Practicing to Walk Like a Heron

Winter Quarters

114 Winter Quarters The circus knows no winter cold, no drifts of snow across the midway, the elephants’ backs, the semis that haul the riggings, tents, poles, props, and cats. Here The Great Mendoni barbecues a chicken, Madame Sashay knits a sweater for her daughter’s newborn, and the Belardo Brothers are fixing the roof of their light blue stucco one-story. They all wonder what it’s like along the route, if the snow’s knee-deep in Minnesota, if the ice is building up in Kansas. They imagine flakes piled high as the high wire; sleet freezing on the trapeze; icicles hanging from the bridles of the Lippizans, along the rim of the big cats’ cage. Here it’s three months in the sun with The Flying Garonis searching for a new trick, Peppo training a new dog, Miss Lilly revamping the opening, the anonymous roustabouts painting the trucks, rings, and props. The boredom of somersaulting through the empty air, coaxing a lazy lion through a flaming hoop, dancing across a high wire as you 115 juggle a china vase, Turkish scabbard, and a Russian doll disappears like The Amazing Human Ghost. Everyone’s life comes back: buying groceries, playing a game of hearts around the kitchen table, weeding vegetables in the back yard. At night, when they look up at the moon crawling across the sky, they think tomorrow we’ll arrive right here. No next show until March when the trucks roll off the lot onto the road. ...