#nurturing buggy

He finds things. A potted plant that’s on death’s door in a storefront immediately adopted and lives in his captain’s quarters now. He named it Quinn (Harlequin). He painted its pot with all kinds of circus colors and patterns. It’s thriving now, with many brothers and sisters.

Buggy comes across a parrot with a broken wing and molted feathers kept in a cage on a pier. The bird was promptly stolen and given a new home in the Big Top. The bird tells knock knock jokes, her name is Susan. She can’t fly but she has the most beautiful, colorful feathers Buggy has ever seen-flashy he says.

All the animals in any of the Big Top acts are rescues from their various adventures. From poachers and animal fight rings and other circuses that don’t care for their animals the way the Buggy pirates do. Brought in with ribs poking out, eyes missing, scars on their backs. They’re given love, patience, food, a warm place to sleep, and a purpose.

The crew members of the Big Top were brought together in much the same way. Baby Buggy ran into Cabaji and Mohji with a little Richie cub a month after Roger’s death. The boys were back behind a circus tent fighting over a half empty bucket of popcorn, dirty, hungry, and alone. Buggy introduced himself and bought them dinner from a food stand, tossing Richie a small bit of steak. They talked till the sun came up and became fast friends. They stole a small fishing boat that night.

Buggy has a toy chest. Yes, he’s a grown man. No, he doesn’t play with them…often. But hee has a chest full of toys. He finds torn up, ripped, broken toys on the ground or in the corner of a secondhand store and he fixes them up. Makes them good as new, if not better. He keeps a couple on him at all times just in case he runs into a sad kid in need of a pick me up. He’ll take a good amount of them to an orphanage he knows-the one he was in till Roger found him-and drop them off, giving the kids a show before he leaves.

He finds kids sometimes too. Part of him wants to take care of them, watch over them, and be a dad. But a larger part of him know he can’t yet. Maybe one day. But not today. So, he helps keep them safe until he can bring them somewhere he knows they’ll be taken good care of.