Authors: Diane Hammond
“Even cornrows?” Neva said.
“Amen, baby.” Corinna grinned. “Even cornrows.”
Two hours later
Bettina Jones came into the Beauty Spot singing “Rock of Ages” and shaking out her plastic rain bonnet. “Whew! I know what Noah must have felt like,” she said. “It’s raining out there like it’s never going to stop.”
Corinna whisked Bettina into her chair and said, “Wouldn’t you just love to know what Noah told all those animals to make them hurry up and get on board? My daddy had chickens and goats, a cow or two, and those animals moved slower than grass grows.”
“You’re sure in a good mood this morning,” Bettina said, examining Corinna’s face in the salon mirror. “Is that makeup you’ve got on? Your face looks different. Brighter or something.”
“I never wear makeup, you know that. The day you see me wearing makeup is the day you’re going to be looking in my casket, because there is no other way I’d be smearing that stuff on my face. My mama used to say it was immoral and my daddy said anyhow we couldn’t afford it, so I never got into the habit.”
“Is Sam feeling better?” Bettina said, fishing.
“No. The only thing that’s going to help is for him to retire.”
“You finally set a date, then?”
“No, but I think it might be soon.”
“You sure are acting strange,” Bettina frowned.
“Nope, just the same old me. Come on, let’s wet you down.”
Corinna held Bettina’s smock like a train so she wouldn’t trip on her way over to the sink. She noticed the woman was getting more and more little skin tabs all over her face, looked like raised black freckles. Some people were put off by things like that.
“Hon,” Corinna said, guiding Bettina’s head back into the sink and turning on the water, “you might want to see somebody about those little moles on your face. Get somebody to get rid of them for you before they take over.”
Bettina said stiffly, “I don’t want some doctor cutting on my
face, Corinna. I am not ashamed of what the good Lord sees fit to send me. I’m beautiful in His eyes, and that’s what counts.”
“They don’t cut, honey, they freeze you. I do a girl who told me she had a wart frozen one time. She said they dip a Q-tip into a little ladle of steaming cold stuff, rub it on the wart, and wait a couple days till it falls off on its own. She said it didn’t hurt a bit.”
“Thank you for telling me, Corinna,” Bettina said stiffly. “But I can’t afford a doctor like that, not on Social Security.”
Corinna wrapped Bettina’s head in a towel and helped her sit up. “Well, I tell you what. This appointment is on me, my treat.”
“Now, you can’t do that!” Bettina cried. “You’ve got to live, same as me.”
“Naw. It’s my treat, so stop fussing.”
“Something’s definitely up with you.”
Corinna waved her hand. “Just in a good mood, hon. No particular reason. Just in a good mood.”
Johnson Johnson lay
on his back in bed, in the dark, admiring the constellation of stars on his ceiling. It was a work in progress, applied a single star at a time with glow-in-the-dark paint and the finest brush he could find. He figured he’d painted something like ten thousand stars already, plus a bunch of planets, plotted out according to a celestial map he’d found in an issue of
National Geographic
. He’d broken the photograph into a grid, and lined off the ceiling to match. So far, the project had taken seven years. He figured he’d be done in another two if he kept up his current rate of three hours a week. He wondered whether, if he asked Neva nicely, she would come up sometime
to see it. But he’d noticed she was edgy about things unless they involved cookies or animals. He was certain she’d been happy about Chocolate, Chip, Kitty, and the tunnel. He’d even considered running a second tunnel to her apartment, right through the wall and siding, but that could wait. Right now he had another project in mind.
He had come up with the idea of making Neva’s elephant a musical instrument. He could buy several steel drums and hammer out their tops, maybe make them so they had different tonal ranges—a low drum, a high drum, like that. The elephant could play them using a rubber mallet. Or instead of steel drums, he could take those big blue plastic bottles people used in water coolers and fill them up with different levels of water, so they sounded different from each other when you hit them—and if they broke, why, you could just get a drink. He’d go to Home Depot in the morning.
