Flight of the Spumonis

By David Perlstein

What drives a 13-year-old trapeze artist to run away from the circus? Marco Spolini seeks freedom from an overbearing father, critical stepmother and smothering uncle. A journey of discovery takes him from New York to Los Angeles across a 1980 America beset by economic and political frustration.

Accompanied by a 15-year-old multiracial street kid named Jimmy Q and hunted by a relentless female private eye, Marco encounters a legless Vietnam veteran dealing drugs while writing country songs, a former porn star married to a televangelist, a widowed truck driver hauling a bizarre secret, a four-person softball team featuring three statuesque women, an Iranian refugee pursuing the American dream in New Mexico, an intellectual motorcycle gang and a California whose dark side matches its legendary sunshine.

A Huckleberry Finn for our time, Flight of the Spumonis offers a satiric, moving look at an America in transition and the timeless human quest for community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491759387

David Perlstein

DAVID PERLSTEIN has authored eight other novels and a volume of short stories. He also wrote God’s Others: Non-Israelites’ Encounters with God in the Hebrew Bible and Solo Success: 100 Tips for becoming a $100,000-a-Year Freelancer. David lives in San Francisco. davidperlstein.com

Book preview

FLIGHT OF THE SPUMONIS

Copyright © 2015 David Perlstein.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5937-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5938-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015901427

iUniverse rev. date: 01/31/2015

Contents

Sin City

1

2

3

The Big Apple

4

5

The City of Brotherly Love

6

Music City, USA

7

8

The Piney Woods

9

10

The Big Apple

11

The Blacklands

12

13

Rubber Capital of the World

14

The Blacklands

15

16

The Plum City

17

Land of Enchantment

18

19

20

21

The Windy City

22

Land of Enchantment

23

Lost Wages

24

City of Angels

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

Acknowledgments

For Mel Bernstein,

a wonderful teacher whose advice,

Never forget your sense of humor,

I have always taken to heart

The Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel, your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?

Genesis 4:9

We judged that three nights would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain

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Sin City

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1

Swaddled in a crimson-sequined cape on his father’s orders despite the early-June heat, Marco Spolini slouched against a pole just inside the artists’ entrance. The red-white-and-blue-striped canvas tunnel kept the circus’ performers out of view as they approached the ring and out of reach of the occasional rowdy element. Marco’s barrel-chested father Ricardo and taller, slimmer uncle Antonio flanked him. The Flying Spumonis had just finished their trapeze act culminated by Marco’s impeccable triple somersault. Now, they waited for their cue to join the concluding parade—with or without Marco’s stepmother Olga. Once again, she had vanished.

Marco noted the matinee audience’s rhythmic applause accompanying the spirited march composed by Lalit Singh, leader of Berryman’s Bodacious Big Top Band and the circus world’s only Julliard-trained Calliaphone player. The applause grew louder as Vartanian’s Elephants launched the parade’s first circuit of the big top. Half-a-dozen clowns accompanied them led by the two-hundred-sixty-pound St. Louis Slim atop a giraffe-high unicycle.

Ricardo made a fist with his right hand and tapped it repeatedly with his left to display his agitation at Olga’s absence. Marco remained indifferent. Olga was not his blood. He stared ahead without particular focus. His face indicated the fatigue of suddenly decreased adrenalin overlaid with thirteen-year-old boredom.

An unexpected gasp rose from the crowd.

Marco peered out across the sawdust ring to see Slim wobbling on his unicycle like a sycamore caught in a gale. Slim’s flailing arms struggled to restore his equilibrium then collapsed. As did Slim, who plummeted face-down-splat onto a fresh-dropped elephant patty.

Fifteen hundred throats that had roared approval following Marco’s triple constricted in unison. Their sudden plunge into silence evoked a boat filled with partygoers sucked without warning beneath the surface of nearby Oneida Lake.

Ricardo, anticipating his son’s goodhearted but pointless response, clutched Marco’s right arm.

