Jonah Man (15 page)

Outside, the ticket lady was eyeing the same drawing of the same colorless bird. I asked for my quarter back and she looked annoyed like she’d almost had that picture memorized and now she’d have to start over.

We don’t hand out money, she said.

But I’ve got my ticket.

Then you’re welcome to go back inside.

You don’t understand, I said. I’m in the shows.

Then why’d you buy a ticket?

I thought I had to.

Well then, she said, you learned something.

The table cloths were woven like bed spreads and the chairs looked like thrones. The browser sniffed the wine before he let our waiter pour it.

So, what is it we’re talking about? my father asked.

A seriocomic of the highest caliber. A flash act with a wow finish. An olio the size of the stages you play now.

Nothing gamy?

In a Pastor establishment?

Tony Pastor?

Yes, sir. Mr. Tony Pastor.

Well now.

Indeed.

The browser turned to me, smiled.

You’d be replacing a son whose voice, at the onset of certain physiological changes, took an unfortunate turn.

Ha, my father said. You mean the kid squeaks.

Not an uncommon phenomenon. But, between us, this development is something of a pretense—the boy was never the strongest link. With a talent such as your son’s, they would be looking to expand the part. In fact, there would be a scene in which he held the stage—the full stage—alone. People will notice. Important people. Sir, he said, leaning toward my father,
I’ve been around since the nickel theaters, and I have seen only a handful—a small handful—of performers as skilled as your boy.

He turned back to me.

I assume you’re sixteen? he said. Looking at you now, I might even say seventeen.

He’s forty, my father said. Ain’t you got nothing for papa?

I have a single income that dwarfs your combined present income.

My father leaned back, grinning.

You talk good, he said, but how do I know you ain’t a shine out for attention? Maybe you live down the road.

The browser lowered his fork and knife.

Tell me, he said, who do you follow on your current bill? Who follows you?

A corncob-flute player and an amputee juggler.

Bilge water. At Pastor’s, your son will share the stage with a London theater troupe, a concert violinist, people who have played the world’s courts. Everything top flight. Can you picture what I’m describing, son?

I could. I saw it now. Faces backlit by the calcium ray. My heels kicking up sawdust.

Here’s the thing, my father said. We got obligations.

Obligations?

Things we ain’t done with.

You do understand what I’m offering you?

I do. It’s generous, my father said. I know it. But the truth is, he ain’t sixteen. And he’s got some growing left.

But I’m ready now, I said.

I turned before he caught my eyes.

I am offering him an opportunity to grow, the browser said. And if you are worried about the family he will be accompanying, I can assure you...

I said it can wait. The big stage will be there. Right now, he’s got a circuit to finish.

The browser let his head drop.

Very principled, he said. But, if I may say so, misguided. Your circuit would not show you the same loyalty. Here’s my card. You know where I am staying. I leave for New York in the morning.

Well, my father said when we were walking back, that was a damn fine meal.

I looked at him. His eyes were red around the rims and he wasn’t smiling. He laid a palm on my shoulder.

That man was trying to buy us, he said. We can’t be bought. Your turn will come. Soon enough. I promise.

I thought:
Someone bought you.
He saw it in me.

Careful, he said.

I moved away. My body wanted to run. Not toward or from anything. It wanted to let out what I couldn’t keep down.

The train station was at the far edge of town. I thought I’d trade the whiskey for a ticket, but I didn’t want to walk back past the hotel. I pictured faces in the windows watching as my father’s naked body was carried off by men I’d never met. There’d be people standing around, the sheriff and the hotel owner and the hotel owner’s wife. The wife would tell the sheriff that the man in that room had a boy with him and the sheriff would say he’d find me, only I didn’t want to be found.

I passed through an alley, sidled down the embankment that led to the tracks. I could see the station lights the length of the town away. I started walking, counting each track as I went, trying to make out anything that moved. There were things in the desert that could kill you before you knew it, lizards that sidestepped like tiny crabs and cactuses that were so small you couldn’t see them.

I heard the growling before I saw the dog. It came out of the brush on the embankment and stood staring at me, its haunches planted and its head down. A shepherd, all bone beneath the fur.

Good boy, I said. Good, good boy.

I bent my knees and slung my bag in front of me. The movement was enough to make him lunge. I hooked my arm through the straps, lifted the bag like a shield and grabbed up a stone. It
was almost on me by the time I threw and I saw its mouth turn bloody. I jumped, kicked it solid in the throat, then pelted it with a fistful of rocks while it choked and yelped and dragged itself back to where it came from.

A man stepped out of the scrub and stood facing me so I couldn’t pass. He was tall and ugly, dressed in a ragged slicker with boots that ran to his knees. He had a whip coiled in one hand and I could tell by the dog that he knew how to use it.

That animal’s worth money, he said.

It’ll live, I said.

But it’s broken. Damaged. I expect to be compensated.

You set that dog to kill me.

What’s in your bag?

Nothing.

The bag itself is something.

The bag itself is mine.

