The big top swells in a sudden gust, the canvas stretching, looking to burst; but in the quiet that follows, it sags, and the tent returns to form. Moritz sits among a group of picnicking families on the hill that overlooks the fairgrounds. He watches the big top’s rise and fall, and rubs his hands in the grass, his hands still stained from the raw meat he tossed the tigers this morning. As the wind calms, he surveys the rest of the field below him. Many of the smaller tents—those of the sideshow, the palm reader, the games, and concessions—still lie across the park in piles of red and blue striped canvas and iron posts. And at the bottom of the hill, there is an open trailer, blocking the sidewalk. Several children surround the trailer, waiting—but waiting for what, Moritz isn’t sure. In the space between the big top and the small top menagerie, the other cageboys sit, smoking. They laugh and slap one another’s shoulders, and that’s fine with Moritz, because he likes to take his breaks with the families who, the day before the opening matinee (it’s the same in every city), gather in the park to see the circus come together. Today, there is some kind of party; or, one couple, at least, seems to be celebrating. Earlier, the man had given plastic cups to the adults on the hill (Moritz declined), and then passed around several boxes of wine. A woman in a yellow sundress and floppy gardening hat had walked off alone with one box, and now, Moritz notices, she is stumbling down the hill. Every few steps, she twirls, wine slopping over the rim of the plastic cup she holds high in her right hand.
    Moritz considers the woman as she plops down on the sidewalk to the right of the trailer. She crosses her legs and begins to rock from side to side. Then she raises her cup, tipping it toward those on the hill. But few seem to take note of her gesture, and Moritz alone acknowledges it. He lifts a hand and waves. He thinks they make eye contact, but he can’t be sure. The woman pushes herself to her feet and looks over the crowd. She calls out: Today is a wonderful day. Then, again twirling, she begins her ascent back up the hill. Moritz nods to himself and smiles in recognition at her drunken optimism. Last year, at a bar (he forgets where), he dispatched ten of twenty-one birthday shots; then, as the other cageboys pumped their fists and chanted his name, he climbed atop the bar itself—the surface slick with whiskey—and proclaimed that life was beautiful and that this was his time, this was the year, and who needed the Greatest Show on Earth because he was fucking going places. The next day, he shoveled elephant and tiger shit for eight hours, and later—alone at the bar—drank eleven shots to make twenty-one.

    About halfway up the hill, the woman stands among the families who rest on blankets rumpled in the wind. Moritz cups his hands against his face and holds a match to a cigarette. He puffs, making sure the cigarette lights. Then he lowers it to his side and lets it burn as he watches the woman. She turns her head from right to left, and for the second time, takes in the crowd, but not even the children appear to notice her as they eat from their grease-stained paper sacks. Near Moritz, the adults drink, and the man who had passed around the wine and plastic cups toasts his wife or girlfriend (maybe mistress) for her unsurpassed knowledge and wit. He says: I like it when you find grammatical mistakes in The New Yorker. Moritz stubs his cigarette out on the underside of a boot without having smoked. The man kisses his wife, girlfriend, or maybe mistress, and looks up at the woman in the yellow sundress and floppy hat who has walked his way mid-toast. She stands about ten feet to Moritz’s left. The hem of her dress is tattered and there are wine stains down its front. She holds her cup above her head and mimes a toast herself. “I see you’re giving toasts,” she says to the man. “That’s wonderful.” The man nods his head and turns back to his wife (or whomever).
    “I think I’d like to give a toast too,” the woman says. “I think that’s what I’d like to do. What a gorgeous day.” She staggers back to the center of the hill and stands, swaying. She raises her cup and taps at the plastic. Several empty, grease-stained sacks tumble past Moritz. He lights another cigarette and drops it to his side. “Everybody?” the woman shouts. “Everybody, please?” An ostrich darts from the shadow of the small top and weaves through the labyrinth of crates stacked three and four high across the grounds. Three men give chase, their arms outstretched and flailing. Near the trailer, one of the men tackles the ostrich, and the children on the hill stand and applaud. The woman turns around and raises her cup yet again. “That was nice,” she says to the crowd. “Very nice.”
    One time, Moritz remembers—this isn’t a first—one time, an ostrich burst into flames in the heat (because who would set an ostrich on fire?) and ten—twenty, maybe thirty men pursued it through the crates, their own arms outstretched and flailing, and the ostrich, its feathers incandescent in the wind, fled into the darkness of Lake Erie, the men behind it, splashing, as the picnicking families who had gathered that day circled the shore and began to recite the Our Father. And Moritz thinks, inhaling from the cigarette at his lips: Now those—those were the days. At the time, he liked to send postcards to his friends, scrawling in the white spaces: What a life. You wouldn’t believe it. Let me tell you. And then, with the photos, saying more: Look where I’ve been—New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, D.C. And once, he even wrote his parents, surprising himself: No need to worry. I’m safe. Happy. But then—spring again—he was back in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, D.C. And then again. He bought postcards—the same postcards—and stuffed them in his duffel bag.

