Water for Elephants (21 page)

“Come on,” he says, extracting Marlena from the backseat. I follow.

We’re in an alley surrounded by large redbrick warehouses. The streetlights illuminate the asphalt’s rough texture. On one side of the alley trash is blown up against the wall. On the other are parked cars—roadsters, coupes, sedans, even limousines—all flashy, all new.

August stops in front of a recessed wooden door. He raps sharply and
then stands, tapping his foot. A rectangular peephole slides open, revealing male eyes under a single bushy brow. The sounds of a party pulse from behind him.

“Yeah?”

“We’re here for the show,” says August.

“What show?”

“Why, Frankie’s, of course,” August says, smiling.

The peephole shuts. There’s clicking and clanking followed by the unmistakable sound of a deadbolt. The door swings open.

The man looks us over quickly. Then he beckons us inside and slams the door. We step through a tiled foyer, past a coat check with uniformed clerks, and descend a few steps into a marble-floored dance hall. Elaborate crystal chandeliers hang from the high ceiling. A band plays on a raised platform, and the dance floor is jammed with couples. Tables and U-shaped booths surround the dance floor. Up a few steps and along the back wall is a wood-paneled bar with tuxedoed bartenders and hundreds of bottles lined up on shelves in front of a smoky mirror.

Marlena and I wait in one of the leather-lined booths while August goes to get the drinks. Marlena watches the band. Her legs are crossed and that foot is bobbing again. She moves it in time with the music, rolling her ankle.

A glass is plunked in front of me. A second later August drops down beside Marlena. I investigate the glass and find it contains ice cubes and scotch.

“You okay?” says Marlena.

“Fine,” I say.

“You look a little green,” she continues.

“Our Jacob here is suffering from a teensy hangover,” says August. “We’re trying the hair of the dog.”

“Well, make sure you let me know if I need to get out of the way,” Marlena says dubiously, turning back to the band.

August lifts his glass. “To friends!”

Marlena looks back just long enough to locate her frothy drink and
then holds it over the table while we clink. She sips daintily from her straw, fingering it with lacquered nails. August tosses his scotch back. The second mine hits my lips, my tongue instinctively blocks its progress. August is watching, so I pretend to swallow before setting the glass down.

“There you are, my boy. A few more of those and you’ll be right as rain.”

I don’t know about me, but after a second brandy alexander Marlena certainly comes to life. She drags August onto the dance floor. As he twirls her around, I lean over and tip the contents of my scotch into a potted palm.

Marlena and August return to the booth, flushed from dancing. Marlena sighs and fans herself with a menu. August lights a cigarette.

His eyes land on my empty glass. “Oh—I see I’ve been neglectful,” he says. He stands up. “Same again?”

“Oh, what the hell,” I say without enthusiasm. Marlena simply nods, once again absorbed by what’s happening on the dance floor.

August is gone about thirty seconds when she leaps up and grabs my hand.

“What are you doing?” I say, laughing as she yanks my arm.

“Come on! Let’s dance!”

“What?”

“I love this song!”

“No—I—”

But it’s no use. I’m already on my feet. She drags me onto the dance floor, jiving and snapping her fingers. When we’re surrounded by other couples she turns to me. I take a deep breath and then take her in my arms. We wait a couple of beats and then we’re off, floating around the dance floor in a swirling sea of people.

She’s light as air—doesn’t miss a step, and that’s a feat considering how clumsy I am. And it’s not as though I don’t know how to dance, because I do. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I’m sure as hell not drunk.

She spins away from me and then returns, passing beneath my arm so her back is pressed against me. My forearm rests on her collarbone, skin to skin. Her chest rises and falls under my arm. Her head is under my chin, her hair fragrant, her body warm from exertion. And then she’s gone again, unwinding herself like a ribbon.

When the music stops, the dancers whistle and clap with their hands above their heads, and none more enthusiastically than Marlena. I glance over at our booth. August is staring with his arms crossed, seething. Startled, I step away from Marlena.

“Raid!”

There is one frozen moment, and then the second cry goes up.

“RAID! Everybody get out!”

I’m swept forward in a crush of bodies. People scream, shoving past each other in a frenzied attempt to reach the exit. Marlena is a few people in front of me, looking back through bobbing heads and desperate faces.

