Everything You Came to See

by Elizabeth Schulte Martin

  Henry could feel the fire-eater’s face in his, now, examining his closed eyelids. The animal handler and trick-rider, Lorne, was there, too. Henry could hear the soft sighs of the circus’s one and only elephant, Tex, and Tex didn’t leave her pen without Lorne by her side.

  “I don’t want to see. Put me onstage, Azi,” he said.

  “What? You can’t go on with your eyes closed,” said Azi, clutching Henry around the shoulders, holding him in place as if he might run out and embarrass the circus.

  “I’ll open them, I promise. The first step I take out, I’ll open them. Just point me in the right direction,” he said.

  “Just put him out, Azi. Clowns’re supposed to fall on their faces,” said Lorne.

  Henry had to laugh because this was Lorne trying to be helpful. There wasn’t a hint of irony in his voice. To him, a clown’s job was simply falling on its face.

  Azi made an irritated grunting noise and shoved him forward. As soon as Henry felt the fabric of curtains brush over his arms, he opened his eyes. His limbs stiffened into the limbs of a tired farmer as he walked into the ring.

  He still couldn’t see the audience. The lights illuminated the ring, but the bleachers and the people in them appeared only as a vaguely shifting darkness. It was so different than performing on public streets, where he could watch his audience’s every raised eyebrow, every slight nod. He didn’t like to see anyone before performing but to not see an audience while performing—this seemed impossible. How was he supposed to read them?

  Across the stage was Kylie, wearing the costume he had designed for her, a patchy circular skirt over bare legs, her tan skin made up to look dirty with gray smudges of makeup. She was still behind the “shanty” prop but already puckering her face in preparation for her role. She looked pretty, in spite of the goofy costume, with thick brown hair in a high ponytail and a spatter of freckles on the crest of her cheeks. He could see her waiting for her cue, taking measured breaths, activating her confidence.

  Henry made his way to the middle of the set, looking dog-tired, and sewed imaginary seeds in dirt that covered a raised platform. Beneath the dirt there was a thin mesh that could be punctured when the stagehands sent up the carrot sprouts.

  As Henry planted his seeds, he listened to the audience. They were so quiet. Someone opened a package of candy, and it sounded like someone tearing open the side of the tent. They remained silent as Henry made a show of wiping his brow, miming the ache in his joint.

  Henry heard popcorn between teeth. He was waiting for just the right moment to cue Kylie onto the stage, the moment just before their anticipation turned into fury or fear. That was the secret to comic timing. A piece of candy hit the floor, a man coughed. A sigh floated up from the middle of the room. Yes, he decided, those are sounds of frustration. He put his hand next to his mouth and mimed a shout at the shanty prop. Kylie came into the ring with a heavy step, a surly sneer.

  Under her makeup, her face glowed with fervor. She plopped her empty plate proudly on the table and got the first quiet ripple of laughter out of the audience. Good for her. One half a laugh was all he needed. Just one snowflake to start an avalanche.

  She patted his cheek: Eat, old man, eat. The touch, so often rehearsed, felt sharper tonight, more smack than tap.

  They had worked on this skit for the last month, and during that time, Kylie had experimented with how much to touch him during their act and in what ways. At a certain point, Henry had gotten to thinking she was not experimenting with her role so much as experimenting with the touch itself. When the scene was over, he would find her still holding on to his wrist. But then, when he would tell her to hold this or that pose a bit longer, or even tell her that she had done something well, she would get angry. She’d say, “Sorry, I was taught never to be inert for so long,” or “Thanks, I’m glad I’ve met your standards.” She never stayed after rehearsal but left in a rush, as if there was somewhere more important that she needed to be.

  Where’s the food? Henry mimed.

  By the time he was upside down against the hay bale, the audience was guffawing, sputtering out trumpet laughs and whacking their knees. Henry thought, then, his back twisted under the warm lights, staring out into an undulating darkness of bodies, that he was very comfortable. It felt like when he was little and had stretched out on his bedroom carpet, projecting himself into the worlds between his fingers. It was exactly as yellow-bright and soft now as it had been in that imagined world, the laughter full and musical, but muted, as if the whole tent was lined with pillows.

