Circus Smirkus

by Frances Tiffin

The announcement of mid-term interviews prompted a fervent buzz throughout the Circus Smirkus troupe. We were suddenly paying closer attention to the nuances of our personalities, our performances in the ring, and our interactions with our fellows, our coaches, and most importantly, Troy. We occupied our thoughts with what our director would ask. We prepared our responses, and pumped new troupers with commonplace questions and their appropriate answers. “Yes, that’s good… No, that sounds dumb, don’t say that… Great! They love to hear stuff like that!”

Our fear then became whether we were focusing too much on the interviews and neglecting our actual performances. And what if Troy was watching? We’d have to make sure to do exceptionally well in the ring, in case he was assessing our every mistake, cataloguing each flourish and smile.

How could we find enough time in the day to worry, yet still perform well in the show? Life’s conundrums never cease to haunt.

Because of a mix-up with my scheduling, my interview ended up squeezed in on the last day. Nearly everyone had gone, so I like to fancy myself as being almost complacent, certainly relaxed. I had been doing well. My confidence in the ring and my connection with my clown partner, Aerial, were growing, and I had come to terms with my role in the single-point trapeze act. (Sure I wasn’t a major part of the act when it came to tricks, but I knew it was my character that made the act as dynamic as it was.) I was putting in tenfold the effort at teardown, and I got along with just about everyone.

Troy had declared that these were informal interviews, meant for director and performer to see how we were doing, now that it was halfway through the tour. Why then did my heart insist on beating so as I trudged up the ramp of the Penske truck?

Troy’s smile was infectious, and though the djembe drum still beat furiously against my ribs, I found myself returning the grin.

We exchanged pleasantries. Any awkwardness I might conjure remained dormant.

I was caught off guard when his first question was, “So how do you think you’re doing?” I had been sure the questions would be less personal – I had prepared for that.

Troy Wunderle is a kind-hearted man with a carefree air about him. The only worry around him seems to be how easily you can laugh. That is, until you are sitting across from him in the back of the prop truck, his lips no longer smiling but stoic, his eyes calculating. It’s funny how a man so quick to jest can also instill the fear of God.

I crossed and uncrossed my legs. My mouth opened and closed. I began to gab.

“I think that my confidence in the ring is getting better. My connection with Aerial is growing, too, which is great. I can tell that she’s getting more comfortable. I’m content with single-point, even though at the beginning of the summer, I was a little bit bitter. And there isn’t anyone I don’t get along with. So yeah.”

I finished lamely, embarrassed by the mechanical answer.

He nodded and glanced at his clipboard.

My body was still but for the nervous crossing and uncrossing. My discomfort mocked the confidence I so declared to possess.

Troy touched upon, agreed with, and countered my claims, all of which I took in stride. I figured this was routine.

“What are you most proud of?”

To this, I did not stutter or grasp at straws. I responded promptly, because I knew what he wanted to hear.

“My growth.”

This question, or rather the answer, had been niggling at my thoughts for about a week. (Was it only a week? How quickly time pass when your life is devoted entirely to two shows a day.) Since I had overheard Troy tell my visiting parents, “Man, has she grown this year.”

The image of Troy leaning still in costume against our idling car, the smell of the black leather upholstery, my trying to remain inconspicuous as my cheeks ignited with pride, the trees blowing in the hot Wellesley breeze, and Troy’s half-hidden face behind my dad’s open window, has stuck with me in a way I could not have anticipated.

I had wanted him to go on, wanted to know just how he thought I had grown. Receiving compliments you know are coming is one thing; compliments without obligation are entirely another. But when he had become aware of my proximity he had stopped and waved us along, that trademark not-a-care-in-the-world smile stretched across his face.

Troy’s voice was almost awed when he said those haunting words. He said them like he had just dug an impressive hole on a beach and was declaring in amazement, “Wow, what a hole!” He might wipe the sweat from his forehead with his baseball cap in hand, even though there wouldn’t be any sweat of course. And even though no one wears baseball caps to the beach, I mean, it’s Troy. Even in his newfound forte for digging impressive sand holes, he would wear a baseball cap.

The way my dad laughed a little too loudly and said something jovial like, “We’re taking her out to dinner now, you know,” yet really what he was saying was, “Stop talking now!” stressed the weight of what Troy had let slip.

I would have liked to hear Troy continue – would have drunk heartily the flowing complements that were sure to follow.

Instead I was left to wonder.

When I answered so promptly, I imagined that the way he glanced up from his passing contemplation of his clipboard was too furtive to be coincidence.

There was a pause in which he sat back in his folding chair and assessed my response.

“I am glad to see that you’ve noticed this in your performance,” he said after a time.

From the way he spoke, it was difficult to tell whether or not he knew that I had pulled my answer from his slip so many show sites ago. There was a current of knowing in his voice, but whether it was from him gleaning the source of my answer, or genuine pride in my ability to observe that change in me, I could not tell.

To be fair, I had noticed my growth. The year before, when my shoulder was out of commission and so too were my abilities as an aerialist, clown was sort of thrust upon me. I will never say that I did not appreciate the opportunity. But at the time, it was difficult to see light of the situation, without seeing the dark. I knew I had gotten better during my first stint as a clown. However, no one who had seen me perform this year versus the previous would disagree that I had gotten better.

I did not only claim growth because Troy had vocalized it. That he did so simply gave me leave to realize the extent of it.

“It’s nice to see you with your ring legs this summer,” he continued. “And,” his eyes twinkled mischievously, “that you are not magically missing from every teardown.”

He and I both shared a smile, even if mine was a more than a little mortified.

