by Sean Ferrell
“My mother would yell at me when she found me doing this.” Darla held my hand, her fingers on my palm, playing around the hole. “I grew up in tornado country. Kansas. She worried that I’d get sucked right up.”
We lay there, watching the sky grow darker as the sun set, the edge of the storm overhead. It came quick, like a blanket pulled over us. The sky fell. Dark and heavy drops hit the ground around us, Darla squeezed my hand, I felt a shudder run up my arm.
“Here comes the storm,” she said.
Rain poured down on us and in moments the dirt was wet. Not a dry spot but those under us. The rain on the trailer roof sounded like Mal’s TV on a station full of static.
“It’s so heavy it hurts,” she said. I couldn’t feel that, but I imagined I could so that we’d have that in common. I ended up imagining not what the stinging rain might feel like to me but what it was doing to Darla. In my mind’s eye I saw her from a great distance, lying in the dust, small black spots around her from the first drops, then I rushed toward her as gravity pulled me down and I pressed into her. I was the rain, in my vision. The feeling of her slippery skin was all I had in me as I lay there and held her hand. We looked at the clouds and rain, and the sequins of her costume sparkled in the dark gray above us.
“I’m heading in now, honey. I’ll catch a cold if I stay out much more.” She gave my hand a squeeze and sat up. The hair around her forehead was wet, and little dark fingers of it clung to her temples and cheeks.
I lay there in front of her trailer as she bounced up. The rough edges of her cutoffs dripped water as she stood in her doorway. The suncatcher clanged against the window. “Go in, silly,” she said, her grin like Garfield’s. Another secret. “And good luck.”
In a wet haze I walked to the large-animal tent to look in on Caesar, the circus’s one and only lion. If I did what Mr. Tilly had asked, the lion and I would soon be roommates.
The air in the tent was still and hot and smelled of shit and sawdust. Caesar’s cage sat in the center of the tent and was as long as an eighteen-wheeler’s trailer. Next to it rose the main tent pole. Rain leaked in near the top and ran down the side and pooled at the bottom. Caesar panted in the stale, humid air, his sides shaking heavily, and as I stood there the air became thick with his breath.
I watched him. Water dripped off my nose and fingers. The dark fur of his mane hung around his head, feathered beneath his chin, and led to a trail down the belly. From beneath an exhausted brow, his golden eyes followed me. He had that distrustful and disinterested look that cats have, as if my leaving was the one thing that would bring him pleasure. The flesh on his ribs was loose. Like Mr. Tilly said, he looked old.
I don’t know how long I stood there. Without a sound, Mal joined me. “He’s not so tough.” He swatted me on the shoulder, then shook water from his hand. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I was in the rain.”
“No, I mean, you’re bleeding. And covered in mud.” He pulled at my shirt collar in the back. “There’s a trail of blood back here.” He lifted my shirt.
Yuri, the animal caretaker, watched us and smoked a cigarette. He was a Russian immigrant who had somehow come to the States with Caesar. In his coveralls he looked like a cadaver draped in cloth—there was no muscle on him, as if it had all dried up and fallen away. I wondered if Tilly was able to pay for both Yuri and Caesar to eat, and if Yuri might not have volunteered to give his portion to the cat. At his side he held the shovel he always carried. I didn’t know if it was rust or not, but it always looked dipped in blood, blackish red at the tip.
Mal said, “You’ve got a piece of glass in your back.” He pulled it out and showed it to me. A thumbnail-sized splinter of brown glass, probably from a beer bottle, was wet with my blood. He handed it to me and I ran my thumb over the edge.
I said, “It must have been in the dirt by Darla’s trailer.”
“What were you doing lying down by her trailer?”
“Watching the rain fall.” My fingers kept playing with the shard, as if trying to forgive it for cutting me.
Mal watched me for a moment and then took the glass back. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re not gonna start making keepsakes out of the things that hurt you.” I knew he wasn’t only talking about the glass. He didn’t like Darla and couldn’t understand why I spent so much time trying to talk to her. But he didn’t get rid of the glass then either. It needed to be kept, for a few moments at least.
