Sideshow

By J.S. Frankel

Irving (Irv) Isserlis, seventeen, is a sideshow archer, working for a small circus outfit based in the state of Washington. Irv is good, not great, but his partner and girlfriend, Artemis (Arty) McBain, can do no wrong.

She never misses, and one night, Irv finds out why. Arty—and another sideshow act, Hercules—really are the gods and demi-gods of myth.

A war is brewing. Pandora, along with Medusa, Ixion, and the Harpies, all villains from the ancient Greek myths, have come to Earth to steal the souls of the other gods who are hiding out there and protecting humanity.

Irv discovers that the stealing of souls is part of a larger plan. An unknown god is trying to foment a rebellion and claim power for himself, but only if he collects enough souls to challenge Zeus and Hera. If war comes, then it will be a war that Irv cannot fight by conventional means.

Yet, he chooses to join Arty, Hercules, Iris, and other gods and goddesses who are on the side of justice to fight against their mysterious foe. And it is only when the chips are down that Irv is forced to make the trick shot of his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Apr 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781487434694

Book preview

Fighting a war against a conventional foe calls for conventional warfare, but when the foe is a god or a demi-god, there’s only one choice. Fight dirty.

Irving (Irv) Isserlis, seventeen, is a sideshow archer, working for a small circus outfit based in the state of Washington. Irv is good, not great, but his partner and girlfriend, Artemis (Arty) McBain, can do no wrong.

She never misses, and one night, Irv finds out why. Arty—and another sideshow act, Hercules—really are the gods and demi-gods of myth.

A war is brewing. Pandora, along with Medusa, Ixion, and the Harpies, all villains from the ancient Greek myths, have come to Earth to steal the souls of the other gods who are hiding out there and protecting humanity.

Irv discovers that the stealing of souls is part of a larger plan. An unknown god is trying to foment a rebellion and claim power for himself, but only if he collects enough souls to challenge Zeus and Hera. If war comes, then it will be a war that Irv cannot fight by conventional means.

Yet, he chooses to join Arty, Hercules, Iris, and other gods and goddesses who are on the side of justice to fight against their mysterious foe. And it is only when the chips are down that Irv is forced to make the trick shot of his life.

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Sideshow

Copyright © 2022 J.S. Frankel

ISBN: 978-1-4874-3469-4

Cover art by Martine Jardin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by eXtasy Books Inc

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Sideshow

By

J.S. Frankel

Dedication

To my wife, Akiko, who makes my existence worthwhile, and to my children, Kai and Ray. And to Jennefer Rogers, Sara Linnertz, Joanne Van Leerdam, Eva Pasco, Toni Kief, Gigi Sedelmayer, and so many more, thank you. Most of all, thanks to my sister, Nancy Frankel, who has never given up on me.

Chapter One: The Act

Armand’s Traveling Troupe Of Unusual Acts. Spokane, Washington. June seventeenth. Ten PM. A packed crowd in attendance.

Show’s over, folks. Show’s over, the ringmaster intoned into a mic. Thanks for coming, and give it up for Artemis and Irv, our resident arrows!

Inside the big top, the crowd roared its approval, although it seemed as though Artemis got most of the applause. Of course, she got the most applause, and why shouldn’t she?

A statuesque brunette who matched my height of five-ten, with a figure that Hollywood would pay a billion dollars per picture for, Artemis McBain was a virtuoso with a bow and arrow, and my latest girlfriend.

Oh, wait, she was my only girlfriend. Who was I kidding? I’d only been at this job about a year. We’d been dating for six months, and since then, it had been one stop after another, one packed audience after another, and it all centered on her.

She called her bow Khris, maybe after an old boyfriend.

She shot blindfolded on some of our stunts.

She hit dead center every single time.

She’d recently performed her signature act that she’d called the Odysseus, which consisted of shooting an arrow from a kneeling position through seventeen needles in a row that stood four feet high. Their apertures were just large enough to shoot an arrow through—to a target that was only four-by-four inches.

What got me was that her bow—which only she touched and everyone else was forbidden to handle—was a simple wooden affair with no sight and no counterbalance.

