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Chapter 15: Tattoos, Tutti Frutti, and Tearful Good-byes

  “I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?” Ecclesiastes 2:1-2

  There they were in the morning, two hip, happenin’ young ramblers, lookin’ about. It was a good, healthy morning: blue skies, but enough tame gray clouds to keep the sun from getting in their eyes; air cleverly cool, the kind of cool one can relax in; long grass darker than it would be later in the day, and still rather moist--enough to make their shoes soggy but not enough to make them waterlogged.

  They looked around and winked at each other and at the world, and then they saw something new, down on the far side of the mountain.

  “Hey is that a road down there?” Bert asked hopefully, feeling sly and intrigued.

  Sure enough, it was a mysterious dirt road, coming out of nowhere and going some unknown place groovy.

  “I reckon it is,” Luke affirmed. “Guess we’re going to follow it, huh. I mean, what choice do we have?”

  “We always have a choice,” Bert advised; “That’s what being free is all about! But in this case, I agree with you--being the curious and crazy cats that we are, I can’t see choosing anything else! So let’s hit it!”

  They woke up their dependable horses. “Hey Pony Meroni! Wake up, it’s daytime: time to stop dreaming and start daydreaming.” Pony Meroni got up and smoothly made the adjustment. Horse the Mystery Horse did the same.

  Away the good guys rode, la la la. It was a pleasant morning for a trip. First they ate some breakfast as they rode: berries from the day before, and then a special treat that Bert had wisely slipped into his pack before leaving the factory--what else, apples! Luke laughed and gave him a high five. The horses were happy about it too. Horses have good taste. After they ate, they stopped beside a convenient river, and they had a long drink of cold water. Then they got back on the road and on they rode. Luke and Bert talked a little more about Freedom and The Good Life, and all that meaningful stuff, but they quickly decided that it was too early in the morning to be thinkin’, so they told each other a couple jokes, and sang a few cowboy songs, and then they just rode on in silence, enjoying the wow day.

  After a few hours and a dozen miles of nowhere, they saw something up ahead. It looked like a big tent.

  Sho ‘nuff, when they got a little closer they discovered that yes indeedy, it was a big tent. In fact, a number of tents. Traditional white and pink stripes, and inside’m, you guessed it, a Circus!

  Now, it may seem quite odd for a big ol’, fun ol’ circus to be set up in the middle of nowhere, miles from any kind of town or city, and the same thought crossed Luke’s mind. But Hey, people come from miles to see the Circus don’t ya know. Sure enough, people had come from somewhere, because there was a good crowd, and there were lots of horses and a few horse-and-buggies and a couple covered wagons, and a stage-coach, and a big rainbow- colored autobus, and a gold Rolls-Royce in the parking lot.

  Bert wrangled around in his pockets and found some money to pay the Circus fees with, two coins of copper and one of jade. He gave the money to Lenta the Pretty Ticket Lady, and she smiled, and they smiled, and they passed her tollbooth and entered the grounds.

  First they played a few carnival games of skill and fortune, like throwing baseballs at the bottles and hitting the thing with the bell on top with a sledgehammer. They both won prizes, because they were strong and gifted monster athletes. Oh yeah, by the way, maybe these are Fair-type games, but this was the Super Deluxe Circus, so it had everything... Even a small zoo with a hippopotamus, rhinoceros and a porcupine, and a buzzard, a woodpecker, a wolf and a wombat, to say nothing of the unicorn, chimera and cockatrice which Luke regarded suspiciously.

  After that, they checked out the freakshow, and then, inspired by the tattooed man, they stopped at the tattoo shack to get tattoos of their own. Bert thought about getting LOVE and HATE inscribed on his knuckles, like the guy in Night of the Hunter, but it had been done before, so he opted instead for a small Canadian flag on his chest (“Completely original. That’s the important thing!”) Luke thought about getting a skull on his skull, but decided that was way too hideous, and chose a Conan warrior on his bulging biceps instead. “I’m getting in touch with my roots,” he claimed, as he readied to let some of his tough-Hun-spirit show. But then he changed his mind just before it was his turn, remembering that he had read something about the body being a temple--and though he had never been to a temple, he doubted the stained glass would have pictures of Conan.

  “Wimp,” Bert accused. “I knew you wouldn’t do it.”

  They were kind of sore after that--Bert’s chest and Luke’s pride. So they bought ice cream cones to make themselves feel better. “I’ll have chocolate,” Bert ordered, then added scornfully, “he’ll have Tutti Frutti.” Then they went to the Big Top to see the main attraction.

  It was really something! There were lions and tigers and bears, oh my, and there were magicians doing tricks, and there were daring acrobats flying through the dangerous air and walking on perilous wires without falling. There was a pretty diver named Jen whose golden hair, bright smile and warm soul reminded Luke of summer (so he nicknamed her Summerjen), and who dove courageously from a high platform into a small tub of liquid, without hitting her head. Everyone was suitably impressed. Best of all, there were clowns! They hammed it up and did some skits and some slapstick, and dressed funny, and everyone laughed. Bert and Luke really admired the clowns.

  For a moment, in the euphoria of circusdom, Luke considered joining the circus, but then Bert reminded him: “That’s a big step, why not try it on for size first. They’re putting on another show in a couple hours, let’s ask if we can play too.”

