Numb

by Sean Ferrell

  “It’s me,” I said. I heard something again. “I can’t hear you.” I grabbed the handle and pulled. The whiskey and sun conspired against me; I lost my footing and fell backward. For a moment I propped myself up on the door, but then it broke off its hinges. I fell on my back, and the door spun as it tore free. I saw Darla’s Garfield suncatcher coming at me and heard the crash.

  I lay still for a second. After I pushed the door off me I sat up and felt blood run down my forehead. The suncatcher was bloody, and the window spiderweb-cracked. I wiped at my forehead, and tasted a whisper of blood in my mouth. I sat in sunlight, looking up into the dark hole where the door had been. I couldn’t see into the trailer but heard Darla say, “He broke my fucking door.” Then I heard The It say, “Retard.” I crawled toward the doorway and looked in, found Darla in a bra and panties, small image of a snake in one hand and a wet yellow sponge in the other. It was The It’s tattoo, a decal. The It sat in a vinyl-topped chair, in white boxers, his neck and chest free of any of his signature ink. They were all sitting on plastic sheets by the sink, still waiting to be applied.

  “Hurry up,” he said, “before the glue dries.”

  “He’ll see.”

  “He’s already seen. Now hurry up. Those are expensive.”

  As I squatted in the doorway, Darla pulled her eyes off me and put the snake on The It’s face. She laid it against his skin, gave it a gentle push with the sponge. Darla put it right where it should be, where it had always been. I stood, shaking, and stepped into the trailer.

  “What are you looking at, freak?” The It said. His eyes were brown. A bottle of contact lens solution sat near the sink behind him.

  “They’re fake,” I said. I meant the tattoos, or his yellow eyes, or maybe all of him.

  “He’s afraid of needles,” Darla explained. She pulled away the sponge. The snake’s head curled beneath his eye and ended abruptly. There must have been a second fake tattoo that would continue the snake’s body past his cheek and down his neck. Darla stood up, arched her back. Her panties had little flowers on them.

  “Don’t tell him that.” The It smacked her thigh, a playful, touchy slap, with the back of his hand.

  “Hey, asshole, he already saw me put one on, remember?” She threw the sponge in the sink. She looked at me through her long bangs. “What do you want, Numb? Why the hell did you break my door?”

  The It grinned. “Don’t you know? Today’s the freak’s big day. Came over for a good-luck kiss.”

  She handed me a paper towel and said, “You’re bleeding.” I pressed it to my head and the blood soaked in. She pushed by me, pressed into me for a moment to get through the door, and said, “You sure did a job on this thing.” She stepped into the sunlight, and her white underwear caught the rays. I followed her out.

  “Door was nearly busted off anyway,” she said. “Let’s hope Tilly uses some of that money you’re getting for this show to get me a new one, right?”

  I looked down at the door, the bloody Garfield.

  From inside the trailer The It shouted, “Why don’t you go do your thing and let us do ours?”

  “Shut up,” Darla yelled. She shook her head and stepped around the door. She looked up at me and said, “You can’t tell anyone about his tattoos, you know. He’d be out of the show for sure. Our little secret, okay?” She covered her eyes with her hand, as if saluting.

  With my hand pressing the towel to my forehead, I mumbled, “Why did he tell me he got used to the pain?”

  “Because he’s a performer. No one looks if you don’t have an act, right?”

  She turned and stepped back into the trailer. The moment she stepped out of the light she disappeared, and The It chuckled. I walked away, paper towel against my cut. I stepped on the door, window glass crunching beneath me, and then I retraced my path between the trailers, back to the main tent. There were clouds to the south, but hazy and weak. Nothing like the last storm.

  Mal stood at the entrance. His eyes grew wide as I approached. I felt a resolve that I hadn’t felt before and knew that he could sense it.

  “What the fuck happened to your head?” I pulled the paper towel away but pieces stuck to my head like adhesive.

  “I got cut.”

  “It looks like Garfield.” The suncatcher’s metal frame had cut into my forehead like a stamp. He examined the cat on my head. “Doesn’t Darla have a Garfield suncatcher on her window?”

  “Not anymore.”

