Water for Elephants

by Sara Gruen

  WHEN I RETURN to the stock car, Silver Star is against the far wall in knee-deep straw. His eyes are glassy, his heart rate high.

  The other horses are still outside, so I get my first good look at the place. It has sixteen standing stalls, which are formed by dividers that swing across after each horse is led in. If the car hadn't been adulterated for the mysterious and missing goats, it would hold thirty-two horses.

  I find a clean white shirt laid across the end of Kinko's cot. I strip out of my old one and toss it onto the horse blanket in the corner. Before I put the new shirt on, I bring it to my nose, grateful for the scent of laundry soap.

  As I'm buttoning it, Kinko's books catch my eye. They're sitting on the crate beside the kerosene lamp. I tuck in my shirt, sit on the cot, and reach for the top one.

  It's the complete works of Shakespeare. Underneath is a collection of Wordsworth poems, a Bible, and a book of plays by Oscar Wilde. A few small comic books are hidden inside the front cover of the Shakespeare. I recognize them immediately. They're eight-pagers.

  I flip one open. A crudely drawn Olive Oyl lies on a bed with her legs open, naked but for her shoes. She spreads herself with her fingers. Popeye appears in a thought bubble above her head, with a bulging erection that reaches to his chin. Wimpy, with an equally enormous erection, peers through the window.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  I drop the comic, then bend quickly to retrieve it.

  "Just leave it the hell alone!" says Kinko, storming over and snatching it from my hands. "And get the hell off my bed!"

  I leap up.

  "Look here, pal," he says, reaching up to jab his finger into my chest. "I'm not exactly thrilled about having to bunk with you, but apparently I don't have a choice in the matter. But you better believe I have a choice about whether you mess with my stuff."

  He is unshaven, his blue eyes burning in a face that is the color of beets.

  "You're right," I stammer. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have touched your things."

  "Listen, pisshead. I had a nice gig going here until you came along. Plus I'm in a bad mood anyway. Some asshole used my water today, so you'd best stay out of my way. I may be short, but don't think I can't take you."

  My eyes widen. I recover but not soon enough.

  His eyes narrow to slits. He scans the shirt, my clean-shaven face. He chucks the eight-pager onto his cot. "Aw hell. Haven't you done enough already?"

  "I'm sorry. Honest to God, I didn't know it was yours. August said I could use it."

  "Did he also say you could go through my stuff?"

  I pause, embarrassed. "No."

  He gathers his books and stuffs them into the crate.

  "Kinko--Walter--I'm sorry."

  "That's Kinko to you, pal. Only my friends call me Walter."

  I walk to the corner and sink down on my horse blanket. Kinko helps Queenie onto the bed and lies down beside her, staring so pointedly at the ceiling I half-expect it to start smoldering.

  BEFORE LONG, THE TRAIN pulls out. A few dozen angry men chase us for a while, swinging pitchforks and baseball bats, although it's mostly for the benefit of the tale they'll get to tell at dinner tonight. If they had really wanted a fight there was plenty of time before we pulled out.

  It's not that I can't see their point--their wives and children had been looking forward to the circus for days, and they themselves had probably been looking forward to some of the other entertainments rumored to be available in the back of our lot. And now, instead of sampling the charms of the magnificent Barbara, they'll have to content themselves with their eight-pagers. I can see why a guy might get steamed.

  Kinko and I clatter along in hostile silence as the train gets up to speed. He lies on his cot, reading. Queenie rests her head on his socks. Mostly she sleeps, but whenever she's awake, she watches me. I sit on the horse blanket, bone-weary but not yet tired enough to lie down and suffer the indignities of vermin and mildew.

  At what should be dinnertime, I get up and stretch. Kinko's eyes dart over from behind his book, and then back to the text.

  I walk out to the horses and stand looking over their alternating black and white backs. When we reloaded them, we moved everyone up to give Silver Star all four empty stalls' worth of space. Even though the rest of the horses are now in unfamiliar slots, they seem largely unperturbed, probably because we loaded them in the same order. The names scratched into the posts no longer match the occupants, but I can extrapolate who's who. The fourth horse in is Blackie. I wonder if his personality is anything like his human namesake's.

