Behind the Smokestack

He met the contortionist outside of the Smokestack bar, across the street from the local park and playground

He met the contortionist outside of the Smokestack bar, across the street from the local park and playground. He was smoking a cigarette, leaning against the wall with an almost ethereal grace - and though he did little to attract any real attention, people would stop on the street to stare at him, admire him. They were impressed with him because he was so different, so foreign-looking. Against the typical throng of black hair and white skin stood a pillar of a man with flesh the color of dirt, hair the color of cooked rice. He was extremely tall for a man, at least as far as the natives understood, and to them he was like a stone standing in the water.

Elliot found him enchanting. He peered with the other children through the chain-link fence, though he was really too old to be playing with them anymore - he was sixteen. He was old enough to know that the staring, the subtle and intangible wanting, was something that was ephemeral and would come of nothing. And perhaps it might have come as nothing, if the stranger hadn't looked at him, face smoky and so strange; if there hadn't been two pairs of blue eyes colliding in the usual mix of brown.

Elliot, as far as he knew, was the only blond boy in China Town - except for the contortionist.

The brown-skinned man began to smile, and then he puckered his lips as though to blow a kiss. Only smoke billowed out, and he stubbed his dying cigarette against the window sill; Elliot felt something inside of him go weak, and he realized with a shock that he was pressed against the chain link fence as though it were his last lifeline.

He stepped away. The other children surged to fill the gap he had left, and then the stranger was blocked from his sight. Elliot felt a flood of panic, unexpected and unreasonable. Suddenly his toes felt cold but his body felt abnormally warm, and he was running along the length of the fence, blue backpack jangling. He came to the gate and, in his rush to open it, could not get a grasp on the latch. He pressed his cheek against the reassuring metal, taking several deep breaths to calm himself. He could feel the wind pushing through his hair, as it pushed through the tree leaves. He was the tree, he was grounded. There, the blood drained back down to his feet, rooted him, and his brain stopped spinning in outer space. He tried again with the latch, and this time the gate swung open easily.

But as he stepped out into the street, he wondered what he was even searching for. He glanced down the street towards the Smokestack, wishing that the contortionist would never see him, never notice him again. But he could see that dark face staring right at him; two pale chips of blue were fixed upon him across the space.

Elliot felt himself go red. He could bring himself to do nothing but stand there.

The stranger watched him for a long while, and Elliot watched back. They stood unmoving - and really, Elliot thought it was all quite ridiculous. Then the stranger seemed to have gotten his eyeful, because he started to walk away. At first, Elliot felt the weight of relief, before he realized his feet had begun to move, and he was following after the man. He made himself stop, stood there blinking at himself in confusion, eyes squinting. He could see that pale head bobbing; it turned the corner and then was gone.

Elliot turned to walk home. He felt lost, though he had walked through that street many times. The stones beneath his feet looked unfamiliar. The feet connected to his legs seemed unfamiliar. The world itself seemed unfamiliar, and suddenly far too large, too easy to get lost in.

A harried-looking woman ran into Elliot's shoulder, knocking him over. She spilled the groceries she had been carrying. Apples went rolling everywhere. She began swearing at him furiously in Japanese, and he tried desperately to please her, babbling apologies as quickly as he could in his own fractured Japanese; he crouched down on the dirty cobblestones and hurried to pick up her dropped produce. Elliot's primary language was English - because his parents were English. But his second language was Japanese, because he had grown up in China Town. He also knew smatterings of Mandarin Chinese (mostly "Please," "Thank you," "Hello," "Sorry," and "Where is the bathroom?"), and French. Presently he was so caught stumbling over himself that he began apologizing in English, for which she whipped him with her umbrella. He ran, on the verge of tears, for the solace of a nearby alleyway. He threw his backpack down onto the ground and slammed against the wall, breathing deeply. The wind had picked up and the sky had turned a menacing gray. It was going to rain soon, and as Elliot looked around he realized that he had gotten himself lost.

