IF LOVE WERE A FLOWER

The Wind Changes

Mr. Singer was surprised to find all of the freaks at the theater when he returned from his trip. He had been away to see his family who did not live in New York. Seeing his wife and his children for the first time in ten years had been a shock. The children were grown up and his wife had become old. He had not even recognized them when they met at the train station. It had been an awkward family reunion because to his children he was a stranger. But it had been good to see them all save and happy. Only it was so hard to leave them after the holidays to return to his variety on Coney Island. He wondered whom he would find there - Erik had promised the freaks would stay, all of them, but Singer didn't trust them. As soon as they had their papers they would try to leave - of course he could sue them, but what for? They could easily leave the country now that they had their papers back. A freak had no honor and couldn't be trusted.

Maybe except the masked one. Erik had a vital interest in staying and earning more money now that he was minority shareholder of the company. He surely would be a fool to stop working there now that he directly got his share of the profit. Trust everyone to be a greedy asshole - this rule had served Mr. Singer well in the past so of course he did not assume anything else.

Meg nearly fainted when she saw Mr. Singer coming back. She and her mother had assumed Erik had already killed the man and disposed of his body and was only claiming that his "partner" - to Erik it was very important that he was equal to Mr. Singer now - had gone on holiday to visit his family. Erik had done no such thing for it wouldn't get him anywhere. If Mr. Singer was dead, someone would inherit the shares and most likely sell them. Mr. Singer still reminded Erik of a fat rat, but not one of the nasty, aggressive black sewer rats, more like one of the fluffy multi-colored pet-rats. Erik could live with that, after all, he had enough experience in bringing managers in line - and Mr. Singer was a rather willing manager because he knew that Erik had a talent to create shows that perfectly matched the audience's current taste. It seemed Erik could somehow foresee the tastes of the entertainment seeking masses, so Mr. Singer would have been stupid not to listen to him. There was no need for little misfortunes to happen to bring Sam Singer to listen to Erik's suggestions.

Mr. Singer wanted to go to look for his employees and soon found that a third color had appeared on various doorframes: black. Of course red was still the sign "women only" and blue "men only" but black? What would that mean? He tried the door and was immediately grabbed by muscular black arms.

"Freaks only!" Attamamma snapped and lifted Mr. Singer effortlessly.

"It is my theater!"

"Would you go to the women's bathroom uninvited? No? Well, do the same courtesy to us," she tightened her embrace around Mr. Singer who suddenly feared the strongwoman would crush his ribs.

"Put him down," Joe said gently, "I apologize, Mr. Singer. We should have informed you before we decided on black as the color to mark the rooms reserved to us."

"What is going on here? Are you mad? I knew it was a mistake to give you freaks your papers! You are nothing but trouble!" Mr. Singer complained as soon as he was standing on his feet again. "Where is the masked bastard? It was his idea, wasn't it?"

Erik was in Mr. Singers office, he had redecorated the office adding a second desk and chair for himself and right now discussing the upcoming shows with his team - the team consisted of Benny as the writer, Vincent the designer, the He-She as costume tailor and Madame Giry as ballet mistress and of course Erik himself, who had decided that he would do only magic shows from now on and leave other tasks to others. Well, of course he would provide the music scores for all shows, but he would never admit that he wrote them.

"What is going on here?" Mr. Singer demanded angrily.

Madame Giry paled - she had been convinced that Singer was already dead, killed by Erik. "What is he doing here?" she whispered, but unfortunately Mr. Singer heard her.

"This is still my office and my variety. What are you doing here?"

Erik got up and spread his arms, putting on his most amiable air. "Mr. Singer, just the man we needed to see - we are discussing the new concept for the shows for the next season. Most income came from the late night shows, second the family shows and third the normal shows. I guess we could cancel the normal shows and concentrate on the family and late night business, don't you agree?" Mr. Singer was taken aback and did not know how to answer, at least not in the split second before Erik went on: "The late night shows won't feature freaks - except Tilly Three Legs who volunteered. The rest will only be in the family shows. I strongly suggest to cut down the late night shows and concentrate on the family shows, we are not in a brothel, are we?"

"What the hell do you think you are doing?"

"Running a business?" Erik shot back, "Forgive me if I am mistaken, but don't you want profit? Well, I do."

"Then why do you want to concentrate on the family business? The late night shows bring in much more!"

"Certainly - and I won't stop them. I just said that - save Tilly - no freaks will participate in these," Erik replied smoothly, "Let the norms do the naked-dancing."

"But..."

"Mr. Samuel Singer, it was you who said that this is a variety not a brothel," Erik reminded him, "So I am doing just what you wanted me to do - make business in a serious way. Forget the scandal shows, I think there is much money in the family business."

