Elephant Bangs Train

by William Kotzwinkle

She helped him off with his cape and jacket and packed his tuxedo and their other belongings in the magic box. They left by the stage door and walked through the alleyway, the magician carrying the box, his wife holding their sleeping child on her shoulder.

  A carriage came up the avenue and the magician hailed it. 'To the railway station,' he said, handing the box up to the driver.

  They climbed into the carriage, sank into the leather seats. The magician stared out the window, towards the river lights. His wife, settling the child in her lap, saw the old gentleman and the girl coming out of the cabaret. 'The fog seems to be lifting,' she said, drawing her shawl around the child.

  The driver cracked his whip. The carriage pulled away, into the night.

  Turning Point

  'SUPPER SOON,' said Mother. 'Stay on the porch.'

  He would stay on the porch. It was a pirate ship sailing on River Street. During the flood, Mister Noto came down the alley in a rowboat, holding a floorlamp. Now the waters were gone, though there was still mud in the cellar and good chairs had been ruined, Father said.

  He climbed the stone porch-railing, to the crow's nest. Across River Street, girls in black dresses came down the steps of the school. He would take their jewels and sail away. At the top of the steps was the nun, who had given him a piano lesson. He had no piano and she told him to practise with his fingers on the arm of a chair. He would make her walk the plank.

  The boys came down the steps in their black suits, with long pants that whipped in the wind. His pants were short, his knees stuck out, but his shirt had a red anchor on it, and when the flood came again maybe the house would float away. The boys went into the alley, pushing and shoving, and the girls followed them. He made his fingers into a spyglass and watched them going away, wherever they wanted to, into town or up the hill or to the river where the bums lived under the bridge, and he had to stay behind in his short pants for supper and bed.

  The alleyway filled up. No one went anywhere. The boys stood around in a circle and the girls were on tiptoe behind them, screaming.

  He jumped down from the porch, into the bushes. The branches held him and then bent over. Through the jungle he crawled, keeping low, to the row of iron spears stabbed into the ground, black and cold. He grasped the fence, a prisoner. Through the bars, he watched the crowd in the alley grow larger.

  Gripping the spear heads, he raised his foot carefully, rose up and went over, down on to the sidewalk. Who could stop him, not Mother, it was a getaway. He ran across the street quickly, and ducked into the alley.

  The alley was filled with holes, went by the old garages, winding down and away. He pushed into the crowd, but they pushed him back. He got down on his knees and crept like a dog between their legs and came out in front.

  Two tall boys were moving slowly around in the centre of the crowd, with their hands in front of them. Their arms were long and their hands were curled into tight balls. Their coats and ties were off and he saw the wide suspenders that held up their long pants. His suspenders had ducks on them. Someone in the crowd said, 'Get 'im, Johnny.'

  They stepped lightly, circling right past him, and dust rose at their feet. Was it a dance like the sailor's hornpipe Mother had taught him? One boy swung his arm and it landed with a thud on the other boy's head. The boy stumbled backwards into Noto's garage doors. The doors banged, the basketball hoop shook above, and the boy kicked out his foot, saying, 'Wait'll I get set.'

  The hair fell in their eyes, and they tossed it back like horses. They hugged each other and turned slowly around and everyone cheered. It was like books and the radio and movies right in the alley. A sleeve ripped and flapped in the air like a pirate shirt. Arms flew again, thud thud on the head. One of the boys sat down in the dust and did not get up. His shirt was spotted red.

  'That's all, Johnny,' said someone, taking the other boy by the arm. The game was over and the crowd moved away, down the alley and through the yards, except for the boy who sat in front of Noto's garage with his head down.

  The streetlight went on. Mother would be looking out the window. He went over to the boy and said, 'Will you show me how?' He curled his fingers in a tight ball, but the boy did not look up.

  Mother would be out on the porch, looking up and down the street. He left the boy behind and followed the crowd down the alley, towards a vacant lot, where a fire was burning in a barrel. He curled his fingers into the tight ball and swung his arms through the air. He danced across the lot, swinging his arms and making sounds with his mouth, like the thuds he had heard. What a wonderful game and anybody can play it, he thought, anybody.

