THE GLORIOUS DEMISE OF THE FAMOUS ARMLESS JUGGLER

By Burton St John

In the fierce heat of evening, at the beginning of what would be an apocryphal week, Carlos, the famous armless juggler and his rag tag family sat down to eat. They were guests of Brosnan Bandolini, mayor of the small town of Chanquanta, where the russet dust tastes of fish and the thin air slices at your eyes.

It was a boisterous gathering bursting with succulent foods and madness and mayhem. Carlos sat at the head of the table with his transcendental brother Juan, flanked by Juans magnificent wife Angelica, their five feral off spring, the odious mayor of Chanquanta, his gloriously drunk wife and their stunning, haughty daughter, Gusty-Belle. They were all in a wild uproar

Carlos in his wisdom, understood and happily accepted, that the invite to the mayors mansion was more to do with his extraordinary talents than friendship, but a free meal was a free meal, so to hell with it he thought, enjoy the hospitality and be dammed. What Carlos didn’t understand was that the Mayor was deeply jealous of his popularity and fame. The Mayor saw Carlos and his chaotic clan as belonging to some primordial fraternity, full of mud and insanity, whereas he saw himself as clever, refined, educated. He believed deep down that he deserved the fame and the popularity more than Carlos and couldn’t understand why people liked this lumbering disfigured man more than him. He wracked his brains trying to work out ways to snatch Carlos’ fame for himself. Little did he know that by the end of this hot, raucous evening the perfect, yet horrifying answer to his prayers would unfold.

Carlos' juggling genius was extreme. Through necessity he had stood the art of juggling on its head by performing his acts while lying on his back using only his legs and feet. By this technique he was able to juggle balls, bats, bibles, and bicycles in abundance. But what took his fame into a stratosphere almost beyond imagination, was his genius for juggling live animals, high into clear, blue, South American skies.

At fifteen, an age when that sweet tumultuous energy begins to tease a boy toward his own sensuality, both Carlos arms were ripped from his shoulders in a wood pulverizing machine at the stinking paper mill where he worked. For eight months after the accident he skimmed the edges of death in silky delirium at a hopeless hospital, but then, over the next year, he built up enough anger to be sent home to endure what most people thought would be the squalor of a half life. In that biblical fury he remained shut in his room, endlessly pacing, mind raging, mouth and stumps mildewed, never once venturing down into the gloomy bosom of the home. His only conduit to the family was via telepathic communion with his twin brother Juan, a boy blessed with crystal psychic intuition and an awesome, natural strength.

two years after he came home, on the day of his eighteenth birthday, the lumbering colossus that was his mother, heaved herself into the boiling, buttery kitchen, her startled eyes scrabbling for answers. Her son Carlos, the boy she’d wrecked her pelvis for, had hidden himself from the world in rage, yet, she had just seen both his sad salvation and his glorious demise in an unloved corner of their brittle garden. Gripping the back of a wooden chair she crossed herself and spoke.

“St Rosa-Sinensis- Malvaceae, full of grace and apostolic wisdom, has, after twenty eight years dormancy, brought the rare, pure white, religious hibiscus into blossom. This I know is to save Carlos from his crushing misery and bring him back to life so he can prepare himself for the triumph of the glorious death he deserves.”

She dabbed at her oily face and neck and glycerin tears. With her labyrinthine knowledge of these things, she knew, that to prize open that much stubborn resistance from a rear religious hibiscus would have required not only St Rosa-Sinensis- Malvaceae and the gigantic pantheistic pull of a double harvest moon, but also a very powerful, local, molecular disturbance caused by the burgeoning of hitherto undiscovered genius. Only when she returned from her voodoo churnings did she notice her craggy husband, a stranded river boat captain, staring wildly into the corner. She looked across and was shaken to the bones. There sat Carlos, he’d ended his two year exile and now sat at the table, his black eyes melting in the heat and his shirt sleeves tied in a knot across his chest.

She immediately grasped the enormous implications of Carlos and the hibiscus appearing at the same time and, sagging into a chair, looked straight at Carlos and announced with astounding prescience: “This genius, whatever it is, will be the beginning of the end.”

The four members of the family faced each other without uttering a word and, in that wide, open silence, Juan brought bread, cheese and beer to the table, along with stewed lamb in a bowl for the captain and his gums. Throughout the meal Juan stood directly behind Carlos and fed him in such a way that only the very astute would even suspect that the arms and hands that wielded the cutlery and placed the food in Carlos’ mouth were not those of Carlos himself. The father, a comically wizened, geographically stranded, riverboat captain from Porto Velho broke the silence and began muttering his way through a mad rhapsody with influential chickens, feckless gods and his own innocent perceptions. He babbled on until Carlos stopped him with an immense force of will.

