Halfway Down the Stairs

by Gary A Braunbeck

  So, for that moment, Mom was a changed woman who might find some measure of peace and happiness in the remainder of her life, and I was a son who harbored no anger or disgust for her, la-dee-da.

  It was kind of nice.

  We made our way through the crowd and toward the exit. I don't like crowds, as I've said, and soon felt the first heavy rivulets of sweat rolling down my face.

  Gina sensed what was happening and led us to a section near a concession stand where the crowd was much thinner.

  As I stood there catching my breath, Gina nudged Mom and asked about the stuffed animal. Mom looked at it then for the first time.

  "Oh my. Isn't that...something?" She was smiling, yet she cringed as she touched the tiny fired-clay tusks of the small stuffed elephant in a ballerina pose, wearing a ridiculous pink tutu. Cottony angels' wings jutted from its back.

  "That's adorable," laughed Gina.

  "Yes...yes, it is," whispered Mom. Her smile faltered for just a moment. I have seen my mother worried before, but this went beyond that; something in her was afraid of that stuffed toy.

  "Janet Walters!" shouted a voice that sounded like old nails being wrenched from rotted wood.

  Mom looked up at me. "Walters" was her maiden name.

  "What the—?"

  The nun came toward us.

  That in itself wasn't all that unusual; it was easy to assume that the nun was herewith some church group. What was unusual was the way this nun was dressed; pick your favorite singing sister from The Sound of Music and you'll have some idea. Nuns don't have to dress this way anymore, but this one did. The whole outfit was at least fifty years out of date. Her habit was four times too heavy for the weather and her shoes would have looked right at home in a Frankenstein movie.

  Sister Frankenstein barreled right up to Mom and grabbed her arm. "Would you like to hear a story?"

  Mom's face drained of all color.

  I didn't give a good goddamn if this woman was a nun.

  "Excuse me, Sister, but I think you're hurting—"

  Sister Frankenstein fixed me with a glare that could have frozen fire, then said to Mom: "He was led across the railroad yards to his private car. It was late at night. No train was scheduled but an express came through. A baby elephant had strayed from the rest of the pack and stood on the tracks in front of the oncoming train, so scared it couldn't move. Jumbo saw it and ran over, shoved the baby aside, and met the locomotive head-on. He was killed instantly and the train was derailed."

  My mother began moaning soft and low, gripping the stuffed toy like a life-preserver.

  Sister Frankenstein let fly with a series of loud, wracking, painful-sounding coughs and began to stomp away (I go along, thud-thud!) then turned back and said, "Only good little girls ever see Africa!"

  A crowd of teenagers ran through and the nun vanished behind them.

  I was reeling; it had happened so fast.

  Mom marched over to the only concession stand still open—

  —which sold beer.

  She took the large plastic cup in her hands and said, "P-please don't start with me, Andy. Just a beer, okay? It's just a beer. I need to...to steady...my nerves."

  "Who the hell was that?"

  "Not now." She tipped the cup back and finished the brew in five deep gulps.

  Gina took my hand and whispered, "Don't push it."

  Right. Psycho Nun On The Rampage and I'm supposed to let it drop.

  Gina raised an eyebrow at me.

  "Fine," I whispered.

  Mom fell asleep the minute we got in the car and didn't wake up until we reached Cedar Hill.

  Mom took her mail from the box, then insisted we come in for a slice of cake.

  As I was pouring the coffee, Mom opened a large manila envelope that was among the mail.

  Her gasp sounded like a strangled cry of a suicide when the rope snaps tight.

  I turned. "What is it?"

  Gina was leaning over her shoulder, looking at the large piece of heavy white paper that Mom had pulled from the envelope.

  "Andy," said Gina in a low, cautious voice. "I think you'd better take a look at this."

