Soldier's Son

11. "Let's Go to the Circus!"

11 ft I PTt LET'S GO TO THE CIRCUS! Masontown, Pennsylvania Summer i^^-Wmter 1950 When the circus came to town, it set up in the lot next to the fire hall, about two blocks away on Washington Street. In those days, although it served as a parking lot for Friday-night bingo games, it was not so much a lot asjust a dusty field with scruffy tufts of grasssticking up between the stones. Since there was no fence, telephone poles lay around the circumference, permitting traffic to enter and exit only in designated areas. Every day that the circus was in town we enjoyed watching the elephants walk through the alley past our house, linked {149} {150 } "LET'S GO TO THE CIRCUS!" together trunk to tail, to get a drink of water. The big tent rose in the middle of the lot and smaller amusement tents and vendors' stands encircled it. At night it seemed a magical place with the strings of colored lights, the carousel music, the smells of roasted peanuts and cotton candy,and the noisy crowd.The clowns and acrobats, the jugglers and ladies on the trapeze, the magician and the lion tamer alllooked so glamorous in their makeup and colorful, sequined outfits. But in the daytime, when we sneaked over to the lot without Mom, the place looked desolate in the glareof the sun with all of the tent flaps tied down and the vendors ' stands shuttered. The only people we saw then were old men with tattoos and grungy-looking teenagers wearinggrimyT-shirts, shinyjeans, and clodhoppers . They all sat around on cable spools or upturned buckets, smoking cigarettes, looking at us with a kind of guardedness that you felt could turn mean in a minute. Still, we loved the circus when the sun went down and webegged Mom to take us every night. One time I was so mesmerized by the sights that I tripped over a telephone pole at the lot's edge and a stone went through my lip. It took several stitches to dose the "LET'S GO TO THE CIRCUS!" {151} wound, and I have worn a quarter-inch, half-moonshaped scar under my lip ever since. On Saturdaymornings in winter, long after the circus days of summer, Mary Jane and I would reenact going to the circus with Mom. We'd climb in her bed, one on each side of her, hold her hands and close our eyes as Mom gave us a guided tour: "We're walking through the alley,going past the lockup. Hurry up, let's run, so whoever's in there won't see us. "Now we're coming to the Danielses' backyard. Say hello to everybody." We'd shout with her, "Hello, Maude. Hello, Fred. Hello, Delores. Hello, Freddie." "Okay, we're at the intersection at Washington Street. Look both ways.Any cars coming?" We'd shout, "No!" "Okay, then, let's cross. There's the Soxmans' house. Say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Soxman. Albert is not there anymore. He married an Australian woman he met in the war, and went home with her never to return. Can you imagine that, living on the other side of the world?" We'd shout, "No!" (When Mom said "in the war," I thought again about the brown boxes in her closet that held Dad's army stuff. I planned to sneak in there and look through it again when I found a chance.) {152} "LET'S GO TO THE CIRCUS!" "And here are our cousins, the Lewis girls, on their porch. Let's wave and sayhi." Again, we'd join her in greeting them, "Hi, Deborah. Hi, Eleanor." "There's Eben working in his shop at the back of the yard.Yell loud, so he'll hear us." "Hi, Eben!"we'd scream. "Over there are those so-and-sos. Wedon't speak to them anymore. Put your noses up in the air and walk right past them."Wegiggled as we stuck our noses up. "Oh, hello, Tina! There's Tina Touscaris and her mother sweeping the sidewalk on the other side of the street.Wave."We'd drop Mom's hands long enough to wave broadly. "Look over there. Good day,Mrs. Martin. We hope Marlene is feeling better. "Here's the last house. Seepoor old GeorgeSnyder and his wife, Sarah. Smile and maybehe'll smile back. Let's sayhello...