Shelagh Sloan came out of her trailer in a bathrobe and slippers and asked the workers to turn down the music. For a moment the sound of rap disappeared, only to return as soon as she left. The smell of exhaust from Big Pablo’s generator permeated the air.

“But you’re good at what you do,” I said. “How can you give it up?”

Danny slumped back into the chair. His arms dangled between his knees. Since his accident several weeks before he had let his ponytail grow raggedly uncut and his postadolescent fuzz grow spottily unshaved.

“I might have been good,” he said. “But I’m too tall. I used to do the three-and-a-half in the flying act. I might have done the four, or the four-and-a-half, but for what? They don’t give you more money or shit. Let’s face it, people don’t come to the tent to see the quadruple somersault. I don’t mean to put anybody down, but look at the program. When you open it up, who are the stars: Kathleen Umstead and Sean Thomas. Kathleen is finished. Nobody remembers her. And Sean? He has a good act, but all he does is get into a cannon and get shot out every show. Anybody can learn that. All it takes is several months.”

“So why are they the stars?”

“Because they’re blond, because they’re American, and because the owners don’t want this place to look like a lettuce farm.”

It took me a moment to realize what he was saying. “They’re stars because the show says they are stars. And because the public likes flashy acts. Yet to be a flyer, to be an acrobat, even to be a juggler you have to practice for many years. But the owners don’t care about that, and the public doesn’t either.”

“So how are you going to decide what to do?” I asked.

“My cousin already said I could come join him. I’ve been thinking about it for the last several weeks. I spoke with my parents about it and they really don’t want me to go. My brothers tell me it’s up to me, as long as I serve out the contract. Basically I don’t know what I want to do, but I do know I have to decide soon…” Danny drifted into silence. He was staring at the ground. After a moment he looked at my feet.

“Those are ugly shoes,” he said.

This time I didn’t hesitate. “That’s an ugly face.”

Danny looked up from the ground. “Well done,” he said. “You’re almost there.”

“So what happened?”

“What do you mean what happened?” Big Man said. “I stole some tapes, and I got caught. Cost me three hundred dollars and eight days in prison. I didn’t get any help from the show. It all came out of my pocket.”

Actually his mother’s pocket. The man they call Big Man was standing in front of the side door of the tent making sure no one along Route 1 in Princeton decided to sneak into the circus. In truth there weren’t any seats available inside the tent even if anyone did get in, and in any case they didn’t stand much of a chance of getting by Big Man. Big Man was, as advertised, big—close to three hundred pounds, in fact, with dark black skin, off-white eyes, and one prominent gold incisor. Somewhere around thirty years old, he had first joined the show when we were in North Carolina. Before that he had been working at a warehouse and living in a mission in Orlando when Bill Lane, the man known as Buddha, made his monthly run of homeless shelters, halfway houses, and Salvation Army hostels in South Florida looking for potential workers. Receiving one hundred dollars for every man he delivers to the circus, Buddha promises his prospects a world of travel and adventure in order to get them into his van. Once they arrive at the tent, however, many find themselves only halfway over the rainbow. Some quit on the spot, some hang on until the first rain, but a few manage to enjoy the routine. They get a job, a bed, three meals a day, plus seventy-five dollars a week. And for better or for worse, they also become part of one oversized, slightly racially segregated traveling soap opera and circus sideshow.

Big Man had been one of the few newcomers in the course of the year who openly enjoyed the camaraderie of show life. After one of our gags he would usually comment on some detail we had changed on a whim. He loved the big-breasted nurse in the stomach pump. He laughed at my painting the burning house. To me he seemed to be making an effort to feel a part of the circus.

“What happened was, they caught me on one of those overhead cameras. I had my Clyde Beatty T-shirt on. The one that’s a little too small.” I smiled at the thought: wasn’t everything he wore too small? “Anyway, they brought me into the station. I agreed to come to court, but that night the show moved to Vineland. I had no way to get back to Voorhees. I thought they would just let it slip.”

The police didn’t see it that way. The next day, minutes before the 4:30 show in Vineland, the local sheriff rolled onto the lot, walked up to Doug’s daughter, Blair, who was selling elephant ride tickets, and demanded a halt to the show. Someone on the lot was in contempt of court, he said, and the circus could not go on until the fugitive was apprehended. All this seemed a bit histrionic for two cassette tapes, but five minutes later Big Man was guarding the big top from the backseat of a patrol car. By that evening he was dreaming about it from jail. From this vantage point, even Truck No. 63 seemed like paradise, and a week later, having served his time, Big Man walked out onto Route 1 in South Jersey and began hitchhiking north. The next morning he arrived in Princeton.

“I actually never lost my job,” he said. “When I got back the manager told me I couldn’t go into malls anymore. Later Mr. Holwadel gave me permission. He told me next time I want something I should just go ahead and pay for it.”

“So how long are you going to stay this time?”

“Until I get some money. I only make seventy-five a week, you know. I try to save as much as possible, but that’s hard. Now if I could sell popcorn or something, that would be easier. But they won’t let me.”

“Why’s that?”

“They might tell you something else. But put it this way: I’m the wrong color.”

“The wrong color?”

“White people don’t want to buy popcorn from a black man. Look at the butchers, all of them are white. I don’t have anything against the circus. I like it, but it’s a prejudiced place. The only black man who makes any money is New York, the crew boss, and he has to work for it…” Big Man straightened his glasses. “Look at you,” he continued. “You’ve got it made.”

“Me?” I said, awkwardly.

“You. You get to work in the ring and make everybody laugh. You live in a nice Winnebago. You can take ladies in there. Look at me: I live in that sleeper and if I want to have a lady in there I have to put five people out. And hell, I wouldn’t want to take a lady in there anyway.”

“So do you think you can save money?” I asked.

“Unfortunately I have to take a draw tomorrow. I need fifty dollars to have a tooth pulled. I went to the dentist in the last town and he wanted sixty-seven. I didn’t have it. New York said he didn’t have it either. I even went to Rob the clown. I can’t wait any longer. This morning I almost couldn’t work. After we put the tent up I had to go lie down under the truck and go to sleep. When I woke up it was time to go to my door. I didn’t even have time to change my clothes.” He was wearing blue jeans covered in mud and a dirty blue mechanic’s shirt. “I think I’ll have enough saved up to leave this fall.”

“And then what will you do?”

“I’d like to work in a warehouse again,” he said. “I can make about nine or ten dollars an hour. I can live on that, help out my mother. She’s not doing too well. I can get an apartment, fix it up real nice, and start changing my life around. I’d go to church.”

“Church?” I said, surprised.

“Yes, I’m a church person, child. I come from Carolina originally. What I’d like to do is get me a job, find me a lady, and have us a nice wedding in a church. I could turn my life around, you know. All I need is a real job. Right now this is the best I got.”