Page 89 of Avenue of Mysteries


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"Not rattlesnake rattles, are they?" Flor asked Lupe, when everyone in the dogs' troupe tent could see her breasts and the nipples.

"It's a leave-or-die-here situation," Lupe repeated. "Senor Eduardo and Flor are your ride out," the little girl told Juan Diego.

"For now, you'll just have to believe me about the penis," Flor was saying to the Iowan; she'd put her bra back on and was buttoning her blouse when Ignacio walked in. Tent or no tent, the dump kids got the feeling that the lion tamer would never knock before entering.

"Come meet the lions," Ignacio said to Lupe. "I guess you have to come, too," the lion tamer said to the cripple--to the would-be Boy Wonder.

There was no question that the dump kids understood the terms: the mind-reading job was all about the lions. And whether the lions changed their minds or not, it would also be Lupe's job to make the lion tamer believe the lions might change their minds.

But what must the barefoot, bitten, and pissed-on missionary have been thinking? Edward Bonshaw's vows were unhinged; Flor's breasts-and-penis combination had made him reconsider celibacy in ways no amount of whipping would dispel.

"One of Christ's soldiers," Senor Eduardo had called himself and his Jesuit brethren, but his certainty was shaken. And the two old priests clearly didn't want the dump kids to stay at Lost Children; their halfhearted questioning about the safety of the circus had been more a matter of priestly protocol than of genuine concern or conviction.

"Those children are so wild--I suppose they could be eaten by wild animals!" Father Alfonso had said, throwing up his hands--as if such a fate would be fitting for dump kids.

"They do lack restraint--they could fall off those swinging things!" Father Octavio had chimed in.

"Trapezes," Pepe had said helpfully.

"Yes! Trapezes!" Father Octavio had cried, almost as if the idea appealed to him.

"The boy won't be swinging from anything," Edward Bonshaw had assured the priests. "He'll be a translator--at least he won't be a dump-scrounger!"

"And the girl will be reading minds, telling fortunes--no swinging from anything for her. At least she won't end up a prostitute," Brother Pepe had told the two priests; Pepe knew the priests so well--the prostitute word was the clincher.

"Better to be eaten by wild animals," Father Alfonso had said.

"Better to fall off the trapezes," Father Octavio had of course concurred.

"I knew you would understand," Senor Eduardo had told the two old priests. Yet, even then, the Iowan looked uncertain about which side he should be on. He looked like he wondered what he'd been arguing for. Why was the circus ever such a good idea?

And now--once more navigating the avenue of troupe tents, on the lookout for elephant shit--Edward Bonshaw hobbled uncertainly on his tender bare feet. The Iowan was slumped against Flor, clinging to the bigger, stronger transvestite for support; the short distance to the lions' cages, only two minutes away, must have seemed an eternity for Edward Bonshaw--meeting Flor, and merely thinking about her breasts and her penis, had altered the trajectory of his life.

That walk to the lions' cages was a skywalk for Senor Eduardo; to the missionary, this short distance amounted to his walk at eighty feet without a net--however much the Iowan hobbled, these were his life-changing steps.

Senor Eduardo slipped his small hand into Flor's much bigger palm; the missionary almost fell when she squeezed his hand in hers. "The truth is," the Iowan struggled to say, "I am falling for you." Tears were streaming down his face; the life he had long sought, the one he'd flagellated himself for, was over.

"You don't sound too happy about it," Flor pointed out to him.

"No, no--I am, I'm truly very happy!" Edward Bonshaw told her; he began telling Flor how Saint Ignatius Loyola had founded an asylum for fallen women. "It was in Rome, where the saint announced he would sacrifice his life if he could prevent the sins of a single prostitute on a single night," Senor Eduardo was blubbering.

"I don't want you to sacrifice your life, you idiot," the transvestite prostitute told him. "I don't want you to save me," she said. "I think you should start by fucking me," Flor told the Iowan. "Let's just start with that, and see what happens," Flor told him.

"Okay," Edward Bonshaw said, almost falling again; he was staggering, but lust has a way.

The girl acrobats ran by them in the avenue of troupe tents; the green and blue spangles on their singlets glimmered in the lantern lights. Also passing them, but not running, was Dolores; she was walking fast, but she saved her running for the training beneficial to a superstar skywalker. The spangles on her singlet were silver and gold, and her anklets had silver chimes; as Dolores walked past them, her anklets were chiming. "Noise-making, attention-seeking slut!" Lupe called after the pretty skywalker. "Not your future--forget about it," was all Lupe said to Juan Diego.

Ahead of them were the lion cages. The lions were awake now--all four of them. The eyes of the three lionesses were alertly following the pedestrian traffic in the avenue of troupe tents. The sullen male, Hombre, had his narrowed eyes fixed on the approaching lion tamer.

To the passersby in the busy avenue, it might have seemed that the crippled boy stumbled, and that his little sister caught hold of his arm before he could fall; someone watching the dump kids more closely might have imagined that the limping boy simply bent over to kiss his sister in the area of one of her temples.

What actually happened was that Juan Diego whispered in Lupe's ear. "If you really can tell what the lions are thinking, Lupe--" Juan Diego started to say.

"I can tell what you're thinking," Lupe interrupted him.

"For Christ's sake, just be careful what you say the lions are thinking!" Juan Diego whispered to her harshly.

"You're the one who has to be careful," Lupe told him. "Nobody knows what I'm saying unless you tell them," she reminded him.

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