  AFTER THE PERFORMANCE, HENRY WAS flanked by Caleb and Seamus Feely. In his excitement, Seamus was more red-faced than the first time Henry met him, but he wore the same polo shirt and Dockers, an unnecessary sweater draped over his shoulders. He whacked Henry’s sore back, pulling him into his side for a one-armed hug. Henry stood stiff, trying not to cringe.

  He kept saying, “This kid! This kid knows his audience. Don’t he, Caleb?”

  Not far from the trailer, the audience departed, energized and noisy, the children chasing each other, sword-fighting with the white paperboard cones they’d eaten cotton candy from. Azi sold slap bracelets, and the children all whacked them onto their wrists with a pop, wincing as they admired their new jewelry. Azi had told Henry he expected to make more selling slap bracelets than he made performing and suggested that Henry also find something to hock post-show.

  Caleb smiled at the unwanted hug Seamus imposed on Henry now. “Yeah, he knows his audience.” Caleb was still wearing the suit he’d worn earlier and shiny patent leather shoes. It occurred to Henry that these clothes, the suit, the Dockers and polo, were Seamus’s and Caleb’s costumes, and that this hugging and encouraging and so forth was also a show.

  “Good job, Caleb. You can find ’em, you can sure pick ’em. This kid! Wow. What a great operation we’ve got here,” said Seamus.

  The last time Henry had seen Seamus was when Henry proposed the farmer skit. Seamus asked Henry to “give him the trailer,” and Henry had fumbled through a description the best he could. When he finished, Seamus nodded and said, “That’s perfect. Something cute for the kids.” He’d seemed more excited about the fact that the skit was written and finished than the skit itself. And now here he was, tucking Henry into his armpit, like this was their mutual project, the fruits of some long, fraternal collaboration.

  When Henry didn’t smile or say “golly, thanks,” Seamus tried a different tactic. He spun Henry to face him, holding him by his arms. He was still smiling, but there was no kindness around his eyes. “You keep that coming.”

  Henry wanted to knee him in the testicles. He didn’t like being told what to do, and he definitely did not like being touched, especially not by a guy like Seamus, who pretended to be friends with people while using them like tools. But then he thought of the warm lights, the singular way laughter sounded in that tent. “Yessir,” said Henry, and Seamus nodded.

  Caleb waited until Seamus was gone to roll his eyes. “Good job,” he said. “You made the boss happy.”

  “Thank you,” said Henry.

  They watched as two boys went by, the older one walking behind the younger and smirking as he tossed pieces of popcorn at his head. He made swooshing noises. “Fireball! Fireball!” he said. The younger boy cradled a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure near his chest and said evenly, “Quit it. Quit it. Mom, tell him to quit it. Quit it, Sam.”

  “They liked it, too,” said Caleb, nodding in the direction of the boys. “So. It’s all downhill from here, I’d say. Right?”

  “Tell Adrienne I hope she feels better.”

  Caleb paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sure thing.”

  HENRY FELT EXHAUSTED. ALL HE wanted to do was curl up on the thin cot in the trailer that he’d dressed in. He needed to clean up, though, and brush his teeth, which meant he had to go to the animals’ quarters and get some water.

  The animals’ quarters were in a small, stuffy b
arn that smelled like piss and hay and, faintly, of Lorne’s Old Spice deodorant. The camels and the white horse were already in their pens eating dinner when Henry got there to draw his water. The camels, Izzy and Ichabod, chewed their hay, ignoring Henry. Those two were friendly enough, more interested in food than anything else in the world, which Henry found understandable. When the white horse saw him, though, she stopped eating and watched him with what seemed like curiosity, and a little suspicion, as he balanced the hose over the side of his bucket to fill it.

  “Hey, horse,” he said. He called her this, though he’d learned her name was Ambrosia. When Henry asked Lorne what the hell kind of name Ambrosia was, he’d replied, “It means some kind of treasure. Or something. And she’s my treasure. She’s a special animal.” Henry was pretty sure he was wrong, so he’d looked up the word later, and found out that ambrosia was food for gods—treasure of the edible sort.

