A Zoo Full of Asshats

The Injured Dildoes of Avalon

I was added to the show as a squire and all-around underling.

You learn to live like a medieval henchman. You learn which cooks you can ask for free soup and bread while running errands to try and keep weight on. You learn to maintain the semi-functional weaponry and armor. It doesn't get sharpened, but has to be able to sustain impact for effect during the shows.

You learn which people to avoid.

I was supposed to tack a horse and bring it down for practice. Rafael in the stables helped me tack the horse, and the knight who wanted this specific horse was yelling for me to hurry up as I led him down the ramp into the arena.

They needed special care because these were all horses who had flunked out of some other horse occupation. That's how the show came across all of it's animals, both human and equine.

They also needed specific care due to the arena being entirely sand and moderately filthy. You've got to take painstaking effort to keep horse feces from contaminating sand when there's so much of it everywhere and we weren't painstaking people.

This horse was particularly special needs and often panicked, seemingly randomly.

He reared and I held onto his rope halter, looking over at the knight, Luc.

"Hey. Help?"

The horse landed on all four feet and then bounced back up, kicking his front hooves at me. He was more panicked than malicious, but it was still fairly close to my face.

"Help?" I asked again, and saw Luc backing away smiling.

The horse reared again and I couldn't figure out what was upsetting him, but I held my grip. Who knew what would happen if I turned him loose while he was having an episode? The eldest stable hand started walking toward me down the ramp.

I watched, agape. The old man grabbed the horse's harness and pulled him down face-to-face. Then he slapped him across the mouth. Spit went everywhere.

Chaser's head shook side to side, then he blinked and his eyes glazed over like a zombie. I had only been there a few days, but it was the damndest thing I had seen yet. There was no cruelty in the action, but no mercy either. Chaser was fine for the rest of the day, and looked better after running through some exercises.

The old guy probably kept Chaser from hurting himself and me. Everyone called that stablehand "The Gargoyle" because he was squat, had a very timeworn face and was always doing something rough or disgusting. I liked him, because all of those distasteful things needed doing and he always cleaned his plate and asked for seconds.

I heard no end of it from Luc. He made sure everyone knew I had asked for help and that I shouldn't get any. From then on, they pointed out publicly whenever I messed up tacking a horse or was out of position during a scene.

"I'm pretty shitty, yeah" I'd agree, "All in a day's work."

"We're just dumb dildoes here in Avalon" Caleb chimed in.

The pariahs of the world have to stick together. Shitbirds of the same shitty feathers.

One time he disappeared during a show. We noticed halfway through that all of his marks were empty during scenes where he was needed to carry equipment or props. All you can do is fill the spots and figure it out later.

After the show, we were cleaning up and he came back in bleeding from one of his arms.

His ex girlfriend was a stripper and had texted him a picture of another guy fucking her in their old apartment. He had gone there on foot wearing his cape and tights.

We wrapped his arm after closing the gash with superglue.

When he got there, the new boyfriend was still there and had thrown him through a screen door. he cut his arm up going through the screen, staggered over their patio furniture and had to retreat over the balcony railing.

Like most matter of the heart, this one ended in a lot of drinking. This time, it was done in a backstage bathroom stall. I only knew because I was trying to go to the bathroom and could hear the heavy breathing and the sound of a large glass bottle being set down on the tile floor.

"You okay in there?" I asked.

"She's fucking dead to me now" he slurred, "She's a fucking bitch. You want some of this?"

The handle of whiskey he passed under was in a glass bottle, but was only a half-step above plastic jug tier liquor. I wanted no part in that before a show.

"Let's go outside" I wiped and we went behind the dumpsters. I got him to leave the whiskey in his locker.

I loved someone I couldn't be with. We had met at a party a long time ago and lived in different cities, hours apart. When you're broke and young, distances seem farther. My crappy life was here now.

"Here's a cigarette" I gave him one and smoked another.

"These are so good" he said, then coughed and spat on the pavement.

"Menthol" I said. I never stuck to one brand or flavor. Variety is the spice of life.

After he stopped drinking, the night went smoother. There were a few actors you expected to see drunk or high before a show. You can function like that as long as you know what you're dealing with.

I would forget my position, fumble things and messed up tacking horses. Tracy smoked tons of pot. Caleb was a trainwreck and would try and pass his number to girls in the audience. Luc would enjoy hitting people a little too hard with the metal stage weapons, but smashing somebody was admittedly fun for most everyone.

These were conditions you watched out for.

A weapon snapped and hit my boss in the face. I barely saw it out of the corner of my eye, but he went down on one knee and I got ready to run in and make a big show of dragging him into the backstage like it was part of the show.

He tied his cape around his head to keep the blood out of his eye, grabbed another sword and finished his fight.

And that's getting hurt while you're doing everything right. With how often I missed my marks or had to rush to make it somewhere in time, getting hurt was bound to happen eventually.

I was down to 175 pounds and people joked about how skinny I was getting. Most days, it felt pretty good, but while carrying an armload of lances and shields into the back, I moved across part of an active fight scene.

Luc was meant to be moving through my area during that moment and I had a shield on one arm and couldn't see him charge at me from the side.

He ran into me with a shoulder as hard and low as he could. I didn't know what had happened until my ribs went sideways into a rack mounted in the wall. The rack broke, but after taking a moment to get the breath back in my lungs I collected the spilled gear and made it into the back.

You can get hit awfully hard and still get back up. I couldn't do a situp to get out of bed the next day, however, I couldn't afford to miss a day of work so I found a way to manage.