  The lot was dark and filled with junk. Some boys were standing around the burning barrel. The flames lit their faces and he saw Popeye Santini, the big guy, stirring the barrel with a stick. Sparks floated in the air. Mother would be calling where are you in the dark. He went over to Popeye and said, pointing back to the alley where the crowd had been, 'Did you see?'

  'Beat it.'

  'I could do that,' he said, curling his hands into balls.

  No one said anything. He said, 'Does anybody want to do it?' He raised his arms in the air.

  'Get outa here,' said Popeye.

  A shadow stepped into the firelight. It was Lurkey Davies, who was his size but could stay out late. Lurkey said, 'I'll handle it.'

  The other boys stood around. He raised his hands, ready for the slow-moving and the turning, but something hit him in the face and a bell rang in his head. He looked around, trying to play the game, but couldn't see, and something hit him on the ear. He reached out, grabbing a shirt.

  'Wait'll I get set,' he said, but a head came towards him, knocking him in the chest, and stumbling backwards, he fell on the ground.

  He saw streetlight and stars and black telephone wires. Lurkey's face came above him, came closer, lit by fire, and a hand hit him like a stone. He rolled away, swimming in the junk, trying to get up, to move quick. The game wasn't slow, it was fast, faster than his own heart. It rose up, red, choking him. He swung at a passing shadow, thud, heard Lurkey say sonofabitch. He swung at the fire-face again and got hit in the nose and the garages turned sideways. He sank in the junk and covered his head, but two hands grabbed him from behind and lifted him off the ground.

  Popeye held him in the air. Another boy was holding Lurkey. 'Lemme go,' said Lurkey. 'I'll kill him.' Lurkey's eye was puffed liked a cupcake. His own eyes burned like fire. He kicked his feet and Popeye set him down. 'Get lost,' said Popeye, and gave him a shove.

  He walked through the lot, away from the burning barrel. The alleyway was dark and empty. Blood was dripping from his nose. He wiped it on his shirt sleeve. His head was going bong. He crossed the street and went up the steps into the house.

  Father was reading a newspaper in the living room. Mother came in quickly, said, 'Where have you—oh my god, he's been in a fight.'

  Father lowered his newspaper. 'Are you all right?'

  'Yes.'

  Mother took him in the kitchen and washed his face. 'Did anyone kick you in the testicles?'

  'No.'

  After supper he went into his room. He played with the wooden soldiers, knocking their heads together. When he fell asleep, the tall boys came through the sky, and turning above him in slow rounds, quietly kissed.

  Tiger Bridge

  HER WALK was perfect, having been trained in the school of Han Tan; her eyebrows, green slivered moons, rose above the magic pools of her eyes, in which both dragon and kissing fish swam; her name was Wood Flower and she lived in a narrow cobble lane beside Yellow River, and a poor fool, the peddler called Rag Fellow, was in love with her.

  Rag Fellow was the bumpkin son of a family of illustrious drunkards, and hauled an old wagon, arguing with old hags over copper coins for the rags which he peddled. His home was the wagon, inside of which he slept at night. By day he pulled it along the streets, gathering and selling his abominable wares.

  During one such day o
f selling he chanced to drag his unwholesome cart down the street on which Wood Flower lived. She was on the balcony above her father's store, her face half-hidden by a fan, so that only her dark eye-pools were showing.

  They were enough for Rag Fellow to drown in. When he caught sight of her, whatever luckless star was his shone brightly. So intense was the beauty he saw above him, so insane his desire, he soared to the heavenly Blue Isles for a moment, thinking himself an ancient king.

  As happens with the beguiled heart when first its secret door swings open, he foolishly transcended his rag station, with which he had been happy. Now he was ready for war. The dummy was a general, decorated with courage. He would have crawled on to the porch and seized her immediately, but she suddenly disappeared within the house and wisely he withdrew. Unfortunately, he did not withdraw far enough.

  Down the road he went with his rag business, bestowing gifts of cloth on the startled women, and singing, miserably, but with vigour, a song of his own devising which failed on all counts, and yet . . .

