Dedicated to my older sister, Donna.

Come one, come all!  Aunt LaLa surprises us with tickets, and here we are, sitting in our seats at the Ringling Brothers Circus at Madison Square Garden in New York City!

Aunt LaLa, Donna, Mom, little Maria, Barb, and me, all in a row.

I’m hungry.

Mom unrolls a brown paper grocery bag and out comes our lunch.  She doesn’t have any money to buy yummy, hot, hotdogs, cotton candy, popcorn, peanuts, and soda at the concession stand.  We’re here for the show only.

Down the row, my sisters pass the lunch to me.

It’s the dreaded cold hotdogs that Mom cooked at home and wrapped in wax paper.

Disgustedly, Barb looks at the cold hotdog in her hand.

“Don’t look at it, just eat it,” said Mom.

Barb throws the hotdog on the floor, wax paper and all.

“Now you’ll have to wait until you get home to eat,” said Mom and turns to order little Maria to have her lunch.  Obediently, she slowly chews a springy bite and points to a clown with a stupid, painted red grin on his face.

“Look at the acrobats, Jeanne,” said Mom.

I know Mom’s words are said to distract me from this lunch.

Oh!  No matter what Mom says, I can’t look at the acrobats.  I’m deathly afraid to watch the pretty girls in flouncy-glitter skirts swing from trapeze bars, let go, and catch a guy’s outstretched arms mid-air.  What if he doesn’t catch her in time?  My heart skips as though an acrobat flips in my chest.  The girls walk the tightrope far above.  My stomach drops.  They fly through the air.  There’s a deathly hush in my head.  What if one slips and falls to her death?  What if she breaks through the safety net below?  Thoughts of death make me stare at the floor.  I see Barb’s fallen hotdog and angrily kick it away from my feet.

Barb crossly folds her arms and looks straight ahead at elephants with feathered headbands and pink daisies painted on their backs.  Obediently, the elephants follow their trainers’ whips, one foot on a stool as they spin in a circle in the three-ringed circus.

The strong, big elephants that outweigh all of the rest.

I wish I could be strong and ignore food, like Barb, but, darn-it-all, food is a constant worry for me.

I look down the row to check on how Donna is doing.  She picks at her cold hotdog as she yaks with Aunt LaLa.  Following her cue, I pick off the mushiest part of the roll, red with ketchup, throw chunks onto the wax paper on my lap, and eat the cold hotdog.  I don’t look at it.

_ _ _

Later, at home, Mom heats up one-pot spaghetti for supper and then it’s off to bed.

Soon enough, little Maria is sound asleep next to Donna in the twin bed they share next to mine.  Donna asks me how I liked the circus.

“I hated it.”  Honestly, I’m never gun-shy with my sisters, just with everyone else.

“Go to sleep, girls,” scolds Mom from the livingroom where she watches t.v.

“Geez, Jeanne!  What’s not to like?”  Exasperated, she can’t believe that with my usual, confrontational attitude, I gripe about a circus.

No word from me.

Gotta’ love her, peace-making Donna then softly asks, “Well, Jeanne, didn’t you at least like the acrobats?”