This Side of Jordan Read online

  “Melvin!”

  Clare’s voice, nearly drowned out by the commotion in the center ring, came from the musty darkness beneath the old bleachers. Crouching down under the fifth row planks, the farm boy saw Clare kneeling in the damp sawdust with a frilly bundle of white in her arms, a little girl dressed in Sunday lace wearing a cute baby bonnet on her head. When the child noticed Alvin staring at her, she cried out, “Mama! Mama! I want my mama!”

  Clare smiled at the farm boy. “The poor dear’s lost.”

  “How’d she get under there?” Alvin asked, crawling a few feet forward. A Phunny Phord clown car backfired over and over as a pile of midgets in police uniforms chased a pony-drawn firewagon around the outside of the rings and a trio of midget firemen parachuted down from the tent peak. The crowd roared with delight.

  Alvin backed up as Clare guided the little girl out from under the bleachers. “She ain’t hurt, is she?”

  Clare shook her head. “No, but she’s awfully frightened. And listen to her voice, it’s so husky. I think she’s caught a cold.”

  The child whimpered and buried her face in Clare’s bosom.

  “Well, where’s her folks?” Alvin asked, searching the crowds nearby for a worried face. There were so many people jammed together under the tent, he wasn’t surprised a little kid could get separated from her parents. Glancing up to the white canvas tent top, he watched a Chinese cyclist riding across the tightwire with a pair of squealing red-capped monkeys on his shoulders.

  “Why, Melvin, I think she wants us to take her to her mother!”

  The farm boy saw that Clare had let go of the child and was being tugged toward the tent exit. “What if her mama ain’t left yet?” he asked. “What if she’s still looking in the tent?”

  The little girl pointed to the exit. “Mama! Mama!”

  “You see?” Clare said. “I think she wants us to go with her, the poor dear. She seems to know where her mother went.”

  “Well, gee whiz, we ain’t hardly seen nothing of the show yet,” the farm boy complained, staring at the child who was about the homeliest kid he had ever laid eyes on. He wished she’d stop her sniveling. There were lots of worse places to get yourself lost than at a circus.

  Instead, the little girl whimpered again, “I want my mama! I want my mama!”

  Clare picked her up and gave her a hug. “Sweetheart, we’ll find your mama, I promise.” She looked up at Alvin. “Don’t you see what I mean? Oh honey, I guess we’ll just have to find her mother.”

  The crowd roared as the Great Baldinado strode into the lion cage and cracked his leather whip at the King of Beasts, inspiring the bandmaster to strike up a rousing chorus of “Cyrus the Great.” A troupe of Egyptian contortionists emerged from a sequence of tiny drums. Gold-spangled acrobats soared on swaypoles high above as Clare led the little girl out of the Big Top with Alvin trailing reluctantly behind.

  Wind blew across the busy midway, scattering wastepaper and errant balloons. Music from the carousel rang like distant choral bells. Alvin felt a chill and buttoned his shirt up to the collar. What a switch! An hour ago he had been alone and now he had himself a family. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he might marry this girl one day if consumption didn’t kill him. She was pretty and smelled like spring flowers. He thought he would go with her as often as she’d stand for it. They passed the musical Whirly-Gig as it discharged another group of breathless passengers. A roustabout in a flat cap winked at Clare as he took tickets for the next ride. On a platform a few feet away sat pasty-faced Minnie the Fat Lady eating a ripe watermelon. The little girl whined again for her mother and pointed Clare to the showgrounds entrance, crowded with newly arrived circus-goers. Alvin smelled steamed hotdogs and mustard and watched an old Negro in suspenders and a tarnished derby lead a pair of spotted ponies toward the lot of painted bandwagons. More boys from town hurried by, stuffing popcorn and Crackerjack into their mouths as they ran.

  “Why, I think she wants us to take her home,” Clare said to Alvin, as crimson skyrockets lit the black sky. “She’s awfully insistent.”

  Across the midway, a skinny concessionaire’s tiny white poodle rolled over and jumped up and did a backflip off an apple crate next to the soda pop stand. An audience of children clapped loudly.

  The farm boy frowned. “Well, that just don’t seem at all fair. You hardly been here yet and there’s still lots to see.”

  “Oh, but there’ll be other shows, and you said yourself that you’re finished. Isn’t that right? Meanwhile, this poor little tot’s frightened half to death and can scarcely wait to get back to her mother.” Clare knelt down to give the little girl a kiss on the nose and received a kiss on the lips in exchange. She giggled and the little girl pinched her cheek. Clare picked her up and hugged the smiling child to her bosom. “You see what I mean? Isn’t she the cutest thing you ever saw? Oh Melvin, you’re looking all blue. I suppose you’ve got your heart set on seeing the rest of the show tonight, don’t you? Well, why don’t I take her home myself? It’s silly for both of us to leave so early and I’m sort of played out, anyhow, so I’m sure I wouldn’t be good company.”

