Wonder Show (17 page)

As the group made its way into the tent, Portia took her place at the far end of the stage and was just about to begin her bally when the older gentleman began to speak. He looked only at his companions, but everyone had become his audience.

“Here,” he said, “we find a classic assortment of so-called freaks, who display a range of medical issues.” He waved a hand casually toward Mrs. Collington. “Thyroid!” he crowed.

The young men nodded and wrote furiously in their notebooks.

The older man jabbed a finger at the Lucasies. “Garden variety albinism!”

“I beg your pardon,” Mr. Lucasie started to say, but his accuser had already moved on to Jim.

“Here we have a clear case of acromegalic gigantism,” the man declared. “Most often caused by a benign tumor on the pituitary gland. Problem is, the internal organs grow right along with the skeletal frame. That’s probably what will kill him, in the end.”

Jim looked stricken. Portia felt she should say something, but suddenly felt ridiculous in her lily white dress and her braids tied with ribbons. She felt like a little girl playing dress-up. She hoped Mosco could hear them—she wondered if she should fetch him, but she was afraid to leave, to call attention to herself.

“How old are you, son?” the man asked Jim.

Jim stammered, “Nineteen, sir.”

“Don’t tell him that!” Jimmy snapped. “None of his damned business how old you are, or anything else. Sonofabitch.”

The man ignored Jimmy completely. “How tall are you?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” Jim confessed. “It’s been a long time since anyone measured me.”

“But you’re still growing?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Jimmy slammed his foot into Jim’s shin. “Shut the hell up, would you?” he howled. “What does this guy know, anyway?”

“I happen to be a medical doctor and an expert on glandular disorders,” the man replied calmly. “And I can tell you that your friend’s condition could be easily remedied with surgical means.”

“You mean,” said Jim, “I could be normal?”

The word ricocheted like a bullet around the tent, hitting everyone at once. Jim immediately realized what he’d said and clapped a huge hand over his mouth. But it was too late to retrieve it.

If the doctor noticed the sudden weight of the silence that fell upon them, he did not acknowledge it. Instead, he said, “If your condition is caused by a tumor, and the tumor was removed, you would stop growing. But not right away. It could take several years for your growth to slow, and it might already be too late if your heart and your liver are grossly enlarged.”

“Oh,” Jim said.

The doctor’s students had stopped writing. They all looked at Jim with practiced sympathy, as if they were rehearsing a scene in a play in which a patient receives bad news.

“I think that’s enough for one day,” the doctor said, and he led his followers out of the entrance before Portia had a chance to direct them to the back exit. She knew Polly and Pippa were waiting in the tent’s shadowy annex, but she doubted anyone in the sparse, dejected crowd would be interested in paying an extra dollar today.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “you may exit this way.”

As they did so, the soldier with one arm stopped in front of Jim. “Doctors,” he spat. “They think they know everything.”

“Right,” Jim replied, his deep, throaty voice barely audible.

“Let me tell you,” the soldier said, “there ain’t nothing easy about surgery. And all doctors want to talk about is how much better your life will be after you let ’em cut you apart. Don’t you listen, son. Don’t you listen to a word of it.”

Jim smiled weakly. “I won’t.”

“All right then,” the soldier said, and he followed his friends back to the midway, back to the outside where the heat and the sun waited to assault them once more.

Violet

I don’t hate my family. I’ve tried, believe me. But I always end up feeling guilty because why should I hate them when they’re the ones who have to live this way, trapped inside all day because they can’t even go out in the sun?

That’s why they work under that extra layer of canvas—they have a tent within a tent just in case some sunlight gets through.

They will never be part of the world.

I’m afraid I won’t either. Even though I can be outside without dark glasses and a floppy hat like Mama’s. Even though I can walk the midway without anyone staring at me, eat a hot dog, ride an elephant. Mr. Bishop let me do that once, and I waved to all these kids who were watching and they waved back.

Because I am normal.

