by Ninie Hammon
“… a feller whose whole body—well, all you could see of it and that was more’n was decent—was covered in tattoos he got in the jungles of Borneo where—
“And you b’lieve that? I bet they painted them tattoos on him this afternoon; paint’s pro’ly still wet.”
“… I have a bag of peanuts? Mary Lou got peanuts!”
“… a lady snake charmer with snakes wrapped all …”
“… ain’t gonna win nothin’. Them game’s rigged sure as …”
Music from a calliope at the far end of the field mixes with the laughter, applause, and squeals of kids inside the big tent where the show’s already started. It costs another twenty-five cents to go into the big tent and Princess has only a little money left. When the money runs out, so does the time. Besides, Princess is just fine with the sights and smells and sounds all around her—that’s show enough.
She wanders down the midway past wagons painted purple with gold trim and sunburst wheels. Each has got the same words printed on it that hung above the gate where the man took her dime and handed her a ticket: Trimboli Brothers Circus, The Greatest Show on Earth. Says the same thing on the ticket stub and she kept it. Just the one ticket. Angel got in free, her being so little.
Princess and Angel stroll by red-and-white-striped concession stands with glasses of lemonade stacked in pyramids, banners with pictures of gigantic snakes, roaring lions, clowns, and one of an enormously fat woman dressed in nothing a’tall but colored feathers. One banner promises Wonders Gathered From the Four Corners of the Globe. Another proclaims See The Amazing Oddities And Freaks of Nature.
Princess turns and leads Angel away from that one, the one that talks about freaks.
A barker hollers, “Step right up, right this way. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! Ring the bell and win a teddy bear!”
They stop to watch. A young farm boy takes his shirt off and hands it to his girlfriend, who stands there giggling, holding the shirt out from her like you’d hold a dead mouse by the tail. The boy spits in the palm of one hand, then the other, takes the sledgehammer and waggles it around, gettin’ the feel of it. Then he raises it high in the air and slams it down on a beat-up metal plate with a thunderous Bam!
The impact fires a red metal circle up the pole. It flies up toward the bell… then slows, stops, and settles back down. The boy groans, the girl sighs, the barker takes the hammer and says, “C’mon, son, you can do it. Win your girl a bear.” He lowers his voice. “I’ll make you a special deal. One try for a nickel; three tries for ten cents.”
Princess and Angel move on as the boy deposits a dime in the barker’s palm and a gob of spit in his own.
Every breath draws in a different smell carried on the evening breeze. Corn popping. Peanuts roasting. Crushed grass and crushed lemons. Dust. And the underlying stink of warm piles of manure.
“You hungry, honey?” she asks Angel.
When the child nods her head, her rust-colored curls dance on her shoulders.
“You want some ice cream? It’s real good!”
“Ice ceem!” The child fairly sings the word, dancing up and down with excitement.
Princess lets go of Angel’s hand, checks to make sure no one’s standing nearby, and digs down into the pocket on her flour-sack shift, the right front pocket. She made sure to put the key to the car in her left pocket and the money in her right. She is being very careful. She pulls the zippered change purse out and opens it just wide enough to see the money stuffed down in it. She counted it this morning, soon’s she woke up, curled around Angel in the back seat of the big Ford car she’d covered with brush down a dirt road a couple of miles from town.
She’d sneaked $20 out of Jackson’s front overalls pocket. A whole week’s wages at the sawmill ’cept what he’d drunk up at Shakey’s Tavern that night. And when he found out what she’d done … no, she couldn’t think about that now or she’d start to tremblin’ and have a fit sure.
What she has left after almost two weeks on the run is $2.05—a one-dollar bill, a fifty-cent piece, a quarter and three dimes. She’d brought food along with a few belongings in the knapsack she made out of a flour sack: apples, cheese, some vegetables and cold cornbread, and they’d eaten that for two days in the boxcar. Then she’d had to buy what they ate: bread and milk, some lunchmeat, and other necessities. And one day they’d even had two bowls of soup and sodas in a diner.