It was the contortionist's fault. With a violent swell of rage, Elliot punched the wall in front of him. He knuckles came back bloody, and this was enough to tip the scale - Elliot started to cry. As he started to cry, it started to rain, and so he cried harder.

He thought he might stay there a good long time, perhaps become a hermit, when a gentle hand pressed against his shoulder. He screamed, thinking it was a homeless man or the police. But it was the stranger, the contortionist, brown-faced and handsome as ever. Up close he was even more stunning, all sharp features and smooth planes, long lashes fringing icy eyes. Elliot found his breath hitch in mid-sob, which made him start to choke all over himself. The stranger patted his back, muttering in some language that Elliot didn't understand.

Through the damp smell of earth and rain, Elliot could smell cigarettes on the stranger, and something tangier, something that made his nose sting a little bit, in a pleasant way.

Elliot composed himself enough to hear what the man was saying; it wasn't a foreign language at all. It was English. Just English.

Elliot started to cry, and then there was a finger on his lips. Through the slick rain it was callused and warm; Elliot cried out in surprise, but the finger only pressed harder. His cheeks were burning – what had come over him?

“What’s your name?” The stranger’s voice was heavily accented. It was thick, rich.

“Elliot.” Elliot had no idea why he was actually answering that question. He shook his head and asked breathlessly, “Where am I? I’m lost.”

The man screwed up his face, seeming to be lost in thought. “The bar.”

“What?”

“Back of the bar.”

It came out ‘baucha shzebaurr.’ It took Elliot a moment to understand.

He stood up, picking up his backpack from out of the mud.

“Are you not from here?” Elliot asked the stranger, almost too shy to speak to him at all. There was a hand against his back, searing a hole through Elliot’s thick “Little China High School – Go Tigers!” sweater.

The stranger indicated that he didn’t understand. Elliot tried again. “Where are you from?”

“Ah. My name is Victor.”

This wasn’t really what Elliot had asked, but it would do. They started heading for the mouth of the alleyway. The Smokestack’s red neon sign made crimson splashes of what looked like blood through the puddles on the sidewalk.

Then Victor spoke again. “I am from nothing. I go here and there with my family. It is a circus.” He smiled down at Elliot; his face was a leering red mask in the glow.

Elliot trembled. “A circus? Where?”

“Tomorrow night. You go if you like?”

“Go to the circus?” Elliot’s body was cold but his face was burning.

“Yes. Go come you see me. I make stunts. I perform – you go see. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“What?”

“I mean yes.” Elliot realized how small he was in comparison to Victor. He could easily be overpowered in this crowded, rainy street, and no one would be the wiser. But he couldn’t move away, could hardly breathe.

Victor grinned, and then to Elliot’s horror he bent down and kissed him on both cheeks. “Very good! I save for you a ticket. After the show you go talk at me if you like.”

“Okay,” Elliot squeaked, feeling more lost than ever.

Victor’s smile faded, and he peered at Elliot closely. “You are done crying.”

Elliot’s body seemed to fall through the ground. Only his exposed soul remained. “Yes. I can find my way now.”

“What?”

Elliot struggled to express what he meant. “I am going home now. Thank you for helping me.”

Victor nodded, turning back on his gorgeous face. He was soaked through, but he hardly seemed to care. Elliot was soaked, too. “It is no thing. I hate seeing for you to cry. I like for you to smile. There.” He pinched Elliot’s cheeks, pulling them up into a misshapen smile. Elliot jerked his face away, inexplicably, but he began to laugh.

“You have a pretty laugh,” Victor remarked, and Elliot quickly shut his mouth.

“Thank you?”

“It is no thing. I see you before, yes?”

“Earlier today? You were standing here.”

“Yes, I was here. You were making looks at me. I am used at being made looks at, but you make looks that made me nervous.”