They didn’t know that after I got off the elephant, I had to go make new curtains for the trailer because the old moth- bitten ones let the sun in. They didn’t know that I had to make the stupid curtains because no one else in my family can see well enough to sew. Or clean. Or read. Or drive. Which is why Jackal used to drive our truck until I turned ten, and then I drove, sitting on Papa’s lap and telling him, “Gas. Brake. Gas. Slow down. Faster.” Until I could reach the pedals and then I drove by myself and Papa sat in the back with Mama and Joseph.

A few months ago I gave the keys back to Jackal. Started riding in my own trailer, trying to sleep at night like regular folks.

I will never tell Papa I missed him when I was driving.

I will never get married in a field of wildflowers, unless it’s in the middle of the night.

I will never be free.

Unless I’m alone.

Joseph

When Mother and Father argue, which isn’t very often, it is always about me. Mother says, “Rudolph, he is only a child,” and Father says, “What does that have to do with anything?” and I agree with Father. Mother is not wrong about my age, but she is wrong about what it means.

Which is to say, it means nothing.

We sit on the stage all together, except for Violet because she is nothing much to look at. Plus she hates it. The first show we worked for, they tried to get Violet up there with us because they wanted everyone to see how weird it was that one person in a family could be so different than the rest. But Violet wouldn’t go and Mother and Father didn’t make her because they feel guilty about her.

They don’t feel guilty about me, though. I am just what they always wanted.

I have never told anyone this before, but sometimes I feel sorry for Violet. She isn’t special like us. Her hair is very black and her skin is a different color depending on what time of year it is, and she is always trying to make friends with girls from the outside. But they will never be friends with her because they have friends already, and anyway we’re never in the same place for more than a day or two. I don’t like it when Violet is sad, but I do like it when Violet plays cards with me because there’s no one else to play cards with.

The new girl might be Violet’s friend. Violet would like that. But she probably won’t stay very long either. There are two kinds of people here: the kind that have always been here, and the kind that only stay a little while. I’m only eleven, which is to say I haven’t been remembering things for very long, but I can remember lots and lots of different faces that were here one day and gone the next. I usually don’t try to learn any of their names. I know the new girl’s name but I won’t use it, because if I do then I’ll remember it and I have better things to think about. Like learning to ride an elephant. I want to ride an elephant everywhere I go and then people will have to look up to see me and they will be impressed and want to know who I am. And if they laugh at me I can get my elephant to stomp them.

Maybe I’ll stomp that new girl, too, so Violet will come back and play cards.

Red Lipstick

There were differences among the small towns they toured, even though they all looked precisely the same. Most of these differences were irrelevant to the Wonder Show. They didn’t care how many residents had telephones, whether the movie theater had new features or was still showing
Gone with the Wind,
or if the specials ever changed at the diner. Their stops were short. They didn’t stay long enough to get involved. As long as the townsfolk showed up at the ticket wagon with money in hand, one place was no better or worse than another.

Portia had a different view, at first. She looked more closely at each face, because she was searching, and she
made
herself look. But even she began to lose focus after the second week. It was exhausting, training her eyes on so many individual noses and hats and sets of hands, making note of what she saw even as the doubting part of her grew deeper, louder, stronger.

Somewhere between the bottom edge of Ohio and the open span of Kentucky, they crossed the border into Jesusland. That’s what Jimmy called it, the part of the country where everyone believed in One Holy Savior and they were quick to crush anyone who carried the seeds of doubt in his heart.

The towns’ faces seemed the same. Pawnshops, five-and-dimes, train tracks, churches, new-built houses, factories, more churches, feed stores. But behind the window-eyed storefronts, there was desperation, prayer, regret, blind faith, righteousness, secrets, fear.

Taking a freak show through Jesusland was like dropping a dog into a pack of wolves. It would either be torn apart or slip through unnoticed. Mosco depended on the advance man to tell him whether a town was safe or not—he didn’t have the choice of whether to stop or move on (the route card was set and the circus called the shots), but when the advance man painted a red circle in the bottom left-hand corner of the bills he posted outside of town, Mosco told the twins, “Just dancing tonight. No blowoff.” And he wouldn’t let anyone but Gideon or Violet go into town for supplies.