  It was a watercolor painting of the center ring of a circus where a dozen elephants were all wearing the same kind of absurd pink tutu as the stuffed toy; all had angel’s wings unfurling from their shoulders, and all were dancing through a wall of flames. The stands were empty except for one little girl whose face was the saddest I'd ever seen.

  There was no doubt in my mind—or Gina's, as I later found out—about who had painted it.

  There was no return address on the envelope, nor was there a postmark.

  After a tense silence, Mom lit a cigarette and said, "Would you two mind...mind sitting with me for a while? I got something I need to tell you about.

  "When I was six years old the county took me and my three brothers away from our parents and put us in the Catholic Children’s Home..."

  I faded away for a minute or two. I'd heard this countless times before and was embarrassed that Gina would have to listen to it now.

  Most of what Mom said early on was directed more toward Gina than me. The Same Old Prologue.

  In a nutshell:

  Mom's parents were dirt poor and heavy drinkers both. Too many complaints from the school and neighbors resulted in a visit by the authorities. My mother and her brothers remained under the care of the Catholics and the county until they were fifteen; then they were each given five dollars, a new set of clothes, and pushed out the door.

  "There wasn't really much to enjoy,” Mom continued, “except our Friday art classes with Sister Elizabeth. If we worked hard, she'd make popcorn in the evening and tell us stories before we went to bed, stories that she made up. There was one that was our favorite, all about these dancing elephants and their adventures with the circus. I don't know why I was so surprised to see Sister Elizabeth tonight; she always loved circuses.

  "She'd start each story the same way, describing the circus tent and giving the names of all the elephants, then she'd make up a story about one elephant in particular. Each Friday it was a new story about a different elephant. The stories were real funny and we always got a good laugh from them.

  "Then she got sick. Turned out to be cancer. She kept getting sadder and angrier all the time so we started to draw pictures of the elephants for her, but it didn't lift her spirits any.

  "The stories started getting so...bitter. There was one about an elephant that got hanged that gave some of the girls bad dreams for a week. Then Sister quit telling us stories. We heard that she was gonna go in the hospital, so we bought her flowers and asked her to tell us one last story about the elephants.

  "God, she looked so thin. She'd been going to Columbus for cobalt treatments. Her scalp was all moist looking and had only a few strands of wiry hair and her color was awful...but her eyes were the worst. She couldn't hide how scared she was.

  "She told us one more story. But this one didn't start with the circus tent. It started in Africa."

  I leaned forward. This was new to me.

  "I never forgot it," said Mom. "It went like this: The elder of the pack gathered together all of the elephants and told them that he had spoken with God, and God had said the elder elephant was going to die, but first he was to pass on a message.

  "God had said there were men on their way to Africa, sailing in great ships, coming to take the elephants away so people could see them. And people would think that the elephants were strange and wonderful and funny. God felt bad about that 'funny' part, and He asked the elder to apologize to the others and tell them that as long as they stayed good of heart and true to themselves they would never be funny in His eyes.

  "The elder named Martin the Bull Elephant as the new leader, then lumbered away to the secret elephant graveyard and died.

  "The men came in their ships and rounded up the elephants and put them in chains and stuffed them into the ships and took them away. They were sold to t
he circus where they were made to do tricks and dances for people to laugh at. Then they were trained to dance ballet for one big special show. The elephants worked real hard because they wanted to do well.

  "The night of the big show came, and the elephants did their best. They really did. They got all the steps and twirls and dips exactly right and felt very proud. But the people laughed and laughed at them because they were so big and clumsy and looked so silly in the pink tutus they wore. Even though they did their best, they felt ashamed because everyone laughed at them.

  "Later that night, after the circus was quiet and the laughing people went home, the elephants were alone. One of them told Martin that all of their hearts were broken. Martin gave a sad nod of his head and said, 'Yes, it's time for us to go back home.' So he reached out with his trunk through the bars of the cage and picked up a dying cigar butt and dropped it in the hay and started a big fire.

