Read Online The Bear in a Muddy Tutu by Cole Alpaugh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Cole Alpaugh
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, its cord a long gray snake coiled , dangling from the handle . Billy Wayne searched the deep shadows all around, almost expecting something terrible to step out and reach for him. Then h e scampered barefoot toward his room, ice bucket clutched to his chest . The muffled music was louder and food smells more pungent than earlier ; they seemed to close in on him . His hands were shaking as he fumbled to get the key into the lock and wondered why he hadn’t thought to bring his gun.
But t he food made him feel better , and his thumping heart slowed back down with each bite. Chocolate worked like a medicine, his mother had told him, although he couldn’t remember exactly what it did. In the bathroom h e drank two glasses of water , went back and swept crumbs from the bedspread and plopped down.
Room 1 427 was clean enough, but everything was threadbare, and every sharp edge looked as if it had been gnawed on. Billy Wayne stooped forward to twist the volume all the way down on the television . D ropping the book to his side , h e collapsed back on the orange b ed sp rea d, letting the cold air drift over his body, imagining these rooms filled with lost souls just waiting for someone to love and adore. They were waiting for someone like him.
The ceiling was a rough popcorn texture with flecks of glitter, now yellow from cigarette smoke . T iny cobwebs drift ed back and forth in the moving air. If you s quint ed , the ceiling became a moonscape, or what sand looked like after a rainstorm.
Above the hum of the air conditioner, Billy Wayne heard a new noise coming from outside his window, a familiar music from his recent stops along the various boardwalks. T he whistling calliope notes rose and fell, their dancing melody both childish and hopeful. The sound always reminded him of old cartoons his mother didn’t approve of a nd the ice cream truck his mother would never let him run out to m eet. Listening to the calliope was like listening in on someone else’s childhood, and it made Billy Wayne’s bloodshot eyes fill with salty, self-pitying tears that formed dark spots on the orange spread.
Billy Wayne was suddenly a depressed and uncertain God. He was a pasty, overweight God, with thinning hair and itchy balls.
“But I am still God, ” Billy told the wafting co bwe bs . H is voice was wavering and unconvinc ing. It was a good thing he was feeling too fat and tired to get up and reach under the mattress to load his new gun.
The calliope sang him to sleep.
Chapter 10
En rique the Human Cannonball stood naked in front of the full -l ength mirror in his crampe d trailer. He sucked in his paun ch and flexed his small round biceps, striking a series of poses that allowed him to admire his physique as well as stretch his muscles prior to perform ing . His gray chest and pubic hair were a stark contrast to the artificially deep black hair on his head and lip. He reached for his nose clippers and mustache comb, pulling a bare bulb lamp close to make a few snips and adjustments.
“Enrique is a beautiful man! ” He step ped back and then glanced at the clock . S even minutes to showtime.
Enrique knew that the danger of being a human cannonball wasn’t in being blown up, since the only gunpowder used was for theatrics. Shooting a person from an authentic cannon would result in almost certain death, what with an explosion big enough to fire a two hundred pound projectile. It would, at the very least, blow the legs off the person involved. The propellant was compressed air under the platform where the performer stood. The platform inside the cannon was blasted forward by releasing the air , which was compressed at about two-hundred pounds per square inch. The platform stopped at the mouth of the cannon; the human cannonball did not.
Even with the much less dangerous compressed air cannons, roughly half of all the big name human cannonballs had been killed plying their trade. The most common accident occurred from
But t he food made him feel better , and his thumping heart slowed back down with each bite. Chocolate worked like a medicine, his mother had told him, although he couldn’t remember exactly what it did. In the bathroom h e drank two glasses of water , went back and swept crumbs from the bedspread and plopped down.
Room 1 427 was clean enough, but everything was threadbare, and every sharp edge looked as if it had been gnawed on. Billy Wayne stooped forward to twist the volume all the way down on the television . D ropping the book to his side , h e collapsed back on the orange b ed sp rea d, letting the cold air drift over his body, imagining these rooms filled with lost souls just waiting for someone to love and adore. They were waiting for someone like him.
The ceiling was a rough popcorn texture with flecks of glitter, now yellow from cigarette smoke . T iny cobwebs drift ed back and forth in the moving air. If you s quint ed , the ceiling became a moonscape, or what sand looked like after a rainstorm.
Above the hum of the air conditioner, Billy Wayne heard a new noise coming from outside his window, a familiar music from his recent stops along the various boardwalks. T he whistling calliope notes rose and fell, their dancing melody both childish and hopeful. The sound always reminded him of old cartoons his mother didn’t approve of a nd the ice cream truck his mother would never let him run out to m eet. Listening to the calliope was like listening in on someone else’s childhood, and it made Billy Wayne’s bloodshot eyes fill with salty, self-pitying tears that formed dark spots on the orange spread.
Billy Wayne was suddenly a depressed and uncertain God. He was a pasty, overweight God, with thinning hair and itchy balls.
“But I am still God, ” Billy told the wafting co bwe bs . H is voice was wavering and unconvinc ing. It was a good thing he was feeling too fat and tired to get up and reach under the mattress to load his new gun.
The calliope sang him to sleep.
Chapter 10
En rique the Human Cannonball stood naked in front of the full -l ength mirror in his crampe d trailer. He sucked in his paun ch and flexed his small round biceps, striking a series of poses that allowed him to admire his physique as well as stretch his muscles prior to perform ing . His gray chest and pubic hair were a stark contrast to the artificially deep black hair on his head and lip. He reached for his nose clippers and mustache comb, pulling a bare bulb lamp close to make a few snips and adjustments.
“Enrique is a beautiful man! ” He step ped back and then glanced at the clock . S even minutes to showtime.
Enrique knew that the danger of being a human cannonball wasn’t in being blown up, since the only gunpowder used was for theatrics. Shooting a person from an authentic cannon would result in almost certain death, what with an explosion big enough to fire a two hundred pound projectile. It would, at the very least, blow the legs off the person involved. The propellant was compressed air under the platform where the performer stood. The platform inside the cannon was blasted forward by releasing the air , which was compressed at about two-hundred pounds per square inch. The platform stopped at the mouth of the cannon; the human cannonball did not.
Even with the much less dangerous compressed air cannons, roughly half of all the big name human cannonballs had been killed plying their trade. The most common accident occurred from
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