By Peter B. and Art Intelli

Chapter One: The Chain

I never knew my parents, they had died when I was very young, and I was raised by my big brother.  I was a terrible brat to him, but he always dealt with me fairly and calmly.  He was everything to me.  Just as our relationship was really starting to click, he was killed in a car crash halfway through my senior year of high school.  Although I somehow managed to graduate, in the three years since then, I have been a total fuck-up.

By the time I reached my early 20s I had already been floating from job to job, barely scraping by, living in one of those run-down SROs with peeling wallpaper and thin walls. The kind of place where you hear everything, but no one talks to you unless they need something. I never had two cents to rub together, just enough to get by. Just enough to stay invisible.

But lately, things had gotten worse. Rent was months overdue, and the landlord had made it clear that tomorrow, if I didn’t pay up, I was out. He didn’t care that I was barely keeping my head above water. In his eyes, I was just another body taking up valuable space.

I was working a job delivering prescriptions from the local drugstore on their crappy motor scooter.  That afternoon, I finished my shift, cruising around on a scooter that barely held itself together. It was the same old grind, making pit stops here and there, dodging traffic, dealing with people who never seemed happy to see me. The whole thing had been miserable from the start. But at least I had a job, right?

Or so I thought.

As I walked into the office, the manager looked up from behind the desk, the usual lack of expression on his face. “Hey, uh… we’re letting you go,” he said, almost apologetic but not enough to actually feel bad about it.

“What?” I blinked, half-expecting him to laugh. “What do you mean? I thought things were fine?”

“Not enough work to keep you on the payroll. You’re, uh… not the only one getting the boot. Sorry.” He waved vaguely toward the door.

Just like that. The words hit me like a slap across the face. I swallowed hard, trying not to show any weakness.

“Right,” I said, pulling the keys from my pocket and placing them on his desk. The motor scooter keys. The last thing I had in my possession that tied me to something. I slid them across the desk with a steady hand, feeling that little piece of stability slip away.

I turned without another word, the door swinging shut behind me. My stomach churned as I stepped back out onto the street. Everything was unraveling — no job, no money, and a landlord breathing down my neck.

It was getting harder to breathe. Harder to pretend I had everything under control.

I took the long way back, as I always did, past the big glass window of Lou’s Gym. Inside, men lifted weights, their muscles straining under the bright lights, their faces hard with focus. I had always been fascinated by them — by their power, their discipline, their sheer presence. They were everything I wasn’t.

Today, though, someone different was in there. Someone impossible to ignore.

The Strongman.

I recognized him from the carnival posters plastered around town. “Viktor — The Strongest Man On Earth.”  I doubted that, but he sure was a beast.  A massive man with huge shoulders, a barrel chest, thick arms, and a confident smirk. Now, stripped to the waist, he looked even more powerful in person. His skin gleamed with sweat, his muscles bulging with every slow, deliberate lift of the barbell.  A thick gold chain with a dumbbell pendant hugged his thick neck.  The heavy leather Lifting belt around his waist, the thick wristbands, the knee-high boots — it was like he had stepped out of another world.

And he saw me staring.

He locked eyes with me and smiled, then winked and crooked his finger, beckoning me inside.

I almost walked away. “I should keep going,” I thought, like every other time I’d stopped to stare through that window. But something in me shifted, like a string being pulled tight, and my feet moved before my brain could catch up. The air inside the gym smelled like sweat and iron. I felt small in there, surrounded by massive men, by weights I couldn’t even imagine lifting. Before I knew it, I was sitting on the floor gazing up at him.  But the Strongman didn’t say a word.

He moved away from the dumbbell rack and moved on to the kettle bells. Then, he just kept working out, slow and deliberate, muscles flexing, veins standing out. It wasn’t a performance — not exactly — but it was something more than just lifting weights.

It was for me.

After a while, he set the kettles down, rolled his shoulders, and turned to me.

“Like what you see?” His voice low and strong.  I nodded sheepishly.

“You belong to this gym?”

“No,” I stammered. “I…”

“Do you live around here?” he asked.

I hesitated. But something about him made it feel safe to answer.

“A fleabag SRO,” I answered. “About seven blocks from here. But I’m about to be kicked out.  I haven’t paid the rent and I don’t have any money…”

His brow lifted. “That so? You got a plan?”

I shook my head.

He sighed, like he’d heard that answer before. Then he grinned. “Lucky we met, then. My Wagon Boy took off a few days ago.”

“Wagon Boy?”

“Well, he wasn’t a boy of course.  He was older than you.  I was Training him to lift and become a strongman in his own right, in exchange he worked taking care of the wagon.  Guess he decided I was too hard on him.  He took off with a bunch of lowlife bikers.  Damn skinhead gang.  He’ll find out what “hard” is when he winds up on the chain gang.  Anyway, he left me in the lurch.  I need someone to oil my lifting leathers, keep the wagon clean and working, help with the little things. You up for it?”

I stared. “You mean … go with the carnival?”

He nodded. “You’ll need to work with the Roustabouts, too.  Jacob the foreman is fair, but he’ll work you hard.  Not as hard as I will, though.  We leave at midnight. If you’re coming, be at my wagon before then.”

Before I could even process what was happening, he reached up, unclasped the thick gold chain from his neck, and slipped it around mine. The weight of it settled against my chest, the small dumbbell charm resting against my sternum.

“To make sure you don’t forget,” he said.

I ran all the way back to the flophouse, praying I didn’t run into the landlord.

In my tiny room, I pulled out my suitcase — small, old, barely enough to hold the few things I owned. I packed quickly, quietly, heart hammering.

Then, I waited.

The house quieted. The clock ticked. I sat in the dark, staring at the hands as they moved closer to midnight.

When the time came, I slipped out, unseen.

And I ran toward the carnival.

Toward whatever came next.