The circus came to town about a
week before Hillary Clinton arrived. They parked in the big lot
behind the sports center: a van, a camper, and a station wagon with a
sign on top. The sign said “cirkus.”
They stayed right there. It
seemed like two guys worked for the circus, but it was hard to
imagine them clowning, or doing tricks, or entertaining anyone at
all. They looked like they might be taxi drivers. Lean, unshaven,
indifferent. Sometimes they would take the car somewhere and leave
the camper and van there by itself, the animals still inside.
The animals were a chimpanzee
and a snake. I knew this because a chimpanzee and a snake were
painted on the side of the van. I also walked by once when the back
of the van was open and saw them in their cages. I guess that you
needed both things—the chimpanzee and the snake—in order to have
a circus. One animal would have just been an animal. Two was
something more.
On the morning of my last day in
that town I took the dog out for a walk. American flags were hanging
from the streetlights. Hillary Clinton had arrived late the previous
night. At the government buildings there were cops on all the street
corners, and more flags. The dog and I walked through town in a big
circle, around the mall, the stadium and behind the sports center.
The van was parked in the
carwash back there. Both of the guys were standing around, smoking
cigarettes. A tiny motorbike was parked beside the camper. I figured
it was for the monkey. The motorbike had training wheels on it.
Maybe they had a job to do, or maybe it was just time to move on.
It happened to be Halloween.
Kids walked down the street in masks and wigs, their faces painted
red and black, eggs in their pockets and firecrackers in their fists.
The local news that night was going to be full of quotes from Hillary
Clinton. She would say the same thing she always said: the same thing
everyone said. Local politicians would congratulate themselves on
what she said. The clubs that night would be full of teenagers and
young adults attending Halloween parties. They would dance to folk
music and hip hop. I could predict these things for certain. But in
the morning the circus might be there, and it might not. About this,
I had no idea.
