Days of Circus Passed

I walked into the bowels of the Minneapolis inner city to an area called Nicollet Island. The island was an abandoned strip of land that served as the foundation for a large bridge. The bridge spanned the Mississippi River. Most houses there were boarded up with Do Not Trespass signs nailed over the doors.

The house I approached was tilted sideways from rot. A single black bird perched on the gutter above the door kept a sharp eye on me.

I gave the gray, paint-flaked door two hard knocks.

A tall, barrel-chested young man appeared at the doorway. He wore an old mob-styled brim hat, shirtless, and a black leather vest. He examined me through his puffy eyes with suspicion. Then he pulled at his stringy, shoulder-length hair, and concluded, "You don't look like a narc?" I shook my head no.

"Is this the place where I can score some weed?" I asked.

"Come on in," he said, opening the door wider. The ceremony is about to begin."

I stumbled over fast-food wrappers and empty bottles of Pinex cough syrup into a room that was stagnant with the stench of cigarettes, beer, garbage, and ammonia. The kitchen sink overflowed with dirty dishes. The walls were full of fist holes. Upstairs sported a leaking toilet. It dripped through a crack in the ceiling and collected in a pool on the living room floor. Blankets covered the windows and bed sheets stretched over four chairs resembled a tent.

Lying in a corner of the room was a copy of the "Night of the Living Dead" comic book. I picked it up and continued deeper into the house.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, five more shoulder-length-haired guys came into view wearing headbands and Goodwill rags. They were sitting on the floor in a pow-wow circle around a legless table inside their make-believe tent, passing a joint.

At the table's center was a small multicolored, Day-Glo-painted trashcan. A scratched Iggy Pop album - "The Stooges," was playing in the background. "Well it's 1969 okay, all across the USA, it's another year for me and you, another year with nothing to do."

I guessed most of them to be about 19 years old or over 21. I was 16 years old.

"Who's the recruit?" questioned one of the guys wearing a red bandana.

"Who gives a shit?" one blurted, "We're all brothers in the revolution."

The mob hat guy nodded toward me with a thumbs-up in acknowledgment. Then continued to glance and nod at each one in the circle, he exclaimed. "Any brother of the revolution is in… right?"

All hands rose with peace signs.

They gave me the impression that I was being sworn into an important mission. The mob hat gestured toward a spot for me to have a seat.

"Friends of mine said I might be able to find some weed here," I said. I made eye contact with everyone in the circle, and then I added, "I'm looking to score on half a lid."

"That would be me," the mob hat answered. "Let me introduce my droogies." He extended his hand to offer a handshake, but when I tried to shake his hand he jerked it back. "Your muder," he joked, as he poked his large thumb into my chest.

"They call me Jack Shit," he continued, "and to my right here, is Crazy Dave." He went around the table with the introductions, "Rodent, Silly Billy, P.T. Barnum, Sergeant Screw, and Spaghetti Man."

The troupe each flashed a peace sign again when their name was called. Spaghetti Man pulled a flask out of his vest pocket, took a hit, and passed it to me. "Aye, those bastions," he chortled like a pirate, with a jeering look on his face, followed by a loud long belch.

Jack Shit added, "Nurse! Bring me a drink from Bacchus's private stock for my little big man."

Up close I saw the Spaghetti Man's face was the shadowy white color of washed marble. There was a just-woke-up glaze over his flaky, crimson eyes - like eyes I'd seen on the face of roadkill. I later learned why Spaghetti Man was so named. When he was high on barbiturates he'd crash into things and fall. Then he would get back up to reenact the fall- thus, resembling a wet human noodle.

"Aye, it's a fine day in the lair of the minotaur," Rodent chimed in, while his head seemed to shake. Rodent had bright white, flat hair, and a sharp nose that protruded from a chunky face. Because he was prone to being unscrupulous, the troupe called him by that which he resembled - a rat. Rodent grew up without a father. His sister was impregnated by her stepfather. Both mom and sister were midgets and collected state aid. The Feds had Rodent's draft number and were on the hunt for him.

During an escape from the FBI, he jumped from a window and hurt his legs.

Crazy Dave patted Rodent on the back, as he grabbed the flask, and slurped a big gulp. Crazy Dave earned his nickname by hiring the gang to drive him insane so he could plead insanity before the draft board. His plan was while under the influence of LSD show he was, in fact, crazy and give him a medical discharge.

"When did you get out of the hospital? I asked.

"Three days ago," Rodent replied, raising his head like a heavy shield. He picked up a cane began jabbing at the air, and explained, "I beat the FBI by jumping from a second-story window. They'll never get me into their corrupt war!"

"How do you feel? Does it hurt?" Crazy Dave inquired while examining his legs.

"Well, I can't bend my legs…" Rodent groaned, "I'm supposed to go back and have the plates removed."

"May I propose a toast?" Crazy Dave said. He raised the flask, "Hail the revolution!" At an imaginary line between Earth and heaven, he made a Hail Mary.

The conversation changed to a daily raid report.

"I scored today," Spaghetti Man proclaimed, producing a tattered envelope from his wallet. He read out loud. "Department of Hennepin County Welfare, $150 rent voucher." Adding, "Congratulations, Rodent, your idea worked."

He dropped the voucher into the center of the table.

"That's rent for three months!" Crazy Dave smiled, as he grabbed the check and held it up to my face.

"All right, did anyone else score today?" Jack Shit said, "Remember the plan? If we're going to meet Abbie Hoffman at Woodstock we need more money." He cleared a swath of the beer-stained table with his hand. "All right, who got what? Time for inventory… lay it down here."