Marco, his adrenalin soaring, broke free. He slipped out of his cape and sprinted across the ring where Vartanian’s Elephants milled about in empathetic confusion. Deftly eluding the massive hindquarters of Jewel and Lenore, he approached the fallen clown and knelt alongside Gretchen and Gudron Bucholtz, the diminutive twin contortionists. Slim remained motionless. His hand-sewn costume—pink Little Susie Sassy dress with four-foot bow and short skirt revealing purple bloomers of titanic proportion—now seemed less amusing than grotesque. Having no other remedy in mind, Marco whispered a Hail Mary in gratitude that Slim had not suffered a fatal bludgeoning beneath the massive feet of Vartanian’s cows. Following that, he adlibbed a lengthy prayer to Jesus. President Carter was always praying although he wasn’t a Catholic and Governor Reagan liked talking about God although he wasn’t a Catholic either, so it seemed the appropriate thing to do. Then Marco glanced to his left. Armen Vartanian had apparently restored order in his particular sphere of influence. The elephants, joined trunk to tail, exited the big top in their usual stately fashion. Their restored equanimity made Marco tremble.

Antonio nudged Marco aside. His long blonde hair threatened to come undone. His makeup, almost dissolved by sweat, exposed the scar that slashed diagonally across his left cheek. Exhibiting a calm that Marco found startling, Antonio coordinated the rolling of Slim onto his back. Then, demonstrating considerable strength of both body and purpose, he hoisted Slim into a sitting position. Antonio’s heroic deed revealed Slim’s meticulously rendered makeup smeared with elephant dung. Mother of God! he moaned. With a conspicuous measure of disgust, he released the clown’s inert body. It collapsed onto the sawdust.

Marco, as bewildered as upset, stared at his uncle.

Doc, Slim’s long-time clown partner, joined the group. His left hand clutched an oversized medical bag. Hot pink and marked by a huge red cross that glittered under the big top’s lights, it held a variety of outsized props—a lime-green stethoscope, foot-long lemon-yellow tongue depressor, salami-sized violet thermometer and blood pressure monitor that lit up a brilliant magenta. He cast the bag aside and placed his fingertips against Slim’s neck. Everyone but Antonio out of here! he commanded.

The Bucholtz Twins retreated.

Marco remained in place

Doc placed his right hand over his left and pressed rhythmically against Slim’s chest. "Now!" he instructed Marco.

Head bowed, Marco returned to the artists’ entry.

Ricardo held out Marco’s abandoned cape. I’d say you, Uncle Antonio and the Frauleins Bucholtz made up a damn impressive rescue party. He clapped Marco on the back. Someone said the house doctor’s in the john with a case of the runs. Until he gets here, leave it to Doc.

Marco looked out at the big top. Half the crowd had left. The remainder gawked and murmured as the surviving clowns and tee-shirted ushers urged them towards the exits. Returning his attention to the motionless Slim, Marco shuddered. A sniffle followed. A man, Marco reasoned, could let out a little sniffle now and then.

Ricardo grabbed Marco’s wrist. So where the hell did your mother go?

Marco yanked his arm away. Stepmother, he returned.

Across the ring Doc, slumped over the fallen Slim, shook his head.

Ricardo pulled Marco close. Given their negligible physical resemblance, they created an unlikely family portrait. The smooth-cheeked son favored his late mother Luisa, a slender, raven-haired, dark complexioned flyer of considerable skill. Jesus Christ, kid, what can I say?

Marco lifted his eyes to the big top’s canvas roof. Questions plagued him. Had Slim’s soul abandoned its mortal flesh and ascended to heaven? Did he now sit at Jesus’ right hand? Such questions seemed only natural, although Marco had received little religious education from Luisa and none from Ricardo. It was the devout Antonio who dragged Marco to Mass whenever he could and mentored his nephew according to the reportage of the weekly National Catholic Register. But Antonio’s theology often left Marco bewildered. Just how did a cracker and wine become Christ’s body and blood? And why would Jesus want to be eaten and drunk in the first place?

