Last Frontier Traveling Circus and Sideshow

People speak of childhood, all the strange portents and singular events which shape and mold. If that is the essence of childhood, and I suspect it is, then my childhood must be even more suspicious than most, a deeply weird ride through the bizarre which has pushed and pulled me to my present state.

I was, you see, raised in one of the last frontiers of the strange and magical; a traveling circus. As a child I ran amongst the tents and side-show stalls, laughing under the Stilt-lady and occasionally stopping to dance with the foreign family who did tumbling shows in the evening. It was a chaotic and glorious place to be a child and I loved it deeply, but such delights tend to fade…

This unique experience derived from one man, a keeper of secrets and lies, my Grandfather Molay. Such a showman most have never seen. He, with a flip of his hat and a quick pivoting of his hip, could immerse the audience in the extraordinary, valiantly rescuing them from whatever lay before and after, only to bow his head with arms stretching out to the audience as if they, and not he, were the ones worthy of applause.

Grandfather, the ringleader and creator of the Last Frontier Traveling Circus and Sideshow, had me thrust upon him at an early age due to misfortune which is neither prudent nor emotionally welcome in this tale. It shall suffice to say that my parents disappeared from my story early on; to remain only as specters haunting and gliding behind the apparent.

The two characteristics of my Grandfather which stick with me most strongly are his eyes, burning piercing eyes, laughing at unknown jokes and mysteries, and his ever present and commanding top-hat, worn jaunty in its heavy black.

Grandfather, when not performing, tended to stay locked in his cabin – a mobile home, ever dusty from the caravans careening through scorched landscapes in search of the elusive never-quite-yet horizon. It is an unsettling notion to know that your home is not rooted, but instead impossible to pin down, and I suspect that this idea of home has informed my later life to a strong degree.

While my Grandfather did impart with me some knowledge as a child I, young, precocious, and on the cusp of manhood’s formation, felt that I needed to know about life itself, something I felt thirsty for in the wake of years spent insulated from the outer world.

I remember vividly the day I first told him of my yearnings; I had approached his cabin, already aware of the stale smell of rough-cut tobacco smoke seeping outwards through the cracks, and hesitated, knowing that such an admission would change our relationship. After a still moment I summoned some modicum of courage and knocked quickly, causing the whole of the cabin’s metal frame to boom loudly, trumpeting my arrival.

As I entered I saw only his eyes and lit cigarette glowing in the darkness but my sight adjusted quickly and I saw him, sitting still except for the movement of his lips around his rolled cigarette, looking as he had been doing the same for time immeasurable.

I spoke, my voice strong in spite of my inner fear, “Grandfather, you know I love this circus more than anything, but I feel the need to leave our camp and venture outward into the sands and deserts in search for the way it all works.”

When told this my Grandfather, smiling and blowing tusks of smoke through his nose, said words which have hung steadily in my mind ever since.

“You wanna know about life son? Of course you can go hunting if you wish, but everything you’ll find is also right here with us and our show. You just have to find it, pierce it, and make it yours. You don’t have to venture out into any so-called real world; this is the real world, its Vaudeville son, and its all there is.”

***

Sol looked down at me through tufts of hair, blocking the sun and cradling me in his shade. I still have yet to see a man stand so steady as him, who seemed more of rock and landscape than of yielding things such as us.

“Don’t you see, my boy, the measure of disorder in any system must increase. The laws of the universe have thrown us to the wolves; always building what must be destroyed, trying to ignore the hounds of entropy clawing at our heels.”

I grimaced; these discussions with Sol were engaging and often my favorite part of the day, but ideas like entropy seemed so un-human and cruel.

Speaking of seemingly un-human, Sol was, and in case this is taken as hyperbole the reader must understand that this evaluation is made in the most clinical of tones, a giant. My grandfather had found him, during his exploring phase, locked in a sub-basement of a laboratory in an abandoned building in a deserted town. He was truly immense, a man-mountain covered in locks of hair, and he was my truest friend.

Sol’s role was to play the simple yet gentle giant, first scaring the audience who screamed at the apparition of a leviathan so terrible and then gaining their sympathy by showing his calm touch and easy manners.

This outward expression was, however, a façade. Sol was, in all respects, a genius and the smartest person that I have ever known. During his long stay, imprisoned in the fathoms of concrete and metal he had devoured, via microfiche, an enormous amount of the world’s body of knowledge; at least what was left of it in these cruel and shadowy times.

Sol was my constant companion, hoisting me onto his impossible broad shoulders and telling me about the constant laws of the world, sciences often feared and forbidden by those who did not regret what has been lost. It pains me greatly when I mention Sol’s end; his own story consumed him totally, and the knowledge he possessed knew his end all along; a hidden prophecy, auguries cast with a bony hand. Those weighty tomes predicted his demise.

Struggling to answer Sol’s words in a manner that would cause me to seem bright to his knowledgeable eyes, I spit out a question, hoping to not appear as confused as I felt. “But can’t we do something about it? Is it possible for us to create enough so we can fight against this force?”

