Every now and then I make a reference to running away to join the circus (Examples everywhere in case you missed the subtle year-long running metaphor).
Shhhh. What's that? It's the sound of Bridget getting comfortable in her own skin. That rarely happens. Usually I wish I was less full of regret. That always happens.
Circus people to me mean friendlies. Kind, accepting people who tolerate everyone and everything. They are the freaks, the fringe, zealots. People with beautiful souls unbound by modern constraints of time, expectations and the mindfuck of radiant cityesque urban suburbia. They only care if you are well and if you are happy, and they care very deeply for one another. It's not much different from Jacob's idea of perfect organized worship.
I'm going to be a circus performer when I grow up.
No, seriously. That was the plan and I made it, for a time. But I am not the only freak in this homemade urban circus. Jacob is a magician. He can pull quarters out of people's ears. We used to joke about him shaking down the congregation with his tricks and becoming a millionaire.
Today was a rare treat. We were outside cleaning up the parking lot and the yard at the church and based on my injuries I was holding the garbage bag and not doing a whole lot aside from following Jacob or Sam around in the searing cold wind and feeling as if I might possibly sell my soul for a hot cup of tea.
Treasures we compiled included three condoms (please don't ask me if they were used but hurrah for safe sex, right? Not so hurrah for the goth teens using the churchyard as their spooky boudoir) and a fork. Jacob stuck the fork in his back pocket and when we were finished he brought it in and proceeded to trot out his favorite mindblowing trick of all:
Telekinesis. The power to move objects with your mind.
He bent the fork into a wavy mess of stainless steel.
I jump out of my goosebumped skin every time he does it. Then I told him he had to show the kids today. He used to only do it late at night at dinner parties after a couple of drinks. So when the kids came home for lunch he showed them and they positively squealed.
Do it again! became the rally cry of the noon hour.
When I came back from walking them back to school, I counted seventeen bent spoons on the kitchen table. I gathered them up and took them in and dumped them in front of Jake on the desk in the study.
Okay, smartiepants, bend them back.
Oh shit.
What?
I can't. Once they're bent I can't bend the same spoon again, princess.
Then I guess you're going to the store because we don't have any spoons left.
Well then, let me get some money.
He stuck his hand down into my shirt and pulled out a fifty dollar bill. Lochlan can do it too but you'd expect it from him, not from Jake.
And I am still laughing. Because this morning I realized when he bent that fork that he was capable of using his powers on people too, it just took him almost ten years to perfect it.
