“Who cares about them? What do they know, anyway?”
“Isn’t it a big laugh?”
“Here we go again,” he said. “More jokes.”
“For the first time in my life I’m with a man I could really like and he turns out to be a cheap ungrateful bastard.”
“Like?” the Lion Tamer said. “Who wants like?”
“You can’t really love somebody unless they will give you half a chance.”
“You don’t know anything about love. Nobody knows anything about love. It’s a mystery.”
The Lion Tamer cleared his throat and spat on the ground by his boots.
“I guess it just serves me right,” she said.
“Truth,” he said. “You want to know the truth. Sometimes you make me sick. You make me so sick I could puke.”
He threw his cigar away and turned his back on her, stalking up the line of trucks in giant steps, his high boots squeaking, that faint sweet odor receding with him.
She remained where she was, her hands pressed over her face and her body shaking all over. When she took her hands away, Jojo could see that she was crying silently, and the tears seemed to cause the features of her face to melt and soften like hot wax. She smelled like soap. She slumped over and looked much older than at first. Jojo heard the men up ahead begin shouting and he listened to their calls being passed back along the line and to the engines of the trucks as they, one by one, began to growl. He wondered if he’d better move out from under the truck and let her see that he had been there the whole time, but before he could decide what he ought to do, she moved. She straightened up, posed tensely, looking left and right like somebody getting ready to dash across a busy street, then she ran around behind the truck. He heard her fumbling with what must be a heavy chain. He heard the door open on rusty hinges.
First there was a strange odor, an animal smell for sure, but like wild dry grass and dust and dung. Then the lion came swiftly out on soft feet. He stood by the truck, great-maned, big-chested, head up high, sniffing the air. Jojo watched the lion go running off into the dark across the field and disappear. He heard the woman shut the door, trouble with the chain, and then she came walking right past him, smelling now of heavy sweat like somebody with a fever, and breathing deep and hard as if she had been running a long way. Next, all the lights of the trucks came on at once, and as they started to move forward he jumped out of the way. He saw the huge tires roll over his footprints, and he stared after as the bright parade of vehicles picked up speed and vanished down the highway.
When the last red taillights were swallowed by the dark, he ran across the field, sniffing as he went, following the way the lion had gone.
When Jojo came back with two paper cups of hot coffee the Sheriff was there, his black car parked at a jaunty angle, the way he was allowed to do, and the three of them were standing on the sidewalk. The Sheriff had his hands under his belt again and he was grinning.
“What is all this about anyway?” the Sheriff said. “What are you two trying to prove?”
“I told you on the phone,” the Bald Man said. “Jesus, I thought you’d have a big bunch of men here to help us find him.”
“I had one little talk with you yesterday evening,” the Sheriff said. “Maybe you didn’t quite get the point.”
“Ask him,” the Bald Man said pointing to the Lion Tamer. “See what he says.”
Though the Lion Tamer was standing with them, he was aloof, not really looking at either of them. Now that the Lion Tamer was out of the car Jojo could see that he was wearing the same trim riding britches and high glossy boots. He also had yellow gloves on and carried a short riding crop. He still looked tired, weary and indifferent beyond telling, but in the plain daylight his color, his slick black hair, his razored mustache, his painted lips made him look like an undertaker’s corpse. In fact he looked exactly the way he did on the posters, curiously two-dimensional. There was about him the faint sweetness of the night before. He simply stood there, gripping the riding crop behind his back with both gloved hands and looking through the two of them and the whole town, too, as if everything in the world had been made out of cellophane and as if, like some funny-book character with superhuman powers, he could see through everything under the sun.
“I wouldn’t ask him anything,” the Sheriff said. “I wouldn’t ask that one the time of day.”
“All right,” the Bald Man said. “All right now. Let’s don’t everybody get excited. Let’s try and keep our wits about us.”