I said, “What would you do, Mal? If Tilly had asked you to do this?”
Mal shrugged. “Don’t know. Probably would do it. You know, because nobody else wants to.”
“Does he look hungry to you?” I asked.
Mal looked at the cat. “No. A little tired, maybe.” He squinted at Caesar, played with the piece of glass. My blood dried on his fingers. “Maybe a little done in by the heat.”
Yuri came over to me and smiled. “You the dude who’s going to rumble in the jungle?” he asked. His Russian accent was there, but barely. I told him I was. He eyed me up and down, then ordered me and Mal to step back.
“I have to open the cage, feed the lion.”
Caesar knew what was going to happen. He stood and paced the cage’s length, back and forth, his mouth open, the tip of his pink tongue visible.
“Look at how dull those teeth are,” Mal said. He was right. They were dull. Then he added, “But they sure are big.” We stood there a minute looking at the cat, then Mal said, “Do you think those teeth could break the skin, or would they just grind?”
I regretted checking in on Caesar.
Yuri pulled out a large plastic wagon. There was a pile of meat on it, fatty cuts of steak. “It’s horse,” he said as he unlocked the cage and used the shovel to push the wagon in. I could smell blood. It was the horse, I hoped, but it could have been the cut in my back, which was still bleeding. Suddenly young and dangerous, Caesar growled and leaped at the cage door. Just as he reached it, Yuri slammed it shut, then tapped the bars of the cage with the shovel. “You’ve got food there, kitty.” He laughed and turned to us. “He would rather hunt for his food, you know.” I could see it in Caesar’s eyes. Caesar wanted something he could toy with. His disappointment with the wagon was obvious—his tail no longer cut the air, his ears fell back against his head—but still he stepped toward it and sniffed it gently.
As Mal and I turned to leave, Yuri called to me. “Hey,” he shouted. “If you hurt my cat, I’ll kill you.” He held his shovel at his side. Behind him Caesar began to rip into the meat. Despite how dull his teeth looked, he had no trouble tearing pieces in half and then swallowing them with little, if any, chewing.
Mal tossed away the piece of glass. It sailed into the darkness, its energy somehow gone. From somewhere to our right a radio played music with someone singing in Spanish. The trailers, dark except for a few solitary, brilliant windows, wallowed before us. As we stepped away from the tent, our footsteps loud in the mud from the rainstorm, Mal cleared his throat.
“You’ll want to clean out that cut,” Mal said. “You don’t want to get an infection before your big day.” He said “big day” as if he were spitting the words out, as if they tasted wrong. Our paths took us to separate trailers and I heard his door slam shut after him as I climbed the steps to my own.
That night the cut on my back left blood on my sheet. I woke up stuck to it. It came free with a dry tearing sound, and the cut bled again. I climbed out of bed and tried to get ready for my noontime visit to Caesar’s cage. The outfit Mr. Tilly wanted me to wear hung on my door: a Tarzan of the Jungle getup, one shoulder strap, bad leopard print, one piece. I wasn’t about to wear it and started to pull on my jeans, but stopped. An occasion like this only happens once. I put on my suit, the one I’d arrived in. Out of some misplaced habit I ran my hands through the pockets, as if looking for keys or a wallet, a picture, anything. I’d never found anything there before, but on this search I found a business card that had slipped part
way through a hole in the pocket lining. I pulled it out and saw that only one half was legible; the other half was black with dried blood. It was so soaked that it was now brittle and the card itself flaked. On the half I could read was part of a name and address:
This article of cloXXXXX
is the property XXXXXX
Costumes, IXXXXXXXXX
Located at 34XXXXXXXX
New York, NXXXXXXXXX
I read the card and put it away quickly, as if afraid somebody would see it. Hand in pocket, I rubbed it between my fingers. My heart raced and for several minutes, perhaps more, I forgot about Caesar, about my impending event, and I sat and listened to my fingers scrape against the card. I knew I might not have brought it with me. It could have been anyone’s blood. I looked out the window and watched the shadows shift. The sun rose higher outside. I was going to be late. I pushed the card deeper into my pocket and stepped outside.
