!Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
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Lauren
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Kurt got bitched slapped! that is just so funny! !
!"I am known as Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III. Don't hesitate to call." -Vash the Stampede
"No, you see I'm blind in my right eye now... So boring. You know what really makes me pissy? Grunge, Heroine chic, and dying are over. I so hate being behind the curve. Tourism's up." Brett(Alan Cumming) from Urbania
"No, you see I'm blind in my right eye now... So boring. You know what really makes me pissy? Grunge, Heroine chic, and dying are over. I so hate being behind the curve. Tourism's up." Brett(Alan Cumming) from Urbania
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Saint Kurt
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Zirkus Redefinierte
Bitch slapped. Ha ha. I always imagined Margali as one of those tough love earth mother types....
“You’re supposed to be a Hell’s Angel Beelzebub, but you look like a blue elf in a leather jacket.”
Once Wolfgang became attached to an idea, he didn’t easily let go. Instead he clung to it tenaciously slowly picking away at each obstacle until it became a reality. Whether it was his own or another’s, once he committed, it was as good as done. During these times he showed an unbelievable amount of resourcefulness, sometimes appearing to conjure the things the circus needed out of thin air.
He hadn’t forgotten his idea to have Kurt perform to AC/DC’s Back in Black. Circus Gehlhaar looked like something out of the previous century to Wolfgang. Their music, which was provided by a live band, was the sort of corny organ music that you would expect to accompany a silent film. Their acts, while skillfully executed didn’t break any rules or surprise anyone. To the circus’ credit, the audiences didn’t seem to mind. But Wolfgang minded, once he had gotten over the initial thrill of watching the circus, his circus perform, he realized it was actually quite boring.
Wolfgang started to daydream about changing the entire creative direction of the circus, to reinvent it, making it something that no one had ever seen nor heard before. It compelled him so much sometimes that he found it hard to sleep as played with ideas for them over and over in his head. But that wasn’t enough. Wolfgang had ideas, but did he have trust? The answer was, unfortunately, “no”. The performers trusted him to take care of their business and drive their equipment around, but to them he was strictly a painter when it came to creative influence. In other words, he had none.
Kurt, on the other hand, probably exercised the most creative control over the show. Though it was Papa who was responsible for choreographing the trapeze work and Sven did all the tumbling routines, Kurt always wrote his own part. Wolfgang guessed that the arrangement was born out of necessity since know one was exactly sure of what Kurt could do other than Kurt. (In fact it often appeared to Wolfgang that sometimes even Kurt didn’t know what he could do until after he did it.)
It made Wolfgang wonder. If Sven and Papa pushed the circus’s acrobats to their limits, then who would push Kurt to his? Perhaps it wasn’t so much that Kurt needed a coach, since he was plenty skilled as it was, but that Nightcrawler needed a muse.
It seemed like the perfect plan. If Wolfgang wanted to truly influence the creative direction of Circus Gehlhaar he would start with Kurt and through Kurt gain the trust of everyone else. All he needed was to start with a good idea.
Papa was the most skeptical about performing to pre-recorded rock music. The younger Olssons were fairly enthusiastic. Kurt had already voiced his opinion that Wolfgang was insane, but also seemed interested in going along with it. He handed out tapes to the whole troupe and left it at that.
In the meantime Wolfgang worked to scrounge up an old PA system that could play the music loud enough. This of course led to electrical problems since it drew more power from their aging circuit board than all of their lights put together. Wolfgang replaced the board with a larger one and finally the big tent was wired for sound. It was exactly as he had imagined it, the seats practically rattled with the bass.
In the meantime, Papa and Sven thought if they were going to push the envelope with the music, they might as well do it with the routine too. Wolfgang had hoped this would happen and so one afternoon he sat in on a rehearsal to see what they had come up with.
Sven had the idea to combine floor tumbling with the trapeze via a very large trampoline. He’d come to Wolfgang with the plans a few weeks ago with a drawing of a very long narrow trampoline that would run under the trapeze rig. In addition, the trapeze rig would be lowered and the nets removed. So Wolfgang had gone out and contracted with a carpenter to make a frame for a large trampoline that could be installed and then taken apart again when they left each venue. A two weeks later, it was done.
Now, he was sitting watching the group playing around with their new contraption. With the lowered trapeze the trampoline enabled an acrobat to jump up high enough to grab onto either the arms of a catcher or the bar itself. The result was a frenzy of coordinated movement so fluid that it appeared to take place in water. With the music playing it was even more nuts. It was perfect, exactly what Wolfgang had hoped for.
“We haven’t actually choreographed anything yet.” Sven said sitting on the stands next to Wolfgang and watching the action, “We’re still trying to figure it all out. But it’s really fun.”
It did look like they were having fun. Going from the trampoline to the trapeze seemed to hold unlimited possibilities. The favorite trick was making a long diagonal jump to catch an empty trapeze. The momentum from the jump enabled the acrobat to go right to a flying trick since there was no need to pump the trapeze for momentum. No one seemed too eager to go the other way though; once they were on the trapeze they didn’t jump off. “The surface is too hard.” Sven explained. “Even with the bounce they could break their ankles.”
It was only a week until Wolfgang was invited back to see the preliminary choreography. They had a single prop, which Kurt was wearing. It had been Wolfgang’s idea to have part of Kurt’s costume include a leather biker jacket with “Hells Angel” on the back. It was too cumbersome to wear the entire time but it made for an excellent entrance.
They started the music and Wolfgang watched. It was really cool. There was a basic flow to it with the flyers coming from both directions to be caught by either Papa or Nils who were up on trapezes. From there, the flyer would either do another trick or be deposited on the platform to slide down a pole like a fireman and start again on the ground. It looked great. The only thing that Wolfgang really didn’t like was Kurt’s entrance.
“Is that all you’re going to do?” Wolfgang asked him before they ran through it a second time.
Kurt looked puzzled. He wasn’t used to people questioning his performance. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Wolfgang tried to explain. The routine began with Kurt running out on to the trampoline alone and then calling out his “gang” which was everybody else. They wanted to surprise the audience so in the beginning they acted like the trampoline was just a raised' floor. After a few introductory moves, Kurt suddenly bounced up to catch one of the hanging trapezes and that started the whole thing off. It wasn’t really very dramatic though, plus Kurt didn’t look very tough.
“It’s just that there’s no menace.” Wolfgang told Kurt. “You’re supposed to be a Hell’s Angel Beelzebub, but you look like a blue elf in a leather jacket.” Wolfgang put his arms at his side and imitated the smooth toe to heel run that all acrobats did on stage. Everyone laughed.
“I don’t run like that.” Kurt said.
“Yeah, you do.” Lars whispered out of the side of his mouth. Kurt rolled his eyes.
“You’ve got to be more evil, more scary.” Wolfgang prompted.
“More evil.” Kurt repeated.
“Yeah, much more evil.”
Kurt looked around the tent for a moment, thinking. He spotted the high wire platform, which stood above the trapeze rig and climbed up to it. “Okay.” He yelled down so they could restart the music.
This time, instead of running out on the floor, he stalked out onto the high wire on all fours like a cat. From there he coiled up and leapt down to catch one of the support beams for the trapeze rig. He let go with his hands and allowed himself to swing forward so that he was hanging upside down by his feet and anchored by his tail. He let himself drop onto the trapeze below him where a second before Nils had been sitting. Nils had seen Kurt coming and swung down into a catching position so that Kurt could land on the bar and start it swinging. At Kurt’s prompting Nils reached up and grabbed him by the wrists so that Kurt could dive off and Nils could use the swinging momentum of the trapeze to throw him into a tight forward somersault. Kurt let go of Nils and landed on the trampoline, bending his knees deeply to absorb the shock, but was popped up about eight feet in the air anyway. He did a twisted flip that Wolfgang vaguely remembered Sven calling a “full-in full out” and landed crouched low, glaring at Wolfgang and baring his teeth.
“Is that better?” He asked, straightening up and making what looked like a conscious effort not to look like a blue elf as he walked to the edge of the trampoline.
Wolfgang grinned and clapped. “Much better. Just be like that the whole time. You’ll scare the children. It will be fantastic.” He turned to Sven; “I thought you said they would break their ankles if they jumped off?”
Sven shrugged. “What do I know?” He said. After that no one worried about jumping down form the trapezes and the fireman’s poles were removed.
Back in Black was a huge success with audiences. As Wolfgang predicted, Europeans loved American pop culture so they were clapping with the music within the first few bars. They had to make it the finale since the rest of the show seemed so tame in comparison.
Unfortunately for Kurt, Wolfgang’s initial critique was not forgotten and despite his attempts to be as scary as possible, the number was known inside the circus as “the blue elf routine”. Kurt took it rather well.
“You’re supposed to be a Hell’s Angel Beelzebub, but you look like a blue elf in a leather jacket.”
Once Wolfgang became attached to an idea, he didn’t easily let go. Instead he clung to it tenaciously slowly picking away at each obstacle until it became a reality. Whether it was his own or another’s, once he committed, it was as good as done. During these times he showed an unbelievable amount of resourcefulness, sometimes appearing to conjure the things the circus needed out of thin air.
He hadn’t forgotten his idea to have Kurt perform to AC/DC’s Back in Black. Circus Gehlhaar looked like something out of the previous century to Wolfgang. Their music, which was provided by a live band, was the sort of corny organ music that you would expect to accompany a silent film. Their acts, while skillfully executed didn’t break any rules or surprise anyone. To the circus’ credit, the audiences didn’t seem to mind. But Wolfgang minded, once he had gotten over the initial thrill of watching the circus, his circus perform, he realized it was actually quite boring.
Wolfgang started to daydream about changing the entire creative direction of the circus, to reinvent it, making it something that no one had ever seen nor heard before. It compelled him so much sometimes that he found it hard to sleep as played with ideas for them over and over in his head. But that wasn’t enough. Wolfgang had ideas, but did he have trust? The answer was, unfortunately, “no”. The performers trusted him to take care of their business and drive their equipment around, but to them he was strictly a painter when it came to creative influence. In other words, he had none.
Kurt, on the other hand, probably exercised the most creative control over the show. Though it was Papa who was responsible for choreographing the trapeze work and Sven did all the tumbling routines, Kurt always wrote his own part. Wolfgang guessed that the arrangement was born out of necessity since know one was exactly sure of what Kurt could do other than Kurt. (In fact it often appeared to Wolfgang that sometimes even Kurt didn’t know what he could do until after he did it.)
It made Wolfgang wonder. If Sven and Papa pushed the circus’s acrobats to their limits, then who would push Kurt to his? Perhaps it wasn’t so much that Kurt needed a coach, since he was plenty skilled as it was, but that Nightcrawler needed a muse.
It seemed like the perfect plan. If Wolfgang wanted to truly influence the creative direction of Circus Gehlhaar he would start with Kurt and through Kurt gain the trust of everyone else. All he needed was to start with a good idea.
Papa was the most skeptical about performing to pre-recorded rock music. The younger Olssons were fairly enthusiastic. Kurt had already voiced his opinion that Wolfgang was insane, but also seemed interested in going along with it. He handed out tapes to the whole troupe and left it at that.
In the meantime Wolfgang worked to scrounge up an old PA system that could play the music loud enough. This of course led to electrical problems since it drew more power from their aging circuit board than all of their lights put together. Wolfgang replaced the board with a larger one and finally the big tent was wired for sound. It was exactly as he had imagined it, the seats practically rattled with the bass.
In the meantime, Papa and Sven thought if they were going to push the envelope with the music, they might as well do it with the routine too. Wolfgang had hoped this would happen and so one afternoon he sat in on a rehearsal to see what they had come up with.
Sven had the idea to combine floor tumbling with the trapeze via a very large trampoline. He’d come to Wolfgang with the plans a few weeks ago with a drawing of a very long narrow trampoline that would run under the trapeze rig. In addition, the trapeze rig would be lowered and the nets removed. So Wolfgang had gone out and contracted with a carpenter to make a frame for a large trampoline that could be installed and then taken apart again when they left each venue. A two weeks later, it was done.
Now, he was sitting watching the group playing around with their new contraption. With the lowered trapeze the trampoline enabled an acrobat to jump up high enough to grab onto either the arms of a catcher or the bar itself. The result was a frenzy of coordinated movement so fluid that it appeared to take place in water. With the music playing it was even more nuts. It was perfect, exactly what Wolfgang had hoped for.
“We haven’t actually choreographed anything yet.” Sven said sitting on the stands next to Wolfgang and watching the action, “We’re still trying to figure it all out. But it’s really fun.”
It did look like they were having fun. Going from the trampoline to the trapeze seemed to hold unlimited possibilities. The favorite trick was making a long diagonal jump to catch an empty trapeze. The momentum from the jump enabled the acrobat to go right to a flying trick since there was no need to pump the trapeze for momentum. No one seemed too eager to go the other way though; once they were on the trapeze they didn’t jump off. “The surface is too hard.” Sven explained. “Even with the bounce they could break their ankles.”
It was only a week until Wolfgang was invited back to see the preliminary choreography. They had a single prop, which Kurt was wearing. It had been Wolfgang’s idea to have part of Kurt’s costume include a leather biker jacket with “Hells Angel” on the back. It was too cumbersome to wear the entire time but it made for an excellent entrance.
They started the music and Wolfgang watched. It was really cool. There was a basic flow to it with the flyers coming from both directions to be caught by either Papa or Nils who were up on trapezes. From there, the flyer would either do another trick or be deposited on the platform to slide down a pole like a fireman and start again on the ground. It looked great. The only thing that Wolfgang really didn’t like was Kurt’s entrance.
“Is that all you’re going to do?” Wolfgang asked him before they ran through it a second time.
Kurt looked puzzled. He wasn’t used to people questioning his performance. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Wolfgang tried to explain. The routine began with Kurt running out on to the trampoline alone and then calling out his “gang” which was everybody else. They wanted to surprise the audience so in the beginning they acted like the trampoline was just a raised' floor. After a few introductory moves, Kurt suddenly bounced up to catch one of the hanging trapezes and that started the whole thing off. It wasn’t really very dramatic though, plus Kurt didn’t look very tough.
“It’s just that there’s no menace.” Wolfgang told Kurt. “You’re supposed to be a Hell’s Angel Beelzebub, but you look like a blue elf in a leather jacket.” Wolfgang put his arms at his side and imitated the smooth toe to heel run that all acrobats did on stage. Everyone laughed.
“I don’t run like that.” Kurt said.
“Yeah, you do.” Lars whispered out of the side of his mouth. Kurt rolled his eyes.
“You’ve got to be more evil, more scary.” Wolfgang prompted.
“More evil.” Kurt repeated.
“Yeah, much more evil.”
Kurt looked around the tent for a moment, thinking. He spotted the high wire platform, which stood above the trapeze rig and climbed up to it. “Okay.” He yelled down so they could restart the music.
This time, instead of running out on the floor, he stalked out onto the high wire on all fours like a cat. From there he coiled up and leapt down to catch one of the support beams for the trapeze rig. He let go with his hands and allowed himself to swing forward so that he was hanging upside down by his feet and anchored by his tail. He let himself drop onto the trapeze below him where a second before Nils had been sitting. Nils had seen Kurt coming and swung down into a catching position so that Kurt could land on the bar and start it swinging. At Kurt’s prompting Nils reached up and grabbed him by the wrists so that Kurt could dive off and Nils could use the swinging momentum of the trapeze to throw him into a tight forward somersault. Kurt let go of Nils and landed on the trampoline, bending his knees deeply to absorb the shock, but was popped up about eight feet in the air anyway. He did a twisted flip that Wolfgang vaguely remembered Sven calling a “full-in full out” and landed crouched low, glaring at Wolfgang and baring his teeth.