First stop in Alabama, they were greeted by the red circle, and Mosco sent Gideon and Violet to the grocery store. He grudgingly gave Portia the nod to tag along.

“You’ve got one hour,” he said. “Don’t dawdle.”

Portia restrained herself from telling Mosco he sounded like her Aunt Sophia. She’d already blamed her various culinary disasters on Sophia’s poor teaching—Mosco surely wouldn’t appreciate the comparison.

She climbed into the red pickup, and Violet hopped in after her. The truck was narrow, and Portia struggled to keep a precious inch of space on either side of her. The heat was intolerable. She couldn’t stand to feel the silk of Violet’s going-to-town dress on her thigh, or the stiff brush of Gideon’s canvas work pants on her other side. She tugged her skirt down underneath her, but it wouldn’t cover her knees.

Should’ve let my hems down before I ran away,
she thought. The shorter skirts made it easier to ride her bicycle, but she needed to find ways to look older if she was going to survive on her own. She’d been trying to talk Gideon into teaching her how to drive, completely without success. But Violet had promised to help her pick out a lipstick at the five-and-dime while Gideon put gas in the truck and did the shopping, so at least she’d have something to work with. She had already informed Jackal that she’d be employing a new hairstyle—the braids weren’t fooling anyone, and she hated the way they bounced against her shoulder blades when she walked.

When Violet asked Gideon to drop them off, he said, “Don’t you have enough of that junk already?”

“It’s for Portia,” Violet snapped.

Gideon frowned. His obvious disapproval made Portia itch.
He thinks Violet’s a bad influence,
she thought.
But he’s the one who introduced us in the first place.

She cleared her throat, as if to dislodge the words she wasn’t saying.

Gideon shook his head. “Fine, whatever. But if you’re not back here by the time I’m done cleaning the windshield, I’m leaving without you.”

Portia looked back at him over her shoulder as Violet dragged her away.

“He’s bluffing,” Violet said. “He’s always threatening to leave me places, but he never does. Even when I want him to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing. Just . . . nothing. Come on.”

Woolworth’s was across the street from the gas station. Portia could see Gideon through the front window, leaning across the truck, scrubbing at the bugs on the windshield with a wet sponge. His right foot lifted off the ground, his arms extended. He looked like a dancer.

“How about this one?” Violet was at her shoulder with a tube of lipstick, turning it up so Portia could see. It was a deep red, the color of overripe strawberries. “This would look great with your hair.”

“Okay,” Portia said. She didn’t know enough to choose for herself. She could entrust this small choice to Violet, spare herself the mistake, if it was one. “How much?”

Violet shook her head. “My treat, darling. Bad luck for a girl to pay for her first lipstick. It’s like the tarot cards. You can’t buy them for yourself. You can’t pay for something powerful. It has to be given to you.” She waved the lipstick like a magic wand. “And this,” she said, “is powerful stuff.”

Before Portia could ask where Violet got the money to pay for such items, the bell on the Woolworth’s door sent its little birdsong through the sticky air. She looked up, expecting to see Gideon, embarrassed to be caught among the strange luxuries of the cosmetics counter.

But it was three boys who entered the store—tall, clean cut, with the shiny scrubbed faces of young men sent into town by their mothers. They looked like a Norman Rockwell composition, the three of them stacked up by the door, until they moved through the doorway and one of them spotted the girls.

“Well,” he said, grinning. “What have we here?”

Portia recognized his tone, all false innocence and play. Brewster Falls had its share of boys who liked to follow the road out of town and surprise a wayward girl or two working in the orchard. Fortunately they had all been too scared of old Bluebeard to try to steal any of his wives. So no real harm was ever done, but the boys sometimes got just brave enough to hide in one of the apple trees and spook the girls. Mister had finally installed a few empty shotguns among the outbuildings and granted the older girls permission to brandish them when necessary.