“Hey,” said Caleb. “How’s everyone feeling?”
They all looked at him. The clowns hung close to each other. Azi’s was the only expression that bore Caleb any sympathy.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. I could have told you not to eat anything with the word ‘dog’ in it outside Chicago.”
Remy Delaflote snorted. “Cut to the chase, Baratucci.”
“Don’t be a prick, Remy,” said Azi.
“The chase,” Caleb began to say, but he wasn’t sure how to continue. He had rehearsed this many times. Now the words to deliver this news were gone. “Look, I wasn’t making a joke. I have it in my notes, the okay places to eat hot dogs.”
“How is Adrienne?” asked Sue, using the gentle voice she used with her dogs.
Caleb stared down at his clipboard. “It’s hard to know, yet. But she seems to feel better.”
“That’s good,” she said, and Caleb could see the wet streaks on her cheeks. “I miss her around here.”
Remy walked out of the rehearsal space. The metal door swung wide behind him then slammed back into the frame, shaking the walls. The performers held their breath.
Caleb remained standing on his chair. The German girls slumped then. The daffy look left their faces, and the clowns stepped aside so that Azi could put a hand on each of their sharp shoulders.
Caleb pulled a stack of envelopes from under the clip on the clipboard. “Well. I have paychecks. If you know what I’m going to say and you’d like to walk out in a huff, I hope I’ve got the correct address on file.”
He stepped down then and laid the envelopes on the seat of the chair.
“If you don’t have a place in town and have to spend the night before heading off tomorrow, of course we’ll comp your stay in a motel, as usual,” he said. Seamus had made no offer of this sort but Caleb thought it was the least he could do. “And, as you all seem to know, this check is your last. Except for you, Lorne. You can stay and take care of the animals until we have them sold.”
Lorne looked sidelong at Caleb, like Caleb’s comment wasn’t worth the effort of turning his head.
“I know you’re not happy,” Caleb said. “This is not a happy time for anyone. However, I would like to say that you’ve all been a pleasure to know and that I tried hard to keep this from happening.”
It came out a bit too measured, like he had to choose his words carefully because he didn’t want to come off harsh. Instead he had to choose carefully because any sentiment he had for this job, any meaning it had for him would seem trite in comparison to what it meant to Azi, or to Vroni and Jenifer, or to Henry. To tell them that the end of Feely and Feinstein was the undoing of his life’s great project would be patronizing, even though it was true.
Caleb stood at the door and shook their hands as they filed out. He told them best of luck, promising them glowing references. Vroni was the only one who refused to keep a stiff upper lip. She sobbed while he held her hand, shaking there in the doorway. Jenifer spoke to her quietly in German.
“Hey, Vroni, it’ll be alright. Listen. There are openings at Culpepper and Merriweather. I will post all the info to you,” said Caleb.
She cried harder, still holding on to Caleb’s hand. “We’re an act,” she moaned. “What do you think I am, Baratucci? Don’t you see what I look like alone? I need an act.”
“Of course, that’s what I meant. They’re looking for acts,” said Caleb and pulled her toward him, cupping the back of her head with his hand. Her thin hair was soft in his palm, so soft that he felt if he touched it too long, it might disintegrate. She was right. She had no business being alone.
Azi and the clowns stood behind her. Kylie and Azi were polite and tried not to watch as she smeared Caleb’s jacket with her dissolving makeup. Henry couldn’t seem to avert his eyes, though.
“I don’t get it,” the boy said.
Vroni peeled herself off of Caleb’s shoulder. Her face, which was crumpled with weeping, hardened into a snarl.
“You’re a circus performer, and you don’t know how to go from one outfit to another? You did it once. Just … do it again.”
“Wow. You are such a prick,” Vroni said.
“You say that now, but one day you’ll wake up at your new circus and think, whatever happened to that prick clown I use to know? I shoulda made out with him when I had the chance.”
Vroni tried to stifle her laugh and ended up spitting on Caleb.