  He continued along until he came to his evening camp upon the river bank. Pity he did not journey farther up that stream, tracing it out of the district and into the mountains to its source. There, by a waterfall, he might have lived out his ragged life in quiet thought.

  No, he must be a prince of love, and so it goes along Yellow River, where men are so often struck dumb by a single glance from almond eyes. The True Man, of course, then takes to wine, to gambling, to opium, to war, preferring any vice or vanquishment to love-sickness, but Rag Fellow was thoroughly possessed.

  His case, of course, was hopeless: Wood Flower was prepared from childhood for the palace of our Immortal Emperor, the Purple Cloud. Her father, a prosperous merchant, had seen to that. Thus, the delightful Han Tan Walk was hers, she moved with the silent and delicious grace so prized at the Purple Court. She was accomplished in the lute, played the old songs, and knew the arts of hair and face, rendering still more desirable her own natural beauty, as rare as any Heaven and Earth have produced in this Illustrious Dynasty.

  Back up the cobble lane came Rag Fellow, day in and day out, narrowing his business practice until it spanned only the small square in front of the shop of Wood Flower's father. Originally the Rag Fellow made little money, still less did he make by holding to this single spot, and his eyes, already somewhat glazed, took on the look of a stone temple monkey.

  He saw her, yes, many times, walking light as the birds of Han Tan, with her eyes cast downwards in religious devotion. Despite her religious fervour, occasionally she caught sight of the young rag man and found his adoration not wholly unholy. Thus, one black day, by a tiny turn of her petal lips, she favoured the wretch with the smallest of smiles, perceivable only to a maniac of love such as Rag Fellow now was.

  Her smile drove him across the skies in the Ecstasy the blessed hermits call the Wind Wheel. Through the whole of space he darted in an instant. A thousand emperors! yes, that was Rag Fellow now, his doom securely arranged by those excellently thorough demons who lead us down the paths of perdition, making them always appear flower-strewn.

  Said another way, for it is a poison of many flavours: He had fallen in love with his death. They say such affairs are common along Yellow River, for the Chief of the Demons has his camp in its mist.

  Though Rag Fellow was now a thousand times poorer than before, he was exhilarated into rare fantasy, knowing rages and delights in himself such as kings seldom know, for the door of his heart was not only open, it had blown off its hinges and parades of adoration of Wood Flower went in and out.

  The poor loon made a vast search of the neighbourhoods, gathering together all rags of some remaining loveliness, which he presented to a sewing woman of the quarter, with instructions to make a robe for a woman of such and such a shape—dimensions which he presented in such lingering detail, the sewing woman could only blush in her thimbles.

  The gown was well-made, for the woman's hands were skilled, and the rags, though faded, for that reason had the charm of the ancient in them. When finished, the gown seemed like a sacred relic—as if made for an empress of long ago and held under glass through the ages.

  With this powerful suit to be played, Rag Fellow returned to his post outside the shop of Wood Flower's father. The horned goblins who manipulate the hours were not behind schedule this afternoon. Surely, Wood Flower came out, lightly as wind bells, tinkling in her earrings past the peddler, driving him wild with joy, producing such an ecstatic tremble in his body, he almost perished before the appointed hour.

  Pursuing her with his rag wagon, he rattled along over the stones, a decent way behind her. Perhaps he aroused no suspicion in the eyes of the streetlamps, but every dog, chicken and housewife on the block knew that Rag Fellow was following Wood Flower, the girl promised to the Imperial Court, sworn to the Emperor's bed for that very night.

  In her elegant way she walked towards a distant temple in the hills, for apparently she wished to be far away from the world on her last free and girlish day before entering the Way of the Emperor.

  No sooner had she settled herself in the garden of the temple, arranging herself with the spring flowers and the new grasses, than she heard the rumble of wheels, like the chariot of a sky-god.

  She prepared herself demurely on the wooden seat, beside a little splashing stream, and with downcast eyes seemed to be far off, in remote reverie, when Rag Fellow appeared like an ancient hero, with his rag wagon, at the gate of the temple.