  I can't see Silver Star, which means he must be lying down. That's both good and bad: good, because it keeps the weight off his feet, and bad because it means he's in enough pain he doesn't want to stand. Because of the way the stalls are constructed, I can't check on him until we stop and unload the other horses.

  I sit across from the open door and watch the landscape pass until it gets dark. Eventually I slide down and fall asleep.

  It seems like only minutes later when the brakes begin screeching. Almost immediately, the door to the goat room opens and Kinko and Queenie come out into the rough foyer. Kinko leans one shoulder against the wall, hands pushed deep in his pockets and ignoring me studiously. When we finally come to a stop, he jumps to the ground, turns, and claps twice. Queenie leaps into his arms and they disappear.

  I climb to my feet and peer out the open door.

  We're on a siding in the middle of nowhere. The other two sections of train are also stopped, stretched out before us on the track, a half mile between each.

  People climb down from the train in the early morning light. The performers stretch grumpily and gather in groups to talk and smoke as the workmen drop ramps and unload stock.

  August and his men arrive within minutes.

  "Joe, you deal with the monkeys," says August. "Pete, Otis, unload the hay burners and get them watered, will you? Use the stream instead of troughs. We're conserving water."

  "But don't unload Silver Star," I say.

  There's a long silence. The men look first at me and then at August, whose gaze is steely.

  "Yes," August finally says. "That's right. Don't unload Silver Star."

  He turns and walks away. The other men regard me with wide eyes.

  I jog a little to catch up with August. "I'm sorry," I say, falling into stride beside him. "I didn't mean to give orders."

  He stops in front of the camel car and slides the door open. We're greeted by the grunts and complaints of distressed dromedaries.

  "That's all right, my boy," August says cheerily, slinging a bucket of meat at me. "You can help me feed the cats." I catch the bucket's thin metal handle. A cloud of angry flies rises from it.

  "Oh my God," I say. I set the bucket down and turn away, retching. I wipe tears from my eyes, still gagging. "August, we can't feed them this."

  "Why not?"

  "It's gone off."

  There's no answer. I turn and find that August has set a second bucket beside me and left. He's marching up the tracks carting another two buckets. I grab mine and catch up.

  "It's putrid. Surely the cats won't eat this," I continue.

  "Let's hope they do. Otherwise, we'll have to make some hard decisions."

  "Huh?"

  "We're still a long way from Joliet, and, alas, we're out of goats."

  I am too stunned to answer.

  When we reach the second section of the train, August hops up onto a flat car and props open the sides of two cat dens. He opens the padlocks, leaves them hanging on the doors, and jumps down to the gravel.

  "Go on then," he says, thumping me on the back.

  "What?"

  "They get a bucket each. Go on," he urges.

  I climb reluctantly onto the bed of the flat car. The odor of cat urine is overwhelming. August hands me the buckets of meat, one at a time. I set them on the weathered wooden boards, trying not to breathe.

  The cat dens ha
ve two compartments each: to my left is a pair of lions. To my right, a tiger and a panther. All four are massive. They lift their heads, sniffing, their whiskers twitching.

  "Well, go on then," says August.

  "What do I do, just open the door and toss it in?"

  "Unless you can think of a better way."

  The tiger rises, six hundred glorious pounds of black, orange, and white. His head is huge, his whiskers long. He comes to the door, swings around, and walks away. When he returns, he growls and swipes at the latch. The padlock rattles against the bars.

  "You can start with Rex," says August, pointing at the lions, which are also pacing. "That's him on the left."

  Rex is considerably smaller than the tiger, with mats in his mane and ribs showing under his dull coat. I steel myself and reach for a bucket.

  "Wait," says August, pointing at a different bucket. "Not that one. This one."

  I can't see the difference, but since I've already ascertained that it's a bad idea to argue with August, I oblige.

  When the cat sees me coming, he lunges at the door. I freeze.

  "What's the matter, Jacob?"

  I turn around. August's face is glowing.

  "You're not afraid of Rex, are you?" he continues. "He's just a widdle kitty cat"

  Rex pauses to rub his mangy coat against the bars at the front of the cage.

