by T. Greenwood
Sally shook her head, but her eyes widened in wonder. How did Lena know this? It was like she had peeked inside the trailer window, or a window in Sally’s mind. Like she was a spy. Was it possible she was a spy? What if Lena was with the FBI?
“Don’t worry,” Lena said. “I won’t go telling nobody your secrets. But I will tell you one thing. Ain’t nobody got a right to touch a little girl like that. Especially not your own daddy.”
Sally felt her throat close in around all those words she wasn’t allowed to say.
“You should come with us,” Lena said, a smile spreading across her face.
“What?” Sally asked.
“Join the circus! We’re all unusual in the circus.” Lena threw her head back with laughter and then stood up and walked around the edge of the pool, ignoring the stares of the other residents as she climbed atop the diving board and executed the most graceful dive.
Lena came back to where Sally was now sitting with Tex curled up in her lap. She wrapped herself in a threadbare towel and leaned down, whispering in Sally’s ear. The cold chlorinated water dripped onto Sally’s bare leg and onto the puppy, whose eyes were still sealed shut. “We’re headed to Texarkana next. Making our way east. You just say the word, sweetheart.”
East. She’d studied the maps in Mr. Warner’s glove box, memorized the route that would take her back home, knowing even as she committed the highways to memory that it was a futile endeavor. That home was wherever Mr. Warner, Frank La Salle, took her.
“What about Tex?” Sally asked, motioning to the brown little puppy.
“Well, he’ll come along, too, of course,” she said.
Then Lena was gone, swinging her hips and tossing her hair, blowing kisses at the bitter-faced lady who gawked at her as she walked by.
* * *
That night, Mr. Warner took her to the circus. They walked from the Good Luck to the field down the street where the giant tent was set up. They could see it all the way from Commerce Street, its red and white stripes illuminated in the night. He insisted on holding her hand tightly as they crossed the busy streets, though she knew it wasn’t for her safety. She wasn’t a little girl anymore.
They walked past the sideshow tents with their painted signs: THE AMAZING LOBSTER BOY, THE HEADLESS WOMAN, WINSOME WINNIE, FAT AND PRETTY. It took her a moment to realize that MAGDELENA, THE BEARDED LADY OF LUXEMBOURG, was Lena.
“Step right up!” the barker at the main tent’s entrance said. He was wearing a bright red shirt and a faded velvet coat with tails.
Mr. Warner handed him some coins, and the man motioned grandly for them to go inside.
Outside, the sky was dark and filled with stars, but inside the tent, it was as bright as daylight. Without letting go of her hand, Mr. Warner led her up the bleachers until they were peering down at the spectacle below.
He called the boy over, the usher selling paper bags stuffed with buttery popcorn and candy.
“We’ll take one of each,” he said. “Popcorn and some Chuckles. You like Chuckles, Sally? And a Budweiser for me, if it’s cold.”
“No beer. Just Coca-Cola,” the boy said. “Cold as ice.”
Frank scowled, but it didn’t matter; she knew he had a flask in his pocket.
The paper container of popcorn had an illustrated giraffe imprinted on it. She wondered if there would be giraffes. It seemed like anything might be possible here.
Another vendor came stomping up the bleacher steps hollering, “Peanuts, peanuts, live chameleons!”
Sally’s eyes widened as she watched the little boy in front of her hand over fifty cents. In exchange, he was given an actual living lizard. Around its neck was a thin red ribbon, at the end of which was a gold safety pin. She watched as the vendor demonstrated how to pin the ribbon to your shirt.
“That way, he can’t git away from y’all,” the usher said, and nodded smugly.
“You want one of them, Sally?” Frank asked, nudging her.
She shook her head, feeling sick.
But then the lights began to flash, the spotlight seeking out the little man in a tall top hat named Oscar. “Ladies and gents, boys and girls!” he boomed. “Welcome to the Big Top!”