    The woman on the hill lifts an arm as if for quiet. “I said I wanted to make a toast,” she says. “And so that’s what I’m going to do.” Moritz tilts back his head and inhales from his cigarette a last time. He flicks the butt over his shoulder and blows the smoke through his nose. It whirls about his face then fades in the wind. He has to strain to hear the woman though she shouts. He rises and begins to walk toward her. As he nears, for the first time, he notices her face—pocked, wrinkled, old. Several children scurry to her feet; others follow, rushing in from every direction. When they sit, she bends to greet them. She smiles. She says: Pleased to meet you. When I was a kid, my dad called me Tootsie. You can call me Tootsie. Nobody calls me Tootsie anymore. The children poke one another, and together they shout: Tootsie! Hello, Tootsie! And then they laugh. They say: Tootsie, your hat’s funny. Tootsie, you’re dirty. And: Tootsie, aren’t you dizzy? From all that spinning? Down the hill? The children laugh again, and she laughs with them. She says: No, no, no. She says: I was a dancer. Long ago. I danced on stage and people tossed me roses. I spun every night. There were so many roses.
    Moritz sits behind the circle of children and studies the woman’s face. He wonders if she ever was pretty. She tugs at the brim of her hat and pulls it further down her forehead; then, suddenly, she looks up. “I just about forgot,” she says. “A toast? I was going to give a toast.” She looks past the children, to their parents on the hill behind them. “Is everybody listening?” she says. “Because now I remembered. I’m going to give a toast.” Most within earshot seem to take notice, some standing; others, crossing their arms. The woman thrusts her cup out toward the crowd. “Will you humor me?” she says. “Because I want to make a toast to all of you. To everything out there.” She raises her cup. “That’s what I’d like to do.” She tilts it forward as a signal, but no more than two or three in the crowd respond. There is the faint, hollow sound of plastic against plastic as a couple on the right brings its cups together. The woman points to them, saying: “Yes. I like it. Yes.” Then she turns back to the children and nods her head. And— Moritz thinks—looks at him. He smiles, raises a fist, and mimes a toast. Then she does the same, again nodding her head. She bends down, brushes the grass at her feet, and lowers herself to the ground. Red wine splashes from her cup and dribbles down the front of her dress. It overlaps the pale stains, pink against the fabric’s yellow. The fresh, red splotches expand like blood across a bandage. The woman pats at the stains and smoothes her dress’s wrinkles. “That’s fine,” she says. “It’s fine.” She cradles her cup and looks at the children. She lingers on each child’s face as she turns her gaze around the circle. “You’re all very sweet,” she says.
    When the woman says no more, a boy springs to his feet and runs back up the hill. And soon, the others follow, leaving Moritz alone—the woman across from him holding her cup upside down, empty of wine. She drops it and rolls her eyes up to look at the sky. The wind lifts the cup high over the earth then flips it end over end down the hill. It skids across the sidewalk and into the grass. Moritz thinks to go, but instead plucks at the grass between his outstretched legs. The woman rests her head in her hands and looks at the ground, and Moritz tosses the grass up into the wind a blade at a time, watching her. The grass flutters in the space between them. The woman lifts her head when a blade settles in her lap, and looks at Moritz. She blinks, leans toward him. “You waved,” she says. “When I was at the bottom of the hill. That was kind of you.”
    Moritz tosses a blade over his shoulder, the wind carrying it back across his body. “You waved first,” he says.
    “Yes,” she says. “Anyway.” She takes off her hat and sets it in her lap. “That was kind of you.”
    Moritz nods then rubs his hands together, blood still lodged in the swirling crevices of his palms. He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his boot and taps one into his right hand. He rolls it between his fingers and looks beyond the woman and to the smoke stacks that jut into the distant sky and spew clouds of black and white. When he looks back to the woman, she has turned her back. She seems to search the sky for whatever he had seen. Moritz returns the cigarette to its pack and stuffs it back into his boot. “Tootsie,” he says. “Your dad called you Tootsie.”
    Moritz can see that she smiles when she rocks her whole body as though to say yes yes yes. Slowly, she turns back and faces him. She pulls her hat over her head and adjusts it with both hands. “You heard,” she says. “That’s right, you did. You were with the children.”
    “And you were a dancer,” Moritz says. “They threw you roses.”
    She shakes her head—and for the first time—laughs. It’s faint, stifled laughter; it fades into a sigh. “I carried them home in garbage bags,” she says. “Then I stood on a street corner and gave them away. I gave one to anyone who walked past me. I gave them to everyone.” She pauses, fingering the ragged hems of her dress. “Some people got angry,” she says. “I never understood it. And then this one time a woman cried. She said no one had ever given her a rose. So then what could I do—I gave her the whole bag. Now I wonder what she did with them. I wonder if she kept them all.”
    “When was this?” Moritz says. “When did it happen?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” the woman says, standing. She steps toward Moritz and sits on his right. She crosses her legs then taps on his shoulder. “I saw you earlier,” she says, pointing at the small top. “I saw you down there?”
    He looks down at the small top. Four men walk past, lugging bleachers toward the big top. “Probably true,” he says.
    “Well,” the woman says. “It must be wonderful. Working there.”
    He turns to look at her, but she still looks down the hill. She is wearing mascara. Lipstick too. When she turns, their eyes meet. But neither looks away. “Sure,” Moritz says. “It has its moments.”
    “And so you mean…” she says. And she pauses. “Yes, well. I think I understand.” She lowers her head and brushes at the stains on her dress. She seems disappointed when she drops her hand and the stains still remain. “I wanted to ask you,” she says. “I was happy you waved—I wanted to ask you to take me in there. I want to see the tigers. I’ve never seen a tiger. I want to see you feed the tigers.”
    “I just toss them meat,” Moritz says.
    “And I want to see it,” the woman says. “I’ve never seen it.”
    “Right,” Moritz says. “You want to see it.” He stands and sweeps the grass off the back of his pants. “It’s about that time anyway,” he says. “So if you want.” And he begins to walk down the hill. When the woman passes him and begins her twirl, Moritz remembers how he ran into the small top to feed the tigers for the first time. He sent his first postcard that day. On the front, there was a picture of a tiger, its mouth open wide in a roar. And on the back, in his shaky script, he had scribbled the same message to all his friends, over and over.

