Water for Elephants

“Yes, Mr. Jankowski?” she says.

“He is lying, you know.”

“I know no such thing. And neither do you.”

“I do, though. I was on a show.”

She blinks, irritated. “How do you mean?”

I hesitate and then change my mind. “Never mind,” I say.

“Did you work on a circus?”

“I said never mind.”

There’s a heartbeat of uncomfortable silence.

“Mr. McGuinty could have been seriously hurt, you know,” she says, arranging my legs. She works quickly, efficiently, but stops just short of being summary.

“No he couldn’t. Lawyers are indestructible.”

She stares at me for a long time, actually looking at me as a person. For a moment I think I sense a chink. Then she snaps back into action. “Is your family taking you to the circus this weekend?”

“Oh yes,” I say with some pride. “Someone comes every Sunday. Like clockwork.”

She shakes out a blanket and spreads it over my legs. “Would you like me to get your dinner?”

“No,” I say.

There’s an awkward silence. I realize I should have added “thank you,” but it’s too late now.

“All right then,” she says. “I’ll be back in a while to see if you need anything else.”

Yup. Sure she will. That’s what they always say.

BUT DAGNAMMIT, HERE SHE IS.

“Now don’t tell anyone,” she says, bustling in and sliding my dinner-table-cum-vanity over my lap. She sets down a paper napkin, plastic fork, and a bowl of fruit that actually looks appetizing, with strawberries, melon, and apple. “I packed it for my break. I’m on a diet. Do you like fruit, Mr. Jankowski?”

I would answer except that my hand is over my mouth and it’s trembling. Apple, for God’s sake.

She pats my other hand and leaves the room, discreetly ignoring my tears.

I slip a piece of apple into my mouth, savoring its juices. The buzzing fluorescent fixture above me casts its harsh light on my crooked fingers as they pluck pieces of fruit from the bowl. They look foreign to me. Surely they can’t be mine.

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you’re getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse.

Metastatic, the doctor said. A matter of weeks or months. But my darling was as frail as a bird. She died nine days later. After sixty-one years together, she simply clutched my hand and exhaled.

Although there are times I’d give anything to have her back, I’m glad she went first. Losing her was like being cleft down the middle. It was the moment it all ended for me, and I wouldn’t have wanted her to go through that. Being the survivor stinks.

I used to think I preferred getting old to the alternative, but now I’m not sure. Sometimes the monotony of bingo and sing-alongs and ancient dusty people parked in the hallway in wheelchairs makes me long for death. Particularly when I remember that I’m one of the ancient dusty people, filed away like some worthless tchotchke.

But there’s nothing to be done about it. All I can do is put in time waiting for the inevitable, observing as the ghosts of my past rattle around my vacuous present. They crash and bang and make themselves at home, mostly because there’s no competition. I’ve stopped fighting them.

They’re crashing and banging around in there now.

Make yourselves at home, boys. Stay awhile. Oh, sorry—I see you already have.

Damn ghosts.

C. P. FOX PHOTO COLLECTION

Two

I’m twenty-three and sitting beside Catherine Hale; or rather, she’s sitting beside me, because she came into the lecture hall after I did, sliding nonchalantly across the bench until our thighs were touching and then shrinking away with a blush as though the contact were accidental.

Catherine is one of only four women in the class of ’31 and her cruelty knows no bounds. I’ve lost track of all the times I’ve thought Oh God, oh God, she’s finally going to let me, only to be hit in the face with Dear God, she wants me to stop NOW?

I am, as far as I can tell, the oldest male virgin on the face of the earth. Certainly no one else my age is willing to admit it. Even my roommate Edward has claimed victory, although I’m inclined to believe the closest he’s ever come to a naked woman was between the covers of one of his eight-pagers. Not too long ago some of the guys on my football team paid a woman a quarter apiece to let them do it, one after the other, in the cattle barn. As much as I had hoped to leave my virginity behind at Cornell, I couldn’t bring myself to take part. I simply couldn’t do it.

And so in ten days, after six long years of dissections, castrations, foalings, and shoving my arm up a cow’s rear end more times than I care to remember, I, and my faithful shadow, Virginity, will leave Ithaca and join my father’s veterinary practice in Norwich.

“And here you can see evidence of thickening of the distal small intestine,” says Professor Willard McGovern, his voice devoid of inflection. Using a pointer, he pokes languidly at the twisted intestines of a dead salt-and-pepper milk goat. “This, along with enlarged mesenteric lymph nodes indicates a clear pattern of—”

The door squeaks open and McGovern turns, his pointer still buried in the doe’s belly. Dean Wilkins walks briskly into the room and mounts the stairs to the podium. The two men confer, standing so close their foreheads nearly touch. McGovern listens to Wilkins’ urgent whispers and then turns to scan the rows of students with worried eyes.

All around me, students fidget. Catherine sees me looking and slides one knee over the other, smoothing her skirt with languorous fingers. I swallow hard and look away.

“Jacob Jankowski?”

In my shock, I drop my pencil. It rolls under Catherine’s feet. I clear my throat and rise quickly. Fifty-some pairs of eyes turn to look at me. Yes, sir?

“Can we have a word, please?”

I close my notebook and set it on the bench. Catherine retrieves my pencil and lets her fingers linger on mine as she hands it to me. I make my way to the aisle, bumping knees and stepping on toes. Whispers follow me to the front of the room.

Dean Wilkins stares at me. “Come with us,” he says.

I’ve done something, that much is clear.

I follow him into the hallway. McGovern walks out behind me and closes the door. For a moment the two of them stand silently, arms crossed, faces stern.

My mind races, dissecting my every recent move. Did they go through the dorm? Did they find Edward’s liquor—or maybe even the eight-pagers? Dear Lord—if I get expelled now, my father will kill me. No question about it. Never mind what it will do to my mother. Okay, so maybe I drank a little whiskey, but it’s not like I had anything to do with the fiasco in the cattle—

Dean Wilkins takes a deep breath, raises his eyes to mine, and claps a hand on my shoulder. “Son, there’s been an accident.” A slight pause. “An automobile accident.” Another pause, longer this time. “Your parents were involved.”

I stare at him, willing him to continue.

“Are they . . .? Will they . . .?”

“I’m sorry, son. It was instant. There was nothing anyone could do.”

I stare at his face, trying to maintain eye contact, but it’s difficult because he’s zooming away from me, receding to the end of a long black tunnel. Stars explode in my peripheral vision.