The Bear in a Muddy Tutu by Cole Alpaugh Page B

the vomit that must have interrupted his sleep at some point.
    Flint fished out the first tall, skinny bottle his hand came across and cra cked open the blue screw - top . He took three long gulping pulls and then paused with his drinking arm half-cocked, waiting for the heat to find its mark. Flint ’s stomach clenched at the first hit of booze, but the alcohol flooded into his bloodstream within a minute or two, and the world got a little less shaky. After a nother couple of short swigs , Flint ’s crippling headache started to release its grip, the way he imagined an octopus would release an inedible bowling ball.
    He opened the back door , stepped out onto the small deck, unzipp ed his trousers and fumbl ed with his penis. He waited for his cranky prostate to allow him to empty his full bladder, tears building up in his eyes as he willed the urine to come. And just as it did come, with all the relief God could grant a tortured man, h is blurred vision registered all the trucks parked on Fish Head Island.
    “Last night, ” Flint said out loud, foggily recalling the line of trucks off in the night . S omething about circus music, too. The stream of pee dwindled down to single, strained drops, and Flint shook three times and adjusted the bottom half of his uniform.
    “Duty calls . ” Flint was surprised not to hate the idea of having a little duty to perform around this place. Other than that odd little man he’d fished out of the canal and a couple of boys he shooed off for plugging gulls with a .22, not much duty had called in recent months.
    The warden slapped his face with cold water from the little kitchenette sink, strapped on his badass forty-four magnum, and took a few extra quick hits off old Mister Ruski for good luck. He headed out the door to answer the call of duty.
     

Chapter 13
    A lion roared, or maybe just hacked something up, someplace disturbingly close.
    Warden Flint ’s pickup thumped over a deep rut , apparently made by one of the flatbed trucks loaded down with a kid-size roller coaster, and slid to a stop next to where Billy Wayne Hooduk was holding court with two men and a kid.
    The kid, Flint saw upon closer inspection , was actu ally a tiny man with a pencil mustache, standing no more than belt high. One of the other men turned out to have full, torpedo-like breasts to go along with a scraggly beard. The third person had hundreds of metal piercings that puckered, stretched, and did other unnatural looking things to every square inch of his head and face. The man with tits was far less disturbing than the one with earlobe material dangling to his shoulders.
    There was actually a fourth ; Flint nearly tripped over the crudely built stretcher holding a supine man who seemed glued as low to the ground as he could possibly get.
    “Sorry, ” Flint told the guy on the ground.
    “No problem, ” Flat Man answered , tilting his head for a look up at the warden. “Happens all the time. ”
    The fact that the c ircus had come to town was doing nothing to improve Flint ’s hangover.
    Billy Wayne, though, appeared to be in great spirits, breaking away from his odd group to greet Flint as he climbed out of his truck. The hairy - faced man or woman smiled at Flint and bl ew a theatrical kiss before sauntering off around the big truck.
    “I suppose you’re wondering ’ b out all this . ” Bill y Wayne beamed . Flint noticed the troupe had already set up at least four small tents and a couple of cooking fires that sen t spirals of blue smoke into the skuzzy gray sky.
    “They can’t be here . ” Warden Flint slammed his door and leaned against the front quarter panel of his truck. “You might very well be God, but this land is protected marsh. ”
    “It ' s a beautiful place, in its own way . ” Billy Wayne looked out beyond the hulking vehicles. “It’s almost like com ing right down to the end of the world. ”
    Flint closed his eyes and rubbed both temples with his thumbs in tight, hard