  "The elephants died in that fire, but when the circus people and firemen looked above the flames they saw smoke clouds dancing across the sky. They were shaped like elephants and they drifted across the continents until they reached the secret elephant graveyard in Africa. And when they touched down the elder was waiting for them, and he smiled as an angel came down and said to all of them, 'Come, the blessed children of my Father, and receive the world prepared for you...."'

  She cleared her throat, lit another cigarette, and stared at us.

  "That's horrible," said Gina.

  "I know," whispered Mom. "Sister Elizabeth didn't say anything after she finished the story, she just got up and left. It really bothered all of us, but the Sisters had taught us that we had to comfort each other whenever something happened that upset one or all of us. They even assigned each of us another girl that we could go to if something was wrong and there wasn't any Sisters around. Sister Elizabeth used to say that we were all guardian angels of each other's spirit. It was kinda nice.

  "The girl I had, her name was Lucy Simpkins. She'd been really close to Sister, and I think it all made her a little crazy. On the night Sister Elizabeth died, Lucy got to crying and crying until I thought she'd waste away. She kept asking everyone how she could go to Africa and be with Sister Elizabeth and the elephants.

  "Everyone just sort of looked at her and didn't say anything because we knew she was upset. She was a strange girl, always singing to herself and drawing...

  "She never said anything to me. Not even when I went to her and asked. At least, that's how I remember it.

  "You see, sometime during the night she got out of bed and snuck down to the janitor's closet, found some kerosene, and set herself on fire. She was dead before anyone could get the flames out."

  Mom rose from the table, crossed to the counter, and looked at her birthday cake. "I never told anyone that before."

  She took a knife from the cutlery drawer and cut three slices of cake. We ate in silence.

  She went to bed a little while later and Gina came over to my place to spend the night.

  At one point she nudged me, and said, "Have you ever read any Ray Bradbury?"

  "Of course."

  "Don't you envy him? There's so much joy and wonder in his stories. They jump out at you like happy puppies. They make you believe that you can hang on to that joy forever." She kissed me, then snuggled against my chest. "Wouldn't it be nice to pinpoint the exact moment in your childhood when you lost that joy and wonder, then go back and warn yourself as a child? Tell yourself that you mustn't ever let go of that joy and hope. Then you wouldn't have to worry about any...regrets coming back."

  "I think it's a little late to go back and warn Mom."

  "I know," she whispered. "You really love her, don't you? In spite of everything."

  "Yes, I do. Sometimes I've wished that I didn't, it would have made things easier." I tried to imagine what my mother must have been like as a child but couldn't: to me, she was always old.

  "I can't do this to myself, Gina. I can't start feeling responsible for the way her life has turned out. I've done everything I'm capable of, but it seems as if she doesn't want to be happy. Dad's being alive filled some kind of void in her, and when he died something else crawled into his spot and began sucking the life out of her.

  "I remember once reading about something called 'The Bridge of the Separator.' In Zoroastrianism it's believed that when you die you meet your conscience on a bridge. I can't help but wonder if...if..."

  "If what?"

  "I used to look at Mom and think that here was a woman who had died a long time ago but just forgot to drop dead. And maybe that's not so far from the truth. Maybe the really alive part of her, the Bradbury part of joy and wonder and hope, died with my father—or maybe it died with Lucy and that nun.

  "Whatever the reason, it's dead and there's no bringing it back, so is it so hard to believe that her conscience has gotten tired of waiting at the bridge and has decided to come and get her?"

  * * *

  I awoke a little after five a.m. and climbed quietly out of bed so as not to wake Gina. I stood in the darkness of the bedroom, inhaling deeply. Something smelled.

  I puzzled over it—

  —sawdust and hay, the aroma of cigarettes and beer and warm cotton candy and popcorn and countless exotic manures—

  —I was smelling the circus.

  The curtains over the bedroom window fluttered.

  The circus smell grew almost overpowering.

