Billy Creekmore

by Tracey Porter

  “Thank you, thank you,” dithered my pa, histrionic as ever. “I’ve come to ask about my dearly departed wife, the sweetest creature that ever graced God’s green earth …”

  As if he was overcome with emotion, Pa dropped his head in his hands, and I noticed something laced through his fingers, sparkling in the candlelight. Of course, he knew I’d catch anything new in the act quick as a snap. A second later, he looked at me and held up my mother’s necklace.

  “This necklace …,” he whimpered, “… is the only thing I have left from my dear, sweet wife. Tell me, Boy Seer from the East, is she resting peacefully?”

  I don’t know if I was angry or shocked, but I couldn’t catch my breath at first. He must have snuck back to our tent after I had left for the sideshow to rifle through my tin box and take my mother’s necklace. How could he use the only thing I had of my mother’s like this? The thought of it made me sick, and it was all I could do to go on with the show.

  Somehow, though, I managed, and Pa and I completed our routine. The audience went wild with grief. Hankies fluttered left and right as ladies sniffled and cried. There were the usual widows and widowers asking for news from the beyond, and sweethearts asking if their lover was true. I watched and listened, trying to figure out what they wanted most to hear, then gave it back to them in an accented voice with half-closed eyes. I was going by rote, still angry at my pa, but well trained enough so that I could do my job. I didn’t take no joy in it that night. It was a sad house, and there were more than the usual amount of troubling questions. When an old lady asked about her missing son, and a boy not much older than me asked about his sick baby sister, I felt downright bleak.

  Pa, on the other hand, was happy as could be. He couldn’t understand why I was sad about the folks and their troubles or upset about my mother’s necklace.

  “I don’t ever want to use it in a show, Pa. It ain’t right. It’s disrespectful to her memory.”

  “Didn’t know you had any memory of her, Billy.”

  “And I don’t want you touchin’ it again! Keep your hands off my things!”

  “C’mon now, Billy, don’t be mad at me.” He smiled. “I had to get you in the right mood. You were gonna blow the act. I knew your mother’s necklace would wake you up! Hey, cheer up now and forgive your old pa. We made over ten dollars tonight. It’s just like I always say—the sadder the town, the better the money.”

  At the end of the night, Pa nearly danced over to the Captain to give him his half. The Captain was so pleased, he gave Pa a bottle of whisky, and the two of them sat up drinking with Hank.

  Alone in my tent, feeling dreary, I pulled out my old datebook from the Sparks Circus just to see where they was. It warn’t more than a few months since Rufus, Matthew, and I were printing up posters and pasting up a town, but it seemed a lifetime ago. The three of us was a good team. Most days we finished just in time to make it back to camp by supper. The waiters served us potatoes and steak, soup or stew, cake or pie, take what you please. Mr. Sparks and his wife always ate with us, and they always stopped to ask us about the towns ahead, and if we thought we’d play to a full house.

  I got awful lonely going over these memories. Once I was a union man, then I was a member of the Sparks World Famous Circus. Now I was part of a small-time circus working the graft. I wondered if everything folks said about me back at the orphanage was true—that I was born to be unlucky, that I’d always have to fight the Devil inside me, that I was prone to taking a bad path through life filled with deception and lies. All the feelings I used to have of spirits yearning to talk to me were gone. My heart was growing cold from the folks I was living with and the lies I was telling. It was just like Peggy told me so long ago.

  Our run was near over, and we had only a few more towns to visit before we went to North Carolina. The Captain had some land near Charlotte that he used for our winter quarters, but Pa said it warn’t gonna be any kinda vacation. That was the time we’d be repairing the wagons, patching the tents, touching up the paint, and getting ready for the next tour. My birthday and Christmas warn’t that far away, and I kinda hoped we might celebrate them somehow. It would be our first ones together as father and son. Maybe we could go into Charlotte and see the lights and the window displays, I suggested, but Pa said there wouldn’t be no time for that.

  “Too much work to do,” he said, “and we won’t be making any money. Sorry, boy. Ain’t gonna be no birthday or Christmas presents.”