Based on a half-crocked idea that they were modern-day Robin Hoods, the group that called themselves The Circus supported themselves by petty thievery.

The stealing could be anything from bakery throw-away, dine-and-dash on a restaurant bill, welfare scam, or selling phony pot.

No matter how self-destructive, by waging battles against a corrupt system that could draft them into an illegal war. The ends justified the means.

I dug their Zeus energy and humor. Besides, I had nowhere else to go - these guys had a record player and were high.

"I gripped six phonograph records and sold them back to the store as used," Silly Billy added. Silly Billy was opposite the man's nickname because he was hardly silly. More accurately, he was a Zen Clint Eastwood. With his wild mashed-up eyes and confident, half-smile, he had a killer stare down like a character out of an old western poker game. He could walk straight into a record shop and rip them off because the clerks were too afraid to try stopping him.

Sergeant Screw contributed, "I scored bread from a bakery." He laid out two loaves on the table. The screw was the largest and oldest one of the gang. He wore a bushy brown caterpillar mustache that had made a nest over his top lip.

I wasn't sure whose fists created the rat holes in the wall, but Screw's hands were big enough to take down the whole house. Screw had the demeanor of a gentle giant. I couldn't imagine him to be violent. It was hard to believe that he had been a real sergeant for a search-and-destroy unit in NAM. He told me it was his job to take a team into the jungle and kill whatever they found, even women and children. He told a story of how he killed a young farm peasant in the name of duty. A story he repeated many times while I was around him. It felt like I knew every square inch of the rice field where it happened.

The moment turned to P.T. Barnum and he shouted, "Viva the fucking revolution!" as he often did when empty-handed. P.T. was the youngest of the troupe. He looked like a spent circus clown with his bright red face on fire with acne. His hair was an electric kink pad of coiled madness. He wore handmade bell-bottom pants in a paisley print. His brothers and sisters enrolled at the Air Force Academy to escape the life of want. His suicidal father left him, but he would hear none of it. Always near a story, P.T. slept with a book in his hands and talked endlessly about buying a magic bus like his role models the Merry Pranksters.

When it came to Jack Shit's turn he slapped his knee. He had it covered. The booze, drugs, food - supplies for the front line.

Jack Shit had Frank Sinatra's good looks. He was tall and strong as a bull. The women nicknamed him "King Crank" --the size of his you know what. A born talent for being a Jigalo, Shit was an All-Star hell-raiser. He didn't give a damn as long as his well-off family bailed him out with care packages from mom.

He was a one-of-a-kind gang leader with his magnetic, edgy vibe.

Jack Shit turned to Screw. "Can I borrow your belt?"

Without questioning the purpose, he removed his belt and handed it over. On the table lay several spoons. Shit bent one spoon's handle back so it would balance on the table and hold liquid. Then he filled the spoon with water. Adding a packet of white sparkly powder, he mixed it into the spoon and blew on it egging, "Come on, baby, light my fire."

He told me that he was hitting MDA, which was a concoction of psychedelic and tranquilizers. There was plenty for me, too, if I wanted. "It's the high of choice because it offers the best mind game without the paranoia," Shit said as he flashed a syringe.

With the syringe, he carefully whipped the powder into a milky-white soup. He pulled the plunger and the plastic cylinder filled with a liquid that looked like sour cream. He held up the syringe and flicked it, like a nurse, to make sure there was no air in the chamber.

He strapped the belt around his right arm and pulled it tight. Roller-coaster-eyed, he injected himself with the syringe. He drove the syringe halfway between his hand and elbow into a large blue vein. "Sweet Jane," Shit spit out as he watched a line of blood trickle down his arm. Two more times he jacked the plunger into his arm. And then, refilling the syringe, he stuck it into Crazy Dave's glowing vein.

The group watched with thrill-filled eyes as they waited their turn. One by one they shot up with the same needle.

I had never seen anyone shoot up before.

I was both terrified and fascinated at the same time. The idea entered my mind to stick my arm out and be as daring, but I chickened out. I couldn't do it. Rodent, who was the last to use the syringe, dropped it on the floor and said with a wavering voice, "We need an airport for all these goddamn flies."

There was one insect, I think, or an imagined buzzing in my head.

Shit called out, in orgasmic, short-of-breath stutters. "I know what to do with those fucking flies!" He pulled Crazy Dave onto his lap and rubbed the top of his head. "Right down the middle," he chuckled, and the room filled with laughter. Pointing to a brown paper bag, he added, "Hand me my barber kit." Someone handed it to him and he dumped the contents out onto the table.

A roll of toilet paper, razor, and shaving cream fell out of the bag.

Crazy Dave sat there like a wooden dummy, too stoned to resist. With trembling fingers, Shit parted his hair down the middle. Pointing the shaving cream can over his head he let a white foam snake loose.

"A whipped cream Mohawk!" he shouted, "and now for the finishing touch!" Everyone watched as he drew the razor down the center of Crazy Dave's scalp, and then rinsed the razor in beer. He pointed at a new one-inch-wide flesh canal down the middle of his head.

"Now we have a landing strip for Santa's sleigh," Shit chuckled. The remark solicited a round of belly laughs. Next, he placed a row of what appeared to be tubes of lipstick on the table.

"No ceremony is complete without war paint." Shit drew a red line underscored by blue across his cheekbone.

Everyone followed by making similar markings on their foreheads and chins. The war paint was placed in my hand and they all waited for me to decorate myself.

"Give me your pinky finger and swear," Shit commanded me. "Let's swear from this point forward that we never keep the truth from one another?"

I agreed with an innocent pinky finger.

Arlo Hennings, Author