The Same River Twice (12 page)

I look back at the hollow maple and nod my head once, glad that no one is here to witness this. I walk out of the woods, my tracks bisecting animal trails in strange geometry. Behind me the woodpecker labors for larvae to survive the season. Ahead, Rita is waiting, very calmly, waiting. She has her own high-water mark to watch. Soon the snow will fly, the color of salt, the smell of life.

A
llowing oneself to sleep in rain is the mark of a soldier, an animal, and the consummate hitchhiker. It was a skill I never fully acquired. Water weight trebled the mass of my pack. Rain gathered in my brows and ran into my eyes at the slightest movement. There is a private understanding, even appreciation, of misery when one is cold and wet at four in the morning. Dawn never seemed so precious. Birdsong meant that soon you could watch the rising steam drawn from your clothes by sun. In this fashion, I began a summer in Alabama.

The sun hung low on the horizon when the leader of a convoy came traveling my way. Emblazoned along the truck in red curlicued letters were the words “Hendley Circus, Greatest Show on Earth.” Truck after truck passed, each garishly advertising various sideshows. Horse droppings spilled from a trailer. A variety of campers and RVs followed, but none stopped and no one waved. The last vehicle trundled from sight and I felt as though I'd seen a mirage, a phantom wagon train that taunted hermits of the road.

From the west came the sound of another truck straining in low gear. The driver flung open the passenger door without stopping.

“Hurry,” he said. “I can't stop or Peaches will get mad.”

I used the mirror to vault onto the running board, and scrambled into the seat.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem. I've been on the run plenty.”

“It's not like that.”

“It never is,” he said. “You got five bucks to loan me?”

“I'm broke.”

He slid a hand into his shirt pocket and handed me a five-dollar bill. He spat tobacco juice out the window.

“Little treat for Peaches,” he said. “She loves 'backer.”

“Who's Peaches?”

“My best friend of fifteen years. The circus is my mistress but Peaches is my wife.”

The way the truck swayed at low speed, I figured he was married to the sideshow Fat Lady, who wouldn't fit up front. If he wanted to haul his wife in the back, it was his business.

Barney had been in the circus all his life, a case of “sawdust up my nose when I was a little pecker.” He offered me a job, saying that I owed him a Lincoln already. Room and board were included in the wage. Four hours later we passed through a tiny town and joined the rest of the caravan, circled like a pioneer wagon train in a broad grassy vale. Barney hopped from the cab and handed me a rake.

“Clear the rocks from behind the truck, then make a path to the big top.”

Barney climbed on the rear bumper and unhooked chains bigger than those used by professional loggers. He cranked down the gate, revealing the great gray flanks of an elephant. Barney spoke to Peaches in a soothing tone, apologizing for the long trip, offering her water and hay if she'd come out of the truck. A foot extended backwards. I scurried away so fast I fell. Raucous laughter erupted behind me.

“What a fall, what a fall! Sign him up!”

“Move over, Rover, he's mashing clover!”

A pair of dwarfs leered from giant heads on neckless bodies. One performed a handspring, then clambered onto the shoulders of his buddy. They advanced on me, my size now, flicking their tongues like snakes. I held the rake across my body.

“Rover's got a rake,” said one.

“Let's throw him in the lake.”

“There ain't no lake.”

“How about a well?”

“That sounds good.”

The top dwarf kicked the lower one in the head.

“Swell,” the top one said. “You should have said swell for the rhyme.”

“Don't kick me.”

The lower dwarf bit his partner's ankle and they tumbled across the ground. Peaches aimed her trunk high, bellowing relief at standing on earth. Barney stepped around her with a long pole that ended in a hook.

“Hey, you fricking runts,” he yelled. “Peaches favors tidbits like you.”

The dwarfs scrambled away, hopping onto the metal steps of a camper.

“I'll make a suitcase out of her,” one said.

“Planters from her feet.”

“A dildo of her trunk.”

Peaches regarded me from an eye the size of my fist. Thick stalks of hair poked from her body like weed clumps. Her back leg held a heavy manacle that chained her to the truck.

“Stay away from them shrimps,” Barney said. “Watch out for the clowns, too. And don't even look at the Parrot Lady. Even from behind. She can tell.”