  “That’s okay, Pa. Presents don’t matter none,” I said.

  It was the end of a long, drizzly day. Only a few folks had ventured out in the gloom to see the circus, and only a few of them paid the extra money to see the sideshow. Once inside, only three folks asked me questions. Pa was tired. We was heating some beans over a smoky campfire. He took a swig from his flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Once we’re in North Carolina, you’ll be working like the rest of us, Billy. No need for you to act the part of the Boy Seer night and day. You’ll be learning a whole new set of skills. Like how to shoe a horse and guy out the tent ropes.”

  I said I’d be happy to learn, but Pa said it warn’t gonna be any fun. “These smaller outfits are too much work, Billy. I work twice as hard for the Captain as I did for Mr. John Robinson and his Sunday school show. Somehow or other, we’ve got to get ourselves outta here, Billy. We could take our act anywhere! Maybe we should steal your poster and one of the ponies and fly outta here right now.”

  “No, Pa, we can’t do that,” I said. “It’s not right.”

  “What’d you say to me, boy?” He turned on me with a vengeful look. “Are you defying me? Do you think you know better than me? What makes you think you know what’s right?”

  He had never said anything like this to me before, and I was scared he might hit me.

  “Think you’re better than your old man, don’t you? Got yourself a prize booth in the sideshow, don’t you? Well, who do you think got you started? It was me!”

  He kicked the pot of beans off the fire. Some of ‘em splashed my way and burned my legs. “You ain’t better than me, Billy. You ain’t nothing but a nitpicking lackey, just another gunsel working for the Captain, doing what he tells ya, not thinking for yourself….”

  He threw his empty flask at my feet. “Go find Hank,” he said. “Tell him to fill my bottle or else I’ll come looking for him.”

  I scampered off looking for Hank or anyone else who’d spare some whisky. A few of the men were drinking round a fire outside Hank’s tent.

  “It ain’t whisky.” Mitch laughed. “But your pa won’t notice. Not in the state he’s in.”

  This set the circle into sloppy, open-mouthed laughter. One of ‘em fell over, he was laughing so hard. I remembered the miners crumpled with drink on payday, and how Uncle Jim said drink can ruin a man. How far was my pa from being ruined? I wondered as Mitch filled his flask, then I hurried back to our tent, hoping he wouldn’t be mad at me for taking too long.

  When I got back, my pa was sitting by the fire. He looked up at me with bleary eyes. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, son. Forget what I said and forgive your old man.” He dropped his head in his hands and cried a little. “I yelled at your mother sometimes, but she didn’t hold it against me, so you can’t either. Oh, Billy, we coulda had a different life, like that white cottage by the lake in our act. If only your mother hadn’t died …”

  “Don’t, Pa,” I said. “Be quiet now. I don’t hold nothin’ against you.” He quieted down enough to take a few sips outta the bottle I brought him. Then he seemed to pass out. I was glad. I didn’t want him to talk no more.

  Days later we was somewhere in Kentucky, setting up our tents in a coal town. The little houses were tackety and run down, just like the patch villages in West Virginia, Holly Glen included. Some of ‘em had paper instead of glass over the window frames, and most of the trees was scrawny and twisted, stunted and choking from years of coal dust. It was morning, and I
was checking the ropes of the sideshow tent, making sure they was taut, and moving the stakes out some if they warn’t. Hank and my pa were off unfolding the canvas of the big tent, and I was alone for the moment when two little kids, a boy and a girl, came up to me. They was brother and sister, I guessed, and the boy’s fingertips and nose were solid black. He was younger than me and already working the mines.

  “You the fortune-telling boy?” the girl asked. She was the younger one, no more than seven years old, but not shy like her brother. Her brother seemed to be about nine but was sort of distracted, looking off here and there, not saying anything.

  “I reckon so,” I said.

  “You’re a lot paler than your poster,” she said.

  “Ah, they just paint it that way so folks’ll think I’m from India.”

  “But you ain’t,” she said. She wasn’t angry ‘bout the fib, just setting things straight in her mind.

