Only Pretty Damned

by Niall Howell

  I wasn’t content staying in the trailer and playing another round of cards. Paul had no shame when it came to squeezing his pimples in front of others. During our last game of poker, when I picked up the Jack of Hearts, I noticed it had an extra bit of red smudged on one corner. Paul, whose face and neck were oozing in about five different places, tried to deny it was him, but I’d had it by then. I threw my cards down and told them both where to go.

  I had the thread coiled around one finger and angled sharply upwards, ready for amputation. I put my thumb in lowest point of the V and gave a brusque tug, but the thread pulled further out, leaving me with a good four inches sticking from my sweater. That’s when Wally came and, quite literally, darkened my doorstep.

  “Here,” he muttered, offering me his pocket knife. The knife was a faded piss-yellow with red writing that said, DRINK COCA-COLA (TRADEMARK) IN BOTTLES 5 CENTS WORLD FAIR CHICAGO, 1933. The blade made a peeling sound as I pulled it out of the handle. It was filthy, all mucky brown and Halloween orange, any remaining silver herded to its dull edge.

  “Thanks, Mister Jakes,” I said, without looking directly at him.

  He cleared his throat, spat, then pulled a cigarette from his pocket and popped it between his lips. “Mister Jakes was some asshole from Sheboygan who didn’t know when to pull out. You call me Wally.”

  I nodded.

  With the thread severed, I closed the knife—having to really force it shut, which produced a sort of scraping crunch—and handed it back to Wally.

  “Better be more people tonight. Weather ain’t that bad. Bunch of fuckin’ chickenshits. If a little chill scares you, move to Australia.” His gaze was fixed on something in the distance. Or maybe it was on the distance itself. I just remember that he was staring off at something, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or not, so I kept quiet. Once he had puffed away half his cigarette, which took about half the time it would take anyone else I knew, he turned to me. “Fuckin’ elephant’s sick again. Shitting swamps.”

  “Which elephant?”

  “The grey one,” he chortled, then said, “Chuck, the smaller of the two. He’s always fuckin’ sick. Rowland should let me put him out of his misery.”

  I agreed, Rowland should have let Wally put poor Chuck out of his misery, but I didn’t say so. It wasn’t because I was afraid to speak ill of my boss, nothing like that. Granted, I had a lot more respect for Rowland then than I do now, but I’ve never been one to keep my opinion leashed. Back then, I didn’t know Wally very well. He was always cordial to me—or at least his take on cordial—but for some reason, I used to get nervous whenever he and I were alone together, and I’d always do as little speaking as possible in hopes he’d get bored and move on.

  A couple minutes walked by with neither of us speaking. I wanted to get up and leave, maybe head over to the big top and see if I could catch anyone rehearsing, but I stayed put, for some reason feeling as if I needed to be dismissed.

  Naturally, it was Wally who cut the quiet. “See those new folks who joined us?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Fuckin’ hoity-toity bunch. Family of acrobats. From France.”

  Of course, this was incorrect. Genevieve and her family were from Montreal, but Wally wasn’t the type who’d worry himself with knowing the difference between a European French accent and the French-Canadian accent that Genevieve’s parents had. To Wally, anyone who spoke French was a Frenchie, anyone who was English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, or Australian was a limey, anyone with dark skin was a jig, and pretty much everyone else was either American or Chinese.

  He stepped closer to me, then placed one foot on the middle step of my trailer—the same step I sat on—and bent forward, resting one elbow on his knee. The thick tobacco smell was the most pleasant odour wafting off him. At this new range, I could smell the whole bouquet: the dehydrated booze-breath from last night’s binge, and his lived-in-for-a-month clothes—that yellowing collared shirt of his and those overalls smeared with a chronology of food and probably-not-food stains. Paul Frum’s pimple popping didn’t seem so bad all of a sudden. But I still felt I should stay put.

  “Hoity-toity or not, they’re probably a good thing for the show,” Wally continued. “No offense to you, naturally. I seen you out there. You’re a fine acrobat, but you’re still an amateur. And that other kid you perform with?”