Carlos was coming back up from deepest hell, clambering over his demons, struggling to find a way out. He felt the heat tearing at him. He was so close to imploding, so near to screwing himself up and free falling back into the pit

"I have squandered three years of my life in senseless self pity. I am back and I want no more." His voice soaked the walls. He turned to his father, trapping him with his power, melting him into servitude and asked. “What would be the most impossible career for a man with no arms?"

Without hesitation the captain replied: "A juggler."

"Well then," said Carlos, "that is what I am going to be, and I’m going to be the most famous of them all."

The captain, mortified by his own stupidity, fell forward into his stew and blubbered inconsolably. The voluptuous mother cocked an ear then muttered to the boys: "The sound of the captain blubbing into his stew is exactly the sound of a river boat stranded in mud."

Carlos finished his meal without comment, strode out into the fierce heat of the yard, lay flat on his back and began teaching himself the art of armless juggling. Beside him at all times stood Juan, ready to fetch, carry and encourage.

Late in the afternoon of that first day their huge mother squeezed out into the yard carrying a crystal bowl. She had three quarters filled the bowl with sanctified, herbaceous and voodoo oils, upon which she’d sprinkled one hundred, tiny, dazzling white, double harvest moon, religious hibiscus. This she said was a talisman to uncompromising character, an antidote to the miseries of artlessness and a powerful potion against the debilitating effects of gravity, and that without its astounding powers her beautiful boy would never conquer the near insuperable difficulties of armless juggling.

Carlos showed iron determination and by the time he turned twenty one he’d mastered the art of juggling inanimate objects. And so, to a world dulled by the heat and wind, Carlos announced his intention to tackle the almost impossible task of juggling live animals. This was met with complete derision from everyone he knew and quite a few he didn’t. They all thought he’d gone raving mad. His first attempt with animals was with a couple of stray cats and was a complete fiasco. Some weeks later however, on the road to Andahuaylas, he saw a Bolivian squatting on the side of the road next to a brazier of hot coals. He was slicing chillies in preparation for the roasting alive of three baby armadillos. Carlos acquired the armadillos and in recognition of their stoicism in the face of fiery death, he named them Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. With perseverance, brutal determination and the mysterious powers of the crystal bowl, he was able to juggle them, four months later, high above a noisy, colourful, clapping crowd at the Andahuaylas fair. The armadillos were a wild success, so Carlos expanded his menagerie to include three mongooses, six blind turkeys, four old goats and a couple of rabbits. He persevered for more than a year until he could juggle them all by species or in combination. Carlos loved his animals and the animals seemed blissfully happy with him and his mad familial circus. By the time he was 35 years old he was celebrated the length of the Cordillera de los Andes which he continually traversed in a old red truck, with the legend ‘CARLOS CONSTANTINO - FAMOUS ARMLESS JUGGLER’ painted in yellow on the sides. Always beside him, his brother Juan and Juans’ wife Angelica, who, in her magnificence, had produced five rumbustious children who sat high up on straw bales at the back of the truck, along with the menagerie, all flapping about like a string of colourful washing.

But now, on a fiercely hot evening at Brosnan Bandolini's villa, Carlos, sitting at the head of the table piled high with bellowing, yellow guavas, intoxicating plates of spicy balabomista and stone flagons of delicious Arequipena. With Juan standing behind him, Angelica in jolly uproar and the children juggling potatoes, knives, oranges and saucepans to impress him, he began to fall so deeply in love with Brosnan’s delicious daughter Gusty Belle, that he thought he would explode. He even felt his arms growing back, and through the hullabaloo he couldn’t take his eyes off her until, under the immense pressure of his feelings and as a statement of undying love, (she hadn’t looked at him once), he boldly announced that he would juggle four live bulls at the annual fair in Santa Bovinaria on Saturday. Juan dropped the knife and fork. He locked onto Carlos’ mind but all he could hear was the chaos of love. In panic and in cerebral disarray he ran from the room and as he passed Gusty Belle he felt a chilly draft and suddenly understood that he would have to keep her away from Carlos or they would all be finished. He ran out of the house, down to the river and flung himself onto the gravelly bank where, in a state of near terror, he stared at the enormity of the problem. He knew, right through to his bones, that he was up against the most destructive force on earth, a one sided, first love.

