Suddenly Lewis was granted one of those terrifying moments when a man sees himself as another might, in a summing up of his life: he saw a fifty-two-year-old man in a dusty truck in the middle of a town that wasn’t even on maps. His total worth in the world: a handful of vehicles that might die in the middle of the road, a few scrawny animals, a couple dozen scrawny people to go with them. A small amount of money and a trunkful of promises and possibilities. Half the people he’d ever known owed him money—the selfsame money that Lewis owed to the other half. He’d never known of a show that started off with as little as he had right now, it would take nothing at all to wreck one that was held together with little more than Lewis Tully’s bold notions and daydreams. It struck him that this time, he might not pull the thing off. He might not have a circus. He felt a knot of fear and disappointment in his chest.
He remembered what old Dan Gustafsen had told him: “There’s gonna be times when your show won’t really exist nowhere except in your mind’s eye, where you can see it. But long as you can see it, you got a circus.”
I can see it, Lewis told himself. I can see it right now. I have my stock, my vehicles, my people. Got some old acts and some new ones and if my luck is running, if it’s running just this once, I’ll have the greatest magician of all time and a red ape that’ll make folks forget Mr. Barnum’s gorilla, and if I can talk Lucy Brown into living in tents and trucks, I’ll have the greatest bareback rider this side of May Wirth.
Lewis shot a quick glance skyward.
I’m not asking for anything.
Faces peered at Lewis from the windows of the small dark shacks at the edge of town, some of them children. He knew these places. He knew their lives, these people.
Mexican, or Indian, some of them seemed to be. Well, that was no matter: they were poor and they were kids and this was what his show was all about.
He waved at a group of little dark-eyed children in an open window, thought of yelling out his name and that of his fine circus but modesty took over. Instead, he drove up the main street of the town and parked in front of a run-down building bearing a sign that said Hotel.
“Supposed to be living in this place,” he said to no one in particular. “Hell of a place for an old man to end his days.” Shaking his head, Lewis went inside, followed by Shelby and the boy.
A woman with hair dyed the color of cooked salmon sat behind a window grate and gave them the once-over. She had dull gray eyes and it was plain she didn’t care for their looks. Lewis imagined she looked this way at every man who came in, and he thought he understood, even without knowing her story: a man had brought her here twenty or thirty years ago with promises of pie-in-the-sky, painting a gaudy picture of the life she’d find in the West, the fine money to be made running a hotel.
“Beg pardon, ma’am. I’m looking for Harley Fitzroy.”
Her eyes narrowed and she nodded as if this confirmed her worst suspicions.
“Second floor. 2C.”
They marched up a groaning staircase in time to see a mouse padding into a small hole in the baseboard. It didn’t scurry like a typical mouse but sauntered, as though long years of unmolested freedom had emboldened it to human company. At the top of the stairway Lewis heard Harley Fitzroy. He was singing.
It wasn’t so much that the song was the most noticeable noise on the floor, just the highest pitched.
Lewis looked down at the boy. “Harley always fancied himself a singer. He can sing notes only dogs can hear.”
They stopped in front of 2C, and the boy could almost swear that the door was throbbing with the noise. The man within seemed to be singing about a woman who refused his advances. With such a voice, the boy wasn’t surprised.
Lewis pounded on the door. “Harley. Harley, it’s Lewis Tully. Open up.”
The song evaporated, and they heard the man inside muttering.
The muttering was replaced with a heavy grunting and then what sounded like cursing. They could hear splashing sounds now, and what seemed to be the sound of someone swimming. They heard him say “God Almighty” and then he sang out, “I fear I am indisposed. The door’s open.”
Lewis turned the white enameled doorknob and pushed it open. The three of them stood in the doorway. It was a wide room made larger by its lack of furnishings, the sum total of which seemed to be a card table with two chairs, a small chest of drawers, and a cot that appeared to have given in to gravity. A fat gray-and-white cat studied them and quickly lost interest, unlike the small grayish birds that began swooping noisily around the room.