Chuckling, deep and rumbling, emanated from his jaws. He picked me up with no apparent effort, hoisting me onto his shoulders so that I could see like a Giant as well. “Hah! Good question lad, good question. It isn’t that simple I’m afraid; you see, many have tried, and much has been built, but what of it remains in this day and age. Too much has been forgotten and too much left behind. Mankind has yet to build a fortress wall which has stood long and stalwart against the forces of chaotic nature.”

I nodded, feeling brave from my seat aloft in the sky, “Well then, its up to us isn’t it?”

“Hah! Quite so lad, quite so…” And with that, fear banished until the next darkening, he and I marched off into the fray of the circus-grounds, all busy in the rush for a night-time performance, them too clinging to the firelight and all too aware that it only served to illuminate the extent of the night which surrounded them.

***

Thomas Bodine, self proclaimed possessor of the hermetic tradition passed down through time by Hermes Trismegistus, looked at me, cocked his head to an odd angle, half squinted his eyes, and spoke with a voice rough and whiskey-damaged but possessing a half-buried notion of elegance.

“Hellfire and dead stars, boy. You don’t know the half o’ it yet.” At the time I really had no understanding of what was meant by this statement, so I barked a laugh in lieu of a proper reply.

I, pretending to be utterly engrossed by a small insect traversing my bare left foot, avoided meeting his eyes. One was alert and filled with a cunning intelligence and a spark of roguish humor, the other dulled by a patina of milky white effluence. This trait, along with his scattering of long and oily hair and his supposedly “oriental” robe, made it near impossible to pay attention to his words while also looking at him, so distracting was his sight.

Bodine, although he preferred us to refer to him as Abramelin the Mage in front of customers, was another of my frequent companions and our show’s resident court jester and magician. He, true to his outlandish nature, claimed to descend from a forbidden union between a Gnostic priestess named Karishna the Sacred and the Renaissance occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. This was, however, widely know to be complete nonsense and showmanship, for he, like all of us left traversing the ruins of earlier glory, had no idea where or who he came from. Such knowledge had been lost in the swirling dust just like so much else.

I always viewed Bo’ as an amusing friend, a con artist who used tawdry illusions to amaze audiences and pilfer their pockets, but who lacked any honor derived from being a truthful man. Such a simple description is, however, misleading; with the clarity of hindsight I see that he hid behind a barrier of untruths so as to always cloak his intentions and keep him protected from those who fear such things. After all, while he may have outwardly been a charlatan, he did possess, however buried in tawdry illusions, real mysteries within him.

For, despite the naysayers, Thomas Bodine, (or as he claimed to be his full title, Abramelin the Mage: Wise and Benevolent Master of the Sephiroth, Keeper of the Tetragrammaton, Knight of the Morning Star, Commander of the Seven Seals, Crown Prince of Enoch, Herald of the Goetia, Possessor of the Hidden Grimoires, The Fully Illuminate One) really did know a great deal of magic. Of course, I didn’t realize that at the time.

“Ah, boy, tired process is growing in’it,” he asked. Once again I was at a loss of how to respond, so it was back to staring at the ground and feeling awkward. Bodine looked away, seeming pensive in his stiffening poise, cleared his throat with a loud noise, and spat rudely at the horizon.

“Is time for initiations, don’t yer see,” he uttered in his peculiar drawl, “A child mustn’t stay a child too long, there jus’ isn’t time for it you see.”

“What initiation?” Shyness lost, I looked him in the eyes, eager with youthful yearning for mystery, but also aware that this could be nothing but yet another trick. “And what initiation is that? Shall I join the illustrious league of hucksters and card sharks which you represent so well?”

He smiled knowingly, as if he had been expecting such a reaction. Leaning closer to me, coating me with a breath which suggested something less than total sobriety on his part, he answered. “Well little one, that shall be made clear; or at least clear enough that yer be able to come to yer own conclusion. I ‘ave left you a chalice next to yer home-on-wheels, a wee-bitty thing full of a bitter liquid which will sweeten once in yer tummy. Drink it boy, drink deep, and at day’s end, and not a minute before, enter your cabin.”

I was filled with annoyance; I had hoped for real and powerful magic and wanted nothing to do with simple illusions proclaiming themselves as wonders. I knew, however, that to deny him would be to wound him, so I shuffled out towards my cabin past the long line of ticket holders waiting to be distracted, past the multi-colored and vaguely carnivorous looking tent where we performed, past the latrines making my eyes water, and past the pile of detritus consisting of things discarded and left behind which would mark our passage. Past our carnival of world’s end and jugglers dancing in the dying light.

***

Face against the earth, sweat dripping in staccato rhythm, I lay, amazed that a small cupful of any liquid could be so noxious. For half an hour after drinking I laid crumpled against the ground, trying to convince my stomach not to spill its contents.

I rolled over onto my back; as sudden as the pain had started it stopped. Feeling peculiar, I looked upward as the desert lost its heat and the day died down into dusk.

