Voltaire once said “God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh” and I fucking believe it. All you can do in this world is get a good chuckle out of stupid people and the shit they dust up. Or go insane.

I spent most of the better parts of my childhood in the same house. Listening to Mama sing. Listening to her laugh. Smelling breakfast in the morning cooking on the stove. Listening to Papa play zydeco in the kitchen.

I was nine when they died.

There’s times when I forgive him. My brother. When I can understand what made him so angry, so full of fear. He was close to Mama and Papa too so that made me the only family he had left. He’d just come back from Korea and suddenly he had to take care of his little brother, had to be the provider. That’s a lot to put on a person. I dunno. There’s times when I think he just wanted me to be safe, that he was simply scared that I’d be hurt. Sometimes I think I can understand his reasons.

Sometimes.

He loved the military. That was his whole life. It defined his walk, his stiff puffed-out chest and his stern eyebrows, the way he talked, the way he looked at you. He was always trying to find something out. Like an owl. He had eyes like a fucking owl. Always hungry for something to pounce on.

He loved every minute of it. He used to play Soldiers with me when he stayed at our house. Before he shipped out. He was always the leader because he was bigger and older than me. I’d argue that sometimes and he’d always fly into a rage if I didn’t do what he asked. Mama used to get angry when he’d get especially mean, when he’d tease me till I cried. “You’re ten years older than him” she’d tell him, her finger shaking at him. “You can’t be so rough with him, Anthony. You’re supposed to protect him. Not hurt him.”

He’d just laugh and say he was joking around. So I don’t know. Maybe it was there the whole time. That anger. I don’t know where it came from. But he always had it to draw from. Long as I’d known him.

When he came home from Korea, something changed I think. I don’t know what happened to him. He never talked about it much, except later when he got drunk and then you couldn’t understand him.

But whatever it was that fueled him, that made him fly into berserker rages, it got louder, stronger, more violent when he came home. The Army took all of that anger before and made him razor-sharp. Made it a bulldozer. Made him good at being angry. And then Mama and Papa died and that was all the family I had left.

They ran Mama and Papa off the road. They were drunk, my aunts told me. Stupid white boys, drunk and looking to mess up something or someone. Angry at Papa for not playing what they wanted at the club that night.

My father was a good man. Strong. Honest. Sure of himself. He was a musician. He had money in his pocket and he held his head high. And I will never forgive those sonuvabitches for that. For making him pay just because he was proud of who he was.

Anthony used to make me run miles with him in the morning. My sides would feel like they were set on fire and my stomach would tighten up with hunger. We didn’t eat breakfast until they were done. Anthony’s rules. Always Anthony’s rules.

He used to whip me with that belt for all sorts of little stupid things. My grades were his biggest excuse. No. That’s not completely true. My liking boys. That pissed him off more than anything. He was in charge, he would say, and by god I was gonna tow the line.

I remember this one time, when he caught me kissing a boy at the local pool. I just thought the other boy was fascinating. He had the most beautiful eyes, like smoke trapped in a marble. A smattering of freckles that dappled across his nose. And an almost musical smile. I mean, I was 13 at the time. I didn’t know. But Anthony was furious. He took me home and he whipped me with that belt. He said he wasn’t going to let me turn into some nasty faggot. That he had to make me strong. That faggots burned in Hell for doing nasty things. He was trying to save me from myself, he’d say. And then that leather would whistle through the air.

Eventually he started just going crazy with it. I used to roll up into a ball and cover my head, letting him wail on my back or on my arms. It’s funny the shit you learn. I got asked too many questions by kids at school about black eyes and welts on my face. So I started using my arms. You could always wear long-sleeves and nobody would ever know.

Clever me.

I finally couldn’t take it anymore. Three years I spent with him. And I had had enough. I had to find some way of getting away from him. I knew my aunts and uncles. I knew they loved Anthony. I knew they thought he was doing right by me. So I couldn’t go looking for help from them.

I missed Mama and Papa. But they couldn’t help me now.

It was the circus that found me. Not the other way around. That’s how I see it anyway. They were in town one night at the fairgrounds, sometime in the summer. My friend Willy Belden took me to see them. We ended up sneaking our way in without paying.

It was one of the three fortune-tellers that first talked to me. Meerlinda. The younger one. She heard me peeking under her tent I think, watching her read the fortune of some skinny guy with a thin moustache. When he finally left, a little sad but mostly at peace with the news, she just sat straight ahead with her back to us, and said, as if she was greeting her own sons, “Well… are you boys gonna spend all night watching me from under that tent flap. Or are you gonna come and sit with me so I can read your fortunes?”

My friend Willy panicked and scrambled away. Leaving just me. So I figured, yeah what the hell. Worse she could do is call the cops. I’d probably get it from Anthony anyhow.

I slid under the canvas and went in to her tent for real. Took a seat across from her at the little table with the black cloth draped across it. She was really beautiful. Pretty enough to be a movie star. Long brown hair. She had this look of generosity on her, y’know?

I asked her if she was going to call the cops and she grinned. “Should I?” she asked. And I told her no. She smiled wider and stared off over my shoulder. “I didn’t think so” she said.

Her eyes were barren. No spark. Nothing. But everything else kept in her face. Took me a little while to figure it out as I’d never seen a blind person before. But the room was warm and inviting. All the threats, all the noise outside, seem banished the longer I stayed.

She asked me what my name was and I told her.

“Give me your hand, Clarence” she said and she stretched hers out, palms up, to take mine. I clasped her fingers and tried not to look afraid. “Close your eyes” she told me “and let’s see what your future has in store”.