Mine was also made of wood. The latest ones were made of graphite with cams. They were beautiful creations of science, but I stuck with tradition. My Mark II was from the Eliminator line. Not the best, but it had never let me down.

Artemis and I used the same arrows—Telegraph models, the best of the bunch. Her form was impeccable, and her shooting, unmatchable. She also never used gloves or even an arm guard.

Yet, she never injured herself. At first, I wondered how she did it, and then I realized that she was one of those super athletes who could do everything well.

I’d tried doing the Odysseus, but only in practice, never in a show. I couldn’t get beyond the first three needles. Either my concentration wandered, or my hand or shoulder shook—I simply couldn’t do it, and it bothered the hell out of me.

At the exit, one fan, a short, chubby kid, tapped me on the shoulder. His parents, also short and chubby, stood next to him, wearing tentative smiles. You were pretty good, he said. Can I have your autograph?

He proffered a pen and paper, and I signed my stage name, Irv Arrow. My real last name was Isserlis. It was Ashkenazi, or so I’d heard, although I’d never been religious.

As for my first name, who’d name a kid Irving? My parents had certainly had a sense of humor—not. After handing the paper back, he said, Oh, Mr. Arrow?

Oh, crap, here it comes, a compliment followed by a putdown. Yes? I replied.

Artemis rocks, and you missed three times.

The little turd couldn’t have been more than eight, so I couldn’t rip him a new one, much as I wanted to. It was against carnival law. Twice. Hope you enjoyed the show.

Off I went, leaving him to his parents. His parting shot followed me out. She’s better than you and anyone!

Brat—his parents had to be so proud of him.

The warm night air caressed me as I trudged back to my trailer that lay at the end of the fairgrounds. Along the way, I met a few of the main acts. They were part of the circus we worked with this gig—Farham Brothers. We were the sideshow act, but they didn’t seem to care, and they waved hello.

They were nice enough, but that comment by that punk kid had hurt. Still, he was right. I needed to be consistent. I could poke fun about my failed attempts only so often before people got the idea that I wasn’t that great an archer.

At my trailer, Armand Gussier, the owner of our outfit, met me, and, as always, he wore a smile. Perhaps he sensed my disappointment, as he said in a too-bright voice, Nice job, Irv. Rough start, but a strong finish. You’ll get ‘em tomorrow.

A rough start. I’d missed twice, cracked a couple of jokes to cover up for my ineptitude, and then I nailed the target after running and jumping off a ramp. It was a seemingly impossible shot, but I’d made it, and the crowd ate it up.

Gussier was a middle-aged man with a ready smile on a round, lined face. The lines came from the stress of scheduling circus shows and trying to bring in money.

He already had money in Artemis, Hercules—another sideshow act—and Giselle, our fire-eater. They were the big money-makers for him. I came second to them.

And even though I ran a distant second, Gussier never gave up on me. A short, fat man who had a habit of lighting up a cigarette anywhere and everywhere, he must have had infinite patience with me and the other newbs.

After all, he’d come to see me at an archery contest at my high school in Olympia, Washington. I didn’t win. I placed third.

Yet, he’d seen something in me that no one else had. We’d talked afterwards, and then he’d signed the waiver form as my guardian because my father—a person in name only—was too drunk to think properly.

Dear ol’ Dad had accepted the terms, but once he’d sobered up, his parting words were less than kind. You’ve been a pain and a burden ever since your mother died.

It cut me like a knife, a wound that never really went away. He’d recently died due to cirrhosis of the liver. I’d told no one about it, except for my boss. No one’s business, really...

Irv, you’ve just got to train harder, Gussier said, bringing me back to reality. That’s the ticket. I mean, you made that trick shot off that ramp, right?

Well, yeah, but—

But nothing, he said enthusiastically and mimed my previous actions, painting the details like a movie script. You ran up the ramp, jumped off and twisted in the air, and your arrow rebounded off that garbage can lid. That was something! Even Arty, she can’t do that.

