This is the only short story I’ve ever had published. That journal, “Wanton Words” from somewhere in the States, does not appear to be around anymore. I still have my copy.

******

Sipping from a can of unsweetened coconut nectar, Evergreen watched suburbia unfurl out the limo’s tinted window. “The world’s greatest juggler” hadn’t been on this street in 15 years. He stretched his legs across the leather seat, and nervously rapped his middle finger against the can. He would have rapped his index finger, but it was gone.  Misjudged that machete.

Evergreen couldn’t even remember the last time he saw his parents, or even spoke to them on the telephone. But, on his pop’s 50^th birthday, the day the old man decided to hang up his circus shoes, he decided it was time to return to what his friends called the wooden “shack” at the end of Circle Street. 

The chauffeur screen rolled down and Mr. Giggles, Evergreen’s driver of eight years, said: “Sir, we are approaching the dwelling of your midget parents.”

“Holy sweet Jesus,” Evergreen mumbled.

He had never seen eye to eye with his parents. Literally. Evergreen was living proof that there can be no peace in a circus family with two midget parents of less than four feet and a son who is as tall as a regular shmoe. Ever since he was a kid and grew taller, and kept growing taller, his pops became immensely suspicious. Every day, coming home from long hours at the big tent at Ring Ling Park, reeking of hay and elephant dung, his pops would eye him suspiciously, walk on by and then eye his ma.

The day Evergreen never forgot was when he was in the fourth grade, the third being the last one he would finish, and he got super pissed at his pops. That afternoon, while picking olives from the highest branch of the tree planted in the driveway, his pops came and said it: “You tall bugger — you ain’t my boy! You the damn milkman’s boy!”

It was that moment when he realized why his pops always refused to drink milk at the supper table, or anywhere else for that matter, while his ma drank a good carton a day. “Aaaaaa!” he had yelled at his pops. Then he slapped him with a topic he had never before broached. “Midget freak!!” 

The elderly couple across the street stood with garden shears in hand, mouths agape, staring at the little old man and the taller little man. He didn’t care about his pops at that moment — hated him actually for being so damn short. 

“Illegitimate bastard!” his pops shrieked. 

For the love of Tiffany, he was only nine. That was a hell of a thing to hear before even reaching a two-digit age. He ran inside and started juggling. Oh, it felt so good to concentrate on something other than his pops, who was clearly going mad. He didn’t go for the tennis balls and oranges like usual, but instead grabbed five coffee mugs from the drawer near the wooden floor. His ma was on the couch, begging him to stop hurling her “china” around. 

“I am not the milkman’s boy!” he squealed.

His ma said nothing and downed her glass of milk. He got quickly bored of the five coffee mugs and dug out a couple steak knives to add to the rotation. 

“What in merciful hell are you doin’ boy!” his father’s mouse-like voice chirped as he crashed through the front door. “Those is china for the family!  You ain’t my son!”

His ma spat a mouthful of milk over the couch in the other room. 

“This house is goin’ to the crazies!” his pops shrieked.           

He quit juggling the mugs, caught all five and let the steak knives drop to the floor, where they stuck in the wood. 

He feared his midget father, who had turned into an olive-picking fruitcake bent on the milkman. His pops bounded down the hall to Evergreen’s bedroom. A couple minutes later he bounded back, hauling a suitcase bigger than he was. 

“Here’s your stuff, milky! I can’t see you anymore, ya tall bastard!”

He flung the suitcase at Evergreen, which slid across the floor and hit his leg. His clothes and tennis balls were inside. “Fine!  Who needs you pops? I’m going to the circus to be a juggler!”

“Don’t call me pops!”

Just to get back at his pops, Evergreen put the coffee mugs back on the highest shelf he could reach. 

“Hey, bring those down milky!”

He grabbed his suitcase and busted out the front door, ran past the gardening neighbors and then six straight miles to the circus park. What he kept thinking about during that run was not his screwed-up pops, but the fact he had successfully juggled steak knives. Next stop: bigger knives.

In the limo, Evergreen looked at the stub from which his index finger used to extend.  He remembered clearly that day when he was nine and his pops lost his entire mind at once. About 10 years later, when he got famous, juggling in towns across the country, the press wanted to know who had fathered such a talent. The test results came back.  Evergreen found out he really was pops’ kid, not the milkman’s. 

He never told pops, because he was still pissed at him, but he was finally going to tell him today. He had the papers and everything to prove it.

“Sir, we’ve arrived at the midget household,” Mr. Giggles proclaimed.

“Well, all right,” Evergreen replied, and hopped out of the limo. The sun glinted off the car’s bright orange paintjob. 

He strolled up to the door, nervously ruffled his hair, and took the paper out of his jacket pocket. A young kid on a skateboard whizzed by on the sidewalk and exclaimed: “Hey, juggling guy!”

Evergreen knocked on the shack door, then waited. He saw his ma peek out the curtain in the living room. When the door opened, it wasn’t his pops at all, but instead the milkman.