I somehow manage to fill all the ketchup containers without spilling a drop. I somehow manage not to disappear into thin air. I somehow manage not to finally die of embarrassment on the spot.
That could happen any minute. I might be the only person who ever actually died of embarrassment… if the cops don’t come and arrest me for biting Tasha first. The courtroom scene in my head is so disappointing. Mom sits over in the prosecution’s area. Dad stands hesitantly in the aisle. No one sits in my area. Lisi never finds out I’m in jail until I write her a letter. Why didn’t you call me?
I go back behind the counter and shuffle sideways down to register #7. Register #1 Girl smiles at me and I smile at her and I get this feeling as if I’m an idiot. Like a beautiful girl would ever like you, Gerald. Seriously.
Saturday at the circus. Little kids and their parents who grip their little hands too tightly. Little kids and parents who don’t grip their little hands at all. Little kids screaming and crying and squealing and laughing. I watch one. Her laughter is so pure. It’s like electricity. I wish I could plug into it and be her laughter. I watch her cheeks turn into perfect, round plums. Her hair is in pigtails and she’s holding a souvenir stuffed toy.
I can tell she hasn’t seen anything bad yet.
No one has used her as entertainment.
No one has done anything to her but love her.
“Pretzel.”
I look up and there’s this guy. He’s in a suit. He’s short. He’s saying it in that way like I’m a machine. Like I’m a Star Trek replicator.
“Pretzel,” he says again.
I stare at him. I want to say Snarky-Nanny things. Yes. Pretzel. That’s a noun. Very good.
“You deaf?” he asks.
I keep staring at him. I think about jail. I think of Roger and my anger management knowledge. You can’t demand that other people have manners. You can hope it, though. You can wish.
I look at the guy. I wish he had manners.
“Pretzel?” he says, with his hands out like he’s now exasperated with my lack of giveashit about his pretzel. I look at his outstretched hands and think of a thing Dad says. Wish in one hand and shit in the other. See which one piles up first.
The guy stands there for a few more seconds, and then I walk away. That’s the only option because I’m not getting him a pretzel and I’ve already been a tiger once today, so I’m not sure I can stop myself from being a tiger again. I walk right out of stand five and into the arena. I pause at a main door and watch the circus.
There’s a clown in the center ring and he’s pretending to pull his own tooth. The audience is laughing hysterically. I have no idea why this is funny. Pulling one’s own tooth seems like a bad thing to do. I figure I must have missed something. He has a cartoon-dentist outfit on. Next to him is an oversize pair of pliers. They are as big as a bicycle.
An usher motions for me to come all the way in and close the curtain, so I do. As I stand in the darkened doorway, I breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
I am eating ice cream on the trapeze. Strawberry. I put it down and begin to swing on the bar, and then I jump and I catch the next bar and swing high and flip and am caught at my wrists by Lisi, who is swinging on the other bar. As we swing and do tricks, she talks to me.
“After this, do you want to move to Glasgow with me?”
“Yes, please.”
“We can talk then.”
“Yes, please,” I say again.
Because in real time, we’ve never talked about it. Not as adults. Or whatever we are. We hinted about it. We dealt with it in whatever ways we could. But never the drowning. We never talked about that.
The day she left, she locked her eyes with mine. She has green eyes like I do. She said, “Take care of yourself.”
“I’ll have to,” I answered.
“Call me if you need me.”
“I will.”
She hugged me—the only one in my family who ever did that—and she kissed me on the cheek. “Stay out of trouble,” she said. “We’ll talk soon.”
But we never did talk. And she never calls. It’s been more than three months. I’ve stayed out of trouble. Until today. Until the tiger.
On a high swing, I let go of Lisi’s wrists and fly through the domed ceiling at the PEC Center and become a bird. I’m a pigeon. I’m an escaped canary. I’m a bald eagle. I soar to the mountain to the east of town and I sit atop the tallest tree and I look at all the people. Lisi the bald eagle perches next to me. She asks me, “Gerald, what are you doing?”
I say, “I don’t know.”
“Come back and do the trapeze with me,” she says.
After a few more swings, we’re doing our synchronized double flip. We do it twice. Three times. The crowd is awed. They think we are the two most talented people on earth right now. They want to be us. They want to fly, too.
They toss flowers at us. They give us a standing ovation.
This?
This is entertainment. If anyone had asked, this is what I would have answered.
ANYONE: Do you want to be on TV?
ME: Yes.
ANYONE: Would you like to play the part of the naughty boy who craps on his parents’ kitchen table?
ME: No.
ANYONE: Well, what do you want to be, then?
ME: I want to fly on the trapeze.
ANYONE: You’re too little. We can’t let you do that.
ME: Well then, I want to be a bald eagle.
ANYONE: This is why we don’t ask five-year-olds questions like this.
ME: How is a kid crapping on his parents’ kitchen table entertaining?
ANYONE: I don’t know. But people seem to like it.
ME: You haven’t noticed that it’s a little perverted? Watching a kid poop on TV?
ANYONE: That’s ridiculous. Why would you say something like that?
ME: Because it’s true. Isn’t that the only reason to ever say anything?
21
I HAVE NO idea how I got back to register #7. I don’t remember leaving the arena. I don’t remember knocking to get back in. I don’t remember squeezing by irresistible Register #1 Girl. I don’t remember counting out my drawer, but my money is in the zippered bag and my tally sheet is filled out and signed. By me. I have no idea where I was for the last hour. Last thing I remember is watching the circus.
We have an hour break before the next show. Half the cashiers go out to smoke or call their loved ones. I think about my loved ones. I think about what happened in real life this morning. So I decide to go out and call Dad.