Earl handles me significantly more gently once he’s closed the door. When he finally sets me on the gravel, he brushes off my jacket.
“Sorry, pal,” he says. “I really did try.”
“Earl!”
He stops and turns back to me, his face grim.
“What’s he got in mind?”
He looks at me but says nothing.
“Earl, please. I’m begging you. What’s he going to do?”
“I’m sorry, Jacob,” he says. He climbs back inside the train.
QUARTER TO SEVEN, fifteen minutes to showtime. The crowd mills around the menagerie, viewing the animals on their way to the big top. I’m standing by Rosie, supervising as she accepts donations of candy, gum, and even lemonade from the crowd. From the corner of my eye I see a tall man stride toward me. It’s Diamond Joe.
“You gotta get out of here,” he says, stepping over the rope.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“August’s on his way. The bull’s performing tonight.”
“What? You mean with Marlena?”
“Yeah. And he don’t want to see you. He’s in one of those moods. Go on, get out.”
I scan the tent for Marlena. She’s standing in front of her horses, chatting with a family of five. Her eyes flit over to me and then, when she sees my expression, dart back at regular intervals.
I hand Diamond Joe the silver-tipped cane that passes for a bull hook these days and step over the rope. I see August’s top hat approaching on my left and move instead to my right, past the line of zebras. I stop beside Marlena.
“Did you know you’re supposed to perform with Rosie tonight?” I say.
“Excuse me,” she says, smiling at the family in front of her. She turns around and leans in close. “Yes. Uncle Al called me in. He says the show is on the verge of collapse.”
“But can you? I mean, in your . . . um . . .”
“I’m fine. I don’t have to do anything strenuous.”
“What if you fall off?”
“I won’t. Besides, I don’t have a choice. Uncle Al also said—oh hell, here’s August. You’d better get out of here.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I’ll be fine. He won’t do anything with rubes around. You’ve got to go.
I look over my shoulder. August is approaching, looking up from a downturned face like a charging bull.
I head through the big top, following the hippodrome track to the back entrance. I pause, and then slip beneath the seats.
I watch the Spec from between a man’s work boots. About halfway through, I realize I’m not alone. An ancient roustabout is also looking through the stands but facing the other direction. He’s looking up a woman’s skirt.
“Hey!” I shout. “Hey, knock it off!”
The crowd roars in delight as a great gray mass passes the edge of the risers. It’s Rosie. I turn back to the roustabout. He stands on tiptoe, holding the edge of a floorboard with his fingertips and peering upward. He licks his lips.
I can’t stand it. I’m guilty of terrible, terrible things—things that will damn my soul to hell—but the idea of some random woman being violated in this manner is more than I can bear, and so even as Marlena and Rosie are stepping into the center ring, I grab the roustabout by the jacket and drag him from beneath the seats.
“Lemme go!” he squeals. “What’s the matter with you?”
I keep him in my grasp, but my attention is on the center ring.
Marlena balances gamely on her ball, but Rosie stands utterly still, all four feet planted squarely on the ground. August’s arms wave up and down. He swings the cane. He shakes his fist. His mouth opens and closes. Rosie’s ears flatten against her head, and I lean forward, looking more closely. Her expression is unmistakably belligerent.
Oh God, Rosie. Not now. Don’t do this now.
“Aw, come on!” screeches the filthy gnome in my hands. “This ain’t no Sunday School show. It’s just a harmless bit of fun. Come on! Lemme go!”
I look down at him. He is panting, his breath rank, his lower jaw punctuated by long brown teeth. Disgusted, I shove him away from me.
He looks quickly from side to side, and when he realizes that no one in the crowd has noticed anything, he straightens his lapels in righteous indignation and swaggers toward the back entrance. Just before he steps outside, he throws me a dirty look. But his narrowed eyes bounce off me, glomming on to something beyond. He dives through the air, his face frozen in a mask of terror.
I spin and find Rosie hurtling toward me, her trunk raised and mouth open. I throw myself against the risers and she passes, trumpeting and pounding the sawdust with such force that a three-foot cloud of particles trails her. August follows, waving his cane.
The crowd explodes, laughing and cheering—they think it’s part of the act. Uncle Al stands in the center of the hippodrome, stupefied. He watches the back entrance of the tent for a moment with his mouth open. Then he snaps into action and cues Lottie.
I climb to my feet and look for Marlena. She passes me, a pink blur.
“Marlena!”
In the distance, August is already hammering Rosie. She bellows and screams, throwing her head and backing away, but he’s like a machine. He raises that damned cane and brings it down hook first, again and again and again. When Marlena reaches them, he turns to face her. The cane falls to the ground. He stares at her with burning intensity, completely oblivious to Rosie.
I know that look.
I charge forward. Before I’ve gone a dozen strides, my feet are swept out from under me and I’m facedown on the ground with a knee on my cheek and one of my arms twisted behind my back.
“Get the hell off me!” I scream, twisting to get free. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Let me go!”
“Just shut up,” says Blackie’s voice from above me. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
August leans over and straightens up with Marlena over his shoulder. She pounds his back with her fists, kicking her legs and screaming. She almost manages to slide off his shoulder, but he just hitches her back up and marches off.
“Marlena!
I twist out from under Blackie’s knee and am halfway to my feet before something crashes into the back of my head. My brain and eyes jolt in their cavities. My vision fills with black and white sparkles and I think I might also be deaf. After a moment my vision starts to return, from the outside in. Faces appear and mouths move, but all I hear is an earsplitting buzz. I weave on my knees trying to figure out who and what and where but now the ground comes screaming toward me. I’m powerless to stop it so I brace myself, but in the end it isn’t necessary because the blackness swallows me before it hits.
COLLECTION OF THE RINGLING CIRCUS MUSEUM, SARASOTA, FLORIDA
S
I’m not, although my head jiggles and jerks with the motion of the train. The engine’s whistle blows mournfully, a distant sound that somehow cuts through the insistent buzzing in my ears. My whole body feels like lead.
