Miraculum

by Steph Post

  Ruby dug into her shirt pocket and pulled out a box of matches and a squashed package of cigarettes.

  “I could care less about Tom. Seriously. You want to spend your time with a shifty-eyed roustie who couldn’t say no to a bet if his life depended on it and is probably only sweet-talking you because you make more in a blow-off than he can in a month? Go ahead. It’s not my business.”

  Ruby held out a cigarette, but January only stared coldly back at her. Ruby shrugged her shoulders and put the cigarette to her lips. January finally sighed and pushed her plate away.

  “Listen, what happened to the geek is awful. It’s okay to be upset about it, but you don’t got to take it out on me.”

  Ruby turned her head to the side and blew out a stream of smoke.

  “His name was Jacob, you know. He had a name. He wasn’t just a geek.”

  “I know.”

  They sat together in silence while Ruby smoked. She knew she was making January uncomfortable, but she didn’t care. She smoked her cigarette and looked out across the cookhouse yard at all the people who were discussing the geek, but who were also complaining about the food and sore feet and having to sew up holes in their costumes. She closed her eyes against them. January finally forced Ruby’s attention back to her.

  “Do you know why he did it? Why he killed himself?”

  Ruby opened her eyes and stubbed out her cigarette on the edge of the table. She sighed and dropped it into the dirt.

  “I have no idea. It’s not like I talked to him all the time. I saw him yesterday before we opened and he seemed fine. Wasn’t saying goodbye to people or anything.”

  January rested her chin in the palms of her hands.

  “Tom, I mean, some people, some of the boys, are saying he owed Kensy for poker.”

  Ruby shook her head.

  “All the guys owe Kensy money. He’s a shark. But come on, how much could he owe him? No one has any real money around here.”

  January considered this and then glanced down at the table.

  “You know, I was thinking. What if the geek got a letter from his wife? Did he have a wife?”

  Ruby sipped at her coffee. It was cold.

  “I think so. He’s never wintered with us down in Florida. He always says he’s going back home to his family. In Missouri, maybe? Somewhere out that way.”

  January lifted her eyes and nodded.

  “So, what if he got a letter from his wife back home? And in it she said she was leaving him. Or that she’d cheated on him. Was still cheating on him and wasn’t making no plans to stop. Wouldn’t that kind of news make a man cash it all in?”

  Ruby gave January a sad, half-smile.

  “That how it happen in your magazines?”

  “I’m serious. It happens all the time. People killing themselves over love. In the stories, but in real life, too. I just read in Photoplay about this one actress. She found out her beau was sleeping with some other girl and she walked out into a lake and drowned herself. Seriously.”

  “You would think people would have better things to kill themselves over.”

  “And you would think you’re made of stone. Don’t act like you’ve never been heartbroken.”

  Ruby looked away as January stood and picked up her plate. The tables across the yard were slowly beginning to empty. Alicia and Marjorie had left and so the cookhouse was already quieter. January stepped over the bench seat.

  “I got to go. Me and Darlene and Wanda got a new routine to put together. I’m going to go out of my mind if we keep doing the same damn number with those stupid fans.”

  Ruby nodded but didn’t move.

  “All right.”

  January sauntered away, but Ruby didn’t watch her leave. She studied the woodgrain of the table in front of her and absently rubbed her finger along the rim of her empty cup. It didn’t add up. If it had been the Ossified Man, whose bones were growing out of control, creating a cage of his own body, maybe she could believe it. Or the fortune teller, YaYa, with one foot in the insane asylum, the other edging toward the grave. But Jacob? He was odd, but no odder than anyone else who chose a carnival life over a normal one. Yet Ruby, better than most, knew that life wasn’t supposed to make sense. It wasn’t supposed to be clear or have a purpose. Sometimes, it was only about surviving. About waking up each day and taking a breath and then fighting for that breath. Maybe the geek just didn’t want to fight anymore. Maybe he wanted something easier.

  Ruby shook away her thoughts and started to stand up, but a heavy hand forcefully pushed down on her shoulder.

