The Circus Was In Town

A chapter from a novel-in-progress

By Hank Cochrane

Behind the counter was unfunny version of Jerry Seinfeld. He stood there with his back erect and his arms folded into a pretzel leaning against a mirror. A collage of paraphernalia gathered from an assortment of shows that had appeared at Madison Square Garden over the life of the tavern hung across the wall behind him spilling onto the mirror. There was a collection of photographs and backstage passes from Rock concerts, Rap shows, Jazz shows, circuses and sporting events. Tassels from one of City College’s graduation ceremonies fell over a row of pictures displaying the nameless faces of several aspiring actors and actresses. A few famous faces were displayed prominently in the center. Plopping himself down on the barstool to my left was a kid in his middle teens fishing through his pockets for some currency.

"What’ll ya have’?" said the bartender stepping up to the counter.

"Pint a Guinness," said the kid looking glaringly underage under age and positioning himself on the seat.

"Make it two," I said through a forest of empty pint glasses.

Without a word the bartender threw down a couple of napkins, moved back to the tap and poured the stout. Four or five minutes later he returned looking distracted and set two glasses down before us. He appeared to be scanning the place, his face articulating a hollow expression which seemed to reveal that he was bemoaning the depletion of a rush hour crowd. The tourists, holiday shoppers, circus goers, weekday commuters and college kids on their way home for Thanksgiving had all dissolved into the thickness of the evening and now he was left only with hangers-on types. Across the length of the bar toward the corner near the entrance was a small man in a booth who sat sipping amber colored liquid through a drink stirrer. Touching his elbows against the cedar surface of the bar, arms still folded, the unfunny Jerry Seinfeld-ish bartender leaned between us and said, "See that midget over there in the booth?"

Turning to glance at the midget, we uttered simultaneously, "Yeah?"

"He’s from the circus across the street," the voice of the bartender was honed low and dull. "Last week, he was arrested for fuckin’ a horse."

"Fuckin’ a horse," said the kid in astonishment. "You gotta be shittin’ me."

"Sssh." Said the bartender. "I shit you not. It made the daily papers. I read a column about in the Post. One night after hours, he climbed atop a step stool and just put his thing in the vagina of a horse. One of the other cast members caught him in the act and called the cops."

"Goddamn," said the kid, bringing the rim of the glass against his lips. "What a sick pup!"

"Cut him a little slack," said the bartender. "Think about it– if you were a woman, would you fuck a midget?"

The kid was clean with sandy brown hair cropped close and he barely needed to shave. He unloaded a Navy pee coat onto the back of the bar stool and turned his head several times, seemingly unable to keep from glancing in the direction of the midget. It was as if the man reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t figure out whom. He frisked through his pockets like he was digging for a quarter to make a phone call. Then fingering a coin between his pointer finger and thumb, he looked at the clock and simply shrugged.

Off to the left perched high on a shelf, the television showed a basketball game. The New York Knicks were out west playing the Seattle Supersonics and the two of us watched, searching for stimulus. The inflection in the announcer’s voice became excited as two players erupted in a tussle on the court. One of the members of the Supersonics threw a punch and two players—one from each team—were uproariously ejected. Behind us four college girls straggled through the door and seated themselves in a booth, their hands stuffed with shopping bags and their faces lit with alcohol. The kid next to me left his seat and moved to the restroom in an inexplicable hurry. Several minutes later, he returned wiping his hand across his mouth. "I’m Gerald," he said putting out his hand.

"Hello Gerald," I said, taking his palm in mine and feeling the warmth of his skin against the cold residue of water sprinkled from the faucet in the restroom. "I’m Ward." Over his shoulder, I watched two of the girls approach the counter and order three whiskey sours and a vodka tonic.

"I’m a student at Columbia," Gerald said, obviously lying and lacking the conceited confidence of a young Ivy League student. "Or rather I was…until this afternoon…I quit."

"Why?" I queried.

"Philosophy just gets really boring after a while. I hated it."

"I’m a journalist," I said. "I went to Columbia myself. I studied nineteenth century literature and hated it too. But I stayed on for the long haul and eventually got my Ph.D."

"Do you teach?" he said coolly.

"No…I write. Or at least, I did until this afternoon…I’m a quitter myself."

"Do you know much about grammar?" he said earnestly, as if implying that demonstrating syntax was a sporting event and he was about to quiz me about the score.