  He stared at the wound. “That girl’s gonna kill you. You get cut every time you talk to her.”

  “I’m going to do it, Mal.”

  “I need a reason.” He wouldn’t look at me, just the cut.

  “Because I’m the only one who will.”

  “That’s not a good reason.”

  “Who are you to decide that?”

  Mal thought a moment. “I guess you’re right. Fuck it. Let’s go.”

  We entered the tent. Sonny pointed at me and said, “There’s the freak now.” The camera spun around.

  Mal looked at me and then at my forehead. “It already stopped bleeding. You clot fast. That’s good.”

  “Why?”

  “In a few minutes you’ll be in a cage with a lion. I’d think you would want to clot.”

  “That’s true.” It was a good thing. I began to wonder how I could use it to my advantage. “Good. I’m ready.”

  A shout burst from the group of roadies by the door. “He’s ready.” Another voice shouted the same thing from outside. I could hear word being spread across our sorry little circus village. It suddenly struck me as bizarre that anyone would even be there but me and the lion. What did I need Mr. Tilly, the cameraman, or the trainer for? I didn’t even need Murdoch, Sonny, or the money. This seemed like the most natural thing to be doing, going into the lion’s cage. I was the freak who played with danger, the only one who would wrestle the big cat. This was who I was. I straightened my suit jacket.

  “Open the cage up.” I rubbed my palms on the thighs of my pants.

  “Wait,” Mal said. “What about a time limit?”

  “Time limit?” Murdoch said, as if Mal had asked for a solid gold pocket watch.

  “You don’t expect him to spend the rest of his life in that cage, do you?”

  “It might be the rest of his life,” someone shouted. The crowd laughed.

  Mal stood between me and Murdoch. “How long? Sixty seconds?”

  “Too short. Five minutes.”

  “Unless the cat is on him. Then we pry him loose and he’s out of there.”

  “Right.”

  “This ain’t so tough,” said Sonny.

  “Open it up,” I repeated. I looked at the dirt between me and the cage. An ant crawled by, several of its legs not working. It hobbled in an odd semicircle past my left foot.

  Caesar sat on his haunches, panting. Everyone there formed a ring around the cage. I stood near the door. I looked over my shoulder and saw people wandering in from outside, the other circus hands, performers, some of the Mexicans who’d been hired as part-time help. Mr. Tilly looked ready to pop out of his suit.

  “Mr. Tilly,” I shouted, “I quit after this.” Tilly simply nodded.

  Yuri stood at the center with me. He looked proud and artificial in front of the camera—his hair plastered to his head, a part down the middle. Like a child, he smiled nervously at me, then looked back at the camera and said, as if he’d been rehearsing in front of a little mirror in his dirty trailer, “Are you ready, sir, for your trip into the lion’s den?” Tilly had paid him $20 for that line.

  I looked at the gray tent, the pole, the heavy flies buzzing around me. Yuri’s eyes danced back and forth between Mr. Tilly and Caesar. Mr. Tilly smiled and nodded, then waved with the back of his hand, mouthing, “Go on, go on.” He was a fat, bad mime.

  I looked at Yuri and said, “Just open it up.”

  Yuri, his big moment about to be over, smiled and bowed to the camera and unlocked the door. It swu
ng back just wide enough for me to step in and then, just that quickly, I was in Caesar’s cage. Thirty feet long and ten wide, probably illegal for a cat his size. Everything outside dropped away. Caesar at one end, me at the other. He stood, turned in the cramped end, and swayed back and forth. His eyes didn’t leave me. I felt like his little red meat wagon.

  I heard heavy breathing, my own. Caesar and I couldn’t break eye contact. Muscles twitched along his ribs and flanks. Jesus Christ, he was big. What was I thinking, calling him old and skinny? He was the king of the jungle, for God’s sake. The cat stopped swaying and stared straight at me.

  He took a step forward.

  “Holy crap!” someone shouted. I realized that I had stepped forward too. The cat took two more steps, and so did I. Our eyes were still locked. We were connected. He’d hypnotized me, or me him. Either way, I sensed our destiny in that cage, that long walk to each other, straight ahead. We reflected each other. At heart I was the big cat and he was the skinny amnesiac. No option but straight ahead. I took a step and he did too. He panted heavily through his mouth; his tongue lapped at his nose, then hung limp. He started a deep moan that grew to a roar, a yell, nothing like in the movies. I put my arms out at my sides and shouted back.

