The Show

My eyes opened. An empty trapeze-bar swung silently back and forth in the gray light high above my head.

Then suddenly it was Bennie in his brightly painted face looking down at me, and all that I could see.

"You okay?" he asked. “Ah, Jack!” he said, “Are you okay?”

He wore a floppy green hat and a goofy, painted on, red-lipped smile. Somehow even with the painted smile Bennie managed to look unhappy as he peered down at me.

I sat upright. I realized I was on the sawdust floor, center ring.

I saw that Bennie, all three feet four inches of him, held a metal bucket seemingly forgotten in his right hand. Then it came to me; we had been doing our chase around the elephant's routine.

My ears rang in a most peculiar way.

Bennie's eyes locked into mine.

I said, “What happened?”

His whole face lit up like a fireworks display of genuine relief.

Bennie was a Little Person. I think everybody in this day and age knows not to call him a “dwarf”. Well, maybe not everybody, but those of us who wear bright blue and yellow clown costumes and fluffy red wigs and get chased around elephants by people like him know this all too well.

Little People bite if you call them that.

“You got stepped on!” Bennie said. “Glady stepped on your head!”

I looked over at Glady and saw that the elephant was still standing there draped in her red and black felt sheet. She looked unconcerned and slightly bored and doped out of her gourd.

“Marty angry?” I asked. Marty was the manager, and he wasn't my biggest fan.

“Doesn't look too pleased.” Bennie said.

We both looked over to where Marty usually stood, and there he was, cigar in hand. He shook his head in disgust at me.

I started to get up. I had to. Bennie tried to help. When I was on my feet the spotlight came back on me. The people in the stands stood to their feet.

Everybody clapped and whistled for a long while.

I kicked Bennie in the butt and was off running with Bennie following with his bucket. I ran under Glady who reared once again on her hind legs. This time I made it cleanly, and I ran on toward the stands. The Xylophone music resumed its comical rendition of the William Tell Overture and the front row patrons screamed as I ducked, and confetti floated from Bennie's bucket over my head to fall gently upon their laps.

It was a gag that worked every time.

The trapeze artists resumed flying through the air with the greatest of ease. High-stepping white horses came trotting proudly out with half naked girls standing on their backs. Everybody was happy. Frozen malts and cotton-candy flowed.

Marty never said a word to me afterward. He even seemed pleased in his own way, which was a relief. Clown jobs are hard to come by, though just for your information, the proper term is, “Circus Entertainer.”

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