Jasper Grimaldi's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The woman's voice still hung in the tent when Jasper climbed down and faced the ruin. Ten years of dust coated every board. The curtains sagged, gray and torn. Mold crept up the frame in black streaks. His stage looked like a grave. Frank wanted tickets sold by Saturday. No one would pay to sit in this rot. Jasper wiped his palms on his baggy pants and got to work. He hauled a bucket of water from the block restroom. He scrubbed the boards until his arms burned. But the water only spread the filth. The mold soaked deeper. Rot had eaten the wood from the inside. When he pressed a plank, his thumb sank through it. He sat back on his heels and stared at the mess. Scrubbing would not fix ten years of dying. Something moved in the dark behind the curtain. A cat made of pale light stepped onto the stage. Jasper could see the floor through its body. It sat and watched him. Then it padded to the far corner and stopped, tail flicking at the shadows. A black bird landed on the frame above. It cocked its head at the same corner, as if pointing. Jasper followed. Behind a fallen curtain lay stacks of fresh lumber. Cans of paint. Cloth still in its wrapper. Someone had left it here, out of the weather. He touched a board. Clean and dry. He did not understand it, and he did not stop to try. He worked through the night. He tore out the rotted planks and laid new ones. He hung fresh cloth over the torn curtains. He painted the frame until it looked like a stage again. When his hands shook too hard to hold the brush, the cat brushed his leg with a cold that woke him up. He kept going. Near dawn the woman appeared. She stood at the edge of the light, pale and see-through, blood streaked down her face and hands. Jasper's breath stopped. She was the voice from the microphone. She looked at the new boards, then at him. "You came back," she said again. But this time she almost smiled. "I did," Jasper said. His voice cracked. "I'm reopening the show." She raised one bloody hand and pointed past the tent. Through the flap Jasper saw it, far off across the park. A tall mansion glowed under the moon, its courtyard bright as day. People moved there. A crowd. The kind of crowd that once screamed his name. "They won't come to a ruin," she said. "They'll come for you. But you have to bring them." The cat and the bird were gone. The stage stood clean and ready. Jasper looked at his fixed boards, then at the far crowd he had no way to reach. The rot was gone. Now he needed an audience, and they were on the other side of the park.