Ricardo nodded in the direction of the supine Slim. I’ve seen worse. Like when your uncle and I were in California.

Marco again pulled away.

Ricardo shrugged. "What do you want me to say, kid? Life is tough. So you have to be tough. The stuff your uncle and me learned in the school of hard knocks…"

Marco crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. He’d heard those stories ever since he could remember. Worse, of what adventures could he boast? Born into the big top, he’d been confined by a straitjacket of rules and regulations stipulated by his father, Olga and Doc—the circus’ senior artist and union representative. Then there was the big top’s owner Chester Berryman. Each determined to be the boss of him. So while the circus thrilled audiences, Marco experienced every day, every town and every show as another link in a chain of endless constraints.

Ricardo cleared his throat. The matinee had dried him out. Slim’s awkward finale made things worse. He spun Marco towards the back door—a canvas flap leading to the artists’ gathering area and on to the cookhouse. It doubled as a staging point in rainy weather. Beyond stretched the living quarters, an expanse of asphalt where the artists parked their trailers. Nothing we can do here, Ricardo said. Slim lay beyond their assistance. At some convenient moment, Chester Berryman would offer a few words of consolation and a prayer for those who thought it mattered. Tears would flow. Then the circus would head for the next town.

Marco squinted in the late-afternoon sunshine. He took a deep breath to clear his nostrils of the mustiness generated by the audience now dispersed to seek its own solace, as well as the collective flatulence produced by Tanaka’s Prancing Ponies, Igor’s Bears and Vartanian’s Elephants. That’s the smell of money, Chester Berryman was fond of saying.

Ricardo, fatigued by the effort required of a man entering middle age and shaken by an unanticipated encounter with mortality, dropped onto a gray metal folding chair to ponder the fragility of life. Movement at the back door caught his eye. Four roustabouts with red faces, veins bulging in their necks, bore Slim’s earthly remains on a canvas stretcher. Ricardo forced himself to his feet.

Marco made the sign of the cross. Whether or not Slim was a Catholic, he had no idea.

As Slim’s body passed, Ricardo collapsed back onto the chair. Exhibiting the skills of a practiced magician, he made a bottle of Old Bushmills appear from beneath his cape. Consistent with being a loving and considerate—if necessarily stern—father, he extended his arm.

Marco shook his head. On his recent thirteenth birthday, he sipped from a similar bottle proffered by Ricardo and encountered one of adulthood’s significant mysteries. While the whiskey tasted foul, the lightheadedness he experienced seemed oddly pleasant. A second sip added to his strange but blissful state. After which he threw up.

Ricardo’s eyebrows ascended in disbelief. Kid, you’re not a kid anymore. In some ways, anyway. He smiled. You think people don’t see that bone you carry for Desiree Chan?

Marco blushed.

No big deal, said Ricardo. When I was your age…

Marco turned away. His father never stopped holding over him his teen-age journeys of discovery in the real world.

Anyway, sometimes a man really needs a drink, said Ricardo. "Erin go bragh!"

Marco sighed. Slim didn’t even have a wet sponge to cushion his fall.

You remember that bit, huh? Ricardo craned his head back. The whiskey rushed down his throat.

Olga emerged from the big top. Her eyes were red. Mascara slalomed down her cheeks.

Marco stared. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her cry.

Where the hell were you for the finale? Ricardo barked.

Olga went pee.

And for Slim…

Olga looked at Marco then clutched both hands to her heart.

Ricardo took another drink.

Like my father, you are, said Olga. And brothers. And uncles. She held up her thumb and index finger. Half an inch separated them. This close my family comes to Moscow State Circus…

And then that little episode in Kiev put the kibosh on everything.

Kibosh? What this means?