  Her dainty yellow frock fluttered in the wind. Somewhere across the dark showgrounds, a trumpet blew. A troupe of sequined acrobats marched out of the fluttering shadows beside the cage wagons.

  His head hurting now, the farm boy shrugged. “If you say so.”

  Clare smiled. “Maybe we could go on an auto picnic tomorrow?”

  The child grabbed at Clare’s breast. “Mama!”

  “I ain’t got a motor,” Alvin answered, gazing down the dark windy midway where a familiar figure emerged from the belly-dancing sideshow, hat in hand. Chester Burke took a cigar from his breast pocket, lit it, then crushed the dead match in the dirty sawdust underfoot.

  “Oh, we’ll have a grand time,” Clare promised, “but now I have to see this little dear home to her mother. You won’t be sore at me, will you, Melvin?” She stared him in the eye, noticed his disappointment. “Oh, it’s not as bad as all that, sweetie. I really do hope you’ll look me up tomorrow, honest I do.”

  “Sure.” The farm boy watched a pink-haired clown approach the gangster. They shook hands and the clown began speaking with Chester like they were pals.

  Clare leaned forward and gave Alvin a soft peck on the cheek. “You’re absolutely topping!” She hugged the little girl. “Say good night to Melvin, sweetheart. Bye-bye! Bye-bye!”

  The child kicked and shrieked, “Mama! Mama!” and urged Clare toward the showgrounds gate. Clare waved back to Alvin as she passed under the rippling flags. A fresh gang of young people reeking of moonshine liquor bought tickets to the circus. The wind gusted hard as Clare vanished across the dark summer fields toward town. When the farm boy turned to look for Chester again, he found himself surrounded by half a dozen midget clowns dressed like Keystone Kops.

  The circus wagons were parked trailer fashion in a large dirt lot behind the Big Top. Performers came and went, some dressed in costumes, others stripped down to workshirts, leotards and robes. A cookhouse next to one of the empty animal wagons drew plenty of attention with the circus so far from town, sideshow curiosities waiting in line with highwire artists and billposters and harness makers and sweaty roustabouts for a hot meal. Noise from clown alley echoed through the performers’ painted wagons, lewd insults and elaborate gags traded back and forth for a laugh or a stiff jolt of booze. Inside the gilded wagon, King of Lilliput, a proud elderly midget dressed like Sir Lancelot and seated upon an overstuffed silk pillow under a shuttered window by a small cookstove offered his candid opinion of life with the circus to the farm boy and the dwarf.

  “Now, if you were to have asked me thirty years ago how far I’d be willing to travel for riches and fame, why, I’d have said ‘To the moon and back, my friend. To the moon and back!’”

  He reached into a basket of fruit at his feet and drew out a ripe banana. Alvin sat on a narrow wood stool next to a cupboard full
of old photographs and embroidered handkerchiefs and little knick-knacks. Still feeling feverish and wan, he ate from a bowl of Crackerjacks in his lap and tried to pretend he was all right, though his breathing was disturbingly labored. Rascal, dressed up as Napoleon at Waterloo and grinning like a sloppy drunk, reclined on a lavender fainting couch beside tiny Josephine who wore a pretty taffeta ballgown of her own and a powder-white pompadour. She was perhaps half a foot shorter than the dwarf with a grown woman’s face and lovely opaline eyes. She and Rascal held Japanese fans and shared sips from a cloudy bottle of schnapps.

  “But men are not trained seals,” said Sir Lancelot, slowly peeling his banana. “We require more than a steady diet of fish and exercise to show our best. Yet how many exhibitors have ever appreciated this simple truth? Dan Rice died a drunkard when Spalding turned him out. Tom Thumb passed away rich but childless.” He sniffed the banana. “Oh, how wonderful it once was to be young and hopeful.”

  Another dozen or so midgets wearing a variety of absurd theatrical costumes had stuffed themselves about the flowery interior of the painted wagon—Betty Boop with the Keystone Kops shoulder to shoulder on a feather bed, Emperor Nero on a footstool with a cup of tea, Billy the Kid dressed in chaps, six-guns, and a ten-gallon hat on a padded bench-seat beneath two flickering kerosene lamps with Merlin and Kaiser Wilhelm and Chief Crazy Horse—a scene utterly bewildering to the sick farm boy.