Brosnan Bandolini, with his leathery neck and lizard’s eyes, took all of this in and saw his opportunity. He could use Gusty Belle. For a minute or two he was held back by some vague feelings of unease, but unable to establish where they were coming from he carried on plotting. His irresistible desire for fame quashed any doubt. He would work on her with all his guile and cunning and from that moment on, as far as he was concerned, his beautiful daughter would be a sacrificial device to the altar of his crushing egocentricity.

Next morning, while Carlos mooned about, steamy with love, Juan drove into Chanquanta and met up with a dubious character called Miguel and with a few mild threats and twenty eight pesos he contracted Miguel to kidnap Gusty Belle and keep her out of the way until Monday, when the whole fanfare, the complete fandango - truck, kids, animals, crystal bowl and all, would be parked fifty miles away outside a gold mine brothel, where the bold mulatto whores were used to the powerful thighs and wicked ways of Carlos Constantino.

Miguel fetched his ancient pistol, then to bolster his resolve, sidled nervously into a back street tavern where he began investing the entire twenty eight pesos on small glasses of the harsh local liquor he loved, but couldn’t take. Before long he’d transferred his attentions to the bedding of a voluptuous business woman, his pistol pawned for the pleasure, his memory of the contract gone with the wind.

Brosnan, worked energetically on his plans for the embezzlement of Carlos’ fame and popularity. If he’d only known how instantly famous Carlos and Gusty would soon be and for what reason, he would have packed up his whole family and left for the high Andes that night. But, ignorance being bliss, he continued on his course. He figured that by using the power of Carlos’ raging heart and the exquisite, nubile, beauty of Gusty Belle, he could manipulate and control the situation to the extent that he could steal all the fame for himself.

Gusty didn’t much like her father. He was tricky man. She knew he wanted everything and that he would stop at nothing to get it. But, she was smarter than him and would use his mad desire and his dumb intellectual vanity to outwit him. Gusty wanted out of the fish dust and thin air of Chanquanta. She wanted distance between her and her reptilian father and although she found the thought of bedding Carlos revolting, she instinctively knew that there would be no better way of escaping than to leave, blessed by her father, with that most famous of men in his red and green truck. She figured she could steal Carlos’ money within a short time and run away to seek her own fame and fortune in the sleazy bars and dance floors of Rio.

“Stand at the edge of the crowd where he can see you”, directed Brosnan. “Wear your best dress and plenty of best perfume. Don’t smile at him, make him work for you.” All the while he rubbed his dry hands together and tightly smiled at his cunning and good fortune.

“Don’t worry father, your life will never be the same after Saturday.” She kissed him on his leathery cheek and slid out of the room vigorously wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Brosnan slapped his thighs. He couldn’t believe his luck.

Saturday morning broke hot and nervous over the fairground at Santa Bovinaria. The sun, a blazing shield, flashed and sparkled amongst the bright plastic bunting strung over the tents and through the trees. The Constantino circus arrived in subdued mood. Four scrawny bulls tethered to a red rope halter stumbled along behind the truck as they drove across the arena, coming to a halt under a tatty old Balata tree on the far side. Juan sullenly cooked breakfast. Angelica, with head bowed, fed the children and menagerie but not the bulls. Using his feet and toes, Carlos shredded calming herbs into a battered trough of tepid water. He would encourage the goats, mongoos, blind turkeys, armadillos and bulls to drink it. And maybe, he thought, a spoonful into Juan's violent morning coffee. Dreamy thoughts of Gusty Belle mingled with the calming vapours as he waited to perform his first act of one sided love at two o’clock that afternoon.

At one o’clock Gusty Belle, full of energy and resolve, covered in perfume and wearing her best summer dress, ran into the cool disused library of the Bandolini villa and with sure strokes, pumped up the back tire on an old black-framed bicycle. She placed in the front carrier a battered leather handbag which contained a rosary, two hundred and fifty pesos in tightly folded notes, a comb and brush, four love letters - one each from the lithesome Caballero brothers - a photograph of her cat and a loaded, ivory handled pistol her father had presented to her a month before on her fourteenth birthday. She pressed her thumb into the tire, tossed the pump into the basket, scooted into the hall, out the front door and, shrieking with ecstasy, pounded down the wooden steps off the veranda, onto the path, and out the gate. She stood up on the pedals, flying past the shop fronts only to meet with the gaudy bandanas and bowler hats of the Caballero family who were making their way like some magnificent eruption to see the famous armless juggler.

