Miraculum

by Steph Post

  “Yeah, Deborah takes after her father. Quiet like. I don’t know how she’s ever going to find a husband.”

  Hayden kept his eyes on his coffee, but Pam didn’t seem to notice. She stood up straight and crossed her arms over her chest, sizing Hayden up.

  “You got yourself a wife?”

  Deborah made a small gasping sound and ran behind the counter and into the small kitchen. Hayden could just imagine her cowering in the corner, scarlet red in the face from her mother’s brazenness. Hayden wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and rested his elbows on the counter.

  “No, ma’am.”

  Eileen’s face flickered briefly in front of him. He’d never considered himself a widower and would never willingly tell anyone about Eileen and Cora. But the word “wife” struck a chord with him. It connoted only shame and regret. It would never mean anything but sorrow for Hayden. He studied the greasy film across the top of his coffee while Pam thought about his response a moment.

  “Let me guess, though. You got yourself a sweetheart somewhere, waiting on you.”

  Hayden dropped his eyes. He fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes.

  “I wouldn’t say she’s waiting for me any longer.”

  He started to put a cigarette to his lips, but Pam shook her head.

  “Sorry, fella. Can’t smoke in here. Irritates Deborah’s asthma something fierce.”

  Hayden quickly tucked the cigarette back into the package. Pam lowered her head and cut her eyes at Hayden.

  “So, what’d you do?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What’d you do? To make her quit waiting on you?”

  Pam had the gleeful look of someone leaning across a fence, just waiting to hear the worst. Hayden drained his coffee.

  “I wish I knew. I mean, I know what I did. I just wish I knew why I did it.”

  Pam nodded knowingly.

  “You and every man walking around God’s green earth. She’s a strong-willed girl, too, I bet.”

  “And stubborn.”

  “She pretty?”

  Hayden’s chest visibly rose and fell.

  “She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Hayden heard the door open behind him. A man in overalls came in and sat at the end of the counter, two stools away. Pam nodded at the man, but didn’t move. Her mouth was hanging open slightly as she listened to Hayden.

  “And then I ruined things before they even had a chance to start. Yet again. I was such a fool.”

  Pam absently refilled his cup. Hayden sat up straight and fidgeted with the brim of his hat.

  “But I’m going to try again anyway. I’ll do whatever it takes. Drag myself through the mud if I have to. Whether she wants to see me again or not, I’ve got to talk to her. I have to at least tell her I’m sorry for being such an ass, excuse my language. I have to try to explain, even though I’m not exactly sure what happened myself. I don’t think she’s going to want me back, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  Pam seemed to be intently thinking about what he was saying. She walked over to the man who had just sat down and placed a cup of coffee and a glass of water in front of him. Then she came back over to Hayden and leaned on the counter, staring hard at him.

  “You love her?”

  Hayden was taken by surprise at the woman’s directness.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s a pretty straightforward question.”

  Hayden glanced at the man in overalls. He was reading a newspaper, ignoring them both. Hayden looked back at Pam, who was still staring at him. He shook his head.

  “I’d say it’s actually a pretty complicated one.”

  The only other time someone had put it to him was when Eileen’s father had demanded to know his intentions. The enormous man, pipe clenched between his teeth as he paced across his oak-paneled study, had railed at Hayden, alternately threatening and berating him. He’d wanted to know how Hayden could be so base, so foul and irresponsible. Hayden had taken the castigation with his head down, wondering the exact same things. Then Eileen’s father had asked him about love. Eileen loved him, he had said with disgust, and was begging him not to go to the police. Or take him out back and shoot him with his Winchester. Did Hayden, then, love his daughter in return?

  For the first time since he had seen Eileen’s swollen belly, Hayden’s head had become clear. Hayden had stood his ground and admitted that no, he did not love Eileen. He never had. He didn’t think he ever would. And yet, he had conceded to marrying her and her father had let the matter rest with that.

  But Ruby. Pam was still waiting on him. She shook her head.

  “It doesn’t have to be. Life is complicated. All of the things involved with loving or not loving a person are complicated. But love itself, well now, mister, it’s a sin to complicate it. It’s a kernel. It’s a core. There are no shady areas. You either can’t breathe without someone or you can. So, you love her or not?”

  His Ruby. Hayden nodded slowly.

  “I do.”

  “And she loves you?”

  “I thought so, yes. Before.”

  Pam shook her head again.

  “Before don’t exist no more. It goes down with the sun and don’t come back up with the moon. You think she can love you again?”

  Hayden swallowed and bent his head over his coffee.

  “I hope so.”

  Pam clapped her hands together.

  “Then it will work out. It’s as simple as that. You young folk are always making mountains out of molehills. Trust yourself. Trust her. It’ll work out, you’ll see.”