It’s a word I used to hear when I was a kid. It means…

Antonio appeared at the back door. He raised his cape against the sun then marched towards them with an air of pious solemnity.

Olga placed the back of her hand against her forehead and began to sway, aping the late, lamented Slim’s last ride.

Ricardo remained seated.

Antonio lunged and caught her around the waist.

Russians, Ricardo whispered to Marco. Always with the drama.

Olga’s narrowed eyes expressed fury diluted by a total immersion in grief.

I get it, said Ricardo. Slim and all. Your heart bleeds. You’re a mother. Not a biological mother, but still. And you’ve suffered. Jesus, you’ve suffered.

No gentleman you are, she said. Same is for your son.

"Oh, he’s my son now. Well damn right about that. And for the record, I figured Antonio’d be the better catcher on this one." He held out the bottle of Old Bushmills.

Olga shot Ricardo a withering look. Is not vodka. Besides, I have headache.

Antonio offered his arm.

Olga flipped her blonde hair, almost as long as Antonio’s, and strode off unaccompanied.

Ricardo shrugged at Antonio and turned back to Marco. Been a hell of a day, kid. He raised the bottle and again bathed his parched throat.

It’s not fair, said Marco. Slim, I mean.

Ricardo spat. Fair? Look, kid, you want to be a man? Cut the crap about fair. Those rose-colored glasses Doc and Slim wore in their act? In real life, all they do is blind you to the next sucker punch.

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Marco matched Ricardo stride for stride across the asphalt lot surrounding the long-abandoned textile mill where the circus held its three-day run in Utica. Once upon a time, men and women made good wages within its soot-blackened, prison-like brick walls. Alas, American tastes turned from cotton and wool to silk and nylon. Machinery grew outmoded. The industry retreated south then fled to foreign shores. Not that Utica was only textiles. General Electric made it the radio capital of the world. Once upon a time. Yet despite the city’s economy decay, enterprising Americans found ways to earn a buck. Hence some Oneida County citizens assigned to Utica an unfortunate sobriquet that spread across the nation—Sin City of the East.

They approached the family’s thirty-one-foot Airstream Land Yacht. The rounded body suggested a long-ago image of technology’s future. Hot spots of sunlight danced on its silver metallic skin. Ricardo, clutching the bottle of Old Bushmills to his chest, dropped a step behind in a state of silent contemplation. This proved prescient. A steam iron rocketed out the door. Ricardo swayed leftward, his reflexes defying his considerable consumption of spirits. The wayward iron missed his head by inches and dented the metal body below the bathroom window of the Bucholtz Twins’ neighboring trailer.

Marco drew on past experience and retreated half-a-dozen steps. This modest act expressed his wish to be recognized as an observer claiming a position of diplomatic neutrality.

Ricardo, who had assumed the prone position, raised his chest off the asphalt. Beneath him the green whiskey bottle lay shattered. He looked up at his wife standing in the doorway and sighed. Following Luisa’s death, he’d sponsored Olga, who’d been granted refugee status, then married her. A boy needed a mother. More important, The Flying Spumonis needed the sex appeal of a striking woman to remain a marketable attraction. From the audience’s perspective, Olga’s slender figure and flowing blonde hair gave women and girls someone to identify with—if only as a fantasy self-image. Men found yet another reason to bring their families back the next season. From the vantage point of those who came in closer contact, Olga’s high Slavic cheekbones and gray eyes attested to the Asiatic origins of her Kazakh grandmother. They also hinted at the contradictory image of a boy with a propensity for mischief and worse.

Risking the assumption that all flight paths now were clear, Ricardo rose to one knee. The chest of his white Spandex costume displayed a large brown stain resembling a Rorschach test. His Irish aroused as well as spilled, he stood, pointed down at his feet and discharged his grievance. I had half a bottle left, you bitch!

Marco shuddered. Husbands and wives in the circus were supposed to love each other like they did in the real world. Even if one of them was a second wife who sought a marriage of convenience to live and work in America, they at least could act as if love played some role in holding them together.

