Bowling Diarrhea

As I approach the giant candy cane swirled tent, I hear a man screaming in fear. Showtime is in three minutes and people are moving fast. Somewhere in this geriatric stampede, someone is dying.

Perhaps an escaped tiger has let out the frustrations of its confined torment on the wrinkled flesh of a boomer, or a costumed elephant has brought its foot to a child’s skull and crushed it. As the crowd parts before me, the scene is far worse, and the sight of it tortures me still. 

The screams are from an old man. His eyes wide and wild with terror. He is entering Circus Sarasota like the rest of us, but he’s not walking or standing… he’s being dragged.  

Two younger folks are pulling him backward while he’s seated on his walker. He clutches its bars like a rollercoaster. His body pitched back, his legs outstretched. Imbalance and vertigo have him reeling. His leathery skeleton braces for impact and his panicked expression reveals his perspective: the step into the doorway may as well be a 300-foot drop. 

The dragging duo is too weak for the last tug, and the walker’s tiny grey wheels sink into the gravel. The scene is a bottleneck, that I try to swiftly step past, as I am eager to enter the show. My wife asks if she can help and I say,  “Absolutely not.” 

As we pass the old man in his torment, I can see spiraling litigious thoughts in his eyes, “If I fall, I will sue every clown, freak, and fairy in this place!” He is so stiff that when he falls, his body shatters like peanut brittle. 

Peanut brittle is a carnival favorite, one the other patrons enjoy. Like a murder of crows on roadkill carrion, the mob swoops in to eat. They peck at his body and their gullets bellow under raised chins as they swallow. Presently, the only thing left of the man is a shirt and cap. Items with matching colors I presume he purchased at his alma mater’s gift shop. I’m not sure what happened to his pants, but as I enter the tent and its burgundy shadow, I see a cougar aggressively sniffing the crotch of some khakis. 

The tent is filled with the stuff of odd and erotic dreams. Cables, nets, and springloaded chairs that close shut like red mouths when I stand. Everything and everyone is tightly coiled, at any moment something may snap. Behind us, a portly usher clutches a rope. Like a python, it pulls her away unimpeded by her dragging heels. She whispers some kind of warning, but we lose sight of her in the dark and abrupt crescendo that announces the first act. 

The fires of hell dance with tricksters who wink at the rumor of death. Gymnasts with bodies of strange proportions and scarlet lips catch their breath atop impossible perches.  I’m fully immersed in the spectacle. My attention sharpened to a singular focus by the most captivating of feelings, which is fear. My rapture is only occasionally broken by the stink of barnyard and horse piss. 

My eyes, like daggers are pointed at two men dressed like effeminate gang members. Clones of Ricky Martin, in leather pants and fingerless gloves. I decide that they are charming and I hope they don’t die, as a grisly death now seems inevitable. 

Their black boots clang on the metal Wheel of Destiny: a giant man-powered thing that spins perpetually as they run, jump, and hang from it. A demonic chrome treadmill that wants to swallow men whole or at least toss them into a crowd of retirees. 

The performance is successful with no casualties or dismemberments, and I share the performers’ relief. In my relaxation, I become aware that my butt has been clenched for nearly an hour. The tent goes dark and silhouettes move to prepare for another act. 

A spotlight splits the darkness. There, in its brilliant white circle, I see a face — a creature, strange but familiar, whose visage makes me swallow with dread. 

His skin is pale and his eyes are crossed, a tongue sticks out of his lips. His eyelids, seem to stretch to the floor and he moves like a sleepy ape, staggering in a pink suit that is too large for his short legs. He claps with stiff hands with his mouth half open in stupor. His hair, a mop of black curls, bounce with his stomping foot. As I hear the Tarantella (the song of Italian buffoonery)  my confusion is replaced with near certainty: this creature is my father-in-law. 

I shake my wife’s wrist and ask, “Is that your father?” and she squints as if to check. After a moment, she frowns at me, her expression saying, “It’s possible.” Another spotlight, this one much closer, shines on the ringmaster. His tophat sparkles with authority as his amplified baritone says, “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, I present to you, 11th-generation circus performer, Jimmy Folco.”

Jimmy lowers himself in a cylindrical pool. With him, swims a huge shark. 

Jimmy, like a matador, avoids the monster with grace. By some strange and sudden magic, a shower cap plops on his head. He takes a bath and scrubs his feet with a brush. A sudden and violent splash signals an attack. Jimmy fights for his life. 

The pool is a frothy roil as Jimmy’s hairy fists bludgeon the beast. Triumphant now, he stands to his feet, holding the dead shark from its tailfin. With gaping fitful bites, he devours it, as a grizzly would a salmon. Like a satisfied cartoon cat, he removes the spine from his mouth and flicks it away. He greets the roar of our standing ovation with a dramatic bow, revealing a large rip in his polka-dot underpants.