  The dwarf remarked, “My companion and I have traveled quite a lot recently. Constitutionally speaking, it’s been perilous, of course, but my Uncle Augustus always held to the opinion that getting out of bed every morning is well worth the risk.”

  Betty Boop giggled.

  Alvin saw Merlin produce a silver hipflask from thin air and have a drink. The wagon was humid and smelled of fried onions and stale cigars. A bouquet of marigolds in a crystal vase on a carved bookshelf was already wilting in the heat from the stove. Alvin felt dizzy.

  Smoothing his toga, Emperor Nero said, “I have led parades through countless hamlets whose populace imagines we exist only for the amusement of children. This is the harlequin’s secret. He pretends to believe the audience adores his featherbrained antics, then weeps false tears of unhappiness when sentiment turns against him. Frivolity is bittersweet. It buys our meals, yet leaves the audience believing us fools: a dubious bargain, indeed.”

  Alvin listened to the wind gust through clown alley. He heard an angry row developing near one of the lion cages. Rascal hiccuped and sweet Josephine patted his back. Merlin snapped his fingers and a miniature deck of playing cards appeared in his tiny hands.

  “Do a trick,” Kaiser Wilhelm requested, his spiked helmet tipped askew.

  “Yes,” agreed Chief Crazy Horse, “let’s have some stunts. I’m feeling awfully low this evening.”

  Merlin addressed the farm boy: “Young man, are you clever at riddles?”

  A titter of laughter swept through the Keystone Kops. Betty Boop clapped a hand across her mouth as a black eyelash sagged.

  Too ill to appreciate the joke, Alvin shrugged. “I ain’t heard one yet.”

  “He’s rather slow on the uptake,” said the dwarf, stifling a giggle of his own. “Better make it easy.”

  Alvin snapped back, “No, I ain’t.” He coughed harshly, muffled by his sleeve. The wagon was stifling and he began to feel faint once more. He wondered if the midgets kept a doctor handy.

  “Go ahead, tell him your riddle,” ordered Sir Lancelot, busy uncorking a bottle of wine. “Let’s try to be gracious to our guests.”

  Merlin nodded while shuffling rapidly through the playing cards. He thought for a few moments, then quoted: “A mighty black horse with gallant white wings, within his grand paunch bears many strange things.”

  “Oh, that’s so simple,” said Billy the Kid, drawing his toy six-guns. He cocked both silver triggers with his thumbs.

  “Don’t tell, don’t tell!” cried one of the Keystone Kops. “Let him guess!”

  “He won’t get it,” Emperor Nero advised. “Ask him an easier one.”

  “Oh, let him try,” said Josephine. She took another nip of schnapps and passed the bottle to the dwarf whose gray eyes lolled oddly.

  “I ain’t got any idea,” Alvin growled, embarrassed by all these circus midgets staring at him like he was slow. Worse, he knew most of them were tipsy. It seemed all they did was drink once their act was over. He hated drunks, no matter what size they were.

  “Don’t be sore, honeypie,” cooed Betty Boop. “Merlin’s got a million snooty riddles and even we ain’t heard ’em all. But here’s the gag: If you guess one, the poor dope’s finished.”

  “You’re darned right he is,” one the Keystone Kops put in gleefully.

  “Go ahead, kill me,” said Merlin, flourishing the deck of cards. “You’re all a bunch of shallow-waisters, anyhow.”

  “I think Merlin needs a diet for his head,” said Betty Boop. She blew him a kiss.

  “I ought to give you a shiner for yours,” Merlin shot back, riffling his playing cards like a loud ugly fart.

  “Go ahead, rave on, you big horse. You can dish it out all right, but you sure can’t take it.”

  “Oh, quit quarreling with him,” Sir Lancelot told Betty Boop. “Can’t you see he’s tight?”

  “It’s a ship,” Rascal proposed after imbibing another sip of schnapps. Josephine kissed him on the cheek. The dwarf smiled. “If I may help my young companion.”

  All eyes switched back to Merlin whose flamboyant posture drooped dramatically. The deck of cards vanished in the wink of an eye, replaced by a scowl and a muttered obscenity.

  “Well, I’ll be!” Emperor Nero laughed. “He got it!”

  A boisterous cheer went up from the Keystone Kops. “HURRAH! HURRAH!”

  “The little fellow’s a credit to his race,” declared Betty Boop.

  “You said a mouthful!” Billy the Kid cackled. He tipped his ten-gallon hat to the dwarf. “Attaboy!”

  Sir Lancelot lit a Cuban cigar.