  I put on my robe and crossed to the window, pulled back the curtains, and looked out into the field behind my house—

  —where Lucy Simpkins stood, her sad, damaged hands petting the trunk of an old elephant whose skin was mottled, gray, and wrinkled. Its tusks were cracked and yellowed with age. When Lucy fed it peanuts, its tail slapped happily against its back legs.

  A bit of moonlight bounced off Lucy's green eye and touched my gaze. The old elephant looked at me through eyes that were caked with age and dirt and filled with the errant ghosts of many secrets.

  My first impulse was to wake Gina but something in Lucy's smile told me that they had come to see only me. I went downstairs and out the back door.

  I became aware of the damp hay and sawdust under my feet. If I had thought this a dream, a small splinter gouging into my heel put that notion to rest. I cried out more from surprise than pain and shook my head as I saw blood trickle from the wound. Leave it to me to go out in the middle of the night without putting on my slippers.

  Lucy smiled and ran to me, throwing her arms around my waist, pressing her face into my chest. I returned her embrace.

  She led me to the elephant.

  "I thought you might like to meet Old Bet—well, that's what I call her. To Sister Elizabeth, this is Martin."

  "And to my mother?"

  "This would be Jumbo. Everyone has a different name for it."

  The elephant wound the end of its trunk around my wrist: How’s it going? Pleased to meet you.

  I fed it some peanuts and marveled at its cumbersome grandeur. "Is this my mother's conscience?"

  Lucy gave a little-girl shrug. "You could call it that, I guess. Sister Elizabeth calls it 'the carrier of weary souls.' She says that when we grow too old and tired after a lifetime of work, then it will lift us onto its back and carry us over the bridge. It will remind us of all we've forgotten. It knows the history of the whole world, everyone who's lived before us, and everyone who will come after us. It's very wise."

  I stroked its trunk. "Have you come to take my mother?"

  Lucy shook her head. "No. We're not allowed to take anyone—they have to come to us. We're only here now to remind."

  She tapped the elephant, it unwound its trunk from my wrist so she could take both of my hands in hers. I was shocked by their touch, though they looked burned and fused and twisted, they felt healthy and normal—two soft, small, five-fingered hands.

  Her voice was the sound of a lullaby sung over a baby's cradle: "There's a place not too far from here, a secret place, where a
ll the greatest moments of our lives are kept. You see, everyone has really good moments their whole life long, but somewhere along the line there is one moment, one great, golden moment, when a person does something so splendid that nothing before or after will ever come close. And they remember these moments. They tuck them away like a precious gem for safekeeping. Because it's from that one grand moment that each guardian angel is born. As the rest of life goes on and a person grows old and starts to regret things, something—" She gave a smile. "—reminds them of that golden moment.

  "But sometimes there are people who become so beaten-down they forget they ever had such a moment. And they need to be reminded." She turned toward the elephant. "They need to know that when the time comes and Old Bet carries them across the bridge that that moment will be waiting, that it will be given back to them in all its original splendor and make everything all right. Again. Forever."

  "...and Mom has forgotten about her...moment?"

  "So have you. You were there. You remember it. You don't think you do, but..."

  "I don't—"

  "Shh. Watch closely."

  The elephant reared back on its hind legs and trumpeted. When it slammed back down, its face was only inches from mine. Its trunk wrapped around my waist and lifted me off the ground until my eyes were level with one of its own—

  —which was the same startling jade-green as Lucy's.

  I saw myself as clearly in its gaze as any mirror, and I watched my reflection begin to shimmer and change: me at thirty, at twenty-one, then at fourteen and, at last, the six-year-old boy my father never lived to see.

  He was sitting in his room—a large pad of drawing paper on his lap, a charcoal pencil clutched in his hand—drawing furiously. His face was tight with concentration.

  His mother came into the room. Even then she looked beaten-down and used-up and sadder than any human being should ever be.

  She leaned over the boy's shoulder and examined his work.