The Radical Element

by Jessica Spotswood

  “What are you going to do, lock me up?” I heave myself onto the bed and brace myself for another hit.

  He doesn’t hit me. He just smiles, real slow, and it is downright creepy how pleased he looks with himself. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. You won’t leave this house. You won’t leave this room. Long as I see fit. Long as it takes for you to get it through your thick skull how to behave like a lady.”

  He slams the door shut. A key turns in the lock.

  I sit there, blood dripping down my cheek, my head and arm throbbing. He locked me in. He’s never locked me in before.

  “But — but Archer Brothers comes tomorrow,” I say softly, sure he can’t hear.

  He knows. He knows it’s the day of the year I love more than anything — more than Christmas or my birthday. That’s why he’s doing this.

  The Archer Brothers Circus has been coming to Tulsa every July since I was five and Pearl was three. That first time, Daddy took Pearl and me to town to see them. We drank lemonade and ate roasted peanuts and laughed at the clowns and watched, wide-eyed at the elephants and the lions and the human pretzel and the albino girl and the armless lady and the snake charmer and the acrobats and the bareback riders and the jugglers and most especially the wire-walker. Pearl loved the bareback riders best, but for me, it’s always been the wire-walkers. That afternoon, Daddy taught me how to walk our rail fence out at the ranch.

  The next day, Daddy and the circus were both gone.

  That’s when Momma sold all our cattle to the Gillespies and moved us into town. A woman with two little girls can’t manage a ranch by herself — or at least Momma can’t. And all her folks were back east in Baltimore. That’s how we came to live in town with Uncle Jack, Daddy’s half-brother. It wasn’t so bad before Granny died, but after that — it’s like I turned into a lightning rod, and Uncle Jack’s the lightning. I used to think, least he’s hitting me and not Pearl. But lately — well. Lately, I want to hit back, only I’m a good foot shorter and about a hundred pounds lighter, and I don’t think that’d go so well for me.

  Granny said our daddy was a dreamer, that he had a restless spirit and a wandering heart. Uncle Jack says any man who runs off and leaves his family like that ain’t worth remembering. But lately, I’ve been worrying maybe I have my daddy’s heart, ’cause all I can think about is running away.

  Next morning, just as I’m getting so antsy I can’t stand it, there’s a soft knock at my door. “Ruby?”

  It’s Pearl.

  “He and Momma went to the store. Took the key with him. I’m sorry.” Uncle Jack runs Porter’s Grocery, and today it’ll be hopping. Town’ll be swarmed with oilmen and cattlemen and their families come in to see the circus. The store will close for the parade, but before and after, Momma and Uncle Jack will be there.

  It hits me like a punch: I’m going to miss the parade. I never miss the parade. Most years I’m down at the depot to watch the circus train arrive, too. They’ll be wondering where I was. What good is Pearl’s “sorry” now?

  “Four elephants, same as last year. Talked to Harvey and Miss Jo. They send their regards. Said they’ll keep an eye out for you at the parade.”

  I crawl off the bed and gawp at the closed door. Pearl went down to the depot? Prissy Pearl? Usually I’ve got to drag her with me to the matinee.

  “Saw Miss Lula, too. She asked after her little chickadee. I reckon that’s you.”

  Miss Lula is the snake charmer, really Mrs. Lula Antonelli. Her husband, Alberto, is one of the Flying Antonellis.

  “How’s Stella May?” I ask.

  “She’s gone,” Pearl says, and my heart drops. Stella May is — was, I guess — Archer Brothers’ albino girl. At first I was real shy of her and the other sideshow freaks. I’m ashamed to say it, but the first time we met, I was afraid of her pale skin and white hair and nearsighted pink eyes. But I was only six, that first year I went without Daddy. After the matinee crowd cleared out, I snuck into the backyard, where the circus performers played cards and sewed up rips in their costumes and practiced their acts. They weren’t supposed to talk to towners — it “ruins the mystique,” Miss Jo says, and it’s dangerous for kids to be running around back there besides — but they couldn’t resist little me: blond-braided, fierce-eyed, looking for my daddy. I’d convinced myself he’d run off with the circus and was there somewhere, as a roustabout, maybe, or behind a clown’s greasepaint.

