Unicycle

As the rest of us waited in back, pulling at our laces, and thinking about our next meal, she walked confidently out onto the stage. Applause flooded the areas behind the curtains, hurting our ears. “What must it be like out there?” we wondered. "Loud," we figured.

She began with simple tricks, pulling Arbor Day treats from the air, spinning silken webs to capture the worries of the folks in the front rows, floating off to the ceiling to retrieve a helium-bulged stuffed cat for a youngster in the middle. “A plant. Obviously a plant,” we thought, but we were jealous and wrong.

The Dawn of the Aerospace Age moved into the meat of her act. A projection screen dropped behind her, and a film began: the wonders of the modern world, explained.

“A flashlight works like this,” she said. “The battery is crowded with wild light horses. When the button is pressed, they spring out, and run full boar, straight ahead, as the crow flies, direct to what you want to see. The clomp along the water molecules in the air.”

“A toaster works like this,” she said. “The bread is inserted, the button is pressed, and the filaments crowd around and tease the bread for its softness. It is embarrassed. It tries harder. It hardens itself to the cruelty of filaments. It heats from the inside with self-righteous anger, and that's why the butter melts.”

“A baby works like this,” she said. “You buy one at the hospital. It has been spit out, like a watermelon seed, by the baby machine seen here. It grows in a glass of water on a windowsill. That's why hospitals have so many windows. Babies do not need food. Babies do not need water. They are self-contained. Anyone who says otherwise is quite likely mad.”

“A treefrog works like this,” she said. She did not speak. She let the film speak for itself. The audience marveled at the steam engine, and the bellows.

“The aerospace age,” she said, “is a marvelous time to be alive. Look at all we have.” And she showed all we have on screen. It was over in less than an hour. “Thank you,” she said, and left the stage.

We waited for the applause to die down, and took our positions. As she walked by me, I stared at her. Marvelous her. Wonderful her. How I loved her.

She smiled at me, and I thought maybe it would be nice to live in the here and now, in the present, the two of us together, a baby machine baby drooling in the corner.

And then, I returned to my position, ass-end of a juggling horse costume. Spot, the dog in our dog and pony act, waggled his butt as she tickled his back.

She was good to animals.



The Dawn of the aerospace age wore a man's shoes and slacks onstage. She wore a white shirt, suspenders and a bow tie. Burgundy. The tie and suspenders were a deep burgundy.

I wore the back of the horse.

“How indoor plumbing works is this,” she said. “The pipes dig down, down, deep down to the freshwater ocean at the center of the world. Plumbers are required to be both expert spelunkers and expert deep-sea divers. They have the most dangerous job there is. That's why they go to school for nine years, are paid so well, and are thought of as heroes.”

The front end of the horse, Lopez, did all the juggling. We lumbered onstage, and I lifted him onto my shoulders. I tried to move a bit, but Lopez discouraged most forms of tap and soft shoe dancing. He needed to concentrate, he said, because it wasn't easy to see through the horse head.

Our act was not popular. It was not easy to follow the Dawn of the Aerospace Age.

But, she suggested I learn to ride a unicycle with Lopez juggling away on my shoulders. She said she knew how, and could teach me sometime.

I wanted her to hold me in her arms, and tell me about air conditioners and mass transit, but this would do.

“How the cure for cancer works is this,” she said. “You swallow a live Australian tumorphage centipede, and let it work. To keep it happy, you must stay drunk while it searches your body for food. The alcohol loosens your muscles, and it doesn't have to struggle so on its hunt. Scientists were amazed to find how easy it was to cure cancer after all the work they'd done, and issued a formal apology by handwriting letters to everyone on the planet. You probably got one.”

She had her own unicycle.

“How friendship works is this,” she said. “Two people meet, and they purchase a ‘friendship’ crucible. They each remove a lock of hair, and burn them together, and must keep the fires going for as long as they intend to remain in the contractual agreement called friendship.”

And when it finally did happen, when we finally spent long, tangled moments together, I asked her questions, and she answered. And it wasn’t perfect. And it was better for not being perfect.

The act was never perfect, but Lopez and I put on the horse costume, jumped on the unicycle, and did our best. And she would wait for me.

I wondered how motorcycles worked. I wondered how the moon worked.

***

This post is dedicated to those who donated:

Miz Minton
Brad & Allen
Bryan
Ross!
H.J.L.
Mom & Dad
Chloe
Ronnie
Susan
Lenore
Zane
My dearest A

and, of course, it is also dedicated to

doc

It was written on her birthday and first appeared on Reinventing the World, a much-missed online/email literary journal.