Whistling for the Elephants (13 page)

Mrs Lintz
tutted. ‘I went. It only has one horse in it.’ John smiled. ‘You don’t say? Less
work for the animals, eh? Lovely hat, Mrs Lintz.’

Mrs Lintz,
unaccustomed to compliments, blushed.

Hank
knew a good moment when he saw one and slipped away to his wagon, leaving John
with the formidable woman. John could delay no longer.

‘Would
you care to see the tigers, Mrs Lintz?’ He graciously offered her an arm.

Billie
and Grace were both at the tiger enclosure. As usual Billie was inside the cage
and Grace waited by the door. Billie and Rajan were locked in an embrace which
drew sharp breaths from Mrs Lintz. She and John stood in silence as Billie
concluded her workout by opening Rajan’s mouth and putting her head in. As she
released his jaws and stood up, Rajan’s teeth snapped shut. Mrs Lintz gasped.

‘Oh my
dear,’ she cried, ‘isn’t that dangerous?’ Billie grinned through the bars as Rajan
slunk off to a corner.

Absolutely.
Very dangerous.’ She leaned closer toward the elderly woman. ‘Tigers have
really terrible breath.’ John laughed as Grace moved to open the cage door and
let Billie out. Then she held a small basin for her, checked the temperature
of the water and handed her cousin a small towel so she could wash her hands.
Mrs Lintz was still somewhat taken aback.

‘Don’t
worry, Mrs Lintz,’ Billie chuckled as she splashed water without a thought. ‘It’s
all make-believe with animals. You see, they think you are stronger than they
are. It’s my business to keep that idea going.’ Billie finished wiping her
hands and held the towel for Grace to take. The two women smiled at each other
as Grace moved to empty the bowl. Billie looked at John. ‘So, Mrs Lintz, who’s your
friend?’

‘I do
beg your pardon. Miss Blake, may I present John Burroughs Junior.’

Billie
cocked her head on one side. ‘Of Burroughs Western Wonder Show of the World
with Stupendous New Equine Features? I hear it only has one horse in it.’

John
smiled. Apparently so. I’m new to this line.’

‘New?
What did you do before you launched into entertainment, Mr Burroughs?’

‘Boots.
I was in boots.’

Billie
smiled. ‘Burroughs Boots
— The Best Boots Money Can
Buy. And now the public stand in line for your shows wearing your boots.’

‘I do
hope so.’

‘Now,
Miss Blake,’ Mrs Lintz beetled on. ‘Your tiger…’

‘Rajan.’

‘Rajan.
Is he well cared for by Mr Forepaugh?’

‘I care
for him, Mrs Lintz,’ interrupted Grace. ‘He is very happy.’

John
looked at her for the first time. ‘Happy? Is that a concern? Miss.

Grace
looked him in the eye. ‘Gerritsen. Grace Gerritsen.’

Mrs Lintz
could hardly contain herself ‘Concern! It should be the only concern.’

‘I see,’
said John, ‘and pray how can you tell he is happy?’

Billie
smiled. ‘Easy, Mr Burroughs: he never tries to eat me.

It was
obviously a passionate subject for Grace. ‘Of course we must worry if an animal
is happy. Why—’

A
fantastic noise erupted from behind the main tent and Milton appeared, running,
with his pants halfway down his legs. He was desperately trying to pull them up
but this was hindered by the speed with which he was running. Hot on his heels came
Forepaugh.

‘I’m
going to kill you, you prick!’ Milton hightailed it round behind Rajan and
stood looking through the bars and tugging up his pants as Forepaugh
approached. The two men circled round, eyeing each other.

‘Look, Forepaugh,
I’ll make you a deal.’

‘You
were screwing my wife.’

Milton
didn’t deny it. ‘Must have been a misunderstanding. Listen, we could talk.’

‘I am
not talking with anyone who is fucking my wife.’ By now Mrs Lintz had become
quite faint. Grace helped her into the fresh air.

‘What
do you think?’ whispered John to Billie as they watched the stand-off.

‘I
think he was probably screwing the wife.’ Billie eyed the two men
dispassionately and whispered matter-of-factly, ‘Forepaugh‘ll kill him.’

