The day of the circus, August ninth, he leaped out of bed even though he’d hardly slept the night before. He killed time that morning by reading Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks With the Circus. After dinner, with the circus starting at two o’clock, he was getting ready to walk into town when his father appeared in the bedroom doorway, bleary-eyed from watching television. Something big was happening with President Nixon, but with the circus in town, Finton hadn’t paid much attention.
“Where you goin’?” his father asked.
“To the circus.”
“Where’d you get the money for that?”
“I sold beer bottles.”
“Yeah, well, technically, that money is mine.”
Finton was silent, his eyes downcast.
“Hand it over.”
Finton knew why Tom wanted the money. He reached into his pocket and fingered the two five-dollar bills, feeling their gritty texture. He didn’t know what possessed him, but he pulled out one bill and presented it to his father. The other bill remained in his pocket, and Finton couldn’t help thinking that something had changed between them forever.
“Yer a good boy.” Tom tousled Finton’s hair and turned to leave. “You can sneak into the circus, can’t you? That’s what I used to do when I was your age. Just go to the side of the tent where there’s not many people and crawl under the tarp. Piece o’ cake.”
Tom went back to watching television while Finton snuck out of the house as quietly as possible, his right hand stuffed into his pocket to keep the bill in place.
Singing “Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road” and “Yellow Submarine” made the trek into town go quickly, although he wished he had a bicycle to make it go even faster. The circus was supposed to have pitched at the ballfield, but when he arrived there was only an empty space and a few people milling around. On the galvanized gate was a cardboard sign; the message, scrawled in orange crayon, read: CIRCUS IS MOVED. The sheer random mystery of the pronouncement induced panic in his heart. He noticed a small gathering of the concerned in a corner of the parking lot. When he joined them, he heard someone say that the circus lacked an operating license for that location and, with a softball game about to begin, they’d been forced to move their tents. As added proof, several players were entering the field, carrying bats, balls, and softball gloves.
“Where’s the circus?” Finton asked a dark-headed girl who appeared to be his age.
She turned around, smiling. “Finton!”
He glanced at her muddy shoes and managed to smile back. “Alicia!” Her wide, bright eyes were brilliant accessories to her light brown skin. “Going to the circus?”
“We are.” She pointed out a swarthy man in checkered pants and a short-sleeved white shirt, chatting with some of the younger men. Three young Dredges huddled around him, hanging on every word. “My father’s here,” she said. “Is someone with you?” She lowered her gaze, though he sensed it was more out of sorrow than shame.
“I wanted to come alone,” he explained, feeling flushed. She regarded him curiously, almost with the air of a non-believer, but she simply informed him that the circus had moved to a location over by the high school.
“I take it Bernard doesn’t like the circus,” he said, almost breathlessly.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I haven’t seen him lately.”
“You broke up?”
“We just went out a few times. No big deal.”
“But I thought—”
“What Bernard wanted you and everyone else to think.” She lowered her voice and leaned in closer. “He got physical a couple of times. Can you believe that? The first time, he said he was sorry and I said okay, but don’t do it again.”
“Let me guess…”
“He did it again—or tried to. Haven’t seen him since. Don’t care if I do.”
“Proper thing,” said Finton, trying to sound confident. “There’s no need o’ that.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” She offered him a ride to the circus, and he declined at first. But she badgered him until he agreed to go with the Dredges in their black Volkswagen with the putt-putt engine that reminded him of an underpowered lawn mower. Finton found himself squashed between three smaller Dredges, who smelled like a mixture of motor oil and sweat, and kept pulling on their sister’s hair. Alicia sat up front, looking cool and refined despite their abuse and her hand-me-down clothes. Her father didn’t say much, though, and Finton wondered if his inclusion was resented.
Phonse Dredge had aged greatly in a couple of years, his wavy, black hair having turned completely white. “How’s your dad?” Phonse asked, his lips tight and twitchy.
“Pretty good. Bit worried about stuff, though.”
“I daresay he’s got lots to worry about.” Without bothering to explain, Phonse resumed his troubled silence until they’d reached their destination. Finton didn’t pay him much attention, though. He’d caught sight of the red circus tent, its big flaps flopping in the heavy wind that swept up from the beach across the road.
“Enjoy the circus, Alicia.”
“You too.” At first, she didn’t move away, and he almost felt as if he should stay with her to protect her. But at last she turned to go.
From a safe distance, he watched the five of them buy tickets from a blonde girl sitting at a table and then bustle inside the red tent. Once they were out of sight, he meandered to the less populated side. He sucked in a breath when he saw how the pegs driven into the ground were barely able to restrain the enormous canvas. He was reminded of a large red kite demanding its escape from earth, craving release to the infinite sky. Meanwhile, the impish wind kept flapping the sides of the tent, offering him a space under which to crawl.
