Free Vigilantes of Love by John Everson Page A

extended. He had stepped, without seeing, from thick rope onto thin, slicing wire. Ahead, where the protective nets again began below, the wire rejoined the treadable thickness of rope.
    He would not be safe until he’d truly walked the wire.
    Tears were already slipping down his cheeks from the pain, but he would not, could not stop. To stop now would mean death. Or at the very least, a broken back.
    Another step, and the skin of his feet was separating, slipping down in a wet, bloody kiss around the wire. He lifted his right foot, feeling the skin sucking at the steel as he pulled it up and away, only to place it down again.
    He screamed.
    And stepped.
    Cried, “Oh my god, my god!”
    And stepped.
    The audience was aware that something wasn’t right, and the background noise grew in volume as people pointed and chattered and a thousand voices whispered, “Oh dear, oh my.”
    He could feel the web between the second and third toes of his left foot give way with a painful tear and he nearly fell again, wobbling off balance, arms akimbo, waving from side to side but still his legs were not stopping, not slowing, no. He put his right foot down, bloody, shredded and fire-hot to the razoring foot garrote and swore every curse he knew in a foul blue stream, no longer caring if the audience heard or saw his moment of weakness. Now it was life or death for him.
    This wasn’t a performance.
    This was a survival test.
    This was a punishment.
    At last the filleted remnant of his right foot came down on what seemed to be a foot-wide support of rope, and he pulled his left forward to match.
    He’d made it. Whoever had done this, he’d beaten them. He’d survived.
    He looked down at the familiar surface, checking to see if more foot irritants lurked in the last third of his journey across the sky of the Big Top.
    The rope was free of exposed wire and golden tinsel. In their place, was a new decoration.
    Every remaining foot of his walk was marked off with what looked like raven-smooth ribbons. Ribbons made of long, black twists of hair. The slippery, red blood of his foot was dripping down the satiny locks of one curl even now.
    Reind knew whose hair had been shorn to decorate his rope.
    Reind knew whose costume the golden tassels had been ripped and clipped from.
    And when he finally reached the platform at the end of his faltering walk, when he slumped down on his knees to cry and shake with relief on the plywood surface, and saw the glass jar with a fist-sized, bloody organ floating inside, Reind knew whose heart had been cut out.
    The doctor cleaned and stitched and dressed his feet, and assured him that he would be able to walk the ropes again. If he wanted to. Reind didn’t ask about the new jar perched on the doctor’s medicine shelf. The jar with something kidney-shaped floating inside.
    Back at his trailer, Erin waited.
    “They said you had some trouble with your walk today,” she cooed, one eyebrow raised in an innocent question. “Oh my, what happened to your feet?”
    He set the crutches aside and collapsed on the bed next to her, where she kissed his forehead and stroked his hair.
    “My poor baby,” she said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    Reind shivered and shook his head. “I don’t think so. Some things just can’t be said.”
    She stood up, shaking her head in agreement. “I’m glad you think so. I feel the same way.”
    She walked over to her shelves, and pulled a jar from the top. “Your mother gave me this today,” she said, holding it out in front of her, as if to catch the light to see something hidden inside.
    “She asked me what I thought about adding it to the display of two-headed calves and conjoined twins and all the rest of the twisted mutants they have jarred up over there in the Freak Show. I told her I thought so, but I said I’d ask you. What do you think?”
    Reind took the proffered jar and stared deep within its yellow, formaldehyde waters. Inside, a tiny Tom Thumb floated,