Lewis and Shelby exchanged a quick look and Lewis chuckled.
“Always leave your mark on a place, don’t you, Harley.”
“Well, come in. That’s a cold draft.”
The two men entered but the boy stayed in the doorway, transfixed by the apparition at the far side of the room.
A bony man with unkempt white hair and a droopy mustache sat in a tall, narrow tub with his skinny legs sticking high in the air, so that he seemed to have been folded in half and thrust into the tub, backside first. The man glared at them from behind small eyeglasses and moved slightly, making a splashing sound.
“Now what in the hell…” Shelby began, but a look from the old man silenced him.
“Seems we interrupted your bath, Harley,” Lewis said.
“I find myself in embarrassing circumstances. My movements are…limited.”
“You’re stuck.”
“In a word, yes.”
“How long?”
“No more than a couple of hours.”
“Coulda died right there in your bath.”
“I was in no danger of that. I owe that she-wolf downstairs for a month’s rent. She will have her pound of flesh, if it means saving my life. Pull me out, Lewis.”
Lewis grabbed the old man’s wrist while Shelby held up a ragged towel. The old man climbed out and covered himself with his towel, unaware that much of his backside protruded through a ham-sized hole. The boy stared at the old man’s ancient skin, dry and blue-veined and made even more shriveled by a long soaking. Charlie reckoned his age at over a hundred.
The old man seemed to hear his thoughts. Winding himself in the towel, he turned and fixed the boy with a hard look. Charlie blinked and took a step back. Magnified by the glasses, Harley Fitzroy’s blue eyes looked unearthly, enormous, and through the thick lenses his eyes seemed to change shape.
“I think I’ve spooked your companion, Lewis. Never seen a body this old, have you, son?”
“No, sir.”
Harley laughed. “Plain-spoken child, I like that.” He gave Lewis an amused glance, then took a second look at Charlie, studying him top to toe.
“Taken on a family in your old age, Lewis?”
“No, no, this is one of Alma’s…This is Charlie. He’s gonna be with us.”
Harley nodded. Still clutching the towel, he padded over and held out his hand. Up close, he was tall, almost Lewis’s height, with high cheekbones and sharp features, and the large blue eyes wore a slight glint of amusement.
He had to bend over to shake hands. “Harley Fitzroy. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” A faint smell of liquor hung in the air between them. They shook, and the boy felt a warm surge of energy from the old man’s hand. Charlie found himself grinning.
“Handsome boy,” Harley muttered. “Can tell he’s not yours. Welcome to my humble digs.”
“You ever get my letter?”
“I did. So you’re gonna give it one more try, Lewis?”
“Thought it was about time. I’ve had seven years to think about it.”
Harley nodded and then realized he was still in the towel.
“Pardon the undignified state of my dress.” He went hopping across the room to where his clothes lay.
When Charlie turned around to peek, the old man was in a pair of pinkish longjohns
and pulling on the trousers of a black suit. He hobbled over to a mirror on the wall and buttoned his shirt, tied a rakish bow in a long black string tie, and slipped into a dark vest. Then he threw on his long-tailed coat and turned to face them, still barefoot. He looked like an undertaker fallen on hard times.
“Now we can talk business. Make me your most reckless offer.”
“Come on with me, Harley. It’ll be…”
“…just like the old days,” Harley finished. “That all you got, Lewis?”
“I got the biggest elephant I’ve ever seen and a fine herd of horses, biggest working herd of any circus. I wrote Lucy Brown,” Lewis said with a hopeful note.
“The lovely Lucy. Well, you can’t have a circus without a great equestrienne. That’d bring in the men and the horse-lovers.”
“I got a trained bear and an elephant. Got a couple of Mexican aerialists, I’m trying to locate Joseph Coates, wrote him, and Roy and Shirley as well. I’ve got a couple of your more or less curiosity acts. I’ve got a small menagerie that’ll be bigger in a month or so, llamas, antelope and zebras and buffalo and so on.”