Elliot felt as though he could die. “I’m sorry. You look different, that’s all – in a nice way!”

Victor laughed, but he clearly didn’t understand what Elliot had said. Then Victor patted him on the shoulder and walked away into the rain. This time, he somehow managed to get lost in the crowd.

Elliot walked home, but slowly – to savor the moment.

Elliot had never been to a circus in his life. The sight of it made him stop in his tracks and stare. So many colors, people screaming at each other in English, a weird, heady sort of smell of corn dogs, smoke, and animal crap. The ground was littered with trash and food and lost coins and cigarette butts. People didn't look at him, except for the showmen, who shouted at him even if he only glanced their way: "Hey, boy! Heeeyyy, boooyy! Want to give it a shot? First time's only fifty cents! Fifty cents for the first go! How about it? Hey, boy!"

Other than that there were men who brushed him the wrong way, nudged past him a little too hard, pawing with swift hands for loose change or something else; he would fall out of their way with a shout. Someone, some white woman, asked him for directions and for the first time in his life he couldn't remember a single word of English - only Japanese. There was a fat little Chinese woman selling candles that healed a multitude of skin conditions, who gripped his arm, and Elliot began to wish he had not come at all. No stranger was worth this. Not even a contortionist, though he didn't know at the time that Victor was a contortionist - or what would become of this meeting.

He finally found the tent where Victor would be performing. He spoke timidly to the midget selling tickets, mentioning Victor by name. The midget only eyed him with dislike.

Elliot swallowed, nervously twisting his sleeve with his hand. "I'm Elliot," he said, slowly. He was used to speaking in stepped English. "Did Victor mention me?" He felt ridiculous, or maybe even outrageous. Surely someone as electric as Victor wouldn't remember a kid like him.

The midget belched and stood there staring at Elliot as though he were the ugliest thing he had ever seen.

Elliot tried one last time. "I ran into him in China Town."

This time the midget rapped firmly on the ticket booth with his cane, and a moment later a woman burst forth from the tent swearing in rapid French.

"What?" she snapped.

The midget said something to her in French. Elliot could only understand a fraction of it. He waited patiently, holding his backpack to his chest, biting his lip as he heard his name being said over and over.

The woman smacked the midget, who crouched in repentance, and then she turned to Elliot with a glassy smile. Her teeth were crooked and brown. Her eyeliner was uneven and running.

"Hello, boy. Forgive the freak, he speaks very little English."

Elliot pretended to understand, mumbling something about he didn't mind.

"Nonsense, it's things like this that cost us customers. Now, you say you know Victor? What makes you sure we even have a Victor?"

"Is it the wrong tent?" Elliot asked quickly, blushing crimson. "I'm sorry."

She laughed at him. Her laugh was harsh and rattling. "Yes, he mentioned an Elliot, from China Town. But he said you were yellower than an ear of corn, and he speaks the truth!"

She was referring to his hair of course, not his nationality, but Elliot felt his face burn just the same.

"I'll take you in back, and he can verify you himself. Nothing personal, you know, sweetheart, but he likes to invite total strangers quite frequently - and we can't just give away free seats, you understand. Here we are."

There was a blue-striped trailer sitting out behind the tent. One man was sitting in a folding lawn chair outside, eating a sandwich. His skin was darker than Victor's, almost black. Elliot was fascinated by him, his strangeness, but then the door opened and out came Victor himself.

His pale hair was pulled back into a tight bun, sharply revealing his face. The skin around his eyes had been made up darkly, and the rest of his face painted slightly lighter than the rest of him, to bring out his features in the dark light, maybe. His entire body was wrapped in blue fabric so tight it seemed to be a second skin. The longer Elliot looked the higher he could feel his blood rising, until he felt he might faint on the spot. He looked away, at the ground, where a cockroach was scuttling through the grass.

Victor was speaking as he stretched in the shade. "Yes, Maria?"

