by Amanda Davis
In the field near Elaine’s silver trailer, a bunch of men juggled steadily in groups of two, three, and four, and alone. They had clubs and balls, all sorts of things that caught light and flashed as they flew through the air. Every so often someone dropped a club or ball or fiery stick and the rhythm was interrupted only to resume again in a minute or so. They wove around and called things to one another, but I only heard their voices, not what they said.
Nearby, two red trailers with a painted banner—THE FAMILY GENERSH!—were parked in a V. Four big guys with black hair and no shirts on, whom I took for Wilma’s brothers, were working out. Two did push-ups on the ground and two pulled chin-ups from their open door ways, then they switched places.
I dumped and shoveled, watered, shoveled and dumped, watching it all as I passed.
Soon Jim sent me to groom Uno, Billy, and Dos. The horse trailers were around the tent a little ways, and from that vantage point I could see a small figure hanging upside down from a trapeze rigged on a metal skeleton. Mina? There were others with her. Two men and another woman, all watching the figure spin.
Uno neighed and Billy stomped. Benny, the trainer, wasn’t around, but I approached the horses, and starting with Dos I patted them one by one, stroking their enormous smooth faces and whispering my hello. They seemed almost tiny after standing between two elephants for so long, but I was careful not to stand behind them, because I couldn’t remember who was the notorious kicker. All three seemed mild and agreeable for the most part, happy to let me groom them, feed them, and muck out their makeshift stalls.
By three o’clock I was finished. I passed by the red trailers again on my way to find Jim. The Genersh boys were stacked two people high now—two towers facing each other and juggling back and forth, one brother to the next. From far away they looked like awkward swaying trees playing a flawless complicated catch. On the ground nearby a young girl in a saggy blue leotard walked around upside down, balanced on her hands as firmly as if they were feet.
“Jenny, come inside and clean up right now!” The screen door to the closer trailer opened and a man in a wheelchair rolled down a small ramp and onto the ground near the girl. She walked towards him on her hands, all the blood in her body gathered in her head. Her face looked like a freckled tomato.
“Right side up,” he snapped, and she obeyed, promptly and silently popping to her feet and brushing her black hair out of her face before scampering ahead of him into the trailer. Wilma’s brothers didn’t look down, just passed clubs with a steady thud, thud, thud of palm to prop, and circled each other like woozy giants.
When I found Jim a few minutes later, his newspaper was folded neatly on the lawn chair next to him and he had his eyes closed. I stood, not wanting to wake him, then carefully reached for the paper. I skimmed through the first section, looking for myself, but I didn’t see anything. There was an article about the state of the national economy, the decline of farming, but no inquiry into the disappearance of one wacko teenage girl from North Carolina.
It seemed so far away, all of it. Classes and visiting Andrea Dutton. Even Homecoming. They seemed like things that had happened to a whole other person.
“They did.”
I didn’t look up. I could feel her behind me.
“They happened to Faith Duckle. And you aren’t her anymore.”
I nodded. I had a lump in my throat. I was someone else. I was Annabelle and I had no past, no parents. Only a future.
“Don’t think that means they aren’t looking for you, though.”
“I thought you didn’t feel appreciated,” I whispered.
Jim sat up and startled a giggle out of me. He stared like he wasn’t sure who I was. “Whooo,” he said finally. “That was some dream.” I asked him what it was but he just shook his head and offered lunch.
He gave me a tuna sandwich from the cooler in the back of the truck and sat next to me on his lawn chair quietly eating his own. He didn’t ask me any more questions about my place of origin.
“You know how to work a Polaroid?” he said, after a while, and I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Extra income. People can get their picture taken with Blue for four dollars. You can have fifty cents of every picture you take and I get the rest. When I get a new camera, you can do that.” He looked over at Bluebell and shook his head. “She stepped on the last one.”
I took a good long drink of ginger ale and watched the fat girl saunter away, the elephants step side to side as they ate.
“Tonight you should work the show,” Jim said. “Get a taste of it. What do you think about that?”
“What?” I shook my head. “What did you say?”
