Zag: Excerpt

 This is a section of a novel that I've been working on for a while. Hope you enjoy it!

Past

My parents had always been a bit ‘over the top’ as compared to normal adults.  While most kids would go on a field trip to the zoo, my field trip would be getting to work with the lion tamer.  Oh, did I not mention that my parents were trapeze artists with a traveling circus?  Yeah, I was raised in a circus; literally, not metaphorically.

My dad was destined to be a trapeze artist from the time he was born.  I never met my grandmother to confirm my father’s claim, but whenever I saw him perform, I knew it to be true.  He was Alexander Damien Grey, one of the worlds most famous trapeze artists.  So when he met Maria Garcia Romero, the Spanish acrobat, it just made sense.

My mom hadn’t always been with the circus the way my dad had.  As a matter of fact, when she was younger she wanted to be a chef.  It’s funny how fate turned the little Spanish cook into the Spanish acrobat.  Anyway, mom joined the same circus that dad was working for, fireworks went off, they fell in love, got married, blah blah blah and then I came along.  Zeke Axel Grey born at three o’clock in the morning on July second 1998.  Eight pounds three ounces, eighteen inches long.  Zeke was the name of my great-granddad on my old mans side, and Axel the name of my moms father.

Dad’s brother, Jackson Grey, a lion tamer that also worked at the circus, started calling me by my initials, Zag, and it stuck.  Growing up with famous circus parents was the best life any kid could ever ask for.  When I was old enough to hold my own head up, they had me around the trapeze.  I loved watching my parents fly through the air and catch each other in an amazing display of strength, coordination, and trust.  When I was four years old, I knew I wanted to be just like them.

When I was five, dad took me out of our trailer while mom was out running errands and set me on the net below all the swings and ropes where the artists performed.  I sat there with wide eyes.  “Dad, I want to do that!” I exclaimed pointing up.

“And you will!  Starting today, I’m going to teach you.” Dad picked me up, gas me a squeeze, then cringed when moms voice echoed through the tent.

“Alexander Damien Grey!” Her Spanish accent made me want to giggle.  It always did.  But I held it together for dads sake.  “He is five years old!  What are you thinking?!”

Dad set me down on the solid ground and I looked up at my parents with pride.  Sure mom was lit up at the thought that dad was planning on teaching me such a dangerous sport.

“Oh come on Maria.  He loves this stuff!”

“Well, he can love it when he’s older.”

Mom picked me up and threw me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  I waved sadly to dad as she hauled me back off to the trailer.

That’s the fondest memory I have of my parents.  Just two years after that, when I was seven, they were killed in a circus accident.  It’s very unclear what really happened.  Some say that the elephants got lose and Alexander and Maria Grey were trampled to death in a stampede.  Others claim they lost their lives trying to perform a new trick, but it went wrong.

Before all I wanted to know was how they really died.  But now?  Well, I try to honor their memory by participating in the sport that they loved.  The names of my parents, Alexander and Maria Grey, have become a tale that children are told at night before they go to sleep.  I keep their story alive every night that I perform.  Every time I fly through the air, I represent them.