Trained Animals

When Chris and I saw the circus last year, certain things occurred to me that never did when I was a kid. Things like an appreciation for the mindboggling precision required for three people to ride three motorcycles inside a small iron sphere. And other things like, how can such a big production be on the road indefinitely?

It's one thing when bands tour. U2 has their own plane to cart all the tons of lights and stage apparatus around the world. But what if you have six elephants? How do you tour them? And what if you have six elephants and twenty horses and lions and tigers and two hundred people?

The answer, it would seem, is as nicely old-school as the circus itself: They do it by train.

All last week, a train, each car bearing the Ringling Bros logo, has been parked on the tracks just outside of Providence, where they're performing at the Civic Center.

I don't know how many train-cars long it is -- I haven't been able to count -- but it's long. And there are different kinds of cars. Some are clearly cargo, and others are passenger cars -- the windows have things hanging in them, doo-dads and stuff. I wonder what it looks like inside? How would a circus performer decorate his or her little rolling apartment? What would cover the walls? Posters of clowns? Letters from home?

It makes me wonder, too, what all the circus people do when they're in Providence. The show was here almost a week -- that must allow at least a little spare time. Do the acrobats have lunch at Uno's? Does the lion tamer stop at Macy's to pick something up?

Have you ever seen the Ringmaster buy socks?