Free The Dog Says How by Kevin Kling

Fairy and her Cavalier dance a pas de deux. Marie awakes from her dream and finds herself by the tree with her beloved nutcracker.
    In rehearsal I learned I would play a character called Madame Bonbonniere and also the Judge hosting the party. I felt confident about playing the Madame. She has lots of makeup, a huge wig, stilts, and children dressed as mice who startle her as they emerge from her dress. It’s fun and wacky.
    But this Judge presents a problem. Joining me on stage will be members of the American Ballet Theatre and beautiful dancers from the Minnesota company. I’ll have to actually dance. Besides, tights are not kind to me. My friend Buffy Sedlachek says my knees look like I’m smuggling walnuts. And after years of writing, my body is in the shape of a question mark, instead of the preferred exclamation point. My body doesn’t say, “I’m here!” It says, “I’m here?”
    Not to be daunted, I employ an old stage trick. When in doubt, get a mustache and have the size of the mustache grow in an inverse ratio to the talent of the performer. I looked at the mustaches in stock and then had the costumer go out and buy me a jumbo one. Then, I dug out my college makeup kit, and found a base called “Leading Man Pancake.” It’s the color of humans that I imagine are found in remote sections of Sicily. I have never known anyone to use it, but with this mustache—the cross between a helicopter and a dog—riding my upper lip, and “Leading Man,” nobody would be looking at my legs.
    Opening night was spectacular. The Judge went off without a hitch. I had some trouble with the Madame’s wig and almost stepped on a mouse child, but even that seemed to flow unnoticed.
    In the receiving line following the show, a patron was going down the row of dancers gushing praise. “How wonderful, how beautiful.” When she got to me she said, “And you, what a good sport.” Good sport? Hmmm. Later on at the party, a mouse child told me she liked last year’s Madame Bonbonniere better than mine. Children can be so . . . honest. I was crushed. Later that night the little boy playing Fritz came up to me and gave me a hug. He is six years old and already an amazing dancer. I asked him his secret.
    He said, “You know what you need to do?”
    I said, “What?”
    He said, “Every dancer has a diamond on their chest. You need to show that diamond all the way to the back of the theater.”
    After that night I let my art fly out the diamond on my chest. I was never very good, but you would’ve never guessed it by my joy. My favorite part about the show was watching the kids in all the wings offstage and the looks on their faces as the principal dancers took the stage. And by the looks on their faces, this was much better than smashing a grape with a hammer.

circus
    When I was twenty-six, I ran away to the circus, toward the marvelous adventure that awaited anyone who answered the newspaper ad for auditions. What was promised was six months creating a circus and performing in towns down the Mississippi River, from Brainerd, Minnesota, to New Orleans. What it foretold was adventure—Huck Finn–style, lazy days, and hanging out with river folk, and the wild and romantic life of a circus performer.
    I called the number. “I’d like to audition.”
    “Oh, alright.”
    “Are there animals?” I asked.
    “No animals, we’re not that kind of circus. It’s a puppet circus,” said the man.
    “Okay. Do we live on the boat?”
    “No boat, we have buses. We’re looking at a boat.”
    “Oh.”
    “The pay is $25 per week.”
    “Oh. Okay.”
    “We will provide housing; tents mostly.”
    “Oh.”
    “And food. All you can eat.”
    Say no more. I’m there. This is better than I hoped.
    At the audition I told them I could puppeteer, walk stilts, and play the baritone horn, and they were thrilled. I left confident enough to quit my job at the chow mein noodle factory, find a horn, and someone to teach me how to walk on