‘Ah, JJ, you got my hopes up,’ said Gonko, poking Rufshod with his boot. ‘This is nothing. This is a fix for Ruf, probably the highlight of the week for the sick fuck. Takes more than this to kill a clown, my lovely. Clowns take some killing,
make no mistake.’
Gonko lashed at the crate with his boot, cracking the wood; it rolled sideways to reveal Rufshod’s blood-soaked shirt and a chest horribly flattened and lumpy. ‘Right,’ said Gonko. ‘JJ and Winston, you two are the girliest, most nurse- like pair we got. Peel him off the ground and get him back to the tent. If you kill him en route I’m docking your pay.’
They carted Rufshod back to their tent and tossed him onto his bed, where he lay with his eyes bulging and face soaked in sweat. JJ, who’d felt entitled to a share of the attention, sulked until five o’clock, when Gonko summoned the clowns together and they made their way to Kurt’s prayer meeting.
The acrobats waylaid them. Two nearby carnies scuttled out of the way as they sprang out of an alley, blocking the clowns’ path. ‘YOU!’ said the one called Sven, pointing at JJ. ‘Where’s our trampoline?’
‘It’s where I left it, you dumb fairy,’ said JJ, who was taking no lip from these guys when the other clowns were here to do the fighting for him. ‘So fuck off!’ he added.
‘What did we tell you, little man?’ said the one called Randolph, squaring his shoulders and stepping towards JJ. ‘If you didn’t bring it back, we’d break you in half. I think tha’ss wha’ we said.’
‘Yes, sounds about right, love,’ said Sven.
‘So then,’ said Randolph, flexing his leg slowly and levelling his heel with JJ’s face. ‘The rest of you, stand back. This will be quick and painful.’
Gonko sighed. ‘Come on, fellas. We copped your little
smoke bomb prank on the chin. Let poor li’l JJ off the hook, what do you say? We’ll call it even.’
‘Smoke bomb?’ said Randolph. ‘Don’t know wha’ you’re talking about. Don’t blame us when your show falls apart. Bunch of amateurs wouldn’t know entertainment if it kicked you in the face. Watch!’ Randolph made a graceful flying leap towards JJ with his heel raised to strike. It was so graceful JJ found himself admiring the body in motion rather than getting out of the way. Gonko, however, wasn’t similarly enthralled; he leaped between Randolph and JJ, whipped an iron bar from his pockets, and clobbered the acrobat in the ribs with a dull musical thud. Randolph flew through the air, spinning around like a high diver before landing roughly in the grass.
The other acrobats watched their comrade’s body come to rest and turned to Gonko, surrounding him with an air of intimidation JJ wouldn’t have thought possible for men wearing tights. Gonko rounded on them and held the iron bar aloft, his teeth bared, his head nodding. Then something unexpected happened: Goshy saved the day. All present, probably everyone on the showgrounds, clapped their hands over their ears as an unbearable noise attacked the air, shriller than an air raid siren, loud as an explosion. The clowns and acrobats dropped to the ground, heads buried in their arms. Then the acrobats scrambled to their feet and ran.
JJ had been first to hit the ground. He glanced sidelong at Goshy, whose face was pulled back taut into those doughy ripples around his mouth and neck. What JJ found strangest was that Goshy faced away from the rest of them, and had his eyes fixed intently on the tent peg of a nearby gypsy stall. It was impossible to believe he’d been keeping track of the confrontation, or that his outburst had been designed to end
it; it was quite likely something he’d been going to do anyway. A drop of blood leaked from his ear.
Finally the shriek subsided. Doopy ran to his brother. ‘Goshy!’ he said in an awed whisper. ‘You done
gooood
. You done
real
good, Goshy!’
Goshy’s arms were locked stiff at his sides. He turned to face Doopy with three shuffling steps, stared at him as though he’d never seen him before, and uttered a low whistle. Gonko removed the ear plugs he’d pulled from his pockets and slapped Goshy on the shoulder. JJ shuddered as Doopy wiped the blood from his brother’s ear.
The clowns went on their way. Carnies peered from windows as they passed, wondering what the hell had made that noise. All others on the showgrounds wondered the same thing. Even Goshy.