Drivers and a few roadies wandered around outside my trailer. I figured they were there to see me, so I tried to walk tall as I crossed the muddy compound. My shoes slapped across the wet ground, and I left a trail behind me in the thick muck. I was nearly to the tent when I slipped, almost fell in the mud, but caught myself on a tent flap. I swung for a moment and behind me someone yelled, “Hey, Tarzan!” I straightened my tie and went in.
Inside the tent it was hotter than the previous night. Murdoch, the oilman, was there with two men I hadn’t seen before. One was a younger, better-dressed version of Murdoch. The other had a video camera and was taping everything around him: the cage, the lion, his feet for a moment, the top of the tent, me, my feet. At the speed he spun the camera around I thought that Murdoch would never be able to watch this again without getting nauseated, which was good. There was something pornographic in the idea of watching this again, I thought. I didn’t want to be in porn.
“There he is, Sonny,” said Murdoch. He grabbed the shoulder of his young look-alike and pointed at me. Sonny turned and stared me up and down, the same careful examination that Yuri had given me the night before. The cameraman filmed me. “That’s the guy we’re paying to wrestle the lion.” He looked as if he’d just paid for a new car with a wad of stolen money.
Sonny, hands deep in his pockets, head lowered, said, “He don’t look so tough.” His voice was deep and he slurred his words together. “I’ve seen tougher.”
“I’m sure you have,” Murdoch said. “But still, he’s getting in that cage and he’s gonna wrestle that lion.” He swore quietly to himself and said, “I’m so excited I could piss.”
Caesar had his back to us. He panted heavily, his ragged ribs rising and falling in the thick air. At the side of the cage, Mr. Tilly grinned like a stupid child. He bounced up and down in place, which made his belly move from side to side. He said, “Are you set? Psyched?” He gave a thumbs-up and looked at the entrance, where people were coming in. “Look at them all,” he said.
The stands were already filled. I’d never seen them full. Before this a good show had been twenty people. Outstanding was fifty. Over two hundred now filled the benches. At least a hundred more people stood wherever there was room. There were more children in the audience than I’d expected, sitting on laps, or up on shoulders so they could see over the crowd.
Tilly said, “You’ve got to be ready. Why aren’t you wearing the outfit I left you?”
“It didn’t fit,” I lied. “Can I ask you something?” I walked around the cage and Tilly followed me. Watching for the cameraman so I wouldn’t be overheard on tape, I said, “Is the lion drunk already?”
“No, but no worries. Look at him—he’s exhausted. The heat is killing him and he barely slept at all.”
The lion yawned. His teeth looked sharper in the daylight.
“What do you mean, no? You said he’d be drunk.” He’d promised this the moment he suggested I take the bet.
“Well, he isn’t. There have been people in here for hours; we didn’t get a chance. Besides, I don’t even know that you can get a cat drunk. Can you? Damned if I know.” He talked rapidly, words linked in chains. His bounce intensified.
“Listen to me,” Tilly said. We walked away from the cameraman, who had begun to follow. “You’ll be like a superman facing down a savage beast. Damn, I wish that Tarzan getup had fit. That big kitten won’t mess with you. He looks ready to drop dead from the heat. It’s a hundred and fifteen in here. He’ll never even touch you.”
His eyes looked everywhere but at me. For the first time I saw Tilly’s desperation. If people would pay to see me hurt, then he would hurt me, lion or no.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this, Mr. Tilly.”
He finally looked at me. “Hell, son. ’Cause you’re an artist,” he said. “All these people are here to see you because you’re a performer. That’s the way it works.”
“I don’t know about that.”
Artistry in my act was debatable, but audience enjoyment wasn’t. There was always shouting and clapping and a small amount of nausea and vomiting. Even that seemed a positive reaction to my act. But this, somehow, felt odd. It didn’t matter to me if people saw this or not. If no one was there at all, would I do this? I began to think I might, if just to save the circus.