I’m so close to them. They shouldn’t even be here. You should see my hands. After I feed them. The meat’s so bloody. Come and see me do it. Come and see me feed them. As soon as you can. You have to come and see it.

    The woman waits for Moritz at the bottom of the hill. Near the small top, he fills a wheelbarrow with meat. He rolls it along toward the woman, and then together, they enter the tent.
    “They’re at the back,” Moritz says, pointing.
    The woman walks straight ahead, ignoring the animals at her right and left. Moritz drags his eyes along the cages on the right. He rolls the wheelbarrow over piles of hay. Three camels bob their heads, and an ostrich runs in circles. A horse kicks up a cloud of dust. Moritz notices that the ostrich isn’t on fire. At the back, the woman paces in front of the tiger cages. The tigers are gone. He walks up next to the woman.
    She turns and laughs. She touches his forearm. “Am I crazy?” she says. “Because I’m not crazy. Do you see? Look. Here. There are no tigers here.”
    Moritz looks into the empty cages. “The trainer must have them,” he says. “I didn’t know.”
    “We’ll wait for them?” the woman says.
    “They’ll come back,” Moritz says. “They should.”
    “When?” the woman says.
    “Eventually,” Moritz says. “We can wait.” He sits down and reaches into his boot for his cigarettes. The woman walks behind him. He strikes a match and draws on a cigarette. He pivots round and looks up at her. She bends her knees and raises her arms to the sides as though for balance.
    “But while we wait?” she says. “I can dance. If you want, I can show you.”
    Moritz opens his mouth wide, puffing smoke. “We could do that,” he says.
    The woman lowers her arms. “There isn’t any music,” she says. “But I can try anyway. Just to give you an idea.”
    “Maybe if I clap?” Moritz says, bringing his hands together one two three one two three. “To a beat?”
    “That’s good,” the woman says. She takes several steps back. “It’s good,” she says, stretching her arms straight out to her sides again. She lifts one foot, and on the other, she begins to spin. She raises her arms to a point above her head, then extends them in front of her body and leaps forward—again and again, the length of the cages. Then she pauses, leans back, and with her left hand on the ground, points to the small top’s ceiling with her right. Then suddenly, she stands. She looks around and stops. She turns back to Moritz. He stops clapping and folds his hands together.
    “That’s not how it goes,” the woman says. “It’s all wrong.”
    “I liked it,” Moritz says.
    “I can’t remember,” the woman says. “It was my favorite. I forget how it goes.”
    “What I saw was good,” Moritz says.
    “Well,” the woman says, walking back to where he sits in front of the cage. “I used to get roses.” She sits next to Moritz and looks into a cage. He inhales from his cigarette, and tilts back his head. He purses his lips and blows a smoke ring.
    “People had to help me pick them up,” the woman says, still staring into the cage. “That was their job. Just to pick up all the roses people threw onto the stage. There were that many. They never had thorns.”
    Moritz keeps his head tilted and watches the smoke ring float above him. As it rises, it begins to lose its shape.
    “I always kept one though,” the woman says. “Did I tell you that? I kept one for myself.”
    Moritz lowers his head back level with the woman’s as the smoke fades high above. He joins her in staring into the empty cage.
    “Just one,” she says. “That’s all I needed.” She pulls her legs beneath her body and smoothes the wrinkles of her dress.
    Moritz stubs his cigarette out in the grass behind him and leaves it smashed in the ground. Both he and the woman continue to stare into the cage in front of them. Behind the cages, the small top’s canvas billows in a gust of wind. Moritz shakes his head and points at the cages. “They’ll be back soon,” he says.
    The woman removes her hat and sets it on the ground in front of her. She runs a hand through her hair. “I hope so,” she says.
    Moritz nods, saying nothing. He feels for the pack of cigarettes in his boot and pulls it out. He taps out his last cigarette and holds it in his right hand unlit.



About the author:
Kevin Kalinowski is a senior Japanese major at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He would like to thank Tom Clark for his particular editing. This is Kevin's first published story.

© 2009 Word Riot