It had been unbearably hot for days, even with the fans on and the windows wide open. No sign of it letting up. We played cards in the bunk house, drinking warm beer, complaining about the heat, and then complaining about one another. The open windows brought the mosquitoes at night, but there was no alternative. We left the door open, too.
A flare went up about 3 o’clock. Foreman walked in and said matter-of-factly, “Boxcar’s burning out on the back ‘Y’ junction, over by the circus trains.”
“Shit,” said one of the crew, putting down his hand, taking a last hit from a cigarette and grinding it into the tray. We all walked out onto the porch, then toward the ‘Y’, out of obligation more than anything. There was nothing to be done. It would be at least 30 minutes before the fire trucks came, and there was no water to the back of the yard.
“Damn it but it’s hot,” said one of the crew, kicking the dust as he walked.
Two of the boxcars were burning by the time we got there, and the flames were burning south, toward the circus cars nearby.
There were murals on the sides of the cars, “Wells Bros. Shows”, read the legend at the top of one. “Son of Kong,” said another, with a picture of a huge gorilla, baring his teeth. There were depicted trapeze artists, elephants, monkeys and women in can-can dresses with fishnet stockings. The flames were licking the corner of one car, “Exotic Bird Show,” it read, and showed a parrot on a bicycle with a tiny umbrella.
Ashes were falling on the gravel by the tracks. There was nothing to be done. We watched it burn.
I went to a circus once, when I was a boy. The man on the trapeze did a double somersault, and the people screamed. I fed peanuts to the elephants.
My Uncle took me to the burlesque show, in a separate tent, far off the midway. I was all of 12, in rapt fascination. I did not know a woman could move in that way. I worried what my Mother might think. I washed my body in soap and shampoo afterward, and prayed to Jesus not to consign my soul to hell.
They tell me the Wells Bros. Circus had gone defunct by 1969. Who knows how long the cars had been parked there? The last Wells brother had been an alcoholic, an elephant went mad, and the parrots died.
We watched the fire until it burned out, in the middle of the night, along with the ghosts of can-can dancers, trapeze artists, and the Son of Kong, under the stars.
Al Lyons spent two years as a creative writing major at the University of Tampa, before earning a BA in English from the University of Florida, and an MA in Counselor Education from the University of South Florida. He is a licensed counseling therapist and has worked for several years in a hospital ER. He serves on the faculties of both AB Tech Community College and St. Petersburg College, where he teaches counseling. When he is not writing, he enjoys playing music, camping, wandering in the mountains and spending family time with his wonderful wife and three children.