  “Sit.”

  Ruby lowered herself back on the bench as Samuel slowly came around the table and stiffly sat across from her. She crossed her arms, waiting.

  “This matter with the geek. Do you know why he did it?”

  Ruby huffed.

  “Why do you think I’d know?”

  Samuel’s eyes didn’t leave hers. They were stormy, darker than his skin, and Ruby knew from their intensity that Samuel was furious. The rest of his face, however, betrayed no emotion and his voice, still stilted with the British accent he had retained in America after almost thirty years, was level and even. Almost dangerously so.

  “Because you see things. You see people.”

  “No more than you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Samuel finally looked away from her and they sat together awkwardly for a moment. Samuel had been with the Star Light longer than anyone save Pontilliar himself and he watched every part of it like a bird of prey. Considering. Calculating. Anyone who was new to the show, a First of May man, invariably underestimated Samuel. They assumed he was merely Pontilliar’s boy, shining shoes and running errands. They found his perfect posture, branded cheeks and extreme articulation unsettling. The rumor that he had once been an English baronet’s butler made his presence even more disconcerting. It was the actual truth, though, that was baffling for so many: Pontilliar’s name was on the banner, yes, but it was Samuel who made sure the show stayed open, food went into their bellies and money into their pockets.

  Ruby picked up her coffee cup and tapped the edge of it on the table.

  “I’m guessing we’re hightailing it today?”

  Samuel sighed.

  “As soon as Pontilliar takes care of this mess. He’s in town right now, at the police station. Apparently, the citizens of Sulphur don’t appreciate finding dead carnival workers hanging from their trees.”

  “Damn it, I didn’t even think about that. How much is this going to cost him?”

  “More than I’m sure Pontilliar is willing to part with. And more than we can spare.”

  Ruby nodded.

  “Jesus. Where are we going to go? Aren’t we supposed to be in Sulphur for two more nights?”

  Samuel closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Ruby realized that he wasn’t irritated, so much as weary. She knew that to Samuel, Pontilliar and most others, the death of the geek was more of a frustrating inconvenience than a loss to mourn over. If Jacob had been killed by an accident on the lot, they would be holding a vigil. But suicide was a coward’s way out. There would be no memorial. There would be no words. Samuel opened his eyes and stood up from the table.

  “I wired Chandler early this morning, as soon as I received the news. He’s already in Baton Rouge, setting up the advance. I’m hoping he can move us in early. Perhaps he can even have us open by tomorrow night. Baton Rouge is always a profitable stop and we could use the extra days. Between the advance and whatever damage Pontilliar is settling for, there will not be much left in our coffers.”

  Samuel turned away, but Ruby bolted up and stopped him.

  “The body.”

  Samuel turned back to her and cocked his head, listening. Ruby came around the table.

  “We need to get it back to his wife. I think he had a couple of kids, too. We need to send the body back.”

  Samuel frowned and the lines across his forehead deepened.

 
“That’s not going to be easy.”

  Ruby raised her chin slightly.

  “Jacob was with us for seven seasons.”

  “He took his own life.”

  “He was still one of us.”

  Samuel sighed and his shoulders slumped forward.

  “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Good.”

  Ruby looked around the empty cookhouse yard.

  “Should we start breaking down now?”

  Samuel shook his head.

  “Not yet. But be ready to. Franklin is having all the rousties stand by. We don’t want it to appear that we are vacating until Pontilliar has everything sorted out.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Samuel frowned again and looked away.

  “There’s something else. When I met with Franklin this morning, he told me some news I’m not certain you want to hear.”

  He paused. Ruby’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms.

  “Well?”

  Samuel glanced back at her, his eyes more wary than concerned.

  “I just wanted you to know before you saw him. I wasn’t sure how you would react, given the circumstances of your last parting.”

  Ruby’s face went hot and she clenched her jaw, trying to control her emotions. It could be no one else.

  “Hayden’s back.”