  Alvin heard the steam calliope roar to life across the windy showgrounds. Near clown alley, someone began practicing scales on an old violin. The farm boy ate a fistful of Crackerjacks and tried to forget how sick he felt. Why couldn’t he go home? He was tired of all this nonsense.

  Rascal burped, then remarked to no one in particular, “When my Uncle Augustus was just a boy before the Civil War, he was employed by a puppet show aboard the Floating Palace in the Gulf of Mexico, so I know all about boats. Once I determined the ‘gallant white wings’ were sails, it all made perfect sense. Also, Auntie and I played riddles quite often at supper, some of the cleverest you ever heard. Whoever guessed correctly won a glass of sherry, though I must tell you I preferred Coca-Cola, especially during the summer when the heat in our kitchen was simply dreadful. To be honest, I believe I won more often than not.”

  “Living straight keeps down the weight,” Josephine remarked with a smile. She gave the dwarf another kiss on the cheek. “Aren’t you precious?”

  “Getting fresh, eh?” Billy the Kid snapped at her. He twirled a six-gun on one finger. “Maybe you better cut out wine tonics after the show, honey.”

  “She’s after him, ain’t she?” said Betty Boop. “Like mama and papa. I’ll bet he’s even got a decent stake somewhere.”

  Emboldened by nightfever, Alvin blurted, “Didn’t he tell you he’s a millionaire? Why sure, my little pal’s got loads of dough. Just you ask him.”

  “Oh, I’ll lay he doesn’t,” said Chief Crazy Horse. A yellow feather fell off his war bonnet. “Look at his patent leathers.”

  “What of it?” Josephine protested. “At least he ain’t so nickel and dime! What’s your aim in life besides getting a forkful of those dames you been chasing around with?”

  Chief Crazy Horse laughed. “Josephine’s motto is, ‘Get ’em young, treat ’em rough, tell ’em nothing.’”

  “Oh yeah? How about that skunk you dragged in here last week?” she snapped
back. “All your taste is in your mouth!”

  Sir Lancelot shushed her. “Aw, easy kid, easy.”

  Wind shook the circus wagon again. A pair of muleskinners walked past cursing Laswell. Alvin heard a flat ukulele join the practicing violinist across the dirt lot. Then he watched Merlin roll a silver dollar over his knuckles and remembered how Frenchy used to be able to do that before he got his hand caught in Uncle Henry’s thresher.

  “I guess you think the well-to-do got it all sewed up, don’t you?” Kaiser Wilhelm cut in, finally. “Well, I was rich once, too. Like Midas, I tell you. Houses, boats, dames, swimming pools, you name it, and everything according to Hoyle. I played the market right out of school like a Morgan and nobody could say I wasn’t liberal, neither. Why, they got plenty of orphanages and old folks homes these days in Philadelphia thanks to the charity bureaus I started up back then. Yessiree, it was all going so grand, and me the one that put it over. Well, when you pull down that kind of dough, you got to keep your eyes peeled for those that like to take it from you. In my case, I had my brother Frank who was always shooting off his head about how stingy I was towards my own flesh and blood once I’d made the grade. He earned a fair enough wage with United Cigar to keep his pretty wife Peggy in a new dress every month and those five kiddies of his rolling in toys, so I tell you he had nothing to kick about. Now, Peggy had a sister named Helen who wasn’t hard to look at and seemed willing to give a short weight like me a tumble if I played my cards right. She smelled like lilies-of-the-valley, I tell you, and kissing her made me shiver, so I married her and built her a castle at Newport. That cost plenty all right, but I was sweet on Helen and we got on well together—or so I thought. Well, here’s the pay-off: it was all a double-cross. Frank and Helen hired a detective to follow me around until he brought back pictures of me and some dame in a hotel room that proved I was a cheat. They got a judge to bust off the marriage and give everything I owned to Helen. Didn’t matter that the dame from the hotel room worked in the steno pool at United Cigar and the judge played golf on Fridays with Helen’s Uncle Bob. After that, everything went on the bum. I got so cockeyed sore, I started drinking. See, I had to take it out on someone, and there wasn’t anybody left to put me wise to myself. Helen knew how to sell her stuff, all right, but she never did love me and I only got word the day her lawyer sent me the telegraph. Now, I don’t hold with misery drinking anymore because I don’t want to end up an old soak, and I don’t take up any of the financial papers, either. I had a good enough nut on my shoulders when I was young to play the market for all it was worth. After Helen, though, I figured out that all a fellow really needs is some bread to dunk in his coffee and a sweetheart to tuck him in at night, and that’s the straight of it.”