Water for Elephants (20 page)

“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.”

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.

T
HE 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
me
to do—is look after them, and I am filled with that absolute and unwavering conviction. No matter what I did last night, I cannot leave these animals. I am their shepherd, their protector. And it’s more than a duty. It’s a covenant with my father.

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.”

“I’m not moping off. Why would I mope off?”

“On account of . . . Well, you know. Certain events.”

No! I’m not moping off. Just let it drop, would you?”

Is there no one who hasn’t heard the details of my disgrace?

I
HEAD OUT ON FOOT
and after a couple of miles find myself in a residential area. The houses are in disrepair, and many have boards over their windows. I pass a breadline—a long row of shabby dispirited people leading to the door of a mission. A black boy offers to shine my shoes, and while I’d like to let him, I don’t have a cent to my name.

Finally I see a Catholic church. I sit in a pew near the back for a long time, staring at the stained glass behind the altar. Although I want absolution
dearly, I am unable to face confession. Eventually I leave the pew and go to light votive candles for my parents.

As I turn to leave, I catch sight of Marlena—she must have come in while I was in the alcove. I can only see her back, but it’s definitely her. She’s in the front pew, wearing a pale yellow dress and matching hat. Her throat is delicate, her shoulders square. A few curls of light brown hair peek from beneath the brim of her hat.

She kneels on a cushion to pray, and a vice grip tightens around my heart.

I retreat from the church before I can further damage my soul.

W
HEN
I
RETURN
to the lot, Rosie has been installed in the menagerie tent. I don’t know how, and I don’t ask.

She smiles when I approach and then rubs her eye, curling the tip of her trunk like a fist. I watch her for a couple of minutes and then step over the rope. Her ears flatten and her eyes narrow. My heart sinks, because I think she’s responding to me. Then I hear his voice.

“Jacob?”

I watch Rosie for a few seconds longer and then turn to face him.

“Look here,” says August, scrubbing the toe of his boot in the dirt. “I know I’ve been a bit rough on you the last couple of days.”

I’m supposed to say something here, something to make him feel better, but I don’t. I’m not feeling particularly conciliatory.

“What I’m trying to say is that I went a bit far. Pressures of the job, you know. They can get to a man.” He holds out his hand. “So, friends again?”

I pause a few seconds longer, and then take his hand. He is my boss, after all. Having made the decision to stay, it would be stupid to get myself fired.

“Good man,” he says, grasping it firmly and clapping me on the shoulder with his other hand. “I’ll take you and Marlena out tonight. Make it up to you both. I know a great little place.”

“What about the show?”

“There’s no point in doing a show. No one knows we’re here yet. That’s what happens when you blow your route and wildcat all over the damned place.” He sighs. “But Uncle Al knows best. Apparently.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Last night was kind of . . . rough.”

“Hair of the dog, Jacob! Hair of the dog. Come by at nine.” He smiles brightly and marches off.

I watch him leave, struck by how very much I don’t want to spend any time with him—and by how very much I’d like to spend time with Marlena.

T
HE DOOR TO THE STATEROOM
swings open, revealing Marlena, gorgeous in red satin.

“What?” she says, looking down at herself. “Is there something on my dress?” She twists, inspecting her body and legs.

“No,” I say. “You look swell.”

She raises her eyes to mine.

August comes out from behind the green curtain, wearing white tie. He takes one look at me and says, “You can’t go like that.”

“I don’t have anything else.”

“Then you’ll have to borrow. Go on. Hurry up, though. The taxi’s waiting.”

W
E ZIP THROUGH
a maze of parking lots and back alleys before coming to an abrupt stop at a corner in an industrial area. August climbs out and hands the driver a rolled bill.