“Is that better?” He asked, straightening up and making what looked like a conscious effort not to look like a blue elf as he walked to the edge of the trampoline.
Wolfgang grinned and clapped. “Much better. Just be like that the whole time. You’ll scare the children. It will be fantastic.” He turned to Sven; “I thought you said they would break their ankles if they jumped off?”
Sven shrugged. “What do I know?” He said. After that no one worried about jumping down form the trapezes and the fireman’s poles were removed.
Back in Black was a huge success with audiences. As Wolfgang predicted, Europeans loved American pop culture so they were clapping with the music within the first few bars. They had to make it the finale since the rest of the show seemed so tame in comparison.
Unfortunately for Kurt, Wolfgang’s initial critique was not forgotten and despite his attempts to be as scary as possible, the number was known inside the circus as “the blue elf routine”. Kurt took it rather well.
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RavEnigma
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Doux! Love the idea for the routine, it's so neat! I can't wait to see what you come up with next!
Naz-Bunny Lover Club member #1"God help the outcasts, or nobody will"
"That's not a cat, it's a minion of the antichrist!"
Pietro Fan Club Member #1
:evopietro =
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CurlyyHairGirl
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
:LOLThe Blue Elf Routine:LOLthat is fanstasic. Kurt in a leather jacket:coy:naughty
one name: Bruce Campbell
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Saint Kurt
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
I just have to share the cuteness. This is Logan, my new kitten:
I'm actually fostering his siblings as well: Katchen, Kurt, Remy, and Xavier. In the evenings they have kitten crazy play hour and I swear you could sell tickets.
The last few stories start off what is basically the crux of the whole arc - a sort of renaissance period where the circus is at their artistic best, but where a lot of hard choices need to be made.
-e
I'm actually fostering his siblings as well: Katchen, Kurt, Remy, and Xavier. In the evenings they have kitten crazy play hour and I swear you could sell tickets.
The last few stories start off what is basically the crux of the whole arc - a sort of renaissance period where the circus is at their artistic best, but where a lot of hard choices need to be made.
-e
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Saint Kurt
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Family Traditions
"You have to ask? Of course I do. This is amazing. Can we start right now?"
A sleek black Mercedes limousine pulled up at the edge Circus Gehlhaar's campground drawing curious stares from everyone nearby. It was impossible to see who was behind the dark tinted windows. Wolfgang slid across the leather seat and went to open the door. He had barely pulled the lever up before the driver jumped out and opened the door for him.
"Thanks, but honestly, I can get out of the car on my own." Wolfgang said.
"Yes Sir." The driver said.
"I told you you could call me Wolfgang." He wished his father had let him take the bus. They had argued about it for nearly an hour until Wolfgang finally conceded to being driven in the family's limousine.
The driver popped open the Mercedes' voluminous trunk and pulled out Wolfgang's suitcase, then a long streamer trunk, which he heaved to the ground with a grunt.
"Where shall I take them Sir?"
"Just leave them here." Wolfgang said. "I can take care of it."
"I don't mind carrying them, Sir." The driver said, picking up the suitcase in one hand and grasping the handle of the trunk in the other.
Wolfgang sighed. "Oh, all right. And please call me Wolfgang." He picked up the handle on the other end of the trunk. "We're going to that trailer over there." He said and pointed to his rather shabby looking office/quarters. The driver made a face.
They left the trunk outside the trailer, but the driver insisted on carrying the suitcase in and began unpacking it for him. Wolfgang held up his hands.
"Okay, that really is enough now." Wolfgang said. He shut the suitcase and gently steered the driver towards the door. He walked with him back to the car. "Tell my father thank you for the ride."
"Of course, Sir."
"Thanks. And next time, please remember to call me Wolfgang."
"I will Sir. Farewell."
Wolfgang watched the Mercedes retreating in a cloud of dust along the dirt and gravel road that lead away from their campground. He tried not to laugh. At least being called "Sir" was better than the "Young Master" they used to use. Kurt popped out from behind a small stand of trees.
"Good Afternoon Sir." He said.
"Shut up blue elf."
Kurt laughed. "Who was that? Is that your car?"
"Both of them belong to my father." Wolfgang said with a frown. "I was just hitching a ride for the day. I guess it's bad enough that I work for a circus so he had to make up for it by sending me back here in that thing. The neighbors might start talking otherwise. I really shouldn't complain though."
"We missed you." Kurt said. "Did you have a nice visit home?"
Wolfgang shrugged. "It was okay I guess. I didn't do very much; my father was too busy with some hotel deal in Prague. I did have lunch with mother several times though. And I got to see my brother Siegfried for the first time in years. "
"Siegfried?"
"Yeah," Wolfgang said, shaking his head "Isn't that terrible. Our surname is Wagner and my parents go and name their kid Siegfried. I think I almost got named Fafner. Ridiculous."
Kurt burst out laughing. "It could have been worse. What about Wotan?"
Wolfgang cringed. "Oh my God, you're right. Wotan would have been the end of me. Come with me, I've got something to show you." Wolfgang led Kurt back to his trailer and snapped open the locks on his trunk. He lifted the lid and they looked inside.
"Wow. Are all those swords yours?" Kurt asked.
"Yes. But they're more like rapiers actually. Nothing in there really qualifies as a sword." He removed the topmost weapon from the box. "This is the fancy one." He said as he grasped the backswept clamshell design hilt and slid the blade from its scabbard. "It's just for show really. The rest of them are more utilitarian."
Kurt crouched beside the box. He reached in and pulled out a very thin bladed weapon with a very oddly shaped handle. "What's with this?" He asked, pointing to it.
"You have good taste." Wolfgang said. "That is my absolute favorite fencing foil. I owe quite a few trophies to that baby."
Kurt squinted at the odd grip and tried to grasp it in one hand.
"That's called a pistol grip. Unfortunately, you need four fingers and a thumb for that particular handle." Wolfgang said. He took the weapon from Kurt and demonstrated, the curves fitting within his hand exactly. "It's like an extension of your arm this way." He pulled a similar weapon from the box that had a more traditional looking French grip. "Try this one instead." He said.
Kurt took it and wrapped his hand around the hilt. "It's very nice." He said.
Wolfgang knelt down and started pulling more things from the box, naming them as he went. "This is called an epee. You can see its blade is a bit thicker than the foil. The targets on the body are different too. This is a sabre, in competition you can do a slash attack as well as a thrust. And here's another foil like the one you have there; it's lightest of the three weapons."
Kurt noticed that there was several of each weapon. Some of them had the funny looking pistol grip, but there were others with more traditional looking handles. He put the foil he had been holding down to inspect them. "What is all this for?" Kurt asked.
Gesturing grandly at the box and its contents, Wolfgang said, "This is our family sport."
"Sword fighting is a sport?"
"No, but fencing is. The Wagner's have been fencers for generations. There are even a few Olympic medalists in the family. " Wolfgang laughed. "It's the only reason to go to any of our family affairs in my opinion. After we eat, during the time when everyone would normally be lounging gossiping about the people who couldn't come, we fight each other. There are grudge matches that go back decades."
Kurt laughed. "I can't even imagine that," he said.
Wolfgang nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's pretty funny looking, but it sure beats the usual crap people do at their family gatherings." Wolfgang pulled a few more things from the box including several white jackets and a pair of strange mesh covered masks.
"That's cool, but why did you bring all this here?"
"You're a Wagner now. It seems only fitting that you be schooled in our most noble and worthwhile family tradition." Wolfgang said.
"You want to teach me to sword fight?" Kurt asked.
"If you want to learn." Wolfgang said.
"You have to ask?" Kurt cried. "Of course I do. This is amazing. Can we start right now?"
Wolfgang laughed. "Maybe I could unpack first, and then look for a place to store all this stuff while we're not using it. After that, sure." He and Kurt started putting everything back into the box.
Wolfgang started teaching Kurt to fence the next day. They used the smooth floor that was laid down inside the main tent and Wolfgang used white gaffer's tape to mark out a strip.
"The rules are simple." Wolfgang said. "All combat is done within this narrow box here. If you step outside it's a foul and the fencers have to go back to their starting points. There are three weapon types: foil, epee, and sabre, though sabre is kind of going out of fashion. Besides the differences in the types of blades, they have different target areas.
"In sabre the target area is everything from the waist up. For epee, anything goes. The target is the whole body. That's why the bell guard is so huge. The wrist is a really common target. Foil has the smallest target area, just the torso, no arms or head.
"A match is 5 points, or touches on your opponent. Who ever reaches five first wins.
We'll start with foil I think. It has the most discipline and I happen to like it best." Wolfgang grinned.
"I hope you're right handed." Wolfgang said as he handed Kurt the French grip hilt foil from the other day. Wolfgang picked up his pistol grip foil and demonstrated the basic en garde position, his right foot in front of the left, his knees slightly bent, and the foil held at waist level and tilted slightly upwards.
Kurt was starting to get the whole step forward, step back, and lunge thing when he noticed Lars watching from the stands. He stopped and waved. Lars walked down the aisle.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"Wolfgang is teaching me to fence. En garde!" He jumped into position with his foil at the ready. Lars pushed it away.
"How come you get to learn to fence?" He asked.
"You can learn too if you want." Wolfgang said, already reaching into his box to pull out another weapon.
"Yeah, but you have to do something really embarrassing first to prove you're worthy." Kurt added grinning.
"Oh, you mean like fall off the tight wire and knock Sven out of the air?"
"Exactly."
Wolfgang glanced at Kurt and laughed. Obviously there was some history there that he didn't know about, but he could imagine Kurt doing something like that. Lars looked around. "I can't think of anything just now." He said.
"Okay," said Kurt, "But you owe us."
The three of them quickly got into a routine, pulling out the fencing gear an hour or so before show time. Wolfgang was an incredible fencer. Kurt didn't know much but he had learned enough to see that he would most likely never achieve the same level of skill. Wolfgang adjusted his fencing to be fair to his opponents, but every so often he played to win and Kurt wouldn't even see it coming.
It became clear that having an uneven number wasn't nearly as fun and to their surprise it was Amanda who asked to be their fourth. Wolfgang never thought of Amanda as the physical type, but she quickly proved him wrong. She was equal with Lars and the two of them were slightly behind Kurt, but that was because he had the benefit his tail as a counter balance.
They would spend the most of their practice time drilling each other and putting on masks and jackets to pair up and spar each other. Once they were proficient in the basics Wolfgang started ending practice by showing them the traditional rapier techniques. Kurt actually liked this better. The narrow grip on the foil always felt wrong in his hand and the confinement to a thin strip of floor was, well, confining.
The rapier on the other hand was a much longer weapon with a much heavier blade. The handles of Wolfgang's practice rapiers were much sturdier and easier to hold. The best part was that it was much more open; instead of a strip they were free to go anywhere they wanted. The footwork was less confining as well. And most importantly, it looked much more like the sword fighting in Wolfgang's pirate movies than foil fencing did. Kurt could see how learning the basics of sport fencing were important, but he always looked forward to the second half of their practice sessions.
Though he had been skeptical at first, Kurt was beginning to see that being Kurt Wagner had more fringe benefits than he had first realized.
Author's note: Siegfried, Fafner, and Wotan are all characters from Wagner's Ring Cycle.
A sleek black Mercedes limousine pulled up at the edge Circus Gehlhaar's campground drawing curious stares from everyone nearby. It was impossible to see who was behind the dark tinted windows. Wolfgang slid across the leather seat and went to open the door. He had barely pulled the lever up before the driver jumped out and opened the door for him.
"Thanks, but honestly, I can get out of the car on my own." Wolfgang said.
"Yes Sir." The driver said.
"I told you you could call me Wolfgang." He wished his father had let him take the bus. They had argued about it for nearly an hour until Wolfgang finally conceded to being driven in the family's limousine.
The driver popped open the Mercedes' voluminous trunk and pulled out Wolfgang's suitcase, then a long streamer trunk, which he heaved to the ground with a grunt.
"Where shall I take them Sir?"
"Just leave them here." Wolfgang said. "I can take care of it."
"I don't mind carrying them, Sir." The driver said, picking up the suitcase in one hand and grasping the handle of the trunk in the other.
Wolfgang sighed. "Oh, all right. And please call me Wolfgang." He picked up the handle on the other end of the trunk. "We're going to that trailer over there." He said and pointed to his rather shabby looking office/quarters. The driver made a face.
They left the trunk outside the trailer, but the driver insisted on carrying the suitcase in and began unpacking it for him. Wolfgang held up his hands.
"Okay, that really is enough now." Wolfgang said. He shut the suitcase and gently steered the driver towards the door. He walked with him back to the car. "Tell my father thank you for the ride."
"Of course, Sir."
"Thanks. And next time, please remember to call me Wolfgang."
"I will Sir. Farewell."
Wolfgang watched the Mercedes retreating in a cloud of dust along the dirt and gravel road that lead away from their campground. He tried not to laugh. At least being called "Sir" was better than the "Young Master" they used to use. Kurt popped out from behind a small stand of trees.
"Good Afternoon Sir." He said.
"Shut up blue elf."
Kurt laughed. "Who was that? Is that your car?"
"Both of them belong to my father." Wolfgang said with a frown. "I was just hitching a ride for the day. I guess it's bad enough that I work for a circus so he had to make up for it by sending me back here in that thing. The neighbors might start talking otherwise. I really shouldn't complain though."
"We missed you." Kurt said. "Did you have a nice visit home?"
Wolfgang shrugged. "It was okay I guess. I didn't do very much; my father was too busy with some hotel deal in Prague. I did have lunch with mother several times though. And I got to see my brother Siegfried for the first time in years. "
"Siegfried?"
"Yeah," Wolfgang said, shaking his head "Isn't that terrible. Our surname is Wagner and my parents go and name their kid Siegfried. I think I almost got named Fafner. Ridiculous."
Kurt burst out laughing. "It could have been worse. What about Wotan?"
Wolfgang cringed. "Oh my God, you're right. Wotan would have been the end of me. Come with me, I've got something to show you." Wolfgang led Kurt back to his trailer and snapped open the locks on his trunk. He lifted the lid and they looked inside.
"Wow. Are all those swords yours?" Kurt asked.
"Yes. But they're more like rapiers actually. Nothing in there really qualifies as a sword." He removed the topmost weapon from the box. "This is the fancy one." He said as he grasped the backswept clamshell design hilt and slid the blade from its scabbard. "It's just for show really. The rest of them are more utilitarian."
Kurt crouched beside the box. He reached in and pulled out a very thin bladed weapon with a very oddly shaped handle. "What's with this?" He asked, pointing to it.
"You have good taste." Wolfgang said. "That is my absolute favorite fencing foil. I owe quite a few trophies to that baby."
Kurt squinted at the odd grip and tried to grasp it in one hand.
"That's called a pistol grip. Unfortunately, you need four fingers and a thumb for that particular handle." Wolfgang said. He took the weapon from Kurt and demonstrated, the curves fitting within his hand exactly. "It's like an extension of your arm this way." He pulled a similar weapon from the box that had a more traditional looking French grip. "Try this one instead." He said.
Kurt took it and wrapped his hand around the hilt. "It's very nice." He said.
Wolfgang knelt down and started pulling more things from the box, naming them as he went. "This is called an epee. You can see its blade is a bit thicker than the foil. The targets on the body are different too. This is a sabre, in competition you can do a slash attack as well as a thrust. And here's another foil like the one you have there; it's lightest of the three weapons."
Kurt noticed that there was several of each weapon. Some of them had the funny looking pistol grip, but there were others with more traditional looking handles. He put the foil he had been holding down to inspect them. "What is all this for?" Kurt asked.
Gesturing grandly at the box and its contents, Wolfgang said, "This is our family sport."
"Sword fighting is a sport?"
