I have a goat story. Doesn’t everyone?
Back in 1985 I was briefly associated with Aurora, the Living Unicorn. She was the feature attraction of Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus that year. I had retired from the circus several years earlier to marry and raise a family in Minnesota, working at a small-market radio station in Park Rapids. I followed the saga of Aurora, the Living Unicorn, in the newspapers. The media unequivocally branded her a goat, with some kind of kinky horn transplant.
One spring morning, as I looked out the kitchen window at the pearls of dew glistening on the tiny new leaves of the butternut tree in the backyard, feeling the lick of a playful southern breeze on my cheek, and generally rejoicing in the placid simplicity of my life, the phone rang. It was my old Ringling pal, Jerry, impresario of garish headlines and unabashed ballyhoo for the circus. We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes before Jerry got down to brass tacks. Aurora the Living Unicorn needed a babysitter while the show was in Chicago. Her current keeper had to leave the show on family business for two weeks. Would I consider rejoining the show for that time period, to tend the fabulous creature? Transportation would be paid and the remuneration was handsome. I could even stay at the Palmer House.
I was initially cold to his offer, but promised to discuss it with the wife and call him back with my decision later in the day. Amy liked the money, which we could use to pay down the mortgage. I had the two weeks available as vacation if I wanted. And several of Amy’s sisters were coming for a long visit anyways. So it seemed more opportune than I had at first imagined.
That is why a few days later I was in the Windy City, trying to stare down a one-horned goat. There was no doubt about it – whatever the circus programme might burble, that animal smelled like, looked like, and acted like a goat. Her horizontal pupils glistened with pure goat malice; she tried to butt me constantly, and nibbled my windbreaker to shreds. Plus she had the scours, which in goats is a mild form of diarrhea. Instead of neat little berries of poop scattered here and there, she was constantly dribbling an unspeakable green slime. Jerry assured me this was not serious. I should dose her with slippery elm powder, just put it in her grain, and she would be right as rain.
Aurora had her own float, on which she rode in triumph during the Spec. My job was to be at her side so she did not try to bolt off the platform. She was tethered to it, but still insisted on leaping away like Super Goat, which might have strangled her. The costume that circus wardrobe rigged up for me while I was on the float was a cross between Napoleon on the battle field and Bozo. I staggered under the weight of a ten pound bicorne that sprouted peacock feathers, had a checkered silk vest that was too tight, and wore blazing red knickers that gave way to yellow stockings and large pink slippers. Aurora wanted those peacock feathers. She kept jumping up on me, placing her front hoofs on my chest, to better grab a mouth full. Her foul breath would have made sewer gas seem like Chanel #5.
True to Jerry’s promise, I had a lavish room at the Palmer House, but I never stayed there. Not a single night. Aurora, bless her Bovidae heart, needed companionship at night, as she suffered from insomnia and night jitters when left alone. So I rolled up in a sleeping bag and nestled with Aurora in fresh hay each night. By day she was irascible and intractable. By night she was all affection. He who snuggles with a goat partakes of the aroma of a goat. The only way to get rid of that goatish perfume was to shower with Fels-Naptha laundry soap.
I took the goat, um, I mean the unicorn, to a press conference, where Chicago reporters displayed more interest in the buffet table and free bar than in Aurora. I had been labeled her ‘temporary entourage’ by a playful Jerry. He had given me an information sheet on Aurora, which she promptly ate before I had a chance to review it. A woman reporter, in between bites of brie on a cracker, asked me if Aurora could have kids. Only with another unicorn, I replied. I felt pretty cocky after that zinger, so I was unprepared when another reporter began to grill me about how cruel it was to force a living creature to demean itself with horn bud transplants. I finally managed to stammer that Aurora was in absolutely no pain and that nothing had been done to alter her horns or any other part of her body. At this point Aurora decided to end the press conference by bleating loudly and rushing the front row of ink-stained wretches. The room erupted into chaos, with reporters cowering near the free bar, protecting the fragile liquor bottles from harm, while Aurora cheerfully trotted around the room, butting abdomens and lapping up the spilled booze. She was a mean drunk, sucker-punching several TV cameramen.
When I finally managed to drag her away from the imbroglio she had started she repaid me by giving me a good, sound kick in the knee with her hind legs. It would have been curtains, or goatburger, for her at that moment if Jerry had not intervened with the joyous news that Aurora’s regular keeper had returned, a few days earlier than expected. I guess Jerry figured I was too disgruntled about the whole Living Unicorn episode to trust, so he put me back on a plane to Minnesota that very same day. Which was fine with me, because I had the big, fat Ringling check in my wallet.
Back in peaceful, unicorn-free Park Rapids I settled down in bed that first night with Amy and attempted to become reacquainted her. She repulsed me.
“Whew!” she told me before turning over, “You smell like a goat!”
Thanks, Aurora.
