingers. Behind his eyes dark-skinned women like Egyptian princesses ran ahead of him, naked bodies in full flight, gesturing for him to follow. Punch-drunk, he did, down a path where the crowd thinned, the background music faded, and the air was cooler.

A pair of dwarfs wrestling in the dirt beside the path froze as Jamie approached, scowled at him, then ran off. Suddenly the teasing erotic visions vanished and he found himself standing before a small hut with hanging beads for an entrance. He shook himself and looked around in confusion,
startled to see there was no one else around. Hesitantly he parted the beads which clicked together like marbles. It seemed to be a fortune-teller’s hut, but somebody was already visiting.

‘Sorry,’ Jamie said as the man in the hut turned around.

Something cold crept over Jamie’s skin. A voice inside told him to run away, very fast, right now. But as that passed he realised the man’s face must be covered in makeup, that’s all — that’s why his eyes blazed with that insane light from beneath a lump of bony brow as dark as a thundercloud; that’s why every contour from forehead to jaw was so wolf-like the man would not have looked out of place howling at the moon, despite the fact he wore a business suit; that’s why he was well over seven feet tall, with hands far too large and yellow nails as long as talons.

The monster looked down at him from a full foot above. ‘Oh, I
do
like apologies,’he said in a deep, civilised voice. ‘But, no problem. I was just on my way out. Enjoy your fortunes.’

He stepped past Jamie with the utmost courtesy. A smile came to his thick lips which seemed almost kindly, perhaps the way a werewolf smiles at a cub. Jamie looked away from him, shivering, and for a second there was none of the intoxicated good cheer left in him, only cold fear of a world made of traps and snags and dark places people stumble into.

The huge man pushed through the rattling beads, stooping beneath the top of the doorframe, and was gone. The chill passed.

What had been an almost overpowering smell of sandalwood outside the hut was merely a mild flavour in the air inside it. The atmosphere was different from the rowdy good cheer outside; cooler and quieter, like sleep. A gypsy woman sat at a round table, fingering a deck of tarot cards and gazing up at
Jamie with a hint of a smile. She had smooth light-brown skin, sparkling eyes and straight black hair falling from her head in silky waves. Behind her there were bookshelves stacked with nameless tomes, and charts of bright stars hung from the walls, filling the air before them with a faint white glow. A glass ball sat on the table before her, balanced upon a small wooden base shaped like a claw. ‘Don’t worry about him,’ the fortune-teller said, nodding after the monster. ‘He is harmless. That is Kurt Pilo. He owns the circus.’