Arty. He called my girlfriend, Artemis, by her nickname. Only I called her that. However, he was right. Arty could probably manage the shot, but perhaps out of respect or affection for me, she’d never tried it.

The lid trick—I called it the Garbage Can Carom—meant shooting an arrow deflected off an angled garbage can lid strapped to a tentpole, thirty feet up. If done properly, the arrow would hit the lid and then travel to the target that sat twenty feet away.

It always earned me an ovation. No one knew how many hours I’d spent figuring out the proper angle, working on the garbage lids to leave a slight dent where the arrow would hit and rebound from, and how many more hours I’d spent shooting and re-shooting and working on stance and body positioning and even measuring the wind.

Was it cheating? No, not really. I still had to make the shot. I still had to hit the target. That’s what people simply didn’t understand.

Hercules, our resident strongman who always seemed to want to talk to Arty whenever I was with her, and who also had a gruff, off-putting manner, understood, and he applauded along with the audience.

Hercules—real name Morton Fernandez—was a swarthy guy with dark hair and eyes. He was in his mid-twenties and stood a good four inches taller than me.

That put him at six-two. He weighed around two-fifty—all muscle and no fat. Twenty-three-inch arms, thirty-inch thighs, a tiny waist, and with a chest that was over sixty inches in circumference, he was impressive beyond belief.

In contrast, I had a lean swimmer’s physique. I had some muscle due to working out, but it was nowhere near his.

As massive as his physique was, even more amazing were his forearms. He wore two thick bracelets around his wrists that seemed to pump up his forearms to almost the same ridiculous proportions his upper arms were.

Equally ridiculous were his lifts—benching over eight hundred pounds for reps and squatting half a ton. Bending crowbars like they were nothing. Many said he was faking it.

He wasn’t. I checked his weights. They were legit. Many said he took steroids. Doubtful. He’d been tested every month. Not even the best masking drugs could hide things forever.

In short, he was as strong as his namesake, and he insisted that we call him Hercules. Actually, I prefer that everyone call me Heracles, he said, using the traditional Greek pronunciation. But everyone’s used to calling me Hercules, so, let’s do that.

He then grumbled something about the ancient Romans stealing everything from the Greeks. Whatever, I’d call him Hercules. Some people just had to have things their way all the time...

You’ll be great tomorrow, Gussier said, bringing me back to Earth once again.

Thanks, I said, not knowing what else to say.

He then took off, shouting at someone to clean up a mess. I entered my trailer, took off my costume—green-and-blue vest, black tights, red belt—and sat on the edge of my cot in my shorts, wondering about life in general.

The old question of how I got here ran through my mind and just as quickly exited. I knew. Irving Isserlis, almost eighteen, the product of a marriage that apparently had little love in it, mother passed when I was fourteen, father drank excessively from that point on to dull the psychic and emotional pain and took it out on me... yeah, that was my life.

Up until meeting Mr. Gussier, the only thing that made sense in my life was archery. The first time I saw Kyudoka on television, something hit. It was an animated feature that had a master archer as its protagonist. Something hit, something primal and real.

I was seven at the time. My mother, short and slight with a wide, generous smile and a quiet manner, listened to me rave about Kyudoka. Mom, I wanna be like him!

She listened indulgently, and then on my eighth birthday, she bought me a bow and arrows. I practiced diligently in my backyard every day after school.

Naturally, I sucked at first. But I improved by dint of constant practice, reading books on breath control and strength training and stance, and more. And I found out something—I was better at trick shooting than regular shooting.

Oh, with regular dead-on shooting, I could hit the target, but I never scored gold consistently. But aiming at other targets, or even objects that I randomly placed in my backyard, I hit them dead center almost every single time.

Kneeling, standing, lying down, spinning around, and firing, yeah, those targets were history.

I had no idea why. My body simply knew what to do and carried on through. It was like my mind was along for the ride, and I didn’t have to think, only shoot.

Whatever the case, Gussier must have seen something in a gangly kid who held a winner’s trophy on that September day. We’d shaken hands, and then he asked if I wanted a job.