She selects the quarter, zips the purse shut, and shoves it down deep into her pocket. Then she leads Angel to the booth where a man is selling pink and blue globs of cotton candy rolled up on the end of paper sticks, big sacks of popcorn, and ice cream cones.
“What’ll you have, little missy?” the man asks Angel. Adults always talk to her, always stare at her.
“Ice cream,” Princess answers for her. “Hon, what flavor you want, the chocolate or vanilla?”
“Ice ceeem!” Angel squeals, all smiles, glowing bright as a coal in a wood stove.
“She’ll have chocolate. How much?”
“They’re fifteen cents apiece, two for a quarter. Sure you don’t want two of ’em?” The man’s old, with greasy gray hair, and he doesn’t smell good. He has that look in his eyes that people get when they’re looking at you but not really. Like they’re worn out and just starin’ and you happen to be standin’ where they’re starin’.
“No thanks, just the chocolate.”
She drops the quarter into the man’s dirty, outstretched palm and takes the ice cream cone he hands to her with the dime change. She gives Angel the cone, and while she puts the dime back into her coin purse the child takes a big bite, gets a ring of chocolate around her mouth and a gob of it on the end of her nose.
“Ice ceem!” she says, her tongue all chocolatey, and takes another bite.
“Don’t eat it too fast or it’ll make your head hurt.”
Angel feels the piece of ice cream on her nose, reaches up to pluck it off, and ends up smearing it on her cheek instead.
Inside ten seconds, the child’s face is coated in chocolate.
Princess throws her head back and laughs out loud at the sight. That’s when she spots the photo booth, up next to a telephone pole beside the fat-lady banner. There was a booth just like it in the Woolworth’s store where she and Mama used to live in Texas. Four pictures for fifty cents. That’s a lot of money, but … Then it occurs to her that she must get a picture, no matter how much it costs, that nothing is as important as a photo—even if she has to spend all the money she has left.
“Come on, Angel, we’re gonna get our pictures took!”
Three teenage girls stand outside the booth, holding a strip of pictures, giggling over it, as they approach.
“Your eyes are shut in all four of ‘em,” the pretty blonde tells the pudgy brunette.
“I can’t help it, I always blink in pictures.”
They see Princess coming and step out of her way, looking at her. She reads in their eyes what they see—a girl with her lanky hair all tangled, wearing a patched flour-sack dress and no shoes, holding onto a sticky-faced, barefoot toddler wearin’ worn-out pants rolled up ’cause they’re too long.
She knows they’ve branded her and Angel white trash. The teenagers move out of the way like maybe it’s catching.
Princess steps into the booth and pulls the ragged black curtain closed, sets Angel on her lap, and carefully reads the instructions. She pulls the fifty-cent piece from her coin purse, focuses on the spot that says “Look right here,” and drops the coin into the slot.
“Smile, Angel!”
A buzzer sounds, followed by a flashing light. The combination surprises Angel and she turns away and buries her head in Princess’s chest.
“It’s okay, honey.” The buzzer again and the light. Angel tunes up to cry.
“No, sugar …” Princess lifts the child so their faces are side-by-side. “Now, sm—”
The buzzer and the flashing light fire again and Angel wails and drops her ice cream cone.
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She reaches down for it as the buzzer and light go off a final time.
“Aw, sugar, you can’t eat it now, it’s dirty.”
“Ice ceeeem!” She’s crying hard now, squirming to reach the ice cream cone stuck ice-cream-side-down on the floor of the booth.
“I’ll get you another one, a clean one. You can’t eat that dirty ole thing; it’ll make you sick.”
She pushes the curtain back and lifts the crying, wiggling child up into her arms. The teenagers are still standing there, just looking at her as Angel wails and she tries to comfort her.
“Hush now, sweetie pie. I’ll get you another one.”
She heads off toward the ice cream booth and gets almost there when somebody taps her on the shoulder from behind. She turns—Angel’s screaming—and one of the teenagers is standing behind her.
