Of course they discuss all this in detail for the audience before they start fighting.
That’s all part of the kung fu, talking about using it.
Then, the fight starts. The bigger clown steps forward and delivers a big graceful spin kick, which the little wiry one blocks handily, and counters with a head-butt. The big one flies across the ring and lands hard.
They run toward each other, arms hanging to the side, limp, like orangutans, until they meet center stage, throwing punches in Mad Monkey Style. Their blows come faster and faster until it’s a girly-looking slap fight.
They both realize this and try to recover their dignity.
I tricked you. I threw in some Mall-Fight Style, and you fell for it. Fool! Says the smaller one.
The bigger one has no imagination and can’t think of a clever comeback.
They keep going like this. They run up walls and up each other to turn flips. They yell hi-ya! and Take that! and insult each other’s kung fu and manhoods and hairstyles. They whip around like a couple of fighting spaghetti noodles, striking and dodging until both slump against each other, heaving and panting, still hurling insults.
Your mother is a bearded bag lady!
Your mother looks like the Crypt Keeper and a hammerhead shark had a baby!
Then silence when they remember they share a mother. And is that the turning point of the show? Let’s say it is. Let’s say in the end the brothers put aside the war and remember that they are brothers and decide forever more to watch each other’s backs with Cobra Style and Possum Style kung fu. Let’s say they retire the Mad Monkey Style forever and make amends while they sit side by side, sweaty, but without so much as a split lip between them. Because they were so evenly matched.
And because, you know, this is comedy.
CHAPTER 20
WHEN THEY PULLED THE PACKING out of Adrienne’s nose, she thought for sure some of her brain would come with it. The packing was saturated with fluid, having soaked up the wetness inside of her head, from her nostril to her frontal lobe. And even though it had been several weeks since her surgery, it seemed the packing had been soaking up her thoughts as well because as soon as they tugged it from her skull, her mind’s pace quickened, and all the fragments became real, whole memories. They were just facts before this, disconnected bits of time and action—Henry’s mouth and Caleb’s hand and Curtis’s collar folded into her hand before she flung him. Now that the packing lay like a long slug in the dish beside the nurse’s instruments, Adrienne began to remember the events prior to her surgery as meaningful, as something that had bearing on her past and her future.
On the way home, riding next to her husband, she understood that he had left the circus to be with her. She had punched through his painting, and he’d come back. A boy had kissed her, and she had not stopped it. And Caleb still came back. He was here, now, driving her home from the hospital and asking her how it felt to have the cotton out of her brain and saying things like, “Are you okay? Do you need a pillow? Do you want the window down? Your hair up? Really, is your nose okay?”
She gave him short, calm answers to these questions. Nothing hurt. She didn’t need any air. Her hair was fine.
The things that were bothering her had nothing to do with physical pain, but rather the disturbing feeling that she had lost time, had just come out of a sort of haze. What really haunted her was the conversation she’d had with Henry right before he’d left their house on the night he’d kissed her.
She asked Caleb, “Do you know about Henry’s mother?”
Caleb’s body immediately tensed. “I know she’s dead.”
Adrienne had told Caleb almost everything about the night Henry showed up at her door, except the part about him recognizing the Southern Blue van, and the things he’d told her about his mother. It wasn’t worth mentioning at the time, because it seemed to have nothing to do with Henry driving down and kissing her. As it turned out, dead Mrs. Bell, thought Adrienne, had everything to do with Henry driving down and kissing her. Dead Mrs. Bell had left a woman-shaped emptiness on the horizon where Henry’s eyes were continually focused, and Adrienne had accidentally stepped into this shadow.
She told Caleb about Mrs. Bell, now, how Mrs. Bell had dropped dead in her living room, right in front of her sons.
“That’s terrible,” Caleb mumbled. He furrowed his brow, then glanced at Adrienne in a pleading sort of way.