  Daniel clasped his hands in front of him and waited while the man who had been less than welcoming banged on the door above him.

  “Pontilliar? There’s someone here to see you.”

  The man turned around and glared at Daniel before calling through the heavy wooden door again.

  “Someone who refuses to go away until you speak with him.”

  Daniel smiled up at the man and then turned to look around. He was standing at the base of the narrow steps leading up to a wagon marked “Office - Keep Out!” Behind him, the midway that had so captivated him the night before was being dismantled. Men in peaked caps and overalls, some stripped down to their gray undershirts in the heat, were untying ropes, prying up thick stakes and stacking wooden crates. Everywhere people were hurrying about, pushing handcarts, carrying trunks and boxes, pointing and calling out orders to one another.

  Just as it had been the night before, when the carnival was in full swing, the noise was terrific. The metal cars of the Ferris Wheel clanged and screeched as they scraped against one another while being slid into the long bed of a truck with high, slatted sides. Two men carrying the booth front for the Kill the Kats game were shouting at a third who was trying to help maneuver them around a still-standing tent. A prune-faced woman in a long, full skirt and bright orange head scarf swished past the office steps, muttering loudly to herself. Her arms were piled high with blankets and strings of beads, but she slowed down to look over her shoulder and squint her one good eye at him. He flashed her a brilliant white smile and she quickly turned away, disappearing into the chaos.

  And underneath the bedlam, Daniel could still feel it. The seducement he was determined to find. Its presence was quieter now, but still there. Hiding, but scratching at him from the shadows.

  Daniel continued to smile, but he could feel the stony glare coming from two steps above him. The African man with the precise British accent and striped bow tie was obviously not in the mood to be dealing with him. The man raised his fist once more and knocked on the door, scowling down at Daniel as he called out again.

  “Pontilliar! I said, there’s someone here to see you.”

  “Tell him to go the hell away! For God’s sake, Samuel!”

  The voice coming through the door was muffled, but nothing could soften the agitation and contempt of the words. Samuel shrugged his shoulders and stepped down to the dirt beside Daniel.

  “You heard the man.”

  Daniel looked Samuel up and down once before going around him and climbing the stairs. He put his hands in his pockets and stood solidly in front of the door. His voice was a low purr.

  “Trust me, Mr. Pontilliar. You want to see me.”

  Daniel leaned back slightly as the door ripped open and a red-faced man, bald, sweating and with ice blue eyes about to bug out of his head, stood before him. Daniel smiled. Pontilliar looked around him and yelled down to Samuel.

  “For the love of God! Get this clown out of here.”

  Daniel shifted his body to block Samuel and force Pontilliar to look at him. Pontilliar huffed and eyed him suspiciously while Daniel waited patiently for the man to take him in. His exquisite black suit, sharp, perfectly creased and tailored, was more expensive than anything Pontilliar had or would ever own. He watched Pontilliar’s eyes as they traveled up his body, from his gleaming crocodile skin shoes to his diamond cufflinks to his black silk tie and pocket handkerchief, still crisp even in the unbelievable heat. His jet black hair was swept back with pomade and though his suit called for a homburg, Daniel refused to wear hats. He noticed Pontilliar avoided his eyes. They always did. Daniel waited a moment more and then flashed his dazzling smile to display perfect, white, even teeth.

  “I have something you want.”

  Pontilliar crossed his thick arms and rested them on his distended paunch. He huffed.

  “Unless you got either a million dollars or Clara Bow stuffed up that fancy suit of yours somewhere, I ain’t interested.”

  At the base of the stairs, Samuel groaned, but Daniel ignored him.

  “Mr. Pontilliar, I said that I have something you want. Now step back and let me inside.”

  Samuel lunged up the stairs and reached for Daniel, but Pontilliar held up his hand to stop him. He narrowed his piggy eyes at Daniel, but opened the door wider to let him pass.

  “This better be good, stranger. You picked a hell of a day to start going door to door selling Bibles.”

