by Walter Giersbach<\/p>\n
Sundown, sundown \/ They’re taking all the tents down<\/em> <\/br> I saw rubes already parking their Dodges and unlocking the baby strollers in the parking lot. Moms looked dewy-faced and the Jakes tossed their shoulders back, ready to claim the prize. The skinny girls and daredevil boys were waltzing into the Midway looking to dance with the devil.<\/p>\n Tomorrow was the carnival\u2019s last show, end of the run before the magic disappeared and the tumbleweed reclaimed the sandlot. We were striking the tents and moving on at midnight. Then we\u2019d be as invisible as the spirit of Jesus on Monday morning.<\/p>\n Old Billy hobbled over, trouble in his rheumy eyes. Sickness and mortality can gimp around on two legs and earn a day\u2019s wages, but the string eventually runs out.<\/p>\n Billy planted his boots in the sand, worked his gums and said, \u201cHoss, this is as far as I go.\u201d The clowns didn\u2019t drop their smiles as they rollicked toward the ring in the Big Top, the babes waited statue-like on the backs of the Percherons. I could hear the Fat Lady singing her last song for Billy.<\/p>\n Thirty or more seasons had come and gone for Billy in a succession of tent-pole forests and black-smoking trains whistling off into the darkness. Billy was the legend of the kid who ran away to the circus and never looked back. Maybe that was me too. From Topeka to Wichita, Albuquerque to Mesa, Billy had provided the voodoo that a generation of carnies believed in. And, shit, if I didn\u2019t believe in Billy, what was left? Not the mess I left behind. Not Ma\u2019s shack in the hollow, not the hardscrabble life in the Appalachians that wore folks down early.<\/p>\n After three years, my family was the carnival and Billy could\u2019ve been my grandpa. Like any pack of kinfolk, circus life grew and shrank and warped here and there. Samantha the snake handler bore twins, two little people got married, the knife-thrower from Slovakia fell under the wheels of a train one night when he got drunk. And through three seasons, we went from fairground to field with our \u201cHowdy-do, we\u2019re here again, then we\u2019re gone until next year.\u201d<\/p>\n Now I had to squint hard and wonder, Is this all there is<\/em>?<\/p>\n No encores and bows for Billy tonight, not with his lungs shot. Like an old dog or Indian squaw, he knew when his time was up. The carnie boss knew it too, doing his businesslike thing and firing Billy that afternoon. Nothing personal.<\/p>\n \u201cGoodbye, kid,\u201d Billy said, shaking my hand. \u201cThe train\u2019s leavin\u2019 without me. Doc said I got it bad. It\u2019s time to cash in my chits.\u201d He wiped away a spot of blood, smiling through a mouth with broken teeth in a face that needed ironing by God. \u201cKiss the sideshow ladies goodnight for me.\u201d<\/p>\n He turned and stared with squinty eyeballs.<\/p>\n \u201cGet out now, kid. Don\u2019t wait for the right cards to turn up. I waited, and I lost the bet.\u201d<\/p>\n Then he shambled off into the darkness, hiding his mortality like the secret silver dollar he\u2019d tucked in his boot. I waved my fingertips, saying, \u201cSo long, Billy.\u201d And, quietly, \u201cGive my regards to Saint Peter.\u201d<\/p>\n Standing alone in the weeds whipped by the desert wind, I heard the yokels hooting inside the Big Top. Poor Billy wouldn\u2019t see Myrna dancing on the high wire anymore or Lorenzo facing the lions. The clown car would have one passenger when Billy checked into the big Midway in the sky. Time I was moving on, too. Maybe back to the green hills of West Virginia to see if anything had changed.<\/p>\n The stars sparking in the east like broken cigarette lighters would dance the fandango over Billy\u2019s bones as the carnival music ended. And I had to ask myself again, Is this all there is, or can there still be more<\/em>?<\/p>\n Time to find my rucksack, pick up my pay and hit the road. by Walter Giersbach Sundown, sundown \/ They’re taking all the tents down Where have you gone my handsome Billy? — “The Last Carnival” by Bruce Springsteen We rolled into town on a diamond-bright Thursday night. Now the Sunday sun was … Continue reading
\nWhere have you gone my handsome Billy?<\/strong><\/em>
\n— “The Last Carnival” by Bruce Springsteen<\/p>\n
\nWe rolled into town on a diamond-bright Thursday night. Now the Sunday sun was exploding over the Chiricahua Mountains in an end-of-the-world crash that churned the clouds in the Tucson sky. The carnies put out their smokes, tipped back their Buds to swallow the last drops, and wiped sweat off their heads. The straw boss shouted at me, \u201cOff your ass and on your feet! The marks are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\nWALT GIERSBACH<\/strong>\u2019s fiction has appeared in Bewildering Stories, Big Pulp, Corner Club Press, Every Day Fiction, Everyday Weirdness, Gumshoe Review, Lunch Hour Stories, Mouth Full of Bullets, Mystery Authors, OG Short Fiction, Northwoods Journal, Paradigm Journal, Pif Magazine, r.kv.r.y, Short Fiction World, Southern Fried Weirdness, The Short Humour Site, The World of Myth and Written Word. He was 6th place winner of the 79th annual Writer\u2019s Digest writing competition in October 2011. Two volumes of short stories, Cruising the Green of Second Avenue<\/em>, have been published by Wild Child (www.wildchildpublishing.com).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"