Johnson Johnson loved Home Depot. He’d gotten some of his best ideas there. Once, he’d been in Plumbing Fixtures and figured out that he could paint the inside of a toilet bowl bright colors and patterns, like a swirling design that would go in the same direction as the water when the toilet was flushed. Even better, he could put one of those toilet deodorizers in the tank that would turn the water blue, then use colors like yellow to turn the bowl green. He had brought home a white porcelain toilet and china paints and created tropical islands in an ocean at night, with the sky lit up by fireworks. Then he’d taken the painted toilet to a porcelain manufacturer and they’d let him fire it in their kiln. They’d wanted him to do some toilets for their customers, too, but he told them he didn’t do something more than once. They’d made him promise to consider it, but that had been three years ago now, and he still didn’t have the
urge to paint another toilet—unless, of course, Neva were to ask him to. That wasn’t likely, since she had never seen his toilet. Maybe she would sometime, though. You didn’t know what good things were going to happen to you until you were right in the middle of them, so it was best to always be ready. He’d had good things happen to him before, so he knew. One night, a Ferris wheel had broken when he’d been on it, and he’d been able to sit up on top and look at the lights of Bladenham for half an hour for free. And another thing was, he’d found Kitty in a ditch by the side of a road that he had never been on before and never went on again. Kitty had been bleeding from a cut on his head and one eye was swollen shut. Johnson Johnson had wrapped him in a blanket and brought him directly to a veterinarian, who’d asked Johnson Johnson if he really wanted the cat treated.
He’s an old tom, son, probably sowed his wild oats a long time ago now,
the doctor had said.
You sure he’s worth saving?
Johnson Johnson had been very sure then, and he was still just as sure now. Imagine Kitty dying unloved in some ditch instead of balled up all tight and cozy in the third hammock on the north wall in his living room. Johnson Johnson didn’t like to think about it. And now he had Chocolate and Chip, and he wouldn’t have wanted to miss them, either.
He pulled his covers up to his chin, basking in the faint light of the stars above his head and thinking with unfathomable wonder about how good the world was.
N
eva was outside
hosing down the elephant when Truman and Winslow approached on the path to Hannah’s barn. Neva smiled and saluted with the hose. Truman admired the way the sunlight set her hair on fire, like a Japanese maple in autumn.
“What brings you to my little corner of Paradise?” she called when they were within range. “Especially on a Saturday?”
“Winslow. Have you seen a boy named Reginald around anywhere? He and Winslow cooked up a plan to meet here this afternoon.”
“He just got here. He’s with Sam in the barn.” She opened the gate for them. Hannah stood in the yard, dripping with water, her eyes squeezed shut with pleasure, shuffling her feet in the mud. Neva turned on the water again, set the nozzle to the hardest stream possible, and pointed it straight into Hannah’s
open mouth. Hannah moved her tongue back and forth and let the spray hit the back of her throat at full strength. “She loves this,” Neva said. “Go on in. I’m just finishing up.”
They found Sam and Reginald in the food preparation room, cutting apples. The boy lit up when he saw Winslow. “Hey, you remembered!”
“Course,” Winslow said.
“Well, we’re going to walk the elephant pretty soon,” Reginald said.
“Soon as she’s done with her bath.” Sam handed a second knife to Winslow. “If you’re going to hang around here, you’ve got to work, though. Hannah doesn’t like slackers.”
Truman said, “You think it’s okay for the boys to be here for an hour or so? It won’t interfere?”
“Nah,” Sam said. “Sugar likes the company, and we were going to take a walk anyway. You can come along, too, if you’ve got a mind to.”
Truman lifted his hand. “Thank you, but I’ve got some things I need to take care of in the office. Have you seen Harriet?”
Sam frowned. “No sir. I’m glad of it, too.”
Truman watched Winslow belly up to the counter beside Reginald and grab a couple of apples from a plastic wash tub. “You knew Max Biedelman very well, didn’t you?”
“We were friends. She was a fine lady, no mistake. It riles me to see that Harriet Saul strutting around here. You ask me, she’s nothing but a cheap trick in a safari suit.”
Truman tried to suppress a smile and failed, shaking his head. “She’s a vision all right,” he said. “Have you seen this morning’s newspaper?”
“No, sir, I generally don’t see the paper until I get home at night. Are you talking about the
News-Gazette
?”
“Yes. There’s a full-page feature about Harriet and Maxine Biedelman on the front of the Lifestyle section.”
Sam glowered. “Do they have any pictures of Hannah in there?”
“One or two,” Truman said, trying to remember. “Most of them were of Harriet with zoo visitors.”
Reginald and Winslow appeared in the food prep doorway, holding the wash tub of apples between them. “We’re all done, mister,” said Reginald. “We cut them real carefully, too. You sure she doesn’t mind eating the stems and seeds? I’d mind.”
“Naw, she doesn’t mind,” Sam said. “It’s good for her digestion. And she might just plant an apple tree along the way.”
Truman shook Sam’s hand. “I’ll say goodbye, then. And thank you for letting the boys spend time with you. Next time we’ll be sure to give you some notice before we show up.”
Sam clasped his hand. “We don’t need any notice. They’re good kids, plus shug’s always happy to have a new face to look at, especially a child’s.”
“Winslow, stay out of the way, now, and do what Mr. Brown tells you,” Truman said. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half.”
Neva was just stowing the hose when Truman left the barn. “Beautiful day,” he said. “It must be much harder to do what you do in the rain.”