Mesmerized, she didn’t know where to look. Overhead, trapeze artists swung like glittery birds in the sky. Below, there were three rings, something magical happening inside each. In one, a giant elephant (Peanut’s mother?) balanced on a tiny pedestal. In another, three clowns tumbled in circles, throwing cream pies at each other’s faces and honking each other’s bright red noses. She looked on with wonder and amusement, afraid she might miss something if she dared to blink. When the lights dimmed, a spotlight shone on the center ring, a tiger inside a giant cage. It was pacing, pacing back and forth as Oscar taunted it. She held her breath as she watched Oscar release the latch, setting the tiger free, covered her eyes as the animal lunged, teeth bared, at Oscar. Something inside her nearly snapped when he cracked his whip, taming the beast into submission again.
She had to look away, but when she did, she saw the boy who’d bought the lizard. The tiny chameleon had crawled up onto his captor’s shoulder. She had read a book once in Mrs. Appleton’s class about chameleons, and she knew they were supposed to change color, to blend in to their environment to protect themselves. But the boy’s shirt was white, and the chameleon was green, bright green, almost like he wanted to be found.
Later that night, when Mr. Warner yanked at her clothes, at her hair, at her body, she dreamed she was on a trapeze, flying high above the clouds, with the greatest of ease: the breeze in her hair, her shimmering glimmering body awash in lights. Sparkling and beautiful. A living firefly.
Maybe this was the answer. Lena had invited her, asked her to come along. She could slip away in the night, ride the circus train to wherever they were going. She could learn to walk the tightrope, to swing from the trapeze. She could wear the seamed fishnet stockings, the sequined leotards. She could learn how to ride atop the elephants. She could swallow swords or breathe fire.
When he collapsed, breathless and heavy, stinking of cigarettes and liquor and the sour awful smell that she suspected was the scent of his awful soul, she began to dream her escape.
In the dark, all through the night, she schemed. Soon when Mr. Warner was gone to work, she’d go to Lena. Tell her everything. It was terrifying, but she trusted Lena. She loved her. And Lena would take care of her, take her away. She couldn’t go home, maybe not ever, but she didn’t have to stay here. As she drifted off to sleep, she dreamed the sharp razor edge of the tightrope stretched between here and anywhere else. Underneath a glittering, big top sky.
SAMMY
This time when the police showed up at Sammy’s place in Baltimore, they had a warrant in hand. And even though Frankie and the girl were long gone, Sammy was trembling when he answered the door.
He sat at the kitchen table as they searched the rooms above him; he could hear their boots and muffled conversation. He heard them climbing higher, up to the third-floor attic room, and he felt his lunch turn in his stomach.
After Frank and Florence left, he’d cleaned out the attic room. Filled a trash bag with the things Frankie left behind: matchbooks, swizzle sticks, a broken watch, and dull razor blades. The girl’s drawer, though, made him pause. He didn’t know what he thought would be inside. She was just a little girl; maybe candy wrappers or a windup toy? A tangled Slinky or a rusty tambourine? But when he pulled the drawer open, swollen with the humidity, it was empty, save a tin with two or three rubbers inside.
He hadn’t known what to do; he’d nearly thrown them across the room in disgust. Reeling, he’d gone to the bed and yanked off the sheets, gathering them in his arms, disgusted by whatever Frank had been doing in that room. Repulsed that he’d allowed it.
When the cops came downstairs again, empty-handed, he could have shrugged, seen them out. He could have sent them on their way. But it was what he’d found in that drawer that stopped him. That dusty drawe
r, empty now as if she’d never existed at all.
“Thank you, Mr. DePaulo,” the older officer said, tipping his hat.
The other followed behind, shoulders stooped.
“Wait,” Sammy said.
Sour bile crept up the back of his throat, and he went to the sink. As the cops waited for him, he turned on the faucet and filled a smudged glass with water.
“They were here,” he said, swallowing hard. “Course I didn’t know anything about the girl. Who she was. He told me she was his kid. His stepkid.”
“And?” the stoop-shouldered cop said, straightening. “Where did he go?”
“You might see if you can track down somebody named Joey Bonds,” he said. “That was the name he mentioned. Before they left.”
