A giant for the circus part 1 of 2

Alfredo’s Amazing circus (afternoon performances Wednesday and Saturday) had just come out of winter quarters and was now packed in its own transport ready for the new summer season. This year we had wintered in Ireland and by dawn tomorrow we’d be on our way to the mainland with a full year’s bookings. The future was looking rosy in the short term at least and I was rather surprised when I heard a rumpus coming from the trailer area.

“Hey governor come and look at this!”

A group of roustabouts were staring in amazement at a huge figure of a man in their midst who was gesticulating wildly and grunting in some unintelligible language. He was certainly a sight worth seeing for a circus owner. He must have been nearly 9ft tall, which in itself was exceptional. Many so called giants are nowhere near that height and have nearly always outgrown their strength. This guy was not only tall but well fleshed as well.

“He looks a bit simple to me,” said the man who had called me over, “but wouldn’t he be a terrific strong man act if we could get him to sign up with us!”

Unfortunately we had no language in common. Several of the crew come from strange locations but none of them could understand a word he said. He looked a bit chubby and well fed to me, so I told the bloke nearest to me to run over to the cook’s trailer and fetch a couple of large platefuls of grub.

The giant smiled happily when the food arrived and scoffed the lot in no time flat. Then he held out the empty plates and grunted in that strange language of his.

“I think he wants more,” I said, "keep topping him up until he stops and then let me know how much extra food we’ll have buy if he decides to come with us.”

I walked back to my trailer thinking hard. No other circus had a giant this well built that I knew of, play my cards right and we could make a fortune with him, more than enough to cover the cost of any extra food.

Half an hour later the cook came to see me. The giant had eaten ten platefuls of food and then lay down on the ground and gone to sleep. He’d made no new noises but looked pleased to be with us and had given us a beautiful smile.

The next morning he woke up, walked over to the canteen and was first in the queue for breakfast. He looked even bigger in daylight than I’d imagined, but rather interestingly he appeared very pale as if he’d not been out in the sunshine for a long time. He was certainly very strong however, one of the tow trucks had got itself bogged down in the mud and the driver had gone to try and find a tractor. The giant just wandered over a little unsteadily and pulled it out by himself.

I couldn’t make him understand the need to sign papers if he wanted to come with us, so in the end I took the standard form and guiding his hand made a very wobbly cross on the page. He stared at the mark on the paper and giggled happily, I don’t think he’d ever written anything before. The whole concept seemed completely alien to him. After that it was just a case of trying to teach him strong man tricks.

However the first thing we had to do was teach him his name. I’d written the name Bush Mills on his agreement form because that was the name of the place where we’d found him. So we all agreed just to call him Bush. Even so it took him about a week before he would answer to his name