Professor Renoir's Collection of Oddities, Curiosities, and Delights

by Randall Platt

  “But you’re still in your Magnifica costume!”

  “Babe, come on. Hurry!” Rosa said, pulling Babe by the arm. “Ernie’s getting his gun.” Ernie had a wagon hitched in no time. He drove, Rosa sat next to him, and Babe rode in the wagon bed, holding on to the rails.

  “Ina said a place called Billy Banks Saloon! There! Where all those horses and wagons are!” Rosa pointed down the block.

  The saloon was a beacon of gaiety and light in the center of town. Music and laughter spilled out of the open windows and double doors.

  Rosa turned to Ernie. “You can’t just go in there guns blazing. Maybe we should find the local law and . . .”

  “I can handle this,” Babe said, jumping down off the wagon.

  “Babe, no! Get back here!” Rosa called.

  Babe ignored Rosa, brushed some straw off her costume, and approached the open doors. Cigar and cigarette smoke sifted out as she walked in. All talk ceased.

  “Well, look here!” someone called out. “We got another visitor from the freak show!”

  Rosa and Ernie dashed in and stood on either side of Babe. Rosa stepped forward. “We just want our friend back. We know she’s here!”

  “Hey you, Madame de la Whoever you are!” another man shouted from across the room. “Your good-luck charm ain’t worth a sucked orange! My horse stepped in a hole on the way back to town! He’ll be lame for a week!” His story was greeted with laughter and booing.

  Babe recognized one of the challengers she’d faced that evening. He stood up, kicking back his chair and weaving toward her. “I want another go ’round,” he said, spitting into his hands and circling her.

  “Ain’t got time for the likes of you,” Babe growled. “Alls I want is our JoJo back.”

  He tap-tap-tapped her shoulder just the way her father had. With a roar, she slapped his arm away. He lost his balance and fell onto a table. He didn’t get up.

  Ernie stepped forward. “We know y’all got JoJo somewheres, and we want her back.”

  Just then, the unmistakably shrill sound of JoJo’s laughter came from a back room.

  People parted as Babe walked through the crowd, toward the sound. “There’s a private party going on in there,” the bartender said, standing in front of Babe. He looked up at her, then stepped aside. “Guess it ain’t all that private.” He opened the door for her.

  “JoJo? You in here? It’s Babe. Come to take you home.”

  When Babe filled the doorway, everyone stopped midsentence, midlaugh, midtease.

  JoJo pointed to Babe, grinned, and shouted, “Look, Babe!” She held up a bright, shiny doll, then cradled it as she rocked it.

  “Who brung her here?” Babe demanded, looking around the room.

  “She brung herself here. She ain’t no child,” someone defended.

  “Come on, JoJo. We’re going home.”

  “No!”

  “These folks is making fun of you,” Babe said, her voice kind.

  “Don’t care!”

  Babe walked closer. She noticed JoJo’s old doll was in a crumpled heap on a table. “We don’t let folks do us this way.” Babe took the old, tossed-aside doll and offered it to JoJo. “Maybe you should give that doll back. Ain’t yours.”

  “Mine,” JoJo yelped, holding the new doll closer to her chest.

  “Yeah, who’s going to pay for that doll? Two dollars and fifty cents!” a man said, stepping up with a slip of paper in his hand. “Got the receipt right here.”

  Babe took the paper, wadded it into her mouth, chewed it, then spit it out where the wad landed among peanut shells, chew spit, and cigar butts. “That there’s three bucks. Gimme my four bits change!” She held out her huge hand, snapped her fingers, and stepped closer to the man. All eyes on him, he reached a shaking hand into his pocket, extracted two quarters and plunked them into her hand.

  She put her hand out to JoJo. “You come with me. Your Babe’s taking you home.”

  “Mine?” JoJo asked, holding the new doll up.

  “Bought and paid for,” Babe said, putting the old, tattered doll back into JoJo’s belt. Babe looked around the room at the silent faces.

  “Keep?”

  “Now you gots two you can mama.”

  Ernie scratched his head, and Rosa smiled in amazement as Babe and JoJo walked out, hand in swinging hand.