  “Clay,” I said.

  “Yeah, whatever the hell his name is. That kid, he’s fuckin’ awful. I’ve talked to Rowland about him a couple times. You ought to ditch that hack. Or maybe you’ll luck out and he’ll have a bad landing,” he laughed. It was a laugh that rattled, though I don’t know what would produce a rattle quite like that. The first thing that came to mind was pebbles of gravel bouncing around in his lungs the way popcorn kernels leapt about in a hot pot.

  Something—maybe my eyes widening, or perhaps a more subtle gesture—must have happened then, because I could see in Wally’s face that he regretted what he had just said. Not regretting having said it, mind you, but regretting having said it to me. He wiped his nose on his hand, then rubbed that hand on the side of his overalls and turned away for a moment.

  Once he started up again, it appeared he was addressing both me and his old friend, The Distance. “Yeah…you’re good, but you’re not putting asses in seats. People come and see you, and they like what they see, but they ain’t coming here for you. We got a circus full of sick animals and hack performers. That trapeze pair that top the bill aren’t half bad, but you gotta have more than that to bring the money in. And, hell, when you do something wrong, word gets around. Some folks come to a show and see a lion take a piece out of his whip man, or see some drunk clown with a hard-on handing balloons out to children? Nails in the coffin, that’s what those are. Nails in our coffin.”

  “And you think this new act will be a big ticket item?” I asked, lured out of my shell by a mix of intrigue and Wally’s brutal honesty.

  “Better be, for what Rowland’s forking out. I’m not gonna give you a number, but you can trust me, they’re doing pretty good. Folks like that, they wouldn’t be here if the money wasn’t right.”

  Wally stepped away from my trailer. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stretched his back in a way that reminded me of a bow having its string yanked. I heard a couple of cracks. His face told me the cracks hurt, but maybe it was a good hurt. He met my eyes and nodded at me, in agreement what what, I’m not sure, but right after that, he turned and walked away.

  One week after that conversation with Wally Jakes, Chuck the sickly elephant would be gifted two bullets to the head. One should have done the job on its own, but Wally’s aim was a little off that day, so more lead was needed to put an end to the poor elephant’s hysterics. Putting hopeless creatures out of their misery was something that had to be done every now and then at Rowland’s World Class Circus. One day, I’d even have my hand in such a task, although I certainly didn’t know that at the time of poor Chuck’s mercy killing. It’s not the kind of thing a person enjoys doing, but it’s something that has to be done. That’s why you do it. You do it because you have to. You do it because you care.

  "HI-HO, SILVER." SHE POINTS AT MY HAT.

  I give a tip. “You like it?”

  “Sure. You must have made some impression in Dallas if they went and made you a ranger that quick.”

  “Yeah, they know a good thing when they see one.”

  She takes a seat next to me on the wooden curbing surrounding the ring. We’ve ended up in Baton Rouge a few days early because bigger names were hamming up San Antonio and Houston. Had it been another circus of about our size, we might have planted our pegs and dealt with a couple nights of half-capacity crowds, but the giants in those last two Texas towns were the type that eat shows like ours without stopping to chew. We have guys in Baton Rouge right now, plugging tonight’s show at half price in hopes of undoing the self-fucking that comes with an ahead-of-schedule arrival like this. The crew had to wo
rk through the night to get the tent up. They’re all sleeping like bricks now, but Rowland was good about making sure us performers, talents and hacks alike, got a decent rest. Gloria’s not usually up this early, and it’s nice to see her. She looks like she’s still half asleep herself: no makeup, heavy-lidded eyes, hair tied back, sporting pink-and-green-patterned pyjamas and a cardigan sweater to fend off the morning chill. She motions her hand at my cigarette and I hand it over. Why not?

  “I met Clayton Moore once, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “Clayton Moore,” she says, pointing again to my new cowboy hat, “the guy who plays the Lone Ranger on television.”

  “No kidding.”