“You work the show tonight, luv. Okay?”
“Absolutely!” I stood up, then sat down again. “Sure. Yes. Absolutely.”
He smiled at my excitement and helped himself to the bag of chips by his feet. “You’ll need a costume though. Tell Wilma to find you something cute. And don’t worry, it’ll be easy—you just do whatever I ask you. You’ll help me lead ’em out, hand me the bull hook when I say. Like that. You’ve only got an hour and a half, so scat.”
I chugged the rest of my soda and charged off toward the costume trailer. By the time I got there the sandwich was cramping my stomach and I was so out of breath it took me sitting and panting for a good few minutes before I could make myself understood by the confused Wilma.
“Costume,” I finally managed. “Show. Jim. Elephants. Ring.”
She rummaged around and found a worn green leotard with silver sparkles and pinkish-tan material down the center that gave the impression of a plunging neckline. It had a very threadbare part in the back.
“Used to belong to Leilana Lopez,” Wilma said, digging around in a trunk for something. “She was taller than you, but it might work.”
“What did she do?” I asked between gulps of water.
“Animals—balanced on Olivia’s trunk and spun a ball in the air with her feet, and rode some trick ponies Benny used to have. Something with birds too—she had a lot of birds.”
“What happened to her?”
“She got thrown.” Wilma poked her head out from behind the dress rack. “I don’t know why. I mean, riding she got thrown a lot, but it was Olivia who broke her back, which put her out of the show. Threw her across the ring for some reason—you’d have to ask Jim.” She disappeared again. “That was years ago though. I heard she’s with the Wallenda show now.”
I nodded. It was a tiny, ratty old leotard but I held it in front of me like it was dangerous.
“Put it on,” Wilma called, and then emerged from the back with a pair of fishnet stockings, some silver heels, and a pile of stiff blue-and-silver fabric.
I looked around for somewhere to change and Wilma rolled her eyes. “You’ve seen how many people are naked in here each show,” she said. “Get over it.”
“Yeah, get over it.” The fat girl reclined at the table with popcorn and peanuts. “Let it all hang out, Faith.”
I shot her a dirty look, but it had no effect on her icy smile. I took a deep breath and turned to the side, away from the fat girl, and pulled off my T-shirt, my jeans. I stepped one naked foot into the leotard and wiggled it on.
Wilma turned me around and surveyed the loose fit. “Take it off,” she said, and when I did, she handed me the stockings. I pulled them on and tried the shoes. They fit. In them I was taller, but when I tried to walk I teetered. “Practice walking,” Wilma called through a mouthful of pins. “Sawdust is a lot more difficult than the floor in here.”
She ran the sewing machine a few times while I walked in circles around the room.
“Wow,” said the fat girl, tossing kernels at me, then nuts. “If they could see you now.”
And I looked up and saw myself, wobbling along in a bra and no panties, fishnet stockings and heels. Who the hell was I?
“Annabelle—”
Wilma handed me the leotard and this time it fit snugly, no sagging
crotch, no limp shoulders. She fastened the blue-and-silver fabric around my waist with a hidden Velcro belt, so it formed a kind of peacock’s tail.
“You just need makeup,” she said. “And maybe a wig. Then you’re all set.”
I sat down and she fit a bobbed pink wig tightly over my scalp, tucking away wisps of my own bright hair. I tried not to blink while she glued long silver lashes to my lids and painted my face with a palette of bright colors and glitter. Her brushes were soft and her strokes tickled, but when I stood again and looked in the mirror I had disappeared. In my place stood a strange pale sparkly creature. And she was beautiful.
The fat girl walked me to the elephant truck tossing popcorn in my path to announce my arrival.
“Hear ye, hear ye,” she hollered. “Step right up.”
I ignored her as best I could. When we reached the elephants, Jim gave me an appreciative whistle and I blushed and made a clumsy curtsy.
“You look lovely, Annabelle. That Wilma,” Jim said. “She does perform magic.”
He looked pretty good himself. He wore a broad white top hat and a sequined light blue tuxedo that shimmered as he moved. His shirt was silver and ruffled, and even his shoes sparkled. But he smelled very strongly of sweat.