He dabbed at the sweat on his shiny head, his jowled face, and his neck. He was sweating so much that his white shirt stuck to him. His upper body was big as a barrel, but his legs were terribly thin and short, and Jojo was amazed at how small his feet were, tiny points in yellow and black shoes, just like a little girl’s. On such delicate legs he looked something like a robin.
“Here, boy,” the Lion Tamer said. And he took the cups of coffee and the three dimes change.
“You can have mine,” the Bald Man said to the Sheriff. “I don’t think I can keep it down now.”
“Keep it,” the Sheriff said. “I’ve had my breakfast.”
So the two of them drank their coffee and the Sheriff watched them. When they finished the Lion Tamer lit up one of his little cigars and Jojo took the empty cups and put them in a trash can.
“Here’s the way I look at it,” the Sheriff said. “You claim you lost a lion last evening when you stopped here. You say you must have lost it then, but you don’t know how—”
“I got a good idea how,” the Lion Tamer said.
The Sheriff glared at him.
“We’ll have plenty of time for your good ideas later.”
“Okay,” the Lion Tamer said. “Okay.”
“Now take it easy,” the Bald Man said.
“I said okay, didn’t I?”
“Anyhow,” the Sheriff said. “You want me to round up a whole bunch of men and hunt for this lion for you.”
“Not just for us,” the Bald Man said. “You don’t want a wild beast prowling around town either.”
The Sheriff just smiled.
“I want King back,” the Lion Tamer said. “Give me a little help and I’ll get him.”
“King, that’s his name?” the Sheriff said, giggling now.
The Lion Tamer flicked the ash off his cigar.
“That’s logical,” he said. “I call him King, so his name must be King.”
“Don’t you sass me, boy.”
“Everybody calm down now,” the Bald Man said, wringing out his handkerchief.
“All right,” the Sheriff said. “There’s two ways to look at this situation. Either you lost a lion or you didn’t. Now my suspicion is you didn’t lose no lion here. It don’t figure. So, if you’re trying some kind of a publicity stunt—”
“Publicity stunt!” the Bald Man said. “Jesus! You got to believe us, man.”
At that point the Lion Tamer only smiled, showing his bright perfect teeth.
“If you are trying a stunt, I’ll lock you both up,” the Sheriff said. “I told you once to keep moving on and I meant it. We don’t want no fly-by-night two-bit carnie around here. Period. Now let’s look at it the other way. Suppose it’s for real. Then it strikes me you folks are getting mighty careless with your wild animals.”
“The bitch did it,” the Lion Tamer said. “She don’t care for King.”
“That’s against the law too,” the Sheriff said, “turning lions loose and such. I could lock you up for that too.”
“I don’t know how it happened,” the Bald Man said. “We got steel doors on those trucks and chains.”
“Tell you what I’ll do,” the Sheriff said. “When the Deputy shows up, we’ll take a little drive around and see what we can see. We’ll take a look.”
“We got to find him!” the Bald Man said. “What if we don’t find him?”
“Well, if he is here,” the Sheriff said, “it looks like we got us the beginnings o
f a pretty good zoo.”
“You could never keep King in no hick zoo,” the Lion Tamer said.
After a while the Deputy came. The Sheriff went inside his office and got a rifle and a length of rope, and the Lion Tamer exchanged his riding crop for a big whip and buckled on his pistol belt. The four of them climbed into the Sheriff’s car, the two from the circus sitting in the back. Just as they were pulling away the Lion Tamer rolled down the window and threw Jojo a dime. It rang like a little bell on the sidewalk.
“Thanks, boy.”
Jojo pocketed the dime and walked around to the side of the office where the first shade was forming a pool and squatted, leaning his back against the brick wall. To be a Lion Tamer would be very, very special. You likely had to have a call for it, like preaching. He closed his eyes to be able to picture how it would be, Alonzo the Lion Tamer caught in a net of golden lights alone in a cage with all those lions and tigers while outside all around the hushed dark tent every burning eye would be fixed on him. That would be a lonely wonderful thing to be there in a bright fancy costume and prove to the world that one man all by himself can crack a whip and make even the wildest animals dance and stand as still as statues or jump through flaming hoops. Talk about jubilation! Then they would have to notice you and love you for what you proved to them could be done, how brave somebody could be. But it would be kind of sad too. How could you ever tell anybody how it was? What could you ever say to them after you came out of the terrible cage and bowed to them and they clapped for you? “It’s only some kind of a trick,” they would say. No wonder you would be so sick and tired of everything.
