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.”
Under my hand, my eyes open wide.
His cot squeaks as he rearranges himself. I sneak a look through splayed fingers. He folds his pillow in half, lies back, and grabs a book from the crate. Queenie settles at his feet, watching me. Her eyebrows twitch with worry.
THE TRAIN APPROACHES Chicago in the late afternoon. Despite my pounding head and aching body, I stand in the open door of the stock car craning my neck to get a good look. After all, this is the city of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, of jazz, gangsters, and speakeasies.
I can see a handful of tall buildings in the distance, and just as I’m trying to make out which one of them is the fabled Allerton we reach the stockyards. There are miles of them, and we slow to a crawl as we pass. The buildings are flat and ugly, and the pens, crammed with panicked, lowing cattle and filthy, snuffing pigs, butt right up against the tracks. But that is nothing compared to the noises and smells coming from the buildings: within minutes the bloody stench and piercing shrieks send me flying back to the goat room to press my nose against the mildewed horse blanket—anything to replace the smell of death.
My stomach is fragile enough that even though the lot is well beyond the stockyards, I stay inside the stock car until everything’s been set up. Afterward, seeking the company of animals, I enter the menagerie and tour the perimeter.
It’s impossible to describe how tenderly I suddenly feel toward them—hyenas, camels, and all. Even the polar bear, who sits on his backside chewing his four-inch claws with his four-inch teeth. A love for these animals wells up in me suddenly, a flash flood, and there it is, solid as an obelisk and viscous as water.
My father felt it his duty to continue to treat animals long after he stopped getting paid. He couldn’t stand by and watch a horse colic or a cow labor with a breech calf even though it meant personal ruin. The parallel is undeniable. There is no question that I am the only thing standing between these animals and the business practices of August and Uncle Al, and what my father would do—what my father would want
One of the chimps needs a cuddle, so I let him ride on my hip as I make my way around the tent. I reach a wide empty spot, and realize it’s for the elephant. August must be having trouble getting her out of her car. If I were feeling at all kindly toward him, I’d see if I could help. But I’m not.
“Hey, Doc,” says Pete. “Otis thinks one of the giraffes has a cold. You wanna take a look?”
“Sure,” I say.
“Come on, Bobo,” says Pete, reaching for the chimp.
The chimp’s hairy arms and legs tighten around me.
“Come on now,” I say, trying to pluck his arms free. “I’ll come back.”
Bobo moves not a muscle.
“Come on now,” I say.
Nothing.
“All right. One last hug and that’s it,” I say, pressing my face against his dark fur.
The chimp flashes a toothy smile and kisses me on the cheek. Then he climbs down, slips his hand inside Pete’s, and ambles off on bowed legs.
There’s a small amount of pus flowing down the giraffe’s long nasal passage. It’s not something I’d find alarming in a horse, but since I don’t know giraffes I decide to play it safe and fit her with a neck poultice, an operation that requires a stepladder with Otis at the bottom, handing me supplies.
The giraffe is timid and beautiful and quite possibly the strangest creature I’ve ever seen. Her legs and neck are delicate, her body sloped and covered with markings like puzzle pieces. Strange furry knobs poke out from the top of her triangular head, above her large ears. Her eyes are huge and dark, and she has the velvet-soft lips of a horse. She’s wearing a halter and I hold on to it, but mostly she stays still as I swab out her nostrils and swaddle her throat in flannel. When I’m finished, I climb down.
“Can you cover for me for a bit?” I ask Otis, wiping my hands on a rag.
“Sure. Why?”
“I’ve got somewhere to go,” I say.
Otis’s eyes narrow. “You ain’t moping off, are you?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“You better tell me now, ’cuz if you’re moping off, I ain’t covering for you while you do it.”