Olga summoned Marco into the trailer.

Seeking a measure of peace, Marco complied. He reasoned that following a brief but dramatic demonstration of her dissatisfaction with his father, with him and with life in general, Olga would exhaust herself. Calm would prevail—for a while, at least. According to Doc, Olga’s tantrums were only natural. She possessed the mercurial temperament of a true artist. And unlike his real mother, she wasn’t even Italian.

Olga shoved Marco into the Airstream’s cramped bedroom—not that the trailer wasn’t a palace compared to the hovels in which she had lived in testimony to the glorious economic accomplishments of Communism. Marco sat on the bed. She returned to the living area.

Ricardo staggered towards the door.

Olga slammed it against his nose.

Marco went to the window. He saw his father, bloodied and more than a little bowed, seated in a daze on the warm asphalt. He stared as the Bucholtz Twins, holding hands, emerged from around the back of their trailer. Endeavoring to provide succor, they embraced Ricardo within a tangle of arms and legs. Marco’s thoughts drifted to Desiree Chan then segued to a not-unfamiliar fantasy involving Gretchen and Gudron. And Desiree.

From the kitchen window, Olga hurled a string of Russian expletives—ever-popular nouns and adjectives reinforced by timeless idioms.

Marco watched as Gretchen—or perhaps Gudron—shook a dainty yet impressive fist at Olga. His father once remarked that the two could only be distinguished when undressed. And then, barely. How his father knew that he had no idea.

The Spolinis’ door swung open. A clock radio shot out. It missed its intended target—that being Ricardo, Gretchen, Gudron or any combination thereof. The considerable force of propulsion generated by the small-framed but furious Olga left another dent in the side of the Bucholtz’ trailer along with a small pile of debris suggesting the dot beneath an exclamation point.

Fearing that someone might get hurt, Marco bolted back into the living area that doubled as his bedroom. It also sheltered O’Doul, his father’s canary. It was Marco’s task to feed and water O’Doul as well as clean his cage. Moreover, Ricardo continually instructed Marco that O’Doul was to remain caged no matter what. The way Olga leaves the door to the trailer open all the time…

Olga thrust out her arms. Her hands pushed against Marco’s shoulders. Her unexpected strength rocked him back on his heels.

But… Mom! he pled. Uttering the appellation upon which Olga insisted represented a calculated gesture of subservience that might enable him to enter her good graces if for only a few minutes.

What you think you understand? You are still boy. Not a whisker you have.

A hand rapped against the doorway’s metal frame.

Olga dropped her arms and spun around.

You leave this outside? asked Doc. His right hand held aloft Olga’s errant steam iron. The remains of his red, white and blue makeup cascaded down his cheeks in rivulets resembling the moisture streaking the open can of Schaefer beer in his left.

Always Olga think you do not drink.

Doc grimaced. "Not in a long time. A long time."

Olga dropped the iron into the kitchen sink.

My point is, said Doc, someone could’ve tripped. Hurt himself. Or herself. Whatever. Not to mention there’s the remains of what probably was a clock radio out there. Seems like the thing tried to force its way into the Twins’ trailer.

Olga made a face at Marco, looked past Doc and flashed Ricardo, Gretchen and Gudron the durnoy glaz—the evil eye.

Another little misunderstanding? Doc asked.

Marco nodded.

For herself Olga can speak, said Olga.

Doc studied the beer can gripped in his hand then looked up. Bad time for a misunderstanding. Slim, I mean. Upsetting to say the least. We were close, Slim and me. Went way back.

Marco felt tears welling up.

Doc drained the beer and tossed the empty can into the sink. It clanked against the steam iron, bounced back and landed on the linoleum floor. He tousled Marco’s thick black hair.

Marco grimaced.

Olga’s gray eyes grew tundra cold. She raised a hand to Doc’s shoulder and turned him to the window. Did you see them? Did you?