He fingered the five-dollar bill in his pocket and reminded himself that he might just be able to afford cotton candy. Checking only once to make sure no one was watching, he bent himself nearly flat, swung his lithe physique inside the tent and, in a dizzying instant, found himself standing at the back of the big top. His senses were gobsmacked by a bejangled elephant giving rides to some children, a yellow-haired clown juggling firesticks for a small crowd, and boredlooking, mangy lions and tigers stuffed into their cages. Most peculiar was an undersized, wire cage with the words inscribed on a wooden plaque:
NEWFOUNDLAND WOLF
(Thought to be extinct)
Inside the cage, a yellow-eyed, dog-like animal with matted, grey fur and a dark strip all the way down its back and tail, lay shivering from either hunger or fear—probably both. Finton glanced nervously around. When he finally crept towards the “wolf” cage, a mustached man in a uniform appraised him, and Finton held his breath, waiting to be collared. Ultimately, however, the security detail moved on, hands clasped behind his back, only to linger near the very spot where Finton had illegally entered.
Finton exhaled and turned his attention to the unkempt animals who, with their mud-and-straw coats and rib-baring skins that hung off them like clothes handed down from a superior generation, were decidedly less majestic than he’d expected. A couple of boys slightly younger and yet bigger than Finton used sticks to poke at them through the bars, trying to provoke a growl from the docile creatures. Alas, they seemed incapable of raising a mewl and barely managed to appear annoyed. “Leave them alone!” Finton yelled. One of the boys turned around and whacked Finton’s arm. The attack stung and left a small gash on his skin, but he was vindicated to see the boys run off to their negligent fathers, who drank beer from waxen Coca-cola cups, and leave the animals to seal their crusted eyes in suffering silence. Instinctively, he laid a palm over the cut for a few seconds, but when he lifted his hand to see, the cut was still bleeding.
Trying to ignore his sudden misgivings about the circus, he ambled toward a clearing that appeared an ideal spot for watching the acts. The makeshift bleachers were bursting with people, but dozens stood attentively at the perimeter of the rings, awaiting the start of the show. The loudspeakers blared circus music whi
le the aroma of buttered popcorn thickened the air, but when the ringmaster entered and announced the trapeze act, Finton felt strangely unmoved. He marveled at the beautiful, strong women and lean, handsome men in their sequined costumes as they flung each other into the air like angels engaged in cloud-tossing, and they always caught each other, making the audience gasp in fearful wonder. But Finton’s compulsion to keep looking over his shoulder spoiled his enjoyment. He kept waiting to be grabbed by the collar and escorted to the police station and, eventually, to the boys’ home in Whitbourne. Much worse, his criminal activity would make his mother cry and Nanny Moon pray for him as she read him Bible passages and went “tut-tut” as she shook her embarrassed head.
He was relieved when the circus was over. On his way out, he presented his five dollars to the blonde girl sitting at the table, selling tickets for the next show. “I snuck in,” he confessed when she regarded him quizzically.
Through the mid-afternoon throng, he saw the Dredges bustling to the Volkswagen, gabbing and laughing, as one boy pulled on Alicia’s sleeve. He wondered if he should have asked her out. But he thought better of it. They could finally be friends again, as long as Bernard Crowley stayed away, but to date her was courting trouble. Besides, she might say no, and he couldn’t handle another rejection.
When he got home an hour later, he knew something was wrong. His parents and brothers were sitting sombre faced on the sofa and floor in front of the TV. A helicopter had perched on the lawn of the White House. President Nixon was waving, his rubbery, big-nosed face etched in mockery. “They were gonna impeach him,” his father said, sucking a vengeful draw from his Camel, then letting it dangle from his fingers like a smoking gun. “The lousy fuckers were out to get ’im.”
“Watch yer language in front of the children.” Elsie nudged him with her shoulder, but he stared stone-faced at the screen as the chopper lifted off.
Finton desperately wanted to hug his father, but couldn’t allow himself that consolation because he knew how such a treacherous act of sympathy would play out in the world of Moon men. “But he’s not our president,” he said.
“No, but I would’ve voted for ’im if I could. Goddamn right, I would’ve. He was a good man.”
On behalf of his father, Finton felt the loss. He sat with the family, just as he had done when Orr scored the goal and when Armstrong walked on the moon. Tragedy and heroism came from TV. The Moons might as well have been on television, for it was where their family began and ended. If heroes did not emerge from the screen, they did not appear at all except in books, but he was the only reader among them.
A montage of notable moments in the Nixon legacy flickered on the screen while the president’s voice played over it: “For years, politicians have promised the moon; I’m the first one to be able to deliver it.” They watched as Nixon flew away to California, which didn’t sound so bad, considering they had sunshine, gold, and women in skimpy bikinis, so it seemed natural to believe Nixon had set out for Paradise.
In the highlights of Nixon’s press conferences, he always looked so shocked and defiantly saddened to have been accused. “People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got,” he said. He was leaving the White House, not because he was guilty, but because the country needed to begin “that process of healing which it so desperately needed.”
“Did he do what they said he did?” he asked his father that evening while Elsie was washing the supper dishes.
“If you ask me, he just got caught doing the same thing we all do.” Tom blew a ring around Finton’s head. The boy lifted his nose and inhaled; the father appeared startled for a moment, then perplexed. “He just wasn’t smart enough to hide it, that’s all.”
“But what did he get caught doing?”