  “No, I ain’t.”

  “Well, can you tell fortunes? Like the poster says?” She was little and bold, awful cute in the way a few wispy strands of her hair fell about her face.

  “Why don’t your brother do the talkin’? He’s the older one.”

  “He don’t like talkin’ no more. So, can you tell fortunes or not?”

  “Just wait here a moment. I’ll get things ready.”

  I slipped inside the tent, found my turban, and lit the candles, all the while thinking that they seemed like nice kids who wouldn’t mind that I wasn’t painted up or had the music going like in the regular show. I decided not to ask ‘em for money since they didn’t look like they had none, and after all no one ever did in a coal camp. Truth be told, I didn’t like pulling into these towns, knowing what I did about life in the mines and how the company rigged things against the miners and their families something fierce.

  I ushered the kids in, saying I’d tell their fortunes for free, and that afterward they could walk through the House of Mirrors if they wanted.

  “Some circuses call it the Crystal Maze, but we say it’s the House of Mirrors. It’s all the same…. You wander about lookin’ at different types of fun mirrors, some that make you squat, some that make you wavy or skinny. You go along lookin’ at yourselves in different ways, gettin’ lost in the maze till finally you find your way out.”

  “Do folks always find their way out?” the girl asked.

  “Most times,” I said. “But you won’t get lost for long, I can tell.”

  Well, the little girl took the seat at the table while her brother stood behind her, holding his cap with his black fingers and looking for all the world like a lost soul. The more I looked at him the more he reminded me of Herbert Mullens, the boy Mr. Beadle beat so bad he stopped talking.

  “What’s your question?”

  “What I wanna know …,” she began, only her voice started to catch and she had to stop before going on, ‘cause the tears started coming out heavy. “What I wanna know is if our pa’s gonna get better. There was a cave-in, and he’s in the hospital with a crushed leg. The doctor says he ain’t gonna walk again, but I’m hoping you can tell us something different.”

  I’d been asked plenty of questions like this before, but not in a coal camp, and not by a child. It warn’t easy to give her my usual reply, which was, oh yes, he’ll pull through just fine, say your prayers and have faith.

  But that’s exactly what I did say. I looked at her palm a bit, then closed my eyes and tilted back my head, acting for all the world like I was communicating with spirits, which as I said I couldn’t do no more. I could feel all the worry in the little girl’s heart, and how almost all the feelings in her brother was nearly shut up forever because of the harshness of the mine. Maybe he’d grow up to be a ruined man like my pa, or else he might die young like Clyde Light.

  I was feeling those things, the girl’s love for her pa, the boy’s silence, and then, for the first time in a long, long time, I felt a spirit come to me. It was a woman’s spirit, a mother, I reckoned, maybe my own. I couldn’t tell, but I felt it hovering above us, embracing us in a way, and my heart seemed to grow in both sadness and love. She didn’t have no words, but she guided me to say what I did.

  “Your pa’s gonna get better real soon, but your life’s gonna change some in a way I can’t predict. Keep a candle lit and say some prayers at your church whenever you can. But don’t worry none, cause there’s a flock of angels lookin’ over your family.”

  Well, the little girl and her brother just about lit up hearing this, and she thanked me over and over, saying I was a right good fortune-teller and what exactly did Heaven look like, and did the angels have wings of feathers or were they made of stardust, and so on and so forth. My words came easy enough, but the spirit was already leaving us. I told her Heaven looked like it was made of cotton candy, and the angels’ wings was either silver or gold, but I was getting awful uneasy talking to ‘em. My nerves was shook up, and I started feeling kinda panicky like I might cry. So, I pretended something had come to my mind all of a sudden, and I took ‘em to the House of Mirrors.

  “Why don’t you come with us?” she asked. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. We can chase each other.”

  “Oh no, I got things to do. Besides I been there too many times and it ain’t no fun for me no more.”

  And so I left ‘em in the maze. They was in high spirits ‘cause of the good news I gave ‘em, and I could even hear the brother laughing as I left the sideshow tent and walked out to find my pa.