  She winked at Hayden and patted the counter in front of him before going back to the man reading the newspaper. He and Hayden were the only two people in the restaurant and Hayden was glad to have the attention shifted away from him. It was his fourth day back on the road as he tried to retrace his route east from Galveston back to Baton Rouge and then from there to Monroeville, Alabama, where he believed the carnival’s route had taken it. He had a purpose and a direction now, but in some ways it felt like he’d been lost at sea ever since he had walked out of the snake tent, with the blind determination of leaving the Star Light, and Ruby, forever. Hayden still wasn’t sure why he’d felt such a desperate need to leave the carnival. He couldn’t comprehend it. He had driven west from Baton Rouge down to the Texas coast in a frenzied, sleepless haze, stopping only to fill up the tank of his Model T.

  As he’d gotten farther and farther away from the Star Light, strange moments of clarity alighted on him like falling leaves and he would have to yank the steering wheel and screech to a stop, idling the car on the shoulder of the road. The fog surrounding him would lift for a few brief seconds and he would suddenly realize what he’d done. And then realize that he could still go back. He could apologize to Ruby; he could attempt to explain things to her, even though he wasn’t sure what he would be explaining. She would understand that he had been impetuous and rash, she would forgive him. But now Ruby would forever be expecting him to take flight whenever the mood suited him. He had whispered to her in the darkness of her wagon that he would be a constant for her. He had promised that she could depend on him now, that he would be her touchstone. It had taken him less than forty-eight hours to break that promise.

  Then there had been the horrible tightening in his chest and stomach that came over him whenever he thought of standing on the midway again. He couldn’t account for it, except that he felt an almost physical revulsion whenever he imagined himself at the Star Light. The fog would creep over him and he would become nauseous until he was driving again, heading away from the carnival. When he had finally arrived in Galveston, he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there, only that it was where he needed to be. It was in Galveston that Ruby’s look became his obsession.

  It wasn’t the look Ruby had given him right before he stormed away from the snake tent. Then, her face had been defiant, proud. She’d been furious with
him, her eyes cruel, her mouth twisted in anger. He had seen that expression on her face dozens of times as they had fought throughout the years. No, the look that began to haunt him was the one he had seen on Ruby’s face when he’d left her at the end of the circuit, three years before. He’d not yet bought the Ford and was taking the train back to Beaumont to set his plans for their life together in motion. He had wanted her to accompany him to the station, but she’d only gone as far as the edge of the carnival lot. They hadn’t spoken much, all that there was to say had already been said the night before, but he had rested his chin on her shoulder and she had held him with a fierceness that was almost frightening. He’d made a joke about her acting like she would never see him again. A joke. He’d kissed her and she had stepped away from him with a look of such wise despondency. As if she knew all of the hope he’d impressed upon her would fail. And it had, then and now, once again.

  When he’d arrived in Galveston and stood on Post Office Street in front of the only boardinghouse he could afford, Hayden had seen that look. And when he ventured to one of the blind tigers at the south end of Seawall Boulevard and drank the rum poured down his throat by the dock workers, pounding on his back and encouraging him to rid himself of his love sicknesses, he had seen that look. When a woman had sat down in his lap, giggling and spilling out of the front of her dress, everything had finally blurred and he’d thrown up all over the woman’s cleavage. Hayden had woken up on the seawall, with two gulls using his body as a perch, and seen that look in the cloudless sky, going in and out of focus above him.

  He’d stayed stone drunk for the next five days. Mostly he wallowed in the lice-infested bed, swilling rum from a bottle on the floor and staring up at the rotting crossbeams above him. He knew he was pathetic. He could hear Ruby’s voice telling him so. Telling him he stank, that he was being a waste. Ordering him to pull it together. To stumble downstairs to the washroom and soak his head in cold water and put on a clean shirt. Whenever he thought of returning to the Star Light, though, the haze came down over him and he became disoriented and confused. He didn’t want to stay in the boardinghouse, he didn’t want to drink, but something kept him in a suffocating torpor. The fog had become a boulder on his chest, insistently pressing down on him, so he’d remained in bed with a bottle within reach and watched the cockroaches skittering up and down the walls.

  A week after he arrived in Galveston, the sullen woman who owned the boardinghouse flung the door to his room open and told him to get out. She wasn’t going to have a man die in her residence and she couldn’t see what else he was doing save drinking himself to death. Hayden had wandered down to the docks and dried out, sitting with the gulls all day and watching the boats sail in and out of the harbor. When he finally sobered up that evening, he’d pulled his sketchbook out of his duffle bag and tried to draw the ships against the sunset. In all the lines on the page, he’d seen only Ruby’s eyes. Only that look. And then, suddenly, the haze had been blown from him and the fog inside his head had cleared. Hayden had stood, blinking as if just emerging from a cave into daylight, and he’d hurled the sketchbook into the water. He had yelled at the top of his lungs, startling the swarm of birds around him. Then he had picked up his bag, returned to the garage where he’d left his car and headed east into the night, determined to return to the Star Light.

  Hayden was slowly surfacing from the depths of his thoughts when he heard the word “circus” come from the man in the overalls sitting at the counter. Hayden shook his head and turned to the man, who was shoveling fried eggs into his mouth and talking across the counter to Pam.

  “What were you just saying now, about a circus?”

  The man swallowed the mush in his mouth and then slurped his coffee.

  “The circus that was over in Monroeville. Over in Alabama. Star Miracle something or other. One of those names ties up your tongue. You ain’t heard about that?”