  “I’ll meet you halfway,” I yelled. I felt sick from the whiskey.

  We moved closer. Only ten feet separated us. His growl grew to a purr.

  “Here, kitty kitty…” I whispered. I suddenly remembered a nursery rhyme:

  Algy met a bear.

  A bear met Algy.

  The bear was bulgy.

  The bulge was Algy.

  I was glad it wasn’t about a lion.

  Caesar stood before me, head low, tongue nearly to the ground. A horrible growl erupted from him. The muscles in his toes clenched, claws digging into the wood beneath him, tendons tightening as his legs tensed. He fell onto his haunches, back arched. He bellowed and began to vomit on the floor. The reek of bile and blood washed over me. Chunks of half-digested meat and fat poured out of him and spread across the wood, over my shoes. Caesar gulped air, strings of saliva and foam hanging from his mouth. Then he collapsed forward.

  I stepped back, slipped, and fell on my ass. Caesar, startled, batted me with one paw, his claws hooking immediately into my thigh, but he couldn’t manage any more, not even a growl. With closed eyes he rested in the mess he had made.

  Pandemonium swept through the audience. Screams and shouts tore the air. People ran for the exits, others toward the cage. The spaces between the bars became solid as faces and bodies pressed up against them, practically trying to get into the cage with Caesar and me.

  “I’m stuck,” I said to the crowd. “He’s got his claws in my leg. I can’t get them out.”

  Mal and Yuri stood next to the door. Mal grabbed Yuri and pointed to the tent flap. “Get a vet.”

  An hour later a vet showed up in a tuxedo and white leather sneakers. He wore a plastic boutonniere and his breath smelled of toothpaste. Mr. Tilly ran in with him.

  When Mal saw him, he said, “Who was getting married?”

  “My daughter,” said the vet.

  The crowd pressed in harder around the cage. They’d grown quiet except for those complaining about not being able to see, or those claiming that they were being crushed against the bars.

  Mr. Tilly grimaced as he watched the vet take in the scene through the bars of the cage. Before him lay Caesar, half-open eyes rolling back and forth, and me with the lion’s claws deep in my thigh. The vet turned pale and said, “Holy Jesus.” He walked to the wrong part of the cage and had to be led to the cage doorway.

  The vet rubbed sweat from his forehead. “How did this happen?”

  Mr. Tilly said, “He went in to feed him.” He had stayed on the other side of the cage. His eyes darted between me and the vet. The vet approached and knelt beside Caesar’s head. He talked to him gently.

  The vet, his eyes dark and wet, said, “I think he’s dying.” Then he looked at the claws in my leg. “You came into the cage to feed him? Why would you come into the cage?”

  “I was here to wrestle him.”

  “No he wasn’t, no he wasn’t.” Tilly shook a fist, like a villain in a silent movie. “Why would you say that?”

  The vet didn’t pay any attention to Tilly. “Wrestle? Was he drugged?”

  “No,” Mal said. “But he was supposed to be drunk.”

  It took a moment for this information to sink into the vet’s head. Finally he said, “What a bunch of assholes.” Caesar growled in agreement and tried to open his eyes. “Why the hell would you do this to an animal?” The vet knelt in vomit without concern. “I’d like to know where you get off.”

  “We’ve got it on tape, if you would like to see.” I smiled weakly, feeling like the asshole he thought I was.

  They set about removing the lion’s claws from me. Caesar lay there, eyes rolling and vomit and blood caked around his mane. Tilly held the lion’s paw, and the handler, his eyes full of tears, plucked the four claws from my thigh. The jagged cuts bled, and, as Mal pulled me away from the lion, Darla approached. She glowed, lit from behind by sunlight through a gap in the tent flaps.

  “My God,” she said. “God God God.” She helped me stand and Mal ducked under my arm. As I limped out of the cage the crowd applauded.

  “Why are they clapping?” I asked neither of them in particular.