  With fumbling fingers, I remove the padlock and lay it by my feet. Then I lift the bucket and wait. The next time Rex turns away from the door, I swing it open.

  Before I can tip the meat out, his huge jaws chomp down on my arm. I scream. The bucket crashes to the floor, splattering chopped entrails everywhere. The cat drops off my arm and pounces on the meat.

  I slam the door and hold it shut with my knee while I check whether I still have an arm. I do. It is slick with saliva and as red as if I had dunked it in boiling water, but the skin isn't broken. A moment later, I realize August is laughing uproariously behind me.

  I turn to him. "What the hell is wrong with you? You think that's funny?"

  "I do, yes," says August, making no effort to contain his mirth.

  "You're seriously fucked, you know that?" I jump down from the flat car, check my intact arm once more, and stalk off.

  "Jacob, wait," laughs August, coming up behind me. "Don't be sore. I was just having a little fun with you."

  "What fun? I could have lost my arm!"

  "He hasn't got any teeth."

  I halt, staring at the gravel beneath my feet as this fact sinks in. Then I continue walking. This time, August doesn't follow.

  Furious, I head for the stream and kneel beside a couple of men watering zebras. One of the zebras spooks, barking and throwing his striped muzzle high in the air. The man holding the lead rope shoots a succession of glances at me as he struggles to maintain control. "Goddammit!" he shouts. "What is that? Is that blood?"

  I look down. I am spattered with blood from the entrails. "Yes," I say. "I was feeding the cats."

  "What the hell is wrong with you? You trying to get me killed?"

  I walk downstream, looking back until the zebra calms down. Then I crouch by the water to rinse the blood and cat saliva from my arms.

  Eventually I head back to the second section of the train. Diamond Joe is up on a flat, next to a chimp den. The sleeves of his gray shirt are rolled up, exposing hairy, muscled arms. The chimp sits on his haunches, eating fistfuls of cereal mixed with fruit and watching us with shiny black eyes.

  "Need help?" I ask.

  "Naw. About done, I think. I hear August got you with old Rex."

  I look up, prepared to be angry. But Joe's not smiling.

  "Watch yourself," he says. "Rex might not take your arm, but Leo will. You can bet on that. Don't know why August asked you to do it anyway. Clive is the cat man. Unless he wanted to make a point." He pauses, reaches into the den, and touches fingers with the chimp before shutting the door. Then he jumps down from the flat. "Look, I'm only going to say this once. August's a funny one, and I don't mean funny ha-ha. You be careful. He don't like no one questioning his authority. And he has his moments, if you know what I mean."

  "I believe I do."

  "No, I don't think you do. But you will. Say, you eaten yet?"

  "No."

  He points up the track to the Flying Squadron. There are tables set up alongside the track. "Cookhouse crew got up a breakfast of sorts. Also put up some dukey boxes. Make sure you grab one, 'cuz that probably means we're not stopping again until tonight. Get it while the getting's good, I always say."

  "Thanks, Joe."

  "Don't mention it."

  I RETURN TO THE stock car with my dukey box, which contains a ham sandwich, apple, and two bottles of sarsaparilla. When I see Marlena sitting in the straw beside Silver Star, I set my dukey box down and walk slowly toward her.

  Silver Star lies on his side, his flanks heaving, his respiration shallow and fast. Marlena sits at his head with her legs curled beneath her.

  "He's not any better, is he?" she says, looking up at me.

  I shake my head.

  "I don't understand how this could happen so fast." Her voice is tiny and hollow, and it occurs to me that she's probably going to cry.

  I crouch beside her. "Sometimes it just does. It's not because of anything you did, though."

  She strokes his face, running her fingers around his dished cheek and down under his chin. His eyes flicker.

  "Is there anything else we can do for him?" she asks.

  "Short of getting him off the train, no. Even under the best of circumstances, there's not a lot you can do but take them off their feed and pray."

  She glances at me and does a double take when she sees my arm. "Oh my God. What happened to you?"

  I look down. "Oh, that. It's nothing."

  "No it's not," she says, climbing to her knees. She takes my forearm in her hands and moves it to catch the sunlight coming in through the slats. "It looks new. It's going to be a heck of a bruise. Does this hurt?" She takes the back of my arm in one hand and runs the other over the blue patch that's spreading beneath my skin. Her palm is cool and smooth, and leaves my hair standing on end.