  I couldn’t do this no more. I was leaving, simple as that. I threw my turban to the ground and kicked it away. Back at my tent, I rustled through a pile of clothes till I found my tin box. I tore up every single card my pa ever sent me. I slipped my mother’s broken necklace into my pocket, then I left.

  “I see you’ve been starting your show early,” said my pa when he saw me stomping cross the grounds. “How much did you take those kids for?”

  “I didn’t take ‘em for nothin’. I told ‘em a fortune for free, then I let ‘em go in the maze, and I’d give ‘em some cotton candy if it was made, and a pet chameleon, or a whistle if I knew where the Captain kept ‘em.”

  “Why the heck did you do that? You’re talking foolish, boy. What’s got into you?” he asked. He shielded his eyes from the sun, wincing a bit. I could tell he was achy and hungover from the night before. He didn’t really want an answer to his question, but I felt like giving him one anyway.

  “I’m tired of cheatin’ folks outta their money and pretendin’ to be something I’m not.” My eyes were stinging with tears and I felt dumb and stupid, like any kid does when he starts to cry in front of folks and can’t stop. “I hate you and I hate the Captain. I’m leavin’, goin’ off by myself, ‘cause I can’t do this no more. I can’t go on takin’ ‘vantage of folks that’s poor and downhearted ‘cause their father’s near dyin’ or they’ve been broken down by the mines. Why, you and the Captain’s as bad as Mr. Newgate and the coal barons, and Mr. Colder at the glass factory.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking ‘bout, but you ain’t going anywhere.”

  “I am, too,” I said, and I started to run off, only he lurched at me and grabbed the back of my collar. “Let me go!” I screamed, trying to squirm away.

  “C’mon, now, Billy. Settle down. I’ll take you into town and buy you an ice cream,” he said. “Let’s sit down and talk about our plans.”

  “I don’t want any plans with you!” I yelled. “I never did.” I twisted fierce enough to break his grip, then I darted off. He stumbled after me and fell.

  “All right then, Billy,” he yelled. “If you wanna go, go. Although I think you’re leaving a swell setup, Boy Seer from the East.”

  And those was the last words he said, and he didn’t even call me by my real name, only the name he made up for me, which made me think he didn’t really know me or love me after all, even though he was my own flesh and blood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I Head


  SOUTH,

  Trying

  to Find

  MY WAY HOME

  I ran outta camp without looking back, running like I did from the guards when they shot Uncle Jim and Clayton. I knew enough about coal camps to find my way out.

  Days passed, and I was back to my old ways, alone in the woods, my clothes ragged, my bones beginning to show ‘cause the only food I had was the berries I picked and the vegetables I stole from a farm I passed by. Every now and then, when I was really hungry, I’d knock on a door asking folks if I could paint a fence or milk a cow for whatever food they could spare.

  Strangely, I warn’t at all sad or downhearted. And I warn’t lonely, either, for the spirits were back with me. They were nature spirits, spirits of the earth that felt kindly toward humans, and they hung close to the old paths I followed through the woods. Every now and then, when I had a drink from a stream or rested under a willow, I felt them helping me along. I was altogether more hopeful than I ever was during any of my wanderings in the past. For the first time in my life, I knew where I was going.

  “Where you off to?” asked an old woman. She lived in a little house near the tracks, and I had knocked on her door asking if I could do some chores in exchange for a meal. Her eyes were soft and kind behind her spectacles, and she sat with me on her porch while I ate the cold chicken she gave me.

  “I’m headin’ back to the Sparks Circus,” I said. I pulled out the datebook from my back pocket to show her. “I used to work the advance crew for Mr. Sparks, all before a few bad things happened to me. If they’re runnin’ to schedule, which they usually do, they’ll be pullin’ into Charleston, South Carolina, right about now. They spend the winter just outside the city.”

  “Oh, the Sparks Circus is a fine show! They came through here ‘bout five years ago and folks still talk about it.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I bet they do. Mr. Sparks puts on a quality show, no doubt about it.”

  “So you’re heading down south to meet up with him. Going back to work the advance.”