"Is this your stray?" The woman - Maria - made a motion in Elliot's direction. Elliot hugged his backpack so tightly he could hardly bring in air. He stared determinedly at the ground.

Victor laughed, making Elliot glance up. He wished immediately that he hadn't - Victor had taken on a very strange stretching position, in which he had bent himself completely over backwards with his knees on the ground, and his head down by his feet. As Elliot watched, Victor slipped his own head between his legs.

"This is Elliot, yes? I find him crying. I think circus make him happy. I think I can to make him happy." He made a movement, smooth and flawless as a snake, so that his legs came over his head in an arch, scissoring slowly in the air.

Elliot's feet shifted and he hurried to sit before he fell. Maria looked at Victor for a long while before she said, "All right."

"Thank you, Maria." Victor blew her a kiss, though he looked at Elliot while he did it.

Elliot lurched, and then, embarrassed, he masked the motion with a cough. Maria patted Elliot on the head. "Careful," she said to him, or at least that was what he thought she had said - her accent made her vowels garbled.

Victor straightened himself out and came to crouch in front of Elliot, touching his cheek. Elliot grasped the grass to keep from shaking, though the expression on Victor's face wasn't at all intimate.

"Go inside, now," he said. "Show starts in ten minutes. You make looks for me, okay?"

"Okay," Elliot said thickly.

The dark man eating a sandwich threw the remainder of his lunch on the ground and walked off. Victor helped Elliot up, spun him around and sent him on his way. The midget squinted at Elliot as he passed by, as though he despised the boy, but as it turned out he only had to sneeze.

Elliot held his breath as he stepped into the enormous yellow-and-blue tent.

There was only a handful of people in the stands. The place smelled very strange to Elliot, like stale popcorn and animal shit and another kind of a musky, dusty smell he couldn’t identify. He sat as close as he dared to the center ring, next to a fat middle-aged woman and her husband, who were arguing over how much money they had left. The woman’s hair was blond and hanging out from underneath a big sun hat. Elliot was fascinated by this and looked at it for a very long time before her husband gave him a strange look. Elliot moved down the row a ways, until he was sitting next to an old Asian man, who was fast asleep. He felt more comfortable here, and stayed.

He wasn’t sure what to think when the lights went down. He hadn’t really been aware that there were lights. The Asian man woke up with a jerk and wiped away his drool with his sleeve.

In the middle ring there was a man dressed in stripes. His face looked oily and eyeless in the spotlight. Elliot couldn’t really understand what he was saying, but it didn’t matter. He hadn’t come for the circus – he had come for Victor.

Victor’s act was second to last. Elliot allowed himself to be caught up in the wonder of trapeze artists, enormous elephants, painted ponies, tigers leaping through rings of fire. The people walking on their hands, the clowns. It was amazing, but something about the whole thing hit the wrong sort of note. Nobody in the ring was smiling.

Then from the ceiling descended what looked to Elliot like two oversized sheets. They were dark blue, so that Victor, who was dressed in a pale pink the color of a sea shell, could be easily seen. The trapeze artists from the act before rolled down the safety net and went offstage.

In the yellow lights Victor seemed to be nothing but flesh against the cloth. Like a spider, he wound his way downwards, tangling and then unwinding himself between the two sheets. Elliot was lost in that image, that apparent sensation; Victor’s receptive skin, locked between the sheets. Long, slender fingers, turned pale in the light, gripped and twisted.

While there had been a general air of frivolity amongst the crowd, now there was a pregnant, almost heady hush through the stands. Elliot gripped the seat between his legs until his knuckles ached. He leaned forward until he felt the bench begin to tip.

This time, this act, told the story of a man in the throes of lovemaking. Such beauty must have meaning. Victor arched and rolled and hung, slipping down the sheets only to wind himself back up. Once, he made himself into a loop; his eyes opened, and Elliot believed with all of his soul that Victor had been looking at him.

