Death of A Clown

by Heather Haven

  “What report?” I ask. “What did it say?”

  Before Harold answers, he reaches over for a clean rag, dries the floor, then spreads hay about. I wait.

  “Ticker’s not so good,” Harold finally says. “What they call an enlarged heart. Vet said something like congestive heart failure. I got to keep him quiet. No more performing for my boy.” Harold goes over and ruffles the lion’s mane. The lion gently grabs the man’s hand and they play together for a moment. Harold laughs and Kirby rubs his face against the man’s body. I watch them share a fondness I rarely see shared between most people. I almost forget to breathe.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Harold,” I whisper, holding onto the bars with my fingertips.

  “What’s that?” he shouts, arms wrapped around the big cat.

  “I’m sorry,” I mouth slowly.

  “Psshaw,” he exhales. “Old Kirby, he’ll be all right, won’t you, boy?” The lion half roars, half purrs at the man, in answer. Harold gets up and yanks down a chain collar and leather leash from a hook near the ceiling.

  “My boy’s got a lot of life left in him. Maybe another six months to a year.” He puts the chain links around the lion’s neck and snaps on the leash. “That’s more notice than most folks get. We’ll just make the best of what we got, won’t we, boy?”

  He opens the cage door and tugs at the leash. The lion obediently follows him out and down the steps. They pause, both looking at me. I come over, stand by the lion’s side and stroke the coarse hair on his back with my fingertips, forcing a smile to my face.

  “This collar and leash don’t mean diddily,” Harold pseudo-whispers to me, with a grin. “He could be free of it with one tug but it keeps the locals happy.” Harold chortles. “Like that iddy-biddy chain on the elephant’s foot, tied up to a stake. Like they couldn’t break it, one, two, three, if’n they wanted.” He sobers. “Sometimes I half wonder why they don’t just pick up their foot and walk away.”

  “It’s all in the mind, Harold,” I say. “I think they stay where they want to be, like the rest of us.”

  “Maybe so. We’re going over to the field behind the train. Kirby likes to sit in the grass in the sun. Maybe he pretends he’s back on the plains of Africa like his ancestors. Don’t know. But it makes him happy.” He turns to Kirby. “Let’s go, boy, time’s a’wasting.” The lanky man ambles away, followed by the rickety old lion. I watch them for a few minutes until they’re on the other side of the train and out of sight.

  “Jeri,” I hear Tin Foot call. I turn around. He runs up and envelopes me in his arms, then breaks free. “I guess I should be more careful, with you hurt and all.”

  “I’m okay, Tin.” I hug him back. “I won’t be doing any web for a few weeks, but I’m fine.” I look at the bandage on the side of his head and touch it carefully. “How are you?”

  “Me?” he brushes it off. “Takes more than a conk on the head to bring me down.”

  “Thanks for saving my life, Tin.”

  He brushes that off, too. “I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done for me. Besides you already saved yourself. I just kept you company on the way down the ropes.”

  I can’t speak. I can’t say what I want or need to say. I just cover my face with my bandaged hands and try to keep from sobbing out loud.

  “Jeri,” I hear my friend say. “What is it? Are you all right?”

  I let my hands down, look into his anxious face and nod.

  “Let’s sit down,” he says. He guides me to the steps on Old Kirby’s empty wagon, looks at the open cage door and then all around. “Where’s the lion?”

  “Sunbathing,” I say, sitting down. Instead of sobbing, I laugh.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?” He sits down beside me. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  “No. I’m a little stiff and sore, but I’ll be fine.” I reach inside the purse on my waist gingerly, with the tips of my fingers, and pull out a small key. “Tin,” I say reaching over to him, “while I’m thinking about it, try this key in the lock on the cage door.”

  Asking no questions, he takes it from my hand, stands and inserts the key in the lock. “Seems to work just fine.” He looks down at me for an explanation.

  “That’s the key I found in Constantin’s tent. I’m tying up loose ends.” I reach out for the key.

  “Why’d he do that?” asks Tin, putting it in my hand. “Why Old Kirby’s cage?” He lowers down beside me.