“I know you don’t want to talk about him, but this is really bugging me. Henry thinks it was his father’s fault or something, I guess, since their father was a lousy husband and made her anxious. But that’s a bit colorful, isn’t it? Being scared to death. Dying of a broken heart. Physically, though, it just doesn’t seem too likely.”
Her mind restored, she had a more viable theory to explain Henry’s mother’s death. Like Curtis, it seemed the man at Henry’s house that night made sales calls for Southern Blue cosmetics. During their marriage, Curtis had made a great deal of money selling door to door. But any idiot with a calculator could figure out he wasn’t making his whole living from the commission he got hocking mascara and bath salts.
THE CIRCUS LURCHED DOWN THE highway toward Indiana, accelerating out of rest stops and gas stations and going from zero to eighty in a matter of seconds, only to stop a few miles down the road so that someone else could use the restroom.
Someone, who was not Henry, let the cat out of the bag about this being Feely and Feinstein’s last season, and like any dying creature, the circus’s parts all conspired to slow its death.
But they blamed it on the chili dogs they had in Toronto.
Only Kylie and Henry had avoided sickness. Kylie bought a little bottle of vodka that smelled like hairspray and she nipped at it while she and Henry played a slow game of go fish.
Earlier that morning, Kylie had shown Henry an idea she had been working on for an act: the climax was a sort of human slinky where Kylie would wrap her legs around Henry’s middle, and he would do a sort of back walk-over—but she was attached to him, so that meant that she was doing a front flip with Henry’s midsection as a starting point. Using the force of her flip, she could pull Henry over her, to his feet, and the centrifugal force would do the rest to propel them across the stage. They had rehearsed the actual stunt a few times, and it was not nearly as technically difficult as Kylie’s description first made it seem, but it required enormous upper and middle body strength that challenged even Henry. There were no mirrors for them to use to gauge how they really looked, but Henry could tell by the rhythm of the movement that they resembled, as Kylie had hoped, a human slinky.
“Wow,” Henry said. “I bet we look so weird! People will love this.”
The slinky stunt cemented the peace between Kylie and Henry. Not only did they avoid getting ill, but now, as they rode to St. Louis, they seemed to be radiating health.
As the circus continued to stutter-step its way down the interstate, the clowns kept their card game going, distracting themselves from the moaning and gagging coming from the cots that flanked them.
“Do you have any sevens?” asked Kylie. Henry handed her a card. She offered him some vodka, but he shook his head.
“I don’t get you. All underage people want to drink,” she said, looking at her cards.
“I don’t,” he said.
“Your parents drunks or something?”
“No,” he said.
“Do you have any twos?” she asked.
“Go fish,” he said.
As she reached for the deck, he pulled the two from the air next to her shoulder.
“Just kidding,” he said.
Kylie raised her eyebrows and snatched the card from Henry’s hand. “You know, I think I’ve got your number.”
“Of course you do. I just handed it to you.”
“I mean your metaphorical number, you shit. I’ve figured you out. I know what your problem is,” she said. She arranged her new pair neatly in front of her and organized the cards fan
ned out in her hand.
“Enlighten me,” he said. He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but he wasn’t angry. He was curious, wondering if she really did—if she knew him well enough to reveal something true about him.
“I don’t think I should say.”
Vroni began to roll around on her bunk and groan. This went on for a few minutes before she said, “I’m going to shit everywhere. I hate this place, and I’m dying, and I’m going to shit all over it!”
When no one responded to this, not even her sister, who lay prone next to her, rubbing the tops of her feet against the sheets for comfort, Vroni lay back down.
Then it was quiet, except for the occasional sniffle from Vroni, the snap of cards being laid on a table. Henry held up five fingers, and Kylie mimed the casting of a line.
THEY STOPPED TO REST IN a state park in Indiana, even though they were only a couple hours from St. Louis. They all decided they’d had enough of starting and stopping and smelling vomit.
After traveling all day, Henry had so much nervous energy that if he could have found a way to crawl out of his body, he would have. He insisted Kylie come with him to the playground to work on the slinky bit. They saw Lorne guide Tex out of her pen and lead her in large circles on top of a hill north of the playground. Back and forth he went, exercising each animal. The rest of the performers fell asleep or were still out at the community restrooms, getting sick, or taking showers.
