one-man circus

I threw the ball at my cousin Dennis as hard as I could, wanting to impress him. The ball landed smack in the center of his glove.

"Whew! Damn, you got some arm on ya, kid!" He whistled long and low through his teeth. I tried to hide the proud smile that slid across my lips as he lobbed the ball back to me. My arm was good, strong enough to pitch little league. All of the coaches said so. They loved the natural leftie curve of my fast ball. But my dad wouldn't let me.

"Baseball's no place for a girl. Besides, I paid $2,000 for those braces in your mouth. You're not gonna get them knocked out for nothin."

I settled for softball, throwing slow, arching, underhand pitches. Playing on my own time, I threw overhand, hard and fast.

It had been a few years since I had last seen Dennis, and I wanted to show him my stuff. Besides, this was a special occasion. Dennis, my cousin Robert, Aunt Mal and Uncle Leo all lived in Queens. They thought Jersey was a contagious plague, and rarely visited us. They were all visiting for the day, and I wanted to soak up every second with Dennis.

As we were throwing the ball back and forth, I noticed that Dennis' right arm was a little shorter than the left. A bulbous bone jutted out from his right elbow. I had never noticed this before.

"Hey, Dennis?"

"Yep."

"What happened to your elbow?"

The ball thwacked in Dennis' glove and he paused. A shadow passed over his face. He narrowed his eyes at me, and I felt a nervous quiver in my stomach. Dennis tossed the ball up and down, looking from me to the ball. I waited and watched, not knowing what he would do next.

I had always loved to visit Dennis and his family. They lived in a high rise apartment building across the street from an elevated train. Its rumblings shook the martini glasses in Aunt Mal's china cabinet. I spent hours gazing into that cabinet. Aunt Mal and Uncle Leo were the only relatives that had ever vacationed outside of Long Island. This cabinet contained the evidence of their travels. There were conch shells from Bermuda, beaded bags from the Bahamas and tambourines from Puerto Rico. I pressed my nose up against the glass of the cabinet until a fog appeared. Aunt Mal gently tugged me away, windexing the smudge out of the pristine glass.
Aunt Mal was chic and exotic. She wore long, flowing floral dresses, and musical charm bracelets decorated her arms. Her long neck was offset by the sleek pageboy haircut she always wore. She slurped martini after martini out of elegant glasses, biting green olives off of a tiny plastic sword she swiveled in her drinks. She was the only relative who didn't drink her drinks out of a can. Aunt Mal taught me to make Shirley Temples and let me plunge my own miniature sword into a bottle of maraschino cherries. I swirled my cherry sword in my drink just as she did, leaning my head back and laughing wildly for no reason.

Dennis was 15 years older than me. He was like a living jungle gym. He let us swing from his bulging biceps and sit on his strong shoulders. Dennis had a tremendous boa constrictor he kept in a fish tank spanning the length of one bedroom wall. He fed it live white mice that squiggled as they disappeared into the dark cavern of the boa's mouth. We watched in awe and disgust as the bulge of the mouse traveled down the snake's scaly belly.

Aunt Mal had hated how Dennis fed the mice to the snake, tossing them into the tank like socks into a hamper. She assumed the feeding duties, preparing a last supper of sorts for each and every sacrificial mouse. The refrigerator was stocked full of expensive cheeses in blocks and wheels and colorful wrappers. She selected a specific platter for each mouse, arranging the carefully cubed pieces artfully on her good china.

"There you go, pretty. Doesn't that look just delicious?" she piped in an overly chipper chirp.

Once the mouse was bloated to bursting with cheese, Aunt Mal caressed the half-dozing creature to sleep. It was at that moment that she carried it into the boa's tank, crooning "I love you, little mouse. You're the prettiest little thing. Sleep soundly, little one." She gently laid the sleeping mouse in a corner of the tank and walked away without looking back, shutting the light off and clicking the door closed behind her.

The streets surrounding Aunt Mal's building were cluttered with kids. Even from high up in the apartment, you could hear their giggles and games. Dennis devised a game of his own for the kids. He draped the boa dramatically around his shoulders and put a jacket on over it.

"Dennis, god damn you. Leave those kids alone!" Aunt Mal scolded every time.