Harley listened to Lewis’s recital with no expression, but Lewis watched the old man’s eyes, saw them narrow once or twice, saw the bright light sneak in at the mention of Roy and Shirley, Harley’s old friends, the clowns. All Lewis’s earlier nervousness was gone: this was simple five-card stud and Lewis knew his hole card.
“I think I’ve got the DePerczels coming in, and the Antoninis and Mr. Zheng. Got Clell Royce in my cookhouse.”
“Clell’s not dead?”
“No. Bullet missed the heart and other vital organs.”
“She won’t miss next time.” Harley craned forward. “Any mandrills in this one?”
Lewis smiled. “No, no mandrills. I’m getting a bit old for mandrills.”
“Huh. Took years off my life, I’ll tell you that. Figure you owe me for that alone, Lewis.”
“They were memorable…but no mandrills this time. Supposed to be seeing a few people, though, you know, about some other animals. Got to see a fella about a camel.”
“Camels are contentious beasts.”
“So are you,” Lewis said quietly. “Somebody put me in touch with this Russian fella. Interesting act.”
“What’s he do?’
“Strongman. A little…different. I haven’t actually seen the act, only talked to this fella that saw him once. Better you saw him than heard about him from me. And he says he’s got a guy trains cats.”
“Cats. Tigers? Lions? Jaguars?”
“No. I got a lion, Harley, but everybody’s got them. Lazy animals, overrated as an attraction. Come on, show some imagination. These’re the little ones.”
“Housecats?” the old man said. “Who’d be willing to pay to see housecats?”
“Ever see one trained?”
“No, ’cause it can’t be done. Fred Lemmon told you that.”
“Fred Lemmon thinks the world is flat. He just don’t want to admit that some little bitty tabby cat might be smarter than his lazy old lion.”
“This fellow says he trains housecats?” Harley asked.
“What he says. And of course, I got your other acts and attractions, your various oddities.”
“Lewis, it sounds to me like your whole show is ‘oddities.’”
“It’ll have character, I’ll tell you that.”
Harley looked down at his bare feet and considered what he had heard. Then he looked up. “And what are we doing for money, Lewis? You have backers for all this?”
Lewis nodded slowly and kept his smile inside. He’d heard Harley say “we.”
“I picked up a little here and there. I still have some of my old trucks, and we’re fixing up some other ones we come by. Got my own stock. I borrowed a little money and I sold off some of our herd at a profit, and I made a little money in a couple of card games, if you want to know the truth. So I’ve got a small bankroll.”
Harley Fitzroy nodded respectfully and then said, “In other words, you don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to toss it out of.” He glanced at Charlie. “Excuse my French, boy.”
Lewis grinned. “I guess not. But I’ve got the makings.”
“The makings. You know how old I am, Lewis?”
“Can’t nobody count that high.”
“I’m too old to go traipsing around the country with a circus full of crazy people and old men and—Sam Jeanette?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t be able to keep my herd without Sam.”
“Well, doesn’t make a bit of difference, Lewis, this is a fool’s errand, a bunch of grown men chasing around…”
Charlie watched Lewis nodding along with the magician’s complaints as though giving in to the great weight of his logic. He waited for Lewis to argue back, and just when it appeared that Lewis would let the whole matter drop, the boy saw a sly smile come to life.
Lewis waited for the old man to finish, sniffed, took a deep breath, thrust his hands in his pockets, and pretended to be thinking.
“It would be like old times, Harley. You and me and Shelby here, and maybe Lucy and the clowns…” Time to turn over the last card. “And the Red Ape.”
Harley stared at him with owlish eyes, blinked twice. “Now, I know he’s dead. If I see him again, I’ll know I’m dead, too.”
“Yes, but he left his mark on the world. I’ve got his, uh, offspring. He had a son.”
“The hell you say.”
“That’s what I told him,” Shelby offered.