"Strict grammarian."

"Can I ask you a technical point about past participles?"

"Shoot."

"I’ve noticed that over the course my reading of 19th century philosophy that the past participle of `to get’ has evolved from ‘have got ‘ to `have gotten’… Why?"

"You studied philosophy. You tell me."

"I don’t know," he said, looking confused.

"Got is dead." I said.

A woman hurried into the place and headed straight for the pay phone in the rear near the restroom. She was a black prostitute outfitted in long fur, a pink mini- skirt and silver sheer body suit, her voice in the receiver was pitched high and hilariously sexy. C’mon, sugah, she was saying, all I need is a few dollars to git me sum a that ya know sweet diamond dust. Whoever was on the other end of the line was being less than compliant. Gerald tracked her movements through the corners of his eyes. But she noticed him instantly and gestured to him with a wink. A demure smiled escaped from his lips and he respectfully declined.

My own eyes danced furtively around the bar until they landed on one of the college girls in a booth diagonally behind us. She was wearing an aqua green sweater and a mane of rich red hair fell like a tidal wave over the slightly freckled skin of her forehead and facial features. Her big green eyes looked like she could see straight through to everything I might have been thinking about or had done. Gerald cracked a joke—something about the difference between a whore and slut. My attention began to wane. A smooth olive complexioned, ostensibly Native American woman entered the place and tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter. Her face was scratched with the refuse of clown make-up recently removed.

"What’ll it be, Cass?" the unfunny bartender said.

"Bushmills in a rocks glass."

Cass glided with the drink in her hand, over to the booth where the midget sat and seated herself opposite him. "Hey," she said taking a seat.

Apparently Gerald had run out things to say because now he let silence permeate the space between us. Casually I remarked, "When you were ordering beers, a couple of beers ago, a woman walked by that I wanted to sleep with."

"Is she here?"

"Be discreet," I said and told to him to acknowledge the red-haired coed behind us. Gerald was a little drunk and had grown sloppy—but not belligerent—and I didn’t want him to exaggerate his recognition of the red head. Gerald’s brow furrowed, his eyes pressed into mine with a look of failed recollection. He seemed almost irritated.

"Her?" he said, the word spit off his tongue scolding and caustic.

"Yes."

"You don’t want to sleep with her."

"Why not?"

"She’s a slut," he said. "Trust me."

"How can you tell?"

"The skin. It’s all in the complexion. See how it’s not white or deeply alabaster like the skin of heroine’s. It’s chalky and she look’s sickly."

Gerald ordered us two more pints and paid Jerry Seinfeld. "Now you see that woman over there." He discreetly pointed to Cass. "She’s someone you might want to sleep with. Now she might be a whore or something because she’s with that horse-fucking midget, but she’s no slut."

"So what’s the difference between a whore and a slut?" I had to know.

"A whore can keep a secret. You tell her something and it stays with her. A whore is a woman. And a slut is a little girl. If a slut knows something about you, the world knows all about it even before you get both feet out of her bed."

I tried to grasp the situation, but this was a conundrum I knew I’d never be able to figure. "Let no one ever say that Philosophy students don’t think about things," I said finally. Then a thought came to me and I smiled feeling a little like an ape-beast or serpent, but I couldn’t help it. I turned and asked him, "Do you think a horse can keep a secret?"

Outside a couple of New York City police officers patrolled the eighth avenue beat. Gerald slumped in his seat and his face paled. I watched as he faded into the pensive examination of the outside world where snow was beginning to fall in fine vellum sheets, and then began to whisper and whirl and twist, slicing downward in heavy torrents that looked like the right hand of God were ripping the very skin from off the flock of His sheep. As Gerald straightened up and collected a cigarette from out of a pack of Parliament, I surreptitiously examined the condition of his hands, searching his knuckles for signs that he might be a violent madman.

"So what will you do now that you’ve quit your day job?" he said.

"I’m thinking about returning home…home to upstate New York, a city not too far north on the Hudson. A former colleague of mine informs me that there’s a teaching vacancy at Vassar College in my home town, Poughkeepsie." Gerald eyes tunneled into me, mean and nervous, like he was ready to pick a fight because I had just insinuated something scatological about his mother. "Poughkeepsie," he said defensively, "I’m from Poughkeepsie." Then his eyes lighted with recognition and he said "And so is that midget."