As with his view of himself, Sean’s view of the show had also evolved. The first day I met him he climbed on the cannon and left me standing on the ground. “So, you want to have a peek inside?” he had taunted. “Why not,” I had said. “Because you can’t,” he replied. For weeks afterward I accepted his challenge and began piecing together the “world’s largest secret.” Much of it was simple. Inside the barrel was a coffin-sized capsule attached to a narrow cable; the capsule was pulled back into launching position by a hydraulic piston; the piston locked the capsule under the handle of a giant mechanical trigger. But what was it that gave the capsule the power to launch the cannonball? At first I thought a spring, or maybe even the explosion itself. Both of these were wrong, I soon discovered, though I couldn’t figure out why.

“Two.”

Finally, about a week before the end and with our friendship well established, the newly humbled Human Cannonball invited me inside the barrel. There I saw Sean’s bumper sticker. There I felt his source of flight. There I heard the silent echo of every child who hoped to fly.

“One.”

And there I realized that certain dreams are better left preserved.

“Boom!”

Emerging from the cannon, Sean looks like a blur. His body shoots from the barrel like a cork from a champagne bottle, bursting fifty feet into the air with a shower of bubbly oohs and aahs and an explosion of speed and light. Halfway to heaven his arms slowly open as if he’s swimming toward the top of the tent. Then for an instant he seems to stop—he’s reached his peak, he’s mounted the sky—before he finally ducks his head and begins his final descent.

“Flying is the greatest sensation,” he said. “When I take the hit and leave the barrel I feel as if I could fly forever. That’s when I know I can do anything. My mind slows down. I know I’m going to hit the bag. And then at the peak my momentum stops and finally I feel that I’m free-falling. Falling, falling, falling, falling, then, boom!, I land on my back. It’s not like anything in the world. It’s not like diving off a diving board. It’s not like surfing on a wave.”

“Is it like sex?”

“What, are you nuts? I mean it’s good, but it ain’t that good! It doesn’t make me blow a nut.”

Sean lands in the bag with a giant puff. I breathe my final smile of relief. The audience slowly rises to its feet as Sean steps out of the yellow-and-blue pond with a slightly dazed look on his face. He tosses his helmet to the prop boss and skips to the center ring.

“Ladies and gentlemen…the Human Cannonball…Seaaaaaaaan Thomas…!”

Sean plants his feet slightly apart, lifts his arms high into the air, and beams at the last row of the crowd as if to say, “Hey, look, I did it. Now let’s hear some applause.” For a full minute he draws that applause, and at the end of that time he looks off to the side, where Elvin Bale has returned for the final show of the year and is sitting in his wheelchair with his arms in the air like a proud parent who watches his child succeed and knows just how it feels.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you have just witnessed another milestone in American show business history….” Jimmy straightens his red tailcoat and steps to the center of the world’s largest tent. “Tonight’s performance concludes a ninety-nine-city tour, through sixteen states, covering over twelve thousand miles, and giving five hundred and one performances. None of it would have been possible without you, the American circus-going public. We sincerely thank you for your patronage…”

With a final blow on his ringmaster’s whistle and a gentle sweep of his arm toward the door, Jimmy draws the season to a close. The band marks the moment with a teary rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.” The cast quickly streams from the tent. Outside, the performers barely pause at the door before sprinting to their trailers and shedding their spangles for the final time. Quickly, desperately, they want to be free.

The last person out of the tent is the ringmaster himself. Not so fast on his feet, less desperate to flee, Jimmy slowly pads from the tent with a fog of tears eclipsing his eyes. His smile is weary. His bow tie is gone. In his hand he carries a small tote bag.

“So now you know…,” he says as he stops by my side.

“Yes, I do,” I reply. We both shake hands.

“I hope you tell the truth,” he says. “Soon all of this will be gone.”

Back in the Alley the others have gone. I slip off my oversized red-and-white shoes and unhook my floppy gold tie. Piece by piece I remove my costume: my bright orange pants, my white dinner jacket, and my pointy hat with the elastic strap. I fold each of these and lay them in my trunk, already battered from three weeks on the road. At last I slip off my stained skullcap and queen-sized stocking hair net. The only thing left is my bright white face, with the smooth black clefs and the crisp red nose. Squeezing baby oil into my hands, as I have done more than two hundred times before, I smear it into my pores and rub the graphic red and black features into the layer of solid white that covers my skin from my forehead to my throat. After several quick wipes with a well-stained towel my face dissolves into its former self, like a black-and-white negative slowly changing into color. I look at the mirror that hangs in the corner and the image reflected is clearly mine. Instinctively I try to smile, but the truth is painted all over my face. I am myself.

By the time I step outside, the city is already halfway torn down. The flying rigging is being dismantled. The tympani drum is being carted away. The bears and tigers have already gone. By twenty after ten the last lights have come down, leaving behind the empty whale where elephants and horses so recently danced. A few men pull down the outer poles. Ropes dangle everywhere. In a moment a light mist begins to fall. By eleven o’clock the tent is dark. All the seats have been removed. All the magic has been excised. One by one the quarter poles are released and the heavens are slowly winched down to earth, until at twenty minutes before midnight, with a silent, swelling slap, the world’s largest big top spanks a final time against the pale, wet Florida grass. Few people are around to witness the sight—the crew, a few of the mechanics, and, fittingly, the owner.

Johnny startled me moments later as I watched the men dismantle the center poles into their male and female halves. His voice was valedictory. His eyes were heavy. “A long time ago I learned that there are many things in life that I wished I’d looked at just a little longer,” he said. “I always think I might not see it again and I want to remember it. I used to do that with my home. When I left home every spring to go on the road I would walk around the house a little bit. I would wander through the flower beds and the lawn. The trees are here, I would say to myself. The house is here. They might not be here when I get back. It’s the same way with the show. I’m always afraid that something will happen to me, or to the circus, and I might never see it again. One year I will be right.”

Quietly and with casual sleight of hand he produced a bag from behind his back and laid it in my arms.

“I want you to have this,” he said, “and I want you to know: no matter what else, you were a damn good clown. You made our show better this year.”

I thanked him for his generosity, then peered into the bag. Inside were several bundles of faded cloth, four tattered talismans: CLYDE BEATTY, COLE BROS., CIRCUS, and on top of the others, the American flag.

“You can never say goodbye to the circus,” he said, “no more than you can ever say goodbye to your childhood. We’ll see you again. I’m sure of that. Now you’re one of us.”

Johnny shook my hand and walked away—vanishing himself in the cover of darkness like the show he so adored. Left alone, I followed his cue, and with one last look at the rolled-up tent, now easing around its spool, I started my camper and drove off the lot—onto a road without any arrows, toward a tomorrow without a circus.