  23

  Two days later, they were parked on a siding near The Dalles, Oregon. The advance man, Pepito, and either Ina, Mina, or Tina had run off to get married, leaving the outfit high and dry for new bookings and minus one dancing girl. There were only a few bookings on the tracks ahead to Portland and then south to Medford. No one to set up notices of Renoir’s show coming meant no track clearance or permits to set up the show. No show, no money.

  Renoir ordered the troupe to use the delay to oil, clean, repair, and rehearse, while he headed to town to do business and see about track clearance.

  “Baaaaaaaabe!”

  Babe’s head came up out of a deep doze.

  “Babe!” cried JoJo’s unmistakable voice, full of urgency, as she ran toward the railcar. There were now two dolls tucked into her belt.

  “JoJo! What’re you . . .”

  JoJo jutted her two hands up toward Babe, standing in the open door of her railcar. “Here!”

  “Here what? What you got there?”

  JoJo giggled, grinned, and repeated, “Here.” Babe reached down and took the small cloth bag JoJo offered up to her. “For you! I like you!”

  Babe looked inside the bag, then pulled out an envelope and looked inside. JoJo jumped up and down with joy. “JoJo. Where did you get all this cash money?”

  “You! You!”

  “What’s going on up there?” Lotty asked, coming alongside the tracks. “JoJo, it’s too hot for you being out here.”

  JoJo stuck her tongue out at her.

  “Aw, come on. We’re friends now, remember? What’s in it, Babe? Babe?”

  “Money. Cash money. JoJo give it to me.”

  “You! You!” JoJo chanted, whirling around in a circle.

  Lotty looked inside the envelope. “JoJo, where did you get this?”

  JoJo pointed far off down the tracks. “Found it!”

  “Where?” Babe asked.

  Now JoJo pointed to the scrub brush in the opposite direction. “Found it!”

  “But I don’t understand,” Lotty said. “Where did you find it?”

  JoJo looked down at Lotty and gave her a mean look. “For Babe!”

  “JoJo, I can’t take this money. Ain’t yours, ain’t mine.”

  “Can you show us where you found it?” Lotty asked, opening the envelope and fanning the tops of the bills. “There must be over two hundred dollars in here. It has to belong to somebody.”

  JoJo grabbed the envelope and held it to her chest. “Found it!” She handed it back to Babe. “You saved JoJo! You! You!”

  Babe jumped down and bent down to talk to JoJo face-to-face, eye to eye. “JoJo, show us where you got this.” She offered her hand. “Come. Show us.”

  “You. Not her!”

  “Okay. Just you and me. Come on. Show me.”

  Lotty was sitting in the shade under the railcar, fanning herself with a hanky when Babe came back alone, holding the fat envelope.

  “Well?”

  “Beats me. She showed me where she found it, only I don’t think she found it. You know JoJo. She don’t always see truths the same way we do.”

  “You mean she stole it? From who? There’s no writing on the envelope,” Lotty said.

  “She showed me a place in the tracks.”

  “Well, maybe someone dropped it from a train. Who knows? Finders keepers, losers weepers, right? I say God love Madame de la Rosa and her juju conjure bags!”

  Babe’s hand went to the horsehair juju. “But what about the weeper out there? Maybe the weeper needs it more’n we do. Criminy, Lotty, what if it’s money from one of our own?”

  “Who in this cheap
outfit has money like that?”

  “But . . .”

  “But nothing! There isn’t anyone around. No hobo jungle, no campfires, no shacks, no nothing. We’re almost in the middle of nowhere! I tell you, it fell off a train and the weeper is long down the line!”

  “What if it’s bank or train-robber money, Lotty? What if they come looking for it?”

  “Pishposh!”

  “Shouldn’t we turn it in or something?” Babe asked, looking down at the envelope.

  “Babe, sometimes you make me crazy! We go into town, give it to the local sheriff and guess what? Pretty soon his wife is sporting a new diamond necklace and matching earbobs!”

  “And here I thought I was the shifty thinker in this outfit,” Babe said, coming around.

  “And we don’t tell anyone! Hide it with the rest of our stash.” She ticked her head toward her railcar. “Hurry and hide it! I have to go tend Egypt.”

