Hang Wire (6 page)

Jack rolled the cigar between his lips. Over his shoulder, Nadine appeared, breathing hotly on his neck. He turned, and she shook her head.

“She’s right. This has gone on too long.”

Another shout, the breeze bringing it so close it sounded like the fight was taking part right outside Jack’s Winnebago. David took off at a sprint, not bothering to remove his Harlequin mask.

“Right,” said Jack. “Fuck. Whatever.” He jumped off the steps and jogged toward the sounds of the scuffle.

Jack’s jog was slower than it could have been. They were right, of course, all of them. But maybe he didn’t have quite the control they imagined he had. Perhaps he could assert himself over one side in the conflict. But over the other, he knew he had no chance.

Jack Newhaven was
owned
by the man.

He stopped at the curve of the circus tent and removed the cigar to suck in some air. He was getting old and fat. One day he was going to put his portly, sixty-year old frame in between the two groups and take a blow, accidental or not, that might put him down in a somewhat permanent fashion. Worse, if word got out that all was not well in the Magical Caravan, then not only would they kiss goodbye their fancy permit to set up in Sharon Meadow, in the heart of the city’s famous Golden Gate State Park, they might not make another tour.

Perhaps, he thought, that was not a bad thing. If
he
let him, of course. Which would never happen.

Around the rear of the Big Top was a corridor, a smaller tent itself, which was the performer’s entrance to the main ring. Behind this, acting as an effective barrier for the public, was a blue semi truck, its trailer tall and shiny. Beyond this was the part of the circus not accessible to the public – more trucks and trailers, an assortment of cars and wagons, portable toilets, and small marquees. One truck was an old model, practically vintage; it sat, incongruous, the elaborate hand-painted signage on the side proclaiming the vehicle to be from JIM’S AUTO AND GAS.

This was home to the troupe as they toured, a big family camp, housing the performers and some of their families who like to travel with them, and the ancillary staff who, on the present tour, came to two lighting techs and one AV guy.

The trailers, trucks, and tents were arranged in a circle around a large patch of empty ground, the dirt grassless, bare and brown save for a blackened, charred center where the nightly bonfire was set. On this burned disk, one big man in a leather waistcoat, bare arms bulging, punched a smaller man, thin, in a black suit already covered in dirt. Nearby a battered top hat sat on the ashen ground.

The big man held the other by the lapels of his jacket. He punched him again, with force Jack was sure was lethal, and then let go. The man in the black suit hit the ground, and immediately scrambled blindly, his hands and feet kicking up a cloud of gray and black ash, enough for the crowd of people gathered around to turn away for a moment.

Just like before. Just like all the times before.

“What the
fuck
is this shit?” Jack took the cigar from his mouth and threw it, not onto the ground but straight at his two sparring employees. It bounced off the back of the big man and fell to the ground. That got his attention. The big man straightened up, flexing the muscles of his back before turning around to face the ringmaster.

“Not your business, Jack,” said the man. He was a pillar of muscle, built like a heavyweight boxer, the skin of his chest shaved smooth and glistening with sweat over the top of an intricate tattoo in a deep green ink. The design was of concentric circles, bisected apparently at random by crosses and curved tangent lines, and continued under his waistcoat and down his arms. The pattern was Celtic, matching the swirls of the silver studs on leather bands that circled the man’s wrists and waist. Bearded, bald, he was surrounded by companions similarly attired, similarly tattooed. Men and women alike, leather-bound and sweating in the Californian sun. Most were smiling, some even cruelly, as the man in the black suit sat himself up on the burnt ground.

“Not my problem, Malcolm?” Jack’s mouth hung open as though the cigar rolling away on the ground would be magically sucked back into place, like a film in reverse. “Jack
shit
it isn’t my problem!”

Jack took a step forward, peering up at Malcolm from a foot and a half closer to the ground. Malcolm folded his arms and the two stared at each other. Jack held his ground, wondering if today was the day he was going to get thumped. Then Malcolm bared his teeth and hissed, spit onto the ashy ground, and walked away. As he did so, he caught the ash on the ground with one toe and kicked a cloud over his opponent. The man sitting on the ground flinched and coughed, and as the circle of Malcolm’s companions broke up, some laughed.