You’ll leave here in better shape than my dog if you give it to me.

He let out some slack on the whip.

I didn’t mean to hurt him, I said.

He cocked his arm.

That’s odd, he said. I thought you did.

I thought he’d hit me, but he only called to the dog while it whimpered and crawled towards him. He set down his whip, grabbed the dog’s neck and pointed at its bloody mouth.

You see, he said. You knocked away the animal’s bite.

And this, he said. He took the dog’s paw between his fingers and pressed until it screamed.

You caught him on the foot, he said. Broken. He’s no good for travel now. What would you have me do with a lame dog?

Who put those scars on its back? I asked.

Awful brazen, son, he said. But brazen won’t save you. He
slapped the dog’s rump, shooed it back into the scrub.

I’ll take my goods, he said.

I started to run, but he snaked my ankle. I landed hard on my side and the whip slashed my cheek. I tucked my knees to my chest while he wailed on my back. Then I lay on the tracks wishing for the train.

I pushed myself up, saw the man was gone and my bag wasn’t. He hadn’t taken the bottle. I climbed the embankment and headed for the town. The windows in the buildings were black now. My back was burning and I could tell from the way my face ached that I needed to clean the wound. I hopped from one sidewalk to the other, then peered into the bar. Stepping in from the unlit street my eyes saw purple and then they cleared and I made out a room of faces, all of them looking like my old man on a good day before the liquor turned him sour.

Shit, kid, the bartender said. You want a doctor?

All I want is water, I said.

He picked up a pitcher and poured me a glass, then spilled some water onto a clean rag and passed the rag to me. I held the damp cloth against my cheek.

Who did that to you, son? a man asked.

I didn’t answer.

Somebody did it to you.

I walked to the bar, dragging my foot to cover my limp.

Was it your old man? the bartender asked. He had rotted-out teeth and a scar where part of an ear was gone. I took the water and drank it.

My old man ran off, I said.

After he did that to you?

I did it to myself, I said.

Why?

I didn’t say anything. I sat on a stool at the bar with my back to the room. Some of them thought I was lying to protect my old man, and some of them thought I was lying for reasons they didn’t know.

That’s the singer, one of them said. That’s the kid whose father was tight onstage.

Was your old man tight? the bartender asked. Did he cut you when he was tight?

He didn’t cut me.

Someone said, I wish my kid would lie like that for me.

I’m hungry, I said.

We have sandwiches, the bartender said. But you’ll have to pay for food.

I can sing for it, I said.

The bartender smiled.

You sure you feel up to it?

I nodded. He pointed to a piano buried under empty glasses along the far wall.

You play, Nick.

Nick can’t see straight.

I’m fine, Nick said.

He’s fine, someone else said.

I need more water, I said.

The bartender emptied his pitcher into my glass.

And a quarter a song, I said.

The crowd behind me started to laugh.

Hey, someone said. I’m starting to think whoever cut him got the worse end of things.

Shut your mouth, the bartender said. Here’s your first quarter, son.

I buried it in my sock. Nick sat and played through a few
scales. The notes sounded like a thin stick knocking against an empty tin. People applauded and hollered like I was taking the stage. The bartender passed around a bottle. Nick started up an old ballad about a covered wagon and a gold mine and the folks who died along the way. It was slow with the notes all close together. A few bars in, my cheek opened. I tried to rush the words, but Nick was already behind. When I finished, the men threw pennies at my feet. Some of them threw dimes.

You’re bleeding pretty bad there, Nick said.

I touched my cheek. Blood came off thick on my fingers.

I need to wash.

Show the kid the jon, the big one said.

This way, son. The bartender stepped out from behind the bar and led me down a small hallway. He pushed open a door, stood watching.

I have to do more than wash, I said.

I slid the lock in place, then started the water. There was a small, boat-style window cut into the pine wall. It opened inward, with a metal chain running from the frame to the wall so that the window could only open so far. I tried to pull the chain loose from the wall but the nail had been hammered deep into the wood. I looked for something to pry the nail free, but the bathroom was just a toilet and a sink and cracked tile on the floor. Outside, the bartender coughed to let me to know he was still there. I splashed some water in the sink and turned the faucet off and on. I cursed my father for pawning his knife—a hunter’s knife with an ivory handle and a thick blade that came to a fine point.

I flipped through some pennies looking for a flattened edge. There was a dime mixed in and I thought it might be thin enough to wedge between the nail and wood. I tried to scrape shavings from the pine around the nail’s head but I couldn’t push
through the shellac. I bent my knees and straightened my back against the wall, trying for a better look at the window’s frame. The wood there was untreated and some of it had been eaten through by bugs. It gave a little when I dug in with the dime, but I had to keep my arms at an angle and the dime slipped from my fingers and bounced against the tiles. The bartender knocked on the door and asked if I was all right. I said I’d be fine, but my stomach was sick. He said something else I didn’t hear. I pressed my palms flat against the window’s frame, pushed until my elbows locked and the chain came free.