Are you serious?

He was. He’d explained that he ran a traveling circus that worked with other circuses. We’re sideshow acts, really, but I like archery, and we need another archer.

And you want me? I asked, only half-believing him.

Gussier nodded. You’re it. So, tell me what you want.

It didn’t take me long to decide. I’d like to leave home, I’d told him. Can you arrange that?

Talk to me.

Confiding in someone wasn’t easy. I’d always suffered in silence, but Gussier had a warm, open manner that made me trust him.

So, I told him about my drunk of a father, told him that school wasn’t cutting it for me—my grades were okay but nothing more—and told him that I wanted a new life.

I run a decent outfit, he’d said after lighting up. Who cared if it was on school grounds? He blew out a puff of smoke, ignoring the stares of the teachers. I admired his independence, even though I hated the smell of smoke.

I’ll act as your guardian, but you have to follow the rules.

And they were strict. Keep up with my studies and get my diploma online. No drugs, drinking, or smoking. No screwing around with women—right, at seventeen, like I knew?

Train every single day unless injured. What do you say, Irving? Or should I call you Irv?

Irv, please, sir. Where do I sign?

All that had happened almost a year ago. Now, I was a hit, but Arty was the real deal. She’d been with the circus longer than I had, and when Gussier drove me to Kent, a city near Olympia, he introduced me to his star act—Artemis. She came over and proffered her hand.

She wore a light green bodysuit with black vertical stripes. Flashing brown eyes that a person could get lost in sat in a narrow, yet attractive, face. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail.

Artemis carried an elegantly carved wooden bow, and after we shook hands—she had a grip like a vise—she pointed to an empty part of the field where the tents would be set up. Come on. I want to see if you can hang with me.

Gussier said he’d put my things in a trailer he’d gotten ready, and he handed me my bow and quiver full of arrows. Have fun, you two, he said.

Uh-huh... have fun. As Artemis and I walked past the other tents, the carny workers, and the other acts, she told me that she’d just turned eighteen, liked sushi and chocolate, loved archery, and that she didn’t have a boyfriend.

All that on a first meeting? Well, at least she was honest.

A target had already been set up at the field. We start at twenty feet and back up a step every arrow, she said. How many you got?

I checked my quiver. It was full. Twenty.

Okay, two steps each time. Rapid-fire shooting. A grin accompanied that statement.

Oh, crap, she’s going to wipe my ass out!

And she did. Although I managed to score a few bullseyes, she shot perfect every time, patting her bow lovingly and talking to it after each shot as though it was her best friend.

Once we finished, we collected our arrows, and I made the walk of shame back to her trailer. This is my place, she said offhandedly, as she tapped the small nameplate on the door. You can visit, but you can’t come in. My rules.

Right, no scoring for me, as if I had a chance. Yeah, sure.

Did Mr. Gussier get you your own trailer?

Uh, he said he did, I answered, somewhat flustered by her direct attitude. I guess I’ll find it after we’re done here.

From my dump of a house, I’d brought a suitcase, my bow and arrows, and I had five hundred dollars in my pocket, courtesy of a summer job I’d held a year ago.

Artemis leaned toward me as if to impart a huge secret. Listen. I saw you shoot. Your form, your breathing... everything. You have talent, but you need to practice. Gussier told me that you’re good at trick shots, but dead aim is best.

What else could I say? I was too embarrassed at my failure earlier on. I wish I had a coach.

A cocky grin formed on her face. Meet your coach.

And so, it began. Every morning at six, she’d knock on my door and say, Irv, time to practice.

Direct shooting always came first. I practiced until my fingers bled. Then I practiced some more.

Weights came in the afternoon, with Hercules as my trainer. He made me work on all the basics, and I puked every session. But in less than a year, I’d put on around fifteen pounds, courtesy of the training and chowing down on anything edible. At a solid one-seventy-five, I was on my way—maybe.

As for archery, that ruled, and Arty laid down the law right away. Accuracy counts, and so does endurance. Your body will adjust, and you drive it with your will.

Her way of teaching endurance was to have me hold