I swore off going to a circus because of animals being mistreated, but I'd been told (and it turned out true) that no animals were harmed in the performance, training, or traveling of this particular little circus.
In Rainelle, there isn't much that passes for entertainment. No one with guitars on front porches (except us) and no one drumming in a circle anywhere (except us). No movies, skating rinks, open mics, or anything of that kind. There is golf. There is a poolroom (no karaoke), no boy bands. No intense in tents revival preachers, no sidewalk performers, no traveling poets. So. When the circus came to town, we said, "shall we?" Expecting not much (considering), we went to the armory.
A young girl, fourteen or so, got it all started from up on a swinging rope that seemed to be tied around her hair. I liked that she was thick and short, rather than barbie thin. A wee bit nervous and not quite polished -- but awesome in all of that. Next came dancers, and a clown, a magician, a juggler, wee boys on unicycles, and then someone let the dogs out (while the song played, "Who let the dogs out"). Three dogs jumping hoops and the fourth getting it "wrong" every time. Well played, pooch.
Then the clown chose 4 unwilling gentlemen from the audience and arranged them on stage and pulled off an elaborate trick wherein they were all sitting on chairs and he laid one's head on another's lap, all in a circle. Then he removed chairs, one by one until all were sitting only on one chair, seeming asleep. Pretty awesome -- and the fellas didn't rehearse it. It was all the clown's doing.
Out comes the poi dancer, the sword dancer, the butterfly woman and daughter who twirled from high above the ring. And then the clown again. He had three stuffed animals, a parrot, a pig, and an elephant. He stood them all up in the ring and took a giant wind-up key from his shirt and motioned (he didn't speak, but blew a whistle like Harpo with his horn). He motioned to the kids to tell him if they wanted the animals to move. They answered and clapped. He wound up the pig and blew his whistle in repeated blasts and he explained to the pig to go around the ring and off that-a-way. The kids clapped and the pig (being a stuffed animal) didn't move. so he kicked it off the direction he'd said. The kids all laughed.
Then he did the same with the parrot, kicking it in the direction he'd said. He explained, again with whistles and movements, to the wee elephant the direction to go. Good joke. He'd kick it off too. But.
The elephant went trotting off on it's own. Tiny, tiny elephant. and then it would wind down and fall over. And he'd wind it again. And it would trot off around the ring and fall on its side again. At last, he thought, wind it more. So he wound and he wound and he wound and the announcer said, "you better stop, you're going to break it." And he wound some more.
And the poor little elephant fell over. He'd broken it.
The clown began to cry. Sad music played and he knelt down.When all of a sudden, a little girl, maybe 5 or so ran up from where we were sitting and gave the poor, sad clown a hug.
This was not part of the show.
The look on the clown's face was priceless.
The elephant, of course, was a dog and he came out of the elephant costume and ran around and took his bows.
But the winning "performance" of the evening wasn't a performance at all. A sweet little girl who thought the sad clown really had broken the little elephant and she wanted to comfort him in all that sadness.
That's the town I live in.
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