‘No, I
know Milton. They’ll cut a deal. ‘John carried on watching Forepaugh and Milton
and spoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘I want you to come to New York with
me, Miss Blake.’

‘Why
would I do that, Mr Burroughs?’

‘Well,
I was thinking, if we’re going to get married it would be more convenient if we
lived in the same state.’

Grace,
Billie, Rajan, Milton and John Junior caught the 8.05 out of Sacramento bound
for New York. The porter secured them two first—class compartments for the
humans and a boxcar for Rajan. John Junior stopped Milton for a second in the
corridor as they boarded.

‘So,
what deal did you do with Forepaugh?’ he asked.

‘No
problem. I cut him in on the action. There’s plenty for everybody and it’s so
neat.’ Milton became sweaty with financial excitement as he removed his
notebook from his vest pocket.

‘I got
it all figured out, John. We buy whole distilleries.’

‘What
distilleries? They closed them all.’

‘They
didn’t knock ‘em down. They just closed ‘em. Distilleries, corner saloons. They’re
closed but someone still owns them and they still have a stock of whiskey.
Look, here’s an example.
.

‘Forget
it, Milton. We are not bootlegging. I want everything above board.’

Milton
mopped his brow in aggravation. ‘Listen, John, in the last normal year before
that splendid law called Prohibition was passed, our fellow citizens consumed
two billion gallons of hard liquor. And what are they doing now? Drinking
coffee? No, they are waiting for us to come good. They are waiting for us to
come through with—’

‘No
liquor.’

‘Did I
say liquor?’ Milton smiled at his own skill. ‘John, would you deny a sick man
his medicine? Or a religious man his sacramental wine?’

‘Of course not. So we sell
a little medicine, a little church wine.’ Milton scanned his notebook for the
figures. ‘Sacramental wine is very big. Every practicing Jewish family is
allowed one gallon per adult per year. The amount of wine a synagogue can get
depends on the number of worshippers. Now, I can get you a six-hundred-member
synagogue working out of a delicatessen on Upper East Side, five hundred and
forty out of a Chinese laundry. All kosher. The Assembly of Hebrew Orthodox
Rabbis in America. Nice people. Run by an Irishman called Sullivan.’

John
sighed. ‘I said above board.’

‘Really?
Above board? The bearded lady? Snow White’s actual dwarves? George Washington’s
nurse? And you‘re telling me above board?’

‘That’s
different. Isn’t there something else?’

Milton
flipped through his papers. ‘I was thinking we could move the factories. You
remember boots? You used to make boots?’

‘The
point, Milton?’

‘I just
did it as an exercise, but if we close down all the Sassaspaneck factories and
move everything south, say Georgia, I figure we can clean up. No unions,
cheaper labour. They say the white trash’ll do what you tell ‘em. We can do a
stretch—out. Increase the work but not the money. At the moment we’re paying
eighteen dollars ninety-one a week per head for forty pair boots. I figure we
can go to twenty-three dollars but one hundred pair. Of course, it’ll kill the
town.

‘Whatever
you think, but no bootlegging. ‘John moved to knock on the door to Billie’s
compartment and paused. ‘So what happened with Forepaugh’s wife?’

‘Give
me a break. She was begging for it. Forepaugh never touches her.’

‘But
she was a good-looking woman.

Milton
put away his notebook bible. ‘Yes, but he hurt his back. Some big fire in
Monterey. He had to carry the four-hundred-pound fat lady from the freak show
out of the blaze.’

John
was impressed. ‘Boy, he must like the fat lady.’

Are you
kidding? Do you have any idea of her return at the side—shows? Mind you, some
of those side—show dames can be something. I once slept with Barnum’s wild
lady.’

‘Borneo?’

‘Nah,
Rhode Island.’

‘Come
on, Milton, I want you to meet the woman I am going to marry. Oh, and Milton?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Button
your pants.

On
arrival, Billie decreed that Burroughs House was plain and that John’s sister
Phoebe was delightful. Phoebe took to Grace instantly and was soon being
wheeled about and cared for by her new friend. On the lawns of Burroughs House,
as the sun was setting, John gave Billie her engagement ring.

‘Why
are you doing this, John?’ she asked. ‘You hardly know me.’