“Jacob!” she cries. “Jacob!”

I struggle toward her, launching myself through bodies.

I clasp a hand in a sea of flesh and know it’s Marlena’s from the look on her face. I grip her tightly, scanning the crowd for August. All I see are strangers.

Marlena and I are ripped apart at the doorway. Seconds later I’m expelled into an alley. People are screaming, piling into cars. Engines start, horns bleat, and tires squeal.

“Come on! Come on! Get the hell out of here!”

“Move it!”

Marlena appears from nowhere and grabs my hand. We flee as sirens blare and whistles blow. When the crackle of gunfire rings out, I grab Marlena and duck into a smaller alley.

“Hang on,” she gasps, pausing and hopping on one foot as she removes a shoe. She grasps my arm as she pulls off the other. “Okay,” she says, holding both shoes in one hand.

We run until the sirens and crowds and screeching tires are out of earshot, winding our way through back streets and alleys. Finally, we stop under an iron fire escape, gasping for air.

“Oh my Lord,” says Marlena. “Oh my Lord, that was close. I wonder if August got out.”

“I sure hope so,” I say, also struggling for air. I lean over, resting my hands on my thighs.

After a moment, I look up at Marlena. She’s staring straight at me, breathing through her mouth. She starts laughing hysterically.

“What?” I say.

“Oh, nothing,” she says. “Nothing.” She continues to laugh, but looks perilously close to tears.

“What is it?” I say.

“Oh,” she says, sniffing and bringing a finger to the corner of her eye. “It’s just a crazy damned life, that’s all. Do you have a handkerchief?”

I pat my pockets, and retrieve one. She takes it and wipes her forehead, then dabs the rest of her face. “Oh, but I’m a mess. And just look at my stockings!” she shrieks, pointing at her shoeless feet. Her toes poke through their ruined ends. “Oh, and they’re
silk
, too!” Her voice is high and unnatural.

“Marlena?” I say gently. “Are you all right?”

She presses her fist to her mouth and moans. I reach for her arm but she turns away. I expect her to stay facing the wall, but instead she continues turning, spinning in some kind of dervish. On the third rotation, I take her by the shoulders and press my mouth to hers. She stiffens and gasps, sucking air from between my lips. A moment later she softens. Her fingertips rise to my face. Then she yanks away, taking several steps backward and staring at me with stricken eyes.

“Jacob,” she says, her voice cracking. “Oh God—Jacob.”

“Marlena.” I step forward and then stop. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

She stares at me with a hand pressed to her mouth. Her eyes are dark
hollows. Then she leans against the wall, pulling on her shoes and looking at the asphalt.

“Marlena, please.” I hold my hands out helplessly.

She adjusts her second shoe and rushes off. She stumbles and wobbles forward.

“Marlena!” I say, running a few steps.

Her speed increases and she brings a hand up alongside her face, shielding it from my view.

I stop.

She keeps walking, tap-tapping down the alley.

“Marlena! Please!”

I watch until she turns the corner. Her hand remains beside her face, presumably in case I’m still there.

I
T TAKES ME SEVERAL
hours to find my way back to the lot.

I pass legs sticking out of doorways, and signs advertising breadlines. I pass signs in windows that say
CLOSED
, and it’s clear they don’t mean for the night. I pass signs that say
NO MEN WANTED
and signs in second-story windows that say
TRAINING FOR THE CLASS STRUGGLE
. I pass a sign in a grocery store that says

DON’T HAVE MONEY?

WHAT HAVE YOU GOT?

WE’LL TAKE ANYTHING!

I pass a newspaper box, and the headline reads
PRETTY BOY FLOYD STRIKES AGAIN: MAKES OFF WITH
$4,000
AS CROWDS CHEER
.

Less than a mile from the lot, I pass a hobo jungle. There’s a fire in the center and people stretched out around it. Some are awake, sitting forward and staring into the fire. Some are lying back on folded clothes. I’m close enough to see their faces and to register that most of them are young—younger than me. There are some girls there, too, and one couple is copulating. They’re not even in the bushes, just a little farther from the fire than the others. One or two of the boys watch in a disinterested manner. The ones who are asleep have taken off their shoes but tied them to their ankles.