I nodded, receiving information without the ability to process it.

“Go to the trucks and ask for Flathead. Tell him you're my First of May.”

I moved across the field, listening to yelling and cursing everywhere. No one talked in normal tones. People were setting up sideshow games, running electric wires, unloading animals. A vast crew of men worked four trucks loaded with folded tents. Flathead's curly hair was very short, as if to display the fact that his head was indeed flat on top. He told me to dig a donicker.

“What?”

“The donicker hole. What's the matter, you no piss? Everybody piss. Dig two hole, you.”

He handed me a shovel and sent me to an area at the edge of the campers. Everyone ignored me. I finished my work and walked away. A man strode past me and calmly urinated into the hole.

I returned to Flathead, who sent me to a canvas crew that was short a pair of hands. Trucks circled the field, stopping at precise points aligned with iron stakes driven into the ground. Several men dragged the folded sections of tent from the back of the truck. I was a runner. When pulled fast, canvas becomes slightly airborne, not so heavy, and easier to handle. Another man and I held a corner of the canvas and ran as hard as we could to the extent of the fold, went back, grabbed the next corner and ran again. The canvas sandpapered my hands to blood.

When the sections were laid out, we laced them together while the more experienced men fastened the canvas to bail rings. Walking on the tent risked tearing it, so everyone crawled like bugs, even Flathead. Next came the complicated process of raising the top, one section at a time, to keep them even. My chore was to hold a guy line until Flathead yelled to tie it off. It reminded me of water-skiing—incredible exertion while standing still.

After nine hours, Peaches hoisted the final pole with ropes tied to her harness. The entire tent strained upward while everyone watched, feeling the increased tension in the lines. Flathead tied off the main pole. In the dim interior, we set up three tiers of collapsible bleachers, cursed by electricians and sound people. Flathead announced we were finished and everyone began asking if the flag was up. We staggered into an afternoon sunlight so brilliant we bumped against each other. The entire mass of exhausted men hurried away and I trailed behind, following the herd. Since I hadn't understood that an upright flag meant dinner was served, I was late. The only thing worse than the dregs of the stew was knowing that everyone else's sweat had fallen into the pot.

A cook sent me to the sleeper truck for canvas boys. Four levels of bunk beds lined each wall, with a thin corridor running the length of the truck. Our collective bedroom was a mobile lightless hall, extremely hot, that reeked of unwashed bodies. Snoring echoed is back and forth between the metal walls. I found an empty bunk and lay on a mattress the width of a bookshelf.

We stayed three days in town, long enough for me to prove myself a fierce liability as a taffy seller. The candy was cut into tiny plugs that could pull fillings from a molar. I was unable to hawk it aggressively enough to please the head of concessions, a bitter man who limped. He'd been an aerialist until a fall ruined his ankle. His performing monicker had been Colonel Kite but everyone called him. Colonel Corn. After my dismal failure as a candy seller, he decided he liked me since I was less suited to employment than he was. The Colonel rather graciously gave me the lowest job of folding waxed paper around the candy.

The circus possessed a hierarchy with the complex simplicity of the military. Those who rode horses in a standing position were on top of the heap, followed by aerialists, live animal performers, clowns, and the ringmaster. Sideshow freaks made up the middle level. Everyone else drifted at the bottom, producing their own pecking order based on convincing their peers of personal prowess. Canvas boys were the lowest. We had no one to despise but minorities and homosexuals. Since circus people hated them already, the canvas boys were left with honing bigotry to a fine edge.

The technicians seemed to have the simplest job, and I approached Krain, the light man, about work. He led me up a precarious ladder to the booth. Protruding from slots in a metal board were several levers that controlled the intensity of the lights. Krain pulled an electrical wire from beneath the board, separated the two strands, and tucked each one in his jaws, clamped between his teeth. He gradually pushed the lever forward. His eyes got very wide and his lips pulled back in a macabre grin. At quarter power, his head and shoulders began quivering. He brought it back to the zero mark, calmly pulled the wires from his mouth, and offered them to me. I climbed down the ladder.

