The Leap Year Boy

by Marc Simon

  Smashing crackers. Abe hugged Alex tighter.

  The other officer said, “Since she ain’t talking to us, at least nothing that makes sense, why don’t you tell us her name, where she lives?”

  Alex said, “I told you. Her name is Hannah Gerson. She lives on Black Street.”

  Abe brushed Alex’s hair. “He’s right.”

  The policeman laughed. “You’re a pip, kiddo. You deserve a reward.”

  “My daddy’s gonna take me to the circus.”

  Right then, Abe realized he was not going to allow Alex to become some sideshow freak like a fat lady. Yeah, he’d take him to the circus, like he’d promised him, but that was it. If Delia didn’t like it, if she put up a stink, so be it. Alex Miller was his son, not hers.

  He turned up the walkway to his house. As much as it pained him to remember that day, and how close Hannah had come to taking Alex away, or worse, at least things had turned out all right in the end.

  Benjamin stood in the front doorway. “Dad, where were you?”

  “Stuck on the trolley. Everyone ready?”

  “Delia and Alex left almost an hour ago.”

  *

  A twelve-foot-high painting of an impossibly Reubenesque ballerina in a classic Arabesque pose decorated the outside of the circus wagon where Louis Markham sat and waited. He puffed a fat Cuban cigar and read the local paper, a habit he followed as the circus traveled from town to town. He liked to see how his ads came out, and if the copy were botched or the illustrations were smudged, he’d give the local advertising manager an earful of hell. Every few minutes or so, he checked the time on the gold watch tucked in his vest pocket.

  He stood up and brushed ashes from his lap. He was a big man, more than six feet, with a beer barrel belly and bulbous nose pocked with gin blossoms. “Lotte, you sure this dame friend of yours and the eighth wonder of the world are gonna show up?”

  “Sure I’m sure.” Lotte Henderson had curled her hair and dressed in the snug, glittery leotard she wore in the show, thinking that Delia would get a hoot out of her getup. She paced around the card table she’d set up in the middle of the wagon. On the table were three darts and three recently honed throwing knives, eight inches long, weighing seven ounces. A dartboard was mounted on the far wall of the wagon, and tied around it were three red balloons.

  Markham belched. “Because I got better things to do with my time than wait around for just another freak show.”

  “Oh yeah, like what?”

  Markham smiled a gap-toothed, gold-toothed smile. He scratched his crotch. “Come over here to Uncle Lou.”

  “Aw, cut it out.”

  “Maybe we got time for a quickie.” He rolled his tongue over his lips.

  “Leave me alone, Lou. Didn’t you get enough last night?”

  Markham took off his straw boater and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “A big man like me can never get enough.”

  “Ha, you ain’t that big.” There was a quick rap on the door. “I told you she’d be here, didn’t I?” Lotte flung the door open. At first she saw nothing, but when she looked down, standing there were Bitty Betty Green, who was three feet, seven inches tall, and her husband Bobby Boy Green, who stood four feet one.

  “You’re blocking the door,” said Bobby Boy.

  The Legendary Little Greens were one of Louis Markham’s proudest discoveries. Not only could they juggle, they could toss miniature Indian clubs back and forth while they rode side by side on Shetland ponies. Their compact, plump bodies were squeezed into their show outfits, matching buckskins accentuated by ersatz emerald and ruby trim. Betty’s curls fell out beneath her pink cowgirl hat. Bobby Boy had on his blond wig that tilted slightly to the left. Bandoleers crisscrossed his chest.

  Lotte backed away from the Greens. “What are they doing here?”

  Markham said, “I want them to check out this kid. I need to know what I’m buying ain’t just another midget.”

  “But darn it, Lou, they could spook him. They spook me and I see them every day.”

  “Why don’t you go contort your ass over an open fire?” Bobby Boy said.

  “Easy now, Bobby. Hi there, good-looking.” Markham picked up Betty and kissed her on the mouth.

  Bobby Boy kicked Lou in the knee. “Watch it, Lou, the next one will be in your nuts.”

  Lotte waved her arms. “You see, Lou, they’re nothing but trouble. Will you get them out of here, please?”

  Lou set Betty down next to her husband, who grabbed her by the wrist. “Hey, what are you doing, kissing up to him?”

