We go to the circus instead & Mom always says circuses are bad for animals but Dad doesn’t have to care about her opinion now & even if he did Dad says the circus is cheaper than a playoff season baseball game sorry boys & we get there & the parking lot is full of minivans & station wagons & it smells like hot buttery popcorn & cotton candy & steamed hotdogs but also puke & sweat & animal shit & we get past the ticket taker & there are no moms to be seen but there are hundreds of impatient dads & they’re wearing the same stiff blue jeans & bright orange Detroit Tigers glow on dark blue t-shirts & they’re all wearing dark blue Tigers snapback caps & all the other kids look like they were also promised a baseball game & all us kids are chained together in groups by our hands & we’re herded towards the first tent & our dads are barking quick quick or we won’t be able to see everything & in one tent there’s a gaggle of dads honking their big round red noses & pouring out of impossibly small cars & in the trapeze tent dads flip & whip around each other so their legs & arms & orange Detroit Tigers hat logos kaleidoscope together under the lights & in a smaller tent a dad with sad eyes is being forced by another dad with a whip to balance on a ball & all day we follow the dads’ t-shirts as they slip through the gaps between each other & all dads say as one quick quick come on & they’re in such a rush we have to chase them to keep up & all the dads have the same unnamed mission & we keep losing the individuals shapes of them & they stop looking back to see if we’re following & they slip into each other & sometimes two dads become one & then they split into three & they’re being swallowed up by their own sea of dark blue t-shirts & hats & the tents fill up with contortionist dads & trampoline act dads & they all come back out of their tents & say hurry we’re going to miss the best thing & the next best is not the tumbling act or the high wire act where two dads inch towards each other in their tennis shoes & it’s not the lion or the bear or even the pretty mermaid in the sad small aquarium but we don’t even want to see the best thing in the world anymore but we wanted to go to a baseball game like they promised & instead we’re all running through the dads trying to check their faces but we’ve lost the shape of our own dad & we’re afraid we’ll never find him & there he finally is baring his teeth & roaring through the bars & pacing the smallness of the tiger cage & we say Mom was right about the circus & he says we’re ungrateful & he refuses to leave the cage.