Cirque De Vie
Written on the fluffy toilet seat cover in my grandma’s bathroom the morning after.
I staggered into the bathroom the next morning, my bladder threatening to burst. I had drunk way too much the night before, my eyes were still tightly closed, attempting to ward off the Crappe Diem threatening to seize my day. My foot hit an unfamiliar object. Did I dare open my eyes? I found the small space crowded with sleeping bodies. Ezra was hugging the linoleum toilet seat; the twins and Max were sprawled in the bathtub looking like a tangled mass of eclectic bodies. I grabbed Ezra under the arms and pulled him off the toilet. He seemed to be relatively clean. He didn’t smell any different than his usual: parfum de cigarettes et rum. I gathered that he had likely been attempting to rid his body of last night’s decisions, but to no avail. I sighed and beheld the room. My friends were a load of circus freak musicians who spent their nights after work in some booth behind the big top: low lit, open jam, insulated with sultry colored Moroccan fabrics.
Ezra didn’t wake up, or even stir, he almost looked dead. Had it not been for his chest barely rising and falling I would have been inclined to ring up Monsieur Loyal. No one fucks with Monsieur Loyal if not for an absolute emergency. No exceptions. Last guy who crossed that line had been practicing his act when Loyal sliced two fingers clean off. The poor bloke thought it a good idea to call the boss man. He soon discovered that was a far worse mistake than two missing digits, Loyal made a lesson out of him. Since he was a boy, Jean Blondin, who was later known as the ringmaster, or the Monsieur of our French style circus, had always been a beautifully attractive hardass of authority. The man was a brute, but his scrutiny was painstakingly bearable at times if you imagined him canning you while he yelled and bitched, red faced and blue eyed.
I sat on the toilet, gently swaying, emptying my wine filled bladder. My headache was slowly beginning to creep towards the area at the center of my forehead. I sighed remembering how many bottles I had found, stolen, and finished. The circus did not pay us enough for there to be good wine around, and still it did not hinder me from sauntering around the tent, the neck of a random bottle within my tight fingered grip. Last nights’ show had been a complete success, we had been working towards creating this spectacle for months. Acrobats dancing in the air, we call it adagio, fire dancers, strong men, dare devils, trick riders, contortionists, dazzling lights, and the captivating Monsieur Loyal. The big top was filled with hundreds of people from all over the world, French chatter filled the air high above the crowds to the platforms we stood on. As a reward, we all got so drunk we forgot the entire night.
I flushed the toilet and still no one stirred. I saw one of Izzy’s fishnet covered legs twitch, but nothing else. They would not wake until the sun went down; I was sure of this much. I may even try to do the same. But from below I could hear the rustling of circus freaks practicing their acts for tonight’s show. I had better do the same if I wanted to wake up again with another splitting headache. In pain, but at least I was far far away in France traveling with the most prolific circus in the world.