And picturing all this Jojo dozed in the shade waiting for them to come back.
Maybe an hour or so passed, and then the Sheriff’s car returned, cruising slowly up the street which was lively now with morning’s first business. The rifle was poking through the right front window where the Deputy cradled it. They all got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk.
“I’ll give you two rare birds about twenty minutes to be outside of the county,” the Sheriff said.
“Listen,” the Bald Man said. “You got to warn people to be on the lookout—”
“Man, are you crazy? We got people worked up enough already wondering what we’re doing driving around town with a loaded rifle in the middle of the morning,” the Deputy said.
“Time’s wasting,” the Sheriff said, looking at his watch.
“All right, all right,” the Bald Man said. “We’re going.”
The Lion Tamer spat on the sidewalk.
“Be careful,” he said. “That King’s a mean one.”
Then for all the world to see he started crying right there on the sidewalk like a little child. The Bald Man took his arm and led him to the cross-eyed car.
“Wait a minute,” the Sheriff said. “Just in case we do find him, what does he like to eat?”
“Meat. Raw meat,” the Lion Tamer said, still sobbing.
The Sheriff and the Deputy laughed as the beat-up crazy car made a big illegal U-turn and disappeared swiftly the way it had come.
“Don’t that beat the world?” the Deputy said.
“You know how come that fellow there wears perfume?”
“No. Not unless he’s queer or something.”
“I’ll tell you,” the Sheriff said. “It’s because he’s really deep down a nigger. He may look like a white man, but I can tell every time. Let him try and hide the smell. You can always tell by the hair.”
They both laughed as they strolled up the walk to the office.
That evening, just as he knew it would, all hell broke loose at home. There they were, all sitting around the dining-room table, Raymond and Stony and Daddy, tired out from a hard day’s work, banging their silverware on their empty plates and hollering for supper. His mama and Dalmatia were staggering around the kitchen (they’d been drinking whiskey together, Jojo could smell that) looking everywhere for the missing steak.
“Come on,” Raymond was yelling. “I ain’t got all night.”
Then his mama came as far as the kitchen door but not too close to the table. She leaned back against the doorframe and smiled a little smile.
“We had a steak,” she said. “But it’s gone now. I mean we really had one, but I don’t know what came of it.”
“No meat?” Stony cried.
She shook her head slowly, still smiling.
“Great God Almighty!” his daddy shouted. “Come on, boys. Let’s us go down to the French Cafe and get something to eat.”
They shoved back their chairs and all at the same time threw their china plates against the wall, his mama’s pretty white china ones, and the plates shattered beautifully in many pieces and fell like a noisy kind of snow on the floor. As the three men stomped out of the room his mama started to cry and Dalmatia came from the kitchen and put her arm around her. Jojo got down from his chair and tiptoed upstairs. It was pretty bad up there, too, with Sue, a big pair of scissors in her hand, chasing Marcia around, both of them running up and down the hall as loud as runaway horses and in and out of all the rooms. Sue had only her slip on and Marcia wasn’t wearing stitch one. Jojo stood in the hall and they ran all around him, as if he was a post or something. Sometimes you’d think the people didn’t know he was alive around there. Then Jojo saw the water slowly spreading into the hall from under the bathroom door. The tub was overflowing. He went into the bathroom—the door was on one hinge like a broken arm because Sue had knocked it open—and turned off the water and pulled the plug. Just outside the open door Marcia and Sue stopped running and, panting, glared at each other.
“Oh, Miss Priss,” Sue said. “Trying to play innocent!”