Neva shrugged. “You adapt. It’s never good, but it’s not so bad, either.”
“Well, I’d whine,” Truman said.
Neva smiled. “So how’s Miles?”
Truman hung his head. Just that morning the piglet had chewed the bottom out of a plastic wastebasket in Winslow’s bathroom, but why go into it?
“Listen, can I ask you a question?” Neva said, walking with him to the gate.
“Sure.”
“How much does it cost a year for Hannah’s care and upkeep?”
Truman frowned. “I’d have to look at the budget, but ballpark, it’s around a hundred, hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, if you include staff salaries and benefits. Maybe a little more. There’s actually a separate trust Max Biedelman established so that Hannah would always be given the proper care. It includes the money for one salaried position, Sam’s, and it’s separate from the zoo’s other operating expenses. It’s something I didn’t know about until recently. My father only unearthed it a couple of days ago. The money wasn’t a surprise, but the fact that it was in a discretionary fund was. God knows how much of it has actually reached Hannah, all these years.”
Neva squinted in the sunlight. “Hypothetically, if Hannah were to leave the zoo for any reason—not die, but be relocated, say—would the trust go with her?”
Truman looked at her, surprised. “I have no idea, but it’s probably addressed in the provisions of the trust. Why?”
Neva shrugged, but there was clearly more going on behind her eyes. “No reason.”
“Ah.”
“Listen, would you have lunch with me some time?”
“I’d like that. Not at the Oat Maiden, though.” Truman shuddered. “Anywhere but the Oat Maiden.”
Neva smiled. “All right. You can choose the place. How about Monday, then?”
“That would be fine. Harriet is a bit odd about employee fraternization so it might be best if we make this our little secret.”
“Is that why her receptionist was fired?”
“No,” Truman said carefully. “I believe Brenda failed to show the proper respect.”
“I wouldn’t last five minutes up there.”
Truman sighed. “Few do.”
From time to time,
as they walked through the zoo, Hannah tucked her trunk under Sam’s arm.
“How come she does that, mister?” Reginald said. “Put her trunk in there like that?”
“Because she can’t hold my hand.”
“What do you mean?”
“Watch her,” Sam said. “She usually does it when something makes her feel nervous. Too many people around, especially on her blind side, or maybe she hears a noise she doesn’t recognize.”
“She’s
scared
?” Reginald laughed. “She gets scared? Hell, she’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Don’t be disrespectful, boy,” Sam said sternly. “If you’re going to be disrespectful, you can just walk home right now.”
Reginald ducked his head. “Sorry, mister. I didn’t mean anything.”
“You say your sorries to Hannah, not to me. Do you have an apple in your pocket?”
“Yeah.” Reginald withdrew two apple quarters.
Sam nodded. “Then you apologize and give her that apple.”
Reginald held out the apple pieces on the palm of his hand. “You can eat them if you want to,” he told Hannah. She picked the two pieces neatly off his hand and popped them into her mouth.
“Isn’t that something, how she can be so dainty like that?”
Sam said. “I’ve never gotten over it, not even after all these years.”
Winslow spoke. “Is she scared of us—of me and Reginald, I mean?”
“Nah, at least not right now. You’re not doing anything but walking, and she’s good about people walking on her seeing side, at least as long as they’re people she knows. Guess she’s seen you both enough to know you. Now, see that man right there, the one coming toward us who’s walking real fast? Big man?”
The boys watched. The man passed close by her blind side and Hannah tucked her trunk into Sam’s armpit. “Baby doesn’t like people coming at her fast like that when she can’t see them,” he explained. “She doesn’t leave her trunk with me very long, because that’s the business end of an elephant, but it makes her feel better.”
“What else is she afraid of?” Winslow asked.
Sam shrugged. “I don’t always know. It could be a small thing. You ever been afraid of a bee? Most bees won’t do you any harm, but you jump anyway. Same for Hannah.”
The boys walked along thoughtfully.
“What are you afraid of?” Sam asked Reginald.
“Nothin’.”
“Now, that’s not true. Everybody’s afraid of something.”
“I’m afraid of trains,” Winslow volunteered.
“Trains?” Sam said.
“The noise when they go by, and that whoosh after they’re gone, like they’re going to suck you right up.”
Sam nodded. “Well, I could see that.”
“I’m afraid of my aunt when she gets mad,” Reginald said. “She starts talking and talking, and the spit just
flies
.”
“What does she talk about?” Winslow asked.
“How I’ll end up in the gutter if I don’t try extra hard, how it’s in my blood. I don’t think so, though.”
“She probably just wants you to make something of yourself,” Sam said. “Woman is looking out for you, son. You remember that.”
