Tulips
By MissyRATING: R-ish (Nothing explicit, but it is scary, dark and has character deaths)
DISTRIBUTION: To Squeaky and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Â Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"
Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their adress and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!
NOTES: This story is based, vaguely on an actual circus fire that took place in Hartford, Connecticut, during World War Two, during which over a hundred women, children and men died either in or after a tent went up in flames during a performance by Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. Though it is based on these events, it is not a report of the actual circus fire, nor is it an accurate representation of any victim, living or dead. But it is dedicated to their memories.

And yes, I'm messing with history; fire codes after the '30's demand that all tents be properly treated as to prevent a conflagration. I was so moved that I had to write this, however. But bear with me and allow me my fictional transgression.

CATEGORY: Tragedy
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: An Armful of Tulips marks the end of a life given with shocking nobility...

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An armful of tulips protruded from either side of her underarms, bright red and forlorn in her snow-white skin.

To Laverne, they were garish, out-of-place; he would have loved them, but they just didn't feel proper there. Living, while so much around them was dead.

They had been watching the lion tamer when the band suddenly changed its tune to "The Stars and Stripes forever". She'd frowned at the sound of the music; it didn't sound right, coming at the end of the man's act. Suddenly; the lions were being shoved back through their shoot, a rush taking place on the dirt floor of the circus.

Then she saw the fire.

It had started with a tiny pinprick, no more than the size of a dime. Lenny told her that it looked like a little, tiny star that fell from heaven.

The next time she'd looked, the entire side wall glowed red.

Horror had spread through the group; her father remembered hearing of another circus fire, from when Laverne had been a little baby. He urged them to be quiet, to try to stick together. It was Pop's wisdom that got them down from the bleachers and through to the front exit; standing out on a big, grassy, sloping hill, Laverne could still feel her father's frightened hand pressing into her own.

Relief filled Laverne as she saw the boys trudge up the hill, with Carmine tagging along behind; they had escaped certain death, she was sure of it.

Then panic set in.

"Rhonda!" She heard Carmine shout, "Did anyone find Rhonda?"

The slim blond hunched over in her seat, trying to hide a long, jagged scar marring what had once been a perfect face. Doctors told her that it was possible, she could be healed; one day she would shine from the screen with as much Joie De Vivere.

But she would never forget what had happened. It was all her fault, after all.

She had gone off to get a hot-dog; figuring that she'd earned the privilege of some real food after nothing but salad for a week.

A rush of people had knocked her to the ground, poured over her, nearly smothered her willowy frame; a small girl fell across her chest, sobbing for her mother. She shoved her to her feet and battled through the frantic faces, trying to see what was happening.

Then she smelled the smoke...

Panic set in; not ready to die yet, not having ever really lived, she frantically fought through the angry, viciously pushing crowd, somehow ending up back in the tent, where the sidepoles were flaming high over her head.

The heat was brutal; she couldn't see what she was doing, where she was going, and then at the worst possible moment she tripped backward, over the center ring. Her ankle was locked, wedged, and refused to turn

And then a familiar face emerged from the fire..

"Carmine!" She shouted, tears coming to her eyes. Just behind them, she could see Lenny, and Squiggy, and even Mr. DeFazio; most of them had been

The Big Ragoo, for once, seemed to have shrunken in scale; he looked almost miniature as he knelt in prayer by the casket's side.

The 'accident,' as he'd heard it called repeatedly, had left him ravaged emotionally. His cockiness had faded, muted; the world seemed to need a kid-glove treatment from him.

Part of him would always be in that tent, surrounded by the smell, the heat, the fear. But another part of him had lived to survive it all, however reluctantly.

"Gimmie your hand, Rhonda!" Carmine ordered; she'd never heard him use that tone of voice in their entire acquaintance. She threw herself into his arms and closed her eyes; it was hot, so hot, and she just wanted to sleep..She didn't even feel a piece of burning canvas brush her cheek, scarring it. Carmine quickly tamped it out with his fingers.

"She passed out!" Carmine realized, horrified; they had to get out of there; if it got to the main pole before they were out...

He was shocked to feel LENNY, of all people, pulling him to an uninvolved side wall,

The tall, blond boy leaned against Laverne's shoulder. In his young life, this proved to be the worst month he'd ever experienced. Even the sweetness of Laverne's love, which she now seemed to give to him in desperation, felt pale and cold to him.

He had never felt this uninvolved, this joyless, in his life.

He wouldn't want ya to feel this bad, Lenny reasoned, clinging to Laverne's offered hand, He'd want ya to be happy. .

He felt sure that he could do it. He just needed a little time...