“Come on,” he said. “We have plenty to do.”
We dressed Olivia in a silver-and-white clown collar and Bluebell in a blue-and-white one. Then Jim urged them each down on their front knees and I helped him secure their headpieces—red diamond-shaped patches that were centered on each of their foreheads by thick, draping gold chains.
“Very elegant,” Jim said when we were done. And then, “Up, girls.”
“We have to crap them out now,” he told me, and gave a signal. The elephants obediently stood on their hind legs. They were unbelievably huge. I asked what “crap them out” meant, though I thought knew: more work for me.
“Well, we don’t want them to let loose in the ring, right? So gravity’s going to give us a little hand right now. Down! Now let’s take care of this little business. Luv, would you grab the shovel?”
I teetered over to the wheelbarrow in my heels, which were beginning to pinch. Jim led the elephants away from our entrance, one by one, and commanded each to stand on her back legs again for a count of ten.
“Now shit, Livvy, shit,” he coaxed. “Come on, Olivia, honey, let it go, let it go…”
Behind him a colorful trio of clowns strolled by arguing about baseball.
“Come on, Blue, a big one for Papa, now, come on, girl…”
And so on, until each had released a huge heap of manure.
“Annabelle?” He gestured towards the pile and my heart sank a little to be shoveling shit in costume, but I smiled and got the wheelbarrow.
“Good girls,” he said to the bulls, patting their trunks, and offered each an orange.
“We’re nearly ready,” Jim said a few minutes later, as he gathered a few props from the truck. He gave me a big red ball and a black bull hook to carry and took one of each himself. Then he told me to take Bluebell’s lead and follow him.
I looked up at Bluebell and tried not to think about how easily she could crush me or kick me or pick me up in her enormous trunk and smash me repeatedly into the ground. Instead I thought about us walking calmly into a tent of strangers.
I am Annabelle, I thought. I can do anything. And I felt it, at that moment, more than I ever had.
Bluebell and I followed behind Jim and Olivia to the tent entrance, which was a flap in the side wall, a hidden door that had been tied off so you could see inside, through a wide aisle in the bleachers, and into the ring.
As we approached I heard the band playing something zippy and fun. The ringmaster’s voice tumbled down from above: “The fantastic frolicking Equine glories of the Thomasettes!”
Out here in the night, it was hard to make out faces. Figures moved back and forth, their features hidden by costumes, by makeup, by darkness. A clip light attached to a post was aimed away from the entrance toward the ground to ensure that no one tripped, but it did nothing for identification.
In the ring, two glittering women rode in a circle standing on the backs of Uno and Billy with Dos close behind. They didn’t hold on at all, these Thomasettes, just stood with their arms out as the horses rounded the ring. And then they flipped, both at the same time, so that the one who’d been on Uno, in the front, was now on Billy, and the one on Billy was now on Dos. The crowd loved it, but that was just the beginning, they did handstands, they leapt off and on the horses. At one point they cartwheeled back and forth, passing each other. Then one leapt off and the horses stopped running in a circle.
I turned to Jim, but he wasn’t watching. He was whispering in Olivia’s ear. We were surrounded by clowns in enormous shoes and white faces, their red noses held in their hands. Some were tall, some short. One was very short and looked suspiciously like Sam, but he was watching the show so I couldn’t see his face.
Now, in the ring, one girl balanced on the shoulders of another. The horses circled again.
At the edge of the tent, I saw five shapes huddled together, four large, one small, and wondered if they were the Genershes. People looked ghostly, their faces disappearing into shadow unless the spill from the show caught a cheek, a chin, the curve of a forehead, the shine of a costume. I felt that I had plunged into the underbelly of a fantastic dream, and at the same time was more awake than I’d ever been before.
But I missed something. All at once the clowns pushed past, and from the darkness emerged a little car, which they chased into the ring. I hadn’t seen the horse act finish and I hadn’t seen where they’d gone, though I could hear their clop clop clop now, coming around the side of the tent.
