Cheers,
Tom/Born Frowning
#
The wind blew
gently enough still, but it was beginning to bite. You could begin to smell the cold on the
air. Taste the ozone and anticipate the
air, thick with gunsmoke, as it would be in a month or so. A hoof idly circled at the grass, the
greenery subjugated by the sky.
Overcast. A few dots of blue
where the sun burns through.
Four horses
grazed. Chewing grass. Trotting.
Beautiful, all of them the colour of a rich man’s coat. Uniform circles of cream on their backs. Their nostrils flared and one rubbed its head
against another in a way that could be perceived as loving. As it was by George Barnes, who sat watching
them. He sat on the grass eating penny
chews instead of the non-existent breakfast no one had prepared for him. Annie was meant to make sure he was fed and walked into school,
but Annie had gone off to the woods with Steve Parsons so they could kiss and
he could touch her boobs. She had given him 50p to get something to eat and
made him promise to get there on time on his own, but he didn’t care. He hated his sister and he hated Steve
Parsons and everyone called him Steve Parsnips and said he had a Parsnip
dick. But never to his face. He was an
ugly boy with red hair and boils on his back.
You could see them where his shirt collar ended and his freckled skin
began. White and red and looking like they would burst. But he was big and angrier than his skin and
would punch other boys and that’s why Annie liked him.
He wondered
at first if it would mean that people would leave him alone, but Parsnip’s
interest in his sister hadn’t extended to her kith and kin. Or probably even
her face.
George put a
UFO in his mouth and waited for the sherbet to seep through the rice paper
sludge. It made him smile as he wondered
if the horses were really as happy as they seemed. Even behind the wire fence. He wondered what it would be like to be a
horse and what ‘Palomino’ meant and read the word over and over out loud from
the giant sign.
Pal-oh-mean-oh.
Maj-ik-al.
Ek-west-ree-an.
Art-iss-tree.
Sur-cuss.
Wylde’s
Circus.
George looked
at the funfair under construction. At
all the static roller coasters and dead ghost trains and at all the men milling
about, lifting and carrying and screwing and bolting. He always thought that circuses would be
exciting, run by clowns and bearded women and big fat men and knife
throwers. But instead it was just men in
caps and tracksuits and with denim jackets with the sleeves cut off and with
hair all long at the back, smoking cigarettes even though it was only 8.30am.
They shouted
to each other and it sounded like Irish and London and northern and a complete
other language. They laughed and cackled
and shouted and George couldn’t tell if they liked each other or not. One man seemed to be shouting the most,
pointing at the others and telling them where to go. Even from far away, he could see that the man
had arms like the trunks of trees. He
was either wearing a loud shirt or was heavily tattooed. George smiled as he thought he had finally
seen a real-life circus man at last. A
real tattooed man. He reached into his
bag and groped around at the bottom, hoping he hadn’t left his detective kit at
home. Among pencil shavings, bits of
tissue and furry boiled sweets he found a three year old diary (with attached
pencil) and a pair of opera glasses (property of the Royal Opera House he had
bought for 25p in a jumble sale.
George looked
through an attempted to find the man, to see if his tattoos were real. At first, looking through the glasses was
wobbly and out of focus, like when his eyes would water on a cold day. His vision swung and he felt a little bit
sick, so he lay flat to try and steady his vision.
Sign.
Bigtop.
Ghost train.
Bumper cars.
Tower of
death.
Tattoo man?
The man
flicked a cigarette butt and then put his thumb to one nostril, sending an ark
of mucus out of the other. George tried
to see his arms, but couldn’t hold steady enough.
He could see
other men, heads turning quickly. It
looked like a commotion. Suddenly people
began running towards what looked like a tilt-o-whirl. George tried keeping track of the tattoo man,
wishing his hands were steadier and he had a real pair of binoculars.
He could see
someone trying to get over the rear fence, into the main part of the park. Clambering up with only one foot hanging, he was
nearly at the top. One of the circus men
ran and leapt, grabbing onto his shoe and pulled him to the floor.
The scruffy
man fell, but did not cry out, not that George could have heard. He was far too far away and could barely make
out much more than blurs. The scruffy man didn’t look like he was in pain. As more men came closer, he didn’t hurry to
move or try and scrabble away. But it
didn’t look like he’d been injured. He
scarcely looked like he even knew he had fallen. George could just about make out the tattoo
man shoving his way to the front, to where the scruffy man lay. He followed his red bandanna and his blue and
green arms through the crowd. The tattoo
man leaned forward and disappeared behind a sea of thuggery and vicious
movement. He raised again. George tried to focus, but the intense
concentration made his eyes water. He
thought he saw the top of the scruffy man’s head, lolling among the crowd. He thought he saw something else. He thought he saw blood.
His watch
beeped. It was 9. Assembly had started.
George wiped
the tears from his eyes and looked back up again. He had lost his position. Disorientated, he veered from side-to-side of
the circus, trying to find the men, wondering if he had imagined it all. But he could see no signs of life, other than
the horses who had returned to grazing. Oblivious and uncaring.
There was
nothing there.
After waiting
a few more minutes, he packed away his spy kit and began the slow trudge to
school. He picked at a stale iced bun
and dragged his feet along the grit on the pavement that surrounded the common.
