Anon and the Circus 12: Tempest

>Georg had called me out of the bathroom and away from the loving embrace of my Goat-Girlfriend.  Nancy and I shared a concerned look before I headed out.  In the convenience store proper I saw my boss at a small dining table in the back.  He looked right at me, unblinking.  I sat down across from him, the small table had our knees touching and us within biting range of each other.
>”Check this out.” He said after pulling something up on his phone.  It was a picture of me in my clown regalia at BB’s fight from a few nights ago. I was kneeling over a man and applying gauze. Blood was splattered on me.
>”Oh… I’m sorry boss.”
>”For what?” He asked.
>”For letting someone record the fights that are supposed to be secret?”  I guessed. I really didn't know, I just assumed I was in trouble.
>”If it was secret then no one would come.  No, apparently you got some fans. It took awhile before they connected your character to that godforsaken blackface incident.” He said before flipping through his phone again. He showed me comments from people making up jokes about how 'Mr. Straighty’ was a rude clown who, apparently, had very controversial opinions on vaccines and minorities.  Of note were meme images of Mr. Straighty frowning with blood spritzed on his face.
>”So I'm not allowed to be Mr. Straighty?” I asked.
>”Actually I printed a load of these t-shirts with these images on them.  I’ll sell them away the main walkways. Less mainstream attention the better.  We just need to make sure to keep these guys separated from the normal customers… We are also denying Mr. Straighty ever existed.”
>”So what should I do? Just burn the costume out back?” I asked.
>He shook his head and said, “No, Anon.  Now that you are a thing you should keep the Straighty thing for the fights and make up something new for the day time. We’ll figure it out as we go.”
>”Maybe I could be like a doctor clown with a name like band-aid.” I mused.
>”Yeah, uhuh.  Shop it and get back to me when you're finished.” Georg said dismissively.  The conversation had ended afew sentences ago as far as he was concerned and he focused on his phone.  By the speed of his tap-typing and his piercing gaze he was surely doing important work stuff.
>Just then, half the circus crew burst into the station. Even the French high wire group came inside, and they normally went to great lengths to avoid interacting with the rest of us.  I quickly heard why they rushed inside for with each opening of the door the whipping winds outside howled and thundered.  With every person they were announced by the rumbling of air pressures and then silenced by the ringing of the door’s bell and the subtle pop of the door closing the wind off.
>Looking outside the windows I say the reddish dirt flying and swirling.  Our caravan slowly disappeared into the red cloud as if it were islands we were sailing away from.
>At that point Muggles came out of the bathroom, hitched up his britches, and said, “Hey guys, the T.V. in there says a windstorm is about to hit!”


>We were all packed in the station now, it was standing room only.  To be honest this was pretty much what the circus itself was but in a much more cramped space.  By luck I was stuck in the corner with the File de France guys.
>”Ugh. So much fatty food.  I feel fat just looking at it.” Said one goose lady.  Top down dressed in spandex and even standing idle she held a perfect toe stance.
>”I'm sure the have organic stuff. Besides, the storm shouldn't be more than an hour.” I replied.
>”Oh sure, American organic!” She replied.  The other birds in the troupe began their french laugh.  The terrible echoing ‘hon hon hon’ sent a chill to my soul.  I knew that was the sound I would hear in the day I die.  Still, I never got to talk to these guys so I decided to grill them a bit.
>”So what do you guys eat then, Miss…?” I left my sentence hanging to get her name.  In her red, evil french gaze she locked onto me and crinked her long goose neck close to my face.
>”I am a sir, sir!” He honked.  I looked the person up and down and was seconds from snorting and calling them a liar when across the room a riot broke out.
>I looked over to see BB stumbling back and knocking over a rack of chips.  Opposite of her was a very angry Nancy, head down and reeling back from giving BB a head butt. She spun around to me and gave me a look similar to the one the man-girl goose had just given me but a hundred times more intense.  Like an arrow she slipped through the crowd straight to me.
>Fuggles advice was for naught. I was sure now that she found out I had slept with BB and I was about to be dumped. I was about to be head-butted into a slushie machine, to be precise.
>Instead she just windmilled her fists on my chest and shouted, “That's how it is huh?  I met you and you tried honking my pussy!  Next time you're a master  bean flicker with your tongue, huh? You little shit! What, just working your rounds? Getting practice on who you want?  Fuck you and your steroid bitch!” She shouted. Going 2-0 on bad decisions that day I tried to talk to her.
>”Nancy, you're embarrassing me.” I said in the most pitiful, whiney voice I could.  In my defense it was not an actual thought out response.  At that moment there was a raffle box of random generic statements in my head and that one was what was pulled.  The runners up were: “Let's talk about this later.” And, “How about we go get ice cream and forget about this?”
>My words hit a nerve. Her lip crinkled and her eyes water.
>”Is it I'm not good enough?! Huh? Shove your dick up your asshole, fuckshit!  Leave me alone!” And she marched clear out the door and disappeared into the cloud of sand and dirt. Last thing I heard her say was, “I hate this world!”