  The man tapped the newspaper next to his plate and Pam clicked her tongue and shook her head. Hayden swiveled on his stool toward them. His heart was pounding and his voice came out stretched and thin.

  “No. What happened?”

  The man pointed to the newspaper with his fork.

  “The fire? Geeze, it’s been in every newspaper this side of the Mississippi. Probably all the way to Georgia. Haven’t had a tragedy like that ’round these parts in some time.”

  Pam fidgeted with the collar of her shirt.

  “Such a shame. It’s bad enough the way those poor carnie folk have to live. Then to have a fire like that. Just terrible.”

  Hayden’s ears were ringing. He wanted to reach for the newspaper on the counter, but couldn’t move.

  “How bad? I mean, when, how? What happened?”

  The man slurped his coffee again and began cutting into a hunk of ham on his plate.

  “Happened end of last week. Paper today said they still didn’t know how it started. I guess the inquiry’s just beginning.”

  Pam shook her head again.

  “And all those poor souls in Monroeville. Just hundreds. Probably half the town was there when it happened. Paper said it was the first night of the carnival and everybody had gone.”

  She turned to the man.

  “Or was it a circus?”

  The man spoke through his ham.

  “Paper’s calling it a circus. Don’t know there’s a difference. Is there a difference?”

  Pam opened her mouth to reply, but then saw the look on Hayden’s face.

  “Why, honey, you all right? You’re white as a sheet. Did you have people over in Monroeville? Oh Lord, I hope you didn’t have family out that way. Did you?”

  Hayden opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He swallowed a few times and then raised his hand slightly toward the newspaper. The man stopped chewing and pointed his fork toward Hayden.

  “You okay there, fella?”

  Hayden coughed and cleared his throat. His voice still came out in a choked whisper.

  “Survivors? How many, I mean, did they…”

  His voice trailed off. The man stuck another piece of ham in his mouth and pushed the newspaper over to Hayden with the edge of his hand.

  “Here. I don’t know nothing more than what’s already printed.”

  Hayden snatched up the paper. In large bold letters the headline proclaimed CIRCUS FIRE CAUSE STILL UNKNOWN. Underneath it were two long articles, the first of which was an interview with a man who had been on his way to the Star Light to pick up his wife and daughter. Hayden only caught some of the words as he read. Smoke. Flames. Screams. Death. Inferno. The second article included the names of twelve survivors, all Monroeville residents who had been either just entering or just leaving the Star Light. There was no mention of any surviving carnival workers. Hayden carefully folded the paper and pressed it down on the counter next to his empty cup. He was vaguely aware that Pam and the man were watching him. He looked up with glassy eyes and firmly set both hands on the edge on the counter.

  “I think I need to pay for my coffee. I think I need to go now.”

  He stood up from his stool. Pam leaned over the counter and touched his arm.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  It was Biblical, the destruction. Hayden sat behind the steering wheel of his car, looking out at the roped-off wreckage that had once been the Monroeville Fairground, that had once been the Star Light Miraculum, his home, Ruby’s home, and was reminded of a print he knew from a copy of John Martin’s Illustrations to the Bible. The piece was titled “The Destruction of the Pharaoh’s Host” and Hayden had always been both fascinated and terrified by it. And now, here was the aftermath of the print come to life. Hayden wasn’t sure he had the courage to stand before it.

  The fire had burned itself out and the residual smoke had ceased to rise, but a faint cloud still hung over the ruins as any stray breeze lifted and carried ash up into the air. All of the show tents were gone, exposing what was left of their charred stages. One of high w
ire platforms still stood and a few other pieces of scorched metal rose from the wreckage: sets of wagon bases and wheels, some of the banner frames, a support bar for the entrance arches. The Ferris Wheel was mostly in one piece, though the metal had been blackened, and the core of the carousel could be seen next to it. The horses had mostly been burned away. The office and management wagons, away from the midway, were still standing, although both had been blasted so hard that their windows had been blown out and the doors were now only charred splinters. The cookhouse tent had caught fire and burned away, but the heavy iron stove had been left untouched. Most of the vehicles had been spared, too.

  It seemed as though the fire had been completely concentrated on the midway and hadn’t spread through the field. Most everything that comprised the heart of the carnival, though, the striped canvas tents, the bally banners, the game booths, was gone, dissolved into heaps of ash, smears of soot that had once been people’s entire livelihoods. That had once been people. Hayden slowly climbed out of the Model T and stepped to the ground. The smell had already hit him when he’d driven up, but as he walked closer to the wreckage, the acrid stench grew stronger. He stood at the edge of what would have once been the brightly lit midway and wanted to cry, wanted to vomit, wanted to yell, but he could do nothing. He had begun to duck under the rope when he realized he wasn’t alone.

  “Hey, you there! Sir, stop! Stop!”

  Hayden slowly stood back up and turned around. Two sheriff’s deputies were running clumsily toward him, one with his hand outstretched, and now Hayden became aware of a caged car marked Police Patrol parked at the crossroads in front of the western side of the lot. The deputies slowed as they approached him and one bent over, wheezing.