  Daddy wasn’t there, but they let Pearl and me stay anyhow. And we’ve gone back every year since.

  Pearl hears me sniffle. “Wait — no! She’s not dead! She got picked up by Cole Brothers.”

  “Oh.” I’m glad Stella May is still alive and well, but . . . “I can’t believe she left. She’s been there forever.” A dozen years at least.

  That’s one of the things I love about the circus. It welcomes all kinds. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, young or old, fat or thin, black or white or Indian, long as you have a talent of some sort. Long as you can make people stare and clap, you’re family. I guess they have their squabbles and spats, but mostly they stick up for one another.

  Maybe joining them would give me a do-over where family’s concerned.

  “Did you — did you see Miss Etta?” I practically hold my breath while I wait for Pearl’s answer. The Bible says we mustn’t worship false idols, but Miss Etta makes that real hard. I want to be just like her someday: brave and magnificent and kind, too. Last year she let me walk the low wire she claimed she strung up for practice — but she doesn’t need practice on a low wire; I know it was just for me — and she taught me how to do a pirouette.

  “Yep. She says hello and she’ll see you after the matinee. I didn’t say anything about you being locked up. Didn’t think you’d want her to know,” Pearl whispers. “I told them you were feeling poorly. Had a headache.”

  I groan. Like a headache would keep me away! They’ll know better. Know something’s wrong.

  Won’t they? Or will they think I’m growing up and turning respectable on them?

  Still, it took guts for Pearl to go down to the depot by herself. “Thank you,” I say through the door.

  Pearl clears her throat and then slides something beneath the door. It’s a small, brightly colored rectangle of paper.

  My ticket. The advance team came through town a few weeks ago with dozens of posters, and I asked for a particular one for Porter’s Grocery: a big colored illustration of Miss Etta up on the high wire with her parasol. Giant letters advertise her “death-defying feat of balance.” We got two free tickets for displaying it in the front window.

  “How am I supposed to use this?” I ask. “I can’t break the door down.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing you ain’t scared of heights, then.” I can hear a smile in Pearl’s voice. “Go look out the window.”

  I scowl. “I ain’t scared of heights, but I can’t fly, Pearl.” Uncle Jack’s a bully, but he isn’t stupid. There’s no trellis, no drainpipes, no tree near enough my bedroom window. The porch roof is clear on the opposite side of the house. I can’t see any way out, not unless I want to jump down two stories onto the hard, sunbaked summer ground. It never did rain last night, despite those storm clouds.

  “Just go look.”

  I walk to the window and look out and, somehow, there’s a ladder. A real tall wooden one, like somebody would use to paint houses or do work on a roof. In fact, this ladder looks sort of familiar. Like maybe — like maybe it’s one from the construction site over at the new high school. How on earth did it get through town and beneath my bedroom window?

  “Pearl!” I press myself back against the door. “Did you steal that ladder?”

  “I certainly did not.” But she laughs.

  “How did it get here, then?” I ask. “’Cause it ain’t Christmas and it sure wasn’t Santa.”

  “Well . . . I maybe encouraged Frankie Kneeland, and Louise maybe encouraged Fred to borrow it. There’s no construction goin
g on today anyhow on account of everybody going to the circus. That’s a waste of a good ladder, if you ask me.”

  Oh, my Lord. My little sister encouraged her new beau to steal a ladder for me!

  “Thank you.” My voice is fervent as a prayer. I could hug her right now.

  “Just — be careful, all right? The boys are downstairs. I’ll send them out to hold it in a minute. And, Ruby?”

  I’m already whirling around the room, hastily rebraiding my hair so it doesn’t show the cut on my forehead, fastening the buttons on my boots, shoving Momma’s pearl ear bobs through my ears. “Yes?”

  “Uncle Jack’ll be watching the parade in front of the store. Steer clear of him, all right? Try not to draw attention to yourself for once. He hears you’re out and he’ll come looking for you and . . .” Her voice wavers. We both know what’ll happen if he catches me. He’ll beat me within an inch of my life.

  “I’m not scared of him.”

  “Maybe you should be,” she suggests. “Please be careful, Roo. Just this once. For me.”