>My brain was wet but it was drying up.  The fluid in my spongy head was protecting me from the dangers of shame and the severity of the situation.  When Nancy walked out of the gas station into the swirling vortex of red dirt this protective juice began evaporating.  Without it worry and doubt began to fill my mind. My brain had completely dried out when Fuggles got someone on the radio who was still waiting in the RVs and they didn't see Nancy come by.
>Sure, visibility was zero and winds we're strong out there but could someone have gotten lost out there when they only had to travel about a hundred feet? If you were sulking because of your hayseed boyfriend’s infidelity then you could easily have gotten lost out there, I thought.
>”I've got to get out there!  This is all my fault.” I declared with a sense of machismo.
>Chuggles and Fuggles stopped me before I reached the door.  “Let's not have two people missing out there.  We should be smart about this.” Chuggles said.
>Immediately everyone helped assemble a rescue suit out of the cheapest materials and technologies they could find.  BB slashed eye-holes in a bandana and put it over my face, adding glasses and a ball cap made my eyes impenetrable to the sand. Rubber bands on my wrists and ankles made my clothing sand-proof. What little of my skin was exposed was slathered with aloe vera to act as a slimey armor.
>Chuggles outfitted my weapons.  Not one, not two, but four headlamps crowned me.  With them all on I was a lighthouse. He gave provided an air horn which he banded to my hand in case I dropped it.
>Lastly was the evac gear.  Muggles found a 32 oz. bottle and filled it with ice water.  He jammed it into the back of my pants for storage. Fuggles gave me one end of his world-record length joke hanky.  Fuggles would feed me line to keep me from getting lost. When, not if, I found Nancy I could use hanky to find my way back.
>I looked very, very stupid.
>With many pats on the back from my rescue team support I pushed open the door and stepped into the storm.  Immediately I understood how this could happen for not only was the dirt so thick it blocked your vision but it also painted.  The ground, the vehicles, and the gas station behind me we're being coated in the red and we're camouflaged by it.  Without eye protection I doubt anyone would be able to know where was what out here.  I checked my numerous headlights and began walking.
>Now was the time for critical thought.  Where could she have gone? Assuming if she when straight out from the station she would have hit a rig in the convoy which we know didn't happen.  That means she must have veered off left or right. Still still walked forward in hopes that I'd stumble upon her and that this whole thing would actually be easy.  No such luck.  I thought to find the wind direction and head that way.  I doubt she would have wandered against the wind.  I stuck my hand up for a minute and watched which side got more dust on it.  The left side was being pelted with granules so that must mean she drifted to the right, if my logic was right.  I let out an air horn blast and trekked that way.
>In the storm I could only make something out when I got close.  A log there, a bush there.  Each shape skewed in my mind to look exactly like Nancy until I was close enough to be proved wrong. I only knew was that I was no longer walking on pavement anymore.  I fired a sound from my airhorn and decided to switch directions.
>I found a gremlin. A busted old car.  Judging by the dirt that was building around the tires that it hadn't been moved in awhile. Perhaps it could help me, I thought.
>I jumped on the hood of the car and shouted Nancy’s name along with blasting my horn. I heard someone call my name but only faintly.  I shouted and fired sound rounds, I heard my name again! The miracle had happened! Dressing up like the bargain basement full spectrum warrior worked!
>”Nancy! Nancy I can hear you!” I shouted and the used the air horn.
>Far below my hearing I could hear the faintest words. I used my horn again and waved my lights vigoriously.
>”I'm here, Anon.” I heard.
>”Nancy! Nancy, I can hear you but I can't see you!”
>I could feel the wind picking it up.  It felt like a real hand trying to pull at my leg.
>”Im down here! Stop shouting, Anon.” Said the wind…?
>I looked down to see a dirt covered Nancy scowling at me. Before it registered I blasted the horn to the rythm I had built up during my search.  She scowled harder at me.
>I hoped off the car and batteries her with apologies and questions. She tried to talk but the invasive sand storm reduced her to
>I told her that we should take shelter in the gremlin and she replied by spitting more sand out of her mouth.
>The two of us sat in the lemon as if we were driving it.  Perhaps now was the best time to level with her