Darkness came screaming with heavy winds and grids of clouds moving too quickly across the sky.

It was time to venture inwards, to immerse myself in whatever fanciful dreams Bodine’s potion was propelling me into. The drink was making me feel strange, bright and fragmented, my thoughts swarming and whirling around and around.

I had, by now, figured what the reader must have already guessed, that Bo’ had drugged me, presumably thinking that I would mistake my oh-so-strange mindset for some magic he had performed; drawing weightless symbols in the sky. This is a fool’s game, I thought--twisting it all around and moving the pieces, using me as the game board.

I stood on my doorway’s cusp, mesmerized by my metal and moving home, never settling too deep. It appeared to me as a large armored animal, just as alive as I was.

Opening the door slowly I had the strange thought that one has to be careful with portals and barriers and was then faced with a most shocking and disconcerting feeling when I realized that my cabin was not empty, but imbibed with a presence.

Naked and outlined in moonlight was she, her outline shimmering and effervescent; I felt that she consisted of the air turned solid, hanging into weight and form.

“Who are you,” I asked, “Did Bo’ tell you to come?”

Her voice was radiant, calming me as she spoke softly. “You have much to learn child, he did not command me to do anything, he summoned me and I came.”

“Came from where?”

“Your question is irrelevant. I came to show you that there is magic left in this dying world, no matter how many have forgotten. I came to show you that things can change, grow soft and bend. All is mutable. Now come, read my story, see my creation, and learn that just as I appear to create change, the grand story, above and below, is always changing.”

I stared wide-eyed in confusion. What was this, what story was she speaking of?

She, as if knowing my silent questions, stepped fully out of the darkness into myriad shafts of light, crowned by the moon’s soft touch.

Ah, her story, so wondrously etched on the soft planes of her skin, words spiraling and encircling, yearning to be read and known.

“Come,” she said, “Read my story and know that it is all stories. You want to know the true touch of life? The answer is simple: when matter first fragmented from the one-point the story, existence, began. Life is all the small stories, thought and acted, woven together; all the bitter lows and glorious heights. So read me, learn of it all, and you shall change and be changed.”

So read I did, and change I did, and after being poised all night, standing poised on the edge of the awe inspiring, immersed in something I knew to be as real as the ground which had birthed me and on which I had walked for time immeasurable, I slept. And in sleep, I fell.

***

Morning came with a burst of light and pang of headache. I woke unsure if the written lady had been real or a phantasm of the drug that had seeped stealthily into my head. I remember knowing, however, with absolute certainty, that it was time for me to venture out, to leave the circus of my birth in search of other circuses. I had to abandon friends and family to their own stories, rather cruel or peaceful, and find my own, out in the wilderness and wreckage, and to create for myself a story which might battle the entropic and the decaying and ring out with persistence and sing-song voice.

Walking outside into the bright morning, I paused, smiling soft and hidden and haloed by the sun, and walked onwards.

I said my goodbyes, amidst teary and understanding eyes, abandoning all that I could not carry (after all who needs weighing down in this world that does it so ruthlessly for you), and I left.

***

Years later, world weary and aged by unforgiving sun and other forces, and having forgotten most of what I learned that one night in my youth, my travels brought me back to that desert which I had traveled across so long ago.

Walking, I saw a reflection of light in the distance and, curiosity aroused, I changed my direction slightly, as to see what lay ahead.

Upon reaching the source I immediately knew, and might even have known before the image hit my eyes, that I was walking through the remains of the Last Frontier Traveling Circus, the symbol of my left-behind childhood and the forger of my adulthood.

The rusted cabins, which many I held dear called home, were rusted, sagging under their own weight and half buried under the shifting sands. I thought of all the reasons of why it had ended, but I had know way of knowing, and such things are often better left to the imagination so they grow in power and purpose. I had no way of knowing if my former companions left in search of something beautiful, a mirage of such intensity that it called them from their homes, or if some disaster had struck, instantly destroying, or if it had been a slow death from gradual disrepair.

Venturing through the carcasses of buildings and shelters I saw a site that shall never leave me; a great, bleached white skeleton of such a shape and size that it could have only belonged to one person, my best friend from childhood’s end, Sol the giant. And from the middle of his remains I heard sounds which I could not have expected less, children’s voices. They were laughing in their play, using the gigantic frame of his bones to climb and swing.

The children’s footsteps created patterns and circles around the grave. This image, of order amongst disorder, and of life and laughter springing from the soil of those who walked above us, seemed to represent to me the two defining forces of my childhood. I had been taught two different ways of the world and I still, even in my old age spent scribbling my story in hope that it will last long, do not know which will win in the end, the forces of creation or those of decay. It would take knowing the future to answer my question, and although I know a little of magic, I am no magician. My story will either be tucked away in safety to survive the outside’s ravaging forces or it will be covered by the whirling sands, to be walked on by those who come after, living and dying and knowing nothing of what is buried below their feet.