The Ink-Black Lion

Giggles and excited footsteps echo through the maze of booths in the back-drop of the towering red tent. The smell of roasted peanuts and smoked meats beckons giddy patrons to come and devour it.

Tilly the “Lion-Faced Woman” sat in her tent, combing her coarse cheek hair in front of a stained mirror. She is immune to the circus’s trance it puts the crowds outside the canvas wall under. The armor she so carefully built around herself is nearly impenetrable to this cheer and is merely noise.

The stillness was interrupted by an abrupt ringing of metal on metal as the curtain behind her was pulled back. The stage manager gave her a five-minute warning and walked off to inform the next act, leaving the curtain open. Tilly’s head turns back to the mirror. Her facial hair is darker than on her head. It began just under her eyes and grew in kinky strands long enough for her to form a neat little braid. This is the face that will “earn her keep”.

When sitting up from her chair, Tilly feels as if she’s wading in chest-deep water. She fumbles through the pockets of a group of coats hanging on the wall until she finds a bottle. After giving it a sniff, she puts the opening to her lips and knocks back her head. This artificial source of joy will have to carry her through.

~~

The stage manager peeks around the corner and gives a slight knock on the wooden door frame to alert his next charge. Ivan the “Man Made of Ink” is polishing his bowling pins and enjoying a stout from a vendor down the alleyway. He sighs at the disruption, chastising himself for losing track of the time and gestures to the stage manager to gather his props to bring out to his section of the stage.

Ivan stretches out his arms over his head, and down to his toes. He crudely cracks his neck, then flexes his arms in the mirror to admire himself. Tattoos cover his arms starting at his wrists and climb up to cover his face and back down to his lower extremities and legs. The tattoos were once works of art with clear depictions of images and stories, but have since morphed together to seemingly change the race of its host.

~~

The bars Tilly sits behind are reminiscent of a prison, or what she assumed one looked like, though management insisted they were there for her own protection. There is a heavy maroon-colored curtain that covers the other side of the bars so nobody can gawk at her a minute sooner than their dime allows. The familiar chattering of curious circus-goers fills the void on the other side of the curtain. Some children loudly declare their desire to pet her, others want to hear her roar as if she were a real half-lion lady, but some wonder if she’d be whipped like the wild cats in the big top tent. The adult voices encouraged the children’s wonder and awe as they consumed their poorly rolled cigarettes. The stench of their chain smoking permeates through the layers between her and them.

She hears the lecturer guide the crowd through one oddity and freak after another, each exhibit eliciting their own unique reactions from onlookers. The “Siamese Twins”, the “Fattest Man Alive”, and the “Crab Claw Lady” all made the crowd squeal with delight as equally as they were replused. When she heard the curtain pulled back in front of her, Tilly had no performance to give. She simply sat on her stool with her dress neatly billowed around her legs and feet while her corset set her posture straight.

The silence from the crowd is deafening. The air stills, smoke hangs in heavy clouds above people’s heads, and there are a few sporadic coughs. They were confused by her in ways that they weren’t by the others. Perhaps it was how her face was human, but not quite. It triggered a primal fear evolved in humans over eons to only trust their own species. It’s like when the brain tries to form faces out of everyday objects, but more chilling because you know what you’re looking at is looking back at you.

The lecturer weaves tall-tales about her background and the lore of the lion people in the deep jungles of Africa. Truth be told, she was from Erie, Pennsylvania, abandoned as a small child and lured into this freakshow as her only means of survival. The “doctor” examined her in front of everyone and proudly proclaimed that she was, in fact, genuine. Tilly was grasping onto the last of the liquor's fumes like a life raft.

~~

Awaiting his turn behind the heavy curtain, Ivan is stretching. He squats, twirls his arms around, jumps into a star, and cracks his fingers. The sweet Spring scent of trees in pollination overcomes the filth coming from the crowd. Anticipation fills his being, but Ivan remains cool. This is what his life has built up to.

The lecturer's baritone voice announces the next act with excitement and the crowd hypes itself up to match his energy. Men, women, and children cheer for him, like he is a Roman gladiator in the pit about to be obliterated by a tiger, but he puts up a respectable fight before total bloodshed.

Ivan struts out of the cage and onto a platform so people can see more clearly. His anomaly requires a close up view, unlike with his colleagues. As the lecturer dazzles the crowd with his fabricated backstory, Ivan sets his bowling pins ablaze and the crowd waits in suspense for his next move.

Flaming pins dance around his head like shooting stars. Three, four, then five pins are incrementally juggled in the air so effortlessly in a way that can only be accomplished by someone so committed. He also cartwheels around the crowd, and even lifts heavy barrels over his head with little people stuffed inside.

Each new act drew wild reactions from the spectators. Clapping and yelping followed the conclusion of every trick. When he stills long enough for people to gaze upon his tattooed form, men study him like he was a puzzle to be solved, women blush at the mere sight, and children want to ask him all sorts of questions. At the end of his act, some people hesitate to walk away, wanting more, and others are in heated discussions with each other over which trick was the best.

~~

The day's hard work of being scorned at and awed over comes to a conclusion with the orange and pink painted sky in the backdrop of the big top tent. Crowds shuffle out of the exit gate in a semi-orderly fashion. Children are either snoozing on their parent's shoulders, or whining about their lost balloon animal. Horse hooves clip-clack rhythmically along the brick pathways, pulling along their weary owners in their carriages. The hazy cigarette smoke dissipates and food vendors close their windows, taking the appetizing aromas with it.

In the cramped accommodations at the edge of the mini-city rested Tilly and Ivan, opposite and in parallel. Ivan returns to his stout and sinks comfortably into an armchair. The heaviness of the drink brings a warmth and comfort into his core. Tilly finds the bottle again and is grateful its owner didn't discard it. She takes another hard drink and swallows the fire down her throat to her stomach. It burns and tightens her chest and she regrets it a little. The same image in the stained mirror stares back at her.