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By the end of the evening as the moment approached for me to walk into the finale, I was feeling more nervous—more excitable and tense—than I had felt on opening day. At that time all I had noticed were the bodies and props of all the nameless people around me; now I felt the devotion and faith that ran throughout the company—more congregation than corporation, more cult than cast. Indeed, I felt a bond with this community that was greater than any I could recall feeling with any other group outside my family. The feeling is what I imagined military camaraderie to be like: the people on the show may have come from different backgrounds, we may have had different aspirations, but for nine months on the road we traveled to hell and back together and emerged in the end slightly wounded for sure but almost fanatically devoted to one another and to our near-religious cause. Onward, circus soldiers: the world needs your message of hope. And on that final night of the season the mood of fellowship was everywhere ascendant. Just before I stepped through the door with all the other clowns, Marty tapped me on the shoulder and offered his arms in embrace. “Well, Bruno,” he said, “you did it. I don’t know what kind of writer you are, but I know you’re a hell of a clown.”
“And the stars of the Clyde Beatty—Cole Bros. Circus…”
At last I step into the lights. The ground seems light beneath my feet. With waving arms and beaming face I dance to the lyrics “Join the circus like you wanted to when you were a child…” In a moment I arrive in the front of ring three and stand beside the passenger door to the ca
“All eyes on the giant ca
The music changes to a fearsome dirge as the mouth of the thirty-foot silver barrel slowly rises into the air. At the top of the barrel Sean surveys his path. His face is etched with well-worn concern. His eyes squint in the ma
“Lieutenant Thomas prepares to enter the gun barrel…”
With one last tuck to keep his hair in place, Sean slides a white helmet over his head, removes the temporary foam lid from the mouth of the ca
“A final farewell…”
Sean positions a pair of lemon goggles over his eyes and scampers into the open barrel. Before his head disappears from sight he waves goodbye to both sides of the house and gives a final thumbs-up to the crowd. Then in a sequined flash he is gone. The music suddenly skids to a halt. Only the pulse of the tympani drum disturbs the spreading silence. The pause is almost painful to bear. The tent is dense with fear. Jimmy James augments the alarm.
“With an ignition of black gunpowder, combined with the chemical lycopodium for safety, he will blast off at a safe speed of fifty-five miles per hour…”
Ta-dum! The drumroll grows even louder. Oh no! The children cover their eyes. Please! I whisper to myself even after five hundred shots.
“Countdown!” Jimmy calls, and all the performers raise their hands in salute. With each booming call from his proud bass voice the audience joins the cry.
“Five.
“Four.”
Until every voice in the six-story tent begins to chant in rare harmony.
“Three.
“Two.
“One…”
And all our dreams confront their test.
“Fire!”
Inside the barrel Sean Thomas waits.
“When I first get in the barrel I check all the parts. I look at the slide to make sure it’s all greased. I look at the cable to make sure it’s not snagged. Then after I rest my butt on the seat and put my feet on the stand I look out through the mouth of the ca
Outside Je
“There’s no reason anything should go wrong,” he said. “It’s pretty close to a science.”
Not particularly scientific himself, Sean approaches each date with the ca
“I call it the Beast,” he said. “Elvin says be friendly to it and it will be friendly to you. But it can turn on you like that. It can kill you in an instant. It’s like the enemy and we’re at war. I feel like it’s always trying to get me, so I’ve got to find another angle. Every show it’s something else. Every day it’s like wrestling with fate.”
Lying prone in the capsule with his rear end on a saddle, Sean prepares for battle. He grips his fists alongside his face and looks once more toward the mouth of the barrel.
“Inside, just at the lip of the ca
From his pad Sean a
“Countdown.”
Inside, Sean receives the command as it echoes down the solid-steel barrel. When he first slid into the ca
“Five.”
“I’m much calmer now,” he said in the front seat of the ca
“Four.”
“Now I have responsibilities,” he continued. “I don’t just worry about myself. Before, I didn’t even do that. Now I have to worry about somebody else. Plus myself. I have to feed her. I have to clothe her. She doesn’t work anymore. Before, I didn’t have anybody depending on me. Now I have to worry about what I do in the ca
“Three.”