"Whaddya talkin about, Ma? They love me down there. I'm like Elvis." Dennis snickered.
For extra effect, he folded his upper eyelids back, exposing bulging white eyeballs and the fleshy red undersides of his eyelids. I smacked my hands over my own eyes, fearing Dennis' eyeballs would pop out of his head without the protection of his upper lids. He loved to torture us with this maneuver, and could comfortably keep his eyelids flipped up for whole minutes.

"I'm warnin you, Dennis!" With that, a burst of air disturbed the curtains as Dennis slammed the door shut behind him. We waited several tense moments for Dennis to make his way down to the sidewalk below. One minute, children were skipping rope and playing manhunt, all laughter and shouts. In an instant, shrill shrieks ripped through the air as Dennis presumably unveiled his surprise. Sneakers pounded pavement and baseballs were abandoned as children scurried for the safety of home. Uncle Leo sat by the window and looked down on the scene, quietly chuckling to himself.

"Don't you encourage him, Leo!" Aunt Mal warned. Uncle Leo shrugged his shoulders and continued gazing out the window. The left side of his face twitched uncontrollably. It looked as though he wore a permanent half-smile, and his left eye winked devilishly. He was quiet and kind, always producing a handful of quarters or gumdrops from his pockets. Although he was taller than Aunt Mal, he seemed dwarfed by her personality.

Dennis burst back through the apartment door, eyelids still flipped up and snake still coiled around his neck.

"Gimme him, ya bastard!" Aunt Mal swatted his arm and Dennis deposited the snake around his mother's neck. He cackled maniacally as he headed to his bedroom.

"Christ almighty, this thing is heavy. Robert, put him in his tank."

"Meow," my cousin Robert responded from a corner of the living room.

Robert was just a few years younger than Dennis. There were three things of note about him: one, he made random cat noises for no apparent reason. In the middle of a seemingly normal conversation, he would let out a high-pitched meow, smirk, and continue with the conversation. Two, he had a tick similar to that of Uncle Leo's. Robert would blink both eyes in rapid succession, his mouth twisted into a forced grin with each blink. Three, he smelled everything. As he took the boa off of Aunt Mal's shoulders, he sniffed it. As he walked past a light pole, he sniffed it. Before laying a napkin across his lap, he sniffed it! No one ever questioned him or commented on it, so I looked the other way, afraid my glare would betray the curiosity bouncing around my brain.

Robert carried the boa out of the room and back to its tank. He returned quickly, shaking his head and blinking wildly.

"Whassa matter with you?" Aunt Mal slurred, martini in hand, olive sword in mouth.

"Dennis. Ya gotta see for yourself." Robert chuckled.

"Dennis! Whatta ya doin now?"

Dennis strolled out of his room with a wicked smile and puffed up cheeks. He shrugged his shoulders innocently.

"What's that in your mouth?" Aunt Mal whispered, afraid of the answer.

Dennis opened his mouth wide to reveal a tiny white mouse sitting on his serpentine tongue. The apartment erupted in screeches.

"That's my son!" Uncle Leo shook with belly laughs.

"Dennis, ya jack ass! Ya gonna get some kinda tongue disease. Spit it out!" Aunt Mal sloshed her martini from side to side.

Robert meowed and blinked repeatedly. I covered my eyes and peeked out between the cracks of my fingers. Mice made my stomach do somersaults, but I couldn't keep my eyes off of the action.
Dennis strode over to me and peeled my fingers away from my face. He bent down with his fist closed in front of his mouth and swallowed hard. I watched the bob of his Adam's apple and wondered where the white mouse would end up.

"Ahhh!" Dennis sighed with his mouth wide open. I peeked back to his tonsils, looking to see if the mouse was marooned there.

"Wait a minute," Dennis paused. "What's that?" Dennis asked, staring at the side of my head.

"What's what?" I asked, every inch of me tense with anticipation.

"I don't know, kid. Ya got somethin stickin out your ear. Hold still now."

Dennis reached for my left ear with both of his hands. I felt the cold poke of his finger on my earlobe, followed by a soft, warm fuzz. The fuzz wriggled near my ear. I squealed and pulled away.

"Now, how'd he get in there?" Dennis held the mouse by its tail in front of my face. Aunt Mal smacked him on the back of the neck and took me by the hand.

"Ya sonofabitch. Go do somethin useful! Come on, sweetheart. Let's get us some more drinks." I let Aunt Mal lead me into the kitchen and looked over my shoulder at Dennis. He popped the mouse back into his mouth like popcorn. The tiny white tail wagged back and forth, smacking against his lips.