“Yeah.”
Sam fished a small gourd out of his canvas pouch and handed it up to Hannah. “Either of you suck your thumb when you were little?” he asked.
“I did,” Winslow admitted.
“Well, Hannah sucks her trunk sometimes, if she’s feeling spooky, especially at night. Girl doesn’t like the dark.”
The boys smiled at the thought.
“She ever cry, mister?” Reginald asked.
“I’ve never seen her cry, exactly, but she gets downhearted from time to time. Could be she’s thinking about her mama, who got killed on that plantation in Burma. Or maybe she’s thinking about Miss Biedelman. We miss her, even after all these years.”
They walked in silence for a minute or two, watching people smile at Hannah as they walked past.
“She’s got you, though,” Reginald said.
“Yeah,” Sam said after a minute. “She’s got me.”
Neva waited until she
was at home that evening before making her call to Alice McNeary, the director of the Pachyderm Sanctuary, to talk about Hannah. Alice was a gravel-voiced, plainspoken, tough-as-leather old circus trainer who’d been on the circuit for twenty-five years before giving it up to
found the sanctuary. Neva gave her an overview of Hannah’s circumstances, including the inadequacy of her yard and ending with the state of her feet.
“So when did you say she last lived with other elephants?” Alice asked.
“1954, I think. She lived with one old cow for about a year. She’s been alone ever since.” Neva sat at the kitchen table, where Kitty was laid out, snoring loudly.
“How about keepers?”
“That’s its own story: she’s had the same man with her for forty-one years, a good man. But he’s sixty-eight now, and his health is bad.”
“So how does he feel about Hannah’s leaving? Would he support it?”
“If she were leaving to go there? Absolutely.”
“And the zoo? Which one is it again?”
“The Max L. Biedelman. In Bladenham, Washington.”
“What the hell are you doing in a place like that?” Alice said.
“It’s a long story.”
“I didn’t know they even had an elephant.”
“Give it another couple of weeks and everyone will know. The director’s launching a big marketing campaign about Hannah and Maxine Biedelman.”
“I thought Max was a man,” Alice said.
“Max is short for Maxine.”
“Isn’t she dead?”
Neva sighed. “Yes. It’s hard to explain. The zoo director is actually billing herself as Maxine Biedelman, walking around in period clothes, giving talks, stuff like that. I can send you an article that came out about her this morning.”
“Do that. How does she feel about the prospect of giving up the zoo’s main attraction?”
“That’s the thing—she doesn’t know anything about it. She’s a controlling harridan. We’re going to have to get such overwhelming grassroots support that by the time she gets wind of it, there won’t be any way out. And frankly, even if we can pull that off, which I doubt, it will probably get ugly by the end. You need to know that up front.”
Alice laughed. “And when has that ever stopped me? You know I love a good fight. But we’ll have to be very clear that I’m not raiding the zoo—the situation was brought to the sanctuary’s attention, not the other way around. That’s the only way my board would even consider her.”
“I know that.” Neva passed her hand over Kitty’s flabby gut.
“Do you have other people working with you? You can’t do this alone, you know; no one can do it alone. You’re tough, honey, but you’re not
that
tough.”
“No, it won’t be me, alone. There are several of us, already. The trick will be to keep it away from the zoo until we’re ready to go public.”
“Look, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll brief my executive committee and go ahead and put her on a wait-list. There are four animals ahead of her, though, and I only have room for two. And my board’s very tough on this. Any animal coming here has to bring two hundred fifty thousand dollars along as an endowment for their care. Those are the terms. No money, no dice.”
“Well, all right, then,” said Neva. “I guess I’d better go out and find me some rich people.”
“Keep me informed,” said Alice. “And I’ll do a little sniffing around, myself. I know a couple of people up in Seattle who might be willing to help.”
On Monday, Truman
picked Neva up just outside the zoo gates and drove them to a place on the far side of town called Teriyaki Time, where he was relatively sure no one from the zoo would see them. The restaurant occupied a narrow slot at the center of an older strip mall—two tables wide, twenty-five tables deep, backed up by a stifling kitchen and one unisex restroom with wall fatigue. It was one of Winslow’s favorites, a place they often resorted to after work when Truman lacked culinary inspiration. The owner greeted him enthusiastically.
“Hey, Truman! How’s it going?” He shook Truman’s hand and looked admiringly at Neva.
“Hello, Thomas. Neva, meet Thomas Kubota. This is his restaurant. Thomas, this is Geneva Wilson. She’s an elephant keeper at the zoo.”
Thomas shook Neva’s hand admiringly. “No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“I’ll be damned. You’re pretty small to be bossing a big animal around.”
“It’s all in the wrist.”