I was looking for Darla in the crowd when Mal grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. We walked back toward the trailers and stood between two of them, tried to stay in their shade. Heat reflected off the trailers and pushed over us in dry waves. Mal carried a brown paper bag and wore a heavy work suit like Yuri had worn the night before.
“What are you doing in that?” I asked.
“I’ve gotta stand by, be ready to pull that lion off you. But I don’t have a nice suit like you.” He opened the bag and pulled out a large bottle of whiskey. A bright orange price tag read sale $9.99.
I said, “You shouldn’t go in that cage. You’ll get hurt.”
He stared at me. “You’re gonna fuckin’ wrestle with the thing, so shut up.” He handed me the bottle. “Have a drink.”
“Where’d you get this?” I tilted the bottle back and a sweet acid taste poured over my tongue.
“Tilly had me run into town last night. It was for Caesar. But Wally Big Bucks showed up and we couldn’t give it to him.” He grabbed the bottle and took several large swallows. He coughed and said, “That’s worse than the lighter fluid I use to spit fire.” He passed the bottle back to me and said, “I think that if the big cat isn’t getting any, we should drink it for him.”
After my second gulp I said, “This is awful.”
“I was buying for the cat, not you.” He pointed at the label. “See, it has a bird on it. I thought that was a good sign.”
There was a bird. A haggard black crow, drawn in profile, with circles under its eye. It looked ready to drop dead.
“How is that a good sign?”
Mal shrugged. “Cats like birds, right? But birds can fly out of danger, so you’re like a bird now. You just let him dance around you and you fly out of danger.”
We spent a quiet half hour as we took turns choking down Caesar’s whiskey. We finished, and Mal hurled the empty bottle over the nearest trailer. We heard it refuse to break with a solid thud on the other side.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the business card, and handed it to Mal. He looked at it, turned it over, turned it back. He flicked the bloody edge and some of the crusted paper broke free. The corners were gone, rounded to a scabby softness.
Mal said, “What do you think this is?”
I took a deep breath through my mouth, felt whiskey vapors follow it back out. “I guess it could be something about who I was. I don’t know. Maybe a way to find out.”
“Maybe.” He played with the card and handed it back. Then he asked, “What’re you going to do with that cat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do it?”
“I owe Tilly, I guess. He saved me, took me in, gave me work and food. Maybe I can save his circus.”
Mal shook his head and said, “And that card, you think it means something?”
“I guess.”
Mal looked down at his feet. “You ought to spend more time thinking about who you are right now. Who you want to be, understand? Think about that.” Sweat dripped off his nose. “Right now, why are you going into that cage?”
“I don’t know.” Again I wondered if Darla would be in the stands.
“You’re full of shit. You know.” He looked out over the field beyond the trailers. Brown grass refused to bend as the hot breeze pushed past it. It looked abrasive and rough, like it never had been and never would be green.
I said, “You know how The It talks about me? How he says that what I do has no drama? He says it isn’t an act. He says that I’m a spectacle, not a performer.”
Mal nodded. “So you think this is different?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is that why you’re doing it?”
I shrugged.
“Whatever the reason, you better really be sure. Really think it over. And when you decide you want to do it, make sure you mean it. And if you decide you don’t, run away and don’t come back, or hide, or say fuck you very much to Tilly and Captain Moneybags. I’ll go with you. We’ll get to LA and make something happen there. Whatever. Just make sure you’re doing it for a good reason. And if you think you have one, I’ll be waiting for you there.” He pointed at the tent opening. I could hear the crowd inside now. I had about fifteen minutes. “I’ll be waiting for you to tell me your good reason. And if I’m not satisfied with it, I’ll knock you out and call the whole thing off.”
Mal walked to the tent. He spat as he walked away, a slight wobble noticeable in his carriage.
I wandered around the compound, searching for a reason to go into the lion’s cage. When I got to Darla’s door I tried to think of a good reason for being there. I knocked and heard a muffled answer.