  “It was Constantin’s warped sense of humor, I think. It was his last laugh on the boy. ‘They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.’ That’s another quote underlined in Constantin’s Bible. I think he was in the process of putting Eddie inside the cage but got interrupted, maybe even by Catalena. We’ll never know for sure why the body was left outside and Old Kirby’s door open. Eddie, Catalena and Constantin are all dead and the lion’s not talking.”

  “When did you suspect it was Constantin?”

  “Pretty early on but it seemed so atypical for a parent to behave that way, I looked elsewhere. By the time I figured it out, he was dead.”

  “And by his own hand,” Tin adds.

  I’m silent.

  “It seems only fitting after what he did to Eddie,” Tin offers, his face thoughtful. “He destroyed three lives with that, Eddie, Catalena, and their baby.”

  Again, I don’t say anything. Nobody knows the truth of what Constantin did to Catalena or whose baby it really was, except Doc and me. And it will stay that way.

  “Ah, Jeri,” Tin says then hesitates, looking down at his hands. We sit for a moment or two in silence. He looks troubled.

  “What is it? You’ve got something on your mind.”

  He nods.

  “Well, spill, as Margie would say.”

  “I got a letter from Ma a couple of days ago. I didn’t get a chance to mention it to you, what with all that’s been going on.”

  “Something’s wrong.” I reach out and touch him on the arm.

  “Pop had a stroke.”

  “Oh, no,” I gasp.

  “Ma says he’s going to be okay.” He reaches inside the breast pocket of his shirt and pulls out a folded, two-page

  letter. “It happened a couple of weeks ago, but Ma didn’t want to write me until they knew more. Already he can use his left hand, but she says he walks with a limp. He’s got a cane. My pa with a cane.” He shakes his head in disbelief.

  “Oh, Tin, I’m so sorry.”

  He swallows hard, looking straight ahead. “I got to go home, Jeri. Ma says they need me. Pop can’t run the farm anymore and Clayton’s barely seventeen years old.”

  “Clayton’s your youngest brother?”

  “He’s the only one left at home. The others are in the navy. The neighbors are helping out with the animals until I get there. I just talked to Tony. I leave next week.”

  I inhale a breath but it sounds more like a sob.

  Tin never looks at me. “I’ve got to go, Jeri. They need me. Besides, this is my chance to go home.”

  “I know. I think somewhere inside, you’ve always wanted to go home. There are all those cows, just waiting to be milked.” We laugh and I brush at my damp face. We still don’t look at one another.

  “I’ll miss you.” I reach out and touch his hand lightly with my gauze-covered one. “More than I can say. Nobody could have a better friend.” We sit in silence for a moment.

  “I always wanted to be more than a friend, Jeri. I guess you knew that.”

  I nod but don’t speak.

  Tin goes on, “I’d ask you to come with me, Jeri, marry me, help me milk those cows, but I don’t see you ever leaving the circus. It’s in your blood.”

  “Ninety-nine percent sawdust,” I say. We both laugh, still not looking at one another.

  I finally get the courage to look over at him. “In all honesty, Tin, can you see me as a farmer’s wife?”

  “In all honesty? No.” Studying me, my carrot-topped friend s
miles and his whole face lights up. “But I wish I did.”

  “Tin, I --”

  “Jeri,” he interrupts, “we’ve said it all. Time to get off the stage.” He stands and hands me a carved cow painted white and black. “This is for you.”

  I turn the small statue over with my fingertips and consider the beauty of the workmanship through misty eyes. It’s hard to believe it was just a lump of wood a few days ago. “It’s beautiful. I’ll treasure it always.”

  “I want you to have something to remember me by.”

  “I don’t need anything to remember you by, Tin.”

  “Take it anyway. I’m heading for the real things soon enough.” Tin Foot returns his mother’s letter to his pocket. “I got to go and rehearse with the girl that’s taking your place. Mitzi something or other.”

  “Mitzi Levine. First of May. This is a good opportunity for her. She’s got promise.”