“You forgot your pictures.” The chubby, dark-haired girl holds out a strip of paper with four photos on it. “Just came out of the machine.” She offers a little half smile.
“Thank you,” Princess mumbles, and looks into the girl’s eyes for a moment. The girl’s not pretty like the others so she knows. Then Princess rushes off to get Angel some more ice cream.
She doesn’t even look at the pictures until much later.
Princess picked up the worn strip of photographic paper bearing the four pictures and stroked it lovingly. It was the only possession she had that mattered to her, and she stared at the pictures every day. She could see them crisp and clear as the day they were taken, but only with her heart.
The first picture showed the hollow-eyed face of a teenage girl with horrible bumps and yellow pimples on her sallow skin and stringy, tangled, straight blond hair. Mama always called the color “dishwater blonde.” The girl was holding an angel in her arms. The little girl had dark curls and chocolate ice cream smeared around her mouth and on her chubby cheeks. Her little tongue was stuck out, ready to lick the ice cream cone in her hand.
The second picture showed the same teenage girl, her face surprised and full of concern, and the back of little girl’s head, her curls hanging all the way down to her waist.
But the third picture! Ah, the third picture was the one Princess treasured. Two faces, side by side. The angel and the teenager. Sticky beauty and adoring love.
The fourth image was blurred by movement.
Didn’t matter anymore if it was blurred or not. All the images were gone, had long since faded away. Nothing remained on the strip of paper but the dark background and the ghosts of two people. Her face was a blank smudge with dark spots where her eyes should have been; Angel was completely invisible.
That was as it should be. Angel—completely invisible. She touched the third empty frame with her finger, stroked it gently.
And that’s when the darkness came. Her memories, the precious ones, were balls of light. But there were other ones that were balls of darkness. As the precious memories could light up a room, the dark memories could suck the light out of it. Dark memories could open up at noon on a sunshiny day and darkness would flow out of them, eat up all the light until it was just like being blind.
Dark and cold—freezing cold.
When that happened, Princess usually had a fit. The darkness and the cold were part of the fit. She’d wake up later and she’d wet herself—messed her pants, sometimes, too—and it’d be over and she didn’t remember much of it.
But this time, the dark memory came and she didn’t have a fit. She sat there in the blackness as the first shaft of morning sunshine streamed through the window. She shivered in the freezing cold of her memory on a May morning and saw herself back at the circus.
The calliope’s playing, kids are squealing inside the big tent, and there’s music coming from one of the side tents, the one with the fat lady banner on it. It’s Perry Como singing “A: You’re Adorable.” But it’s all muted, sounds like she’s got her fingers in her ears. She can’t smell the popcorn or the roasted peanuts or the dust and manure, either.
She feels empty, all airy inside. Just walking all alone through the crowd toward the flashing lights on the top of the marquee over the gate.
People look at her funny. They glance, then they stare and back away. Some of them point. But she just keeps walking toward the lights. Staring up at them, flashing red and yellow and green, waiting for the lights to work their magic. When they do, the world goes dark.
After that, there are just still images. In black and white, like the frames on the photographic paper that she’d paid fifty cents for in that photo booth the day before.
Flash! She’s lying on the ground looking up at the crowd of people staring down at her. There’s a policeman there. The one who wanted to know her name, where she was from. And how she got all that blood all over her dress.
Flash! She’s in a room with policemen all around her. There’s a table in the room, and on the table is Angel’s dress, the pretty, lacy one Jackson brought home in the box, the store-bought dress. It’s torn and dirty and there’s blood all over it. There’s a bloody ax on the table, too, and stuck to it is a big hunk of hair. Long hair. Auburn curls.
Flash! Jackson’s face. Just his face, contorted in a wild-eyed cramp of rage. Like a monster, a devil, Satan himself. But there are bars between her and the face. Bars that keep him out. And her in.
There was a sudden clunking sound. The darkness leapt back and the room was instantly flooded with light so bright Princess had to squint her eyes from the glare.
“Prentiss?” It was the guard. Lucille Talbot, the nice guard with the soft voice.