“I have the son of Rex the Red Ape, Harley. I’ll give you private quarters again, and we’ll work out your salary…”
“I’m too old to be interested in money and whatever it can buy. If I want to get back into the circus life, Lewis, why I can sign on with Christy Brothers or Pawnee Bill or Ben Wallace or…”
“Those shows are all gone, Harley,” Lewis said quietly.
“Why, I can call up the Ringlings or John Robinson…”
“You can work anyplace, Harley, we both know that. But there’s no circus like a Lewis Tully circus. With me, you’ll have a high old time, and that’s the truth. And you know that as well.
“Come on, Harley. This where you want to spend the rest of your life? With Lizzie Borden downstairs?”
“Let me think on it.”
“Buy you breakfast.”
“A fine offer. I accept. Just let me finish dressing.”
The boy watched in fascination as Harley pulled on one long black tattered stocking and then a scuffed old boot. The second sock was at the far side of the table, and the boy was wondering how the old man was ever going to reach it when Harley turned slowly and fixed him with those enormous blue eyes. The pupils seemed to cloud over slightly, and Harley smiled, and one long papery eyelid came down in a wink. He rubbed his fingers lightly across the near end of the table, back and forth quickly, made a beckoning motion, and the sock slid across the tabletop.
Charlie heard himself gasp and he took a step back. He looked to see if the two men had noticed, but they appeared to be peering at a handwritten map.
When they were ready to go, Harley stopped and said, “Wait, something in the boy’s hair, something disgusting.” Charlie froze as the magician’s fingers went plowing through his scalp, and felt his face redden when the magician produced a tiny greyish egg.
“Been keeping chickens, boy?”
“No.” He felt gingerly across the top of his head. He grinned. “You’re a good magician.”
“There’s an old chestnut, Harley,” Lewis said. “The folks never seem to get tired of that one. Yes, Charlie, I told you he was special.”
Harley shrugged. “Every magician can do that one. Me, I saw the brilliant Jacob Roundtree do it, and he did it without an egg.”
“What?” Shelby fro
wned.
“Did it without an egg to start with. There was no egg.”
“I don’t get it,” Shelby said.
“We were three days out of Laramie, Wyoming, wasn’t an egg to be had anywhere, no egg to be palmed, but he managed that trick.”
Lewis put his hands on his hips. “Old Jacob’s long gone.”
“No, sir. I would have heard.”
“Here? How?”
“There was a closeness amongst some of us, Lewis. We all knew when Hendrick Barnswallow went to his reward.”
“Who was he?” Charlie asked.
“He was the greatest magician of them all. Had the gift of healing.” The old man looked off into the far corner of his room.
“He could make you see what wasn’t there, could move heavy objects without touching them, he could tame the creatures of the wild with a look. It is said he could make gold from a dusty rock. At least that’s what Jacob Roundtree always contended.”
Charlie pointed to Lewis. “He says you’re the greatest magician there ever was.”
“He is a constant embarrassment to me, boy. And now, I’d appreciate that breakfast, Lewis.”
***
They huddled around the desk, and the hard-faced woman produced a bill.
“Saw you bringing out that trunk, so I added up what you owe.” She handed the bill to Harley, a thin sheet of paper covered by long columns of figures that meandered the length of the page and met at the bottom like the Blue and the White Nile.
Harley pushed his glasses back on his nose, studied the page, and gasped. He clutched at his heart and his legs went rubbery. Lewis took the bill from the old man and frowned at it.
“Not meaning to be impolite, ma’am, but he wouldn’t get a bill like this from the Palmer House in Chicago.”
The woman leaned an elbow on the desk and craned forward.
“Are you saying I’m trying to cheat somebody?”
“Trying? No, ma’am, it doesn’t look to me like you’re trying.”
“I got my expenses, my supplies, heating and water and all.”
Lewis looked at the bill. “Housekeeping?” He shot a glance at Harley. “She ever come near that place with a broom?”
The Blue Moon Circus Page 4