The tent flapped its wings in a hot wind of ancient applause. We went out with the last of the crowd in silence.
We looked back in at the empty ring, at the high line at the tent-top where the silver buckle waited to be attached to the Smile.
I felt a taco in my hand and looked up. There before me was the tiny lady who rode disorganized camels, juggled kegs, tore tickets, and changed from moth to butterfly each night in the small sky.
Her Smile was near, her eyes searched to find the cynic in me, and found but a friend. We both had hold of opposite ends of one taco. At last she let go. With my gift, I went.
Nearby, the phonograph hissed “La Galondrina.” And there stood the lion-tamer, perspiration falling from his brow to make a suit of lights where it touched his khaki shirt. Lips pressed to his horn, eyes shut, he did not see me pass.
Under dusty trees, we turned a corner, and the circus was gone.
All night the wind blew warm up out of Mexico, taking the dry land with it. All night the crickets rained on our bungalow windowpanes.
We drove north. For weeks after, I beat the hot dust out of my clothes and picked the dead crickets out of my typewriter and luggage.
And still nights, twenty-nine years later, I hear that one-ring circus playing its two bands, one real, one hiccuping on records, a long way off on a warm Santa Ana wind, and I wake and sit up in bed, alone, and it is not there.
The End
