John Irving - Avenue of Mysteries

“Los niños de la basura,” Juan Diego and Lupe heard one of the head-less flamingos say. The dump kids hadn’t known they would be recognized at the circus, but Oaxaca was a small city.

“Cunt-brained, half-dressed flamingos,” Flor observed, saying nothing more; Flor, of course, had been called worse names.

In the seventies, there was a gay bar on Bustamante, in the neighborhood of Zaragoza Street. The bar was called La China, after someone with curly hair. (The name was changed about thirty years ago, but the bar on Bustamante is still there — and still gay.)

Flor felt at ease; she could be herself at La China, but even there they called her La Loca—“The Crazy Lady.” It was not all that common, in those days, for transvestites to be themselves — to cross-dress everywhere they went, the way Flor did. And in the parlance of the crowd at La China, their calling Flor “La Loca” had a gay connotation — it amounted to calling her “The Queen.”

There was a special bar for the cross-dressers, even in the seventies. La Coronita—“The Little Crown”—was on the corner of Bustamante and Xóchitl. It was a party place — the clientele was mostly gay. The transvestites all dressed up — they cross-dressed like crazy, and everyone had a good time — but La Coronita was not a place for prostitution, and when the transvestites arrived at the bar, they were dressed as men; they didn’t cross-dress until they were safely inside The Little Crown.

Not Flor; she was always a woman, everywhere she went — whether she was working on Zaragoza Street or just partying on Bustamante, Flor was always herself. That was why she was called The Queen; she was La Loca everywhere she went.

They even knew her at La Maravilla; the circus knew who the real stars were — they were the ones who were stars all the time.

Edward Bonshaw was only now discovering who Flor was, as he tramped through elephant shit at Circus of The Wonder. (To Señor Eduardo, “The Wonder” was Flor.)

A juggler was practicing outside one of the troupe tents, and the contortionist called Pajama Man was limbering up. He was called Pajama Man because he was as loose and floppy as a pair of pajamas without a body; he moved like something you might see hanging on a clothesline.

Maybe the circus isn’t such a good place for a cripple, Juan Diego was thinking.

“Remember, Juan Diego — you are a reader,” Señor Eduardo said to the worried-looking boy. “There is a life in books, and in the world of your imagination; there is more than the physical world, even here.”

“I should have met you when I was a kid,” Flor told the missionary. “We might have helped each other get through some shit.”

They made way in the avenue of troupe tents for the elephant trainer and two of his elephants; distracted by the actual elephants, Edward Bonshaw stepped in another enormous mound of elephant shit, this time with his good foot and the one clean sandal.

“Merciful God,” the Iowan said again.

“It’s a good thing you’re not moving to the circus,” Flor told him.

“The elephant shit isn’t small,” Lupe was babbling. “How does the parrot man manage not to see it?”

“My name again — I know you’re talking about me,” Señor Eduardo said cheerfully to Lupe. “ ‘El hombre papagayo’ has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“You not only need a wife,” Flor told the Iowan. “It would take an entire family to look after you properly.”

They came to the cage for the three lionesses. One of the lady lions eyed them languidly — the other two were asleep.

“You see how the females get along together?” Flor was saying; it was increasingly clear that she knew her way around La Maravilla. “But not this guy,” Flor said, stopping at the solitary lion’s cage; the alleged king of beasts was in a cage by himself, and he looked disgruntled about it. “Hola, Hombre,” Flor said to the lion. “His name is Hombre,” Flor explained. “Check out his balls — big ones, aren’t they?”

“Lord, have mercy,” Edward Bonshaw said.

Lupe was indignant. “It’s not the poor lion’s fault — he didn’t have a choice about his balls,” she said. “Hombre doesn’t like it if you make fun of him,” she added.

“You can read the lion’s mind, I suppose,” Juan Diego said to his sister.

“Anyone can read Hombre’s mind,” Lupe answered. She was staring at the lion, at his huge face and heavy mane — not at his balls. The lion seemed suddenly agitated by her. Perhaps sensing Hombre’s agitation, the two sleeping lionesses woke up; all three of the lionesses were watching Lupe, as if she were a rival for Hombre’s affection. Juan Diego had the feeling that Lupe and the lionesses felt sorry for the lion — they seemed almost as sorry for him as they feared him.

“Hombre,” Lupe said softly to the lion, “it’ll be all right. Nothing’s your fault.”

“What are you talking about?” Juan Diego asked her.

“Come on, niños,” Flor was saying, “you have an appointment with the lion tamer and his wife — you don’t have any business with the lions.”

By the transfixed way Lupe was staring at Hombre, and the restless way the lion paced in his cage as he stared back at her, you would have thought that Lupe’s business at Circo de La Maravilla was entirely with that lone male lion. “It’ll be all right,” she repeated to Hombre, like a promise.

“ What will be all right?” Juan Diego asked his sister.

“Hombre is the last dog. He’s the last one,” Lupe told her brother. Naturally, this made no sense — Hombre was a lion, not a dog. But Lupe had distinctly said “el último perro”; the last one, she’d repeated, to be clear—“el último.”

“What do you mean, Lupe?” Juan Diego asked impatiently; he was sick of her endlessly prophetic pronouncements.

“That Hombre — he’s the top rooftop dog and the last one,” was all she said, shrugging. It irritated Juan Diego when Lupe couldn’t be bothered to explain herself.

Finally, the circus band had found its way beyond the beginning of the repeated piece of music. Darkness was falling; lights were turned on in the troupe tents. In the avenue ahead of them, the dump kids could see Ignacio, the lion tamer; he was coiling his long whip.

“I hear you like whips,” Flor said quietly to the hobbling missionary.

“You earlier mentioned a hose,” Edward Bonshaw replied, somewhat stiffly. “Right now, I would like a hose.”

“Tell the parrot man to check out the lion tamer’s whip — it’s a big one,” Lupe was babbling.

Ignacio was watching them approach in the calmly calculating way he might have measured the courage and reliability of new lions. The lion tamer’s tight pants were like a matador’s; he wore nothing but a fitted V-necked vest on his torso, to show off his muscles. The vest was white, not only to accentuate Ignacio’s dark-brown skin; if he were ever attacked by a lion in the ring, Ignacio wanted the crowd to see how red his blood was — blood shows up the brightest against a white background. Even when dying, Ignacio would be vain.

“Forget his whip — look at him, ” Flor whispered to the beshitted Iowan. “Ignacio is a born crowd-pleaser.”

“ And a womanizer!” Lupe babbled. It didn’t matter if she failed to hear what you whispered, because she already knew what you were thinking. Yet the parrot man’s mind, like Rivera’s, was a hard one for Lupe to read. “Ignacio likes the lionesses — he likes all the ladies,” Lupe was saying, but by now the dump kids were at the lion tamer’s tent, and Soledad, Ignacio’s wife, had come out of the troupe tent to stand beside her preening, powerful-looking husband.