“They heard we was carrying booze. There’s gonna be a raid.”
“There’s gonna be a raid, all right,” comes the reply. “But it’s on account of the cooch tent, not the booze.”
In front of the oatmeal:
“Uncle Al stiffed the sheriff on the lot fee last year. Cops say we got two hours before they run us out.”
Ezra is slouched in the same position as yesterday, his arms crossed and his chin pressed into his chest. He pays me no attention whatever.
“Whoa there, big fella,” says August as I head for the canvas divider. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To the other side.”
“Nonsense,” he says. “You’re the show’s vet. Come with me. Although I must say, I’m tempted to send you over there just to find out what they’re saying.”
I follow August and Marlena to one of the nicely dressed tables. Kinko sits a few tables over, with three other dwarves and Queenie at his feet. She looks up hopefully, her tongue lolling off to the side. Kinko ignores her and everyone else at his table. He stares straight at me, his jaw moving grimly from side to side.
“Eat, darling,” says August, pushing a bowl of sugar toward Marlena’s porridge. “There’s no point fretting. We’ve got a bona fide veterinarian here.”
I open my mouth to protest, then shut it again.
A petite blonde approaches. “Marlena! Sweetie! You’ll never guess what I heard!”
“Hi, Lottie,” says Marlena. “I have no idea. What’s up?”
Lottie slides in beside Marlena and talks nonstop, almost without pausing for breath. She’s an aerialist and she got the straight scoop from a good authority—her spotter heard Uncle Al and the advance man exchanging heated words outside the big top. Before long a crowd surrounds our table, and between Lottie and the tidbits tossed out by her audience, I hear what amounts to a crash course on the history of Alan J. Bunkel and the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.
Uncle Al is a buzzard, a vulture, an eater of carrion. Fifteen years ago he was the manager of a mud show: a ragtag group of pellagra-riddled performers dragged from town to town by miserable thrush-hoofed horses.
In August of 1928, through no fault of Wall Street, the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth collapsed. They simply ran out of money and couldn’t make the jump to the next town, never mind back to winter quarters. The general manager caught a train out of town and left everything behind—people, equipment, and animals.
Uncle Al had the good fortune to be in the vicinity and was able to score a sleeping car and two flats for a song from railroad officials desperate to free up their siding. Those two flats easily held his few decrepit wagons, and because the train cars were already emblazoned with BENZINI BROS MOST SPECTACULAR SHOW ON EARTH, Alan Bunkel retained the name and officially joined the ranks of train circuses.
When the Crash came, larger circuses started going down and Uncle Al could hardly believe his luck. It started with the Gentry Brothers and Buck Jones in 1929. The next year saw the end of the Cole Brothers, the Christy Brothers, and the mighty John Robinson. And every time a show closed, there was Uncle Al, sopping up the remains: a few train cars, a handful of stranded performers, a tiger, or a camel. He had scouts everywhere—the moment a larger circus showed signs of trouble, Uncle Al would get a telegram and race to the scene.
He grew fat off their carcasses. In Minneapolis, he picked up six parade wagons and a toothless lion. In Ohio, a sword swallower and a flat car. In Des Moines, a dressing tent, a hippopotamus and matching wagon, and the Lovely Lucinda. In Portland, eighteen draft horses, two zebras, and a smithy. In Seattle, two bunk cars and a bona fide freak—a bearded lady—and this made him happy, for what Uncle Al craves above all else, what Uncle Al dreams of at night, are freaks. Not made freaks: not men covered head to toe in tattoos, not women who regurgitate wallets and lightbulbs on command, not moss-haired girls or men who pound stakes into their sinus cavities. Uncle Al craves real freaks. Born freaks. And that is the reason for our detour to Joliet.