  Lotty ran off down the tracks, and Babe pulled herself back into her cattle car. “Look here.” Babe fanned the bills toward Euclid. “We got us a grubstake. Wait. What’s this?” She pulled out a white piece of paper in the middle of the bills. She read the printing on the top. “De-pos-it ticket. Cal-i-for-ni-a State Bank.” She held the ticket to the light and read the handwriting aloud. “Please de-pos-it into the per-son-al account of . . .” She looked at Euclid. “Phillipe Renoir, Number Three-Three-Four. Two hundred twenty-seven dollar. How do you reckon a broke showman gets all this cash money?” She stared across the car, thinking. “Must be carnie money.” She looked down at the ticket. “All going into Renoir’s bank.” She scrunched her face and looked at the chimp. “From our till to his? No wonder we’re flat broke all the time.” She ran her theory around mentally one more time. “Let’s keep this betwixt just us, boys. Got that, Jupiter? Understand, Euclid?”

  She added the cash into a secret bin under Jupiter’s cage with the rest of their getaway stash, took the deposit ticket—evidence about Renoir and evidence about JoJo—and stared at it. She took a match, struck it and held it to the ticket. “Wait,” she whispered. She thought carefully. Maybe she should hang on to this. Babe thought as the match burned down. The flame hit her fingers. “Ouch!” She swished the match out.

  She rolled the deposit ticket and put it where no person would ever try to find it—inside the horsehair conjure bag hanging down the front of her shirt, where all things were safe and sound.

  Renoir made no mention of the missing money, which made Babe even more nervous and suspicious. Why wouldn’t he tell the troupe, why wouldn’t he ask if anyone had found the money or accuse someone of stealing it? Well, she thought, if he wasn’t going to mention it, neither was she. Is it theft if it’s stealing from a thief?

  Babe now knew why the rations were skimpy, the soup watery, the stops for the horses to graze more frequent, the stolen fruit from orchards along the river more brazen, and the promise of the taxidermist at the end of the line more threatening. Renoir was skimming the carnival’s money.

  “Plain and simple,” she muttered.

  24

  “Babe!” Madame de la Rosa signaled to Babe, who was helping wash dishes behind the mess tent. “Here, dear, look at this.”

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s the proof for a new flier. You know, an advertisement. Renoir was passing it around the smoking car. Getting a good laugh.”

  Babe looked at the poster. “I don’t read so good.”

  Rosa squinted her eyes and read, “‘Euclid, the world’s smartest ape! A mathematical genius! His brain was sent to Vienna for study. Be photographed with him! Ten cents a pose!’”

  “What’s that . . . ?”

  “There’s more. ‘Jupiter, world-famous dancing bear! The toast of Europe! Dance with him now!’”

  Babe dried her hands on her apron. “What this mean?”

  “There’s one more, Babe. ‘Egypt, Rogue Elephant of Borneo! Killed thirty-two people. A dollar a pose.’”

  Rosa gave her a gentle smile. “This means he’s one hundred percent serious, Babe. Look, something’s happened. I don’t know what, but I’ll tell you, I’ve never seen Renoir this edgy.”

  Babe fought the urge to tell her everything—their planned escape after buying the animals and their contracts. Running away and maybe even stealing the animals if they had to. The money JoJo had found—no, stole—and the deposit ticket Babe had found.

  “Well, I know what the animals mean to you. I just don’t want you two girls getting any more attached than you are. They are Renoir’s property and . . .”

  “No, they ain’t. They belong to them investor men back east, don’t they?”

  “Maybe legally, but they are Renoir’s to do with as he sees fit.”

  “Rosa, I got to . . .” Babe started, but the sound of Egypt’s trumpeting in the distance made her reconsider. She knew she wasn’t clever enough to tell Rosa only this and not that. Truth was an all-or-nothing situation with Babe—either come clean or stay dirty.

  “Got to what?”

  “Go help Lotty with Egypt.”

  Rosa walked away, and Babe looked beyond her. Renoir was standing, leaning into a tent pole, staring at her, tapping his riding crop against his boot. She returned his glare, feeling her beast rise again. She wadded the poster into a tight ball then threw it into the cook fire.

  If she had any guilt or doubts about keeping Renoir’s stolen money, they were as vanished as the poster now curling up into ashes.