  As Henry filled his bucket, Ambrosia released a puff of air through her nose that sounded a little like indignation.

  “What?” asked Henry. “You want some?”

  He walked toward her pen, and she took a step back. When he peered over the gate, sure enough, her drinking trough had not been filled yet. He slung the hose over the edge, spattering her with water. The trough began filling, the water landing with a loud, bright smack.

  Henry heard Lorne’s growl from just outside the barn.

  “C’mon, now. C’mon. Time for rest. Don’t you wanna rest?” he said. Henry heard a noise like the muffled tick of a clock and Tex’s heavy footfalls carrying her into the barn.

  Lorne was pink and sweating. He was still dressed for riding: white suit, sequined vest. One of his hands pressed against Tex’s hind flank, and the other held a long wooden pole that ended in a silver hook.

  Lorne startled when he saw Henry, even though Lorne had seen him here nearly every night for three weeks, getting his bucket of water. When he realized Henry was giving Ambrosia a drink, he muttered a breathless “thanks” that sounded more annoyed than grateful, but he had his hands full just trying to get Tex to take a step.

  “She never wants to get in her own pen at night,” Lorne explained. “She wants to get in Ambrosia’s stall with her.” He pushed Tex, then waved peanuts in front of her, which she snatched from his palm with her trunk without taking so much as a step.

  “You can’t sleep together. You’re side by side, it’s close enough,” he huffed, pushing her again. When she still would not move, he swung the hook into her flank. She finally took a couple of steps, looking back at Lorne over her great shoulder. The hook was the thing that made the ticking sound, the sound of it being stuck in her flesh and then plucked out. Henry looked down, focused on the water pouring down into Ambrosia’s trough, wishing he could close his ears.

  He thought Tex was perfectly reasonable for not wanting to sleep alone.

  Back in his trailer, Henry locked the door behind him, shut out most of the lights, and closed the blinds. Noises bubbled in from the grounds outside as he scrubbed his body with cold water from the bucket and changed into a T-shirt and a pair of thin boxer shorts. He washed the makeup from his face with Noxzema and brushed his teeth. The drawer by the sink where he kept his toothbrush and Noxzema was also where he kept his brother’s letter. The surface around the sink was littered with makeup and toys and wadded-up tissues, just like his dressing table, but the drawer was empty, except for the letter. He pulled the envelope out now and set it on top of a compact of red face paint and a set of false rainbow eyelashes. As he brushed his teeth he rested his fingers on the letter. This was his habit, his nightly routine. It felt too sentimental to read it over and over, but just to rest his fingers on it as he went about his business, that seemed alright. The paper envelope was starting to thin from the humidity and his touch. He tried not to smudge the return address, which he needed to be able to read when he wrote his brother back. Which he had every intention of doing.

  When he finished, he tucked the letter and his toothbrush back into the drawer and prepared for his evening stretch. As soon as he was situated on the floor, he heard a light tapping at the trailer door. Probably kids, he thought. Probably think they’ve found a little pocket of mystery, the home of a gypsy who would read their palms, or a set of Siamese twins.

  Henry released his breath, reached his fingers up into the air. The muscles in his neck were all clenched around his vertebrae. The euphoria of performance was wearing off, and it was painful to sit up straight. Sometimes this pain lasted a long time and sometimes it went away quickly.

  The tapping came again. Henry got up and moved to the door on the soft balls of his feet, making no sound. “Who is it?”

  “It’s just me. Open the door,” said a woman’s voice.

  “Adrienne?” he whispered. Maybe she’d started feeling better. Maybe she’d come after all, and seen his performance, and wanted to congratulate him.

  “No, it’s Kylie.”

  Henry unlocked the door. Kylie stood there wearing a sundress, holding a bottle of Jack Daniel’s by its neck. He should have known it wasn’t Adrienne. Kylie’s voice matched the rest of her, pinched and girly and small, all the things that Adrienne and her voice were not.

  “I came to celebrate,” she said.

  Henry didn’t say anything.

  “Well? Can I come in or what?”