"No, but fencing is. The Wagner's have been fencers for generations. There are even a few Olympic medalists in the family. " Wolfgang laughed. "It's the only reason to go to any of our family affairs in my opinion. After we eat, during the time when everyone would normally be lounging gossiping about the people who couldn't come, we fight each other. There are grudge matches that go back decades."
Kurt laughed. "I can't even imagine that," he said.
Wolfgang nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's pretty funny looking, but it sure beats the usual crap people do at their family gatherings." Wolfgang pulled a few more things from the box including several white jackets and a pair of strange mesh covered masks.
"That's cool, but why did you bring all this here?"
"You're a Wagner now. It seems only fitting that you be schooled in our most noble and worthwhile family tradition." Wolfgang said.
"You want to teach me to sword fight?" Kurt asked.
"If you want to learn." Wolfgang said.
"You have to ask?" Kurt cried. "Of course I do. This is amazing. Can we start right now?"
Wolfgang laughed. "Maybe I could unpack first, and then look for a place to store all this stuff while we're not using it. After that, sure." He and Kurt started putting everything back into the box.
Wolfgang started teaching Kurt to fence the next day. They used the smooth floor that was laid down inside the main tent and Wolfgang used white gaffer's tape to mark out a strip.
"The rules are simple." Wolfgang said. "All combat is done within this narrow box here. If you step outside it's a foul and the fencers have to go back to their starting points. There are three weapon types: foil, epee, and sabre, though sabre is kind of going out of fashion. Besides the differences in the types of blades, they have different target areas.
"In sabre the target area is everything from the waist up. For epee, anything goes. The target is the whole body. That's why the bell guard is so huge. The wrist is a really common target. Foil has the smallest target area, just the torso, no arms or head.
"A match is 5 points, or touches on your opponent. Who ever reaches five first wins.
We'll start with foil I think. It has the most discipline and I happen to like it best." Wolfgang grinned.
"I hope you're right handed." Wolfgang said as he handed Kurt the French grip hilt foil from the other day. Wolfgang picked up his pistol grip foil and demonstrated the basic en garde position, his right foot in front of the left, his knees slightly bent, and the foil held at waist level and tilted slightly upwards.
Kurt was starting to get the whole step forward, step back, and lunge thing when he noticed Lars watching from the stands. He stopped and waved. Lars walked down the aisle.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"Wolfgang is teaching me to fence. En garde!" He jumped into position with his foil at the ready. Lars pushed it away.
"How come you get to learn to fence?" He asked.
"You can learn too if you want." Wolfgang said, already reaching into his box to pull out another weapon.
"Yeah, but you have to do something really embarrassing first to prove you're worthy." Kurt added grinning.
"Oh, you mean like fall off the tight wire and knock Sven out of the air?"
"Exactly."
Wolfgang glanced at Kurt and laughed. Obviously there was some history there that he didn't know about, but he could imagine Kurt doing something like that. Lars looked around. "I can't think of anything just now." He said.
"Okay," said Kurt, "But you owe us."
The three of them quickly got into a routine, pulling out the fencing gear an hour or so before show time. Wolfgang was an incredible fencer. Kurt didn't know much but he had learned enough to see that he would most likely never achieve the same level of skill. Wolfgang adjusted his fencing to be fair to his opponents, but every so often he played to win and Kurt wouldn't even see it coming.
It became clear that having an uneven number wasn't nearly as fun and to their surprise it was Amanda who asked to be their fourth. Wolfgang never thought of Amanda as the physical type, but she quickly proved him wrong. She was equal with Lars and the two of them were slightly behind Kurt, but that was because he had the benefit his tail as a counter balance.
They would spend the most of their practice time drilling each other and putting on masks and jackets to pair up and spar each other. Once they were proficient in the basics Wolfgang started ending practice by showing them the traditional rapier techniques. Kurt actually liked this better. The narrow grip on the foil always felt wrong in his hand and the confinement to a thin strip of floor was, well, confining.
The rapier on the other hand was a much longer weapon with a much heavier blade. The handles of Wolfgang's practice rapiers were much sturdier and easier to hold. The best part was that it was much more open; instead of a strip they were free to go anywhere they wanted. The footwork was less confining as well. And most importantly, it looked much more like the sword fighting in Wolfgang's pirate movies than foil fencing did. Kurt could see how learning the basics of sport fencing were important, but he always looked forward to the second half of their practice sessions.
Though he had been skeptical at first, Kurt was beginning to see that being Kurt Wagner had more fringe benefits than he had first realized.
Author's note: Siegfried, Fafner, and Wotan are all characters from Wagner's Ring Cycle.
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RavEnigma
- Butt Monkey
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- Location: Stalking Quicksilver!
- Contact:
Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Coolies! Kurt's getting his Errol Flynn on, yesss! I can't wait for more!
Kurt's getting his Errol Flynn on, yesss! I can't wait for more! Naz-Bunny Lover Club member #1"God help the outcasts, or nobody will"
"That's not a cat, it's a minion of the antichrist!"
Pietro Fan Club Member #1
:evopietro =
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CurlyyHairGirl
- Swashbuckler
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- Location: San Jose State University
Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
:LOLHEEHEE Thei is fabuloso,Fantastico. You are going to threaten Laurens crown,*watch out L*
one name: Bruce Campbell
Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Oy! I lose track of this thread for a few days, and you've written pages on pages!
I'm very interested in the way you're having Kurt create a "stage persona". Is this something that will be "abused" later by Stryker, by any chance?
And by the way: horribly cute kitten you have there. We have one 7 month old kitten here, a HUGE Maine Coon, who seems to trash everything by his lonesome. I can only imagine what a quartet of inter-continental ballistic kittens would be like....
I'm very interested in the way you're having Kurt create a "stage persona". Is this something that will be "abused" later by Stryker, by any chance?
And by the way: horribly cute kitten you have there. We have one 7 month old kitten here, a HUGE Maine Coon, who seems to trash everything by his lonesome. I can only imagine what a quartet of inter-continental ballistic kittens would be like....
Eagles may soar, but weasels never get sucked into the intake of a jet engine..... 
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Lauren
- Navigator
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- Location: Nightcrawler's bedroom *shhh!*
Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
...WHAT?!!!!!:shocked:shocked:shocked:shocked:shocked:surprise:surprise
*sniffle* that's not funny...
*sniffle* that's not funny...
"I am known as Valentinez Alkalinella Xifax Sicidabohertz Gombigobilla Blue Stradivari Talentrent Pierre Andri Charton-Haymoss Ivanovici Baldeus George Doitzel Kaiser III. Don't hesitate to call." -Vash the Stampede
"No, you see I'm blind in my right eye now... So boring. You know what really makes me pissy? Grunge, Heroine chic, and dying are over. I so hate being behind the curve. Tourism's up." Brett(Alan Cumming) from Urbania
"No, you see I'm blind in my right eye now... So boring. You know what really makes me pissy? Grunge, Heroine chic, and dying are over. I so hate being behind the curve. Tourism's up." Brett(Alan Cumming) from Urbania
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Saint Kurt
- Administrator
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- Title: Derelict Landlord
- Location: Watch out for that cow pie!
Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Actually there are five kittens and they can completely trash a room in under five minutes. They're like batteries, they go nuts for like an hour and then they need to be recharged by lying in a big pile in their bed. After that they're all ready to go again.
It was never my intention to mount a hostile coup against the current monarchy. Lauren, have no fear, your crown is safe.
Just in case you're wondering how I write so fast, I'm not. I have an outline, and then I write the stories all out of order. I try to stay roughly 5 or 6 ahead of what I'm posting here but since I had 13 of them written before I started, it's not that hard.
The outline goes all the way up to Stryker's men collecting Kurt, but stops there. I have no idea if I'll be able to write that far.
There has been a lot of introduction of an original character, but he figures big so it seemed worth it. Things should pick up during the next couple stories.
I'm glad you guys are liking it though. I didn't really expect it to be such a huge saga...
-e
It was never my intention to mount a hostile coup against the current monarchy. Lauren, have no fear, your crown is safe.
Just in case you're wondering how I write so fast, I'm not. I have an outline, and then I write the stories all out of order. I try to stay roughly 5 or 6 ahead of what I'm posting here but since I had 13 of them written before I started, it's not that hard.
The outline goes all the way up to Stryker's men collecting Kurt, but stops there. I have no idea if I'll be able to write that far.
There has been a lot of introduction of an original character, but he figures big so it seemed worth it. Things should pick up during the next couple stories.
I'm glad you guys are liking it though. I didn't really expect it to be such a huge saga...
-e
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Saint Kurt
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Project Bamf
“It’s like blinking your eyes, you can see the back of your eyelids but it’s so quick that you don’t know what they look like.”
It was a strange noise that woke Wolfgang. He sat up and looked around. It was very dark out, probably 2 or 3 in the morning. Then he heard it again, a sort of muffled thump. He got out of bed and pulled on a pair of pants. He grabbed a t-shirt and a flashlight and headed out the door.
Wolfgang’s trailer was the only one that was near the tents since it served as their office. He could see a dim light shining through the open tent door and heard two more thumps. Someone was in the big tent banging things. Pulling on his t-shirt as he walked, Wolfgang prepared for the worst.
He peeked slowly around the corner of the tent flaps. In the middle of the floor that had been laid down to provide a smooth flat surface for the performers, was a single gas lantern. It cast crazy shadows everywhere, leaving most of the tent in total darkness. There were two more thumps in the blackness only now that he was close to the tent they didn’t sound like thumps at all, more like someone slamming a door. But there were no doors in the tent. Plus, each time it happened it was in a different part of the tent. How many people were in there? What was going on?
Wolfgang shined his flashlight into the tent and stepped in. “You’re trespassing!” He shouted, “If you leave now, I won’t call the police.” There were two more door slams, one far away and another quite close though he still couldn’t see anyone.
“No, Wolfgang it’s me.” It was Kurt’s voice and his friend emerged from the shadows. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of warm up pants. He looked winded, like he’d been exercising.
“What are you doing?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt looked around the tent, still catching his breath. “I’m… Uh, I’m…” he faltered. “I’m working on a project.” He said at last.
Wolfgang looked incredulous. “What kind of project? It sounds like you’re doing construction in here banging around like that.”
“Banging? It sounds different to me.” Kurt said.
“What are you talking about? What are you doing?”
Kurt was silent, the expressions on his face changing as he seemed to undergo some kind of internal debate. Finally, he sighed, suddenly looking very nervous. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.
Wolfgang was confused. “Sure.”
“Okay. I’ll show you.” Kurt said. He bounced nervously on the balls of his feet for a moment and then walked a few paces away. He turned back towards Wolfgang. “Ready?” he asked.
Wolfgang shrugged, not exactly what he was ready for.
“Okay.” Said Kurt. He took a deep breath and drew himself up like Wolfgang had seen him do when preparing for any kind of acrobatic maneuver. Instead of tumbling however, Kurt disappeared in a puff of dark smoke and reappeared in another puff a few feet away. His disappearance and reappearance were each accompanied by the sound Wolfgang had been hearing.
“You’re doing magic?” Wolfgang asked, even more confused.
“I don’t know what it is.” Kurt said.
“What do you mean you don’t know what it is?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt shrugged. “I don’t know. I just…” He disappeared again, reappearing very close to Wolfgang’s side. The smoke had an acrid odor and Wolfgang waved it away. Suddenly it dawned on him.
“You mean you’re just doing that? It’s not a trick?” He asked.
“Yeah.” Kurt said.
Wolfgang took a step away from Kurt. “How?” He asked, his voice sounding slightly hysterical.
“I’m not really sure.” Kurt said sadly. “One day I could just do it.”
Wolfgang didn’t know what to say. He started to stammer a reply, stopped and then started again only to have to stop again since he still hadn’t made any real words. Kurt could do a lot of amazing things, but this one took the cake. “Do it again.” Wolfgang said.
Kurt did, several more times, trying to stay within the circle of light cast by the lantern.
By the time he was done, Wolfgang was grinning. “That’s incredible!” He cried, “That’s cooler than all the other stuff you can do put together.”
“I haven’t really perfected it yet.” Kurt said, “But I’m getting better. I come in here and practice sometimes when everyone’s asleep.”
“Better? What used to happen before?” Wolfgang asked. He watched a deep purple color appear on Kurt’s cheeks.
“I couldn’t seem to bring my clothes with me.” Kurt admitted.
Wolfgang cracked up. “Really?” He asked.
“It’s not funny!’ Kurt said emphatically, “I couldn’t really control where I was going either. Sometimes I ended up really far away from where my clothes were. And then I couldn’t get back to them.”
Imagining this only made Wolfgang laugh harder. Kurt made an exasperated noise and disappeared. Wolfgang heard him reappear somewhere in the blackness across the tent from him.
From then on nearly every night, Wolfgang helped Kurt figure out his strange new ability. For an artist, Wolfgang sure seemed to think like a scientist and as far as Kurt could tell, he was determined to map out the exact limits of Kurt’s new talent. Sometimes he was surprised Wolfgang wasn’t standing around in a white lab coat with a clipboard checking things off.
Despite Wolfgang’s adherence to the scientific method, Kurt actually found it rather helpful. Until their training sessions, Kurt wasn’t sure what would happen each time he shifted. But with Wolfgang’s help, he was starting to come up with some guidelines. For instance, Kurt could make lateral moves easier than vertical ones. Even so it seemed that on the vertical plane going down was easier than going up making it appear as though gravity was still at work.
Neither of them could agree on a name for it. Kurt called it “shifting” or “blinking” because that’s what it felt like. Wolfgang didn’t understand the “blinking” term until Kurt explained, “it’s like blinking your eyes, you can see the back of your eyelids but it’s so quick that you don’t know what they look like.” Wolfgang wanted Kurt to call it “Apparating”, a term made up by J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter books, but since Kurt had never read the books, it didn’t make any sense to him. They finally settled on the rather dull, yet scientific sounding “teleporting”.
The project stayed secret even as their experiments were becoming more elaborate. When Wolfgang wanted to see how far away Kurt could teleport they had to sneak away from the circus to a large field where Wolfgang could find targets with a pair of binoculars and see how close to them Kurt could get. A side benefit Wolfgang’s relentless experimentation was that Kurt discovered that teleporting was just like any other athletic skill; at first it had been exhausting, but with practice he was gaining endurance.
Once height and distance were mastered, Kurt started trying to carry things with him. The closer things were to his body, the easier it was for him to carry them. Besides his own clothes, he could teleport with small objects. More often than not, anything that weighed more than a few pounds stayed behind. The biggest shock was when Kurt attempted to teleport with a heavy wooden block and took only half of it with him. Wolfgang had been wondering if it would be possible for Kurt to take another person with him, but staring at the cleanly cut halves of each block, it didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.
It was quite by accident that Kurt discovered that he carried momentum when he teleported. He had been swinging on the trapeze intending to see if he could teleport to the ground. He slid across the floor at the same speed and slammed into the bleachers headfirst. Kurt, sitting up but looking slightly dazed announced that it was time to quit for the night.
They retired to Wolfgang’s crowded trailer, sitting around his desk like it was a table while Wolfgang enumerated his notes. “I think you can go about a mile or two, but you can’t go that far up or down. The momentum thing is interesting, we need to try that some more…”
“I think I like standing still better.” Kurt interrupted, rubbing the knot on his head.
“Plus there’s that weird ‘bamf’ sound it makes and the stinky smoke. I wish I knew how it worked.” Wolfgang continued as though Kurt hadn’t said anything. “It’s almost like you open a door, step through it, and end up leaving through a different door in another part of the room.”
“That’s actually kind of what it feels like.” Kurt said.
