Somewhere between the rigged dart game and the crocodile boy, we finished our junk food and joined the people moving inside. Under the big top, it was sawdust and lights and collapsible bleachers, and Stewart and I clomped up them to find our seats. He promptly got up again to fetch popcorn and cokes—I have no idea where he puts it—and was back before the seats finished filling up. He’s got a knack for picking the quick line. Just lucky like that.
I had my head craned back, staring up at the highest point of the big top, when he slid a bag of roasted chestnuts into my hand. “They call it the king pole,” I said. “The whole tent hangs off it. That used to be one hell of a tree.”
“Yeah,” he said. “So was the one Odin hanged himself off of. And look where that got him—overrun by Christians.”
“Blind and forgotten,” I said, and touched my eyepatch.
Stewart winked under blond bangs and stole a chestnut back.
It was a nice enough little circus. They had a couple of elephants that came on toward the end of the show, and as I sat there and ate chestnuts I wondered if they were abused. Not everybody treats their animals as well as Siegfried and Roy. Yeah, I worry more about animals than people, which is stupid. Some folks justify it by saying that animals don’t make the choices that lead to their torment and destruction, but it’s a bit facile to pretend people have any more autonomy.
In reality, the rat race is a handicap. Except the previous winners start with less weight, not as far to run, and a better knowledge of the track. And the more you fail to keep up, the more weight gets piled on.
It’s a scary business, life.
This was a three-ring circus, where there’s a big act in the center ring—that’s where the elephants were— and something smaller on either side. Because we got our tickets late, we were over by the concurrent clowns, and Stewart seemed to be watching them more than the elephants. He doesn’t like animal acts.
I like watching the ringmaster. When the elephants trouped out, I knew it had to be time for the capper. The man in the sequined red topcoat ran out to the middle of the center ring and gestured for his microphone, which glided from the bigtop to be caught with a conjuror’s flair.
Behind him, trapezes snaked from the scaffolding. Running men brought out a pedestal. The knotted shroud of the net rose and grew taut, like an emerged moth plumping chrysalis-rumpled wings, while the ringmaster’s voice rang across the stands.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Children of all ages! May I direct your attention to the center ring!?
“You have seen aerialists and acrobats. You have seen wire dancers and tumblers, funambulists and flyers. But you have never seen anything like this.
“All the way from the primeval forest of mysterious Moravia, I give you—the Flying Bukvajovas!”
“Huh,” I said, as the catcher was winched up to his trapeze and the first of the flyers began to ascend the platform. “I could swear I’ve heard that name.”
Stewart gave me a funny look. “They’ve been through town before. We saw them about ten years ago. With a different circus then. And I don’t think that was the first time. I’m pretty sure they were here when the dam was going in.…”
“Oh,” I said. “Of course.” And ate another nut. One of those multigenerational circus families.
The ringmaster’s microphone reeled back into the stratosphere. He fled the ring in a scatter of sequin reflections, something like an animate mirror ball. I shrugged off a chill.
“Jackie?”
“Somebody stepped on my grave.”
Stewart stole another nut. “Maybe the ringmaster is evil.”
I tried to steal it back, resulting in a wrestling match that scattered popcorn across the floorboards and glares across nearby patrons. Casualties of war. To add insult to injury, Stewart popped the kidnappee into his mouth before I managed to retrieve it.
“No evil ringmasters,” I said. “I won’t allow it. Screw Ray Bradbury.”
“That was a carny,” Stewart said complacently, defending what remained of his popcorn. “And anyway, Bradbury’s not my type.”
Later that night, when the city glow was creeping around the edges of the hotel-room blackout curtains brightly enough to compete with my bedside lamp, I lay staring at the ceiling. I was supposed to be reading a book. Stewart was playing a Gameboy, but the beeps were intermittent.
I let the paperback fall across my chest. “Hey, Stewart?”
“Mm?”
“Have you noticed yourself forgetting things?”
“Like my car keys?”
Smart ass. “No. Like things you used to know. Street names. Your first girlfriend’s favorite color. That sort of stuff.”
“I wonder how you’d know if you forgot something,” he said, hitting pause on his game. “I mean, really forgot it. Do you ever think about Alzheimer’s? Or a brain injury? You’d never know what you were missing, would you?”
“No,” I said, picking up my book. I hadn’t been paying enough attention to the last three pages and had to flip back until I found something I remembered reading. “Or yes, maybe. I don’t know. I mean, if you were losing time, like not making new memories, probably not. But if you were forgetting things like your husband’s or wife’s name? Then probably. And you might try to cover it up.”
He looked at me suspiciously.
“Hey,” I said. “I
He stared. I stared back. He glanced down at the Gameboy with a rude noise.
“Hey,” I said, to make him throw a pillow, “what was your name again?”
Nobody sleeps in Las Vegas, and so neither do I. But if I did, I have to admit, ghosts would have a pretty good means of waking you up. Nothing like a hovering cold spot on the back of your neck to get you out of bed in a hurry.
I managed not to shriek, which was good, because Stewart was sort of curled up on my chest watching a Burt Reynolds movie—I know, but far be it from me to complain about my boyfriend’s taste—and I might have shocked him into apoplexy. Instead, I sucked in a breath and disentangled myself—over his protests—before sliding out of bed to face my molester.
The ghost looked awfully familiar, as if I had seen him somewhere before. But he was just one of the little ghosts of the dam, harmless and inoffensive. By the rocking and beckoning, he wanted something from me.
“Lassie wants something,” I said to Stewart, because the ghost’s demeanor reminded me of a worried dog.
“Shh,” Stewart said. “This is the good bit.”
“But the
“Oh, and I’m supposed to figure out what?” But he hit the mute button, sat up, and drawled, “Hello, sailor.”
I winced mostly out of habit. He wasn’t actually camping it up all that much.
“I feel like I know him,” I said, while the ghost stared at me with hemorrhage-spotted eyes.
“Jeff Soble.” Stewart stood. Of course
“I know,” I said. We both knew. You don’t get to be a genius until you’re buried and sung over. Stewart and me, we died young.
Looking at Stewart, I realized I didn’t remember how I’d died. I opened my mouth to ask, scratching idly under my eye patch, and realized something else. That space—that hollow place of just not knowing—felt like a cold shadow had slid off my soul. Whatever had happened, it hadn’t been pretty or pleasant, and I breathed easier in its absence.
The ghost beckoned again. I caught the motion in my peripheral vision; I was still looking at Stewart. “What do we do?”