  They filled out one of those on-the-spot applications, and were hired on the spot. The other clowns took Luke away to help him put on his face, and Bert took a job selling snacks. ‘The shortest distance to a fool’s money is through his stomach’, as they say, (mixing two and a half metaphors, or none at all.)

  When the show started, Bert was especially sure he had chosen well: If the circus makes people happy, and snacks make people happy, then the guy who sells snacks at the circus makes people double-happy, what an honor! Plus he had a good view of the show, as he roamed the bleachers with his tray of peanuts, and could laugh at his boy Luke making a fool of himself. “Ca-lassic!” he exclaimed. It looked like Luke was having fun too.

  After the show, Bert and Luke went out to their horses in the parking lot, and they were standing around waiting for the traffic to thin out a bit, and talking triumphantly about what good times they had just had. Just then a wiry man in a tuxedo and top hat approached them with a can’t-say-no deal. “Hey fellas, I am Harmonica, the President of the Circus. Are these your horses? This two-legged Italian Wonder Horse is quite a curiosity. He would fit in well with our sideshow freaks. And that white horse looks pretty strong, I’ll bet it could help with the moving, and even train to work with the show, carrying the pretty acrobats around. So whaddaya say, fellas? Can we have your horses?”

  “Wait a minute. We need our horses to get where we’re going. What will you give us?” Bert traderly demanded.

  The top hat man grinned. “That’s the good part. Behold, our latest invention!” Another circus assistant wheeled up a brand new two-seater bicycle, and made some hand-model motions, to show it off.

  Luke and Bert were rather surprised, and they circled the strange contraption, murmuring “Neato!” Then they told the President that they would have to talk it over. They asked each other, and they both agreed, “Let’s go for it!” They asked Horse the Mystery Horse for permission and he said, silently, with a wink and a nod, “Yah-whatever. I’m easy. When I get tired of the Circus, I’ll just leave.” Then he caught himself being casual, and added more grandly: “...When the wind blows, and the Spirit calls, then I’ll go a-racing: Leaping all fenc
es, breaking all bonds, and flying like dreams to where I am needed.”

  Pony Meroni the Two-Legged Italian Wonder Horse was willing too. He neighed to tell them, “Yeah, you guys make me walk too much! Besides, there’s good food scraps at the circus. And I exchanged longing glances with a fun-looking frilly little filly named Kaytra... be a nice change after farm-girl horsies, they’re all work work work. Gets to be a pain in the mane.” Then he admitted that okay-he-would-miss-them-too, but not to let that change their minds.

  Luke was concerned though. “Do you really want people to stare and laugh at you, Pony? That doesn’t seem like a very dignified calling,” (said Luke the Clown.)

  “As long as I get to stare and laugh at them too, we’ll be even, won’t we,” Pony Meroni pointed out in a whinny.

  So Bert went ahead and made the transaction, after he tough-negotiated to get the President to throw in some circus popcorn and a little money. Harmonica said he would send someone out to get the horses, and he personally went down to the concession stand to fetch them their popcorn.

  As they waited, they talked about their great day. “Forget that stuff I said about finding a good job, and the value of Work,” said Bert. “I’m sure as a responsible Chief, you probably just have too much stress--all you needed was a bit of Play! Right? You feeling all filled up inside and groovy now? No more ‘holes’, no more blues?”

  Luke seemed strangely sad. “I did enjoy it. All that playing, it was like being a kid again.” His own childhood had been disconcertingly brief. “But what’s the saying? ‘Nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there?’ There was something not quite real about it all--as though it couldn’t last, and it was like we were just putting off the return to reality. That was what was depressing about it. All the laughter seemed so temporary! Not only that, it all seemed like counterfeit joy: the magicians don’t really have magic, the freaks aren’t really freaks, and the clowns aren’t really even clowns. They’re just people like me with painted faces.”

  Bert shook his head, disappointed. “Luke, luke. You just gotta get in character is all. Keep being like a Kid-again, all the time. Once you’ve been doing this a little longer, you’ll discover: There really is magic, the freaks really are freaks,” (Giving their two-legged horse a last playful dig in the ribs with his elbow as he called him a name), “And, Luke? You are a clown!”

  At this point, The President of the Circus came back with popcorn and a stablehand, so the boys kissed their horse-buddies goodbye, wept unashamedly (just kidding), and rode away on their special, exciting bicycle.

  They fell down a few times, but eventually they got the hang of it. Later they realized that it was harder on the legs than letting a horse do the work, but hey, a little exercise never hurt anybody.

  “So we didn’t stay. Oh well. It ain’t as necessary to be part of the circus, as it is to have the circus be a part of you,” Bert stated, to sum up their adventure.

  Luke agreed to try to remember to take that spirit of youth and wonder along with him, jotting the President’s word, ‘Curiosity’ into his notes. Then he ate popcorn and grinned a corn-tooth grin.

  They kept the Bike for a few more days, until they got tired of skinned knees, and tired of Luke’s guitar case banging against his back as he pedaled, and until they got closer to the coast. Then they gave the bike away as a kind gesture to the kids in an orphanage, and trekked on like troopers--coz that’s what they were used to anyway.