  “She’s no Jerull Deane but she’ll do,” Tin says with a wink. “Rumor has it you’re going to be taking over the center trapeze with the other featured performers when you’re better.”

  I look up at Tin. “You mean I’ll be taking Rosie’s place?”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Boy, life doesn’t miss a beat around here, does it?” I’m not sure how I feel about taking over for Rosie, wearing her costumes, sitting at her makeup table, doing her routines. Maybe I don’t have to. Opportunities come, opportunities go. I want to be a star, but not this way.

  “By the way,” Tin says, “I seem to be spending my days telling you this, but Whitey’s looking for you.” He pauses. “I think he loves you, Jeri,” Tin says, looking me in the eye. “And I think you love him, too, only you’re too scared to admit it.”

  “I’m not so scared, anymore.”

  “Good.”

  I smile up into his face. “Don’t you have some place to be?”

  We both laugh and I watch my friend leave, wondering how I’ll get through my days without him.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  9:50 am, Wednesday

  I sit for a minute, then get up and make my way to Tony’s office. People are running here and there, going about the business of the circus. Some wave at me, some stare, almost as if I’m an outsider. That’s how I feel, not being a part of the routine. And I must look peculiar in my ‘stockings and gloves,’ as Harold would say.

  I knock on Tony’s door, uncertain of why I’m here. Do I want to find out about the rumors of me replacing Rosie? Or am I here to turn Doc in? Usually, I’m pretty sure about everything. I hear Tony’s voice telling me to come in. When he sees me from behind his mammoth mahogany- carved desk, he jumps up and rushes to my side.

  “Jeri, come in, come in. How are you doing? Are you all right? Doc says you're going to be all right and Doris says –”

  “I’m fine, Tony, just fine.”

  “Sit down, sit down,” he says, and guides me to a green, overstuffed chair in front of his desk. His voice is anxious and filled with what sounds like genuine concern and maybe more. Guilt?

  “What can I do for you? Can I get you something?”

  “I’ve heard a rumor that you want to replace Rosie with me. True or untrue?”

  He returns to his desk, sits down and his face dons the Boss Man mask. “Untrue. We have no intention of putting you into that slot.”

  I am so relieved; I let out a long sigh of trapped air.

  “Thank God. That’s all I need in my life, following the ghost of Rosie around on a trapeze from town to town.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you, Jeri.” He pauses, reaches for a small coffee pot on a hot plate and pours himself a cup. “Want some coffee?”

  “I don’t drink coffee, anymore. Makes me too jittery.”

  A fleeting smile crosses his face. “Strikes me that you’ve got nerves of steel.”

  I smile back. “Not really.” I struggle out of the chair, still stiff and sore. “I’ll get going now that I’ve got that one straight.”

  “Wait a minute. Sit down, Jeri. We do have another idea. Now that you’re here, I’d like to run it by you, see what you think.”

  “Oh?” I sit down again and stare at him. “I think my nerves of steel may have just vanished. What is it?”

  “I’m going to expand the Four Family Liroffs’ act by adding the remaining two girls from the featured trapeze into their act. The girls need a place to go and the Liroffs need a bit of glamour. They’re getting stale. They’ll go in right after the spec.”

  I smile. “That sounds great. Everybody’s happy. What do you want to run by me?”

  He looks straight at me. “I’ll just say it right out. We’d like to give you your own specialty trapeze act with Topsy.”

  “Topsy and I? On a trapeze?” I must look as shocked as I feel. For the first time in a while, Tony’s laugh is genuine and warm, almost boyish.

  “Not exactly. She’ll stay on the ground. You’ll be on the trapeze. What we’re thinking of doing is combining your ability to work with her and your assets in the air. We’ll pull the last two tricks you do with Topsy from the Dance of the Elephants, have you exit with everybody else instead of staying, and save those two bits for the opening act after intermission.”

  “So far, you sound nuts.”

  He ignores my comment. “You’ll open your routine by coming in on Topsy. You’ll do the underbelly trick, just the same, do the stand on her forehead trick, just the same. Only you won’t get down. A rope will lower from the top of the center ring –”

  “I’m in the center ring?”