Caleb looked down at the wet spot on his jacket. “Thanks, Henry.”
“Everyone is welcome!” said Henry.
Vroni wiped her eyes and finally shook Caleb’s hand. “I’m sorry, Baratucci. Really.”
“Don’t be sorry,” said Caleb.
“See you in the funny papers, Pierrot,” she said, then linked arms with Jenifer and walked outside. The wind was beginning to pick up, and the dirt stirred in little tornadoes around the women’s pink heels.
When the clowns went to say their good-byes, Caleb asked them to stay just a while longer to help him with some cleanup. In reality, he wanted to invite them to stick around for awhile. If the others knew, they might feel cheated, but Caleb felt guilty about having hired the clowns, only to fire them after one season and send them back into the fray with hardly any experience. He wanted to send off Kylie and Henry on the best possible footing, because he discovered them. The others were circus from birth, but these clowns (and his wife) felt truly his, their talent first legitimized by his approval. Caleb still hadn’t quite shaken the jealousy he harbored toward Henry. And yet the part of him that felt responsible for the boy won out.
Which was, of course, why Henry’s brother was waiting for Henry back at Caleb’s house, a fact Henry didn’t know yet.
Azi, who, besides the clowns, was the last to leave, embraced Caleb.
“Baratucci,” said Azi.
“My friend.”
“You must make Feely sorry for this.”
“Impossible. Seamus has no soul.”
“He has desires. You’re smart. You could find a way.”
“Not a chance. You make him sorry.”
“No time. I have to find a gym. I’ve gotten fat. No one but you would let me take my shirt off in a ring like this.”
Caleb laughed. “Azi, you have muscles I didn’t know existed. I’m envious to the core.”
“You should see the guys out there, Caleb. They keep raising the bar for what a strong man looks like. It’s not all WWF anymore, where you can have a shred of fat and your pants up to your belly button.”
“You’re not a strong man anymore. You’re a fire-eater.”
“Whatever I am. There’s a standard for half-dressed men.”
“I know.”
“I’ll call you in a month. See if anything has changed. See how your lovely wife is doing.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
Azi left the building, collecting Vroni and Jenifer. If they didn’t get steady work, it would be hard to stay under the radar. An undocumented Nigerian fire-eater was harder to find than an undocumented Nigerian fire-eater with the two skinny blond human props.
Caleb knew he would hear from Azi in a month, and probably for many months afterward. He would check in, good as his word. Eventually, there would come a time when he would not hear from Azi, or anyone else from Feely and Feinstein. But he did not want to think about that.
When Azi had gone, Caleb turned to Henry and Kylie. “So, listen. I feel terrible about hiring you for one season. I’m not that kind of boss, y’know, but this was out of my hands. So if you wanna stay at our house for a while until you find a new gig, you’re welcome to. Just … probably not more than a few months. I mean, you’ll have to be reasonable about it. And you’ll have to help out with food and cleaning and things of that nature. But it’s not a big deal. I can help you find work.”
Henry stared at him for a moment in disbelief, then gathered himself. “That’s really nice of you. Considering.”
K
ylie stood up on her toes and wound her arms around his neck. “You are amazing, Caleb.” Caleb staggered back, unprepared for her hug. “I was like thirty minutes from using the last of my money on a plane ticket back to California—and I really didn’t want to. I just know if I go back, my parents will suck me in and I’ll end up in school for a math job,” she said.
“Ugh, math jobs! How bourgeois,” said Henry, but Caleb saw he was smiling at Kylie, and his teasing seemed warm.
He gently pried Kylie from his neck. “We are happy to have you. Henry? What do you think? If you don’t, then at least come to dinner. Your brother has tracked you to our door and he wants to see you.”
The smile fled from the boy’s face. “What?”