“Hey!” Nadine walked toward the retreating group, waved an arm. “Hey! Dipshit, I’m talking to you!”

Kara and Sara moved to help the man on the ground.

Malcolm stopped and turned around. “This doesn’t concern any of you.”

“The fuck it doesn’t,” said Nadine. “This concerns all of us. Keep this up and there’s not going to be a circus anymore. You got that?”

“Leave them,” said Jack.

Nadine spun around, and Jack saw her face was red and angry. “What? Jesus, Jack, really?”

Jack had one eye on the man in the black suit. He was covered in ash, and a thick tentacle of blood and spit trailed from his mouth. Jack grimaced.

“Earth to the Magical Zanaar, come in please?”

He turned to Nadine. “Leave it to me.”

Nadine sighed. “I don’t know who’s the biggest idiot,” she said. “You, or me for staying here.” She swore and marched away.

Jack rolled his shoulders. She was right, of course. He took off his top hat and rubbed his forehead.

Malcolm’s Celtic dance group, Stonefire, were a relatively new addition to the troupe, having joined only this year for the circus’s West Coast tour. Jack hadn’t been sure at first; dancing didn’t seem quite the traditional circus act, and he wasn’t sure how authentic Stonefire was, their choreographed dancing and acrobatics more a modern pastiche, a romantic ideal of the noble Iron Age tribes of Europe. But they’d been a wow with the crowds, something foreign,
exotic
, dancing to drums and pipes, the main ring alive with braziers and torches. Crowds loved fire, and there was fire-juggling and fire-eating. Some of the dancing was pretty acrobatic, and some of the dancers were just pretty. Barefoot Celtic lasses in skimpy leather was good for business. Tickets sales were up; the ringside was packed on every night of the tour.

Jack sighed and picked his cigar from the ground. He only had two left, and didn’t want to waste them. He turned to the man in black, flanked by Sara and Kara. The girls looked pale. Jack wondered if that was because of the fight or because of the man they were helping keep upright.

“You OK?” Jack asked, brushing dirt from the cigar.

The man in black’s face was gray, the same shade as the ash that covered the ground – the ash that covered the front of his suit too, and his hair, thick and curly. The only color on him was the splatter of bright, arterial blood across the bottom half of his face that dripped thickly from his jaw. The blood on the ground was darker where it had mixed with the ash and dirt.

The man pulled his arms away from the gymnasts, and straightened his jacket. He looked at Jack, and Jack flinched. One of the man’s eyes was a dark brown; the other was light gray, almost white. Jack was used to it but that didn’t stop him being a little repulsed now and again.

The man in black smiled, showing his teeth red and pink. “Mr Newhaven, I’m perfectly fine.”

Sara and Kara had shuffled away, and Sara was playing with the cuff of her leotard, like she wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, away from the man in black.

Jack waved his cigar at the pair. “You girls go get cleaned up and back to practice. Another show tonight, remember.”

The girls exchanged a look.

Jack coughed. “And maybe talk to Nadine. Make sure she hasn’t called the cops or anything, OK?”

The girls nodded in union, and left. Jack watched them leave, then reached forward, brushing the dirt and ash from the man in black’s suit.

“Jesus, Joel, this is too much…”

As his fingers brushed against the man’s chest, the man in black grabbed Jack’s wrist and pulled it up. The fingers of his other hand found the fob pocket on the front of his waistcoat and disappeared inside, like he thought Jack was going to pickpocket him there and then. The two men stared at each other as the seconds grew long, then Joel released Jack’s wrist. The ringmaster staggered backward, rubbing his forearm. Joel’s grip had been as cold as ice.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Joel walked across the burned ground, and picked up his hat. It was tall, narrow – not a top hat like Jack’s, its sides gracefully curved, the brim curled, but something far more old fashioned. A stovepipe hat, Lincoln-style. It was partially collapsed and covered in ash, but Joel popped it back into shape and began brushing it with his sleeve.

“Are you OK to operate the carnival tonight?” asked Jack.