After practicing the slinky twice, Kylie and Henry rested against the monkey bars. It was finally getting dark and cooling down and it chilled the sweat on their foreheads. Henry was about to suggest they call it quits when they heard Ambrosia’s whinny, high-pitched, like Henry had only heard horses make in Western movies. It was a startling noise, exploding in the air above the purr of cicadas.
“What was that?” asked Kylie.
“I don’t know,” he said, and shrugged. He felt a heat under his skin, like terror or embarrassment, or both. This expanding thing took the place of his breath, and he felt hot all over.
They heard the horse whinny again, and this time Henry could hear the muffled thud of something heavy colliding with her body. Kylie heard this, too, and strode toward the hill, her chin tilted up like a child trying to see over the head of the person in front of them during a show.
“It’s just the horse making noise, Kylie,” he said, but she ignored him.
They heard another muted thud, another bellow. Then there was Lorne’s voice, but Henry couldn’t make out what he was saying. Kylie moved faster up the hill, and Henry followed her, not because he wanted to stop whatever was happening, but because he wanted to stop Kylie from seeing it. For something to cry out in some unseen place stirred a familiar sense of fear and dread in Henry, one that made him want to go the other direction. But Kylie had no such sense—her knee-jerk reaction to what sounded like a creature in pain was a desire to help.
He managed to grab her arm at the top of the hill, and she turned around, outraged. But Henry shook his head desperately, begging her to be quiet. She closed her mouth, pressing her lips tight together, as if it were a great effort.
On the other side, at the bottom of the hill, Lorne was standing square in front of the mare, the great-great-great-granddaughter of the Horse of a Different Color. He held a thick wooden club in his hand, which he often used to lead Tex. They watched as Ambrosia nodded her head, up and down. Yes, yes, yes, would have been the message if she were a human being, but she was a horse, and the nodding seemed stricken, as if she had lost her mind: No, no, no, it said.
Lorne appeared hypnotized by this headshaking. He watched her without moving for a moment, then dropped the club, stroked her nose to calm her, and whispered something, his cheek against her long forehead. She stopped thrashing her head, but only as long as he whispered to her. Then, still nodding, she followed his lead back into the horse trailer. Lorne glanced up the hill before he shut the gate on her, but he gave no indication that he recognized the two figures at the top.
While the mare shook her head at Lorne, Henry kept shaking his at Kylie. Between Henry and Ambrosia, everyone was kept quiet.
CALEB WAS AWAKE LATE WITH his classifieds. He sat down to them refreshed, with a cup of herbal tea and a handful of saltines.
He could work at J. C. Penney. Why not? Circle. The Law Offices of Sellers and Nash. Circle. First Bank? Circle, circle, circle.
He saw “Assistant to the curator of the City Museum,” which excited him. He circled it, but then crossed it out. It required a degree. Caleb didn’t have one.
Just like that, he felt tired again. He scratched out his circles around the ads for sales clerks and bankers. Why would he want to be a banker? Because he was good with money? Because he liked to be in charge? Yes, he liked these things well enough. But not for the same reasons bankers liked them. He liked them because he liked to create, and he was part of his own creation. At the circus, he was the straight man in the chaos, a necessary part of things at the circus. At a bank, he would be a straight man among straight men.
He covered his face in his hands as if to rub out the exhaustion. The circus would return soon. He would have to face them all. He would have to face Henry, who had meddled in his life, and in whose life Caleb had now meddled. He kept thinking about what Adrienne had said, that Henry’s mother had died in front of him, when he was very little. Caleb’s father had died in front of him when he was twenty-two, and he had yet to recover from it. A dead parent didn’t really excuse Henry from anything, but it was no wonder he was a wreck, someone who did things like run off in other people’s cars and kiss other people’s wives.
Someone knocked at the front door.