  25

  They traveled along the Columbia River, making stops at a few small towns along their journey. Then, at Portland, they started their final leg south. At each stop along the line, Lotty went to the stationmaster to see if a letter was waiting for her.

  No letters. But her own letter hadn’t been returned, either, giving the girls a slight glimmer of hope.

  “Anything?” Babe asked, as soon as she spotted Lotty on the wagon coming from the stationmaster at the Salem depot. She could tell by her face there was no letter from her aunt Valerie.

  “We still have several more stops. Albany, Corvallis, Brownsville,” Lotty said, issuing a small sigh of defeat.

  Babe lifted her down off the wagon and the driver continued on. Egypt, her huge back foot chained to a tree that she was trimming, rumbled Lotty a welcome as they walked toward her. It was as though the elephant could smell the ripe cantaloupe in her knapsack.

  “Look what I found for you,” Lotty said. Egypt curled her trunk tip around it, popped it into her mouth, and crunched it open.

  “Maybe we got to acknowledge the corn, Lotty,” Babe finally said.

  “What does that mean? What corn?”

  “I mean, we got to plan your aunt ain’t going to write, let alone put the likes of us up. So, let’s us think on how to get on. Let’s make us our last stand with Renoir.”

  “He’ll never let us go until the last stop, Klamath Falls. Why would he?”

  “’Cause he can make more money from us buying our freedoms than he can putting us on display. Fact is, he’s probably in need of cash about now. Hell, we lost Ina, Mina, or Tina in Portland, leaving him just one dancing girl, and Lucretia says she’s jumping track in Corvallis. This outfit’s nearly washed-up, Lotty. If we was two-bit before, we’re penny-ante now.”

  “You think we can buy our way off this circuit?”

  “You got our total ciphered up?”

  She pulled out a piece of paper. “Counting our Portland take, tips, and what I sold some shoes and clothes for, we have a grand total of six hundred sixty-two dollars and twenty-two cents.”

  “That’s a mighty amount,” Babe said.

  “What should we offer? If he knows how much we have, he’ll want it all, you know.”

  “Then we don’t let him know. We’ll offer three hundred dollar for the tote. See what he says.”

  “When? I’m scared, Babe. This is . . . this is scary for me. I’ve never been on my own.”

  “You won’t be on yo
ur own. You’ll have me and . . .”

  “All those mouths to feed,” Lotty said, breaking her off.

  “I got me plenty of worries, too, but being on my own ain’t one of them.”

  Lotty’s big green eyes landed on Babe. “No. No,” she said, setting her jaw defiantly. “I am on board one hundred percent. If I don’t jump this life now while I can, then I’ll never do it!”

  They agreed—with or without a letter from Aunt Valerie or anyone else, they were jumping Professor Renoir’s Collection of Oddities, Curiosities, and Delights. Critters and all.

  26

  “Where the hell did you two dodunks get all that money?” Renoir said, pointing to the three hundred dollars in cash Lotty and Babe had plunked down on his desk.

  “Ain’t none of your never mind,” Babe said. The girls had been rehearsing this scene since Salem.

  He crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, and said, “Oh, it ain’t? Well, I think it is.”

  Babe felt her blood pounding through every inch of her body. But she set her jaw just like Lotty. “Three hundred for our contracts, Egypt, Euclid, and Jupiter, and our gear. Per each that comes to . . .”

  “Sixty dollars each,” Lotty spoke up, a small squeak in her already small voice.

  “Fair commerce,” Babe added.

  “Not by a long shot.” Renoir lit a cigar and blew the smoke out into his once-sumptuous but now faded railroad car.

  Babe waved away the smoke. “Three hundred is fair commerce.”

  He looked at Lotty, then at Babe, grinned around his cigar, and said, “Well, now that I see the color of your coin, I have to hand it to you nitwits. Saving up that much must have been a real challenge. Either that, or you ran into a sudden . . . streak of luck.” He raised his eyebrows inquisitively, stroked his goatee, looking from girl to girl.

  “We’ve been saving for months!” Lotty barked, her prairie dog voice piercing the railroad car. “Picking up cherry pie work, washing, mending! Selling personal belongings! Filling in for anyone who needed filling in! Playing the crowd for tips!”

  “So I see. Too bad you didn’t save enough,” Renoir said.