Then, for a moment, Victor’s frame seemed to buckle inside its cocoon. He was dangling upside down, one leg wrapped in the sheet while the other was bent in an impossible position somewhere behind his back. He made a long, graceful arch in his back, as if in a swoon. Suddenly his leg came undone and he grasped the other sheet from behind, swinging from it like a star along the crest of the moon. The force of the fall seemed to jar him, and then he went limp, pale body hanging by a thread. He made his legs wide and swung them forward, letting go – he fell backwards onto the safety net; a man falling down from his climax. The whole thing had a deliberate and somehow lazy air, yet it was destroyed by the applause, the audience standing, cheering.

Elliot’s body had gone strangely numb. He missed the last act completely; he was lost staring at the safety net, long after Victor had climbed down from it.

He wasn’t sure how long he remained sitting there until a hand came down on his shoulder, making him start and cry out. But it was only Marie, looking at him with broken compassion. Up close, her red curly hair seemed only incidentally clean, and her face seemed hollow and very sad.

“Did you enjoy the show?” she asked him. Her breath smelled rank.

Elliot bowed to her. “Very much. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Victor. He’s waiting for you by the trailer with Zero. But Zero won’t stay there long, I’d imagine.” She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out of her nose. She reminded Elliot of a dragon, glaring presumptuously at him as she breathed fire.

He bowed again and scampered away. He avoided eye contact with the midget, who wasn’t paying him any attention anyway. He was drinking from a funny little bottle, and pulling faces every time he did, as though there were a terrible smell under his nose.

There was a trapeze artist posing for a photograph. As he passed by she looked at him and sneered. Many of her teeth were missing. The dark makeup under her eyes had smudged.

“Are you going to see Victor?” she shouted after him. Her voice was also heavily accented. The tourists snapped a hurried picture of her and rushed off in a pack.

Elliot glanced at her, but didn’t answer. He was too afraid of her.

She started after him. She had a body like a man, without any obvious curves or breasts. Her legs were long and sinewy, and to Elliot she looked like an eel on land, slithering upright on its tail.

“I wouldn’t if I were you, boy,” she said. “What are you expecting?”

Elliot wasn’t sure what he expected. He kept on walking.

“Be careful he doesn’t give you lice,” she sneered relentlessly. “Be careful he doesn’t give you no disease.” She made a vile, disgusting motion with her hips. She pulled a cigarette from her handbag and stopped there to smoke it, watching Elliot hurry away. “Bah,” she said.

Elliot was sure he was going to cry, but he finally found Victor’s trailer. Victor was lying on the faded grass, reading a book, and another man, who was apparently named Zero, was squirting generous amounts of mustard on top of a hot dog. Zero’s skin was black as pitch.

Victor looked up from his book when he heard Elliot coming. He smiled and set down his book, rolling onto his stomach and pushing his long white hair from his face.

“You see show?” he asked.

Elliot came and sat beside him. “Yes, I did.” Whenever he glanced in Zero’s direction, he found Zero looking right back at him with a look of puzzlement and dislike, and it made him feel increasingly intrusive.

Victor leaned forward, attracting Elliot’s attention again. “You see me?”

“You were amazing,” Elliot whispered.

Victor seemed to glow. He fiddled absently with the hem of Elliot’s pants. “Thanks to you. You want to stay?”

Zero snorted. Mustard was dribbling down his chin. It was hard to tell against the dark canvas of his face, but he might have been crying.

“What do you mean?” Elliot asked. He felt very warm.

“Come make looks at our trailer,” Victor said, standing up. Elliot uncertainly got to his feet, but Victor was grinning at him encouragingly, and how could he say no?

He started walking, and then to his surprise Victor rested a hand on the small of his back. Something sudden washed over him, a sort of feeling he had never experienced before. His back went straight and his footsteps faltered.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zero stand and walk away. From behind, Elliot could see that Zero had a tail.

