As legs are the stays that keep a body from topple over, their son’s body was in constant topple. He caromed and swayed, listing like a broken metronome. What balance he had went to staving off obstacles and impediments, which were many. His parents figured that a clown’s nose might prevent they’re son from toppling over, so rigged one from ear to ear, tying it at the base of his head with a reef-knot. The legless man’s parents shunted him around the circus grounds in a wheelbarrow, his father pushing, his mother making sure his head didn’t bang up against the sides. He was a queer sight, the legless man, his face cobbled with fear, arms flailing, his nose redder than the reddest red tomato. Jocose and Bovina rented a small cabana with a makeshift portico and soiled awning; they owned three lawn-chairs, cross-hatching with wire coils, and a tree trunk fashioned into a coffee table.
They ate from the circus garbage, spoiled cottage hams and wieners, some so shriveled they looked like amputated toes, curds of dry hard bread and things almost rotten, but not so rotten that they weren’t edible. The man in the hat knew of the circus family but only in passing, which he did with most people, passing, without giving them a second’s notice. The second time he saw them they were performing under the big-top that had been set up across the street from the Waymart next to the aqueduct beside the Sears. The legless man’s parents, Jocose and Bovina, were running in circles, they’re hair combed back into ducktails, eyes bled with fury and camp. They pretended they were two cock’s fighting, feet shuffling, backs ridged, they’re feet kicking up clouds of circus dirt. The legless man sat sitting astride his wheelbarrow, his eyes crossed and sallow, suckling the end of a rubber glove his mother had puckered into a nipple.
They ate from the circus garbage, spoiled cottage hams and wieners, some so shriveled they looked like amputated toes, curds of dry hard bread and things almost rotten, but not so rotten that they weren’t edible. The man in the hat knew of the circus family but only in passing, which he did with most people, passing, without giving them a second’s notice. The second time he saw them they were performing under the big-top that had been set up across the street from the Waymart next to the aqueduct beside the Sears. The legless man’s parents, Jocose and Bovina, were running in circles, they’re hair combed back into ducktails, eyes bled with fury and camp. They pretended they were two cock’s fighting, feet shuffling, backs ridged, they’re feet kicking up clouds of circus dirt. The legless man sat sitting astride his wheelbarrow, his eyes crossed and sallow, suckling the end of a rubber glove his mother had puckered into a nipple.
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