  “No kidding,” I’m assured. “It was a while back. He was at a fair in San Francisco dressed in his Lone Ranger outfit. The television show was just starting, so I guess it was a publicity thing. He signed autographs for me and my two girlfriends. I remember he was very generous with his time. There was a pretty big crowd—well, bigger than you’d think for a relatively unknown actor at a local fair—but he still took the time to chat with us. I don’t remember how it came up, I guess one of us must have asked him how long he’d been in show business or something like that, but he told us he’d been performing since he was a child and that he started as an acrobat.”

  “No kidding.”

  “No kidding.”

  The morning glow melting in through the tied-open flap has this uncanny beauty to it. It knifes through the middle of the ring toward us, inching ever forward but being discreet, which I appreciate; it’s my kind of intruder, the non-intrusive type. I haven’t seen Gloria since before I went into Dallas after our stint there. The last couple days during our trek here, I stayed in my trailer as much as I could. Whenever we’d stop, I’d wait until there weren’t many people around before I’d sneak out to grab food and relieve myself. I wasn’t feeling very social after my trip to the city.

  I don’t know that I missed Gloria, but I think I was used to having her around, so maybe I missed that consistency.

  She tells me about her time in Dallas. She says that her and a couple other spec girls spent the day wandering the streets, seeing sites, looking through shops. She tells me about this toy store she came across and how she’d hoped to find something for her nephew back home. She got the kid this toy chimp that has a couple of cymbals attached to his hands—I’m sure that won’t get on the parents’ nerves in the first five minutes. “I also found a board game I thought you might like,” she says.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes. It’s a crossword game called Scrabble. You get a bunch of tiles with letters on them and you try and build words to score points. I thought we could play it together sometime. I’ve played it with some of the other girls in my trailer, but they didn’t really care for it. But you’re always reading, so it’s probably right up your alley.”

  “That sounds like a ball. And I didn’t even know I had my very own alley, so that’s good news. Let’s give the game a whirl tonight.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  I don’t notice I’m staring until Gloria points it out. Her inhibition clearly unaware of today’s new wake-up time, she gestures with her head in the direction of the acrobat’s platform and says to me, “You come in here to get some quality time in with your misery and that platform, or what?”

  “What the hell are you—? Me and my what?” I don’t mean to raise my voice, but, Christ, what a blindsiding. I’m sitting here enjoying the morning mellow, enjoying my own company but still willing to scrap that and have a friendly conversation, and she goes and says something like that. “I’m not miserable,” I say. “I come in here to be alone. I come here to get a few goddamned minutes to myself. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

  “I’m…I’m sorry, Toby.” She looks afraid, afraid and fully awake now. She goes to put a hand on my shoulder, but then withdraws and covers her mouth, as if touching me would trigger something, something worse than my bark. A whisper comes from behind her palm. “I didn’t mean to…I’m so sorry.”

  I can’t find a response. Yeah, maybe I’m not really looking, but if I can’t find one, then I can’t find one.

  “I was only trying to kid. I didn’t…I wanted you to know you can talk to me, that’s all. We’re friends, Toby, right? You and me, we’re friends. I know you like to come in here when it’s empty and take the place in, but if you come in here and you’re feeling awful or something…I only wanted to come and chat, see if you were okay, that’s all. I don’t know the full story—”

  “You’re damn right you don’t,” I tell her.

  As if it’s suddenly become colder, she pulls her cardigan closed and wraps her arms around herself, then stands up to go. Her gaze stays in the dirt. I can feel my heartbeat in my forehead. Holy hell, I’m quick to boil. Always so quick to boil! I suck in my cigarette and let my eyes drift around the room. They go back to their favourite place. The platform towering just a few feet short of kingdom come. The trapeze rigging bobbing like uneasy ocean water. I know that really, it’s barely moving, that the light breeze ghosting in from outside can hardly touch it, but when the place is this still—this silent—that shadow-drenched web bounces with an eerie frenzy to it.