A patch of Rufshod’s blood still coloured the grass by the stage. The clowns were second to arrive. First were the acrobats, who stared daggers at them from across the room. Gonko blew them a kiss. The other performers soon arrived to delay, if not ease, the tension. Among them were the woodchoppers, burly denim-clad musclemen who, judging by their manner, didn’t need the muscles to support a great weight of brain matter. They scratched themselves and stared about vacantly. There were a few members of the freak show present, including Yeti, seven or so feet covered in long hair, a profoundly mournful and gentle face. Fishboy wheeled the severed head in a shopping cart. The freaks settled at the back of the room and Fishboy cast friendly waves around at everyone. He
seemed the only one without any enemies, and JJ wondered how he managed it.
Mugabo stumbled in as though by accident and sat at the far left of the room, looking confused. Shalice came next, her eyes smouldering as she peered around to take everyone’s measure. JJ ducked behind Doopy to avoid her gaze. George Pilo stormed in after her, four feet of bitter rage, and stood some distance behind the podium, not sparing a glance at anyone else. He was looking intently at the crates tied to the rafters. Another rope had been added, presumably by George himself. It ran down the trapeze support beam and its tip lay at George’s feet.
JJ suddenly noticed that the crates were perched directly above where George had put the podium, and he went pale beneath his face paint as he realised what they were for. George was about to assassinate Kurt — and he, JJ, had helped set it up! Fear flooded through him like ice water, and he squirmed in his seat. Maybe there was time to go warn the boss …
In he came, strolling down the aisle between the rows of seats, hands in his pockets, gazing around at his employees with that smile. He went straight to the podium and raised his hands as though to quiet the audience, though no one spoke. JJ cringed lower in his seat, afraid to watch.
‘Good afternoon,’ said Kurt in a rich deep voice. ‘How are we all? How am I? Fine, I suppose. Nothing has killed me since last we spoke, and the same could be said of you, which is lovely. We’ve had a busy week. Two shows. That’s busy indeed, and you are to be commended. Almost everyone lived up to the high standard of entertainment that the Pilo Family Circus expects of its performers. It is our aim to provide an experience of unforgettable entertainment to anyone who visits our show. That is how you survive so long
in this business, folks. You
entertain
. Everyone deserves entertainment.’
This banal spiel continued for several minutes, and the performers’ eyes wandered anywhere but the podium. JJ watched Kurt nervously as he towered over all present, his huge hands rending the air around him with civilised gestures, like a lion with table manners. ‘Now. I have some unpleasant business.’ Kurt’s smile turned to the good-natured frown of a patient schoolmarm. ‘Seventeen people have taken the Lord’s name in vain. Shalice did it twice, while copulating, so I suppose that could be forgiven … Though Shalice, begging the saviour to fuck you is a little much. There is only so much we can ask of him. Nugget of the freaks did it once, while talking in his sleep — nice work, Fishboy, you run a tight ship. Of the clowns, Rufshod did it six times, Gonko ten, Winston twice, and JJ thirty-two times. My dear brother George did it eleven times. Now, there will be no breach notices delivered this time around, but please keep it tasteful. There are
so
many words. Why use the Lord’s? Let’s bear that in mind.’
At the mention of George, JJ scanned the stage, but George had vanished from sight. Then a movement caught his eye and he saw something tugging at the rope which ran across the roof and up the trapeze tower. Up above, one of the crates gave a tiny jerk, tipped sideways, and both crates fell.
Down below, Kurt didn’t miss a beat of his speech, even as both crates thudded into the stage to either side of him. In his hand was the umbrella the clowns had loaned him, raised just above his head a split second before the crates would have hammered into his bald skull. The performers snapped back to attention at the cannon-blast of the crates hitting the
wooden stage, where they broke on impact, the ripped sandbags spilling their contents with a faint
hissss
.
Kurt didn’t even glance at the fallen crates. Behind him, George’s face was turning red, his arms were flailing around like a chimp having a seizure. Kurt calmly folded the umbrella and put it aside as he reminded his charges it wasn’t a matter of asking what Jesus could do for them, but what they could do for Jesus.
JJ bit his nails. Nothing was happening. Gonko and Winston looked only mildly interested in the attempted murder. ‘Winston!’ JJ whispered. ‘I put those crates up there!’
‘So?’ said Winston.
‘
SO
? Are you fucking dense?’