Her bicycle bucked and rattled, the Caballeros danced in a wild circles, six blew recapitulations on high Andean pan pipes and the four beautiful brothers ran alongside her. They made love to her with their eyes, their open shirts, their pounding legs, their wild whoops and their various salacious thoughts. Gusty Belle was torn between a near eviscerating desire to consummate her lust for them and her raw ambition for freedom and riches. Freedom and riches won, and she outpaced the four lithesome brothers in a lather of lust and determination.

Brosnan, sitting high in the special seating for dignitaries, smiled at the sight of his daughter. He watched as she pushed through the crowd. Her thin dress clung to her thighs and belly and her straight haughty shoulders aroused the entire crowd. She could have subjugated an entire army.

Suddenly the crowd hushed. Gusty froze as she watched Carlos walk on. This was the man she’d chosen to run away with. He was deformed. He walked awkwardly, swinging each expanded thigh around the other and with each powerful step he threw his upper body to the side to compensate for the enormous weight of muscle. His face was handsome but his armless torso filled her with fear. And when he lay on his back, a weak position for a man, she felt bile rise in her throat. Juan tossed in a blind turkey and Carlos swept it gently into the air. Juan tossed the remaining four in with precise, predetermined timing. In Gusty Belle's eyes Carlos looked pathetic. But slowly it all began to change. She began to feel a strange tingling. She became aware of how he virtually erupted with energy. Carlos locked eyes onto Gusty Belle, he had four goats, two blind turkeys and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego winging high above his head and, never taking his eyes off her, he made a fountain of them, then a figure of eight. And, by the time the crowd had risen to their feet in disbelief, each face impossibly happy, each man, woman and child ecstatic and delirious with the magnificence of the impossible, she had begun to lust for him so badly that every last dribble of restraint left her body, and, in a wave of catastrophically insane desire she began to fight her way towards him.

Inside her leather handbag the loaded pistol jostled about. A loop from the silk bow that tied the bundle of love letters from the four lithesome Caballeros tangled around the trigger.

Brosnan watched her in disbelief and began screaming at her to get back.

The heaving crowd, packed with peasants, sideshow hustlers, good time girls, beggars and soldiers arose as one sweltering body as Juan pulled the first bull over to Carlos, and, boosting it with his own enormous strength helped Carlos propel it high into the air. That rough crazy crowd, swimming in haze and dust, deafened by their own howls of approval, pressed forward. Juan pulled the second bull in and it rose up powerfully as the first one descended. Gusty Belle, full of insane lust, struggled on. Juan didn’t see Carlos crazy eyes and he didn’t feel the madness of Gusty Belle as he pulled the third bull over. It rose up bellowing for life. Carlos began to hurt. His thighs screamed for relief. He was deafened by the bellowing of the bulls and the howling of the crowd. Gusty Belle, her face streaked with dust, used the banner-strewn arena rope to try and pull herself closer. Juan ran forward with the fourth bull, he could see Carlos' back arching and his lips pulled tight over his teeth from the impossible pain. Angelica rushed forward and wiped the rivers of sweat from Carlos’ eyes. Carlos’ eyes burned into Gusty Belle. The crystal bowl sparkled in the sun and the fourth bull rose high into the parched air of Santa Bovinaria. The bellowing foaming flying bulls and the bawling of the crowd and the dust and the heat became such a tremendous thunderous mixture, it pummeled the ground and the senses. Gusty Belle, numbed and deafened, struggled on, momentarily caught up in a tangle of banners. The trigger of the pistol, deep inside the battered leather handbag, snapped back. A silent bullet tore through the side and on through the thunder, ecstasy, dust, love and lust of the moment, flying in a blink to shatter the holy crystal bowl, spilling the anti gravitational, sanctified herbs, the double harvest moon hibiscus and the voodoo oils into the dust. Yet, the crazy spectacle kept on. Long enough for Gusty Belle to throw herself onto Carlos and feel his phantom arms around her, long enough for him to know this was the greatest love of all time, long enough for Brosnan Bandolini to feel a searing fatal pain rip through his chest; long enough for the four foaming, galloping, bellowing bulls to hurtle down out of the inscrutable blue sky and with an impact that set the crowd back, to pulverize Carlos and Gusty Belle deep, deep, into the unforgiving, hot, sweet, fish and futile earth of the fairground at Santa Bovinaria.