“Yes ma’am.” Princess rubbed her eyes, but she still couldn’t see good yet.
“I come to find out what you’re gonna want to eat Friday evenin’.”
The big black woman was standing outside Princess’s cell, holding the food slot open and talking through it.
“Your last meal. What’ll it be? Anything you want. Well, it can’t cost mor’n five dollars ’cause that’s all the state’ll pay.” She stopped, then added, “You know what, you just order whatever you want. I’ll see you get anything you ask for.”
“I want me a hamburger.”
“Aw, you don’t want—”
“I do! I want a hamburger and French fries. With catsup. I seen the pictures in that magazine you give me.”
“You mean one of those McDonald’s hamburgers? I’m going to McAlester on Thursday. I could pick you up one. ’Course it’d be cold by the time—”
“I don’t care if it’s cold, I want me one of those,” Princess said. She had no idea what a McDonald’s hamburger might be.
“Anything else?”
“Uh huh." She smiled at the sparkles from the golden memory that floated in the air all around her. "I want a great big chocolate ice cream cone.”
Chapter 3
Maggie was sitting up in bed, rocking back and forth, talking to her own reflection in the big mirror on the dresser across from the bed. Jonas had cleaned her up, changed her diaper and got her into a fresh nightgown, then propped her up on pillows. He could hear her as he made himself a pot of coffee.
“Salad… Salad… Salad…” she droned, her voice lifeless.
He shook his head. “Where did she come up with—?”
And then it started, harsh and rasping, like she was possessed. His beautiful Maggie let fly a string of expletives, filthy, disgusting obscenities. Jonas squeezed his eyes shut; tears leaked down his cheeks. He wanted to stick his fingers in his ears and chant like a little kid, “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” But, of course, he could hear her. Had been listening to the gutter-talk day and night for months. He couldn’t take her anywhere anymore because of it.
When they were first married, she’d refused to speak to him for a whole day after he smashed his thumb with a hammer hanging a picture and muttered “dammit” under his breath. Now, there wasn’t nothing she wouldn’t say, cursed worse than any man he’d ever heard. Tossed the F word around like she was thr
owing feed to chickens.
“I planted a rosebush by the front gate. Salad. Salad.”
Jonas let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. Even smiled a little bit. Shoot, they’d never had a flower garden. And even if they had, Maggie wouldn’t have planted nothing in it. She didn’t like to get her hands dirty, always told him she’d let him do the planting and growing and she’d take what the good Lord provided in his bounty and make soup out of it.
He didn’t know who she was talking to, either. Sometimes she talked to a woman she called Susan. Far as he knew, Maggie didn’t know anybody named Susan.
“Don’t you shake that rug out—you hear me, Becky!”
Apparently somebody else had come to call today.
“Shake it out and I’ll ...” And more expletives.
Jonas took a mug out of the cabinet, set it on the countertop and began to pour coffee into it, hearing the sound of her voice but trying to block out the ugliness and vulgarity. Some days she cursed almost non-stop the whole time she was awake. Other days, she was quiet and morose and wouldn’t utter a word, just weird sounds, grunts, and moans.
In the beginning, there was a kind of internal logic to what she said when she babbled. She might be talking to people who weren’t really there or about things that happened half a century ago, but a person overhearing it wouldn’t necessarily think there was anything wrong.
Anymore, most of what she said was filthy, foul-mouthed nonsense.
Jonas stared out the kitchen window at the fields and the hills beyond. He was a tall man—6 feet 3 when he was young, but he’d shrunk since then—big-boned and lanky, wearing well worn bib overalls, a chambray shirt, and clunky work boots.
He had to lean over just a little to see through the red-checked curtains over the sink—the black dirt, the thistles purple in the fence rows, and the powdered sugar dusting of Queen Anne’s lace in the ditch beside the road. He’d looked at that view every day of his life, had been born in the big bedroom on the front of the house upstairs, the one he and Maggie used to share before she got where she couldn’t climb stairs, and he’d always aimed to die in this house.