Victor stepped into the trailer, which rocked dangerously under his weight. Elliot took a deep breath and followed him inside. Suddenly he realized that he had misplaced his backpack, and he had no idea where it was.

Victor’s trailer was incredibly cramped. There was a bunk above the driver’s seat, which was clearly made for at least four people. The couch was also made up to be slept in, and there was an extra bed folded up against the wall. The bathroom door was closed. An old table leaned unsteadily against the wall beside another folding chair. On the table, which was covered in grime, was a small radio, several empty cans, a few pieces of paper, a hand mirror, and some cosmetics. There was also a bottle of body butter and also some lubricant, which made Elliot feel ill-at-ease.

“You not make speech much,” said Victor. He flopped on the couch and motioned for Elliot to join him.

Somehow everything was muted here. Elliot felt as though he were watching everything through a dirty window, in a dream… And there was a silence within himself, an expectant stillness, that he had never felt before. For comfort, he reached for his backpack strap, but there was nothing there. The backpack was still gone.

Elliot glanced over his shoulder. At some point Victor had closed the door. Elliot hadn’t seen him do it; everything felt so surreal. And when he sat down beside Victor, and Victor stroked his ear with one slender finger, Elliot was too numb to respond.

“You know why you are here,” Victor murmured in his ear, all hot breath and hot tongue, and Elliot, who had never before been kissed, let his eyes roll back in shock and unexpected ecstasy.

“No,” his mouth said. There was a faint panic registering in his gut.

“You want it.” Victor turned Elliot’s face towards him. His eyes were sharply gray against the dark of his skin.

Elliot’s breath hitched. His vision was blurred. “This isn’t what I was expecting,” he said, stupidly. Victor chuckled at him, nuzzling his cheek with his long, powerful nose.

“You are virgin?” It was more of a statement than a question, because Elliot was shaking all over.

Elliot made to stand, and suddenly he was being forced back down. Tears sprang up out of nowhere, humiliating, girly tears. “Please, I want to go home.”

“Home?” Victor’s mouth was hot and silencing, demanding something that Elliot simply could not give. He struggled against the hands that pinned him down, and yet he was kissing back. It was new and it was slick and it was amazing. Victor’s lips were smooth and experienced, forceful. He tasted spicy, and foreign, and Elliot was making noises he’d never known he could make.

Victor’s hands wandered down, down, and Elliot cried out, lurching forward, for escape. But Victor only grunted and pushed him back down.

“S-Stop!”

Victor wasn’t stopping. Elliot’s pants were down around his knees, then his underwear. Cool, stale air teased the places he rarely exposed, pieces that were hot and swollen despite his fear. Victor was biting down on Elliot’s lower lip, hard enough to draw blood, but when Elliot cried out, when he tried to move away, Victor wouldn’t stop.

Elliot’s shirt came over his head. Something warm and sticky brushed his hip and he realized with a shudder exactly what it was. Sobbing, he shoved at Victor’s shoulders, trying to create space between them; Victor slapped him.

The world collapsed in on itself at that exact moment. Elliot’s breath seemed to dissipate on his lips, or perhaps Victor was sucking it from him. He lay still on the couch, unable to feel his body, unable to feel anything but a resounding sensation of dull terror.

Victor’s white hair waved in front of his face like tentacles, like thousands of loving fingertips brushing against his cheeks. Warm lips roamed over Elliot’s narrow, hairless chest. He moved pointlessly upwards, as if to climb up the wall, but nails buried into his hips and dragged him down.

This was not the Victor who had rescued him behind the Smokestack. This was a different person all together, who rolled Elliot’s hips until he found himself on his stomach with his pants around his ankles. Elliot pressed his face into the couch cushions and cried.

Victor shifted, and something alien, something heavy was pushing inside, stretching the borders of Elliot’s being beyond all points of reason. Something hissed in his ear, like gas being released, and Victor was inside of him, too full, too real; Elliot’s insides were nearly split apart.