Visiting Dennis was like having my own one-man circus. I never knew what he was going to do next.

Dennis continued to toss the ball up and down. His jaw was set and the veins in his neck bulged.

"Dennis?" My voice shook with uncertainty.

Dennis buried the ball in his glove and stared straight at me. A wide smile swept over his face, but I still felt a sense of unease.

"Hey, Noreen?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to your face?"

"Huh?

"Ya look like the moon. Crater face."

Dennis' eyes were ice. The breath left my chest and my eyes brimmed with burning tears. I looked away as my vision blurred. All around me were green misty trees and bright sun. It was like looking up from under the surface of the ocean. The edges of everything were fuzzy and uncertain.

An intense pain ripped into the right side of my mouth. Something had hit me, but I didn't know what.

"Shit!" Dennis shouted and ran towards me. I tongued the inside of my mouth and felt my braces biting into my upper lip. The salty taste of blood coated my mouth and my stomach lurched. I spit blood into the grass, barely missing the baseball that lay at my feet.

"Jeez, kid. I'm really sorry. You okay?" Dennis bent down and peered at my already swelling lip. The sweat ran down his forehead and dripped off his nose.

"I thought you were lookin. Honest. I never woulda hit ya...."

I cried silently, afraid to move my mouth and disturb the hornet's nest of pain that had settled there.

"Come on. Let's get ya home. Boy, your old man's gonna kick my ass. I really am sorry, kid. No hard feelings, right cousin?" He rested his hand on my shoulder and guided me home. His fingers drummed nervously as my mouth pulsated with pain.

"Noreen! Oh my God. What happened to you?" My mother rushed to my side, followed closely by Aunt Mal. I tried to speak, but the barbs of the braces digging into my lip made my mouth clumsy.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Maureen. My fault. I threw it when she wasn't lookin. This is one tough kid. Didn't even scream or nothin."

"What the hell's wrong with you, Dennis? She's just a little girl." Aunt Mal scolded.

"Yeah, but she d0esn't throw like a little girl. Do ya, champ?" He ruffled my hair. At that moment, I felt strangely proud.

"What happened here?" My father walked into the room, carrying an unopened can of Bud.

"Noreen got hit with the ball," my mother explained.

"See? That's exactly why I don't want her playin ball. What good're the braces if she's just gonna get her teeth knocked out playin ball."

"No, Uncle John. She's great. It was me. I wasn't payin attention."

"Yeah? Well, if she needs to see the dentist I'm sendin you the bill."

"Okay. I got it covered. Sorry, Uncle John."

"You all right? Here, put this on your mouth." Dad looked down at me and handed me his cold can of beer. I held it against my fat lip, welcoming the numbing comfort of the can.

"Dennis. Go get her an aspirin. And get me another beer."

"No problem, Uncle John. You okay, kid?" he asked, winking down at me. I nodded and felt the beginnings of a headache behind my eyes.

"Come on, sweetheart. Let's lay you down on the couch. That bastard son of mine. Lucky he didn't take your eye out."

Aunt Mal and Mom guided me to the couch and made me comfortable with pillows and blankets. Dennis spent the rest of the day waiting on me, bringing me ice cream and ice packs. The pain subsided, but the ache in my chest remained.

As Dennis and his family were leaving that night, he kneeled over me on the couch to say good-bye.

"We okay, pal?" I shrugged my shoulders and nodded my head.

"Sorry about your face, I mean, your mouth. You're one tough kid." He patted my head and backed out of the room, looking relieved to be away from me.

Mom came to check on me in bed that night. My mouth was feeling better, and I could speak without searing pain.

"Mom?"

"Huh?"

"What happened to Dennis' arm?"

"You mean his elbow?"

"Yeah."

"He fell out of a tree and broke it when he was little. He had surgery, but it never healed right. The kids used to be so mean about it. You know how cruel kids can be."

"Uh huh."

"Night."

"Mom?"

"Yeah."

"I want to try another dermatologist."

It had been a year since I had seen Dr. Putz. Maybe another doctor would have the answer. If my own relatives thought I was ugly, it could only get worse from here.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay. I'll tell your father."

"Okay. Night."

"Night."

I snuggled under the covers, ice pack gently cradling my face, and dreamed of all the magical things the new dermatologist would do for me.