An older man sits by the fire, his jaw covered with stubble, scabs, or both. He has the sunken face of a person with no teeth. We make eye contact and hold it for a long time. I wonder why he’s looking at me with such hostility until I remember I’m wearing an evening suit. He has no way of knowing that it’s about the only thing separating us. I fight an illogical urge to explain this and continue on my way.

When I finally reach the lot, I stop and gaze at the menagerie tent. It’s huge, outlined against the night sky. A few minutes later I find myself standing in front of the elephant. I can only see her in silhouette and even then only after my eyes have adjusted to the light. She’s sleeping, her great body still but for her slow, slumbered breathing. I want to touch her, to lay my hands on that rough, warm skin, but I can’t bring myself to wake her up.

Bobo is lying in the corner of his den, with one arm stretched out over his head and the other resting on his chest. He sighs deeply, smacks his lips, and then rolls onto his side. So human.

Eventually I make my way back to the ring stock car and settle on the bedroll. Queenie and Walter both sleep through my arrival.

I
LIE AWAKE UNTIL DAWN
, listening to Queenie snore and feeling utterly miserable. Less than a month ago, I was within days of an Ivy League degree and a career at my father’s side. Now I’m one step away from being a bum—a circus worker who has disgraced himself not once, but twice, in as many days.

Yesterday, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to top throwing up on Nell, but I believe that last night I managed to do just that. What the hell was I thinking?

I wonder if she will tell August. I have brief visions of the bull hook flying at my head and then even briefer visions of getting up right now, this minute, and walking back to the hobo camp. But I don’t, because I can’t bear the thought of abandoning Rosie, Bobo, and the others.

I’ll pull myself together. I’ll stop drinking. I’ll make sure I’m never alone with Marlena again. I’ll go to confession.

I use the corner of my pillow to wipe tears from my eyes. Then I
squeeze them shut and conjure up an image of my mother. I try to hang on to it, but before long Marlena has replaced her. Coolly distant, when she was watching the band and jiggling that foot. Glowing, while we were spinning around the dance floor. Hysterical—and then horrified—in the alley.

But my final thoughts are tactile: the underside of my forearm lying above the swell of her breasts. Her lips under mine, soft and full. And the one detail I can neither fathom nor shake, the one that haunts me into sleep: the feel of her fingertips tracing the outline of my face.

K
INKO
—W
ALTER
—W
AKES
me a few hours later.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he says, shaking me. “Flag’s up.”

“Okay. Thanks,” I say without moving.

“You’re not getting up.”

“You’re a genius, you know that?”

Walter’s voice rises by about an octave. “Hey, Queenie—here girl! Here girl! Come on, Queenie. Give him a lick. Come on!”

Queenie launches herself onto my head.

“Hey, stop it!” I say, raising an arm protectively because Queenie’s tongue is rooting in my ear and she’s dancing on my face. “Stop it! Come on now!”

But she is unstoppable, so I jerk upright. This sends Queenie flying to the floor. Walter looks at me and laughs. Queenie wriggles onto my lap and stands on her hind legs, licking my chin and neck.

“Good girl, Queenie. Good baby,” says Walter. “So, Jacob—you look like you had another . . . er . . . interesting evening.”

“Not exactly,” I reply. Since Queenie is on my lap anyway, I stroke her. It’s the first time she’s let me touch her. Her body is warm, her hair wiry.

“You’ll find your sea legs soon. Come get some breakfast. Food’ll help settle your stomach.”

“I wasn’t drinking.”

He looks at me for a moment. “Ah,” he says, nodding sagely.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say.

“Woman trouble,” he says.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, it isn’t!”

“I’m surprised Barbara forgave you already. Or did she?” He watches my face for a few seconds and then resumes nodding. “Uh-huh. I do believe I’m starting to get the picture. You didn’t get her flowers, did you? You need to start taking my advice.”

“Why don’t you mind your own business?” I snap. I set Queenie on the floor and stand up.

“Sheesh, you’re a first-class grump. You know that? Come on. Let’s get some grub.”

A
FTER WE FILL OUR PLATES
, I try to follow Walter to his table.