But then the pain, the horrible pain, faded away into something else. The harsh snow of agony had melted to reveal the pleasant valley underneath. Elliot wasn’t sure what it was. He adjusted his weight, moaning softly, and Victor chuckled, raining kisses. Through the film of sex Elliot could see and feel Victor winding around him with his long chocolate body, as though Elliot were a sheet hanging from the ceiling; every thread in his body burned with sensation. Victor the contortionist had his prize – and Elliot, gasping, retching, sobbing, came onto that stained old couch with a shudder for the first time in his life. It was over in a matter of seconds.

Elliot heaved for air as his mind slowly pieced itself back together, returning from the foggy universe it had been thrust into; he had never felt so thrown about and yet so put together. He lay absolutely still as Victor pulled away, raining kisses down his sweat-slicked back.

Something inside Elliot clicked then, and for the rest of the night Victor made him see magic, danced along his senses like the perfect entertainer. It was devastatingly beautiful, a night that Elliot could never forget, could never remember, full of ghosting sensations that left him breathless. Every kiss sent his mind rocketing into the stars, and he was so blinded by their light he could recall no exact details. He felt like a caterpillar wrapped in its ethereal cocoon, bursting to become the butterfly that rested inside. And when he did, when he finally did, he found himself soaring so high, so lost in the clouds and the strong gusts of change, that he was already tumbling back down to Earth.

Towards the end, he noticed vaguely that he was speaking in Japanese.

When he emerged, late into the night, his mind lost in a euphoric fog, no one bothered him. The performers and the prostitutes and the solicitors only leered at him in the pale lamplight, pinpricks of orange burning; their faces were masks in the smoke’s veil. They knew what he’d done, and suddenly he didn’t care at all.

The streets of China Town were only variant blurs of reds and grays. He walked lightly, because his backpack was still missing. Each movement in his legs sparked flaring pain up into his spine, but for the first time in his life he bore it, because it was his. The people around him slipped by, brushing shoulders, never looking at him. His essential and expansive change, as great to him as the universe itself, was completely unnoticed.

Once he was home, he could barely sleep. The night was alarming, unexpectedly so open to him. The air around him was unending. He reached out his hand and felt nothing there. The fullness inside of him, the swelling power of experience, pushed against nothing but empty space.

Victor had transformed him. Victor had ruined him. And Elliot had enjoyed every minute of it.

Elliot went to visit Victor the next day, to express his anger and his gratitude. He walked with a breathless expectation, every fiber aching with anticipation. He knew when he had woken up that morning that he was in love, because only love could be so poignant, so powerful.

But the fair grounds were empty. The crowds were gone. There was no striped tent, no midget drinking whiskey, and no trailer out back full of miracles. The grass was trampled and brown, littered with trash and dung, but otherwise there was no hint to life, no suggestion as to the life that had begun there. The circus had moved on, and Victor had slipped through Elliot’s fingers like smoke. He was burdened with this new experience with nothing to set it upon but air and illusions, cheap carnival tricks. Really, Victor had been nothing but an entertainer.

The white-blue sky was mocking. As the clouds gathered around its edges, it contained the same color as Victor’s eyes. Elliot felt like screaming, but his strength seemed to have drained from his feet along with all sensation. His fingertips were numb; his soul was numb. All that remained was a festering rage and a dull sort of nausea.

Leaning against a telephone pole was his backpack, a dark spot on a blank landscape. Elliot checked two dozen times, but there was no note. Nothing. The disappointingly empty depths of that backpack blurred behind tears, humiliating tears, and he thrust the offending thing away, away, for no reason at all.

He walked, and he dreamed, and he remembered. He crouched in the alleyway behind the Smokestack and cried.

The End

Critiques, comments, and flames are greatly appreciated. It lets me know that this was at least interesting enough to merit your time. Please, help me out.