“360 is my best.”
“Hmm. Is it just me, or is that not much?”
“It’s good. It’s very good. It’s more than most men can…” she trails off.
“But, it’s not even like a record, is it?”
“No.”
“So what I want to know,” I say pulling out the flyer from my pocket and holding it in front of her face. “Is where do you get off calling yourself the ‘strongest woman alive’?”
“I…I don’t know,” she stammers. “What is it you want?”
I stand up, put my hands on my hips, and look around the field. “Hmmm. Y’know Lena, that’s a hell of a question. I mean, in the broader scope of things, I’m thinking world domination of some kind, but tonight, tonight what I was looking for was someone with power. And I really didn’t find it, did I?”
“Just let me go, okay? I’m not going to tell anyone about you.” She props herself up a little.
“Sure, sure, no problem.” I lean down and put my hands on the side of her face, as if to tell her a precious secret and then I twist her neck sharply to the right. She lies there, filthy in her formerly pristine white clothing, staring up blankly at where the stars should be. I feel revolted and scammed. I walk back toward the auditorium muttering to myself, “360 pounds.” Although, the truth is, I have no idea how much I can bench-press. It’s certainly more than 360, though. It’s gotta be. Maybe one day I’ll have to find out.
On my way back to the auditorium I see some trailers for the traveling show and have an idea. There are six trailers, one with ‘Manager’ written on the door. I head over to that one and break in. The lock is cheap and snaps off in my hand. Once inside, I ransack the place looking for a schedule of performances. In one drawer I find exactly what I’m hoping for: a calendar showing other performances throughout the country and a list of other traveling shows, where they’ll be and when. I guess so they can avoid being in the same areas at the same time. It even has a map. It’s all I need to find any other women pretending to be strongwomen. It’s worth checking out. They might not all be as fake as Lena. In fact, there’s a show east of here a few hundred miles with a strongwoman. Yeah, maybe “Joan – The World’s Strongest Woman” will actually have something legit to offer.
°
I ride the rails trying to forget about Jasper. About Rachael and Sharon. My mother and father. And I focus on the idea of starting over until it’s the only thing I can see.
It sounds clean. It feels clean.
The idea of being someone else, maybe in a whole new city, with an entirely new name. With those things, can I also somehow have a new past?
I’m not sure how long I’ve been on the train but at least one night has passed.
On the third night, sleeping in an abandoned car that’s not going anywhere, totally unsure of where this new me should go, I have a different dream of my mother. Though they’re generally all black crows and strange portents I don’t understand, this one is really just a vivid memory of her the year she died, played back in a bright Technicolor dream. It’s one of the last memories I have of her, though I’d long ago forgotten it until now. She’s strong and vibrant here, seeming more like the mother I remember, not like some mythical creature constantly trying to warn me of imagined future danger. And more than just seeming like my mother, she seems like a woman; a girl even.
Just a girl finding her way, like me.
In the dream we’re at a carnival, the tinny familiar music soft in my ears. She’s left me with my brother and my father so we can go on rides and eat sweets, but I’ve given them the slip and followed her through the crowds like a miniature spy, afraid to let her out of my sight, afraid she’ll disappear if I let her. That was always my fear, even then, that she was going to disappear on me.
I watch her from under cover of a clump of rowdy teenagers as she buys a sideshow ticket and slips inside. Though the sights inside are probably alternately fascinating and horrifying to a child of five or six, I’m not paying attention to any of it, because all I can see is the look on my mother’s face. Most people walking through the show gasp in horror, or laugh and point fingers, but my mother’s face is serene; a contemplative, compassionate slate of kindness and solidarity that I can’t understand, like she’s in her own personal church. What is she seeing in the distorted reflections of these people that I cannot? When I emerge from the sideshow I can’t for the life of me remember seeing anything inside except her face.