Wolfgang rubbed his chin; there was a memory on the edges of his consciousness that had to do with smoke and doors. He concentrated a moment and then there it was: the cigar room. When Wolfgang had been maybe five or six, his mother had forbid cigar smoking in all but one room of the house. That room was the “cigar room”. His father had furnished it with heavy leather chairs and dark wood tables; even with the windows open it had the lingering sweet smell of tobacco. When his father had business parties the men would congregate in the cigar room after dinner and quickly fill the room with pungent smoke. Whenever anyone left or entered the room, the smoke would start to drift through the open door only to be sucked back in again when the door shut. All that would be left was a tiny puff of evidence that the door had ever been opened.
Kurt had to be doing the same thing. But where was he going? And what kind of door was he opening?
He had hardly even begun to contemplate this when another idea struck him. What if Kurt was the door? What if instead of opening a door and stepping into a room, he was the one opening and shutting? Wolfgang suddenly wished he had paid better attention in physics.
The theory of relativity said that an object in motion is only in motion from the perspective of a stationary viewer. And from the perspective of the object, it is standing still and the world moves around it. His professor had used an airplane as an example. Someone on the ground sees an airplane take off in New York and land in Los Angeles. The people on the airplane, however are not moving, they see New York leave and Los Angeles arrive. So if Kurt was the object in motion, then he entered the “cigar room” at a certain point and left it at the same point, only the world had switched positions.
Since there was only one Kurt this implied that the spot where he had once stood was now vacant so he could fill in a new spot elsewhere. That was what the smoke was, it filled up the “hole” Kurt left and was displaced out of the way when Kurt arrived. Exactly what was making the smoke, he couldn’t be sure, but he was positive about the displacement. Wolfgang only had a moment to enjoy his discovery. It meant there could be horrible repercussions. He frowned.
“What are you thinking about?” Kurt asked.
Wolfgang came out of his reverie and realized that he must have been staring off into space the whole time he’d been thinking. “Have you ever tried to teleport to a place you can’t see?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt shrugged. “I don’t think so…No, I haven’t. Why? Do you think I should try it?”
Wolfgang held up his hands in warning. “No, no. Don’t ever try it.”
Kurt laughed. “Why, what’s the big deal?”
Wolfgang jumped up and grabbed a clear glass, filled it to the very top with water from his jug and set it on his desk in front of Kurt. He then grabbed a stone he was using for a paperweight and held it up. “This is you.” He said. “And this glass is a space where you aren’t.”
Kurt looked a little puzzled but nodded and Wolfgang dropped the stone in the water. Water sloshed out of the top of the glass onto the table and the stone sank to the bottom.
“The stone displaces the water.”
“So.”
Wolfgang gestured at the glass, “Look, some of the water came out of the glass, the water had to move out of the way so the stone could be there.”
“Okay, but what does this have to do with me being able to see?” Kurt asked.
“You don’t get it? Air moves out of the way, water moves out of the way, but…” Wolfgang grabbed a spoon, fished the rock out of the glass, and dropped it on the table for emphasis. “The table doesn’t move out of the way to let the rock in.”
“No,” Kurt agreed, “the rock lands on the table.”
“Yeah, but what if the rock tried to land in the table?”
Kurt scratched his head. “So you’re saying I could accidentally teleport into a solid object? That I could get stuck inside it?”
“Exactly – it can’t move out of the way.” Wolfgang said.
Kurt considered for a moment, drawing lines on the table with the spilled water. “So, if I can’t see it, I can’t know that it’s safe to go there.” He said at last.
Wolfgang nodded. “Never go where you can’t see. I don’t know what would happen if you tried.” He said.
Still tracing tendrils of water from the puddle around the glass, Kurt nodded solemnly. It suddenly seemed like a lot of responsibility and not for the first time he found himself wondering exactly what God had in mind for him.
It was weeks before Wolfgang began to rethink the idea of Kurt transporting another person with him. Kurt was getting really good at it. His “re-materializations” for lack of a better word, always his weak point, were more and more precise and he had built enough stamina to move fairly heavy objects intact. It had been over a week since he’d arrived without a complete item. The limit seemed to be around 200 pounds, but that was more than enough leeway for someone Wolfgang’s size.
Wolfgang wasn’t even sure why he was so obsessed with the idea. For one thing, it was dangerous. Neither he nor Kurt knew exactly how Kurt was doing it. What if there was something about Kurt that shielded him from whatever force it was moving him through space? Would it apply to a passenger? There were so many unknowns and yet, since the very first night he’d seen Kurt teleport, he’d wanted to try it.
Maybe it was that he’d known Kurt for nearly a year now, but in so many ways his friend remained a mystery to him. There were so many things about Kurt that Wolfgang could never know, could never understand. So often he was struck by the impossible limitations Kurt’s appearance placed on him only to be equally shocked by the ease with which Kurt accepted them. Maybe it was empathy Wolfgang was looking for, to just for one moment look at the world from behind yellow eyes and blue skin and understand why Kurt didn’t hate everybody.
Then again Wolfgang wondered if it wasn’t empathy but jealousy. Despite his outward appearance and charm Wolfgang was fairly unremarkable by his family’s standards. He knew he was handsome, but so were his brothers and his cousins, just as their fathers were. He knew he was intelligent as well, but once again this was nothing unusual in a family whose scholarship went back for generations. He had money of course, but he had earned none of it.
All his life Wolfgang had fought against the stifling forces of his father and his family’s business interests; forces that had been threatening to suck dry since he was a child. He had spent his life running away from it. When he compared himself to Kurt, who had every conceivable disadvantage and yet managed to shine anyway, Wolfgang felt wholly inadequate.
But Kurt had chosen to share his secret with him alone and Wolfgang wanted to be more than a facilitator, he wanted to be a part of it. But that meant he needed a test subject.
Kurt looked somewhat confused when Wolfgang handed him a small cage containing a hen he’d bought at a street market in town, but agreed to teleport with it. The chicken arrived, with Kurt, alive and intact if not somewhat dazed. They opened the cage and after a few minutes the hen hopped out and began pecking at the floor speculatively, apparently unaffected by the trip.
The next evening, after their chicken test pilot had been donated to the safety of a nearby farmer’s coop, Wolfgang waited rather pensively for his turn. Kurt was standing a few feet away from him, head bowed and eyes closed mumbling under his breath.
“Are you praying?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt opened his eyes and glanced up at him. “Yeah.”
“You’re not nervous are you?”
Kurt straightened up. “A little,” he admitted. “You?”
“Not until you started praying. It will be fine. The chicken was okay.” Wolfgang said, trying not to let his own nerves show.
“You’re a lot bigger. And I wasn’t friends with the chicken.”
“I trust you. You can do it.” Wolfgang said. “I’m ready when you are,” he added encouragingly.
Kurt took a step forward and pulled Wolfgang into a tight embrace. Wolfgang put his arms around Kurt and shut his eyes, not sure what to expect. After a few moments nothing happened. He opened his eyes.
“Kurt?”
“Sorry. I’m still nervous,” came the reply from somewhere near Wolfgang’s right ear.
“People are going to get the wrong idea about us.” Wolfgang said, trying to lighten the mood.
Kurt gave an anxious laugh. “Okay,” he said, “ready?”
Wolfgang nodded his head and swallowed hard, concentrating on the far wall of the tent. There was a crack like a gunshot and suddenly he was falling backwards, the world around him spinning. He let go of Kurt and was vaguely aware of Kurt doing the same to him. Wolfgang lay on the ground feeling more nauseous than he had in his life willing the world to stop spinning. Did this happen every time? He wondered how Kurt could stand it.
Wolfgang didn’t know how long he lay on the floor, his hands pressed to his temples with his fingers over his eyes. There was movement beside him and Wolfgang pulled his hands away to see Kurt crawling over to him from where he’d fallen, his face was a mask of concern.
“Are you okay?” He asked.
Wolfgang nodded; his head was starting to clear, the nausea fading. Kurt was half sitting half lying next to him, leaning on one elbow, his whole body shaking. As Wolfgang sat up Kurt slid the rest of the way to the floor and lay on his side with his eyes closed, still trembling.
“Are you okay?” Wolfgang asked him. He felt almost normal now, but Kurt obviously didn’t.
“I’ve never been so tired.” Kurt said without opening his eyes.
Wolfgang looked at Kurt and suddenly felt like a jackass. This whole time he’d been so worried about what would happen to him, that it hadn’t even occurred to him to think about how Kurt might be affected. And now that he had the answer it made him feel selfish and stupid. The weight of guilt made him feel how Kurt looked.
He had to get Kurt off the floor and since Kurt didn’t look like he was going to get up anytime soon, Wolfgang grabbed him by the armpits and pulled him into a sitting position.
“Can you stand?” He asked, still keeping a hold so Kurt didn’t slide back down to the floor. Kurt nodded feebly and Wolfgang hauled him to his feet. He couldn’t stand or walk on his own so Wolfgang half dragged half carried him out of the tent. He took Kurt to his own trailer. Margali’s was twice the distance and Wolfgang wasn’t sure how he would get him into his top bunk anyway.
Inside Wolfgang dropped Kurt onto his bed where sat swaying with his head down and his eyes still shut. Wolfgang wasn’t sure what to do. There was obviously something wrong, but he had no idea what it was or how to fix it. He poured a glass of water, but Kurt couldn’t even hold onto it. Wolfgang held it for him so Kurt could drink it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Wolfgang asked. He knew Kurt found teleporting tiring, but he never got like this when he teleported alone.
Kurt nodded, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. “I already feel better. I just need to rest that’s all.” He said.
Wolfgang realized that Kurt was right. He still looked exhausted, but he had stopped shaking and was holding his head up higher.
“So much for our big experiment.” Wolfgang said.
“It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.” Kurt admitted.
“You can stay here tonight.”
“Mmm,” Kurt was already stretching out on Wolfgang’s bed. He was asleep before Wolfgang could pull the covers over him.
Wolfgang watched him sleeping for a moment, reassuring himself that yes, Kurt was breathing and everything was going to be all right. Once assured, he opened a cupboard below the bed to retrieve the sleeping bag he used on cold nights. Wolfgang spread it out on the floor and curled up on top of it. Something poked him in the head and he realized that Kurt twitched his tail in his sleep and it was hanging off the edge of the bed. He laughed and pushed it away realizing he was probably the only guy in the world to ever have this problem.
He lay awake staring at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about the evening’s events. Remembering Kurt lying unable to move on the tent floor, Wolfgang vowed never to ask him to teleport with another person again.
It was a strange noise that woke Wolfgang. He sat up and looked around. It was very dark out, probably 2 or 3 in the morning. Then he heard it again, a sort of muffled thump. He got out of bed and pulled on a pair of pants. He grabbed a t-shirt and a flashlight and headed out the door.
Wolfgang’s trailer was the only one that was near the tents since it served as their office. He could see a dim light shining through the open tent door and heard two more thumps. Someone was in the big tent banging things. Pulling on his t-shirt as he walked, Wolfgang prepared for the worst.
He peeked slowly around the corner of the tent flaps. In the middle of the floor that had been laid down to provide a smooth flat surface for the performers, was a single gas lantern. It cast crazy shadows everywhere, leaving most of the tent in total darkness. There were two more thumps in the blackness only now that he was close to the tent they didn’t sound like thumps at all, more like someone slamming a door. But there were no doors in the tent. Plus, each time it happened it was in a different part of the tent. How many people were in there? What was going on?
Wolfgang shined his flashlight into the tent and stepped in. “You’re trespassing!” He shouted, “If you leave now, I won’t call the police.” There were two more door slams, one far away and another quite close though he still couldn’t see anyone.
“No, Wolfgang it’s me.” It was Kurt’s voice and his friend emerged from the shadows. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of warm up pants. He looked winded, like he’d been exercising.
“What are you doing?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt looked around the tent, still catching his breath. “I’m… Uh, I’m…” he faltered. “I’m working on a project.” He said at last.
Wolfgang looked incredulous. “What kind of project? It sounds like you’re doing construction in here banging around like that.”
“Banging? It sounds different to me.” Kurt said.
“What are you talking about? What are you doing?”
Kurt was silent, the expressions on his face changing as he seemed to undergo some kind of internal debate. Finally, he sighed, suddenly looking very nervous. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.
Wolfgang was confused. “Sure.”
“Okay. I’ll show you.” Kurt said. He bounced nervously on the balls of his feet for a moment and then walked a few paces away. He turned back towards Wolfgang. “Ready?” he asked.
Wolfgang shrugged, not exactly what he was ready for.
“Okay.” Said Kurt. He took a deep breath and drew himself up like Wolfgang had seen him do when preparing for any kind of acrobatic maneuver. Instead of tumbling however, Kurt disappeared in a puff of dark smoke and reappeared in another puff a few feet away. His disappearance and reappearance were each accompanied by the sound Wolfgang had been hearing.
“You’re doing magic?” Wolfgang asked, even more confused.
“I don’t know what it is.” Kurt said.
“What do you mean you don’t know what it is?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt shrugged. “I don’t know. I just…” He disappeared again, reappearing very close to Wolfgang’s side. The smoke had an acrid odor and Wolfgang waved it away. Suddenly it dawned on him.
“You mean you’re just doing that? It’s not a trick?” He asked.
“Yeah.” Kurt said.
Wolfgang took a step away from Kurt. “How?” He asked, his voice sounding slightly hysterical.
“I’m not really sure.” Kurt said sadly. “One day I could just do it.”
Wolfgang didn’t know what to say. He started to stammer a reply, stopped and then started again only to have to stop again since he still hadn’t made any real words. Kurt could do a lot of amazing things, but this one took the cake. “Do it again.” Wolfgang said.
Kurt did, several more times, trying to stay within the circle of light cast by the lantern.
By the time he was done, Wolfgang was grinning. “That’s incredible!” He cried, “That’s cooler than all the other stuff you can do put together.”
“I haven’t really perfected it yet.” Kurt said, “But I’m getting better. I come in here and practice sometimes when everyone’s asleep.”
“Better? What used to happen before?” Wolfgang asked. He watched a deep purple color appear on Kurt’s cheeks.
“I couldn’t seem to bring my clothes with me.” Kurt admitted.
Wolfgang cracked up. “Really?” He asked.
“It’s not funny!’ Kurt said emphatically, “I couldn’t really control where I was going either. Sometimes I ended up really far away from where my clothes were. And then I couldn’t get back to them.”
Imagining this only made Wolfgang laugh harder. Kurt made an exasperated noise and disappeared. Wolfgang heard him reappear somewhere in the blackness across the tent from him.
From then on nearly every night, Wolfgang helped Kurt figure out his strange new ability. For an artist, Wolfgang sure seemed to think like a scientist and as far as Kurt could tell, he was determined to map out the exact limits of Kurt’s new talent. Sometimes he was surprised Wolfgang wasn’t standing around in a white lab coat with a clipboard checking things off.
Despite Wolfgang’s adherence to the scientific method, Kurt actually found it rather helpful. Until their training sessions, Kurt wasn’t sure what would happen each time he shifted. But with Wolfgang’s help, he was starting to come up with some guidelines. For instance, Kurt could make lateral moves easier than vertical ones. Even so it seemed that on the vertical plane going down was easier than going up making it appear as though gravity was still at work.
Neither of them could agree on a name for it. Kurt called it “shifting” or “blinking” because that’s what it felt like. Wolfgang didn’t understand the “blinking” term until Kurt explained, “it’s like blinking your eyes, you can see the back of your eyelids but it’s so quick that you don’t know what they look like.” Wolfgang wanted Kurt to call it “Apparating”, a term made up by J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter books, but since Kurt had never read the books, it didn’t make any sense to him. They finally settled on the rather dull, yet scientific sounding “teleporting”.