Them who? asked Doc.

Marco thought Olga’s striking cheekbones seemed to shape shift. He remembered the picture books Luisa used to read to him and the witch who plagued Snow White.

That bitch, Gretchen, Olga hissed. And bitch sister. You see them with Ricardo? You see them whispering in his ears? With tongues?

Doc shook his head. Honestly, Olga. You can’t tell that from here.

You don’t think they save for him best handstands and splits?

Doc stepped back. With considered deliberation, he opened the refrigerator and extracted a bottle of Guinness. After emptying half, he held it to his face for a three-count then lowered it. His left cheek looked like a two-year-old’s finger painting. All I know… and you’re getting this from a veteran of the war in the Pacific who saw his share of action… is someone could get hurt being downrange of an airborne appliance.

Olga released a projectile of spittle. It made a plinking sound as it struck the beer can Doc had emptied.

Doc shook his head. Look, Olga. You’re a professional. You know how it’s supposed to be. I mean us being one big happy family.

Olga snorted. "They have hair under arms. She shook her head. About Germans, Olga can tell you."

Marco recognized an opportunity. He placed his arm around Olga’s shoulder, although more to restrain than comfort her.

She shook free. Is blonde, the hair. From grandstand, audience can not see but is there.

Doc shook his head. What the situation calls for, Olga, is a little separation. We… you… let things cool down. I’ll talk to Ricardo. Maybe have him stay with me tonight. As far as Marco goes… Antonio’s the calm one. Marco can spend the night with him.

Marco startled. Why were adults always making decisions for him? Why didn’t anyone ever ask, What do you think? Would that be okay with you?

Just one night away from home, son, Doc said. Two at the outside. Until everything goes back to normal.

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Marco followed Doc through the dimly lit living quarters as the artists settled down for another night in yet another town. A rolled-up white towel under Marco’s arm contained his pajamas and a toothbrush. Honestly, I shouldn’t be bothering Uncle Antonio, he said. If I can’t stay at home, I can stay with someone else.

Doc sipped from a can of Bud Light. Son, your folks need a night apart, and so do you. He turned his head and belched. Someday you’ll understand these things.

I understand things. I’m almost as old as my dad when he and Uncle Antonio left Chicago.

Doc nodded. He tells some stories, your dad. Pity about your Grandma Noonan. I bet you wish you’d known her.

Marco knew the story well. Grandmother Noonan—his father assumed the name Spolini as an adult—died long before Marco was born. When Ricardo—Dicky then—was fifteen, a terrible illness left her blind, deaf and bedridden. And Jesus, not all there upstairs. She with no husband and the rest of the Noonan family far away in New York City from where she’d headed west to seek a new life as not much more than a girl. The parish took her into a charity home it ran so she could live out her remaining days in peace. Dicky faced the orphanage. Maybe that kind of thing appealed to Antonio—then Tony—what with priests and nuns and mass at six each morning. Not Dicky Noonan. He wasn’t about to be confined like some bank robber doing time in Joliet.

Doc held his beer out to Marco.

Marco shook his head.

Antonio, wearing gym shorts and a White Sox tee shirt, opened the door of his Argosy 28, a somewhat smaller version of Ricardo’s Airstream.

Doc shambled up into the doorway, turned and beckoned.

Marco followed dutifully and stopped.

Ricardo sat sandwiched between stacks of books and magazines on the mustard-colored couch at the trailer’s tow end. He winked.

Doc shot Ricardo a reproving glance. Marco’s staying here tonight like we agreed. All things considered, you should spend the night with me.

I’m staying with the twins, said Ricardo. He shrugged. It was just a harmless little fling, that’s all. No reason for Olga to get so pissy.

Antonio squeezed Marco’s shoulders.

Marco gritted his teeth.

Ricardo leaned forward like a jockey driving his mount to the wire. Honestly, Doc. You ever work trio with those little Dresden dolls?

Doc arched an eyebrow. That’s not the point.