“Bonds?”
“Yeah. Somebody he knew from the pen.”
“And where might we find this Joey Bonds?”
The realization that he’d just ratted Frankie out hit him.
“Well?” the tall one demanded.
Sammy nodded. “I heard there was a reward? Five hundred dollars?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” the older man said, scowling. “But we’re not in the business of giving rewards to people who harbor fugitives.”
“Tell us where to find this Bonds character,” the tall one said. “Or we might come back with a new warrant. One for your arrest.”
Sammy sighed. And he thought about Frankie, that sick bastard. “Out west somewhere,” he said.
“How far west are we talking? Pittsburgh or California?” the older one demanded.
Sammy sighed. “Texas, I think.”
“That’s a big state.”
Sammy nodded. “Not that big.”
LENA
It was true, what Lena had told Florence. About her own daddy. Lena knew it the second she saw him, that old man Frank with his skinny ass and bowlegs. His long jaw and shifty eyes. Goddamn sex pervert. People might call Lena a freak, but that wicked man was a true freak if she ever saw one.
Lena had been a normal girl once, just like Florence (a name that sounded made up to her, but who was she to talk … she herself had been born Lorraine). Twelve years old with a freckle face and red hair, scabby knees, and nothing but sweetness. And she’d had a pervert daddy, too, who had his way with her while her mama turned a blind eye. Though of course nobody would suspect a minister of being a monster.
But then when she turned thirteen and breasts started to bloom on her chest and hair started to sprout from between her legs, it began to grow from her chin, too. And he’d thought that the devil himself had come to live inside his daughter. When he’d called upon God to cast her out, she’d spat in his face and said maybe he was the one that put that demon seed inside her. Secretly she thought it might just be Mother Nature’s way of protecting her. Because the second her voice deepened and she grew whiskers, her daddy wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole. Of course nobody else would, either. Her mama spurned her. Her brothers and sisters suffered the most (the cruelty of children is notorious but still always mystifying). And so she packed up her bags and headed west, didn’t look back even once.
She began with a small sideshow circuit but got snatched up by the big-time, big-top folks when they got a look at her gams. She had legs that went on for miles.
Over the years, she’d made it her business to welcome the newcomers: her fellow freaks who flocked to the circus like penitents to the cross. She became the mother her own mother never was. Her arms were as long as her legs, and she used them to embrace the whole damn damaged world.
* * *
Someone knocked at her door. She thought it might be Florence, but when the door opened, it was just Oscar.
“Hey, Lena, time to skedaddle,” he whispered. He was a three-foot-tall silhouette, the moon just a sliver behind him.
It was the middle of the night, which meant trouble. An altercation between one of the circus folks and a rube, probably. They weren’t supposed to leave for Texarkana for another week, but they were a family, and they moved along together. Time to get out of town. Ready or not.
She thought about going and waking Florence, but how could she with that man standing guard like a dog baring his teeth? There was no way she could get past him, no way to save her. Not tonight.
“Hurry up,” Oscar said, tapping an impatient foot against the dusty ground.
She gathered her clothes, her few belongings. She tidied up the trailer as best she could in the dim light. It pained Lena to leave Florence there; her heart ached as she walked past the LaPlantes’ trailer. The only comfort she had was the certainty that the circus would come back (they always came back), and if that poor child was still here with her bruised cheeks and sorrowful eyes, she’d snatch her up next time.
Before she left, she glanced up at that glittering sky and made a wish, for Florence, on the brightest star.
RUTH
Florence came knocking on Ruth’s trailer door not five minutes after Hank took off for work the next morning. She was frantic, banging her knuckles against the door.
“Sweet Jesus,” Ruth said, ushering her into the trailer. “What’s the matter, honey?”
Florence paced back and forth across the floor.
“Where did they go?” the girl cried.
“Who?”
“The circus people,” she said, her gaze shifting frantically from Ruth to the door and back again. “Lena.”
“Well, I assume they all are headed on to the next town by now.”
“Texarkana?”
“I suppose?” Ruth said. “Why?”
