The circus: Something in the air [I]

Summer's humidity kept me from sleeping. I'd lain on my sinewy futon for three hours with no respite. It felt like hot steam kept collecting on my skin, mingling with the sweat that had already formed at my brow and about my body in an unwelcome baptism of sweat and condensation and heat. My solitary blanket was ruffled at my ankles. I occasionally pulled it up over me for a minute or so before indecisively tearing it back down again, leaving it coiled near my feet. It was one of those nights where the streets called out to you, longing to be navigated, and the clear but empty midnight beckoned with curved fingers and long nails. I had to do something. There was much to be done, I could just feel it.

Silently groping about in the darkness at the foot of the bed, I found the pair of shorts and worn t-shirt that I'd left there earlier in a clumped heap. Somewhere on the floor next to the comforting tick of my alarm clock were my glasses. I fumbled about until my fingers felt the fold of their hard plastic arms; they had slipped from atop my stack of books and onto the wooden ground behind the head of my mattress. Without glasses, my eyes may as well have been the bluish white of a blind man's. They brought an added sense of comfort and renewed equilibrium as I slipped them on. I stood slowly and began to creep across the room, nearly tripping over the weathered old black belt that was given to me as a birthday gift when I turned fourteen. I picked it up and began dressing in the black approval of the conveniently absent new moon, making sure not to miss a belt loop. Once finished I headed towards the back hallway. There was a creaky swath of floorboards on the way to the front door. I could usually avoid it with ease, but I wasn't up to the risk. I didn't want to wake the others.

A small screenless window framed the wall to the right of the back door, and I knew that it was already slightly cracked open, just as I had left it earlier. I slowly slid it open all the way. The whole of me just barely fit through its boundaries, and I hastened to join the leaves strewn about the base of the house's exterior. Oh, the joyous call of freedom! I left the window as it was, hoping it'd facilitate a smooth and quick reentry.

Life was missing from the smug asphalt streets in front of my porch. Huge green-black trash cans, dry rain gutters, and lonely streetlamps pretended to be entirely disinterested at my presence. I decided to stand under the glow of the streetlamp closest to me. Its light flickered and popped around me: bing bing bing. A rebellious breeze created a tornado of fallen leaves and flew past me on the opposite side of the street. Save for the front porch lights, none of the houses exhibited any sign of light or movement. The streetlamp flicked another bing, and then went out in a sputter of orange luminescence. I walked to the center of the road and shoved one hand into my pocket, conveniently finding two one-dollar bills nestled against each other, and then began walking toward the highway. It wasn't quite as warm out here, but that didn't bother me.

After two blocks of blank homes, I made a right onto First Villa Street. This would eventually run perpendicular into the highway and the marketplace part of town, where salesmen left their shops to heckle you directly on the streets, inwardly hoping to lure you into their parlors so that you'd sacrifice your money at their altars of commercial satisfaction. It was so clear and dark out that the stars shone brighter than ever, but the night was like a fat low-lying fog; luckily I had the streetlamps lighting my way, staggered on each side of the street. An old gas station lay a few blocks ahead. It had no major signs, just two pumps and a small white rectangular building with peeling paint that housed the front counter, a restroom and a host of prepackaged comestibles and drinks. The curbs crumbled beneath my feet as the charming gardens of the residential district merged with the dead neon and barred windows of the business district.

The gas station's door was open wide, held in place by a rusted old coffee can full of cigarette ash, dirt and candy wrappers. It was the epitome of true 24-hour convenience. The mindless hum of fluorescent lighting greeted me as I entered. One lonely soul inhabited its walls, an aged uniformed man with slicked white hair and a messily cropped beard. He glanced at me with shallow eyes, then looked back down at his game of solitaire. I had two dollars and I was eager to spend them on something worthless. I slid aside a refrigerator door and selectively chose a bottled cola. Scanning the candy shelf, I grabbed a little bundle of black licorice. The attendant was eyeing me. I gave him the nod, and proceeded to make another round about the interior as if I were still looking for something, trying to shake off the awkwardness I was feeling.

"Stuff'll kill you." He spoke in a gruff voice, but it was timid and quiet, nearly a whisper. I barely heard it; he was still facing his card game.

"Hmm?" I have a tendency to act as if I didn't hear or understand someone, even though my mind sorts out their words immediately after I ask them to repeat it.

"I just said you shouldn't drink that stuff. My granddad died drinkin' too much of it. We found him a day in the winter, sittin' in a wooden rocker, 'bout ten glass bottles next to him on the floor. Little specks of cola everywhere, like blood. Wasn't a pretty thing to behold. I 'spose just about any of that stuff is poison now."

His granddad? This old man had to be in his seventies at least, so his grandfather must have been around that age when he died. I bet cola wasn't even around back then. But I patronized him.

"Sorry." I was always apologizing to everyone, even when I'd done nothing wrong.

"I guess I'll take my chances. Yeah, so... sorry." I apologized again.

I went to the front counter and he rang me up. It came to a dollar sixty-nine. Pocketing my change, I started for the door. I stalled for a second, then swung around. "So, do you even like this job?" I asked.

He didn't hesitate, as if he'd been asked this question a hundred times before. "Well, not much left for me now. Livin' alone, don't sleep that well during the daytime, and I need cash. All I gotta do is keep the light lit and the door propped. This place got no qualms lettin' an old man run the night shift. If I ever get hit up though, they might change their song."

"Okay. Thanks." I didn't really know what he was talking about. Raising my free fingers in some strange salute or farewell bid, I nodded at him again and brisked my way out the door.