  I close my eyes and swallow hard. "No, really, I'm--"

  A whistle blows, and she looks toward the door. I take the opportunity to extricate my arm and rise.

  "Twen-n-n-n-n-n-n-nty minutes!" bellows a deep voice from somewhere near the front of the train. "Twen-n-n-n-n-n-n-nty minutes to push-off!"

  Joe pokes his head through the open doorway. "Come on! We gotta load these animals! Oh, sorry ma'am," he says, tipping his hat to Marlena. "I didn't see you there."

  "That's okay, Joe."

  Joe stands awkwardly in the doorway, waiting. "It's just that we've got to do it now," he says in desperation.

  "Go ahead," says Marlena. "I'm going to ride this leg with Silver Star."

  "You can't do that," I say quickly.

  She looks up at me, her throat elongated and pale. "Why ever not?"

  "Because once we get the other horses loaded you'll be trapped back here."

  "That's all right."

  "What if something happens?"

  "Nothing's going to happen. And if it does, I'll climb over them." She settles into the straw, curling her legs back under her.

  "I don't know," I say doubtfully. But Marlena is gazing at Silver Star with an expression that makes it perfectly clear she's not budging.

  I look back at Joe, who raises his hands in a gesture of exasperation and surrender.

  After a final glance at Marlena, I swing the stall divider into place and help load the rest of the horses.

  DIAMOND JOE IS RIGHT about the long haul. It's early evening before we stop again.

  Kinko and I haven't exchanged a word since we left Saratoga Springs. He clearly hates me. Not that I blame him--August set it up that way, although I don't suppose there's any point in trying to explain that to him.

  I stay up front with the hor
ses to let him have some privacy. That, and I'm still nervous at the thought of Marlena trapped at the end of a row of thousand-pound animals.

  When the train stops she climbs nimbly over their backs and drops to the floor. When Kinko emerges from the goat room, his eyes crinkle in momentary alarm. Then they shift from Marlena to the open door with studied indifference.

  Pete, Otis, and I unload and water the ring stock, camels, and llamas. Diamond Joe, Clive, and a handful of cage hands head up to the second section of the train to deal with the animals in dens. August is nowhere to be seen.

  After we get the animals back on board, I climb into the stock car and poke my head into the room.

  Kinko sits cross-legged on the bed. Queenie sniffs a bedroll that has replaced the infested horse blanket. Sitting on top is a neatly folded red plaid blanket and a pillow in a smooth white case. A square sheet of cardboard lies in the center of the pillow. When I lean over to pick it up, Queenie leaps as though I've kicked her.

  Mr. and Mrs. August Rosenbluth request the pleasure of your immediate presence in stateroom 3, car 48, for cocktails, followed by a late dinner.

  I look up in surprise. Kinko is staring daggers at me.

  "You wasted no time ingratiating yourself, did you?" he says.

  COLLECTION OF THE RINGLING CIRCUS MUSEUM, SARASOTA, FLORIDA

  Seven

  The cars are not sequentially numbered, and it takes me a while to find car 48. It is painted a deep burgundy and trimmed with foot-tall gold lettering trumpeting BENZINI BROS MOST SPECTACULAR SHOW ON EARTH. Just beneath that, visible only in relief under the shiny fresh paint, is another name: CHRISTY BROS CIRCUS.

  "Jacob!" Marlena's voice floats from a window. A few seconds later she appears on the platform at the end, swinging out from the handrail so that her skirt swirls around her. "Jacob! Oh, I'm so glad you could make it. Please come in!"

  "Thanks," I say, glancing around. I climb up and follow her down the interior passageway and through the second door.

  Stateroom 3 is glorious as well as a misnomer--it constitutes half the car, and contains at least one additional room, which is cordoned off with a thick velvet curtain. The main room is paneled in walnut and outfitted with damask furniture, a dinette, and a Pullman kitchen.

  "Please make yourself comfortable," says Marlena, waving me toward one of the chairs. "August will be along in a minute."

  "Thank you," I say.