The project stayed secret even as their experiments were becoming more elaborate. When Wolfgang wanted to see how far away Kurt could teleport they had to sneak away from the circus to a large field where Wolfgang could find targets with a pair of binoculars and see how close to them Kurt could get. A side benefit Wolfgang’s relentless experimentation was that Kurt discovered that teleporting was just like any other athletic skill; at first it had been exhausting, but with practice he was gaining endurance.
Once height and distance were mastered, Kurt started trying to carry things with him. The closer things were to his body, the easier it was for him to carry them. Besides his own clothes, he could teleport with small objects. More often than not, anything that weighed more than a few pounds stayed behind. The biggest shock was when Kurt attempted to teleport with a heavy wooden block and took only half of it with him. Wolfgang had been wondering if it would be possible for Kurt to take another person with him, but staring at the cleanly cut halves of each block, it didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore.
It was quite by accident that Kurt discovered that he carried momentum when he teleported. He had been swinging on the trapeze intending to see if he could teleport to the ground. He slid across the floor at the same speed and slammed into the bleachers headfirst. Kurt, sitting up but looking slightly dazed announced that it was time to quit for the night.
They retired to Wolfgang’s crowded trailer, sitting around his desk like it was a table while Wolfgang enumerated his notes. “I think you can go about a mile or two, but you can’t go that far up or down. The momentum thing is interesting, we need to try that some more…”
“I think I like standing still better.” Kurt interrupted, rubbing the knot on his head.
“Plus there’s that weird ‘bamf’ sound it makes and the stinky smoke. I wish I knew how it worked.” Wolfgang continued as though Kurt hadn’t said anything. “It’s almost like you open a door, step through it, and end up leaving through a different door in another part of the room.”
“That’s actually kind of what it feels like.” Kurt said.
Wolfgang rubbed his chin; there was a memory on the edges of his consciousness that had to do with smoke and doors. He concentrated a moment and then there it was: the cigar room. When Wolfgang had been maybe five or six, his mother had forbid cigar smoking in all but one room of the house. That room was the “cigar room”. His father had furnished it with heavy leather chairs and dark wood tables; even with the windows open it had the lingering sweet smell of tobacco. When his father had business parties the men would congregate in the cigar room after dinner and quickly fill the room with pungent smoke. Whenever anyone left or entered the room, the smoke would start to drift through the open door only to be sucked back in again when the door shut. All that would be left was a tiny puff of evidence that the door had ever been opened.
Kurt had to be doing the same thing. But where was he going? And what kind of door was he opening?
He had hardly even begun to contemplate this when another idea struck him. What if Kurt was the door? What if instead of opening a door and stepping into a room, he was the one opening and shutting? Wolfgang suddenly wished he had paid better attention in physics.
The theory of relativity said that an object in motion is only in motion from the perspective of a stationary viewer. And from the perspective of the object, it is standing still and the world moves around it. His professor had used an airplane as an example. Someone on the ground sees an airplane take off in New York and land in Los Angeles. The people on the airplane, however are not moving, they see New York leave and Los Angeles arrive. So if Kurt was the object in motion, then he entered the “cigar room” at a certain point and left it at the same point, only the world had switched positions.
Since there was only one Kurt this implied that the spot where he had once stood was now vacant so he could fill in a new spot elsewhere. That was what the smoke was, it filled up the “hole” Kurt left and was displaced out of the way when Kurt arrived. Exactly what was making the smoke, he couldn’t be sure, but he was positive about the displacement. Wolfgang only had a moment to enjoy his discovery. It meant there could be horrible repercussions. He frowned.
“What are you thinking about?” Kurt asked.
Wolfgang came out of his reverie and realized that he must have been staring off into space the whole time he’d been thinking. “Have you ever tried to teleport to a place you can’t see?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt shrugged. “I don’t think so…No, I haven’t. Why? Do you think I should try it?”
Wolfgang held up his hands in warning. “No, no. Don’t ever try it.”
Kurt laughed. “Why, what’s the big deal?”
Wolfgang jumped up and grabbed a clear glass, filled it to the very top with water from his jug and set it on his desk in front of Kurt. He then grabbed a stone he was using for a paperweight and held it up. “This is you.” He said. “And this glass is a space where you aren’t.”
Kurt looked a little puzzled but nodded and Wolfgang dropped the stone in the water. Water sloshed out of the top of the glass onto the table and the stone sank to the bottom.
“The stone displaces the water.”
“So.”
Wolfgang gestured at the glass, “Look, some of the water came out of the glass, the water had to move out of the way so the stone could be there.”
“Okay, but what does this have to do with me being able to see?” Kurt asked.
“You don’t get it? Air moves out of the way, water moves out of the way, but…” Wolfgang grabbed a spoon, fished the rock out of the glass, and dropped it on the table for emphasis. “The table doesn’t move out of the way to let the rock in.”
“No,” Kurt agreed, “the rock lands on the table.”
“Yeah, but what if the rock tried to land in the table?”
Kurt scratched his head. “So you’re saying I could accidentally teleport into a solid object? That I could get stuck inside it?”
“Exactly – it can’t move out of the way.” Wolfgang said.
Kurt considered for a moment, drawing lines on the table with the spilled water. “So, if I can’t see it, I can’t know that it’s safe to go there.” He said at last.
Wolfgang nodded. “Never go where you can’t see. I don’t know what would happen if you tried.” He said.
Still tracing tendrils of water from the puddle around the glass, Kurt nodded solemnly. It suddenly seemed like a lot of responsibility and not for the first time he found himself wondering exactly what God had in mind for him.
It was weeks before Wolfgang began to rethink the idea of Kurt transporting another person with him. Kurt was getting really good at it. His “re-materializations” for lack of a better word, always his weak point, were more and more precise and he had built enough stamina to move fairly heavy objects intact. It had been over a week since he’d arrived without a complete item. The limit seemed to be around 200 pounds, but that was more than enough leeway for someone Wolfgang’s size.
Wolfgang wasn’t even sure why he was so obsessed with the idea. For one thing, it was dangerous. Neither he nor Kurt knew exactly how Kurt was doing it. What if there was something about Kurt that shielded him from whatever force it was moving him through space? Would it apply to a passenger? There were so many unknowns and yet, since the very first night he’d seen Kurt teleport, he’d wanted to try it.
Maybe it was that he’d known Kurt for nearly a year now, but in so many ways his friend remained a mystery to him. There were so many things about Kurt that Wolfgang could never know, could never understand. So often he was struck by the impossible limitations Kurt’s appearance placed on him only to be equally shocked by the ease with which Kurt accepted them. Maybe it was empathy Wolfgang was looking for, to just for one moment look at the world from behind yellow eyes and blue skin and understand why Kurt didn’t hate everybody.
Then again Wolfgang wondered if it wasn’t empathy but jealousy. Despite his outward appearance and charm Wolfgang was fairly unremarkable by his family’s standards. He knew he was handsome, but so were his brothers and his cousins, just as their fathers were. He knew he was intelligent as well, but once again this was nothing unusual in a family whose scholarship went back for generations. He had money of course, but he had earned none of it.
All his life Wolfgang had fought against the stifling forces of his father and his family’s business interests; forces that had been threatening to suck dry since he was a child. He had spent his life running away from it. When he compared himself to Kurt, who had every conceivable disadvantage and yet managed to shine anyway, Wolfgang felt wholly inadequate.
But Kurt had chosen to share his secret with him alone and Wolfgang wanted to be more than a facilitator, he wanted to be a part of it. But that meant he needed a test subject.
Kurt looked somewhat confused when Wolfgang handed him a small cage containing a hen he’d bought at a street market in town, but agreed to teleport with it. The chicken arrived, with Kurt, alive and intact if not somewhat dazed. They opened the cage and after a few minutes the hen hopped out and began pecking at the floor speculatively, apparently unaffected by the trip.
The next evening, after their chicken test pilot had been donated to the safety of a nearby farmer’s coop, Wolfgang waited rather pensively for his turn. Kurt was standing a few feet away from him, head bowed and eyes closed mumbling under his breath.
“Are you praying?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt opened his eyes and glanced up at him. “Yeah.”
“You’re not nervous are you?”
Kurt straightened up. “A little,” he admitted. “You?”
“Not until you started praying. It will be fine. The chicken was okay.” Wolfgang said, trying not to let his own nerves show.
“You’re a lot bigger. And I wasn’t friends with the chicken.”
“I trust you. You can do it.” Wolfgang said. “I’m ready when you are,” he added encouragingly.
Kurt took a step forward and pulled Wolfgang into a tight embrace. Wolfgang put his arms around Kurt and shut his eyes, not sure what to expect. After a few moments nothing happened. He opened his eyes.
“Kurt?”
“Sorry. I’m still nervous,” came the reply from somewhere near Wolfgang’s right ear.
“People are going to get the wrong idea about us.” Wolfgang said, trying to lighten the mood.
Kurt gave an anxious laugh. “Okay,” he said, “ready?”
Wolfgang nodded his head and swallowed hard, concentrating on the far wall of the tent. There was a crack like a gunshot and suddenly he was falling backwards, the world around him spinning. He let go of Kurt and was vaguely aware of Kurt doing the same to him. Wolfgang lay on the ground feeling more nauseous than he had in his life willing the world to stop spinning. Did this happen every time? He wondered how Kurt could stand it.
Wolfgang didn’t know how long he lay on the floor, his hands pressed to his temples with his fingers over his eyes. There was movement beside him and Wolfgang pulled his hands away to see Kurt crawling over to him from where he’d fallen, his face was a mask of concern.
“Are you okay?” He asked.
Wolfgang nodded; his head was starting to clear, the nausea fading. Kurt was half sitting half lying next to him, leaning on one elbow, his whole body shaking. As Wolfgang sat up Kurt slid the rest of the way to the floor and lay on his side with his eyes closed, still trembling.
“Are you okay?” Wolfgang asked him. He felt almost normal now, but Kurt obviously didn’t.
“I’ve never been so tired.” Kurt said without opening his eyes.
Wolfgang looked at Kurt and suddenly felt like a jackass. This whole time he’d been so worried about what would happen to him, that it hadn’t even occurred to him to think about how Kurt might be affected. And now that he had the answer it made him feel selfish and stupid. The weight of guilt made him feel how Kurt looked.
He had to get Kurt off the floor and since Kurt didn’t look like he was going to get up anytime soon, Wolfgang grabbed him by the armpits and pulled him into a sitting position.
“Can you stand?” He asked, still keeping a hold so Kurt didn’t slide back down to the floor. Kurt nodded feebly and Wolfgang hauled him to his feet. He couldn’t stand or walk on his own so Wolfgang half dragged half carried him out of the tent. He took Kurt to his own trailer. Margali’s was twice the distance and Wolfgang wasn’t sure how he would get him into his top bunk anyway.
Inside Wolfgang dropped Kurt onto his bed where sat swaying with his head down and his eyes still shut. Wolfgang wasn’t sure what to do. There was obviously something wrong, but he had no idea what it was or how to fix it. He poured a glass of water, but Kurt couldn’t even hold onto it. Wolfgang held it for him so Kurt could drink it.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Wolfgang asked. He knew Kurt found teleporting tiring, but he never got like this when he teleported alone.
Kurt nodded, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. “I already feel better. I just need to rest that’s all.” He said.
Wolfgang realized that Kurt was right. He still looked exhausted, but he had stopped shaking and was holding his head up higher.
“So much for our big experiment.” Wolfgang said.
“It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.” Kurt admitted.
“You can stay here tonight.”
“Mmm,” Kurt was already stretching out on Wolfgang’s bed. He was asleep before Wolfgang could pull the covers over him.
Wolfgang watched him sleeping for a moment, reassuring himself that yes, Kurt was breathing and everything was going to be all right. Once assured, he opened a cupboard below the bed to retrieve the sleeping bag he used on cold nights. Wolfgang spread it out on the floor and curled up on top of it. Something poked him in the head and he realized that Kurt twitched his tail in his sleep and it was hanging off the edge of the bed. He laughed and pushed it away realizing he was probably the only guy in the world to ever have this problem.
He lay awake staring at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about the evening’s events. Remembering Kurt lying unable to move on the tent floor, Wolfgang vowed never to ask him to teleport with another person again.
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RavEnigma
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
:o Wow. That's all I can say, wow. Like the part about the chicken, I just couldn't help giggling at that. Can't wait for more!
Naz-Bunny Lover Club member #1"God help the outcasts, or nobody will"
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theindigojester
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
I am really enjoying this story. It is great the way you describe Kurt's bamfing and where he learned aobut fencing. I am still greatly enjoying this fanfic. I can't wait to see how you are going to describe Nightcrawler's capture. Are you going to go into Stryker using the mind control serum on him or just until Kurt is in the prison? Just curious. Keep up the good work!
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CurlyyHairGirl
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
That poor chicken:o J/K;) i love how you explained Kurts bamfing in a scientificle way. I always love reading theories on it.
one name: Bruce Campbell
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Nandireya
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Loving it so far...just got one little snitt...it's a minor one...so minor I probably shouldn't even be mentioning it...but...
AC/DC are NOT an American band (but then I don't suppose you actually said they were...it could merely be a mistake on young Kurt's part)...they originated Down Under. "From their very first gig in the early '70's in Sydney, Australia at a place called the Chequers Club..." (http://www.elektra.com/acdc/about/). Though with they're strong ties to the United Kingdom I doubt Australia can lay claim to them either...they truly are an international band.
AC/DC are NOT an American band (but then I don't suppose you actually said they were...it could merely be a mistake on young Kurt's part)...they originated Down Under. "From their very first gig in the early '70's in Sydney, Australia at a place called the Chequers Club..." (http://www.elektra.com/acdc/about/). Though with they're strong ties to the United Kingdom I doubt Australia can lay claim to them either...they truly are an international band.
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I'm sick of my subconscious...it's like it's got a mind of its own... A Touch Of Velvet -
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Yes, yes, I know AC/DC are Australian. But I think explaining that even though they're Australian they're popular in America and therefore Wolfgang brought a tape of their music with him back to Europe with him is kind of more than the reader needs to know. (And you're right, probably something Kurt wouldn't know himself.) I really just wanted to talk about the song and didn't want to get bogged down in the details since I do that a lot as it is.
Ha ha Indigo, I might have to write the thing with Stryker early for you. Except that it involves an couple of original characters that haven't been introduced yet, so you wouldn't know what was going on. It's really far off in the future - nearly 10 years from what's taking place now.
Actually Wolfgang's musings are not a scientific explanation of how Kurt teleports. It's just some random physics. I got to thinking about how the theory of relativity would apply one day and it seemed like something Wolfgang would think about and put it in the story. It was originally written where Kurt didn't know what atoms were and Wolfgang goes on and on with what is basically a science lesson, but it was really dull. And kind of unnecessary since Kurt would know the difference between air, water, and a table whether he knows what atoms are or not.
I would never try and come up with a scientific explanation for something I know nothing about.
-e
But I think explaining that even though they're Australian they're popular in America and therefore Wolfgang brought a tape of their music with him back to Europe with him is kind of more than the reader needs to know. (And you're right, probably something Kurt wouldn't know himself.) I really just wanted to talk about the song and didn't want to get bogged down in the details since I do that a lot as it is.Ha ha Indigo, I might have to write the thing with Stryker early for you. Except that it involves an couple of original characters that haven't been introduced yet, so you wouldn't know what was going on. It's really far off in the future - nearly 10 years from what's taking place now.
Actually Wolfgang's musings are not a scientific explanation of how Kurt teleports. It's just some random physics. I got to thinking about how the theory of relativity would apply one day and it seemed like something Wolfgang would think about and put it in the story. It was originally written where Kurt didn't know what atoms were and Wolfgang goes on and on with what is basically a science lesson, but it was really dull. And kind of unnecessary since Kurt would know the difference between air, water, and a table whether he knows what atoms are or not.