Ricardo smiled. The towners out there… They come to see the elephant. Stuff they can’t see anywhere else. And hell, that’s what we give them. But no way they can even begin to imagine Gretchen and Gudron’s most impressive skills.

Doc gestured towards Marco. You’ve got a son here, you know.

The positions, Ricardo went on. The variations. And after, they make you bacon and eggs and goddam better coffee than you ever get at home.

Doc motioned Antonio to remove Marco to his bedroom.

Marco resisted with a strength and agility that caught his uncle off guard.

Antonio loosened his grip. I think you should head out now, he said to Ricardo. He nodded at Doc. Marco and me, we’ll be fine.

Doc drained the remains of his beer.

Ricardo made no effort to get up. And what the hell is that?

Doc tossed the can onto the narrow counter space between the kitchen sink and the stove’s four small burners. What the hell does it look like?

Antonio whisked the can into the garbage.

Anyway, said Doc, Antonio’s right. After two shows, we can all use some rest. He took one step towards the door then spun around as if performing his famed "Where’s My Patient?" bit and pointed at Ricardo. Unable to find words, he dropped his hand.

Ricardo stood and coaxed Marco towards him as if he were reeling in a fish that, no matter how exhausted, might still attempt one last struggle for freedom. Listen kid, here’s the skinny. I was unfaithful. No secret there. As for tonight, not that I don’t appreciate Doc’s offer, but I’ll just be more comfortable with the twins. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end for Olga and me… and you. That our family’s splitting up. It doesn’t mean that at all.

Marco wiped his nose with his wrist.

Ricardo grasped Marco’s left forearm. What I’m saying is, I probably wouldn’t have done it at all, twins or no, if…

Antonio stepped forward.

Ricardo blocked his advance. If Olga wasn’t screwing around behind my back.

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2

Marco slipped out from beneath Antonio’s arm and tiptoed to the bathroom. He’d thought he’d be sleeping on the couch, but Antonio insisted that he had no other place for all his books and magazines. Besides, Marco would spend a more restful night in a real bed. There was plenty of room for two. A flyer, said Uncle Antonio, had to take care of his body. Marco acknowledged that his uncle’s bed was more comfortable than the couch. Still, he’d slept poorly. First, Uncle Antonio fussed over him for a good hour before ordering lights out. He told him endless stories about Jesus while rubbing his shoulders and smoothing his hair. Then, after Uncle Antonio slipped into bed—he had reading to do—he kept whispering to Marco like they were kids at a sleepover. Just like he always did, Uncle Antonio went on about how much he loved him. That he’d always protect him because when all was said and done, his father and Olga had engaged in a marriage of convenience. When Marco whispered that he knew that, Uncle Antonio pulled him close and held him as if he were a small child made anxious by nightmares.

A trio of light taps sounded on the trailer door. Marco flushed, went into the kitchen and parted the curtains above the sink.

"Ach, good morning," sang Gretchen Bucholtz.

Marco opened the door.

Gretchen, loosely wrapped in a pink bathrobe and wearing matching slippers, stepped up. "Your eyelashes. Ach! Every woman in this circus is jealous."

Marco blinked. He had no idea why women commented on his eyelashes. Gretchen’s certainly were beautiful. Her whole face was beautiful even without makeup. His eyes dropped to her breasts. They were smaller than those of the women in the magazines Doc occasionally slipped him and even Desiree Chan’s. Still, he couldn’t help being fascinated with them.

Gretchen ignored Marco’s wandering attentions. I hope you do not mind my taking this initiative, she said. Clipped Teutonic overtones highlighted her English. It is, you see, my duty. Given the somewhat awkward situation with Ricardo, Gretchen felt compelled to acknowledge her responsibility, she being the elder twin by twenty-three minutes. I can, perhaps, have a word?

Antonio, wearing only gym shorts, burst out of the bedroom.

"Would you be so kind as to leave Marco