  “Bobby, it wasn’t my fault.”

  “Lou, please.”

  Markham clipped the end off a fresh cigar. “Calm down, Lotte, you’ll live longer.”

  In a squeaky voice, Bitty Betty said, “Don’t get sore, Lotte. Lou asked us. Besides, I just wanted to see the little thing. Me and Bobby Boy, we couldn’t have no children of our own.”

  “Don’t blame me, baby, I ain’t the one shooting blanks.” Before he’d met Betty, Bobby Boy had fathered three children with two different women, one of whom was five feet ten inches tall.

  Lou and Bobby Boy broke out a deck of cards. Five more minutes went by with nothing but the slap of cards on the table. Lotte was close to tears when more knocking came to the door. “Who else did you invite, Lou, the bearded lady?”

  Standing on the steps were Delia and Alex, who had a helium balloon tied to his wrist. Delia laughed. “Hey, Lotte Henderson. Long time no see.”

  “Oh my God, Dee! Is it really you?”

  “In the flesh.”

  “Look at you, you look gorgeous, you sure filled out nice.”

  “So did you, Miss Elastic Lass.”

  “Oh, stop with that hooey.” She grabbed Delia and hugged her. “Gosh, I thought you’d never get here.”

  “Yeah, I know, sorry. We got lost over on Forbes Street, then he wanted something to eat and I had to show him around a little bit, he’s curious, you know how kids are. This one, his mouth runs a mile a minute, he had to see the elephants first. Hey, that’s quite the rag you’re wearing.”

  “Oh, this old thing?” Lotte twirled around, then hugged Delia again. “It’s so great to see you, Dee. Come on in. And look at this boy. Oh my stars, is he ever precious. What’s your name, precious?”

  “Alex Miller.” He dropped Delia’s hand and ran to touch the wall hung with posters of jewel-bedecked elephants, tigers leaping through rings of fire and acrobats riding unicycles on high wires. He bumped into Markham’s leg and pulled back.

  “Well, this must be the wonder child,” Markham said. “Damn, he sure is small, I’ll say that for him.”

  Lotte put herself between Alex and Markham. “Lou, this is my friend Delia Novak, from way back.” She giggled at her rhyme. “And this of course is little Alex. The kid I told you all about.”

  Markham kneeled down near Alex. “How are you doing there, little fellow? Ready to do your stuff for me?” He touched Alex lightly on the cheek and chuckled. “Boy, but ain’t he something. I should have brought in the costume gal, she’d have a field day with this one. How old is he?”

  “He’s six.”

  “Get the hell out of here, he is? I’ll be damned if he ain’t almost as little as Tom Thumb,” Markham exclaimed, in reference to the famous dwarf P.T. Barnum had showcased a half-century earlier. “Bobby Boy, take a look.”

  Alex recoiled away from Bobby. Delia said, “What do you think you’re doing, buddy?”

  “Take it easy, Miss Novak, relax. I just need my diminutive friend here to take a look at your son. Calm down, sonny, he ain’t gonna hurt you. I just need to know what I’m buying before I’m buying.”

  Delia said, “Lotte?’

  “It’s all right, Dee, just give him a minute, it’s gonna be O.K.”

  Bobby Boy sidled over to Alex. He poked around Alex’s legs, his head, took note of his long arms. “I don’t know what the hell he is, Lou, but I can tell you this much: with t
hem arms of his, he ain’t no midget.”

  Lou said, “You’re sure, Bobby.”

  “Hey, Lou, you ever heard the expression, ‘it takes one to know one?’”

  Markham spit a fleck of tobacco. At the time, child labor laws varied from state to state, but there was no federal law in place, at least none that he knew of, regarding the movement of children across state lines. But still, he thought, taking on this kid, or whatever he was, it could be risky, even with his parents around. “Delia? You his mother?”

  Delia said, “I’m more like his guardian. His mother died of The Dip.”

  Alex said, “She’s in Heaven with Grandma.”

  “Oh,” Bitty Betty said, “don’t he have the cutest little voice? Don’t you, sweetheart?” She smiled so broadly her makeup crinkled.

  “Put a zipper on it, Betty. I knew I should have left you in the wagon.”

  “Aw, Bobby, don’t be like that.”

