FOR BOB,
STILL MY SECRET WEAPON
I am indebted to the following people for their contributions to this book:
To the fantabulous team at Algonquin, including Chuck Adams, Michael Taeckens, Aimee Rodriguez, Katherine Ward, Elisabeth Scharlatt, and Ina Stern. A very special shout-out to Saint Craig of Popelars, who saw something special and made booksellers believe. To all of you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
To my first readers, Karen Abbott, Maggie Dana, Kristy Kiernan, Maureen Ogle, Kathryn Puffett (who happens to be my mother), and Terence Bailey (who happens to be my father), for their love and support and for talking me off the ledge at regular intervals.
To Gary C. Payne, for answering my questions on all things circus, offering anecdotes, and checking my manuscript for accuracy.
To Fred D. Pfening III, Ken Harck, and Timothy Tegge, for graciously allowing me to use photographs from their collections. Special thanks to Fred for reading and helping me fine-tune the text.
To Heidi Taylor, assistant registrar at the Ringling Museum of Art, for helping me track down and secure the rights to various photographs, and to Barbara Fox McKellar, for allowing me to use her father’s photograph.
To Mark and Carrie Kabak, both for their hospitality and for introducing me to Mark’s former charges at the Kansas City Zoo.
To Andrew Walaszek, for providing and checking Polish translations.
To Keith Cronin, both for valuable criticisms and for coming up with a title.
To Emma Sweeney, for continuing to be all I could ask for in an agent.
And finally, to my husband, Bob—my love and greatest champion.
I meant what I said, and I said what I meant . . .
An elephant’s faithful—one hundred per cent!
—THEODOR SEUSS GEISEL, Horton Hatches the Egg, 1940
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS
COLLECTION OF THE RINGLING CIRCUS MUSEUM, SARASOTA, FLORIDA
Only three people were left under the red and white awning of the grease joint: Grady, me, and the fry cook. Grady and I sat at a battered wooden table, each facing a burger on a dented tin plate. The cook was behind the counter, scraping his griddle with the edge of a spatula. He had turned off the fryer some time ago, but the odor of grease lingered.
The rest of the midway—so recently writhing with people—was empty but for a handful of employees and a small group of men waiting to be led to the cooch tent. They glanced nervously from side to side, with hats pulled low and hands thrust deep in their pockets. They wouldn’t be disappointed: somewhere in the back Barbara and her ample charms awaited.
The other townsfolk—rubes, as Uncle Al called them—had already made their way through the menagerie tent and into the big top, which pulsed with frenetic music. The band was whipping through its repertoire at the usual earsplitting volume. I knew the routine by heart—at this very moment, the tail end of the Grand Spectacle was exiting and Lottie, the aerialist, was ascending her rigging in the center ring.
I stared at Grady, trying to process what he was saying. He glanced around and leaned in closer.
“Besides,” he said, locking eyes with me, “it seems to me you’ve got a lot to lose right now.” He raised his eyebrows for emphasis. My heart skipped a beat.
Thunderous applause exploded from the big top, and the band slid seamlessly into the Gounod waltz. I turned instinctively toward the menagerie because this was the cue for the elephant act. Marlena was either preparing to mount or was already sitting on Rosie’s head.
“I’ve got to go,” I said.
“Sit,” said Grady. “Eat. If you’re thinking of clearing out, it may be a while before you see food again.”
That moment, the music screeched to a halt. There was an ungodly collision of brass, reed, and percussion—trombones and piccolos skidded into cacophony, a tuba farted, and the hollow clang of a cymbal wavered out of the big top, over our heads and into oblivion.
Grady froze, crouched over his burger with his pinkies extended and lips spread wide.
I looked from side to side. No one moved a muscle—all eyes were directed at the big top. A few wisps of hay swirled lazily across the hard dirt.
“What is it? What’s going on?” I said.
“Shh,” Grady hissed.
The band started up again, playing “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
“Oh Christ. Oh shit!” Grady tossed his food onto the table and leapt up, knocking over the bench.
“What? What is it?” I yelled, because he was already running away from me.
“The Disaster March!” he screamed over his shoulder.
I jerked around to the fry cook, who was ripping off his apron. “What the hell’s he talking about?”
“The Disaster March,” he said, wrestling the apron over his head. “Means something’s gone bad—real bad.”
“Like what?”
“Could be anything—fire in the big top, stampede, whatever. Aw sweet Jesus. The poor rubes probably don’t even know it yet.” He ducked under the hinged door and took off.
Chaos—candy butchers vaulting over counters, workmen staggering out from under tent flaps, roustabouts racing headlong across the lot. Anyone and everyone associated with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth barreled toward the big top.
Diamond Joe passed me at the human equivalent of a full gallop.
“Jacob—it’s the menagerie,” he screamed. “The animals are loose. Go, go!”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. Marlena was in that tent.
A rumble coursed through me as I approached, and it scared the hell out of me because it was on a register lower than noise. The ground was vibrating.
I staggered inside and met a wall of yak—a great expanse of curly-haired chest and churning hooves, of flared red nostrils and spinning eyes. It galloped past so close I leapt backward on tiptoe, flush with the canvas to avoid being impaled on one of its crooked horns. A terrified hyena clung to its shoulders.
The concession stand in the center of the tent had been flattened, and in its place was a roiling mass of spots and stripes—of haunches, heels, tails, and claws, all of it roaring, screeching, bellowing, or whinnying. A polar bear towered above it all, slashing blindly with skillet-sized paws. It made contact with a llama and knocked it flat—BOOM. The llama hit the ground, its neck and legs splayed like the five points of a star. Chimps screamed and chattered, swinging on ropes to stay above the cats. A wild-eyed zebra zigzagged too close to a crouching lion, who swiped, missed, and darted away, his belly close to the ground.
My eyes swept the tent, desperate to find Marlena. Instead I saw a cat slide through the connection leading to the big top—it was a panther, and as its lithe black body disappeared into the canvas tunnel I braced myself. If the rubes didn’t know, they were about to find out. It took several seconds to come, but come it did—one prolonged shriek followed by another, and then another, and then the whole place exploded with the thunderous sound of bodies trying to shove past other bodies and off the stands. The band screeched to a halt for a second time, and this time stayed silent. I shut my eyes: Please God let them leave by the back end. Please God don’t let them try to come through here.