“He told a lie. That’s all. Goddamn reporters went snoopin’ around where they shouldn’t have been.”
“Mom tells us we’re not supposed to lie, ever.”
Tom took a long drag of the stubby Camel. “That’s right. And don’t ever let me catch ya.”
He wondered how long it would be before he stopped expecting the police to come and arrest him for sneaking into the circus.
Lone Wolf
The last weeks of summer raced towards the finish line. Finton read as much as he could, mainly from Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, keeping his place in the book with his photocopy of “Migrant Apple Picker.” Or, he would go to the library, browse National Geographic and read magazines about places he wanted to go.
“Look at this.” Clancy had a part-time job cleaning up at the trades school cafeteria and, now and then, he brought home some left-behind novelty, maybe a Popular Mechanics magazine or a partial pack of cigarettes, a lighter or a few coins. Today it was a copy of The Daily News, dated August 30, 1974. Finton stood behind him, peering over his shoulder. There was a headline: “Circus Animals Escape Overturned Truck.” He leaned in closer, but his brother repositioned himself and read aloud that almost all of the animals, including the lion and tiger, had been in cages that, thankfully, hadn’t broken open. A couple of cages were damaged, but “nearly every animal was captured quickly.”
Finton grabbed for the paper, but Clancy was faster: “A circus spokesman says that, as of Wednesday afternoon, only a lone, grey wolf remains at large. However, they expect to recapture the animal soon.”
For the next few days, Finton imagined various scenarios in which he encountered the creature in the Laughing Woods. The highway was a long ways away, but he read that wolves were great travelers. As the season for picking Irish blackberries and blueberries came closer, he overcame his initial skittishness about going into the woods alone and began venturing there every day, wandering through the brush or sitting in the foxhole, hoping for a chance encounter. He went to the public library and looked up books on wolves. There wasn’t much available, although one mentioned the extinction of the Newfoundland wolf in 1930 because of a government bounty. The real reason for the demise of the once-large population, however, might have been starvation, as the food sources for the wolf dwindled. The story was a sad one, reminding Finton of tales he’d read of the Beothuks and the Great Auk. Newfoundland had an apparent knack for pushing certain, noble species into the abyss. He hoped to catch a glimpse of the escaped, lone wolf by Labour Day, but his daily woodland treks generated no sightings.
On September 3rd, he got out of bed and put on his only good pants, bloodstains and all. The night before, it took him nearly an hour to iron his only good shirt, the same navy blue one Homer had worn in last year’s school pictures.
Monday morning, it rained, and no one spoke to him as he entered the classroom. But every eye turned towards him. He hung his head, stared at the floor, and drew in his shoulders. It had been the same on the bus where the only seat available was next to Bernard Crowley, who had just kept on talking to Cocky Munro and refused to move his bookbag from the seat to make room, supposing Finton had been willing to sit there. Forced to stand, he bounced around between seats like a stringless kite on a breeze.
When the final bell rang, the Grade Ten teacher, Miss Snow, followed close behind him and shut the classroom door. The new teacher, who’d just finished her degree at Memorial earlier that year, was stern as she called the roll. Even in high heels, she was barely five feet tall and quite attractive. Now and then, some boys exchanged mirthful glances, but most students sat quietly, listening and brooding, or just biding their time.
Finton assumed a seat at the back of the room. Most of the people he knew—who were familiar at least, if not actually friends—had landed in other homerooms. But there was one girl he recognized, sitting up front, near the big windows. She’d looked up and smiled as he entered, then lowered her head. Alicia Dredge wore the regulation blue polyester skirt and white, buttoned blouse, but with worn hems and faded hues. With her black army boots and knee-high socks, she looked like a homeless nun.
&nb
sp; At recess, he sat by himself on the swings.
He hoped that school would somehow provide a distraction. He could no longer help his father, and his mother had gone out and gotten herself a part-time job at the liquor store. With his wife gone most days, Tom was mopier than ever. He usually sat around, did the occasional crossword, or wandered the meadow. Nanny Moon, as usual, had lost herself in the Bible. She rarely spoke, only looked up now and then, appearing as if she could speak great truths. Ultimately, however, she sighed and pulled her spectacles back on, then retreated to the comforts of the Good Book. Meanwhile, Finton hadn’t seen Miss Bridie in weeks, and he was beginning to wonder about her health, physical or otherwise. Morgan had mostly withdrawn from the world, but he saw her occasionally on her way to a babysitting job or on her way to Bilch’s or to Sellars’ store. But it wasn’t strange to go nearly a whole week without laying eyes on her. Perhaps she was merely attending to her increasingly reclusive mother.
“Miss Bridie’s got cancer,” Elsie announced at supper one evening. The words might have contained a touch of sadness, and maybe deep inside, she felt some sympathy for her neighbour. But if either of those things were true, Elsie was careful not to show it. Finton had an idea of what having cancer meant. He’d heard of some people dying of it and others living with it. When he heard Miss Bridie had it, he assumed she would get better. But it did explain why he hadn’t seen her in so long, especially now that he was no longer visiting Morgan on a regular basis.
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