  “Enough,” Markham said. “A six-year-old boy this tiny, something ain’t kosher here, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is. Anyway, let’s get the show on the road. The knives and the darts await.”

  Delia said, “Hold on. I gotta ask you, before he shows you his stuff, what kind of money are we talking about here, Mr. Markham?”

  Without looking at Delia, he said, “Geez, Bobby, but don’t she got the brass? Listen, lady, I don’t make an offer until I see the goods first.”

  “Oh, we have the goods, don’t you worry about that. But I can understand your point, Mr. Markham. Lou, isn’t it? Heck, I might be a non-believer myself if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. So how about this: If Alex can do what I say he can do, which is hit the bull’s-eye with the darts and the knife three times in a row, I get a hundred bucks a week, plus expenses.”

  “You want to make more money than I do?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Markham laughed. “Listen lady, if he’s as good as you say he is, I’ll give you forty. That’s top dollar for a side show act.”

  “Eighty-five.”

  “Sixty. Take it or leave it.”

  Lotte whispered to Delia, “Don’t push him. He’s offering you real good money for the sideshow. Plus you get room and board.”

  Sixty bucks a week for riding around in a train, plus meals and a place to sleep—it wasn’t a fortune, but it would do for the time being, with or without Abe. “Sorry I got so loud there, Mr. Markham. Lou. Just sticking up for my boy, you can understand.”

  “Yeah, yeah. So is it a deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Fine.” Markham clapped his hands. “Now let’s see some action here. And listen to me good. If your boy don’t come through here, the deal is dead.”

  Delia helped Alex climb up on the table. He began his windup. As everyone stared at Alex, Delia stared at them. With their heavy makeup and outfits, Betty and Bobby looked like corpulent puppets. Lotte looked like a sad, life-sized kewpie doll. Markham groped Lotte’s rear end, pushing under the tight fabric with one hand and scratching his crotch with the other.

  The air in the wagon seemed to get thicker. She began to feel queasy. Throwing Alex in with these people, this was what she’d been dreaming about all those weeks? She looked at him standing on the table, as if he were an exhibit, with his arms hanging there. She imagined the hoots and the catcalls that were sure to come from the audiences as he stood in a spotlight—chimp, chimp, chimp!—in some garish, obscene costume, with a frightened look on his face, searching for his father, appealing to her to get him out of the place as she stood off to the side, in the shadows, helpless, ashamed, committed. The hot dog she’d shared with him an hour earlier rose up in her throat.

  Markham said, “Well?”

  She tapped Alex on the shoulder and whispered, “Miss the bull’s-eye.”

  He started to answer, but Delia put her finger over his lips. She smiled. “I know what I told you before, but now I want you to miss. You don’t really want to do this anyway, right? Me neither. So make a bad throw. For me?” She winked.

  He winked back.

  Bitty Betty said, “What’s she saying to him?”

  “Shut up,” Bobby said.

  His first throw went two feet and clattered to the floor. Alex said, “Ah-oh.”

  Lotte said, “Dee?”

  He picked up the second knife and, as if it were too heavy to hold, laid it back on the table near his feet.

  Bobby Boy hooted, “Some knife thrower. Lady, you need to stick Tiny there back in diapers.”

  Markham crushed his cigar with his shoe. He shook Lotte by the collar. “What the hell are you’re trying to pull on me here?”

  “Hey, Lou, that hurts.”

  Delia said, “Lay off her, you pig.”

  Markham released Lotte. He rubbed his fist. “You know what, lady? You wasted enough of my time, and I’ve had it with that smart mouth of yours. You wouldn’t be so good-looking with a busted nose, would you?”

  “Drop dead.” She stuck out her chin.

  Markham took a step toward her, but stopped in his tracks as a knife whizzed through his hat and stuck it to the wall behind him.

  Lotte screamed. Bobby Boy and Bitty Betty pushed and shoved their way out of the wagon. Markham patted the top of his bald head, as if he were trying to see if it was still there.

  Delia glanced at Alex, who was pointing the third knife toward Markham’s face. “Alex, no.”

  She turned to Markham. “You know what, tough guy? That’s what you get for threatening me. And I’ll tell you something else. You lay off my friend or his next toss will go through your neck.” She hugged Lotte, who was shivering. “Honey, I’m sorry this didn’t work out, but I just couldn’t go through with it. This ain’t no life for a little boy. I should have known it all along. It’s no life for you, neither, being jerked around by a shit-heel like him. Stop crying, all right? Your makeup is running down your face.”

