Must be.
He swells his cheeks with whiskey, holds the liquor in his mouth until his eyes start to glow.
Let it seep in, he says, passing me the bottle. I don’t hesitate.
Truth is, he says, we do them good by skimming. The more we skim, the more people got to buy.
It burns my throat, cuts into my chest from the inside. Jonson takes away the bottle.
You’ll be fine in a minute, he says. Whiskey makes it all go faster.
He’s right about that much. The pain is gone as quick as it came. Specks of blue break through my vision.
How long they got you for? he asks.
A while.
And then? You think the circuit will keep you on?
I’m not worried.
Cream don’t always rise.
What does that mean?
Means you’ll want to keep the right people happy.
Is that a warning?
Advice.
Yours, or someone else’s?
It’s worth heeding either way. Your second profession might end up your first.
He pulls a rolled cigarette from his shirt pocket, holds it between his lips and strikes a match against the heel of his shoe. He keeps striking until the match lights. He does all of this one-handed.
How was that? he asks.
I breathe in the smoke, slump my head against the bench. There’s no pain anywhere in me.
Tell me something, he says. Why’d you take that first taste?
He’s timed it right. The part of me that knows to stay quiet is undone.
All right, I say. I did a turn at the Majestic once.
Like hell.
I wasn’t much older than your boy is now. Back then I had a slack wire act. Juggling was the smallest part of what I did.
It ain’t easy to picture, Jonson says. Not now.
Have you ever walked a wire?
You ever danced on a barrel?
Most people bow out before they take the first step. They get to the top of the platform and that’s it. It’s like being on a horse that bucks. Once it knows you’re afraid, you’ll never ride that horse again.
I’ll bet you didn’t scare.
No, I didn’t. I had a turn with a unicycle. I’d ride back and forth from one platform to the other. The first time it was simple coasting. The second time I’d be blindfolded. The third, blindfolded and juggling. The fourth blindfolded, juggling, and pedaling backwards. I’d get house boys to shake the platforms. The trombone would play notes that sounded like falling, but I never fell.
Sounds better than what you got now.
It was no shut act.
So why are you here with me?
I don’t know.
You know.
All right, I say. I know.
Any chance you’ll share?
You first, I say.
I reach out my hand and he gives up the bottle. It’s a good while before I pass it back.
Some performers can see their act play out in their mind, I say. For them it’s as good as done on the boards. Others can see up to a point before their minds stick. Maybe they freeze at the final flip. Maybe they hear the punch line but not the laughter. Your boy is the first type. I used to be.
You took a spill?
Yeah.
Bad?
Bad enough.
Might have been a one-time thing.
It wasn’t.
Let me guess, he says. A taste from the vials and you can see any damn thing you like?
Uh-huh.
Just not when it counts.
No. But it feels right at the time.
He smiles. Maybe we need a little more, he says, taking the vial back out of his pocket. When he’s done he hands the bottle over. For a while he lets us sit in quiet. I hunch forward, listening to the train’s gears. Soon I’m at the Majestic, my scalp slick under the calcium spot. I rise up on the pedals, spread my palm over the seat, lift myself into a handstand, a good ten feet off the stage. I stay balanced like that, buttressed by the applause. I’m about to dismount with a flip when Jonson whistles in my ear. He slides his hand up my shoulder, closes it around my throat. Before I have my balance, he’s straddling my body, pinning my prosthetic down. The applause stop short.
Listen you dumb son of a bitch, he says. I want you thinking on this while that shit settles in—stay clear of my boy. You hear me? Stay away.
He tightens his grip. I do what I can to nod.
That works for us both, he says.
In the morning, the conductor finds me lying on the floor between the benches, my face hidden in the crook of my good arm.
Marion, California
May 1902
We arrived in town early on a weekend morning. I sat on the back flap of Connor’s covered wagon, the balls of my feet brushing the ground while he drove the main street. At each corner I hopped off, pitched a double-sided placard with the same message painted on either side: FOLLOW THE CLARION CALL AND BE CURED.
We parked in a stone-walled square, set a card table before the fountain, weighted the table legs with medicine bags, covered the top with a paisley cloth and lined rows of bottles on either side of a signboard listing the ailments Connor’s brew could cure. The last entry read, MANY, MANY MORE.
I changed in the back of the wagon while Connor readied his voice, repeating the same nonce word up and down the scale, stretching his jaws wide and pushing out his tongue. My costume was thick for summer, the deerskin sleeves taut at the elbows, the moccasins too small. I coated my hands, face, and neck with a deep-red base, added black and white war-stripes beneath my eyes, applied a light powder to keep the base from melting. I fitted tomahawks into loops along the belt, pulled on a feathered headdress and tied the strap beneath my chin.
By mid-morning the sky was starting to brighten, the air to warm. Connor fetched his bugle from the jockey box, gestured for me to take my place beside the table. I stood with my arms stiff at my sides, a tomahawk locked in each fist, feathers dangling from the handles.
Remember, Connor said. Just keep your eyes fixed on a spot in the distance. Nothing to it.
The hawkers, carters and vagrants who frequented the square were the first to gather round. Then came clerks, construction workers, boys who’d been playing stickball in a nearby alley, tourists and retirees, the sick and lame. The square filled. People raised up on tiptoes, stood on the stone coping surrounding the fountain. Connor set aside his trumpet, addressed the crowd.
Ladies and gentlemen, he started, what I offer you today is a cure-all discovered by my grandfather, refined by my father, and further refined by me. An ancestral brew known to cure the sick and bolster the strong. I would be betraying my ancestors’ memory were I to name the ingredients, but I can say this: the components are pure and the formula patented. I carry the patent with me should you need convincing. This is no potion, and I am no alchemist. What’s more, should it fail to treat your ills, simply keep the empty bottle and when I return this