Teresa Milbrodt
1. THE DISPATCHPerformances
My brother knew the train was coming because it made the ground vibrate in a certain way. We lived close enough to the tracks to feel it, a longer thrum than any other stream of boxcars. He said it was because of the special cargo, elephants and tigers, acrobats and clowns. Those were lean years and our father said the circus must be struggling, too, just look at the faded paint on those wagons, but for us it was a fabulous world.
I wore pants during the summer. My mother had given up on dresses, knew I'd tumble after my brother playing stickball. He was two years older but we looked out for each other. My brother had the club foot and was deaf in one ear, yet I knew his brilliance. When our mother accused him of ignoring her instructions, he went wide-eyed and said he hadn't heard because of the deaf ear. He emphasized his limp when we went to the grocery to ask for an extension on our family's credit, but in games he had his own way of running and almost kept up in footraces, though in tag he was most usually it. My brother was a champion tree climber, knew how to haul himself up limbs and what his foot could handle with that curled shape.
When we went to see the circus unfold on the edge of town he told our mother he'd make sure I didn't help set up the tent, then he loaned me an old ball cap so I could tuck my braids underneath. Kids who spread out the seas of canvas got in free, so we straightened those beige fields and watched them be pulled up, up, up, bright turrets pointing to the sky. My brother said the best seats were the bleachers in the middle, where you could almost see all three rings. He loved the clowns, the acrobats, the bareback riders who stood on two horses and did somersaults.
“They must fall a lot during practice,” he told me in a low voice, “but they get back up. They can take it.” I nodded back, unamazed to know he thought about the work behind the performance, the mistakes. That was what he respected, like his own falls from trees. When we walked to school and kids called him old lame foot, he talked to me steady like he couldn't hear them. He said they were on his deaf side, and I pretended not to notice when he brushed his wrist across his eyes.
I should have known he'd put on face paint someday, leave when he turned sixteen, but it wasn't until later that I realized he'd stayed for me. He could have gone earlier, had no love for books, but waited until I was fourteen and there was stronger pressure to wear skirts from my mother, even during the summer. That year we wandered behind tents to watch the hard life, women washing clothes and cooking over open fires, men pounding stakes into the ground, playing banjo and rolling dice. He studied them as closely as he watched the clowns, wanted to see the rhythms behind the spotlight before he decided to join, before the rumble of the train faded from town and left me an only child.
That was his parting lesson, that even though I was bound to dresses during the school year I could perform my own escape act when I was ready. That would be on a different train, taking me beyond the bounds of town with my suitcase full of dresses and pants. By then I understood the importance of costume, the sweat and grit behind glitter, the bruises that stung and faded, the usefulness of a deaf ear.
2. BUREAU INVENTORYLife planner
Reading glasses
Sticky notes
Folders
Colored pens
White-out tape
Additional folders
Lotion
Lip balm
More folders.
3. BIOGRAPHYTeresa Milbrodt has published three short story collections: Instances of Head-Switching, Bearded Women: Stories, and Work Opportunities. She has also published a novel, The Patron Saint of Unattractive People, a flash fiction collection, Larissa Takes Flight: Stories, and a monograph, Sexy Like Us: Disability, Humor, and Sexuality. She is addicted to coffee, long walks with her MP3 player, and writes the occasional haiku. Read more of her work at: http://teresamilbrodt.com/homepage/