The Circus

The air thickened in the dome with smoke and the smell of cheap alcohol. The dim lights and crowded room were only mere factors contributing to the sense of total disgust buzzing around the heads of the circus-goers like starved flies. James Crawford, a journalist for a small-time New York paper, had heard about the circus Dementia through an old friend of his father's who worked in an entertainment business. James's father, Allen Crawford, had died of cancer at the age of fifty-six, James was about twenty then. He was now forty and having his mother's passing the previous year was left alone in the world he had come to see as a twilight burden. James looked around the circus dome, gazing at the women in elegant scarlet dresses and men in pale, faded tuxedos, dressed rather well for a circus. The circus Dementia was actually a very formal, top-of-the-line circus, despite the name, and it was popular among the rich and the scum of Queens's underbelly. He had never truly enjoyed a circus before, it was always too crowded, or just too stuffy. However the real reason for his stubborn dislike of circuses was a horrid memory of his younger sister. Her boyfriend had taken her to a circus in Albany one evening, but when the shw was over instead of bringing her back to the house he took her behind the circus building and sliced her up. During the police investigation they found her entrails burned in his oven and her head nailed to his bedpost. The thought of it hurt James in a way he could almost die over, but he put it out of his mind and moved to the small bar behind his row of seats. He ordered a bourbon and frantically ingested the sharp liquor. He put a five on the table and waved the bartender away for another bourbon and he turned to look among the men and women at the bar. He must have seen some of them before, business, school, whatever, but they were so familiar.