  Hayden removed his hat and fingered the brim of the trilby. It was hot. Too hot to be wearing the hat and too hot to go without it. He stood next to the base of the mostly dismantled Ferris Wheel and stared across the midway at her wagon. The carnival was coming down all around him; the smaller tents, for the Snake Charmer show, the Wild Geek show, the Girl Revue and the Illusion and Electric Elucidation, had already been taken apart and were waiting in heaps to be packed up. The big top tent, always the first to be loaded, was completely gone and only the long, narrow Ten-in-One tent was still standing. The bally banners had already been lowered and rolled, and Hayden wondered if they were still the same ones he had painted years ago or if they had been replaced. The wagon murals were still the same and Hayden was glad of that. He’d first come to the Star Light because of those wagons, and if they were still there, he figured he might still have a place on the show.

  The truck wagons had been Pontilliar’s new great idea when he had split from yet another business partner during the fall of the 1916 season. America hadn’t entered the war in Europe yet and though the carnival business was booming, Pontilliar’s partner, McAdams, had decided to pack up and hitch himself to the Sun Brothers. McAdams had taken the circus animals, the heart of the show, and left Pontilliar stranded in Beaumont, Texas with only the contracts for the freaks and an acrobatic family of exiled Russian dissidents. And the caravan wagons.

  What was left wouldn’t be worth moving by train, even if Pontilliar could convince towns to let him set up his decimated show, and out of this predicament came Pontilliar’s eureka moment to mount the wagons on cut-down trucks and create a motorized circus, such as America had never seen before. Pontilliar’s Star Light Modern Motorized Menagerie! Instead of carting the elephants and tigers around in horse-drawn cages for the parade, Pontilliar would decorate the caravans, mostly used only as dressing rooms and sleeping quarters for the performers, with painted animals and drive the parade down Main Street. When Hayden had first met him, after skeptically answering an advertisement in the newspaper for a painter, he had thought Pontilliar was completely off his rocker. He would later learn that Pontilliar came up with a new great idea every few years and hence the Star
Light was ever evolving from Wild West Show to American Exposition to Circus to Carnival to Phantasmorgia. Always a new gimmick, always a new, longer than necessary name. For Hayden, the entire concept was bizarre.

  But as a twenty-one-year-old roughneck already tired of working Spindletop’s oil derricks, the chance to not only paint a set of murals, but to be paid for his work, was too good an opportunity to pass up. He accepted the job and Pontilliar gave him free rein to paint whatever he liked on the wagons, as long as each scene incorporated animals of some kind. Pontilliar and what was left of his show had wintered in Beaumont that year instead of Florida, and Hayden had six months to work on his masterpieces.

  No one in the boomtowns he’d drifted through since he was seventeen knew that Hayden was a secret artist. In the lull between twelve-hour shifts, he had sketched on crumpled sheets of newsprint and packing paper pulled from trash barrels. He drew everything he saw: automobiles and horses clashing in the muddy streets, the towers rising up into the gas-choked air, men coated in black grime, whores leaning on the railings of boardinghouses. Creating the murals for Pontilliar, however, allowed Hayden to slip into a different world. One of color and creatures he had seen only inside of books and his imagination. He was thoughtful about it, getting to know the occupants of each caravan before designing the mural. He painted birds on the Russian family’s wagon and beautiful white horses on the one for the women of the Girl Revue. Reptiles on one and lions on another. And, of course, there was his favorite, the wagon painted with snakes: in the grass, hanging from trees and even twisted, serpentine monsters heaving up out of a turbulent ocean. He labored over that particular wagon for weeks, mainly so he could catch glimpses of the girl who lived in it, coming and going up the steps without so much as giving him a glance. Until he decided to join up and travel with the carnival that summer, painting bally banners and drawing portraits on the midway for a nickel a piece. Until he became part of her world. Until she knew him enough to trust him, to talk to him, to introduce herself not as Esmeralda the Enchantress, but as Ruby. Ruby Chole. The woman he would give his heart to. The woman whose heart he would break.