It was late. If this is Curtis, he thought, I’m going to tear his asshole out through his mouth. He walked quietly to the door and looked through the peephole. The young man on the other side was tall, wearing one of those Carhartt jackets that farmers wore. His head was down, so Caleb couldn’t see his face, but he could tell it was no one he knew.
“Can I help you?” He called.
“Yeah, um—sorry to wake you up, er—disturb you,” he said. The guy got fidgety the moment Caleb opened the door. He swiped his hand over his unshaven face.
“Do you need to use a phone or something?” asked Caleb.
“No, I was wondering if there was a Henry Bell who lived here,” the man said.
Caleb recognized, then, the man’s stance. Like Henry, he looked wary, as if any moment he would need to shed his Carhartt coat and sprint down the street, or scale the house, or explode.
So this was Andre.
Caleb invited him in.
CHAPTER 21
WHILE FEELY AND FEINSTEIN HAD been on the road, their plot of ground in St. Louis sat dusty and desolate as an uninhabited planet. And when the grounds repopulated with trailers, and the performers spilled out, all aching and crusty-eyed from travel, the desolate state of the grounds was not much improved by their presence. They brought no energy back with them. There were no departing hugs or see-you-next-years. Instead, everyone gathered their things doggedly and then milled around, waiting.
Caleb arrived at dusk, parked, and tugged the hem of his sleeves so they would emerge just so from his suit coat. He’d spent the whole day in pajamas, dreading this evening, but this was the Caleb they expected, put-together Caleb, white-collar-blue-button-clipboard Caleb. He owed them that, at least.
When he stepped out of the car, twenty-seven necks twisted his direction, and only then did he realize that he looked dressed for a funeral.
SEAMUS HAD CALLED HIM RIGHT after Adrienne’s surgery. He said he still planned to sell the circus piecemeal, but it occurred to him that Caleb might want to “make a bid.” Caleb went to the bank, and learned he could, in fact, get a loan, a decent one, to buy Feely and Feinstein, but only if he was willing to put up his house for collateral. The risk was crushing to even think about. If he failed to bring Feely and Feinstein back to life after he bought it, the d
ebt would bury him and Adrienne. He was willing to take the risk on his own behalf, but he did not want to take it on Adrienne’s behalf. What he needed was a partner, someone to share the financial burden, and the seemingly infinite labor, and he could not think of anyone that fit this bill. He told Seamus this, and Seamus said, “Well, that’s the pits. I can give you till December, but I guess it’s unlikely anything will change between now and then.”
“Right,” said Caleb.
“That’s the pits,” said Seamus.
NOW, AZI CAME TO MEET him.
“Baratucci. They know,” he said.
“Not surprising,” Caleb said. “Adrienne knows, so I’m sure everyone under blue heaven does. Can you walk into the rehearsal building? They’ll follow you.”
“Of course.”
Caleb needed acoustics for this message.
Inside the rehearsal space, the mildew smell had improved since the summer had been so hot and dry. Instead of that familiar mustiness, when he walked through the door Caleb was greeted by the sour odor of the unwashed clothes the performers carried with them. Packed and ready to go. They clustered around the center of the room, as if having an intimate conversation, but none of them were actually speaking. He thought Lola Delaflote tried to smile at him. Only Lorne hung back from the swarm of performers, sitting with his back against the wall, his hands folded in his lap, staring up into the rafters.
Caleb unfolded a chair and stood on it. It was quiet, so they would hear him if he spoke, but he wanted to see their faces. The German girls were diffused, daffy with fear, dressed up in suits instead of their normal designer jeans and tube tops. The suits were pale pink and stylish, made for a pretty woman to wear when she accepted an employee-of-the-month award at a luncheon. Jenifer and Vroni did not look like they were headed to a luncheon, though. Their sharp shoulder blades jutted from their backs, and their gangly hands stretched too far from the pink cuffs, gnarled and bird-like. He never found Jenifer and Vroni intimidating, but these suits made him shudder.
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