  “When you came in here, I was thinking about seconds.” I don’t look to her as I speak; even if I did, I know her back is to me, but I hear her eggshell walk go mute. “I was thinking about trapeze, and I was thinking about seconds. Remembering how to cut seconds up into a hundred pieces, and then choose the right piece for the job. The slice of second you use depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. I was trying to remember my slices of choice.”

  I hear the slight sound of her shifting, perhaps turning back to face me, but I’m still locked on higher places, grander places. “That time…that one time, I chose the wrong piece of a second,” I say, talking to myself as much as Gloria. “No one died. The world kept turning. But I chose the wrong piece. A hair early, a hair off. She broke a cheekbone and her nose—no. No, that’s not right. I broke her cheekbone and her nose. I did that. The bad landing, though, that wasn’t me. Whether you’re in pain or not, you hit that net right, you fall like a professional. I won’t argue that the net was tighter than it should have been that day—there’s no doubting that. But when you fall, you make damn sure to correct your form, and you hit the net right. The nose and the cheek, that’s on me, but the landing was all her.”

  “W-what happened when she landed, Toby?” Gloria asks in barely a whisper.

  “Well, she didn’t fucking die.” It’s such a ridiculous thought that I almost laugh, but I catch myself. “She landed wrong. Not headfirst—thank God—but almost. Those ropes were tight. Too tight—not the kind of embrace you hope for at the bottom of a plunge. She broke her wrist, messed up her shoulder, and tore some muscles in her neck. But like I said, that part’s on her.”

  “I believe you, Toby.”

  “Of course you believe me. I’m not asking for a leap of faith! It’s all facts!”

  “I’m sorry. I just meant that I agree, the wrist, the shoulder and neck, that’s on her. And she’s fine now, right? All healed up. She’s still performing, still headlining.”

  “Yeah,” I say, unable to hide my disdain. “Yeah, she sure is.”

  I TAKE BREAKFAST IN MY TRAILER. I KNOW THIS LONE-WOLF shtick has a finite lifespan, but it can hang on until noon.

  Once I’m done eating, I do some push-ups. When I go down for number thirty, I decide that multiples of ten are overrated, so I stay down. Too much too fast—my beating heart, pressed to the floor, sending tremors through the trailer. It’s nice down here, though. A fresh perspective is always nice. I see I need to dust under the bed. Dust and replenish my booze. I should have got one of the guys going into town to pick some stuff up for me, but I’m not too worried. I’ll be fine for at least another day or two. For some reason—maybe the overexertion has made me a bit light-headed—the stitching on my Samson
ite is just about the most interesting thing in the world right now. I trace the lines over and over with my eyes, counting each stitch and going, “Tk, tk, tk, tk,” as I follow them around the front of the case. Because it’s still early, I have no intention of stepping out for at least another hour, so I’m down on the floor, staring at that case and thinking, Toby, you really ought to know exactly how much money you’ve got stashed away in that thing; that’s the sort of information that’s just plain old good to know.

  I pop the hinges, open the case, and tug the zipper open. I stuff my hand into the compartment and dig out every single envelope. I decide I’m not going to take the actual money out of the envelopes. There’s so much, a few bills would be bound to drift off the bed and get lost somewhere. And besides, I know how much is in each envelope. I stopped counting after the first year when I realized Rowland would be stupid to rip me off.

  There are thirty-two envelopes in total. I lay them out on the bed in eight rows of four. The math isn’t difficult. Thirty-two envelopes of $125 gives me four thousand big ones. Whenever I take a few extra bucks to go play with, I always take from the same envelope, and it’s that same envelope—the one with a big X penciled over the seal—that I add to when I win or when I make a point of reimbursing what I owe myself. I open that envelope and count what’s in there: $75. That makes one envelope short $50, leaving me with a total of $3950 stashed away.

  Not bad. Not a fortune, that’s for sure, but definitely a nice hunk of dough. A decent rainy-day fund. A decent ditch-this-hole-and-start-fresh-somewhere fund? Yeah, maybe.