“I haven’t the slightest idea—”
“For once I’m the one with a date in the middle of the week and what do you do? You’re so green-eyed with jealousy, you up and take all my perfume.”
“Hah!” Marcia said. “I wouldn’t use your stinking perfume. And don’t you act so holier than thou. Where’s my new lipstick?”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”
They continued to stare into each other’s eyes, then Sue slapped Marcia, and Marcia, unblinking, slapped her back, and Sue dropped the scissors and went running back to her room crying, and she slammed the door so hard the whole house shook. Marcia whirled, smiling, and came into the bathroom.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, it’s just you. Shut the door behind you. I’m trying to take a bath.”
Jojo tiptoed to his room, shut the door, and lay on the bed with his eyes closed waiting for the dark to come.
As soon as it was good and dark, the stars all out and the subtle odors of the evening and the soft noises of insects rich and mysterious in the air, Jojo stirred. He rummaged in a great pile of his dirty clothes in the closet until he found his Royal Canadian Mounted Police costume that he got for last Christmas. It was already getting too tight, but he managed to get into it, though he couldn’t button the scarlet jacket all the way. He reached under his mattress and found the paper sack all right. He threw it out of the window. Then he hopped up on the windowsill and squinted into the dark. Though he had done it so many times, in the dark it was always hard to see the limb. There was always one rushing moment when he couldn’t be sure that he had judged the distance right. He crouched and jumped into vacant air, holding his breath, his heart pounding until he felt the rough curve of the limb under his hands and he shivered from the shock. He climbed down the tree and picked up his bundle.
A good mile away, at the edge of town, there was a curious three-story frame house. It had belonged to a banker who shot himself when the Boom ended; and an old woman, his widow, crazy as a bat everyone said, lived there all alone. And it sagged from the careless weight of her loneliness and misery. The front yard, the front porch, were covered with junk—old shoes, umbrellas, newspapers, faded hats, broken toys, magazines, tires and inner tubes, even garbage; for that was all that she did for herself now. Late at night
she would leave her lightless house and prowl the town, searching in trash heaps and garbage cans, poking among the smoldering things at the dump, searching for something, dragging a child’s red wagon behind her until it was heaped, loaded with the wrecked, the broken, the thrown-away, forsaken things of the town. What these actions meant, nobody pretended to know. They left her to herself. After all, her husband had been a respectable man in those years before the Depression, and who could blame her now, seeing she did no real harm?
Jojo circled around the house to the backyard, picking the way through the litter and wreckage of a garden. The smell of it was terrible to him, but no one lived near enough to complain, and the dogs loved it. Back farther there was a ramshackle barn, left over from the horse and buggy days. Outside of this barn he stopped and opened the paper bag. First he anointed himself with Sue’s perfume. He painted his lips with Marcia’s lipstick, then, carrying the paper sack with him, he pulled back the bolt on the door, cracked it, and slipped inside. It was dark and foul in the barn, but he could smell that the lion was still in there all right. There had always been the chance that someone, even the old woman herself, might find out before now. He was glad they hadn’t.
Then he could see the eyes in the dark. They seemed green and glowing from an inner light like jewels. He opened the bag and took out the steak. Holding it in front of him, he began to walk slowly toward the burning eyes.
TIME OF BITTER CHILDREN
THE TRUCK SLOWED to a hissing stop on the shoulder of the highway. The driver left the engine running. He pushed back away from the wheel, yawned and stretched, and, seeing that the man next to him in the cab was still sound asleep, hunched up in a small round ball of himself like a sleeping animal, he reached across and touched him lightly on the shoulder to wake him. At his touch the man uncoiled and sat up straight—alert, tense, red-eyed, and suspicious.
“This is far as I go,” the driver said. “I’m turning north.”
“You just going to dump me out here right in the middle of nowhere?”
“You suit yourself,” the driver said. “Stay with me if you want to end up in Knoxville.”
Evening Performance Page 16