  She hasn’t called me Roo for years. Not since we were little.

  “All right,” I say, and she promises to send the boys out to hold the ladder.

  I finish braiding my hair and buttoning my boots, and I put the ticket in my pocket. I add the old photograph of Daddy and Momma and Pearl and me from the summer he left. I stole it from Momma years ago, and she’s never asked for it back.

  I gaze at myself in the looking glass over our armoire. I’ve got Momma’s dark-blond hair, but Daddy’s dark eyes and high cheekbones and lean figure. Momma says I take after him in other ways, too. You can be real charming when you want, Ruby Leigh. Just like your daddy. I’m not exactly pretty, but I don’t need pretty where I’m going. I just need brave. I just need to get back up when I fall.

  I watch the parade from down in front of Farmer’s National Bank with Louise and Fred. It’s down the block from Porter’s Grocery, so if I lean around Fred and stand on my tiptoes, I can keep an eye on Uncle Jack. He and Momma and Pearl — and Frankie Kneeland — got a prime spot right out in front of the store. They’re playing like they’re a happy little family. Must be easier without me, since I don’t give a lick what the neighbors think. But Uncle Jack has aspirations. Wants to be more than a shopkeeper someday, he says.

  I watch their act from afar: Momma in her high-necked navy day dress and Uncle Jack in his second-best suit, smirking and glad-handing anybody who gets close enough. Pearl wears a pink pin-striped dress, her hair in two dark braids, squealing in pretend fright as the dancing bears pass by. Her playing scared gives Frankie an excuse to squeeze her, even in front of Momma.

  To the other folks lining the street, the parade’s a spectacle. Miss Jo taught me that spectacle’s real important in the circus. The whole point is to put on a good show, after all, and give the towners a holiday. We’re supposed to watch the parade of beautiful girls and human miracles and terrifying animals and be amazed, so we’ll spend our hard-earned money on tickets — and then we’ll spend a little extra to get into the sideshow, or get some treats from the candy butchers, or buy a souvenir picture of one of the freaks. We’re supposed to see them as wondrous figures, larger than life.

  To me, it feels like a reunion with old friends. And a reminder of what can be, if I’ve got the grit to make it happen.

  Uncle Jack and Momma, Pearl, the girls at school and at church — they’ve called me a lot of things, but a coward ain’t one.

  The beautiful painted wagons are passing by. Some of them are cages with menagerie animals inside. Pearl throws herself at Frankie when the lions go by, and I roll my eyes. We both know that the zebras and camels are meaner.

  Miss Jo’s girls come next, riding high-stepping, shining white horses. For all that Uncle Jack goes on about the immorality of the circus, I bet he’s eyeing the girls’ legs, exposed to the knees in their short flared skirts.

  I spot Harvey in his white greasepaint and high-collared costume. He spots me, too, and does a pratfall, landing right on his rump, to the laughter of the crowd. He sits there for a minute, pouting, till another clown pretends to kick him. Then he jumps up and does a somersault. When he lands, he grins and salutes me. I wave at him till people start to look in my direction, and then I duck back down into the crowd. I promised Pearl that I wouldn’t draw attention, but it’s harder than I thought.

  So I don’t wave when I see Miss Lula in her wagon, holding her big boa constrictor up for the crowd to see. Louise clings to Fred, and I crane around them and see Pearl clinging to Frankie. Truth be told, I don’t love Edgar, either. He winds around Miss Lula’s waist, his yellow a stark contrast against her ruffled, low-cut violet dress. Miss Lula has the kind of curves I’ll never have, the kind men will pay a pretty penny to see. I joked once with Fred that I’d have to rely on my legs, seeing as how I don’t have a nice bosom like Louise, and he blushed bright red all the way to his ears and Louise had to remind me I shouldn’t talk about bosoms with him.

  Miss Lula spots me even though I’m not waving and winks at me, her dark eyes winged with kohl. Circus performers are meant to look exotic, like they’re braver and more mysterious than regular folks. That’s part of the illusion.

  The Antonellis come next, turning cartwheels and somersaults and climbing on one another’s shoulders till they’ve built a human pyramid. The children around us ooh and aah. Some of the boys jump into the street and turn cartwheels of their own, ignoring the dust and dirt that cake their hands and faces, and I wish for a second I were a boy. I can turn a better cartwheel than any of them.

