Lily hoang
For Deviance
[Exhibit A]
The boy sits in his cage. Sometimes he must dance until the wood of his legs begin to bow. Then, he can sit. He must lean his body into the bars. When people run their hands along his bones, he is happy with they must retreat their bloody fingers. But he is not allowed to betray joy. No, in here, only those with pennies in their palms are given permission to smile.
Between shows, fishing lines are re-knotted, only to be cut, one by one—and the crowd is astonished. They clap.
At night, he does not sleep. Only real boys sleep. There is too much light here, not enough stars, and wooden boys cannot close their eyes.
[Exhibit B]
Hachaliah Bailey made himself a circus all on his own in 1806. He had an African Elephant named Old Bet. As co-stars: a dog, some pigs, a single horse and with it four wagons.
* * *
As a boy, P.T. Barnum worked as a ticket seller for Bailey. As a man, he curated Barnum’s American Museum. A simulation of a zoo, Barnum included animals—and a freak show. On tour, he named his endeavor P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling American Museum.
Two buildings burned, and Barnum understood that he was not constituted for the museum business.
Less than three years later, he was back, and his new show was called P.T. Barnum’s Great Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Hippodrome.
* * *
In 1881, Barnum hooked up with James Anthony Bailey to make the greatest show on Earth.
[Exhibit C]
Larger than a bear!
With a wolf’s dense fur!
“Go ahead. You can touch him, but be very careful. This is a real monster.
He comes straight from legends and fairy tales and right here to you.”
They prod him with a sting and he roars. “Look at those claws!”
The children hide because they are scared. The mothers wish they had gone to the beach. The fathers deny fear.
[Exhibit D]
Tiny girl with a tiny voice, you can hardly see her she is so small.
But look carefully.
There, there. On the stool.
Proudly two inches in height, she is a miniature duplicate of humans.
She could easily slip through the bars, but our world is too big for her. We are her giant monsters. She trembles and yells for help. Some boys in the crowd squint with one eye, place their hands in front for proportion, and pretend to smash her. She remains unharmed because this is not a dream.
[Exhibit E]
No one cares about his hunchback or sagging skin. They want to watch what his fingers can do, how he takes a bundle of hay and makes brocades for the mothers and animal figurines for the children.
It costs extra if you want to keep it, of course, but the children quickly pocket their golden prizes. If caught, they are whipped. If not, it doesn’t matter. What’s the harm in a little selfishness and deceit? Ask the man in there. He can spin you a fabulous story.
[Exhibit F]
If only he could fit through the bars, he would fly away and remain a boy forever.
The audience doesn’t like him though, say there’s no way to prove he’s so old. He looks just like any other boy.
They remove his exhibit and chain him to the big top.
In his place, a bearded woman. She’s a ruse, but she brings the customers in, draws them near, she lets them touch. When she sings, her baritone voice is warm, calming, deceitful.
[Exhibit G]
It isn’t just his beard.
They make him pull down his pants.
Snow is falling lightly. It lands on his penis. It melts from the heat. There is no such thing as pride.
[Exhibit H]
“An admixture of terror and wonder,” Bailey promised his patrons, “a congress of strange people.”
[Exhibit I]
“Say something in Vietnamese.” These are instructions, not a request.
Although some people say Vietmanese, I never correct them.
The whole ordeal is degrading: I refuse to participate.
* * *
In South Africa, I listen for the clicks. IsiXhosa and Zulu sound the same to me.
* * *
“You’re close,” I say, but I don’t mean it.
The other person tries, again, to pronounce my last name.
“Yeah, that’s almost it.” They can’t hear the difference. It’s a cheap thrill, so I keep their embarrassment and smile as blankly as I can.
[Exhibit J]
When the sun reflects off her body, rainbows appear in all the little girls’ eyes.
Afterwards, they dump more salt into her tank. The water holds the same salinity as her tears.
Lily Hoang is the author of five books of prose, including Changing (recipient of a PEN Open Books Award) and A Bestiary (winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center's Non-Fiction Book Prize). With Joshua Marie Wilkinson, she edited the anthology The Force of What's Possible: Writers on Accessibility and the Avant-Garde. In Summer 2017, she was Mellon Scholar in Residence at Rhodes University in South Africa. She is Editor of Jaded Ibis Press and Executive Editor of HTML Giant.