Job Hazards

Milbrodt's stories probe the impact of job choices on the lives of a love-lorn circus clown, a racecar driver/pole dancer, a retired sideshow fat lady and her “skeleton man” friend, a 60-year-old, cliff-jumping caregiver, and two shopping mall security guards who are single parents.

From “Job Hazards”:
“All of us in the circus were there because we needed to be watched, because we craved that treacherous moment in the limelight. She worked with a net for safety. I wouldn’t have asked her to do without one, but we all knew people wanted to see the real danger: if she’d miss the bar. They were waiting for me to make them laugh. They were waiting for her to die.”

From “Fat Lady to Marry Skeleton Man: Tickets 25 Cents”:
“I don't know if we were blessed or cursed by genetics. We love our bodies, they earned us a living for many years, but others feel they are acceptable only in a sideshow. Yet where did they expect sideshow performers to go? We can't evaporate, though Errol might come close.”