  “Sure,” he said and moved out of the way so that she could get through. “Adrienne? You mean big Adrienne?” she asked, looking for a place to put the whiskey. Since there really was no place, she set it on the floor, and then sat down next to it. “Can we turn on the lights? Wait, were you going to bed? We just did a kick-ass show, and you’re going straight to bed?”

  “I don’t have any money to party.” He shrugged.

  “But it’s the start of the season,” she said, as if that fact made his empty pockets irrelevant. “Everyone is going out. Jenifer and Vroni. Those high-wire guys. Azi. The Delaflotes. Poodle-lady. Even the crazy trick-rider. They’re all going.”

  “I don’t really know all those guys very well yet. They might not want me to come out with them.”

  She smiled, then, and it began to make sense, the sundress and the booze, and her hand on her hip—the girl-clown was flirting with him.

  “I don’t know them that well, either,” she said. “Obviously. Since I just referred to what’s-her-name as ‘poodle-lady.’ And then just now as ‘what’s-her-name.’”

  Henry sat down next to her. “Are you going?” He liked that sundress on her. It was the first time he’d seen her wearing regular clothes, not a costume or a sawdust-covered unitard. Her legs and arms had little green bruises on them from falling during the show. One or two bruises were unavoidable, but she was covered in them. She didn’t know how to fall right, a fact that annoyed Henry, especially since she wouldn’t take his instruction on how to do it correctly.

  “I think we should hang together,” she said. “Since we had so much success as a team.” Her lashes lowered, the corners of her mouth curled up shyly, and he thought she seemed like a caricature of herself, an innocent girl acting like a porn star acting like an innocent girl. Actors never stopped acting, not really. Even sincerity looked contrived when an actor wore it.

  Her insincerity annoyed him, too. But the freckles were charming and it had been too long since he kissed a girl, and he found himself leaning forward. Her lips were warm, and she smelled of the outdoors, but not of post-performance sweat, sawdust, or the animal musk that permeated the grounds. She’d cleaned up, too, somehow.

  “You’ve already brushed your teeth,” she said, as if this tickled her.

  “Lucky you,” he said.

  “You’re like a little old man.”

  “I’m a creature of habit.”

  Henry knew bodies—he’d studied them carefully, his own and others. He studied the ways they could move, and the things they could say without words. He knew Kylie’s body was saying “go,” so he went, even though
it was almost certainly a bad idea. To shut up the inner voice that told him to stop, he moved faster than he normally would. He pulled her to her feet while he kissed her and pushed her into the wall of the trailer.

  Her legs encircled his waist, and she was still acting. He supposed she was used to making this face or that and just getting what she wanted. She had crossed the country in her grandfather’s Mercedes, or so Henry had heard, and he believed it because he had seen the Mercedes, shiny and as unreal-seeming as a sleeping unicorn in the Feely and Feinstein lot. Her grandfather gave it to her as a gift because it was old and he had plenty of other expensive new cars, and probably just because she had made some face that had undone him. Things came easily to Kylie, and she probably thought that Henry would be another one of those things, a naïve boy who would stop giving her hell at rehearsal and share his spotlight in exchange for a more private kind of attention.

  He fumbled at the buttons on her sundress, determined to see her act falter, make her snort or cry out or say something she didn’t want him to hear her say. Make her stop acting. If he could do that, then he could let go of the thoughts that were making him so lonely. Even though he felt at home under the lights of the circus tent, Adrienne had not come. His brothers were not here and likely never would be. The disgust he felt at Seamus’s praise and the hook in Tex’s hide served to remind him of what an outsider he was here. But if he could see what this girl was about—maybe that would drown out everything else.

  He caught the hem of Kylie’s dress in his fingers and slid it up her thighs.

  The more skin he touched, the more he knew that beneath her fake attraction was real attraction. He could feel it in the muscles that she was not controlling as consciously as the ones in her face, the ones he felt in her lower back and in the legs that tightened around him. She dug her heels and chin into him. This was where he had her. She couldn’t make her body tell lies, but Henry could make his body do whatever he wanted. This girl was green as grass.