  Mal looked at me, mouth turned down. “Are you kidding?”

  Darla followed us as we dragged my leg back outside, then said to Mal, “Take him to my trailer so I can patch him up.”

  In her trailer Darla had pictures from magazines cut out and stuck to the ceiling with masking tape. Irregular rips of tape held the pictures. Men and women smiled down at me. They threw knowing, meaningful looks over their shoulders and shimmered with their own beauty. They were all dressed better than the three of us.

  Darla slapped my uncut leg. “Hold still, dammit.” She knelt before me with a needle and thread, straddling my ankle. She’d sewn up two of the cuts and had two to go. The green thread crossed back and forth evenly across the wounds, pulling them shut.

  Mal leaned against the bathroom door. “Where’d you learn to do that, Darla?”

  “I was in nursing school once.”

  “No shit.” He leaned over her, looking down at my leg, then gave me a thumbs-up and a wink. “Lookin’ good.”

  “Get outta my light,” Darla ordered.

  “I’m outta here. Gonna go check on the big cat.” As he stepped to the door, he smiled at me and gave a nod toward Darla, his grin wide. He propped the door up against the side of the trailer as he left. I wondered how I would pay to have it fixed.

  She poured hydrogen peroxide over the cuts again. She had used a whole bottle of rubbing alcohol already. White foam bubbled over my leg. For a long time, perhaps from the first time I’d seen her, I had wanted to spend time with Darla. Now here I was, alone with her in her trailer, with my pants undone and bunched around my ankles. The eight-inch lacerations were unexpected, as were the sewing-thread stitches, but I would take what I could get.

  She looked up at me. “You don’t feel that at all, do you.”

  “No.” I cleared my throat, tried to think of something to say. “So, you were a nurse.”

  “I don’t like to talk about that,” she said without looking up. The needle jerked through my skin, the torn edge pulling back and away as she ran the thread through it. I looked into the red of my leg. It was like a landscape. White bubbles of peroxide glistened like clouds.

  “Sorry about your door.”

  “You already apologized.”

  Desperate for something to say, I looked around the bed. She watched my eyes. She said, “I know. I got a lot of pictures.” She smiled.

  “You sure do.” The pictures covered every inch of wall around the bed, across both sides. Without thinking I asked, “Doesn’t The It mind them all?”

  The needle stopped, then tugged agai
n slowly. It felt like Morse code in my skin.

  She didn’t say anything. I closed my eyes and thought about the afternoon rainstorm and how close I’d been to her lying on the ground.

  She concentrated on the wound. As it closed up, the red growing smaller—a seam in me—I felt her pulling away. By the time she snipped the thread I still hadn’t thought of anything to say, to cover my tracks and take me back to a minute before. I felt like a boulder that had smashed through her roof and now someone had to come and break me into a million pieces to take me away, bit by irregular bit. She stood and dropped the thread onto her table.

  “I think that will heal up okay. We’ll take those threads out in a week. Keep it clean.”

  I looked down at the green lines that crisscrossed the lion’s claw marks. I reached to the floor, grabbed my pants, and pulled them up as I stood.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She didn’t say anything until I got to the door.

  “Get some rest,” she said.

  As I walked away I felt tugging, as if Darla still held the threads in my leg.

  I slept for a few hours. I got up and the sun had just set. The stars had begun to appear and the only light from the trailers was the blue flickering of televisions. I walked to the main tent and found Mr. Tilly talking with the vet. Turned out that old Caesar was of an endangered breed: a Barbary lion. He would be taken away from the circus and given to a preserve somewhere in Florida. The vet had arranged it.

  Tilly saw me limping at the entrance and yelled, “What the hell you doing up? Rest that leg before it falls off.” I hadn’t seen him angry before. His face reminded me of Caesar’s before he vomited.

  I walked back out into the trailer area and got turned around. I found myself standing between two trailers that hadn’t been near each other earlier. There would be no reason to move them around, I thought, and I leaned against one to get my bearings. Nearby a fence separated us from another field and, looking at the sporadic growth on the other side, I realized where I stood. I had wandered into the empty spot where Darla’s trailer had been. She was gone.