Front and Center at the Circus

I remember it was Ash Wednesday when the circus came to town. Even the hoochy koochy dancer had a smudge on her forehead.

All day there had been a great to-do in the pasture across from the soccer field in San Pancho. I dallied as I walked to and from the store and joined clusters of townspeople watching the circus men setting up. The elephant carried heavy things and pulled on ropes, an experienced part of the team. Spindly bleachers, a stage, a tall center pole and a canvas curtain split by a ticket booth around the outside. This was a big circus, as Mexican touring circuses go. Besides the elephant, a giraffe, a pony, and an emu lounged in a corral under the enormous tulipan tree. Well back from the gaggle of children, barred circus wagons contained five tigers and three lions.

At least half the town of San Pancho gathered for the eight o’clock show. Our little group of foreigners contemplated the ten peso bleachers or the thirty peso plastic chairs by the ring, and, feeling a little embarrassed at being such big spenders, went for the back rest. Our chairs were so close to the wooden blocks forming the ring that we used them as a foot stool.

After the opening act—a chubby little teenager dancing like she was twirling a hoola hoop—a clown ran around the ring with the emu on a leash. That turned out to be the pattern: an act, then the emu. There was quite a good tightrope walker on a very high rope. She was pretty and spangly and practically overhead as we sat up against the ring. She had a smudge, too. Then the emu. Acrobats and jugglers. One slip and we could have been beaned with a club. Again the emu.

The elephant was brought out. It did the usual elephant tricks: standing on hind legs with trunk curled, balancing on front legs and trunk, four legs together on a small platform, and, between each trick, it defecated. The crowd screamed with delight. At ring side, we collapsed in laughter and held our aching sides. As each pile was deposited, a clown with a wheel barrow and shovel ran out, loaded up, “accidently” dumped it over, loaded up again. People were nearly falling off the bleachers. Finally, the departure of the elephant and the appearance of the emu allowed us to regain some composure.

Something for the kiddies. Here came the pony, no saddle or bridle. Overhead a boom was attached to a central pole so that it could swing around 360 degrees. A harness was strapped on a little boy who had eagerly run up when volunteers from the audience were called for. From the harness a rope passed through a ring on the tip of the boom and down to the hands of one of the jugglers. The child was placed on the pony which trotted off around the ring but with nothing to hold onto, the child began to slip. Now clearly the juggler was supposed to pull the rope and swing him up into the air just in time. Well, he didn’t. First the child hit the ground, hard, then he was pulled up, swinging wildly. The crowd thought this was nearly as hilarious as the elephant. The mother ran out, laughing too, and caught the child when he came back down and the juggler covered with a Ta-Da sort of pose as though he had performed a great feat of skill. I suspect this act was intended to have several little victims, but under the circumstances, we were diverted by having the giraffe, rather than the emu, paraded around the ring.

There followed a clown comedy act featuring a stuffed phallus—always a crowd pleaser—then a girl performed high up on a dangling rope with a fat older woman alternately swinging or steadying the bottom. The girl was in full costume; the woman in a none-too-clean t-shirt, as if she were invisible to the crowd.

The elephant reappeared to give rides to the children. The pony debacle forgotten, kids clamored to be handed up, first to the top of a ladder and then to the broad back. Five at a time, with little legs splayed and holding on to the child in front, they bounced off for a rapid trot around the ring.

Naturally, the best was saved for last. The roustabouts ran out with heavy sections of iron caging. These were assembled in a circle close against the inside of the wooden ring—about a foot from our knees. Platforms of different heights were placed inside, the circus wagons were pushed up to a raised door and all the tigers and lions were let into the cage. We decided we didn’t need the ring blocks as a footrest after all. The lion tamer entered and whipped the cats to their pedestals. They roared, snarled and batted their paws in classic fashion, but we could smell these guys, we could see what looked very much like real annoyance, or worse, in their eyes. It was actually scary—I had never before appreciated the courage of a lion tamer as he turned his back and postured for the crowd. No wonder he had found time that day to go to church for his ashes.

The cats jumped from pedestal to pedestal, rose on their haunches, leapt through flaming hoops. Then a lion got off her pedestal and wouldn’t get back up, snarling menacingly. Part of the act? Suddenly, a dog—our neighbor’s cocker spaniel, in fact—apparently decided that enough was enough and ran up close to the bars, barking ferociously. The cats turned in unison and looked at her. Another lion got down from a stand and snarled in the direction of the dog. With the cats distracted and disoriented, the tamer prudently took the opportunity to declare the act over. The exit door was raised and, with lots of whip cracking and chair thrusting, the cats were induced to return to their wagons.

Cue exit music. Thoroughly entertained, the crowd dispersed into the sultry night. As we strolled home, Mataleón (Lion Killer), as we called the dog ever after, trotted nearby, around the corner and into her yard, head held high.