I would never try and come up with a scientific explanation for something I know nothing about.
-e
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CurlyyHairGirl
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
No, what I was saying is that the way you explaned his thoughs or theory's sound damn good.
one name: Bruce Campbell
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Saint Kurt
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With Power comes Responsibility
Ah. Cool. I love physics. Heres more...
"Why don’t you concentrate on being an acrobat before you add ‘hero’ to your résumé."
Wolfgang was surprised when the next day Kurt insisted that they continue their teleportation experiments.
“No way.” Wolfgang said. “That was way too scary. You didnt see yourself. And I didn’t like it very much either.”
They were sitting at a picnic table as far away from the camp as they could get so not to be over heard. Wolfgang sat with his back against the table, leaning his elbows on it. Kurt was above him, crouched at the table’s edge. They often talked like this, watching the various goings on around the circus as they discussed anything from art to literature to philosophy.
“I know, but when I first started I used to knock myself out all the time. And that was just me.” Kurt said. “Teleporting with you was just a lot to keep track of all at once, but know if I practice I could do it.”
“But why, Kurt? It’s totally unnecessary. Why put yourself through that just for a neat party trick?”
Kurt’s tail drew a few circles in the dirt below him. “Because it’s not just a trick.” He said. “It could be useful.”
“Useful? For what?” Wolfgang asked.
“Promise not to laugh?”
Wolfgang shrugged.
“I was thinking that if someone was in trouble, I could help them. You know, take them to safety.” Kurt said.
Wolfgang started laughing. “What? Like save damsels in distress from burning buildings and stuff? I’m going to have to stop showing you all those old movies. That kind of stuff doesn’t really happen Kurt.”
“It has to happen sometimes. Where do the ideas for the movies come from? It seems like an important thing to be able to do.”
“I don’t get it.” Wolfgang said, “I mean, where did you even get this idea in the first place?”
Kurt sighed. “I just want to do something good for someone some day.” He said. “Is that so bad?”
“No, it’s not. But why is it so important to you that you’d want to put yourself though what is obviously really hard on you. Not to mention on me.” Wolfgang said.
“It’s because of who I am.”
“Who you are?” Wolfgang asked.
“You know.” Kurt gestured at himself and Wolfgang shook his head.
He stood up and clapped Kurt on the back. “Elf,” he said using the nickname Kurt still hadn’t been able to shake since the Back in Black rehearsals, “I can’t say it’s not admirable, but it’s not realistic either. Why don’t you concentrate on being an acrobat before you add ‘hero’ to your résumé.”
But Kurt was undeterred and Wolfgang found himself the unwilling victim of Kurt’s “drive-by teleportings” more than once. Usually anytime Wolfgang found himself alone he knew it wouldn’t be long until Kurt popped out of thin air and grabbed him to whisk him off to some new location.
The first few times the results where pretty much the same as the first experiment, and were usually followed by a lecture as Wolfgang hauled Kurt to his feet and carried him back to his trailer. However as time went on Kurt’s technique improved. Kurt stayed on his feet and Wolfgang noticed that he didn’t get quite as dizzy so either he was getting used to it, or Kurt was somehow getting better at controlling their transit.
But the end of the summer Kurt could teleport them both and then quickly teleport away a second time to avoid hearing Wolfgang’s admonishments. Wolfgang figured that if Kurt had enough energy to do that, then it probably wasn’t hurting either of them. And just maybe some day Kurt would actually rescue a woman from a burning building.
"Why don’t you concentrate on being an acrobat before you add ‘hero’ to your résumé."
Wolfgang was surprised when the next day Kurt insisted that they continue their teleportation experiments.
“No way.” Wolfgang said. “That was way too scary. You didnt see yourself. And I didn’t like it very much either.”
They were sitting at a picnic table as far away from the camp as they could get so not to be over heard. Wolfgang sat with his back against the table, leaning his elbows on it. Kurt was above him, crouched at the table’s edge. They often talked like this, watching the various goings on around the circus as they discussed anything from art to literature to philosophy.
“I know, but when I first started I used to knock myself out all the time. And that was just me.” Kurt said. “Teleporting with you was just a lot to keep track of all at once, but know if I practice I could do it.”
“But why, Kurt? It’s totally unnecessary. Why put yourself through that just for a neat party trick?”
Kurt’s tail drew a few circles in the dirt below him. “Because it’s not just a trick.” He said. “It could be useful.”
“Useful? For what?” Wolfgang asked.
“Promise not to laugh?”
Wolfgang shrugged.
“I was thinking that if someone was in trouble, I could help them. You know, take them to safety.” Kurt said.
Wolfgang started laughing. “What? Like save damsels in distress from burning buildings and stuff? I’m going to have to stop showing you all those old movies. That kind of stuff doesn’t really happen Kurt.”
“It has to happen sometimes. Where do the ideas for the movies come from? It seems like an important thing to be able to do.”
“I don’t get it.” Wolfgang said, “I mean, where did you even get this idea in the first place?”
Kurt sighed. “I just want to do something good for someone some day.” He said. “Is that so bad?”
“No, it’s not. But why is it so important to you that you’d want to put yourself though what is obviously really hard on you. Not to mention on me.” Wolfgang said.
“It’s because of who I am.”
“Who you are?” Wolfgang asked.
“You know.” Kurt gestured at himself and Wolfgang shook his head.
He stood up and clapped Kurt on the back. “Elf,” he said using the nickname Kurt still hadn’t been able to shake since the Back in Black rehearsals, “I can’t say it’s not admirable, but it’s not realistic either. Why don’t you concentrate on being an acrobat before you add ‘hero’ to your résumé.”
But Kurt was undeterred and Wolfgang found himself the unwilling victim of Kurt’s “drive-by teleportings” more than once. Usually anytime Wolfgang found himself alone he knew it wouldn’t be long until Kurt popped out of thin air and grabbed him to whisk him off to some new location.
The first few times the results where pretty much the same as the first experiment, and were usually followed by a lecture as Wolfgang hauled Kurt to his feet and carried him back to his trailer. However as time went on Kurt’s technique improved. Kurt stayed on his feet and Wolfgang noticed that he didn’t get quite as dizzy so either he was getting used to it, or Kurt was somehow getting better at controlling their transit.
But the end of the summer Kurt could teleport them both and then quickly teleport away a second time to avoid hearing Wolfgang’s admonishments. Wolfgang figured that if Kurt had enough energy to do that, then it probably wasn’t hurting either of them. And just maybe some day Kurt would actually rescue a woman from a burning building.
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RavEnigma
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Kurt could rescue me anytime....
Love the 'drive-by teleporting' phrase. Can't wait for more!
Love the 'drive-by teleporting' phrase. Can't wait for more! Naz-Bunny Lover Club member #1"God help the outcasts, or nobody will"
"That's not a cat, it's a minion of the antichrist!"
Pietro Fan Club Member #1
:evopietro =
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CurlyyHairGirl
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
:LOLDrive-by teleporting...Kurt is so sneaky sometimes...that, to me, is so dang sexy. You are doing a terrific job on this, therefore, in the event that Luaren dies *which we all never want to happen because t=she is the coolest, or in the event that she forgets us and moves on with her life, which she won't:evilunless she wants me to hunt her down* the crown will be passed to you, of course Lauren can keep the crown she has, we will just imagine a new one for you, Kay!:D:)
to L, the Queen of fan fic:
ALL HAIL THE QUEEN....LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!!*
*Live long and prosper is a line most frequently used by Spock, from Star Treck.
to L, the Queen of fan fic:
ALL HAIL THE QUEEN....LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!!*
*Live long and prosper is a line most frequently used by Spock, from Star Treck.
one name: Bruce Campbell
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SheCat
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Great job! I can't believe I haven't been hounding your every chapter...
I. Love. Wolfgang. You really made him realistic, is he an OC?
I. Love. Wolfgang. You really made him realistic, is he an OC?
"I throw de cards, de cards go BOOM! End of bad guy, end of story." -Gambit, X-Treme
"Everything I still want I just now prayed for." -Kreon, Antigone
Viceroy of the Black Tom Appreciation Society
"You act like I know what day of the week it is." ~Patchy
From the Strange and Twisted Mind of Emmy-Jay / Enter the Patchverse...:respectgambit
"Everything I still want I just now prayed for." -Kreon, Antigone
Viceroy of the Black Tom Appreciation Society
"You act like I know what day of the week it is." ~Patchy
From the Strange and Twisted Mind of Emmy-Jay / Enter the Patchverse...:respectgambit
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Saint Kurt
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Wolfgang is an original character. I was trying to invent the kind of person you love to hate (handsome, rich, talented), but is such a cool person you end up liking them despite it all.
But he's a little more complex than just that. I know quite a few people from Germany and Austria and all of them pretty much follow the stereotype of being compulsively orderly about everything. So Wolfgang has that personality, but he's an artist so he's compulsively creative which I thought was a funny twist on the whole thing.
And then I gave him the most ponderous German name I could think of.
-e
But he's a little more complex than just that. I know quite a few people from Germany and Austria and all of them pretty much follow the stereotype of being compulsively orderly about everything. So Wolfgang has that personality, but he's an artist so he's compulsively creative which I thought was a funny twist on the whole thing.
And then I gave him the most ponderous German name I could think of.
-e
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Saint Kurt
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Wolfgang Redefinierte
By the way, "redefinierte" means "reinvented" in German. Speaking of which, at this point untranslated German is spoken in the story. I do not speak German but I have very good translator software that I then cross check with another translator. Even so, software translation is hardly accurate. So if anyone does know German and wants to offer corrections, that would be cool.
On the flip side, when Kurt speaks English the bad grammar is delibrate on my part.
“He can’t help it. He was raised by gypsies in a traveling Bavarian circus.”
The unexpected success of Back in Black had taken the whole circus by surprise, igniting the imaginations of younger members like Kurt and Lars and silencing the older skeptics. It seemed that audiences really did want to listen to rock music and their time-honored routines needed revision. Wolfgang had lit a fire under their collective ass and suddenly Circus Gehlhaar wanted to remind people why they came to the circus in the first place.
The equipment for sound and lighting was already in place and so some of the other acts started working on ways to redefining their part in the show. The unexpected backlash however, was that the musicians were becoming increasingly worried about the desire to use pre-recorded music in the show.
“What if you filled out the band and instead of playing background music and actually had a performance of your own?” Wolfgang asked. He wasn’t entirely sure what the band would think of his idea, but a few weeks later it seemed that hidden European network of talented performers that only gypsies like Margali and their band could tap into yielded a solution. With the addition of a second violin, more brass, and another percussionist rounded out the band’s sound quite well. When they added a singer and a pair of flamenco dancers, they had an act worthy of center stage.
Wolfgang realized that if Circus Gehlhaar was going to make a major change in their show, he’d better be prepared. He needed to come up with a plan beyond just changing a few acts; Wolfgang wanted to create more than just entertainment, he wanted an experience, something that would transport the audience completely.
Wolfgang’s first idea was fairly simple. He wanted to tell a story, but he didn’t want to stray too far into the realm of theater. It was still a circus after all. His story would be told through movement and music instead. His first treatment was a love story. Kurt was the obvious choice for the lead and he’d been watching Lars’ older sister Petra as a potential leading female. She was probably the most versatile of the Olsson women and only a year or two older than Kurt. She was not only an excellent trapeze artist, but was also becoming very skilled with silks and had been practicing hand-to-hand balancing with her father since she was 4 or 5.
The beginning of the story cast Kurt as a demon, but through love was transformed into an angel. The rest of the circus were people in a small village who were trying to cast the demon out, until the end of course when he sprouts wings and gets the girl. It wasn’t anything that hadn’t been done before, but it was a story that was easy to tell and that people could understand. Wolfgang felt that as a first draft it was fairly solid and once he had Kurt’s review they would start fleshing it out as a framework for the various acts.
Kurt usually dropped in after the show was over, most of the time he came by alone or with Lars or Amanda, but occasionally Kurt, Lars, Amanda, Petra, Gretchen, and half a dozen other circus kids would show up at his door wanting to watch a movie. Wolfgang didn’t mind it really; he did have the circus’ only television and VCR after all. Plus it was fun playing host for an evening. He had never met a more mature and confident group of kids. Amanda at seventeen was the oldest and still nearly six years younger than Wolfgang was, yet he hardly noticed the age difference. Kurt wasn’t the only seasoned performer in the group; nearly all of them had been working in circuses equally as long. The American college students Wolfgang had gone to school with had been less on the ball.
On this particular evening however, Kurt was alone when he peeked his head through the door. (It had taken Wolfgang forever to figure out that the only way to get visitors was to leave his door hanging ajar.)
“Did you watch the show?” Kurt asked, stepping in.
Wolfgang shook his head. “I was in here taking care of some things.” He said.
Kurt grinned. “Well then you missed it. Lars was doing a double, but he over rotated and did a triple. He scared the crap out of himself, but he made the catch okay. No one knew the difference.” He said and flipped a chair around so he could sit on it backward.
“Anything else exciting?”
Kurt shrugged. “The rest was just the show.” He said.
Wolfgang rummaged around in his cooler and pulled out the last remaining beer. “Split it?” he asked holding it up.
“Sure.”
Wolfgang grabbed two glasses, poured some of it in one for Kurt and carefully emptied the remains into the second so not to disturb the sediment. “It’s the last of the stuff from Bruge.” Wolfgang said sadly.
“I’ll have to drink it slowly then. We won’t be back in Belgium until next year.” Kurt said sadly. He set the glass on the desk and stared at its cloudy contents.
“I’ve been trying to come up with something new for the circus to do.” Wolfgang said.
“Really?” Kurt yawned and stretched elaborately, raising his arms over his head and uncurling his tail at the same time. “Maybe you could figure out a way so I don’t have to play the devil every night. I’ve been vanquished so many times that I’ve lost count.”
Wolfgang cringed inwardly. “What kind of part would you want to play?” He asked.
Kurt shrugged and then looked slightly mischievous, “maybe I could be a blue elf.” He said.
Wolfgang laughed. “Sorry about that. I never thought it would stick.” He admitted.
“I think it’s funny actually.” Kurt said. He spun around so he could sit with his legs stretched out in front of him and then arched his back so that he was looking at Wolfgang upside down. “Anything for a change.”
Wolfgang held up his glass. “I’ll drink to that.” He said, mentally tearing up his script.
“To what?” Kurt asked, turning around to sit on the chair backwards again.
“To being a blue elf.” Wolfgang said.
Kurt laughed, but picked up his beer anyway. “To being a blue elf.” He repeated and they clanked glasses.
The next day Wolfgang started fresh on Circus Gehlhaar’s new direction. Reading his story over again, he realized that there was one very fundamental flaw. When he had written it, he had hardly been aware of how insensitive he was being. It was the idea that Kurt had to be transformed into an angel in order for everyone to accept him. That was the wrong message. Wolfgang decided that instead, Kurt would look exactly the same at the end as he had in the beginning. The only ones transformed would be the audience.
He churned out the new version in a matter of days. Instead of a demon, Nightcrawler was recast as a sort of forest spirit. The show would introduce him in the forest happy, but a little lonely. Shortly afterwards a band of gypsies arrives and sets up camp. (Wolfgang had already made a mental note to himself to check with Margali so that he didn’t write anything insulting or wrong about her culture.) They have a big party, which gets the entire cast including the band out in the ring. The party would set up the major characters, Petra as the lead female, Lars as her suitor, and Gretchen as a second girl in love with Lars. It was a little odd, casting siblings as lovers, but that was what he had to work with. The party ends abruptly when Nightcrawler, thinking it looks like fun tries to crash it.