  But wishing I were a boy doesn’t last long because here come the elephants, and riding them are the biggest stars of the Archer Brothers Circus. Miss Jo waves like a queen from the howdah on Junior’s back. And after her comes Miss Etta, pretty as can be in her ruffled pink dress and brown curls. She’s carrying her pink parasol like a fine lady, like Pearl afraid of damaging her skin in the hot Tulsa sun. But it’s the same parasol she uses as she dances and pirouettes across the high wire.

  I want to be like her. I want it so badly, it’s become a permanent dull ache, somewhere behind my ribs, gnawing at me night and day.

  I look back at my family, and for a minute I think Momma sees me. Will she tell Uncle Jack? I crouch down behind Fred and Louise, my heart hammering, and I know I can’t keep on like this.

  One way or another, my life changes today.

  Between the parade and the matinee, I go with Louise to her house. She’s got seven little brothers and sisters, and with all the kids running around and hollering, her momma hardly takes any notice of us. There’s leftover roast pork and fresh-baked bread with thick slabs of butter and icy glasses of milk. Mrs. Whitehill jokes about needing to fatten me up ’cause I’m so skinny and boys like girls with some meat on them. I laugh and then almost cry, thinking of how many times I’ve eaten here to escape Uncle Jack’s temper and Momma’s thin-lipped disapproval and Pearl’s silence.

  “You’re leaving, aren’t you,” Louise says later, the two of us alone in the room she shares with her sisters.

  “If they’ll have me. If I stay, I think he’ll kill me.” I push my braid out of the way to show her the cut on my head.

  Louise grabs my chin with pinching fingers and stares at me, her dark eyes real solemn. I remember how she was the first one to clap the first time I walked the rail fence behind the school. We shared a desk every day after that. She always stuck up for me when the other girls were mean.

  “I’ll miss you, Ruby,” she says, tears in her eyes.

  I’ll miss her, too. More than she knows. But it’s a big world and there are other girls out there, and maybe I’ll find one who might want to kiss me back.

  “Be happy,” I say. “Fred ain’t so bad.”

  She blushes and grins at me. “He’s all right.”

  After lunch I head down to the big field where the circus is set up. I get there before the menagerie tent is even open, so I wa
it for Pearl outside the big top. There are a couple hundred people milling around already, everybody in their finery, exchanging news. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad ran an excursion train from nearby towns this morning, and today’s Indian Republic newspaper blared headlines about the circus coming. It’s better than a church picnic for gossip about who’s courting and who’s feuding and whose farm is losing money.

  Part of me is scared Uncle Jack will show up instead of Pearl. He could have gone home for lunch and found my room empty. Momma could have told him she saw me at the parade. If I wasn’t where he left me, it wouldn’t take him two seconds to figure out where I’d be.

  I breathe a sigh of relief when I see Pearl. She wouldn’t have come unless she thought it was safe, unless Uncle Jack was still at the store. Pearl puts herself first, always. I figure it’s time for me to do the same.

  I pull her into the long shadow of the big top. “I need to tell you something.”

  This is the hardest part. I’ll miss Louise, but I know she’ll be all right, and I’m tired of pining while she’s happy with Fred. Pearl — well. What if Uncle Jack turns his fists on her once I’m gone? She stood up for me today. She schemed and stole for me, and if Uncle Jack had caught her — well, it means something that she risked that for me. How do I tell her that I’m running off, just like our daddy did?

  “You’re not coming back home.” Pearl smiles her big, buck-toothed smile. “I knew before I went and stole that ladder. Once you got free, you couldn’t go back.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I remember how Bobby Billington made fun of her teeth and called her a rabbit, and how I punched him and got sent home from school for it. How many times I’ve sassed Uncle Jack when he was in a mood to make sure he’d hit me and not Pearl. How can I leave my little sister behind?

  She shrugs. “You looked after me the whole time we were growing up. It’s time for me to look after myself now. Least till Frankie and I can get married.”

  “Get married!” I echo, surprised that she’s thinking of that already, and she giggles.