"Kids don't have money."

"Some have rich parents and I certainly do think we would have a better standing in the family entertainment than in the..." Erik stopped himself and tried to find a word for what he wanted to say. It wasn't easy for he was not sure which ones were common language and which ones were considered rude. Finally he decided to use "sex trade".

It was a rather heated discussion but finally they found an agreement: They would do both - family shows at daytime, shows for adults only at night and no one would be forced to do anything degrading in the adults only shows. Erik could live with that - he even covered himself more in those shows but kept the scary-and-erotic style for those shows. The only difference was that only norms would be naked or nearly naked - the freaks would wear costumes, most of them quite modest for a variety. The only ones to suffer any indignities - besides being on the same stage that is - in the late night shows were the norms. Erik's robes were grey velvet with silver embroidery and they covered him completely, not the tiniest bit of skin was to be seen in the night shows.

In the kid's shows Erik decided to wear a light dove-grey and only a plain white mask and a wig with raven black hair that was tied back with a ribbon. Grey and silver were now the colors he preferred.

To Mr. Singer's surprise the family shows were a great success. The children just loved the masked magician and his music-magic-shows. The profit certainly did not reach the night shows, but it was better than he had anticipated.

What he did not like was that Erik soon insisted that the freaks should be allowed to go out as much as they liked in their spare time. "Who pays to see a freak if he is to be seen for free at the beach?" Mr. Singer argued.

"Do you know circus parades? They just pique the people's curiosity and draw them in. Give it a try, Mr. Singer, will you? Come on - did I not give you enough reason to trust my decisions?"

The first time the freaks dared to go out was in the morning. Erik had decided that they should all enjoy the beach before the tourists would fall in like a swarm of grasshoppers.

"You are so brave," the He-She whispered, nervously smoothing his/her dress. The He-She usually dressed like a woman, small and slim as he/she was. "I think I... I can't..."

"Of course you can!" Erik replied angrily, "The beach is wonderful in the morning!"

"They will be staring," Fleck reminded him.

"Let them. We have as much right to be there as the norms do. We already discussed this: Mr. Singer has no right to cage us here in this run-down building. As long as we do our jobs, we can do in our spare-time whatever we want to." Erik didn't really believe he was saying this for he was as scared as the others about their little stroll to the beach. It was one thing to sneak to "his" pier before sunrise when nobody was in the streets except a few men sleeping it off or going there in broad daylight. But where, if not on Coney Island, would a freak ever be able to go anywhere?

"I'm not sure," Attamamma shifted uncomfortably in her dress, "I feel absolutely ridiculous. In my costume I can at least breathe properly."

"You can't go out with only a loincloth!" Joe sternly interrupted, "You don't want to risk being arrested, do you?"

"I'm still not sure..." Tilly Three Legs piped.

"Out with you before I reconsider!" Erik commanded and together with Squelch and Joe herded the others out into the light-flooded streets. He was shaking with fear himself but determined not to let anyone see it. He wanted to show his friends that there was a place in the world and they mustn't duck down, hide or kneel down and accept any abuse - verbally or otherwise - humbly. They should go out with their heads held high, their spine erect and conquer those who thought them to be inferior. He had quite a hard time convincing himself to do that, to act completely against all of his instincts which told him to run and hide.

It was painful to force himself to go against his instincts, to go out despite his fear - but it would have been harder to confess to his friends that he was as scared as they were, that he was very good in making plans and making great inspring speaches but when it came to doing it himself he was as cowardly as anyone else. Maybe even more so. But right now he was too cowardly to confess his fear - and thus he had just one option: taking the lead and pretending to be brave.

So they went to the beach, but they were not enjoying themselves, in fact, they were too busy hoping to get back home without any unpleasant encounter with norms who might attack them.

It took many tries until they really dared to use their new freedom at least partially. There were businessmen who would tell them to leave when they were too close to their restaurants, cafes or whatever business they had, but there were others who didn't object to the freaks coming to them. A dollar from a freak is still a dollar, isn't it? As long as they paid they would be accepted as customers, as long as other customers didn't complain. Some were even happy to have the freaks as their customers for usually people came to stare at them - and they could demand that these people would buy something. So there was a cafe-bar close to the beach where the freaks were welcomed, sometimes even given drinks for free, for as soon as they would show up a small crowd of nosy people would follow them. It was some sort of unspoken agreement - the freaks would only visit those who welcomed them and avoided the others, but that was fine with them. It was exciting for them to go to a cafe and have a drink and a piece of cake, it really felt like a wonderful adventure acting as if they were norms just for a short time.

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to be continued..

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