From there each of the Gypsy characters and their relationships would be introduced through the various acts. In the meantime, Nightcrawler would occasionally show up in some non-threatening way but get chased off. He meets Petra’s character in the woods after she runs away from Lars, whom she doesn’t really like. She gets in some kind of trouble out in the woods but Kurt brings her back. The gypsies use this as an excuse to capture him. Wolfgang wasn’t sure exactly how it would go after that but he knew that it would end with a double wedding, as the various love interests were reconciled.
He showed the first version to Kurt, who liked it, and then brought it to Papa, Sven, and the rest of the older performers who served as the circus’ coaches and choreographers. The meeting represented one of the things that Wolfgang loved most about the circus: A roomful of people from half a dozen or so countries speaking in 3 or 4 different languages. It was like a microcosm of Europe in a tent.
“I don’t know.” Said Sven. “It’s a good idea, but may be beyond our reach.”
Papa nodded. “But it’s certainly something different. No circus I’ve ever worked for has tried anything like this.”
Laurentiu Wolleck, the head trainer and patriarch of the circus’ new tightrope troupe spoke up, “I like the idea.” He said. Wolfgang hadn’t had much experience with Laurentiu, but from what he’d seen he was a lot like Papa Olsson. In fact, Wolfgang was beginning to realize that more often than not, circus acts came in family units often going several generations back. The Wolleck family was even larger than the Olssons and had worked in circuses in Romania, their country of origin, for four generations.
Gretchen’s father, Gerhard Reichart, who was apparently from the same part of Bavaria as Kurt agreed with Laurentiu.
Wolfgang listened to them deliberating for over an hour wondering how many times “this is going to be difficult” could be countered with “but it’s entirely new”. He tried to remain neutral through out the discussion. As much as he wanted to see his idea come to light, he didn’t want to force it. Sven was right, it would be a lot of work, the entire circus needed to be behind it or it would never happen. In the end though it was Papa who clapped Wolfgang on the back with one of his large hands and gave him the circus’ blessing to make his show a reality.
Each night after the show had ended, he, Kurt, Lars, Petra, Gretchen, Papa, Sven, Gerhard and Laurentiu met to figure out what acts would go into the show and how the story would be told. During the day Wolfgang worked on the lyrics and tried to write music. It wasn’t long before Wolfgang realized he was totally out classed. His silly poetry and the 4 or 5 guitar chords he knew were hardly up to the task of creating a show of this magnitude. He was going to need help. It was time to call in The Godfather.
James Brown had been two years ahead of Wolfgang at NYU. His name was a constant source of jokes of course, especially since James was a skinny white kid who had grown up in Manhattan. But apparently there was some musical gift passed along by the name because James was by far the most versatile songwriter Wolfgang had ever met. He was a pianist by training but could play half a dozen other instruments. Even as a student, he was regularly called into several of the big name recording studios to lay down extra tracks. If there was ever a rock and roll prodigy, it was James. And thus Wolfgang felt it was his duty to pull his friend out of his gig writing and recording songs for a royalty free music distributor and bring him to Europe to write circus music.
It was the middle of the summer when James arrived. They were in Germany and so Wolfgang had arranged for him to fly into Munich International Airport, a few hours from where the circus was performing. The circus had the day off so Kurt joined him in the rented Mercedes as they sped past Munich on their way to Munchen. It was the first time Wolfgang had ever been anywhere with Kurt that wasn’t connected with the circus.
It seemed that Kurt had a routine for these occasions. Instead of Kurt’s usual hodge-podge of mismatched clothes he was wearing a somber pair of dark trousers and a long hooded coat. Most notable were his shoes; Wolfgang didn’t even know Kurt owned shoes.
“Are you coming?” Wolfgang asked after he’d parked the car and pocketed the keys.
Kurt nodded grimly and pulled up his hood. He wrapped a scarf that would have looked more appropriate in the dead of winter around his neck so that it covered the lower half of his face. “Ready.” He said and jammed his hands in his pockets.
Munich International Airport also served Salzburg, which meant Wolfgang was right at home. He’d traveled in and out of this airport since he was a baby. He led Kurt away from the parking lot by memory and into the bustling international terminal. Terminal 2, Wolfgang could have called it his second home.
“James is coming in on Lufthansa so we have to go… Kurt?” Kurt had been right beside him when they entered the building, but now he was nowhere to be seen. Wolfgang retraced his steps back through the crowd and found that Kurt hadn’t gotten much farther than the door. He’d retreated to what appeared to be the darkest spot against the wall of the brightly lit terminal.
“What are you doing?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt pulled his hands up into his sleeves and folded his arms across his chest. “It’s really crowded.” He said; his voice muffled by the scarf around his face. Still leaning against the wall he started to slowly sink down.
“Of course it is. It’s an airport.” Wolfgang said. It seemed ridiculous that as seasoned a performer as Kurt would be paralyzed by a crowded airport but he could already tell what was happening. Kurt was at ease performing in front of hundreds of people as long as he exerted control in the form of the ruse that his appearance was a costume. Here he had none of that control. In fact, dressed for a blizzard on a bright summer day, he stood out just as much as he would have without hiding. The only difference was that he wouldn’t scare anyone this way. He just looked strange.
Wolfgang realized it was Margali’s fault. She harbored the notion that an angry mob was hiding around every corner ready to jump out should Kurt ever show his true face in public. She had raised Kurt accordingly and so Wolfgang suspected that now Kurt was equally convinced. He was sure that in some places Margali was right, however Wolfgang was positive most people were more charitable than that. Despite this he really hadn’t anticipated Kurt, who was now sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees and his head down, going to pieces like this. He knelt down beside him.
“Why did you come then? You knew there would be people here.” Wolfgang said.
Kurt looked up; Wolfgang could barely make out his features under his hood. “I’ve never seen an airplane up close; a real one I mean.” He said miserably, “but I didn’t know there would be so many people. I don’t really do well in big crowds unless I'm performing.”
“As always, the king of understatement.” Wolfgang said. On an impulse Wolfgang pulled Kurt’s hood back.
Kurt was frantic. “Wolfgang, No! What are you doing?” He yanked the hood back in place.
“Nobody cares Kurt.” Wolfgang gestured around them at the oblivious rush of people, “They’re all trying to catch planes and carry baggage and stuff. I don’t think anyone has even noticed you. C’mon Elf, let’s go pick up James.” He said.
Kurt shook his head.
Wolfgang looked at his watch. James’ plane would be arriving any minute. “Can you find your way back to the car?” he asked. “You could wait for us there. I’ll give you the keys.”
Again Kurt shook his head. “Please don’t leave me alone.” He said, his voice small almost childlike. He was terrified.
Wolfgang sighed. There really wasn’t time to go all the way to the car and back, but he certainly couldn’t leave Kurt plastered to the wall like this. James would have to wait. “I’ll take you.” He said, “You can wait there and afterwards we’ll go to where there are no crowds and you can see the airplanes.”
“Really?” Kurt asked. Wolfgang could hear the relief in his voice.
“Absolutely. Let’s go though. I don’t want to keep James waiting too long.”
“I’m really sorry.” Kurt said. He rose up to his full height and Wolfgang did the same. He shrugged.
“It’s okay. We’ll work up it.” He said. Wolfgang didn’t give Kurt the chance to ask with this meant. Instead he took him by the elbow and maneuvered him back out the doors to the parking lot.
Wolfgang jogged through terminal 2 glancing around for James’ gate number. James was waiting for him, looking slightly bleary from the long trip and craning his neck to look through the crowd.
Wolfgang snuck up behind James when he took off his glasses to rub his eyes. “Willkommen zu Deutschland Herrn Brown.” James turned around, a huge smile on his face.
“Wolfgang!” The two of them hugged and Wolfgang grabbed one of James’ bags for him.
“Late as usual?” James asked as they pushed through the throng towards the baggage claim area.
Wolfgang shook his head. “I’m reformed. The circus runs on a tight schedule. I can’t do things on ‘Wagner time’ anymore.” He said. “I was here on time, but there were some complications. I had to do a friend the first half of a favor.”
James laughed. “Not completely reformed then.” He said.
They returned to the car laboring under the weight of James’ 2 suitcases and his keyboard in its traveling case. Kurt was waiting for them, stretched out in the back seat paging through the book Wolfgang had brought in case there was a delay. He had shed his bulky concealing coat in an effort to prove to Wolfgang that he wasn’t a complete coward. He got out of the car as they approached. James stopped in his tracks, continuing only when Wolfgang poked him in the back with his elbow.
The whole episode in the airport terminal had been deeply embarrassing and Kurt was determined not to continue the trend by hiding from Wolfgang’s friend. He would not be shy. He would introduce himself like a normal person. His resolve was somewhat shaken by James’ reaction to him but he stayed put.
“Hallo. Ich bin Kurt. Wolfgang's Bekannter. Ich bin wie gehts es Ihnen.” Kurt said when they reached the car.
“Sorry, I don’t speak German. You must be Kurt.” James said. He held out his right hand, but pulled it away when Kurt went to shake it.
“Don't worry. It is not sticking." Kurt said switching to English and trying not to look wounded.
James wasn't quite sure what Kurt meant by that, but he had clearly done the wrong thing. “Oh, no, that’s not it.” James said. He quickly took Kurt’s hand in his own and shook it. “Wolfgang draws you wrong. You have five fingered hands in all the posters.”
Kurt looked at Wolfgang. “I do?”
“Umm.” Wolfgang stalled. Did he draw Kurt’s hands wrong? He had no idea. “I never really thought about it.” He admitted and then turned to Kurt. “I’d like you to meet James Brown, musical genius.”
James rolled his eyes. “Please, call me Jim. Only Wolfgang calls me James and that’s because I can’t get him to call me anything else.”
“What’s wrong with to being called James?” Kurt asked, helping Wolfgang load James’ keyboard into the trunk.
James looked incredulous. “James Brown.” He said as if in explanation. “I don’t want people to get confused.”
Wolfgang glanced at James’ red hair and freckled face and laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said, “They won’t.”
“Who’s James Brown?” Kurt asked.
James’ opened his eyes wide and turned to Wolfgang. “He’s kidding right?” Kurt shook his head.
“He can’t help it,” Wolfgang said, “He was raised by gypsies in a traveling Bavarian circus.”
After a brief tour of the airplane maintenance area, the “other half” of the favor as Wolfgang called it; they left the airport to return to the circus. Kurt had given the front seat to James. He leaned forward so he could talk to them between the driver and passenger seats.
“I can’t believe I'm in Europe.” James said, looking out his window at the blur of landscape.
“You’ve never been to visiting Germany before?” Kurt asked. He was still trying to get over the novelty of speaking only English for such an extended period. Normally when he and Wolfgang spoke they stuck to German with a tendency for drift into other languages, including English, for only a sentence or two before returning to their native tongue.
“James is a tried and true New Yorker.” Wolfgang said. “He thinks the entire planet ends in Westchester.”
“Doesn’t it?” James asked in mock seriousness.
Wolfgang laughed.
“Where is Westchester?” Kurt asked. James spun around to face the back seat.
“It’s across the Hudson river, just west of the Bronx.” He said. “All the snobby rich people live there. People like Wolfgang.” Kurt nodded like he understood even though he had no idea what James was talking about.
“Don’t worry James,” Wolfgang said, “Germany is now the sixth borough. From now on New York City is Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Deutschland. So you’re okay.” He laughed at his own joke.
“Did you have your family arrange that then?” James asked.
“No.” Kurt chimed in before Wolfgang could answer, “Because then he would to have changed the name to Wagner.”
James looked confused, but Wolfgang burst out laughing. “Touche, Kurt. Very Funny.”
James leaned his head back and watched out the window, only half listening to Wolfgang and Kurt banter back and forth. Part of him wondered what he’d gotten himself into. Wolfgang had been legendary at school for the crazy plots he cooked up. Most often Wolfgang’s late night musings never saw the light of day, but on occasion they had and the results had been so stunning and so sublime that James couldn’t not take the risk. The worst that would happen was that he would return home without having accomplished anything.
Wolfgang had promised an adventure and so far, it didn’t sound like a lie. After all, here his was speeding down the motorway in kilometers per hour rather than miles and listening to an old school friend trade jokes with a guy who looked like the devil. He already felt like he was in the circus. James smiled, this was going to be an adventure all right, and if Wolfgang could pull it off, a chance to create art in it’s highest and purest form. He could hardly wait to begin.
On the flip side, when Kurt speaks English the bad grammar is delibrate on my part.
“He can’t help it. He was raised by gypsies in a traveling Bavarian circus.”
The unexpected success of Back in Black had taken the whole circus by surprise, igniting the imaginations of younger members like Kurt and Lars and silencing the older skeptics. It seemed that audiences really did want to listen to rock music and their time-honored routines needed revision. Wolfgang had lit a fire under their collective ass and suddenly Circus Gehlhaar wanted to remind people why they came to the circus in the first place.
The equipment for sound and lighting was already in place and so some of the other acts started working on ways to redefining their part in the show. The unexpected backlash however, was that the musicians were becoming increasingly worried about the desire to use pre-recorded music in the show.
“What if you filled out the band and instead of playing background music and actually had a performance of your own?” Wolfgang asked. He wasn’t entirely sure what the band would think of his idea, but a few weeks later it seemed that hidden European network of talented performers that only gypsies like Margali and their band could tap into yielded a solution. With the addition of a second violin, more brass, and another percussionist rounded out the band’s sound quite well. When they added a singer and a pair of flamenco dancers, they had an act worthy of center stage.
Wolfgang realized that if Circus Gehlhaar was going to make a major change in their show, he’d better be prepared. He needed to come up with a plan beyond just changing a few acts; Wolfgang wanted to create more than just entertainment, he wanted an experience, something that would transport the audience completely.
Wolfgang’s first idea was fairly simple. He wanted to tell a story, but he didn’t want to stray too far into the realm of theater. It was still a circus after all. His story would be told through movement and music instead. His first treatment was a love story. Kurt was the obvious choice for the lead and he’d been watching Lars’ older sister Petra as a potential leading female. She was probably the most versatile of the Olsson women and only a year or two older than Kurt. She was not only an excellent trapeze artist, but was also becoming very skilled with silks and had been practicing hand-to-hand balancing with her father since she was 4 or 5.
The beginning of the story cast Kurt as a demon, but through love was transformed into an angel. The rest of the circus were people in a small village who were trying to cast the demon out, until the end of course when he sprouts wings and gets the girl. It wasn’t anything that hadn’t been done before, but it was a story that was easy to tell and that people could understand. Wolfgang felt that as a first draft it was fairly solid and once he had Kurt’s review they would start fleshing it out as a framework for the various acts.
Kurt usually dropped in after the show was over, most of the time he came by alone or with Lars or Amanda, but occasionally Kurt, Lars, Amanda, Petra, Gretchen, and half a dozen other circus kids would show up at his door wanting to watch a movie. Wolfgang didn’t mind it really; he did have the circus’ only television and VCR after all. Plus it was fun playing host for an evening. He had never met a more mature and confident group of kids. Amanda at seventeen was the oldest and still nearly six years younger than Wolfgang was, yet he hardly noticed the age difference. Kurt wasn’t the only seasoned performer in the group; nearly all of them had been working in circuses equally as long. The American college students Wolfgang had gone to school with had been less on the ball.
On this particular evening however, Kurt was alone when he peeked his head through the door. (It had taken Wolfgang forever to figure out that the only way to get visitors was to leave his door hanging ajar.)
“Did you watch the show?” Kurt asked, stepping in.
Wolfgang shook his head. “I was in here taking care of some things.” He said.
Kurt grinned. “Well then you missed it. Lars was doing a double, but he over rotated and did a triple. He scared the crap out of himself, but he made the catch okay. No one knew the difference.” He said and flipped a chair around so he could sit on it backward.
“Anything else exciting?”