‘Quiet, please,’ said Kurt from the podium. JJ yelped in fright before he could stop himself. Winston leaned across to JJ and said, ‘This is nothin’ we ain’t seen a thousand times already. Doesn’t matter if you helped George. Kurt’ll probably ask you to help him bump off George next week. Just do what you’re told and keep your mouth shut.’
Kurt was winding up his speech. George made a quiet exit, tripping over his own feet, his body shaking with rage. ‘Looks like George thought he was in with a chance that time,’ said Winston.
‘Gonna be fun taking orders from that shit tonight,’ said Gonko. He spat.
Kurt concluded by urging people not to go overboard with birthday gifts this year, though they could go a little overboard if they really wanted to. The performers stirred, all of them relieved the meeting’s end was in sight.
Suddenly there was a creaking sound, a loud one. It seemed to come from the rafters. JJ looked up, startled, as the whole tent seemed to sway. The trapeze towers wobbled and
a hush passed through the audience. Winston immediately ducked down under his seat. Even Kurt paused and gave a slow curious look around. At that moment the support beams toppled forward like falling trees, and there was a ruffling sound like a flag being unfurled in strong wind. A banner opened across the horizontal rafters, tied to the same rafter beam Rufshod had been perched on earlier. It was a white sheet, and painted on it in red was one word:
FREEDOM
.
Then the tent collapsed. The support beams went down, the rafters fell inward and there was a huge ripping noise. A shriek went up outside the tent as the whole thing caved in on itself, burying everyone under thick canvas. There were great thuds as the wooden and metal supports broke and slammed into the rows of seats. JJ just had time to hide under his seat as a pole landed next to him. The ground quivered with its impact
From the podium, Kurt Pilo’s voice carried through the wreckage. He sounded mildly amused. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’
The apparent sabotage would be the source of much talk over the following days. It was strange that no one had been killed in what amounted to an attempt on every performer’s life. Vandalism on a smaller scale was never uncommon — someone always had it in for someone else, and most in the show had seen far too much for their own good, an aphrodisiac for random violence. Of course the banner had ruled out the possibility of an accident. Freedom? A pretty word, but no one knew what to make of it.
The first accusations were levelled at George, behind his back of course. His sneaking out of the tent had been awfully convenient. If George was the culprit, that raised serious questions about how he was to be brought to account; he was, after all, second in command, and Kurt wanted him dead already. But there was no case for George to answer. Everyone in the show would have loved to see him squirm for the pleasure of it, but none thought he’d actually done it. The chaotic nature of the attack, leaving so much to chance, lacked the signature of a control freak like George … It simply wasn’t his style.
The worst off were the acrobats. Their stage was in ruins and their act relegated to the smaller alternative: the clowns’ stage tent. Once that was announced, the clowns became the worst off, and the acrobats saw a great big silver lining. Nonetheless, their show was reduced to basic stunts on a gym mat until their stage was rebuilt, which would take some doing, with no one exactly sure of how to treat the machinery to give it the magical effects required.
The freaks were also aggrieved, as Fishboy had been seriously hurt; his head had been flattened beneath a support post. A visit to the matter manipulator was all that had saved him. Meanwhile Mugabo, panicking, had unleashed a small firestorm, melting some of the otherwise repairable apparatus. He was now vowing never to perform again, and refusing to let anyone near enough to tend to the burns he’d inflicted on himself.
The rest of the injuries were minor. JJ had no more than a bump on the shoulder and a dark wet patch down the front of his pants from a combination of fright and too many juice pops. Some others had ringing ears, thanks to Goshy, whose outbursts and screams amidst the calamity had helped no
one at all. He’d been hyperactive for hours afterwards, until finally the kettle noise became the budgerigar noise and everyone was able to relax.
‘Well,’ said Gonko as they took their places at the card table, ‘wasn’t that something.’
‘Who done it, Gonko?’ said Doopy. ‘Who done it? They shouldn’ta oughtn’ta done it, Gonko.
They scared Goshy
, Gonko, they scared
Goshy
!’
‘Scared li’l JJ too by the looks of things,’ said Gonko. ‘Might wanna change them pantaloons, baby cakes.’
‘It’s just sweat,’ said JJ, crossing his legs to hide the stain.
‘Looks like Fishboy was hurt pretty bad,’ said Winston as he dealt a round of blackjack.
‘That’s fucking rotten,’ said Gonko, thumping his fist on the table. ‘Fishboy never hurt a fly. Whoever done it, I will slice ’em eight ways from Sunday.’