Joel stopped brushing and held the hat out in his hands, turning it this way and the other, like the battered antique was in prize shape.

“I don’t need to operate the carnival. You know that, Jack.”

“I know, but –”

“You know, so why ask?” Joel fixed Jack with those eyes, one so brown it was almost black, one as light as the sky before a snowfall.

“I’m sorry. I…” Jack rubbed his forehead. It was the stress, making his world wobble, making his ears fill with the sound of the ocean.

Joel landed his hand on Jack’s shoulder, and Jack jumped. He ground his teeth together, tight, tight.

“How much longer?” he asked.

Joel smiled. “Soon, Jack. Soon.”

Jack nodded toward the marquee of Malcolm’s dance troupe. “And them?”

“They’re part of it, even if they don’t know it. They’re tools to be used,” said Joel.

“And the fights? Will they stop?”

Joel chuckled. “They can’t help it. It’s not them, remember.”

Jack looked at the ground. “Does… does
it
know? About us? Is that why it makes them fight?”

“Maybe,” said Joel with a smile. “It doesn’t matter.
We
control
it
. Not the other way around.”

“It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?”

Joel clicked his tongue and walked away, saying nothing but “Soon, Jack, soon” over his shoulder. But Jack didn’t know if he was talking to him, or to the power sleeping beneath their feet.

— IV —

Morning. The best time of day – of that Ted had no doubt whatsoever – and the most perfect moment is when you wake and it’s dark and you glance at the clock and it’s 5.58 and the alarm is going to go off in two minutes and you lie back and close your eyes and prepare for the day ahead and you’re had exactly the right amount of sleep and your body’s own internal alarm clock has gently lifted you back to consciousness and you’re not tired and you’re ready and with a second to spare you reach over and turn the alarm off even before it has sounded and you’re ready to go ready to go ready to –

The phone’s ring was like warfare, like a construction worker opening a seam in the side of Ted’s head with a pneumatic jackhammer. Ted had got what he’d wanted – out and under, a deep, deep sleep, the kind of sleep that isn’t to be disturbed. And when you are disturbed, when you are brought up from the abyssal depth like a diver rising too fast, too fast, your day is not going to go well.

Ted reached out and his fingers knocked against wood. He opened an eye, wondering how the bedside table had managed to move itself during the night, and saw unfamiliar shapes. No, not unfamiliar. He knew what they were, but half asleep he couldn’t reconcile them. There was a TV, and the table next to him was low and long, red maple, scattered with magazines and remote controls.

He lifted himself up on the couch on one elbow. How had he gotten there? His phone continued to ring, its vibrate setting making it dance on the coffee table. He grabbed it, didn’t check who was calling, and collapsed back onto the couch, his eyes firmly shut.

“Mm?”

“This is some sleeping in.” It was Alison. The line was clear and lacking in the usual muffled quality of her cell. There was noise on the other end, too. Someone else talking.

Ted thought about Alison’s statement, pondering it for a few seconds. She could have spoken in Chinese for all he knew.

“Ted?”

Eyes open, heart pounding.

“Shit,” he said. He was awake now, lying on the couch. His head wasn’t sore but his body was, like he’d just finished a workout. Sleeping on the couch would do that.

Alison laughed in his ear. “Don’t worry. I told Mazzy about last night.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked me to ask you how you were. So?”

Ted frowned, rubbed his forehead. “Mm?”

Alison sighed. “How are you? You sleep OK?”

“Um,” said Ted. Then he paused. He concentrated, hard. “Yeah, I guess. I think I overslept though.” He scrambled for the TV remote and waved it at the set. The screen flickered and Ted’s eyes searched the screen, looking for the ever-present clock displayed against the breakfast news.

“I think you needed it,” said Alison.

On the TV, someone in blue spandex was trying to sell Ted an exercise bike in fifty-two easy payments. There was no clock on display. He was lost, deep in infomercial territory.

“Oh, shit,” he said.

Alison laughed again. After a moment, Ted joined her.

“Damn, do I need coffee.”

“Forget coffee. It’s nearly lunch. I’ll come get you.”