From his change in tone, I knew that even if he did sense the connection in my statement with his inadvertent one a week before, his moving on legitimized my answer.

The interview continued. “Is there anything you aren’t content with on the creative side of Smirkus?”

This answer did not come as easily as the previous. How could I find anything wrong with Smirkus? In order to say something more substantial than “Well” or “Um,” I fell back on a buried concern.

“I guess it’s hard being a mentor figure to Aerial. And I wish there was more solid critique for me… So much of my efforts are put into thinking about how to make her a better clown, and how I need to change my reactions to fit her rhythms, but there is less effort on making my clowning better for me.”

Troy nodded.

I went on, because finally spewing this to Troy helped me relax, “I mean it’s just hard because I’m still so new to this – I mean last year I idolized my partner so much. Now I know he must have been so frustrated. But at the time I just viewed him as this, like, god. I can’t imagine myself in the same position.”

“That’s a very important thing to notice.”

“I still have so much to learn!” I cried. “Eric was like this untouchable master of clown in my eyes! How can I be that to new clowns and troupers when I am so new to the experience myself?”

“And what about single-point trapeze? You said you were unhappy before?”

“I mean, first I was down because I didn’t have a large role in the act, you know, tricks-wise. I’m not gonna lie, I had some hard feelings. But I’ve realized that it’s my character that really adds so much, I mean aesthetically, to the act.”

“You’re right, the Hansel and Gretel story wouldn’t be anything without a witch.”

“Right. And I realized that it’s not about me. Like, I am a part of a greater whole. If the point of Smirkus, or any touring show for that matter, was to give everyone exactly what they thought they wanted, what kind of a show would that be? I am in this as a member of a troupe. It’s selfish not to realize the importance of the ensemble. Do you get what I’m trying to say?”

“I do. And Frances,” he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and fix his eyes on me. “You are one of the older troupers. You know the ropes, and you know what it takes to be a part of the Smirkus family. I know that it can seem overwhelming, especially as a young clown. But as you are becoming a senior trouper, I want you to assume the role of one.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but he held up a quiet hand and continued. “Yes, I know it may be hard. But people look up to you already. Don’t shy away from it. Take the plunge!” He flashed a grin. “Take the liberty to become that mentor figure.”

I gazed at him in quiet awe.

“It’s for people like Olivia,” he continued, “who was so upset when she thought she messed up opening because of the human pyramid, that you need to step up and offer a helping hand.”

“But… how?”

“I wouldn’t ask you to if I didn’t think you could.”

I mulled over the request as the interview wound down. How could I assume such a role as a senior trouper? When I still looked so highly up at people like fourth-year trouper and now Boss Clown, Jacob Tischler, how could I rise to the occasion and become like the mentors I so admired?

I could not delve too far into my thoughts, however, because Troy then said, “It’s interesting that you mention your growth because it really is evident this year.” His voice was flippant, almost as though he were commenting to perhaps his wife on the impressive size of a hole dug in the sand of a beach as he sauntered just beyond reach of the receding waves.

My attentions were immediately arrested. Was he about to explain what I contemplated night and day? Could this be the end of my suppositions and made up endings to the abruptly ended conversation with my parents?

“You know,” he continued in the same tone of passing, “it was actually a difficult call, deciding whether or not to take you back this year.”

My smile turned sour and I stared at him, crestfallen. I struggled to keep my features under control. I heard my voice distantly, as though through the wire of a makeshift telephone. “What…?” I asked feebly.

Troy mercifully explained. “You had very little confidence in the ring last year. Even by the end, there was still an unease in your eyes. You never quite looked comfortable.”

The chair felt hard and cold against my rigid back. I wanted to shout at him for not noticing just how much I had learned last year. As it was, my lips remained steadfast and glued.

“I could always tell you were preoccupied. Clowning was a substitute, it wasn’t your element, and you were waiting all summer for your shoulder to get better so that you could focus on what you had initially come here to do.”

No. That couldn’t be true. I had grown to love clown, maybe even more so than aerials. How could he not see that?

“Clown took a backseat for you last year, and you were never able to truly embrace it.”

Even in my impassioned internal rebuttals, the meaning of his comments finally began to sink in.

Stopping to think, to really think, I realized that the reason I was able to grow so much this year, and it only being halfway through the tour, was because I had allowed myself to. I had gotten better last year, no one would argue otherwise. But this year, I was a clown. Last year had been a summer full of doubt, of wondering where I belonged, and desperately hoping for the next day to find my shoulder fully healed. This year, I was growing into myself in ways my last year self would have been too stubborn to accept or comprehend.

“As a result of holding yourself back, you ended up not meeting our expectations as I had hoped you would. Nearly every site you came to me with doubts. I worried whether taking you back would merit the same issue.”

His words struck a chord in me, and though my obstinate anger had disappeared, the weight of the shifting paradigms only seemed to drain me instead of invigorate. I looked into Troy’s face, searching for the happy ending.

“Frances.”

His voice softened and his face cracked into a true smile.

“This year, you have proven yourself beyond what I hoped.”

My eyes widened.

“You have done this summer what I had wanted to see out of you last year. Your self-confidence in and out of the ring has increased incredibly, and the change is obvious. You may worry about being that role model for Aerial, but I can assure you that you are doing a fine job so far. I am very proud of you.”

As he spoke, my lips too started to spread, until I was beaming brilliantly.

It occurred to me as we shook hands and I stood to leave the truck with a new spring in my step, that I was very glad I didn’t hear any more of what Troy was going to say to my parents, since it meant that I would be able to hear this.

“Thank you, Troy.”

“You’re very welcome, Frances. And thank you.”