“I was gonna … I was hoping…,” she started, but then her expression turned from disbelief to resignation. “I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.”
Ruth had seen Florence with Lena by the pool a few times. She figured the woman was just being friendly. Lena had found out that Ruth did hair and had come by just the other day to get her hair done. Ruth had asked her if she might like to have anything waxed or plucked, and she’d laughed so hard she said she needed to use her little girls’ room. Ruth didn’t judge people. “Live and let live” was her motto.
“Will they come back?” Florence asked, sniffling a little.
“Next summer, I suppose,” Ruth said.
“Oh,” Florence said softly. Sadly.
“She’s your friend?”
“Yeah, she’s real nice. She let me try on her high heels once. We wear the same size. She said I’d make a good flyer, you know, on the trapeze? On account of how brave I am.” She stuck her chin out just a bit when she said this, and it made Ruth’s heart ache.
“You are brave,” Ruth said. “Just like that girl Francie in the book I gave you.”
Florence’s eyes lit up. “I am?”
“You are.”
* * *
Ruth invited Florence to stay for supper. She’d heard arguing coming from the LaPlante trailer the other night and had a bad feeling that Frank was responsible for that bruise underneath Florence’s eye. She also had a sneaking suspicion that Florence didn’t want to talk about it. The men were still at work, so the two sat out at the picnic table and ate the oven-fried chicken Ruth had learned how to make when she and Hank first got married.
It was quiet now without the circus folks here. Summer would be over before she knew it, and with the changing of the seasons would come the harvest. Normally, she and Hank would be hitching their trailer to their truck following the crops, but he had a steady job now, plus she liked it here and hoped that for once, they might just stay put.
“Florence, you know you need anything at all, you can come to me,” Ruth said. “I know I ain’t nearly as glamorous as that girl Lena, but I got a soft shoulder to cry on. If you ever need it.”
Florence nodded, her chin dimpling.
“I also got a nice cold steak to put on that bump you got there. It’ll take the sting out and help it heal faster.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Florence said, and Ruth
stood up, grabbing their empty plates to go inside. She reached into the icebox and found the steak she’d planned to cook up to send to work with Hank tomorrow. She brought it outside and helped Florence apply it to that damaged eye.
“And you tell your daddy…,” she started. “You tell him you ain’t nothing but a little girl. He ain’t got no right. What kind of daddy…”
“He ain’t my daddy,” Florence said, and then her hand flew to her mouth as if she might be able to catch the words that just flew out.
“What do you mean, he ain’t your daddy?” Ruth asked. Her stomach felt leaden, sinking.
“Nothin’,” she said, standing up quickly. “I only mean, I don’t call him that.” The steak fell to the ground, and Ruth quickly picked it up and brushed off the grass and dirt. But before she could press it to Florence’s eye again, the girl had stood up.
“Thank you for your hospitality. I best be getting home. My father will be home from work real soon. Plus, I wanna keep reading that book. I really like it.”
Ruth didn’t sleep at all that night. Her ears were trained on the sounds of the night. Without the lowing elephants and the accordion laments, the trailer court was quiet enough to hear the hissing of both the snakes that lived at the edges and the snakes that lived among them.
SALLY
It felt to Sally like the author had written her life on those pages. Francie Nolan was from Brooklyn, not Camden, of course, but the streets could have been the same. New York wasn’t far from New Jersey at all. And even though it was 1949 now, and Francie was alive at the beginning of the century, their hearts were the same. They both had musician daddies who drank too much. Both of their families had to struggle to just get by. Sally’s mama sewed, and Francie’s was a janitress. Like Sally, Francie’s daddy died when she was still just a girl.
The women in the story could be so unkind to one another. So cruel. When that poor young unwed mother went out to walk her baby and the other women started throwing stones at her, it made Sally think of those girls back home, their secret sisterhood and their cruel taunts. She thought about the way they’d left her there when Mr. Warner caught her with the notebook. The fact that not a single one of them stuck around. She ached with every sentence. Every truth it seemed that the author had captured.