  Lotte looked at Markham, who was still rubbing his head, where a faint red line streaked across the crown. “I don’t know what to do, Dee. About all this.”

  “You’ll figure it out. But if I was you, I’d get my ass the hell out of here and save myself. Listen, I gotta go. His old man will be looking for him. Give me a hug.”

  Markham began to rise to his feet but sagged back, seeing Alex hold the knife in the ready position. Blood trickled down his forehead. “Christ, I’m bleeding. This is your fault, Lotte. Get that kid out of here before I’ll call the cops.”

  Lotte said, “Oh shut up, Lou.”

  *

  “Dad, you’re pulling my arm out!”

  “Keep up, Benjamin.”

  Sweat flew from Abe’s face as he charged through the crowd milling about at the midway. He elbowed his way to the ticket booth and banged on the counter.

  Roseanne Rigby, who’d been a rider in the circus’s Wild West show until she broke her coccyx leaping over a barrel, leaned out from the booth. “How many, partner?”

  Abe smacked a dollar down. “Where’s Lou Markham?”

  “Fifth car behind me. Who wants to know?”

  Abe shoved open the flimsy wooden gate that led to a line of boxcars. Roseanne leaned out and yelled, “Hey, you ain’t allowed back there.”

  Abe pushed on, dragging Benjamin with him. Goddamn it all. First that crazy Hannah tried to steal his son, and now Delia, damn her, had taken off with Alex, too. Christ, she could have made some kind of deal by now, sold his kid off to the circus. She could be long gone—but if she wasn’t, HHeaven help her.

  He leaped up the stairs to the fifth boxcar and banged the door open. Sitting on the floor was a large bald man in a checked suit. A woman in a gold costume held a cloth blotched with blood to his head. Abe bellowed, “Where’s Delia Novak? Where’s my son?”

  The bald man said, “That little bastard Alex? How the hell do I know?”

  In three seconds Abe had his hands around Markham’s throat with the intention of bashing his head through the floor. “Wh
ere is my son?”

  “Abe!” Delia stood in the doorway, holding Alex’s left hand. He had cotton candy in his right.

  “Daddy!”

  Abe dropped Markham’s head and rushed to his son. He dropped to his knees to hug him. “Are you all right, Alex?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  Abe looked up at Delia. “I should belt you one.”

  Alex tugged on Abe’s shirtfront. “Don’t be mad at Delia. We went in there,” he said, pointing to the boxcar, “and there was a man and a woman dressed up like cowboys, almost as little as me. There was too, Benjamin, don’t laugh. Then I was supposed to throw the knives like I promised, but Delia told me we were going to fool them so then she told me not to throw.”

  Abe stood and moved next to her. “Is that right?”

  “Then the circus man, he was mean to Delia and that lady there, so I threw a knife at him. At his hat, I mean. Then we left.”

  Abe looked at Delia. “Why?”

  Delia looked past him, at Lotte and Markham. “What’s the difference, Abe? You got your boy back. He ain’t hurt or nothing.”

  “I thought you was going to take him away.” Abe had never seen her look lost before. “I guess I should thank you.”

  She lit a cigarette and waved the smoke away from Alex. “Yeah, well, forget about it. You’re here now. You and your boys, you go and enjoy the circus.”

  Alex said, “You come, too.”

  Delia kneeled down and kissed his forehead. “Sorry, pumpkin, not today. I gotta spend a little time with my old friend. You go on, have fun. Abe, don’t let him eat too much, he’s had plenty already.” Alex reached for her hand but she backed away. “Go on, go now.”

  A calliope played By the Light of the Silvery Moon. She watched Abe and his boys trail off toward the midway. Alex turned his face once back to her. She waved and went back into the boxcar to retrieve her friend.

  Epilogue

  A week after his day at the circus, on the morning of his first day of school, Alex got up early, an hour before his father and brother, excited by the prospect of starting at Fulton Elementary. He washed his face, brushed his teeth and plastered down his hair with pomade, as he’d seen Benjamin do. The pain in his head was dull and constant, but he forgot about it with the excitement of the day.