CHAPTER 22
ON THE WAY TO THE Baratuccis’ house, Henry didn’t intend to speak. He knew if he did, he would almost certainly say something that would remind Caleb that he had tried to fuck his wife. And if Caleb remembered this he might change his mind and not take him to Andre. He wanted to see his brother, but he was also picturing Andre about their father’s size, a grown man who had nursed a grudge for nine years. The letter said, Just think of all the times you left me alone. You and Mom. You could have helped me, but you didn’t. While the words on the page had seemed honest, harmless things, face-to-face the same words could come out in a different order, could multiply until they became a dark mass above them, crushing them, forcing Henry and Andre to fight their way out from beneath their weight. A part of him was afraid, and it would be this part of him that did the talking if he talked. So he just zipped his lips.
Kylie rode with them, leaving her Mercedes at the circus grounds, where it had been all summer, the dust settling on it like a coat of brown suede. She sat in the front with Caleb, staring out the window, while Henry tried to disappear in the back. Caleb’s voice cut through the quiet.
“I’ve been talking to him,” he said. “He says you were the good brother.”
“I was,” Henry said cautiously. “He was the troublemaker.”
“Interesting. I guess it’s all relative. He also said you were a good basketball player.”
“Yeah.”
“No baseball, though?”
“No. We didn’t have enough people for a team. It was just me and Andre and sometimes a couple of his friends. Never enough people to cover the bases.”
They passed the music store where he and Kylie had once met, the movie theatre, with its pink neon sign.
Henry took an audibly deep breath, trying to slow his heart.
“Hey,” said Caleb, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. “Adrienne says you haven’t seen him in a long time. But I don’t think you need to worry. He came all this way to see you.”
Once they were at Caleb’s house, standing in the living room with its comforting smells of Pledge and French toast (breakfast for dinner, Adrienne’s favorite), Kylie lugged her trunk to the guest room.
Caleb put his hand on Henry’s shoulder. He steered him into the kitchen. There was no trace of French toast except the smell and no sign of Adrienne. Sitting at the table, though, slouching, was a man-sized version of his brother. He was the bigger, wider-shouldered, squarer-chinned version of Andre-the-boy. Same brown eyes and dust-colored hair—their father head to toe.
Andre raised his head and stood, smiled, and extended his hand toward Henry. “Hey, little brother,” he said.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Good to see you,” he said, and gripped his hand.
“Yeah. Thanks for … coming all that way.”
“Oh, not a problem,” he said. While he moved with more patience now, he grinned in an ornery way that Henry found familiar. “Not a problem at all.”
Andre asked if Henry wanted to walk with him up the street, and so they left through Caleb’s back door. As they headed up the alley, Henry could feel Adrienne watching them through the screen door, as if she needed to know, at least, the direction they were headed. Henry figured she had found his letter and sent something to the return address, inviting Andre on Henry’s behalf. Now she probably wondered if this was entirely wise. Henry knew that, whatever he really was, he looked like a “nice kid.” His brother looked like a man who had seen a thing or two, and he was two sizes bigger than Henry.
The days were getting shorter, and on some evenings the wind would pick up and it would feel like fall was already there. The future came on like this, subtly, with a little change in weather, a little extra speed in the wind.
They both walked with their hands in their pockets, down a steep hill that had them moving faster than normal, their strides aided by downward momentum.
“So my brother is a circus clown. Of all the things I thought you might be up to, this never occurred to me.”
Henry stabbed his hands further into his pockets, braced for a volley of insults.
“Did you finish high school?” Andre asked.
“I’m a clown. It doesn’t require a diploma.”
“I just imagined you would, is all,” he said. And then he added, “You really should at least get your GED. I did. If you don’t have that, you just look like a lazy ass.”
They were nearly running by the time they reached the bottom of the hill, where they came to a green-brick pub. Andre grabbed the door handle and jerked his chin toward the opening, indicating they should go in. A dark greasy smell and the clatter of conversation emerged from within. Henry shook his head.
They went to the deli instead. Andre bought a six-pack of Miller, a two-liter of RC Cola, and a bag of Doritos.