  “Yes, it’s time for you to be there. We were thinking of putting you there even before all of this happened, Jeri. You haven’t gone unnoticed.” Tony smiles at me and sips his coffee. “Where was I? Oh, yes. Then a rope will lower, you’ll grab it and you’ll be lifted up in the air to a trapeze, maybe twelve, fifteen feet high. Not more than that because there won’t be the traditional netting below, just a trampoline for safety. Once you’re seated, you’ll throw down a rope to Topsy and she’ll pull you back and forth, just like the web sitters do.”

  “A pachyderm web sitter?”

  “It won’t take her long to learn how to do that trick plus a few other things that help you perform. Whitey’s going to start working with her today on this.”

  “Whitey? He knows about this?”

  “It was his idea about using you and Topsy together as an act.” He looks at me. “You don’t seem too happy. We thought you’d be pleased. Everyone knows how much you love Topsy.”

  “Of course, I love my girl. But it strikes me as a comedy act, where I’m to be laughed at, like the clowns.”

  “I see I haven’t explained this well. There will be nothing to laugh at. Rather than using a catcher for you, which the other acts do, we thought you would perform by yourself on the bar, do some layovers, twists, balances, things

  like that -- what we’ve seen you do in practice -- peppered occasionally by Topsy helping out from the ground by pulling the swing back and forth. Your solo stuff is grand.

  You have top-notch extensions and you’re beautiful to watch, Jeri, glamorous and classy. That’s where your strength lies. It’s when you work with a catcher that it falls apart.”

  He stops speaking and studies me, trying to determine my reaction. He's measured out the truth in pretty strong doses, but truth it is and I have to admit it. I’m terrified of the swan dive and until I get over that, if ever, I’ll never be able to work with others. Or be as good as I’d like. Tony watches the expression on my face as I think.

  “Jeri, you’ve been with the Big Top for about two years, right?”

  I nod.

  “Do you realize how far you’ve come in such a short amount of time? You can do stuff people who’ve been in the circus all their lives can’t do.” He seems able to read my mind. “You’ll get the swan, if that’s what you want. It just takes more time. Meanwhile, do this act with Topsy. You two have magic together and the crowd
s love it. And we need it. We need more in the show. We’re down two acts. You’ll be doing management a favor and it’ll be good for you. And I promise, you’ll go as far as you want around here. You’ve got it all ahead of you. Don’t rush it.”

  He smiles at me and I realize, once again, why he is a first rate Boss Man. He knows his performers inside and out and how to fit us into the show. With him, the Big Top always comes first. That’s how it is with me, so I understand it. He crosses his legs, leans back in the chair and stares at me, a half-smile on his face.

  I smile back. “Of course, I’ll do it, Tony. But when did you and Whitey cook this up?”

  “We were up half the night. We talked about that and…other things.” I have an idea where he’s going with this, so I sit back and wait. Now more unsure of himself, Tony tugs on his moustache before saying, “Jeri, he told me he told you about the hobo.” He looks at me.

  “Yes.”

  “He said you promised to keep it a secret, you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “That was for him, not necessarily for you.” My tone is light but I know my face conveys my intent. “It’s better if you tell Doris, if she hears it from you, especially if you two are patching things up.”

  He shakes his head. “Never. It’s in the past. I want to keep it that way. You know Jeri, the one good thing that’s came out of that night was my winding up here. My father had been good friends with the circus owners, both in business and personally. He asked them to find a spot for me, initially as a bookkeeper, to keep me out of trouble.” He laughs at the memory. “I’ve been hooked ever since I walked onto the lot. In eleven years I’ve worked my way up to Boss Man and it wasn’t as easy as you might think. But the past is the past. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Tony, these things have a way of coming out, even long after you think they’re dead and buried. Don’t underestimate Doris’ ability to understand and forgive.”

  He uncrosses his legs and leans forward, body tense and alert. “What are you saying? Are you going to tell her?” His eyes search mine for the answer.