‘I know
everything I need to. You are beautiful. You are fearless and clever. I’m rich.
I can look after you and together we will raise the most beautiful family.’

It was
as good a deal as Billie was ever going to get. So she agreed. They formed a
gene pool. In the distant woods a moose sounded his forlorn foghorn. Billie
laughed.

‘I had
always imagined music for this moment, not that
terrible noise.’

John
smiled. ‘Grace would tell you that that is not terrible. It only sounds
dreadful to us because we can’t hear it with the ears of a moose in love.’ That
night John began drawing up the plans for the greatest house of love ever
built, and Billie lay on Grace’s bed and wept and wept.

Torchinsky sighed again
and closed the magazine. He looked at the front cover and smoothed the edges
with his hand.

‘So
beautiful. I never laid out anything more beautiful.’ It was bizarre. I had
come about a dead dog and here I was talking old romance with a humpbacked
undertaker married to a woman with a moustache.

‘She
brought some class to John Junior’s shows. Before that he had done nothing but
the elephants with a few side-shows. Terrible stuff Although, I remember I
liked the tap-dancing goat.’

My head
was spinning. Tap-dancing goats? The builders had gone back to banging and I
decided I ought to get on with business.

‘I was
wondering about this dog.’

‘The
dog!’ boomed Mr Torchinsky, slapping the table loudly with his hand. ‘Of
course, the dog. Still dead, still got to deal with it. A big dog or a little
dog?’ He put the magazine back in the bag and opened the drawer to put it away.

‘Well,
sort of medium. It wasn’t mine. It was Mrs Schlick’s.’

‘Rocco?
Judith’s Rocco died?’ Completely unexpectedly, tears welled up in his eyes. ‘She’ll
be so sad.’

‘Yes.
That’s why I thought maybe if you had a spare box. A small one, not small like
Mrs Torchinsky has in the front, but a medium-small one. A dog-size one. I don’t
have much money but…’

‘Of
course, a box. No charge. No charge. Poor Rocco. I’ll drop something off to
Judith.’ Mr Torchinsky ushered me out, looking at the floor as he walked. As we
got to the door he patted me on the back. ‘Come back any time, though God
willing next time it will be better news.’

Mrs Torchinsky
was just returning with a box of cookies as I left. She smiled at me and her moustache
did that spreading thing again. As I collected my bike I could just hear her
yelling, ‘No charge? No charge? What are we, a charity?’

Having
sorted the coffin I thought maybe I should get a card for Judith. Something
with flowers and sympathy on. The only place for that was up the other end of
town at the Pop Inn, next to Abe’s Ice Cream Parlour
(Specialty
—
the
Kitchen Sink
—
56 Flavours of Ice Cream Served in a Single Container).
It
was the middle of the day and Sassaspaneck wasn’t exactly buzzing but as I rode
up Main Street I realized I was looking at the place differently. This was a
much more exciting town than Father realized. It wasn’t about smallpox and
Indians. It was about tiger tamers and polar bears walking up to the A&P.
It was about beautiful women whom men married off magazine covers and rich men
who collected strange creatures and built crazy houses.

The Pop
Inn was the coolest place in town. They sold everything a kid could want —
Peter, Paul and Mary records, brass peace symbols on leather thongs, posters of
Picasso doves, op-art posters and Coke bottles melted into unusual shapes. I
liked the Susan Politz Shultz posters best. Especially the ones with pictures
of Jonathan Livingston Seagull on them which told you that
Friendship is For
Ever.
It was kind of a racy place to go to because it was run by Hubert
Thomas and he was the only black man in town. Hubert was the first black person
I had ever known to say hello to. He was married to Ingrid, who was a white
girl from Iceland. They didn’t have any kids but Father was keen to explain
what would happen when they did.

Father
was always happy to explain everyone’s behaviour in terms of genetics. I think
he was comfortable with that, as it just involved diagrams and showing how Mother’s
family input had marred his family’s hitherto perfect genetic history. Hubert’s
potential offspring were the perfect illustration for Father’s genetic
lectures. The first time we met Hubert and Ingrid, Father took me straight home
and did pages of long arrows joining up little black and white bubbles. ‘And if
you look at this chart, it will show you the percentage chance for what colour
the children will be in the Thomas household.’