Carmine could barely express his relief as Lenny flipped open a switchblade he'd kept on his key ring for most of his life. It had been a gift from his mother for his fourth birthday. For once, the woman had dome something useful for him.

He sliced through the canvas in a clean, easy stroke, parting it with every ounce of his strength he made way for Carmine and Rhonda, then himself.

Then they ran, ran until they saw Laverne all the way at the other side of the tent; her arms were filled with weeping children looking for their mothers.

Laverne placed a little girl into the arms of her frantic, shoeless mother before throwing herself into Lenny's arms, weeping. It was only the second time he'd ever seen her cry.

She tore herself away from him, gasping, "Where's pop?"

They both looked back at the tent, almost half of it aflame now, the American flag waving furtively at the sky as flames licked higher and higher up its pole.

Off in the distance, through the shred of canvas he'd torn open, he could see two forms shepherding children out of the tent.

"Squig," He rasped, "Squig's in there, too!" He tried to battle through the stream of frantic, combative victims, but a wave of firemen cloaked in black coats pushed him back.

He would never forget what he was about to see...

Frank bowed his head low, taking two long, deep breaths as he listened to the priest's sermon. Fortunate, he felt; fortunate and so guilty.

The poor kid, He thought. Well, not truly poor; though the church sat half-empty, it was filled by his friends, the only people who mattered to him in the world. Except, of course, for himself, Frank joked grimly.

Shaking his head against such a terrible thought, He squeezed Edna's hand; now, every day he must give thanks for the opportunity. Every day was one more day with his Muffin and Edna, and he should remain grateful.

They had stayed behind in the tent after Lenny and Carmine had fled with Rhonda. So many kids, motherless, frantic, running around; he started grabbing them and guiding them out through the slit Lenny had cut in the canvas.

Most of them submissively followed his orders to run; others tried to push their way past him, screaming for their mothers; he refused to allow them to reenter.

Panting, his heart straining against his chest, Frank beat at a spark that caught in his eyebrow, "SQUIGGY!" He shouted, intending to drag the kid out of the tent before the whole place went up.

His nearly cried out at what he saw.

They say that true moments of crises bring out a person's true nature. Frank DeFazio was shocked to discover that Andrew Squiggman's true nature was that of a hero.

He was standing on animal's chute, the one blocking the main exit, the one that the lazy, cheap circus performers hadn't taken down in a desperate rush to save their own skins. With all of his strength, he stood grabbing children who stood stranded on one side of the chute and threw them to the other side, where they could escape through a small hole that had been made under the bleachers in the tenting.

Frank stood in awe as Squiggy helped child after child, man after man, woman after woman, until not a single person stood waiting to be helped. Then he jumped down off of the chute and stood beside Frank.

"Wasn't nothin," He mumbled, "Don't tell no one." Then his eyes went wide and he shouted, "Jay! Look out!"

Frank felt a pair of hands shove him so hard that he stumbled right out of that hole in the canvas.

Seconds after the flaming tent collapsed in on itself.

Edna hadn't believed it when Frank came to her with stories of Squiggy's heroics until person after person he saved went to the local media, extolling his virtues, praising him as a man.

THEIR Squiggy?! It didn't seem possible to Edna.

Then again, everyone had changed. Lenny and Laverne clung to one another, refused to be separated by more than an hour. Carmine had stopped talking of going to Broadway, spending hours in prayer, and Rhonda simply sat, catatonic, unable to emote.

For some reason, the accident had incurred a positive effect on Frank.

Edna shook her head. It was all such a shame.

"The Mass is over. Go in peace."

Edna helped guide Frank from his seat; followed by Lenny and Laverne, they all gathered around Squiggy's casket.

Lenny began to sob, "Why'dya have to go, Squig?!" He sobbed, then bellowed, "Why'd ya have ta go?!?" Carmine rose from his knees and led Lenny away from the chapel. Laverne could still hear him sobbing outside, and though her heart yearned to comfort him, she wanted to be alone with Squiggy for a moment..

Rhonda placed the flat of her hand on the casket. Just lying it there for a moment. Then she disappeared out a side door.

Frank and Edna laid a wreath atop Squiggy's casket; Laverne could see that the tag on it read, "With Love, from Jay and Mrs. Babbish." As they, too, went to console Lenny.

Laverne stood perfectly still for a moment.

Then she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the casket; she wondered if Squiggy could hear her thoughts, wherever they were.

Who knew that he'd had greatness him him? Besides Len. she thought, But ya did, Squig. Yer a hero. Then she smiled bittersweetly and lay the tulips beside her father's wreath.

Each bore the name of a survivor who lived solely because Andrew Squiggman had discovered just how great he truly was at just the right time.

He had had greatness in him after all.