So long.

Feb 2, Brownsville, TX.
Guennadi is gone.
He's just a few miles away on the parking lot of the Brownsville Wal-mart, but he might as well be back in Russia. There was an argument last night between him and Roy, and it all went from bad to worse later on; Roy had the police come and take him out of the circus.
I feel sad. The circus feels oddly wrong.
Just this week end the Kenyans and the Russians were having a good time over by Guennadi's trailer, making mock practices, having a few beers, and I was thinking I should take pictures, as it is what you don't get to see from the outside, but then I was busy with the baby and thought, this will happen time and again during the year, I can shoot it later... Moral of the story: never take anything, or anybody for granted. Earlier this month I was thinking about the same thing when Fred's boyfriend died suddenly.
This morning Roy directed the general rehearsal, the one Guennadi was to have directed last night. The circus still has all the music he had brought over from Russia, even after he broke his CDs in anger before walking off after the argument, and all the performers are still here, bound by their contract, but the show is without its clown and without any coordination, and the joy is gone.
The days had been going by fast, with practices all day long and every day, except this week end when they took it easy. Between caring for Dylan, taking pictures for the circus and working on the internet, time flew.
Irma is gone too; she was Guennadi's girlfriend. I'm glad we had the opportunity to take the two of them out to lunch last week. She was telling me how they wanted to have a baby but she was afraid because of her age (she's 35) and problems she had when her daughter was born. Katya was translating for us, Irma a little tipsy. Guennadi was joking about how he was jealous of Fridman for having a son before him.
The space where his trailer was is empty now; el rastro de las llantas en la hierba.
On Sunday the Little Sisters arrived, Priscilla and Jo; quelle joie! It is so good to have them with us in the circus, even though they arrived just in time for all the drama and didn't have the time to meet Guennadi. They decided to take it easy this year and not to travel with Carson and Barnes. They'll go instead from this circus to the Big Apple one, and take time off in between. They should be with us until May.
They marveled over Dylan. Il est magnifique (Priscilla.) Il fait chaud ces derniers jours et je le mets a dormir derriere moi sur le grand lit rouge, les pieds a l'air. We finally went for his two-month (and a half now) checkup at the local community health center last week, after getting the necessary paperwork and a local address to get a discount. We had to wait an eternity but he's good, and that's all that matters, and we ate out to celebrate on the way back. The doctor was a Venezolano, tall and lanky with a huge mouth and the air of a character out of a Bryce Echenyque's book, the intellectual type; he had lived in Bulgaria and travelled all over Europe, and declared himself an admiring amateur of France's "cultural tradition."
I have more pictures of Dylan than of anything else and I can't resist sending them all over the place, like all new Moms, just as I had sworn I wouldn't do, like all new Moms.