“I came to check the tigers after the first show,” he said. “The local media were busy filming a story. I transferred Barisal to an empty cage so I could clean up her mess and examine the babies. One by one I removed them from the hay. They were very soft, like little stuffed animals. Each one was pliable. Their eyes were closed, and will stay so for about two weeks. Their faces were all scrunched up. Their umbilical cords were already drying up and beginning to scab.
“After taking three cubs I realized one was missing. I searched through the hay. It was wet and bloody. It had a lot of defecation in it. I began to clean it out and that’s when I discovered the missing tiger. I picked it up and rolled it over. The head was in the shape of a wet sack, almost like a water balloon. It had been born with a severe deformity. It wasn’t breathing. I knew Barisal had rejected it. Maybe she buried it after it died; maybe she buried it alive. Either way, I still felt bad. I looked at the photographers and said, ‘Okay, you have to leave now. The mother’s getting upset.’”
Arriving in front of the tiger compound, Khris turned off the overhead light. He went to the last cage on the right and opened the door. Without speaking, he pulled out the cub—caramel in color with dark vertical stripes—and placed it in a blue laundry basket lined with hay, then covered it with a pink-and-white dishtowel. Even at this moment he was thinking of the cub. The music from the hair hang drifted from the tent. A chilled moisture clogged the air.
Khris shut the cage and carried the basket behind the tiger truck, alongside the tattered bumper sticker:…AND ON THE 8TH DAY GOD CREATED TIGERS. Moving quickly and with glazed determination, he set the basket by the right rear tire. He kept his eyes focused on the towel, mumbled something to himself, then carefully lifted the tiny bundle from the basket and placed it into a small, coffin-like box. He was crying by now. The light drained from his eyes. All around him the sound seemed to dim. Even the music from the tent couldn’t be heard on that side of the truck. The heavens, at that moment, seemed far out of reach. The circus had lost a star.
“Barisal might look for the missing cat for a minute or two,” he said, “but then her mothering instincts will take over and she’ll turn her attention to the surviving babies.” His voice was a whisper. His hands had started shaking. Later he would have to calm himself long enough to give the cub a proper burial. “I numbed myself,” he said. “I really did. I tried to be prepared. I know that the remaining babies will be better cared for. I know it’s what Barisal wanted. But still it hurts. Maybe I could have done something different. For all I know this could be something that will get me to hell. I tell you, this is not one of the better parts of animal care. But when we took cats into captivity we knew we couldn’t control everything.”
“Do you think most people understand?”
“My mom understands—I called her a few minutes ago—but she said she was sad. The truth is, when you go down to the very core, it’s still the end of a life. That’s something I hold very valuable. In a way I consider animals more valuable than humans, because I know what humans have done. That’s strange, but it’s true. I can care for animals better because they’re straight up. They don’t stab you in the back. They let you know: ‘Okay, it’s time to play with me. Okay, now it’s not.’ They don’t connive and scheme to hurt you. They aren’t negligent of the world around them. In fact, they go along with it. They are a part of nature. And look what happens…. Sometimes I hate my job.”
I rested my hand on his shoulder. He started back toward the tent. The final acts were just beginning. It was Halloween night.
Later that night we climbed the tent.
The generator as usual went off at midnight and with it the lights on the center poles and in all the trailers down the line. Earlier, Khris and I had gone to have a drink and returned just in time to be summoned as judges for the annual Halloween costume party in the center ring. Kris Kristo had brought a girl from town. Marcos was listening to his Walkman in the seats. Blair was waiting to throw up in ring one from a bout of midnight morning sickness. With the party over, the candy put away, and the lot under cover of darkness, we decided to fulfill our last rites as graduating First of Mays and climb to the top of the World’s Largest Big Top.
Outside the big top, we tightened the laces on our shoes and shimmied up the now dingy yellow ropes to the outer lip of the tent. The vinyl was moist and clammy, like a fillet of raw fish. It was slightly cold to the touch. As we were resting for a moment abreast of the outer poles, a layer of dirt came off on our bodies from the previously pristine blue and-white fabric that had been rubbed through the asphalt, dirt, and grass of nearly a hundred towns. Up close the brilliant background of the circus was sullied by a palette of multicolored sludge, almost the opposite of an Impressionist painting—swirling mud lilies that disappeared in the light and shone only in the dark. Now soiled ourselves in a layer of grime, we groped to our feet and started up to the top of the tent.
Wavering on the Jell-O-like surface, we slowly waded up a streak of white to the first crest of the quarter poles. My heart was pounding like the drums in the show—partly out of fear that my feet would give way, partly out of the thrill of this forbidden flight. Clowns are supposed to stay on the ground, not presume to walk on the air. Now already twenty-five feet in the air, we had two more layers of tent to go. Between each crest, like slippery dunes, the vinyl sagged in a sad sort of valley, so it felt as if we were sliding into a quicksand pit and had to grope for the next solid ridge. The last leg of the ascent was the most treacherous. The vinyl got suddenly slicker. The stripes grew gradually narrower. And the whole tent seemed to shake like a cartoon magic mountain with a sinister laugh that wanted to prevent us from reaching its peak.
We pushed ahead. The summit was near. My heart was beating behind my eyes. In the last few steps I nearly lost control as the tent soared upward to its final crest, making it nearly impossible to stand. I collapsed to all fours and crawled to the peak, grabbing desperately for the red center pole that held the promise of steady footing. For a moment the sky was spinning as I settled my body onto the bail ring and adjusted my eyes to the height. Then, in a moment, the earth was still. The tent stopped shaking and relaxed into place. The breeze was surprisingly calm. The flag above me—CIRCUS in bold letters—hung limply from its mast. The show was fast asleep for the night. Its dreams had turned toward home.
Alighting beside me, Khris surveyed the scape. “So this is the top of the world,” he mused.
“The doorway to heaven.”
“The entrance to hell?”
We started talking about the season, together making an informal tally of the range of events we had witnessed since the start of the year. The list was circuslike in its scope. In the course of eight months on the road with the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus, one person had a baby, four people got pregnant, two people got engaged, one person got married, one couple was separated, two people died, three people got arrested, one person was imprisoned, six people converted, one person gained U.S. citizenship, two people broke bones, one person chipped a couple of teeth, two people had knee surgery, one person had back surgery, one person lost a parent, one person aborted a child, dozens of people got fired, and at least one person got hired, fired, rehired, and all but refired. Plus, in the previous day alone, four tiger cubs were born and one was summarily abandoned. The pot was at full boil.
From the ground the circus often seemed to be a cauldron on the verge of bubbling out of control. There were few restraints, even fewer restrictions, and seemingly little recipe for concord. But from our vantage point atop the tent that mix seemed remarkably well balanced. From above, the circus looked like a well-ordered town. There were homes and families; private neighborhoods and public spaces; parents, children, animals, clowns. And hovering over all of them stood the silhouette of the tent like the ghost of a church the town couldn’t forget and indeed carried on its back wherever it went. When I first saw the tent that initial day in DeLand I thought it looked like a whale—big and bloated with a kind of distant charm, a beast so large it couldn’t help overwhelming and would be impossible to grasp. Now, instead of just the body of a whale, I also saw the character of that creature and the story of its life.