Brick Brawler

him every day. The lashings never seemed to stop. I can still remember the way Brick would scream as Fuller mercilessly hurt him. While we sat tucked away in the Den of Freaks, Shapes and I could hear Brick Brawler in incredible pain. Actually, have I talked about Shapes the Clown yet? Now that's a piece of work.

I was stuck next to this dude during every showing of the Den of Freaks. He would go on and on about stupid stuff, what he had for lunch (we get it Shapes, you like sandwiches), how many shapes his body could turn into (wow, thanks for letting me know you an turn into a doedechahedro-whatever for the umpteenth time), and even what his current emotion was (almost always just "happy"). But back to Brick. He was hated by Fuller.

Although the poor man's skin was made of stone, a whip could still cause him such pain. I remember that fateful night he first got on Herman's bad side. We were doing our usual festive routine. Brick Brawler would stand tall forming the trunk of a tree, Shapes the Clown would climb upon him and change into the form of the branches and leaves, and I would turn inside out on the top to be the pulsating flesh angel tree topper.

Then we fell, Brick was blamed, even though it was totally Shapes' fault. He knew Brick was ticklish, and I know for a fact he was intentionally tickling Brawler, that dick. Seriously, shapes was hated by everyone.Everyone. This guy would always mess with others' acts. I don't know if Fuller was just stupid, or let him do this stuff on purpose but Shapes would ruin tons of shows. By far the worst clown we had, and that's including the ones we kept in the back only for milking purposes!

from that day, Brick was never respected by Herman. Brick's act was a very popular one, but Herman was having none of it. He was quickly demoted to the Den of Freaks. His station was set in between Shapes and my pedestals. Although I felt bad for Brick's new situation, this at least gave me a partner in the hell that was listening to the constant cacophony of meaningless chatter that Shapes would blather into our ears.

Brick Brawler

That brings us to the day Brawler's time in this world came to an end. It was a slow day at the circus. Only 6 or so guests made their way through the Den of Freaks. Which, what do you know, made Shapes even more talkative than usual. Brick couldn't take it anymore and left. He said he was going to get a drink of water, but I think it was more than that. He was leaving for good, probably because of how annoying Shapes was being, is Fuller didn't kill Brick, I'm sure Shapes would've bored him to death anyway. So about Brick's escape attempt, if Fuller noticed, Brick would surely be next in line for performingThe Exploding Man trick. But more importantly, it made me stuck, alone, right next to Shapes. The moments between Brick leaving, and his death half an hour later was pure torture.

Shapes talked about his recent experience seeing a bird. It was a pigeon. It landed near his sleeping tent one night and he was woken up by it pecking around outside. The story went nowhere. He just saw it and it flew away. One of the worst half hours of my life.

Shapes the Clown was a liar and a cheat. If I could have offed one of my fellow carnies, it would have been him. I really hated that guy. Total thorn in my side from the day I joined the circus until the day I escaped. Seriously, what a tool.

Then, we heard it, one of the cannons used in the high-dive act went off. We never saw hide nor hair of Brick after that day, and that's the story of Brick Brawler. A noble man whose life ended far too soon at the hands of Herman Fuller. I guess this ended up also being my chapter on Shapes the Clown as well. The prick.

Porridge