“Come in.”
She’s standing by one of the open windows, looking toward the front of the train. As I enter, she turns her head. Her eyes are wide, her face drained of blood.
“Oh, Jacob . . .” Her voice is wavering. She’s on the verge of tears.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” I say, crossing the room.
She presses her hand to her mouth and turns back to the window.
August and Rosie are making their noisy way to the front of the train. Their progress is excruciating, and everyone on the lot has stopped to watch.
August smacks her from behind, and Rosie hurries a few steps forward. When August catches up, he whacks her again, this time hard enough that she raises her trunk, bellows, and scampers sideways. August lets loose a long string of curses and runs up beside her, swinging the bull hook and driving the pick end into her shoulder. Rosie whimpers and this time doesn’t move an inch. Even from this distance, we can see that she’s trembling.
Marlena chokes back a sob. On impulse I reach for her hand. When I find it, she clutches my fingers so tightly they hurt.
After a few more thumps and whacks, Rosie catches sight of the elephant car at the front of the train. She lifts her trunk and trumpets, taking off at a thunderous run. August disappears in a cloud of dust behind her, and panicked roustabouts dive out of her way. She climbs aboard with obvious relief.
The dust subsides and August reappears, shouting and waving his arms. Diamond Joe and Otis trudge up to the elephant car, slowly, matter-of-factly, and set about shutting it.
COLLECTION OF THE RINGLING CIRCUS MUSEUM, SARASOTA, FLORIDA
Eleven
Kinko spends the first few hours of the jump to Chicago using bits of beef jerky to teach Queenie, who has apparently recovered from her diarrhea, to walk on her hind legs.
“Up! Up, Queenie, up! Atta girl. Good girl!”
I’m lying on my bedroll, curled up and facing the wall. My physical state is every bit as sorry as my mental one, and that’s saying something. My head is crammed with visions, all jumbled up like a ball of string: My parents alive, depositing me at Cornell. My parents dead, and the green and white floor tiles beneath them. Marlena, waltzing with me in the menagerie. Marlena this morning, fighting tears at the window. Rosie and her snuffing, inquisitive trunk. Rosie, ten feet tall and solid as a mountain, whimpering under August’s blows. August, tap-dancing across the roof of a moving train. August as a bull-hook-wielding madman. Barbara, swinging those melons onstage. Barbara and Nell, and their expert ministrations.
The memory of last night hits me like a wrecking ball. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force my mind to go blank, but it won’t. The more distressing the memory, the more persistent its presence.
Eventually Queenie’s excited yipping stops. After a few seconds, the springs on Kinko’s cot squeak. Then there’s silence. He’s watching me. I can feel it. I roll over to face him.
He’s on the edge of the cot, his bare feet crossed and his red hair mussed. Queenie creeps into his lap, leaving her hind legs sticking straight out, like a frog.
“So, what’s your story, anyway?” says Kinko.
The sunlight flashes like knives through the slats behind him. I cover my eyes and grimace.
“No, I mean it. Where’d you come from?”
“Nowhere,” I say, rolling back to the wall. I pull my pillow over my head.
“What are you so sore about? Last night?”
The mere mention causes bile to rise in my throat.
“You embarrassed or something?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, would you just leave me alone?” I snap.
He is quiet. After a few seconds I roll over again. He’s still looking at me, fingering Queenie’s ears. She licks his other hand, wagging her stump.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“Well, yeah—I think that was pretty obvious.”
I grasp my pounding head with both hands. What I wouldn’t give for about a gallon of water— “Look, it’s no big deal,” he continues. “You’ll learn to hold your liquor. As for the other stuff—well, I had to get you back for the other day. The way I see it, this makes us even. In fact, I may even owe you one. That honey stopped Queenie up like a cork. So, you know how to read?”
I blink a few times. “Huh?” I say.
“You wanna read maybe, instead of just lying there stewing?”
“I think I’ll just lie here stewing.” I squeeze my eyes shut and cover them with my hand. My brain feels too big for my skull, my eyes hurt, and I may throw up. And my balls itch.
“Suit yourself,” he says.
“Maybe some other time,” I say.
“Sure. Whatever.”
A pause.
“Kinko?”
“Yeah?”
“I appreciate the offer.”
“Sure.”
A longer pause.
“Jacob?”
“Yeah?”
“You can call me Walter if you want.”