Kurt shrugged. “The rest was just the show.” He said.
Wolfgang rummaged around in his cooler and pulled out the last remaining beer. “Split it?” he asked holding it up.
“Sure.”
Wolfgang grabbed two glasses, poured some of it in one for Kurt and carefully emptied the remains into the second so not to disturb the sediment. “It’s the last of the stuff from Bruge.” Wolfgang said sadly.
“I’ll have to drink it slowly then. We won’t be back in Belgium until next year.” Kurt said sadly. He set the glass on the desk and stared at its cloudy contents.
“I’ve been trying to come up with something new for the circus to do.” Wolfgang said.
“Really?” Kurt yawned and stretched elaborately, raising his arms over his head and uncurling his tail at the same time. “Maybe you could figure out a way so I don’t have to play the devil every night. I’ve been vanquished so many times that I’ve lost count.”
Wolfgang cringed inwardly. “What kind of part would you want to play?” He asked.
Kurt shrugged and then looked slightly mischievous, “maybe I could be a blue elf.” He said.
Wolfgang laughed. “Sorry about that. I never thought it would stick.” He admitted.
“I think it’s funny actually.” Kurt said. He spun around so he could sit with his legs stretched out in front of him and then arched his back so that he was looking at Wolfgang upside down. “Anything for a change.”
Wolfgang held up his glass. “I’ll drink to that.” He said, mentally tearing up his script.
“To what?” Kurt asked, turning around to sit on the chair backwards again.
“To being a blue elf.” Wolfgang said.
Kurt laughed, but picked up his beer anyway. “To being a blue elf.” He repeated and they clanked glasses.
The next day Wolfgang started fresh on Circus Gehlhaar’s new direction. Reading his story over again, he realized that there was one very fundamental flaw. When he had written it, he had hardly been aware of how insensitive he was being. It was the idea that Kurt had to be transformed into an angel in order for everyone to accept him. That was the wrong message. Wolfgang decided that instead, Kurt would look exactly the same at the end as he had in the beginning. The only ones transformed would be the audience.
He churned out the new version in a matter of days. Instead of a demon, Nightcrawler was recast as a sort of forest spirit. The show would introduce him in the forest happy, but a little lonely. Shortly afterwards a band of gypsies arrives and sets up camp. (Wolfgang had already made a mental note to himself to check with Margali so that he didn’t write anything insulting or wrong about her culture.) They have a big party, which gets the entire cast including the band out in the ring. The party would set up the major characters, Petra as the lead female, Lars as her suitor, and Gretchen as a second girl in love with Lars. It was a little odd, casting siblings as lovers, but that was what he had to work with. The party ends abruptly when Nightcrawler, thinking it looks like fun tries to crash it.
From there each of the Gypsy characters and their relationships would be introduced through the various acts. In the meantime, Nightcrawler would occasionally show up in some non-threatening way but get chased off. He meets Petra’s character in the woods after she runs away from Lars, whom she doesn’t really like. She gets in some kind of trouble out in the woods but Kurt brings her back. The gypsies use this as an excuse to capture him. Wolfgang wasn’t sure exactly how it would go after that but he knew that it would end with a double wedding, as the various love interests were reconciled.
He showed the first version to Kurt, who liked it, and then brought it to Papa, Sven, and the rest of the older performers who served as the circus’ coaches and choreographers. The meeting represented one of the things that Wolfgang loved most about the circus: A roomful of people from half a dozen or so countries speaking in 3 or 4 different languages. It was like a microcosm of Europe in a tent.
“I don’t know.” Said Sven. “It’s a good idea, but may be beyond our reach.”
Papa nodded. “But it’s certainly something different. No circus I’ve ever worked for has tried anything like this.”
Laurentiu Wolleck, the head trainer and patriarch of the circus’ new tightrope troupe spoke up, “I like the idea.” He said. Wolfgang hadn’t had much experience with Laurentiu, but from what he’d seen he was a lot like Papa Olsson. In fact, Wolfgang was beginning to realize that more often than not, circus acts came in family units often going several generations back. The Wolleck family was even larger than the Olssons and had worked in circuses in Romania, their country of origin, for four generations.
Gretchen’s father, Gerhard Reichart, who was apparently from the same part of Bavaria as Kurt agreed with Laurentiu.
Wolfgang listened to them deliberating for over an hour wondering how many times “this is going to be difficult” could be countered with “but it’s entirely new”. He tried to remain neutral through out the discussion. As much as he wanted to see his idea come to light, he didn’t want to force it. Sven was right, it would be a lot of work, the entire circus needed to be behind it or it would never happen. In the end though it was Papa who clapped Wolfgang on the back with one of his large hands and gave him the circus’ blessing to make his show a reality.
Each night after the show had ended, he, Kurt, Lars, Petra, Gretchen, Papa, Sven, Gerhard and Laurentiu met to figure out what acts would go into the show and how the story would be told. During the day Wolfgang worked on the lyrics and tried to write music. It wasn’t long before Wolfgang realized he was totally out classed. His silly poetry and the 4 or 5 guitar chords he knew were hardly up to the task of creating a show of this magnitude. He was going to need help. It was time to call in The Godfather.
James Brown had been two years ahead of Wolfgang at NYU. His name was a constant source of jokes of course, especially since James was a skinny white kid who had grown up in Manhattan. But apparently there was some musical gift passed along by the name because James was by far the most versatile songwriter Wolfgang had ever met. He was a pianist by training but could play half a dozen other instruments. Even as a student, he was regularly called into several of the big name recording studios to lay down extra tracks. If there was ever a rock and roll prodigy, it was James. And thus Wolfgang felt it was his duty to pull his friend out of his gig writing and recording songs for a royalty free music distributor and bring him to Europe to write circus music.
It was the middle of the summer when James arrived. They were in Germany and so Wolfgang had arranged for him to fly into Munich International Airport, a few hours from where the circus was performing. The circus had the day off so Kurt joined him in the rented Mercedes as they sped past Munich on their way to Munchen. It was the first time Wolfgang had ever been anywhere with Kurt that wasn’t connected with the circus.
It seemed that Kurt had a routine for these occasions. Instead of Kurt’s usual hodge-podge of mismatched clothes he was wearing a somber pair of dark trousers and a long hooded coat. Most notable were his shoes; Wolfgang didn’t even know Kurt owned shoes.
“Are you coming?” Wolfgang asked after he’d parked the car and pocketed the keys.
Kurt nodded grimly and pulled up his hood. He wrapped a scarf that would have looked more appropriate in the dead of winter around his neck so that it covered the lower half of his face. “Ready.” He said and jammed his hands in his pockets.
Munich International Airport also served Salzburg, which meant Wolfgang was right at home. He’d traveled in and out of this airport since he was a baby. He led Kurt away from the parking lot by memory and into the bustling international terminal. Terminal 2, Wolfgang could have called it his second home.
“James is coming in on Lufthansa so we have to go… Kurt?” Kurt had been right beside him when they entered the building, but now he was nowhere to be seen. Wolfgang retraced his steps back through the crowd and found that Kurt hadn’t gotten much farther than the door. He’d retreated to what appeared to be the darkest spot against the wall of the brightly lit terminal.
“What are you doing?” Wolfgang asked.
Kurt pulled his hands up into his sleeves and folded his arms across his chest. “It’s really crowded.” He said; his voice muffled by the scarf around his face. Still leaning against the wall he started to slowly sink down.
“Of course it is. It’s an airport.” Wolfgang said. It seemed ridiculous that as seasoned a performer as Kurt would be paralyzed by a crowded airport but he could already tell what was happening. Kurt was at ease performing in front of hundreds of people as long as he exerted control in the form of the ruse that his appearance was a costume. Here he had none of that control. In fact, dressed for a blizzard on a bright summer day, he stood out just as much as he would have without hiding. The only difference was that he wouldn’t scare anyone this way. He just looked strange.
Wolfgang realized it was Margali’s fault. She harbored the notion that an angry mob was hiding around every corner ready to jump out should Kurt ever show his true face in public. She had raised Kurt accordingly and so Wolfgang suspected that now Kurt was equally convinced. He was sure that in some places Margali was right, however Wolfgang was positive most people were more charitable than that. Despite this he really hadn’t anticipated Kurt, who was now sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees and his head down, going to pieces like this. He knelt down beside him.
“Why did you come then? You knew there would be people here.” Wolfgang said.
Kurt looked up; Wolfgang could barely make out his features under his hood. “I’ve never seen an airplane up close; a real one I mean.” He said miserably, “but I didn’t know there would be so many people. I don’t really do well in big crowds unless I'm performing.”
“As always, the king of understatement.” Wolfgang said. On an impulse Wolfgang pulled Kurt’s hood back.
Kurt was frantic. “Wolfgang, No! What are you doing?” He yanked the hood back in place.
“Nobody cares Kurt.” Wolfgang gestured around them at the oblivious rush of people, “They’re all trying to catch planes and carry baggage and stuff. I don’t think anyone has even noticed you. C’mon Elf, let’s go pick up James.” He said.
Kurt shook his head.
Wolfgang looked at his watch. James’ plane would be arriving any minute. “Can you find your way back to the car?” he asked. “You could wait for us there. I’ll give you the keys.”
Again Kurt shook his head. “Please don’t leave me alone.” He said, his voice small almost childlike. He was terrified.
Wolfgang sighed. There really wasn’t time to go all the way to the car and back, but he certainly couldn’t leave Kurt plastered to the wall like this. James would have to wait. “I’ll take you.” He said, “You can wait there and afterwards we’ll go to where there are no crowds and you can see the airplanes.”
“Really?” Kurt asked. Wolfgang could hear the relief in his voice.
“Absolutely. Let’s go though. I don’t want to keep James waiting too long.”
“I’m really sorry.” Kurt said. He rose up to his full height and Wolfgang did the same. He shrugged.
“It’s okay. We’ll work up it.” He said. Wolfgang didn’t give Kurt the chance to ask with this meant. Instead he took him by the elbow and maneuvered him back out the doors to the parking lot.
Wolfgang jogged through terminal 2 glancing around for James’ gate number. James was waiting for him, looking slightly bleary from the long trip and craning his neck to look through the crowd.
Wolfgang snuck up behind James when he took off his glasses to rub his eyes. “Willkommen zu Deutschland Herrn Brown.” James turned around, a huge smile on his face.
“Wolfgang!” The two of them hugged and Wolfgang grabbed one of James’ bags for him.
“Late as usual?” James asked as they pushed through the throng towards the baggage claim area.
Wolfgang shook his head. “I’m reformed. The circus runs on a tight schedule. I can’t do things on ‘Wagner time’ anymore.” He said. “I was here on time, but there were some complications. I had to do a friend the first half of a favor.”
James laughed. “Not completely reformed then.” He said.
They returned to the car laboring under the weight of James’ 2 suitcases and his keyboard in its traveling case. Kurt was waiting for them, stretched out in the back seat paging through the book Wolfgang had brought in case there was a delay. He had shed his bulky concealing coat in an effort to prove to Wolfgang that he wasn’t a complete coward. He got out of the car as they approached. James stopped in his tracks, continuing only when Wolfgang poked him in the back with his elbow.
The whole episode in the airport terminal had been deeply embarrassing and Kurt was determined not to continue the trend by hiding from Wolfgang’s friend. He would not be shy. He would introduce himself like a normal person. His resolve was somewhat shaken by James’ reaction to him but he stayed put.
“Hallo. Ich bin Kurt. Wolfgang's Bekannter. Ich bin wie gehts es Ihnen.” Kurt said when they reached the car.
“Sorry, I don’t speak German. You must be Kurt.” James said. He held out his right hand, but pulled it away when Kurt went to shake it.
“Don't worry. It is not sticking." Kurt said switching to English and trying not to look wounded.
James wasn't quite sure what Kurt meant by that, but he had clearly done the wrong thing. “Oh, no, that’s not it.” James said. He quickly took Kurt’s hand in his own and shook it. “Wolfgang draws you wrong. You have five fingered hands in all the posters.”
Kurt looked at Wolfgang. “I do?”
“Umm.” Wolfgang stalled. Did he draw Kurt’s hands wrong? He had no idea. “I never really thought about it.” He admitted and then turned to Kurt. “I’d like you to meet James Brown, musical genius.”
James rolled his eyes. “Please, call me Jim. Only Wolfgang calls me James and that’s because I can’t get him to call me anything else.”
“What’s wrong with to being called James?” Kurt asked, helping Wolfgang load James’ keyboard into the trunk.
James looked incredulous. “James Brown.” He said as if in explanation. “I don’t want people to get confused.”
Wolfgang glanced at James’ red hair and freckled face and laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said, “They won’t.”
“Who’s James Brown?” Kurt asked.
James’ opened his eyes wide and turned to Wolfgang. “He’s kidding right?” Kurt shook his head.
“He can’t help it,” Wolfgang said, “He was raised by gypsies in a traveling Bavarian circus.”
After a brief tour of the airplane maintenance area, the “other half” of the favor as Wolfgang called it; they left the airport to return to the circus. Kurt had given the front seat to James. He leaned forward so he could talk to them between the driver and passenger seats.
“I can’t believe I'm in Europe.” James said, looking out his window at the blur of landscape.
“You’ve never been to visiting Germany before?” Kurt asked. He was still trying to get over the novelty of speaking only English for such an extended period. Normally when he and Wolfgang spoke they stuck to German with a tendency for drift into other languages, including English, for only a sentence or two before returning to their native tongue.
“James is a tried and true New Yorker.” Wolfgang said. “He thinks the entire planet ends in Westchester.”
“Doesn’t it?” James asked in mock seriousness.
Wolfgang laughed.
“Where is Westchester?” Kurt asked. James spun around to face the back seat.
“It’s across the Hudson river, just west of the Bronx.” He said. “All the snobby rich people live there. People like Wolfgang.” Kurt nodded like he understood even though he had no idea what James was talking about.
“Don’t worry James,” Wolfgang said, “Germany is now the sixth borough. From now on New York City is Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Deutschland. So you’re okay.” He laughed at his own joke.
“Did you have your family arrange that then?” James asked.
“No.” Kurt chimed in before Wolfgang could answer, “Because then he would to have changed the name to Wagner.”
James looked confused, but Wolfgang burst out laughing. “Touche, Kurt. Very Funny.”
James leaned his head back and watched out the window, only half listening to Wolfgang and Kurt banter back and forth. Part of him wondered what he’d gotten himself into. Wolfgang had been legendary at school for the crazy plots he cooked up. Most often Wolfgang’s late night musings never saw the light of day, but on occasion they had and the results had been so stunning and so sublime that James couldn’t not take the risk. The worst that would happen was that he would return home without having accomplished anything.
Wolfgang had promised an adventure and so far, it didn’t sound like a lie. After all, here his was speeding down the motorway in kilometers per hour rather than miles and listening to an old school friend trade jokes with a guy who looked like the devil. He already felt like he was in the circus. James smiled, this was going to be an adventure all right, and if Wolfgang could pull it off, a chance to create art in it’s highest and purest form. He could hardly wait to begin.
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NWKurt
- Bilge Rat
- Posts: 90
- Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2004 12:19 pm
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Even Angels have Scars -- Complete
Yayyy!!! The adventure continues (and keeps getting better too)! Alas, I panicked when I read the ending of "With Power comes Responsibility" and thought, NOOO!! This can't be the end??!?!?
AHHHHHH:content !! More goodness. Keep it up Zam, you've got us hooked!
:DNWKurt:D
AHHHHHH:content !! More goodness. Keep it up Zam, you've got us hooked!
:DNWKurt:D
Let us try to live our lost illusions....They're the sun at night.....If we don't, we'll never taste.....The spice of life!
~Enigma~ Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! The Prism Of Life
~Enigma~ Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi! The Prism Of Life