The tents appeared in the middle of the night, without preamble. There was some heated discussion at city hall, because not even the mayor knew they were coming. They must’ve worked out something, though, because the gypsy circus stayed. Our town wasn’t big enough to support even a fair, so this was big news. That was how I found myself with my older brother Tommy and his friends that evening. I was just fifteen then, and though we were in a small town now, my mother hailed from Boston. There was no way she would cut me loose to run around on my own, but if she’d known how bad Tommy and his friends really were, she would’ve known I was much better off alone.
“How much money you got?” Frankie asked, punching my shoulder. Of the three older boys, I hated him the most. He regularly hit, kicked and ridiculed me, while my own brother laughed about it. He was twice my size—I was a runt back then—but I dreamed of the day I could stand up to him. Stand up to them all.
I gave him the twenty Mom had given me, but not the five I had tucked in my hat bill. If nothing else, I wanted to sneak a candy apple later. Dad was a dentist and we didn’t have things like that around my house.
They abandoned me when we walked inside that midway. I’d never been to a circus before. There weren’t many rides, but huge tents loomed everywhere. Barkers told us to come one, come all—see the magnificent beasts of the wild, or the horrifying freaks of nature. I laughed at that one. I’d ridden in with the freaks of nature.
Still, I wanted to see a lion. They looked so majestic on television. Reluctantly, I parted with $2 and stepped inside.
The tent smelled of sawdust, sweat, and dung, but inside were the most fantastic creatures I’d ever seen. I picked a peanut off the ground and fed it to an elephant, then sat on a bench to await the show. The lions were my favorite part. I knew they were big, but I never expected anything that huge. I held my breath when the lion tamer stuck his head in one creature’s mouth. Its incisors looked as long as my fingers. Its back teeth, which I knew were called carnassals from a book my dad gave me, worked like scissors to cut and tear meat. No way would I ever have had the guts to stick my head in there.
After the show, I debated spending another $2 to watch the same show again, but I really wanted that apple. As I made my way to the food trailers, a girl called out to me.
“Read your fortune for $1.”
The sight of her took my breath. For the rest of my life, I’d dream about her face. I wish that she could’ve seen her own fortune instead of mine that night. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.
I stared at her, transfixed. Her eyes were two different colors. I wondered if she wore contact lens to achieve the effect, in order to look more striking. One was icy blue and the other brown, like mine. The effect was jarring, even more so because she was lovely. Long, black hair, full lips, dressed like a genie from a TV show with her smooth, tan belly bared. Hormones trumped hunger, and I let her lead me into her tent.
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