  He left the cart behind him, carrying over his arm the rag offering, walking not like a peddler, but a prince, towards the seated Wood Flower. The bumpkin knew no shame, caution was gone, he went straight to her and said with bursting heart and throbbing voice, 'Here is a rag for your floor.'

  Saying so, he laid the antique robe across her knees. In it were sewn three hundred stories of cloth—flowers, birds, insects, trees, all faded, as if seen through a veil of dreams.

  Upset at the young man's impertinence in approaching her, Wood Flower turned upon him the eye of the dragon, angry with fire. When it failed to move him, for he was grinning like an idiot, she could only lower her eyes to the marvellous cloth. She was, after all, mortal and a woman, and of course after a proper interval, she lifted her head and turned her face full towards him, slowly, unable to disguise her delight.

  The demons were dancing, all was proceeding according to plan. Rag Fellow was shattered as a lunatic by the moon. Plainly in her eyes he saw the kissing fish rise and he caught her, and she squirmed, wriggling as fish will, and slipped out of his hands, leaving behind on his lips and fingers a luminous film and the perfume of the lake.

  Naturally, he called to her. Of course, she turned. He might have been satisfied with one kiss, and yes, she might have known that to go on in this way with a rag peddler was unwise, but . . .

  'Beneath Tiger Bridge, tonight,' she said, and so the Great Wheel turned, carrying them on towards that encounter envisaged by the Demon Chief.

  The day wound on interminably for Rag Fellow and this was good, for though the snail-passage of the hours caused him anxiety, it is his last day on earth.

  He ate happily in a shop by the water's edge. Every face, every bowl, shown with a pattern of Wood Flowers. She was in all things, and most of all, in his heart. He could see her there, seated demurely in the shattered doorway. Tonight he would lead her completely inside and they would share the Red Mystery by Yellow River where the fish hawk dives, beneath Tiger Bridge.

  Soon he was eagerly crawling down the river bank and under the bridge, though he knew she would not be there yet. She would come later, quietly, wearing the robe of rags. Theirs would be a powerful vow, sealed beneath the Bridge, and he would carry her away in the night in his wagon, forcefully if need be, but in time, when they were living in a distant region of the north in some small cottage, she would see the wisdom and necessity for their flight.

  Blind Rag Man! Is it not clear to you by now t
hat your dream of paradise is built upon the caprice of a woman, who whispers tonight at Tiger Bridge even while she is preparing her heart for the Court of Our Immortal Emperor, the Excellent Purple Cloud of One Hundred Wives?

  No, of course not, he does not hear. He is deaf to everything but the river, blind to all portent, such as the sudden falling of rain. Look how it plays upon the water, stirring up the river. What does he care? He is beneath Tiger Bridge and his feet are dry.

  Does he wonder how she will come in the pouring rain? No. She will come to him, will float down the street on boards, if necessary. He does not reckon with the changing face of the moon, for he is the sun of love.

  So there he waited, watching her face in the rising water, listening to her voice in the beating of the rain upon Tiger Bridge. It grew dark, he sat in darkness beneath the Bridge, but was burning brightly within, and though the water was at his ankles and he was crouched like a corpse against the Bridge wall, he was comfortable as an emperor on the imperial couch.

  The poets of the Court at that time, men who have since travelled on, left behind them the story of the night on which Wood Flower, the merchant's daughter, appeared in the courtyard of the Purple Cloud. It was raining heavily, the spring rains had begun, but her gown was not spoiled. With averted eyes, a footman carried her out of the Emperor's coach, and another held a silk umbrella over her hair, protecting its subtle waves and the precious combs she wore.

  Her gown instantly aroused the profound jealousy of the other court ladies, though it was not contrived in the latest court fashion, nor made of precious silk.

  No, the Emperor's latest beauty, lovely Wood Flower, wore a robe of cast-off cloth, of bits and pieces of the ancient city, and it was faded like a dream, filled with sad scenes, of old sky terraces, and diving birds.

  The Emperor was satisfied, and an excellent party ensued, with songs and wine, a delightful way to spend such an evening, which was dark and terrible, for the spring rains had come, and Yellow River was rising.