“Annabelle, you do whatever I call out,” Jim said softly. I turned to him and there were more performers walking behind the tent. Some I thought I recognized, some I couldn’t make out.
“I mostly need you to stand by the edge of the ring and smile.” He leaned under Bluebell’s chin towards me. “I’ll lead them through the show and then you’ll let me pass with Olivia and you take Bluebell and we’ll walk out to the right. The girls know the way, don’t worry about that. I’ll need you to hold the balls, the extra hook. Just stand there and look gorgeous, okay?”
I was glad he couldn’t see me blush again. I nodded.
“Great.”
Silence fell and the ringmaster instructed the audience to direct their attention upwards”…Appreciate the danger being embraced for your benefit, ladies and gentlemen! At any moment she could plummet to her death, but she has a talent like no other! Ladies and gentlemen, the amazing Rapunzel Finelli hangs by her hair!”
I stood on my toes, then crouched down to try and catch a glimpse of Rapunzel through the crowd, but Bluebell shifted and it occurred to me what a bad idea it was to crouch by an elephant.
Standing, I could make out hundreds of upturned faces.
“You ready?” Jim whispered, trading me the other red ball for the second bull hook. I told him I was.
We moved towards the opening, Jim and Olivia first, then Bluebell and me. Everyone parted to let us pass.
The aisle was dark, the ring was dark. The only light shone on a woman spinning and twirling from the ceiling by her long red hair. Beneath her there was nothing but sawdust and cement. She twisted her body into a series of shapes and smiled brightly, though the skin around her scalp was stretched taut.
Jim saw me wincing. “Looks like it hurts, doesn’t it?” he whispered. “They start training for it when they’re tots. By now they don’t feel a thing. Step lively.” He moved forward and smoothed his tuxedo. I took a deep breath and tugged at the seat of my leotard, moving aside the itchy blue tulle.
Jim looked back at me, then in moments we were moving again, through the thunder of applause.
“…Ladies and gentlemen, in the center ring, the stylings of Professor Pachyderm, a man whose best friends weigh nearly six tons apiece!”
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nbsp; It was loud inside. We stopped at the edge of the ring. In one graceful move, Olivia bent her head, Jim stepped up on her trunk, and she lifted him into the air, then began to walk again and Bluebell followed. I let go of her harness and stayed at the edge of the ring and did my best to smile, but I felt the heat of the lights and the people all around us, looking, their eyes like tiny hot bullets thumping me from all sides. I couldn’t focus on anything, not even what Jim was doing. The sawdust made me want to sneeze, and trying not to made my eyes water. There was a strange soupiness to it all. My heart hammered away and everything sparkled. The band played tinny music so loud it seemed to echo in and out of every crevice, bouncing wildly around the enormous tent. I grinned until my jaw ached.
To my right the front row was visible. All along the ring sat a string of retarded adults in various poses of crippled excitement. One man’s body seemed to twist without his control. Another drooped, held in a wheelchair by thick white straps. Several men and women with wide empty eyes stared at the ring without moving, their faces contorted but blank, or elastic with joy. Behind them rows of children and adults, children and adults, all riveted by us, by Bluebell and Olivia and Jim. By me.
And then, across from me, wearing a huge green-and-silver leotard and a matted pink wig, I saw the fat girl. She waved.
“Balls!” Jim called and I snapped to attention. He held his hand out as he came around, and I tossed him the first red ball, which he caught. My second throw wasn’t as accurate and the ball rolled off to the side. People laughed. Hundreds and hundreds of people.
The fat girl shouted something I couldn’t hear. She stepped to the side and her enormous body shook and rolled. I told myself not to look at her, to watch Jim and Olivia and Bluebell, but I couldn’t stop. The fat girl offered popcorn to the front row, who were rapt with Jim’s every move, with the elephants standing on tiny red platforms, with the shine of Jim’s suit.
The fat girl pranced across the ring. Her whole body jiggled—she was cake batter, jelly, the rumble of water. Olivia and Jim whirled past and just missed stomping her. Bluebell came within inches, but the fat girl reached me unharmed.