Henry picked out a poor boy wrapped in cellophane. Andre took it from his hands and laid it next to his RC and beer. “This too, please,” he said and pulled another two dollars from his wallet.
“I have money,” Henry mumbled.
“Nah, I wanna treat ya,” said Andre.
When they returned to Caleb’s house, they stayed in the yard. Henry sat down on the grass, but Andre remained standing, popped his beer open with a lighter and slurped the foam that seeped out.
“I met this guy who dragged the river,” he said. “It was in a bar by the touristy part of Prague that I go to when I have a little extra money and want to hear people speak English. Anyway, the guy told me all about his job. He told me that he pulled out all kinds of trash. Crazy shit. Toilets. Cradles. Whole sandwich bags full of cocaine. I asked what he’d pulled out that day and he said, a body. ‘Young,’ he said, ‘like boy. No hair on the face. Stabbed here.’” Andre impersonated the man’s accent and pointed to his side and his neck.
“I started to freak out a little when you didn’t write me back,” said Andre, pulling open his bag of Doritos. “Kept picturing you floating in a river.”
Henry had never imagined Andre in a river. He was always in a hole, beaten to death by their father, or some policeman, or gang member. He’d pictured him bloated, his body one big bruise, buried.
Henry’s fist closed around a clump of dandelion leaves in Caleb’s yard. He yanked them from the ground.
“It gets so gray there,” said Andre, almost as if he were talking to himself. “You just think about stuff. Sometimes I think I’d like to live in a place that wasn’t totally fuckin’ gray and depressing all the time. Like Florida.”
“Yeah. Why don’t you?” said Henry
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I make good money at the factory. I don’t know if I could make good money in Florida. And … I don’t know. I don’t think I’m done with the gray shit just yet. I think I need to be there. It’s good for me there.”
There were lines around his mouth like parentheses, a ring around his head where a hat usually sat. As he raised his beer to his lips, Henry saw a beaded bracelet peek from beneath the cuff of his brown jacket. Dangling from the bracelet was an oval shaped picture of a woman, wearing a crown on her head, encircled by a holy sunburst, painted and shellacked, set in cheap-looking metal. There was something about it that seemed deeply private and sorr
owful.
What business did Andre have with the man who dragged the river?
He wanted to ask Andre this, but his brother seemed to notice that Henry’s eyes were resting on the talisman at his wrist, and he spoke before Henry got a chance to.
“What about you? Why the circus, man? You could be a professional athlete, if you wanted. About as easily as I could go to Florida, anyway.”
“I am a professional athlete,” said Henry.
“Yeah, okay, so you’re a professional athlete who makes no money and isn’t famous. Why? Why don’t you go out and be Michael Jordan or something?”
Henry thought about it. It was a good question, and he’d thought about it before but hadn’t come up with an answer yet that he imagined would be good enough for other people. What he told his brother was an answer half-formed, mulled over during nights spent awake in trailers and in moldy apartments and underneath the tables of fast food restaurants—spoken to himself when he climbed trees, in the same low voice he used to say his mother’s name.
“I like to make people laugh. It makes them like me. It makes them like each other, too.”
Andre stared at him, shoved another chip in his mouth. “Sounds kinda gay,” he said.
“Yeah. It is. Kind of gay, I guess. Gay like living in Europe.”
Andre put his hand to his face. “Stop, you’re hurting my feelings,” he said.
Henry ignored him. “And anyway, did anyone ever say, ‘Hey, you wanna learn how to be Michael Jordan?’ No. But someone was like, ‘Hey, you wanna learn how to be Buster Keaton?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah. Why not?’”
Henry flopped backward on the grass. Andre finally sat down next to him, folding his legs in front of him.
“Who’s Buster Keaton?”
Lying on the sharp, long crabgrass in Caleb’s yard, watching finger-shaped clouds drift across the sky, Henry explained to his brother who Buster Keaton was, and then he explained who Luka Christiakov was, and how he had learned to be a clown, and how he kept it a secret from their father, and how he got away with it.
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