The aerialists and horse performers never deigned to speak with anyone. As Europeans, they considered themselves superior to the rest of us. The two clowns were hilarious in performance, making me laugh long after I knew their gags. On the occasional free day, they went fishing. I followed them once, hoping for some intangible insight into the private world of professional clowns. I watched from the bushes. They carried tackle boxes and baited their hooks like normal men. They cast and reeled and did not converse. When one caught a fish, the other nodded. The only shift from standard behavior was their method of removing a fish from the line. With a ferocious motion, they ripped the hook free, usually trailing bits of the fish's interior. Often it was bleeding from the gills.

No one liked the dwarfs because they made more money than anyone else, and in violation of circus tradition, they didn't squander the loot. At each new town they inquired after the stock market.

In addition to Peaches, the circus boasted three bedraggled tigers that reared on their hind legs as if begging, perched on stools, and crowded together on a large box. A man dressed as a woman snapped the whip over their striped flanks. I was leery of him until the Colonel explained his clothing—an audience was more awed by a female tamer than a male. The tiger man's great enemy, due to her withering disdain, was the Parrot Lady. The dwarfs called her “an upper crustacean.”

She was part of a sideshow that included a perpetually drunk magician, a trained walrus, and a skinny man, double-jointed at every junction, who could fold himself into knots. There was a strong man who was dying from steroid intake. His brother was a fire eater who told me the hardest part was controlling a sneeze.

The most popular act was the Parrot Lady. She'd begun as a common sword swallower, but like everyone, had wanted to increase her earnings by diversifying her act. Five years later she was the biggest sideshow draw. Women and children were not allowed in her tent. The huge MEN ONLY sign fostered quite a crowd, and on slow nights, teenage boys were admitted for double the price. I watched her performance every night. The tent was always packed, hot, and hazed by cigarette smoke.

She entered from stage left wearing a high-necked, long-sleeved, white formal gown, looking like an aristocrat. The audience gradually hushed beneath her unwavering stare. After a long spell of silence, she began speaking in a voice so low that everyone strained to hear. Each night she told the dirtiest joke imaginable, speaking of cocks, cunts, and fucking as casually as the men's wives might discuss children and meals. A palpable sense of guilt congealed with lust in the tent, and the men refused to look at one another.

The Parrot Lady stood very still. Her eyes fluttered to stage right and she lifted a hand to her ear. Faint chamber music drifted through the tent. With the grace of a fashion model, she rose from her stool and began an excruciatingly slow strip—from the inside out. She removed a slip first, a petticoat, her shoes, stockings, and two more petticoats, each frillier than the last. She took off her bra and panties last. No one moved. Everyone knew she was naked beneath the dress, a fact more arresting than if she'd actually been nude.

She faced the audience and began to unbutton her dress, beginning at the top of the chin-high collar and working down. Holding the front closed, she continued to her lower belly. The men were leaning forward without awareness of their posture. When her arms could no longer reach the buttons, she turned her back. The long train concealed her legs. Nothing was visible except her slightly bowed head and the long dress that everyone knew was open in front. She remained standing this way a long time. Instead of building to a crescendo, the music faded to silence. The spotlight narrowed its focus. She let the dress fall from her shoulders. Breath came pouring from the men as if each had received a powerful blow in the guts.

Tattoos of brilliant tropical birds covered every inch of her body. Two parrots faced each other on her buttocks, beaks curving into the cleft, tail feathers running down the back of her legs. A swirling flock of bright plumage fluttered up her back and across her shoulders. Parakeets perched among toucans and birds of paradise. Lush jungle foliage peeped around the birds.

Slowly she turned, revealing a shaven yoni from which a pair of golden wings fanned along her hips. On top of each breast sat two enormous and lovely parrots. She rotated again, moving at a slow pace until she faced the men once more. She now held a long fluorescent light tube. An electric cord ran behind the black curtain. She spread her legs for balance and tipped her head back. Only her neck and the point of her chin were visible. She lifted the light tube above her head and very slowly slid it down her throat. She took her hands away, and pressed a switch on the cord that turned on the fluorescent tube. The spotlight went black. Her body glowed from within, illuminating the birds in an ethereal, ghostly light, like a jungle dawn. She flicked the switch off and the tent was dark save for sunlight leaking beneath the canvas flaps. The houselights came on very bright. The stage was empty. She was gone.